Everyone remembers the beginning of The Lion King, when the sun rises over the Serengeti and Elton John cranks up with the title theme, “The Circle of Life.” One YouTube editor has reimagined the scene, however, taking out the music and putting in more natural sounds of the savanna. The result is one of the most serene edits to date.
Instead of the fast-paced, charged up musical that The Lion King has become known for, the re-edited version of the scene plays out like an episode of Planet Earth; the only thing missing is the soothing baritone voice of host David Attenborough. It’s an authentic portrayal of the soundscapes that can be heard while traveling through one of Kenya’s most famous regions.
The Lion King is creator Uploadenator’s newest editing project, but this isn’t the first time that he’s worked on stripping the background noise from a film and replacing it with more traditional, authentic sounds. In March, he published a re-edited scene from Quentin Tarantino’s 2013 film, Django Unchained, that removed the dialogue between Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx. All that can be heard throughout the entire video are the sounds of grasshoppers hopping around outside and the clinking of people moving their cutlery around on the dinner table.
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The Lion King edit remains one of his more popular videos, however, sitting at just over 71,000 views in less than 24 hours. Uploadenator’s project couldn’t have come at a better time, either, as Disney preps its own live-action version of The Lion King. Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book) and starring Atlanta’s Donald Glover as Simba, The Lion King will be released sometime in 2019. More information is expected to be released at Disney’s bi-annual conference, D23, this summer.
