text: I remember when I first heard of the Lion King stage show I thought 'hmm, thats kind of cheesy' and then more and more friends would tell 'omg, its an incredible show, you have to check it out!.  Once again I thought 'um...really?  I can't picture it...'  And for some reason none of the promo still shots really wow'ed me either.\n\nOk so cut to early this year on a previous trip to Vegas, I decided to catch the show w a friend after multiple recommendations and all I can say is\n\n'Wow, what a fantastic stage production and fun show to boot.'  They capture all the raw emotion and tear jerking moments of the animated film, and do a wonderful visual translation that is graceful, beautiful, and funny, at the same time.\n\nThe theater in in the Mandalay Bay is great and I had seats in the main floor section about 20 rows back from the stage, and way off to the side, yet I could see all of the show without any problem.  I don't think there are any bad views in the house.  Plus the show is a fully immersive experience as dancers, actors and singers will pop out from all sides of the theater, not just restrict themselves to the stage.  I'm not sure if this is just a Vegas thing or they do this in the other stage shows as well, but it definitely has a Cirque du Soleil feel to it.\n\nThey use multiple techniques to capture the look of the animated animals of the African plains and all of them are ingenious and creative, down to the purely symbolic sylized costumes of the Lion characters with their cool retractable masks that don't hinder choreography & dance, to the fully translated cartoony full outfits of Timon & Poomba and the Hyenas, to what has to be my favorite, the stunt stilt walkers in their FULL SCALE giraffe outfits, you have to see how they do it to understand, it's amazing to see.\n\nStory and musical score is essentially the same, but with the Mandrill baboon character being elevated to one of the star cast members taking the place of some of the background vocals and narrator.  The actress who portrayed her (they changed from male to female) is simply amazing and the actors who played adult Simba, Simba's father and Scar are great as well.  \n\nYou have to see this show if you loved the movie, and even if you haven't go see it anyway!  It'll probably inspire you to go rent the movie even if you don't have any kids.