My Own Personal Nerdy Disney and Animation Scrutinizing Analyses: "The Lion King" - The Hand Drawn and First True Disney King.

Hi folks! Welcome to My Own Personal Nerdy Disney Scrutinizing and Animation Analyses blog. A blog where I'm analyzing several Disney films, Disney or Animation in general! These entries are just meant to be my analyses. Not reviews or statements. Just fun analyses! Though I'll make some personal remarks now and then, the content of these entries are meant to be depicted objectively. They're made for entertainment purpose only and the pictures/clips are copyright Disney or other companies.

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Now we're entering The Lion King, one of Disney's forgotten and unknown features! And it's not without reason! Those who've seen it has stated that it was completely terrible, which explains why it has gone into obscurity!

No, it's not the actual Simba. What did you expect? Duuuh :)

Now with the mandatory sarcasm out of the way, let's proceed to the actual analysis.

The Lion King`s Position in Disney History

To beat The Lion King, do it with ice!
But I'm the only one who knows the
recipe ;)

Nineteen years before Frozen took away it's spot of being the most successful Disney animated movie of all time, The Lion King was the true Disney King (pun intended).
Released the summer of 1994, The Lion King became a huge Box Office success and a phenomenon that no Disney film could match before or after (yes, I'm excluding Pixar from this).

The Lion King was simply more than just a movie. It was an huge event, a sensation! Though Frozen took it's spot afterwards, The Lion King at least has the record of being the most successful hand-drawn movie of all time!

My Own Personal Memories With the The Lion King and the Rest of the Disney Renaissance

We're cute on the nose, pun intended ;)

On a personal note, The Lion King was the first of the Renaissance films that really converted me from loving Walt's classics to getting into the following ones.

I loved The Rescuers Down Under, but that was the exception (yes, I was a strange kid who didn't follow the norm).

I somewhat liked The Little Mermaid and I thought Aladdin was a lot of fun, but they never converted me to truly like the Renaissance films. I wasn't particularly crazy of Beauty and the Beast as a kid, since I frankly never found the movie appealing back then (yes, hate me, haters). But The Lion King was the one who converted me to the Renaissance features and made me eager for the upcoming ones (which is pretty ironic that I got into them right at the time when the Renaissance was declining).

Was it`s Massive Success Deserved/Do People Consider The Lion King to Be Overrated?

Was it's massive success deserved? I personally think so, but there are definitively people who doesn't.
Of course by it's numbers has proved that The Lion King has it's lovers, but there are definitively many who consider it to be overrated. Especially in several boards. In several surveys I've seen it hasn't been listed as the top Disney favorite. The Lion King is the rare Disney film who's among IMDb's Top 250. But there's a constant fight between Beauty and Lion King fans of which film is the best one.

I'm nodding, without being Noddy ;)

How can magic exist in our
animal world? :)

History

Go with the flow, it's not
an actual circle ;)

The wind swept away my colors :)

The story behind The Lion Kingvs. Pocahontas is quite well-known. But what a fascinating and ironic story it is! The majority on Disney Feature Animation were drawn to Pocahontas because it seemed as a more ambitious and attractive project. And why wouldn't they? A conflict between Native American and English settlers with a forbidden romance definitively sounds intriguing.

Lion King's plot seemed more vague and therefore many were repulsed by it. Even Jeffrey Katzenberg himself, who came up with the idea (and also suggested the setting due to his own fascination of Africa, having worked on a Kenya-feature priorly), had no faith in the movie. It wasn't until the complete sequences of Circle of Life (which was going to be later in the movie, believe it or not) and the return of Mufasa's ghost (the last scene produced) that made folks gain faith in the movie.

The rest is history, but the making of The Lion King was really a

bumpy road. The project originated in 1989 or 1990 (various disagreements about that one), when the studio wanted to do something more challenging than their previous efforts. They were eager to do an allegorical tale of coming of age. And thus wanting to work something with African wildlife.

Originally called King of the Jungle and later The King of Beasts, the plot was inspired by a semi-biographical experience by Katzenberg himself, who had to face responsibility. He pitched it on a press tour by Oliver & Company to Peter Schneider. Katzenberg aimed for a Bambi-esque story (Eisner approved the project when he realized that his would be about how Bambi never got eaten). According to this Jim Hill Media's article, Lion King was really one of the most troubled story productions that Disney had ever faced (perhaps because it was original).

The story was going to ape a National Geographic Documentary, which Oliver & Company's George Scribner was pleading to do. He was the initial director, alongside with Roger Allers. But was taken off the project after the new direction. It wasn't even supposed to be a musical at first. Originally ABBA was approached to do the music (yes, it's true). But when Tim Rice was approached, he suggested Elton John, which to his surprise assigned immediatly.
And Hans Zimmer had no intentions to do it, but agreed for his daughter. Alan Menken was busy doing Aladdin, so The Lion King was a rare non-Menken feature at the time. Tom Schumaker was on the project from the get-go. Animation stars as Chris Sanders and Brenda Chapman worked on it, as well as Linda Woolverton, who afterwards left. Yet Don Hahn and Rob Minkoff weren't even on this project from the get-go.

No, you're not being fooled. They thought our music was African!

Original Screenplay

I've been at the Feast of Fools :)

The original outline was a little bit different. It was about a war between lions and baboons. Scar was the baboon leader. The initial drafts were actually much darker. Some early scripts were leaked on the Internet, where the food chain and hunting were a bigger part of the story. Many characters were dismissed.

There were a feud between various prides of lions. Scar belonged to another pride. Mufasa was killed by the hyenas. Simba would exile to a group of meerkats. And Scar's weakness would be his fear of thunder and lightening (as with Shere Khan).
Another draft would have Simba being saved by Hyenas, who had different names. Simba would exile with Zazu. Timon was always a part of a meerkat colony. Both screenplays were more violent (Simba would loose his tail to the hyenas), but had less emphasis on Simba's grief after Mufasa's death. Even the return of Mufasa's ghost wasn't a part of the story at the time, which was added when the crew retooled the story.


At least it's not Staying Alive :)

At the end, the plot became a simple, but mixed hybrid of Hamlet, Joseph and Moses with some touches of The Jungle Book. But there's no denial that it's been influenced by Bambi, since both portray naturalistic animals without humans (and yes, technically Bambi had humans, but considering how Man cleverly enough remains unseen, I'll exclude them). Due to the lions being the so-called kings of the Savannah, it's not strange that they wanted to duplicate Bambi in a new version of it with lions (since lions are usually referred as kings, anyway).

It was exhausting to make me
look clear within the clouds :)

Mufasa's ghost was as much inspired from Moses' as from Hamlet (despite Tom Schumaker citing that the Hamlet-modeling was not a conscious choice, though the crew eventually realized the similarities as production went on). Though the Hamlet-structure may be a radical choice for a Disney movie, it was pretty much the logical next progression for Disney to step forward with. Since the creators deliberately wanted to progress with a mature story. And despite the food chain is often mentioned in this story, it's pretty remarkable how humanized the animals in this movie are, at least in terms of their emotions and conflicts.

Sure, but so should you. You're not Aslan ;)

Several people (and Disney themselves) has credited The Lion King as Disney's first original screenplay, but I think we should take that pretty lightly. Although Lady & The Tramp is credited Ward Green, the idea still originated from Walt and was executed by his storyguys. Before Walt himself approached Green to write a book about it.
Disney's previous feline feature, The Aristocats, wasn't based on a pre-excisting story either. And while The Rescuers Down Under was based on the characters of Margery Sharp, the storyline was completely Disney's own. But afterwards the company has made several original films as The Emperor's New Groove (although it initially was based on The Prince and the Pauper), Atlantis The Lost Empire, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, Bolt, Wreck-It-Ralph (and it's sequel), Zootopia, Moana and to an extent, Frozen II.

The Second Renaissance Feature Starring Animals

The Lion King stands out from the rest of the features from the 90's. It was the first and only film with naturalistic animals in that time. Sure, Rescuers Down Under had naturalistic animals too, but was a hybrid of those and anthropomorphic animals.
On a personal note, I wouldn't mind if Disney kept making more animals movies through the nineties, since I liked animals as a kid. The other 90-features were all about humans and all of them had the same formula. It's safe to state that Disney somewhat re-made Beauty and Aladdin with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. And in a lesser extent Mermaid with Pocahontas.

Yes, I'm passing by. To freak ya out ;)

Although Brother Bear was green-lit based on The Lion King's success and resembles the lion picture (and was deliberately released close to The Lion King's DVD debut), you could claim Tarzan as the 90's remake of The Lion King. Since it's a coming of age story set in the wilds of Africa (although it borrows blatantly from Pocahontas as well).

But since animals are practically synonymous with Disney, it's still strange that there weren't made more animal pictures during the 90's and the early 2000's. Though some like to claim Brother Bear as the second animal film after The Lion King, I'll list The Emperor's New Groove as well, since the protagonist spends most of the movie as a llama, after all. And let's not forget Dinosaur!

Serious Tone

The grass made an entrance for me ;)

A sole creature can beat a trio :)

Besides it's all animal cast, The Lion King is a departure from it's 90 predecessors in another way. It's more serious and grave. Although Beauty and the Beast could be certainly grave, The Lion King went further with incorporating death as a major theme.

It's not to dismiss that The Lion King completely lacks comedy and lightness (it has even flatulence humor, a rarity in a Disney picture). But it's primarily a deep and dark movie.
But that's one of the film's strengths, in my opinion; To convey depth and darkness without being too gloomy. While The Lion King wasn't the first Disney film to show a dead corpse of a character, it shows Mufasa's demise. The Lion King began the trend with serious, epic films, as proven with it's followers Pocahontas and Hunchback (hough The Lion King was more successful than both).

A Different Type of Outcast

I'm giving you as much
shadow as I can ;)

The Lion King also departs from the 90 in another way, in terms of it's protagonist. Simba becomes an outcast, but not in the same way as the other 90-leads. The others just happens to be misunderstood loners, whereas Simba gets banished by the villains and thus becomes an outcast. for a committing a crime.
According to various sources, Simba stayed with his Pride after Mufasa's death (though originally Scar was going to kill Simba, only to be stopped by the other members, believing that Scar saved him). And Scar was acting as Simba's regent in one version, but was running the kingdom behind Simba's back (and Simba didn't care about his responsibility anymore). But the team never found it compelling, so they exiled him. And Scar was at the time a rare villain to kill a major character at the time.

The Similarities With Bambi

Yes, it's love at first sight. And love
made me blind for the smell.

Forget that we're going to eat ya ;)

There are certainly many nods to Bambi in this movie, which is not a bad thing at all! Bambi was one of my true favorites growing up and therefore the main reason to enjoy The Lion King! Both films are coming of age stories, where the Prince is celebrated by his birth. Both princes tours their Kingdom with their parent and meet their love interest as kids (though Simba and Nala were probably closer than Bambi and Faline were).
Both protagonist are deeply attatched to a certain parent and looses them during their picture, but Bambi deals with it in a subtle way (although Walt initially wanted to show the demise). Both heroes grow up (heck, Timon and Pumbaa were originally going to be Simba's childhood friends, mirroring Thumper and Flower).
Both heroes meets their love interest again as adults and has a love duet with them. Both heroes have a fight and their homes burns at the end (one thing that The Lion King shares with both The Jungle Book and Tarzan besides their jungle setting, is that there's lightning and thunder during their climaxes and ends with a rain sequence when the villain gets defeated). At the end, the circle of life continues with the protagonists having kids.
Young Simba is spunkier and more mischievous than the sweet, innocent and bashful Bambi. The same goes for Nala vs. Faline. Both stories depicts the carefree days of childhoods and and the difficulties with adulthood. In other ways, you could say that The Lion King is Bambi with a plot. It's not to say that Bambi lacks a plot, but it's a more simplistic, poetic story. The grief is more crucial in The Lion King than in Bambi, where the plot in the former movie is built around it.

Of course it's made of leaves, duuh :)

I'm gonna tell you a secret... to distract ya before you eat me.

The Reasons For it`s Success

It looks crowded, but don't worry,
you'll end up being as crazy as us ;)

The Lion King happened to be my first entry where I was just summarizing the success of the movie, without discussion a specific conclusion or theme that the movie has been labeled with. So a relevant question to summarize this entry would be the reason for it's success. Perhaps people were compelled by the depth and the Hamlet-esque plot. Or that the epic, allegorical plot were overall identifiable. Or having big stars like Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, James Earles Jones, Rowan Atkinson, Matthew Broderick, Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin playing the parts.

Or perhaps audiences simply loved the music, animation and the characters.It was the only animated film released theatrically the summer of 1994. Don Bluth commented in 2003 that the storyboard artist worked well with the story, so it could be a reason. But The Lion King was successful because it appealed to people! Simple as that! It was Disney's most successful animated film until Pixar's Finding Nemo and (of course) Frozen and it's sequel.

The Fate of the Renaissance After The Lion King

The Lion King had the advantage of being a follow up to successful
Renaissance predecessors. And for having the awesome The Circle of Life-sequence as a trailer in late 1993 (which Disney would ape with the Pocahontas and Dinosaur-trailers). But I've still wondered how the reception would've been if The Lion King were released before it's predecessors.

Of course not every movie can be a hit, but since the annual Disney movies released after 1995 were declining (mostly because Pocahontas and Hunchback lacked the broad appeal), it would be interesting to see if The Lion King wasn't just the peak, but a film which increased people's interest in Disney afterwards. However, a review of the movie by Eric Walker in 1994 predicted Disney's declining fate after The Lion King and was unfortunately right. Fortunately that haven't been the case with the films that followed Frozen, since the Revival era has not declined yet.

Controversy

The Lion King has of course not escaped criticism. Steve Twomey from Washington Post discussed
several criticisms on it's release, for being racist, sexist, homophobic and violent during it's release. And how the lionesses were dependent of a male to help them out. Scar was accused for being a caricature of an African-American due to his dark skin. Well, let's not forget that symbolically most Disney villains have darker colors. And dark lions actually do exists!

I had a hiccup, blame on that ;)

It was also accused for learning kids about dependence. And let's not forget the fuzz about the racist segregation of the Hyenas, played by an African-American (Whoopi Goldberg) and a Hispanic (Cheech Marin). But there's a feud between lions and hyenas in real life and Hyenas are overall more scavengers than lions. And to quote Nostalgia Chick; Hyenas aren't as cute and majestic as lions. And yes, I'll exclude the Kimba comparison in this case ;)

My Own Appreciation For The Lion King

I genuinely consider The Lion King to be a unique film. With excellent
animation, a great score, a solid story and engaging characters. I frankly thought it deserved it massive success and it's easy to see why it's appealed to such a demographic.
While it's picks components from the aforementioned Walt's predecessors, it does have a tone and a feel of it's own. Sure, Dinosaur and Brother Bear has obviously copied components from The Lion King. But they haven't copied the exact tone and feel that makes The Lion King so great.

The Broadway Adaptation

The Broadway adaptation of The Lion King has become a huge hit as well, being the most successful stage show ever! With a Worldwide gross over 8.2 billion Dollars! The directors joked about the film wouldn't be adapted at stage due to it's all-animal cast! But they took the risk in 1997 with rookie director Julie Taymor, who never had a commercial success before! The stage show of Beauty was a hit (and was more overall more suited for Broadway), but The Lion King has surpassed it!

It`s Spinoff Products and Cheapquels

Regarding it's spin-off legacy, it's remarkable that it's cheapquels are more cherished than the other Disney cheapquels. The Lion King II; Simba's Pride has a bigger fanbase on the Internet than the other Disney sequels. This Romeo and Juliet-esque sequel, released four years after it's predecessor, was launched when Disney were starting with their direct to video plague. While it's hampered by a weak screenplay and other problems, I'll admit that the film is quite endearing, nonetheless!

I love The Lion King 1 1/2, the "what if"-midquel,
because of it's frisky and fun tone. And it actually received good reviews! The anthropomorphic Timon and Pumbaa series which ran from 1995 to 1998 was also fun. A stylistic and cartoony show that was a departure to the naturalistic movie (an peculiar choice, btw). And let's not forget The Lion Guard, who for some reason introduces a new son to Simba, Kion. Without taking consideration to Kopa from the Six New Adventures series. And now supposedly he and Kiara are about the same age! And yeah, folks; The Lion King also suffered from the remake boom that Disney is having last summer! By the same director of the much cherished The Jungle Book remake, Jon Favreau.

The Directors

It's remarkable that Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff never directed together again! They never became the superteam as John Musker/Ron Clements or Kirk Wise/Gary Trousdale. Considering how they directed a huge blockbuster together, it's odd and bittersweet that they never directed together again. Allers was the original director of Kingdom of the Sun (who used to be The Emperor's New Groove priorly) before being replaced. But he directed the lovely hand drawn short The Little Matchgirl that was featured of the Platinum Edition DVD for Mermaid. Both Allers and Minkoff has left Disney. The Lion King was also the last film to be entirely supervised by Katzenberg, before leaving the studio after ten years commitment (without getting into that much debated discussion now).

The 3D Re-Release

The 3D re-relase of The Lion King certainly proved what a stayer the film is, earning $ 185,542,01 Worlwide at the Box Office. This is certainly outstanding, considering that we live in a time where hand drawn is unfortunately a rarity, as are re-releases. Unfortunately the 3D re-releases of Beauty, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc didn't do that well, which made Disney scrap the theatrical 3D-release of Mermaid and rather release it on Blu Ray as a part of the Diamond Edition line in the fall of 2013.

Frozen`s Legacy vs. The Lion King`s

Now that Frozen and it's sequel has taken it's spot as the most successful Disney films of all time, I wonder if Frozen is going to have the same legacy afterwards as The Lion King. It's not to slam Frozen, but I still wonder about it, nonetheless.

The Comparison Between the Renaissance and the Revival Period

Since the Revival era has been frequently compared to the Renaissance era, at least Disney haven't been as homogeneous with as they were in the 90's! This new Revival era has at least seen more diversity, with three fairy tale movies, a Winnie the Pooh film, a video game feature (and it's sequel) and a superhero adaptation by Marvel.

Afterwards we've gotten an another anthropomorphic animal movie and another "Princess" movie which weren't even based on a fairy tale (which has been labeled to be an anti-Princess movie). This diversity is of course welcoming. While all of the 90's features were good, the formula was getting worn-out after a entire decade. But I still welcome the formula when it's done well. Let's wonder how long Disney's reputation will last this time (but let us hope that it does last long).