The Lion King is My Favorite Thing

If you are one of my friends, it is no surprise to you when I say, "I am a huge fan of Disney." Today I will be talking about one of my favorite Disney movies, The Lion King. It was produced during the Disney renaissance and was one of the last great Disney movies for a few years (not including Toy Story which is considered Disney/Pixar and I do not consider it a part of the Disney animated classics). A little known fact about The Lion King is that it is loosely based on the play Hamlet. 

There is one factor to why I love The Lion King so much and that is Scar. I believe that he by far is the best Disney villain. First of all, Scar's intentions throughout the movie are all based on jealousy. He is envious of his brother who was chosen to be king of the Pride Lands over himself. He becomes even more jealous when Mufasa's son Simba is born because he will be next in line and Scar will have no way to become king. This leads scar to attempt to kill both Simba and Mufasa, which he succeeds in the latter by pushing his own brother off a cliff. He then puts the thoughts into Simba's head that it was his fault that his father died. 

Another reason that I love Scar is that he has a huge following. While most villains have an idiot sidekick, Scar has a whole pack of Hyenas to do his bidding. He promises them that they will never go hungry again and they blindly follow his lead. He could almost be considered the Adolph Hitler of the animal kingdom. This is also where he sings my favorite villain song of all time, "Be Prepared." I have always wanted to play Scar in a production of The Lion King just so I could sing that song. 

I know that I have pretty much turned this post from "The Lion King is My Favorite Thing" to "Scar is My Favorite Thing", but he is the main reason I love The Lion King. I also really enjoy the music in this movie. I do not thing that there is a more recognizable opening to a song. As soon as you hear the Zulu at the beginning of the song, "Circle of Life," you just cannot help but sing along. I looked up the English translation to those words and here they are:

Here comes a lion

Oh yes, it's a lion

There comes a lion

Oh yes, it's a lion

We're going to conquer

It's a lion and a tiger

The English words are definitely not as exciting as the Zulu words. 

These are the reasons that I love The Lion King. It is up there with Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast as my favorite Disney movie. I would recommend that if you have never seen the movie (all three of you) then go and see it. It was truly the end of an era of great Disney movies. 

I also want to give a quick shout out to The Lion King video game on SNES. It is, by far, one of the hardest video games I have ever played. I had it when I was younger and now I play it on an emulator. Even with the save states, I cannot beat the game. After I asked the question, "What is the hardest video game you have ever played?" on Facebook, it was determined that Disney had some of the hardest games. People said The Lion King, Aladdin, and Toy Story were some of the hardest games they have played. Leave a comment with the hardest game you have ever played. 

The Amazing Spider-Man is My Favorite Thing

Release Date: 2012

Directed By: Marc Webb

Last week I watched the movie, The Amazing Spider-Man, for the first time. I will say that I liked it way more than the first one for a couple of reasons. The main reason is the portrayal of the main character, Spider-Man. I felt that Toby McGuire was trying to hard to have Peter Parker be awkward. The new actor to play Spiderman, Andrew Garfield, plays off this awkwardness so much better. I like the high school crush love interest of Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy rather than the stalkerish love interest between Peter Parker/Mary Jane in the original. 

I really enjoyed learning about the history behind Spider-Man. The start of the movie tells you that this is going to be a darker venture than the first trilogy gave us. The movie starts off with the death of Peter Parker's parents and how he came to live with his aunt and uncle. I really liked how intense they made Uncle Ben's death scene in The Amazing Spider-Man. This tells you that the movie is going to be darker than the previous movies have been. 

I know that a big problem that some people had with Spider-Man 3 is that it had what people dubbed as "Emo Peter." In this movie it was played off as silly and comical, which I do not believe was the intent of the creators. During this movie Peter Parker does go into a state of extreme sadness and depression, but he has all the reason to. He just found the one person that he thinks could solve the mystery of his parent's deaths, his uncle just died and it was partly his fault, and he just got these new powers and is trying to save New York City, but the police are not too fond of him and they issue a warrant for his arrest. 

This leads me into the main reason I loved this movie. Even though it is based on a fictional comic book superhero, it has some realism to it. After Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man he starts targeting criminals that look like the person who killed his uncle. The only problem is that the police do not agree with his actions. They believe that he should leave this work to the police. I think that is what would actually happen if a real superhero popped up in any city. The police would not be thrilled of this person going around doing their work. It makes them look bad because they are expecting a civilian to do their job. 

Those are my thoughts on the film, The Amazing Spider-Man. I actually do not watch a lot of movies, but I really enjoyed this one. I liked the realism of it and how much more down-to-earth it is compared to its predecessor. They really play up the idea that Peter Parker is just a normal teenager trying to fit in and get the girl.