Does “Mufasa: The Lion King” tell a new story? Of course not. It is a Disney-Fairy tale that unfolds like many others from the Disney house. A catastrophe leads to an involuntary separation from the parents, followed by an odyssey for the child, the adoption of the orphan into a new family, finally jealousy, betrayal, fight – and in the end peace, albeit sometimes deceptive peace. The Playbook of the Hero’s Journey, regularly prepared for children by Walt Disney from the 1930s onwards.
But this is also a film by Barry Jenkins, who became an Oscar-winning director with Coming of Age (“Moonlight”) and Racism (“The Underground Railroad”). Jenkins has more to lose than Disney has to gain with him.
Unlike the recently failed art house colleague Chloé Zhao (“The Eternals”) or the idiot Ben Wheatley with his increasingly idiotic career path that is sold as eccentricity (“Meg 2”), Jenkins channels his themes into an established comic cartoon franchise, without unbalancing Disney’s harmony requirements. This is a feat. “Mufasa: The Lion King” discusses questions about “racial purity,” fascism, the question of the legitimate rebellion of “outsiders” who have been rejected by their community for no reason, and, not unimportantly, whether there is a “Chosen One”, which is also a potential feature of fascism, can really exist. “Mufasa” may have copied that from “The Phantom Menace” or the “Matrix” films.
Romance in the night mountain snow
The set pieces are cleverly constructed, which is an extraordinary achievement for a non-set piece director like Jenkins. A romance in the nighttime mountain snow, but also the betrayal in the nighttime mountain snow; the songs are unobtrusive, even when they are intoned before a deadly duel; the action scenes between the lions Mufasa, Taka alias Scar and the Siegfried and Roy-like Kiros (originally spoken by Mads Mikkelsen – he will soon have finished all the franchises, from Bond to Star Wars to Indiana Jones) vary between different levels, above and underground.
There is, twice, a repetition (or, this is a prequel: the first appearance) of the literal cliffhanger between Mufasa and Scar that has gone down in film history. Nobody who is still gnawing on the first “Lion King” will leave him indifferent. For Barry Jenkins, the beauty of the legacy of the ancestors is not that the dead support the living from heaven. He doesn’t believe in metaphysis. “Your father lives on in you,” says Mufasa’s mother. That has to be enough.
The “prequel principle”
The prequel mania is extremely annoying. And the “prequel principle” also celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. George Lucas’ idea to show the backstory of Darth Vader with “Star Wars: Episode I” in 1999 may have been just as influential on the film and series industry as the first cinematic entry in the saga in 1977.
For the studios, the advantage of continuing the story in the past is obvious. The risk of flops with prequels instead of sequels is lower. The prequel simply has to add to a successful, completed story that has already been told in the cinema. The prequel ending is also defined because it also marks the beginning of the already established, earlier work. At the same time, the prequel can finally portray the most delightful events that have only been touched on in the previous films. Here: How did the enmity between Scar and Mufasa arise? Where does the scar come from? When creating a future story, the narrative challenge would be greater. A new door will then be opened. A new quest, new protagonists, new antagonists.
Better than the original
It is in the nature of things that not predecessors, but only successors can tarnish a legacy. This danger does not exist with “Mufasa: The Lion King”. But this is the rare case of a prequel that is not only superior to the 1994 original (and therefore also John Favreau’s photorealistic “The Lion King” film adaptation from 2019), but doesn’t even need film one.
Even if some questions remain. Questions that, of course, adults in particular ask. For example: Why do the (predatory) animals not instinctively attack each other, but rather form alliances? Why do they only want to eat the smaller animals when they annoy them with their chatter?
The photo-realistically rendered animals can’t always replicate the charm of the cartoon-goes-3D characters. As cartoon characters, Mufasa and Scar look more differentiated, especially their facial expressions; That’s probably how they’ll be remembered.
But that doesn’t matter. Barry Jenkins did everything right in Mufasa: The Lion King. He has accommodated his own topics. And still made a Disney film. Others could learn from this. Now Jenkins can continue working with this company – or go back to acting in films.