#anyway if any hardcore tlk fans see this pls dont come at me. its joak

[jessiescock]

lion king franchise media only works if the lions are sexy. the cg realism takes were always destined to be dogshit bc they don’t seem to understand this core principle. Allow me to illustrate my point:

now the first movie is obviously very good, the lions are very sexy. so many characters who inspired a sexual or romantic awakening for their hordes of devoted fans. phenomenal movie, not exactly a hot take i know.

now the second movie tho, many ppl really like it even tho it is pretty bland and forgettable on its own, and very bad in its function as a sequel. that doesn’t matter tho because everyone wants to fuck Kovu. Everyone loves this awful movie bc they’re so got dam horny for the edgy hot topic emo lion. I would even argue that horny kovu fans are this movie’s most notable long-term impact on pop culture. So while it’s not a particularly outstanding film, it’s reasonably popular in its own right, fondly remembered by many, and did manage to have at least some kind of lasting cultural impact. all thanks to the sexy lion.

There isn’t really much to say about the third movie. it’s not even 80 minutes long, most people probably don’t even know it exists. I would say that it’s stupid and unnecessary and that no one asked for a Timon and Pumbaa backstory, but the scenes about them parenting Simba are actually really cute and funny and heartwarming and i’m glad that we have those. Once again, the sexy lion (im talking about adult simba here!!!) saves the otherwise pretty unremarkable movie from irrelevance and disdain. We’re starting to see a pattern emerge here.

Ok what else is there. There’s the Timon and Pumbaa TV show from the 90s. I gotta admit i didn’t really watch much of that, but i’ve been told that it’s funny. I also know they have Simba show up sometimes. Put a pin in that.

Ofc i can’t not mention the absolutely phenomenal live action version that offers a refreshing new take on a beloved classic: the stage musical. absolutely phenomenal both as a piece of theatre and as an adaption no notes. Ofc the lion characters in this one are also very sexy. With these last two examples tho it’s starting to look like the sexy lions are not necessarily the sole reason for lion king media to be good, but there’s definitely a connection here.

I didn’t watch Lion Guard because it’s a show for babies, but i know several kids who really like the show and it seems to be successful enough. Here again we have Simba being present as a character, and while I don’t have any hard evidence on this one I’m willing to bet that there’s a substantial amount of kids who have/had a crush on Kion. So I’ll say this one also fits into my theory here.

The stupid fucking 2019 CG remake exists purely as an afterthought to the original 1994 movie and has zero redeeming qualities. All the characters including the lions look absolutely awful. They don’t even look that realistic, like have you ever seen a real lion? they look a million times cooler than those awful soulless beasts. Understandably enough I have not seen anyone being even remotely horny for those vile creatures. And that’s quite a remarkable feat considering they got fuckin Beyoncé and Donald Glover as Nala and Simba. I think if they’d just used footage of real lions and let them do a voiceover over that, there would have been some freaks who get off on that. Maybe there’s someone out there who wants to fuck CG Simba, but as someone who seeks out a lot of lion king content and spent way too much time hatereading reactions to the 2019 movie, i have thankfully never encountered them. This awful awful movie may have brought in a lot of money to its greedy corporate overlords, but it has had zero cultural impact. Sure when it was announced and eventually released everyone had a lot to say about it (mostly about how much it fucking sucked) but as soon as the novelty wore off everyone just forgot about it. I have watched this movie and there’s not a single scene from it that i can even remotely clearly recall. There were some memes about how awful it all looked when it was new but those all quickly went away again. I don’t think there’s anyone who enjoys this movie without at least some kind of connection to the original. Yea it made a lot of money and stirred up some controversy but now 5 years later no one gives a shit about it anymore. and there’s no sexy lions anywhere to be found.