First off, the sound was awful. You could hardly hear. If I didn't already have most of the dialogue memorized from watching the movie so many times, I wouldn't have been able to tell what was going on. All the emotion (if there was any from the actors) was lost because it was so hard to hear and follow.
And the additions to the play that aren't in the musical are laughable and actually detract from the story. There's the Scar-and-Nala (call them Nar) forced romance angle, that doesn't extend beyond a single scene and just disappears from the story after one song about it. And Simba's should-have-been-show-stopping-number plays like he's a completely different character than the one in the scenes just before and after. And the big note at the end wasn't held out for any effect at all.
And the choreography was the (unintentionally) funniest part. The director would send out some costumed animal running and leaping, and occasionally twirling across the stage during scene changes. During numbers that exist specifically to show off the dancers, all they do is twirl and jump. I had just come from seeing actual choreography, like this:
That was taken on my way into the Holiday Dance competition held at Luxor over the weekend. My nephew, Malachi and his partner took second in their Latin group. Here's about twenty seconds of them, shot before I found out I wasn't allowed to video tape the performances.
This was actual dancing. Lion King was jumping while music played. At least I think music was playing. I couldn't really hear.
Well, I'm glad you got part of it anyway. Thank you for posting it.
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