After 25 years, Disney put their pressure box bottom ace work "The Lion King" live-action on the big screen again, but the reputation after the release was not ideal.
In fact, the story is still that story, and even many of the picture scenes are accurately restored according to the old version of the picture, but it is too vivid and realistic to lose the character of the characters who originally belonged to the fictional story.
When I watched "The Lion King" as a child, I thought, if Simba's story is true, where will it be staged?
This time, the BBC's new high-quality documentary gives us the answer:
Serengeti
In the southern part of the Great Rift Valley, in the northern part of the United Republic of Tanzania, there is a 30,000 square kilometer of land called the Serengeti.
It's a paradise for wildlife, home to the world's largest and most abundant wildlife populations, including the common orangutans, baboons, cheetahs, zebras, and the endangered cotton bass and long-eared hedgehogs.
There are real scenes of the four protagonists in "Madagascar 2" running on the grassland, and there is also the animal migration of "thousands of horses" across the Mara River in "The Lion King".
The documentary "Serengeti" dives into this animal paradise from an observational perspective.
From the perspective of the god where the vulture is located, it describes the magnificent and touching story of the animal families in this prairie.
And this story that really happens on the prairie told through the lens is more exciting than in any cartoon, comparable to "The Lion King".
In the fertile season after the rainy season, life should be simple, but Carrie the lioness does not think so. She and her four young sons were expelled from the lion herd by the male lions for the simple reason that they were illegitimate!
In the social relationship of lions, it is maintained by the sisterhood between female lions.
So the male lion carefully protects the female lions in the group to ensure that they are loyal to the male lion, but Carrie violates the prohibition and gives birth to young children with male lions outside the group.
Unaccompanied by the ethnic group, Carrie had to leave with her children, and she was alone and difficult to hunt alone.
Despite the success of the first zebra hunt, the sound of wind leaks on the grassland is a matter of minutes, and other animals smell the food and want to share a piece of the pie.
Before Carrie could enjoy the delicacy, she was targeted by the hyenas that came with her.
Hyenas are social animals, headed by female hyenas, and the female hyena who led the team this time is a tough queen.
A little careless, the lioness Not only can not keep food, but also difficult to protect the safety of the young son, had to give up the prey to the mouth.
Carly, who has never eaten since leaving the lions, has a sharp decline in physical strength, and rarely encounters a small warthog that may be defeated, and eventually flees because of lack of physical strength.
Carrie was exhausted, and if she didn't eat, her four children would starve to death, and this time she decided to fight hard, but she couldn't suppress the zebra with all her strength.
Fortunately, at the last moment, another female lion came to help, and finally got what she wanted. But the season of prairie fertility will soon pass, and where these two "single mothers" will go in the future will be unknown.
In fact, from the mouth of the lion to grab food, hyenas are also taking risks, their only chance of winning is to rely on numbers and courage.
The leader of the Hyena tribe is Akina's mother, and as a descendant of the Queen, Achina inherits the leadership power beyond reproach, and she has to learn her mother's fighting skills, even though she has only just become a mother.
But not every hunt is as lucky as carlysle, and sometimes they fall prey in the eyes of others.
The difficult counterattack was successful but ushered in an even more terrifying opponent, the black-maned lion, Akina, who had been injured in the previous battle, was targeted, and the empress sacrificed her life to protect her daughter.
Akina, who was still growing up, had to take on the responsibility of empress immediately, and before that, she needed a chance to prove herself in order to win the approval of the other hyenas of the tribe.
Soon the opportunity came, and she spotted the single cheetah and tried to snatch the prey from his mouth.
At first, she missed the opportunity because of hesitation, and the first head-on confrontation with the cheetah was unsurprisingly inferior, and the other hyenas in her tribe behind her were watching the battle with scrutiny.
Only by winning can she prove herself, so Archina adjusted her posture and greeted her again, this time finally beating away the cheetah and grabbing the food.
Whether she was afraid of change or not, she had to learn to change since her mother left.
Like Archina's mother, the mother Elephant Nala takes good care of her newborn young son.
Elephants are also social animals, family-based, headed by female elephants, and this group of elephants, led by Nala, focuses all their attention on their young sons, which makes Nala's other child, Tambo, not psychological.
Tambo had just grown up and was childish, and he couldn't help but wonder, he fell behind the line, thinking: Why did his mother's concern for himself be transferred to his brother?
Like people, there is always something to go through to grow up.
As the elephants leisurely walked in the meadows, their dangers crept in. Tambo, who was at the end, was the first to discover the situation, he sounded a warning, Nala called out, and the other members of the elephant group built a defensive wall for the baby elephant.
Tambo, on the other hand, broke off alone and forced the lions to retreat. At this moment, Tambo suddenly broke free from his childish state and shouldered the responsibility of an adult elephant - to protect the safety of the family.
Most of the animals in the first episode revolve around the role of the mother, with one exception, which is the baboon Rafinch.
Unlike the male lion who can't rub sand in his eyes, Laficci is an obsessive model boyfriend. He has always been in love with Sabira, another baboon in the group, but he is not strong enough, and Sabira, in order to protect the safety of his young son, has turned to the leader who killed the throne because of his aggressiveness.
Rafic couldn't forget her and approached Sarabi at every opportunity, but was defeated each time by the belligerent leader. The only way to win back Sarabi is to defeat the boss and improve his racial status.
After he stepped forward to drive away the threatened cheetahs for the group, he thought things had turned around, but he was still vulnerable to the leader.
However, while he was still trying to win back Sarabi, Sarabi was killed in a break.
After everyone knew that he had not been saved, Rafic remained next to Sarabi's body, and finally took over Sabira's care for his young son who had lost his mother.
Although it received a high score of 9.4 on Douban, the evaluation of "Serengeti" was as polarized as the live-action version of "The Lion King".
Some netizens said:
"The real African savannah, hanging the movie version of the Lion King."
Some netizens directly criticized:
"A little over-edited" "overly sensational"
Why are there two opposing evaluations?
In fact, through the previous textual narrative, it should be realized that the animals in "Serengeti" have stories.
It is not denied that unlike previous animal documentaries, in "Serengeti", the artificial editing is heavier.
In addition to recording the trajectory of animals' lives in a simple long shot, the film conceives a reasonable "story" based on their behavior.
The film begins with this: "The Serengeti Plains, a legendary story based on the real lives of Africa's most charismatic animals." ”
John Downer's team, who are good at lens control, use drones and short-throw lenses to cross-use, large panoramas, sports lenses and facial close-ups to show the real life of animals in nature.
For example, after Carly was expelled from the lion group by the male lion, in order to show the helplessness of the lioness after being abandoned by the group, the crew used a large number of close-up shots to record the facial expressions and body movements of the lioness from multiple angles, outlining the life pressure of her single mother to the fullest.
And when Laficci watched Sabira gradually die in the entanglement of the big snake, he still used a close-up, so that we can see despair in Rafic's eyes, and even flashing tears.
After that, he also used a long-range and close-up camera switch to record the desolation and helplessness of Rapic alone raising Sabira.
This "natural reality" is mixed with some "human traces", but in Lao Meng's view, it adds more interest, making us feel so emotional when watching the documentary of the animal world for the first time.
After watching the first episode alone, I sweated for the animals in the film several times and worried about their lives and deaths.
Of course, this is also due to the cruel and real biological laws shown in the film - natural selection, survival of the fittest.
The lonely lioness Carrie, who is jealous of her child's comfort and unable to hunt freely, can only cheapen the menacing hyena in the face of the huge zebra alone.
The cheetah wall tiles are brave and fierce, or actively give up their own prey in the bite and scramble of hyenas.
Think of the documentary "Planets", which was released at the end of May, and the planets have their "love and hate" between them, not to mention the animals that live with us on the earth?
And although it has been edited, these facial expressions and actions are really happening in animals, and perhaps the real story is even more twisted and bizarre than we conceived.