What they did do was cut it down. Waaaay down. From nine verses to four, from three minutes to just over one. The new orchestration is almost unrecognizable: Scar's backup hyenas no longer join in with that lusty, insistent "Hummmm / hummmmm / Hummmmm" you feel in your chest — they instead chant "Be prepared / Be prepared / Be prepared" in 4/4 march time; it's what it would sound like if the Boy Scouts imposed martial law. There's a rejiggered spoken-word intro, to more fully engage the new film's hyenas vs. lions subplot, that turns Scar from a sneering despot spitting vitriol at his subjects ("Thick as you are, pay attention!") to a mere feckless politician attempting to sway a potential ally ("My vision is clear and wide-ranging / And even encompasses you"). This utter lack of mustache-twirling is a loss — a big one.
And look, I like Chiwetel Ejiofor. He can play a great bad guy — check him out in Joss Whedon's Serenity some time, if you haven't. But his Scar is merely, mundanely evil, and his emotional switch just flips from Off to Boiling Rage, while Irons' Scar spent every moment adjusting his dimmer. Musically, non-singer Ejiofor talk-sings his way through the song, only intermittently attempting to hold a note any longer than you'd hold a hot coal.
But the unkindest cut, dear reader? Is that by eliminating all but the very last verse of the original version, the new film's Scar never gets to tell the hyenas — and by extension, us — to "prepare for senSAAYtional news."