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

&gt; It feels like Disney villain songs have become a box-ticking exercise, added more out of a sense of obligation than out of inspiration.<p>The article concludes with this sentiment, which I think is correct and applies to the entire movie of <i>Mufasa</i>, as well as many other Disney movies being made.<p>Did we need a “live action” <i>Lion King</i> at all, let alone a “live action” prequel? The whole concept seems mediocre, so it’s fitting that the songs are too.

Best Disney villain song IMO is Kaa&#x27;s &quot;Trust in Me&quot;. He&#x27;s not the main baddy of the Jungle Book, but he is every bit as compelling as Shere Khan.

Still nothing on &quot;Va, Tosca&quot; or &quot;Der Hoelle Rache kocht im meinem Hertzen&quot;. Look them up if you want to see music expressing the minds of villains to perfection.<p>If Disney understood the art form more they wouldn&#x27;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.

&gt; Where else could a Disney character bemoan the fact that his own sexual desires repulse him?<p>Maybe I skimmed the article a bit too hard, but this stuck out and I don&#x27;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?

I haven&#x27;t seen Mufasa - is Kiros actually a &quot;villain&quot;? 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 &quot;major antagonist&quot; 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.<p>The jerks in these movies end up getting songs that make them out to be silly jerks - minor obstacles on the hero&#x27;s journey. They don&#x27;t get villain songs because they&#x27;re not deserving of them, and the story isn&#x27;t about defeating a villain, it&#x27;s about fixing past mistakes&#x2F;restoring the balance of nature&#x2F;realizing one&#x27;s potential&#x2F;etc.

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.

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.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=OemQbTu6iUA&amp;pp=ygUNU29uaWMgMyBkYW5jZQ%3D%3D" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=OemQbTu6iUA&amp;pp=ygUNU29uaWMgMyB...</a>

Undoutably most catchy song in the whole movie.<p>I think it&#x27;s great.<p>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?

I know Miranda who wrote this is a pretty heavyhanded US liberal, can&#x27;t help but hear quite a lot of trump in the way Mikkelsen reads &quot;Bye Bye&quot;:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=KMWsYJxCK4I" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=KMWsYJxCK4I</a><p>I wonder if this song was intended to be more revealing to a US-pop-culture-brained consumer, but the reference didn&#x27;t land?

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