from Hacker News

Mufasa's 'Bye Bye' shows how Disney villain songs went wrong

by hyperific on 12/31/24, 7:46 AM with 30 comments

  • by snowwrestler on 1/2/25, 4:01 PM

    > It feels like Disney villain songs have become a box-ticking exercise, added more out of a sense of obligation than out of inspiration.

    The article concludes with this sentiment, which I think is correct and applies to the entire movie of Mufasa, as well as many other Disney movies being made.

    Did we need a “live action” Lion King at all, let alone a “live action” prequel? The whole concept seems mediocre, so it’s fitting that the songs are too.

  • by hardlianotion on 1/2/25, 4:02 PM

    Best Disney villain song IMO is Kaa's "Trust in Me". He's not the main baddy of the Jungle Book, but he is every bit as compelling as Shere Khan.

  • by wbl on 1/2/25, 3:58 PM

    Still nothing on "Va, Tosca" or "Der Hoelle Rache kocht im meinem Hertzen". Look them up if you want to see music expressing the minds of villains to perfection.

    If Disney understood the art form more they wouldn't be making these mistakes. Sadly too few people have a serious background vs listen to a few current things without getting where they are from.

  • by diggan on 1/2/25, 3:41 PM

    > Where else could a Disney character bemoan the fact that his own sexual desires repulse him?

    Maybe I skimmed the article a bit too hard, but this stuck out and I don't find any other mentions of this in the article. Why would a Disney villain need to lament about their sexual desires? In this about something specific from The Lion King?

  • by nlawalker on 1/2/25, 4:54 PM

    I haven't seen Mufasa - is Kiros actually a "villain"? Disney has moved away from classic villains in a lot of their animated stories; I seem to remember reading that this was intentional and that they started moving this direction in their storywriting with Frozen, progressed it with Moana (whose "major antagonist" is a mute force of nature and minor antagonist is a silly hurdle to be jumped), and fully realized it with Encanto, which has no singular antagonist at all.

    The jerks in these movies end up getting songs that make them out to be silly jerks - minor obstacles on the hero's journey. They don't get villain songs because they're not deserving of them, and the story isn't about defeating a villain, it's about fixing past mistakes/restoring the balance of nature/realizing one's potential/etc.

  • by mcphage on 1/2/25, 6:25 PM

    I haven’t seen Mufasa, but “This is the Thanks I Get” was a pretty good villain song. The best part of Wish (maybe the only good part?). So it’s not like they’ve forgotten how to do them. Sometimes a bad song is just a bad song, and not indicative of a change.

  • by gjsman-1000 on 1/2/25, 4:07 PM

    This is baffling to me. Even Sonic 3, the same weekend, has a more memorable villain song (if you can call it that) where it openly revels in a “110-year-old” Jim Carrey dancing with himself. That’s not even a high bar, but at least it is memorable, which Disney isn’t meeting.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OemQbTu6iUA&pp=ygUNU29uaWMgMyB...

  • by wordpad25 on 1/2/25, 6:21 PM

    Undoutably most catchy song in the whole movie.

    I think it's great.

    Maybe, I am just our of the loop and people are overly biased by their own expectations and context to consider the song on its own?

  • by disembiggen on 1/2/25, 4:16 PM

    I know Miranda who wrote this is a pretty heavyhanded US liberal, can't help but hear quite a lot of trump in the way Mikkelsen reads "Bye Bye":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMWsYJxCK4I

    I wonder if this song was intended to be more revealing to a US-pop-culture-brained consumer, but the reference didn't land?

  • by rayiner on 1/2/25, 5:17 PM

    Rare miss by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Even geniuses can whiff it sometimes.