I believe this just came out a couple of days ago. Much though I’m not a fan of Disney, or indeed the “live action” (in this case, that’s a lol in itself) remakes, at least this is an original story, even if it completely retcons the entire Lion King plot, lol…
I won’t spoil it, but, umm, I would say it is to The (original) Lion King what Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. Very much the same concept. And doesn’t really make sense, if we’re taking the story from the original as being the (fictional) truth.
Anyway, it also features tribes of lions differentiated by fur colour (lol), quite a lot of the biblical story of Moses, and lions climbing snowy mountains (in Southern Africa??), so… Yeah.
Looks relatively okay though, all things considered. But I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of others on it.
The Lion King (og) also strongly resembles the Ramayana, the story of Rama from Hindu lore.
Rama is a prince whose jealous uncle murders his dad, the King, and takes over, banishing Rama (though in this story, the girlfriend opts to be exiled with him, which becomes a plot point); after some filler adventure, the girlfriend is kidnapped by the Demon King, and Rama stumbles onto the og Monkey King, Hanuman and his people (Timon and Pumbaa). The monkeys agree to help Rama get his girlfriend back, and then they all go reclaim Rama's kingdom.
And because Rama was an avatar of Vishnu, Hanuman was rewarded by being Ascended into godhood.
But hey, backstabbing royalty/"elites" have been pretty much the norm throughout human history. It's only recently they started backstabbing the commoners more than each other, it seems ...
MacBeth has less magic as a retelling?!
Well, the version of the Ramayana I read was a "down to earth" retelling of it that replaced the monkeys with a bunch of hermits, but the gist of it was there ...
Read a similar version of Gilgamesh, in which Innana was simply a spiteful priestess, and the bull belonged to the temple, etc.
I think one or the other of them was written by one of the "cyberpunk" guys.
Library books, 30 or 40 years ago.
Never actually took Hamlet, or MacBeth. Wound up getting "Romeo and Juliet" three fucking times, though.
The interesting part about Hamlet and MacBeth is that it's the same story from a different perspective. They both have otherworldly experiences and seem to be led by fate. By the end they both die, and a new king found. The crux is over who killed the king.
It's been so long since I've played the original games I don't remember the story, but at least the movie Prince of Persia is also this same story, in many ways. Except the Prince is an adopted orphan, with no actual royal blood.
Honestly, while it's not a perfect movie, I do enjoy it, and it's probably one of my favorite video game movies. I should watch it again, and think Lion King/Rama/MacBeth/etc. as I watch, and see how it fits.
I think the weird trend is to hate your own subjects more than any enemy. I don't feel like that's normal in history.