The former animators believe the new film is actually too realistic and it made elements like the talking animals and signing, feel “wildly out of wing” if you will. Stephan said, “It would jar me out of the film, literally, especially with little Simba walking around. It was too real, and then when he would talk, it remind me of those of those old nature films where they would dub the voices over and the lips would move. I thought, ‘Oh this is really cheap.’ I think it was just too soon for this one.”

“I just came away going, ‘Wow, that was a great story that I worked on back in ‘93’. How come the apes in ‘Planet of the Apes’ look so much more alive than the animals in ‘Lion King’? This one just said, ‘You know what, let’s cut the expressions out completely. Let’s just keep it real as possible.’ And I think it just diminished the film.” However he didn’t just criticize the animation, he burned the voice acting as well calling them, “so wooden.” Which, with an all-star cast including Beyonce, Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, John Oliver, and Alfred Woodard the comment really hit hard to hear someone who originally worked on the ’94 film feel so strongly towards this remake. “They put themselves into a corner when you do that realistically,” Stephan went on to say, “You’re really stuck to what the real physics are in real life, or people aren’t going to buy it. But there were a few scenes where there were a couple of expressions and suddenly it was a little more alive.”