On Monday, Disney released the trailer for Mufasa: The Lion King, which serves as an origin story to the 2019 film by Jon Favreau and is based on the popular 1994 animated movie.
Per the official synopsis, Mufasa: The Lion King enlists Rafiki to relay the legend of Mufasa to young lion cub Kiara, daughter of Simba and Nala, with Timon and Pumbaa lending their signature schtick. Told in flashbacks, the story introduces Mufasa as an orphaned cub, lost and alone until he meets a sympathetic lion named Taka—the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of an extraordinary group of misfits searching for their destiny—their bonds will be tested as they work together to evade a threatening and deadly foe.
Both the 1994 and 2019 movies have made well over a billion dollars each, so you would think it wouldn’t be hard to get the origin story right.
Update: The director responds to backlash.
Update #2: Disney has disabled the comments, and the dislikes are now over 210K.
Lot of fan backlash
Turns out there is a lot of fan backlash to Mufasa: The Lion King as after only one day of being released, the trailer has 148K dislikes to 80K likes on the official Walt Disney Studios YouTube.
For a comparison, the Favreau trailer released five years ago has 1.3 million likes to only 47k likes.
So what’s going on?
I’m not up on my Lion King lore, but per what Disney has been doing with its popular franchises as of late, including Star Wars, Marvel, and we can throw in Doctor Who, Mufasa: The Lion King looks to retcon things and offer big changes, judging by the comments.
What do the comments say?
Some of the most liked comments offer the following where a couple comment about comparisons to The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel:
“Without a drop of nobility” so this movie literally retcons Mufasa’s whole conversation with Simba, making him the first king of the Pride Lands – 6.6K
It’s funny how Lin Manuel Miranda agreed to write original songs for this movie instead of Moana 2 – 5.9k likes
Without a drop of nobility” Totally retconning Mufasa’s speech with Simba
like when Mufasa said, “So what am I? Some kind of Lion King?” – 1.7k
I wish they were making this movie in their classic 2d animation style – 6.5k
Without a drop of nobility…” as he tossed the lightsaber over his shoulder. – 738
1:08 guaranteed that’s part of Timon telling Kiara the story of how he and Pumbaa took down Scar singlehanded – 1.4k
This should be the origin story of Scar. I’m imagining Mufasa scratching his face singing “I can’t wait to be king” – 649
The part where Rafiki told Mufasa, “you’re a wizard, Harry.” sent chills up my spine. – 1.3K
So in this universe, Timon and Pumbaa were there the whole time too!? They didn’t even know who Mufasa was in 1 1/2! Update: Because people didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, I said “in this universe” for a reason. None of the live action remakes are canon to their animated originals, that’s not how it works. Also, it does seem to make sense if they both made up this part of the story to Kiara to make themselves look cool. We’ll have to wait and see how the movie turns out (not that I’m gonna watch it). – 1.7k
Mufasa roaring “YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS!” was the most epic part of the movie. – 814
Ah yes, the famous snowy, icy winters of central Africa. – 1k
“Who asked for this?” is a question that needs to be put before greenlighting movies – 1.1k
Bonus: When Captain Marvel appeared and told Rey Palpatine she was the best all along I got chills
