Which animal is portrayed most favorably

For example, during the opening scene, which largely recreates the original shot-for-shot, Rafiki lifts Simba out above the throngs of cheering animals while sitting down, likely since a real mandrill could not hold a lion cub while standing on two legs. The musical numbers in particular become much more toned down. The film has a human lead in Mowgli, played by Neel Sethi, accompanied by a cast of CGI animals and strives to seamlessly blend its real and unreal characters.

As Favreau himself has stated , the film takes pains to frame its animals in certain ways, particularly by obscuring their mouths, so they seem realistic even when talking. While The Jungle Book and other stories containing both human and animal characters may benefit from a heightened sense of realism, allowing both human and non-humans to occupy the same frame, The Lion King is ill-suited to this same over-attachment to reality. The story of The Lion King is fabulistic to its core and such a story by tradition all but mandates its characters act and appear, at least to an extent, like people.

If a story contains animals with human-like mannerisms inhabiting a world of human-like values and institutions, we naturally expect their appearances to reflect this same degree of anthropomorphism.

Thus, attempting to both faithfully recreate the heavily fabulistic original and make it as lifelike as possible risks becoming an exercise in contradiction. One cannot have both Aesop and a documentary film inhabit the same body without tension. If The Lion King , by its very nature, encourages anthropomorphism, something the critical reviews seem to expect, does that mean any story involving or focusing on non-humans does as well?

It depends. They serve as a literary reflection. In contrast, were a story to truly be about non-humans per their non-humanness, would anthropomorphization be as necessary as in a story like The Lion King? Anthropomorphism certainly does make empathizing with non-humans easier. We seem naturally hardwired to prefer beings that look like us.

Researchers have suggested that part of the domestication process of dogs resulted from their evolution of childlike paedomorphic facial expressions, which appeal directly to humans and gave them a selective advantage living among us. In film, while anthropomorphizing animals and other non-humans has been a staple of animation - The Brave Little Toaster might be its most extreme manifestation - its use in live-action has become more and more developed in recent years.

The reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise, which centers around the struggles of a group of hyper-intelligent apes, heavily relies on motion capture technology to give its apes, particularly their leader, Caesar, played by Andy Serkis who also played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings human-like speech, mannerisms, and facial expressions.

The degree and manner to which characters are anthropomorphized, in any medium, stems from the nature and genre of their story. Whereas completely non-anthropomorphized characters, as in the case of District 9 , may suit a sci-fi film steeped in political and social commentary, stories in which animals serve as stand-ins for humans require human-like animals. Header Image: Etching by W. Hollar for a fable by Aesop. Image in the Public Domain via Wikimedia. Colin MacCormack is a graduate student and assistant instructor in the Classics Department at the University of Texas.

His work focuses on Greek and Latin poetry, especially from the Imperial period, animals in literature and the intersection of poetic and technical traditions. You can email him at c. From the. Skip to main content. Snowden Jr. Search form Search. You are here Home. By Colin MacCormack Sep 19, False Stories, True Points Even in classical antiquity, the fable tradition was quite ancient, with roots stretching back into the ancient Near East.

Making a Lion Cry Considering these elements, it is easy to see the connection between the core story of The Lion King and ancient fables and fable-inspired works. Human and Animal If The Lion King , by its very nature, encourages anthropomorphism, something the critical reviews seem to expect, does that mean any story involving or focusing on non-humans does as well?

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