Finally Watched…The Lion King (1994)

After posting a video last week about a questioned view that it was similar to Hamlet (the conclusion being it wasn’t) and the recent passing of one of its main stars (despite being in maybe a third of the film tops), I figured now was as good a time as any to get this banked review out to the world…leaving one left as of this writing.

The original animated version of The Lion King is superior to the “photorealistic” remake, and I could tell you that before watching either. While Michael Eisner tried to pump this “didn’t need to be a franchise” for as much cash as he could squeeze out of it, Bob Iger is possibly worse, by trying to remake the franchise in his “animation sucks even though that’s what Disney was founded on” mentality. If it isn’t live-action it’s trying to fool you into thinking it’s live action. However, this is one of the big movies of the “Disney Renaissance”, when the company finally moved past the loss of Walt Disney and got back to making his dream come true of entertaining audiences with animation and theme parks…and making a lot of money in the process.

I never really got to see this movie until recently, or any of the sequels except for the CBS Saturday morning Timon & Pumbaa series and the Disney Junior kids series The Lion Guard, a show that seemed to be reworked so it could be forced into the Lion King story. It was okay. It wasn’t the original, though, so it’s nice that I finally got to see it. Was it worth it? Does it live up to the hype?

RELEASE DATE: 1994
RELEASED BY: Walt Disney Pictures & Walt Disney Animation Studios
RUNTIME: 1 hour 28 minutes
RATING: G (who says G is a death note for movies?)
VIEWING SOURCE FOR THIS REVIEW: Freeform
STARRING: Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Nathan Lane, and Ernie Sabella
SCREENWRITERS: Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton (plus a long list added to “story by”)
DIRECTOR: Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff
BOX OFFICE: $424,979,720 domestic, $979,046,652 worldwide gross, according to IMDB
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $45,000,000 according to IMDB

Just for fun I looked up the remake’s data. With a budget of $260,000,000, way more than the hand-drawn movie, The 2019 demake made $543,638,043 domestic and $1,662,020,819 gross. Admittedly more, but at the same time I don’t know if IMDB counts for current monetary worth, and there isn’t as much praise for the version that makes the animals look like animals instead of animated beings. I’m not hearing anybody waiting for Mufasa to come out. I could probably drum up more interest in Simba’s Pride than what’s coming.

The Plot: Somewhere in the jungle is Pride Rock, a land ruled by wise and caring Mufasa (Jones), who just had a son. Simba (Thomas) is young and adventurous, along with his friend Nala (Niketa Calame). He is also an obstacle to Scar (Irons) becoming the new king of the land, and he’s willing to work with the hyenas (Whoopi Goldberg before she lost her sanity, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings, who doubles as Scar’s singing voice) to gain power, even if they don’t care about the “circle of life”, using and respecting the land and even the prey animals. So he comes up with a plan to kill Mufasa and make Simba feel responsible. The boy runs off and runs into the meerkat Timon (Lane) and warthog Pumbaa (Sabella). He tries to escape his life but when Scar and the hyenas ruin the land, Nala (adult voice by Moira Kelly) seeks help and finds Simba (Broderick in Simba’s adult years). But is he willing to take his place as king.

What did I think?: Did they replace the Elton John versions of the song with some woman, or was John’s version only in the closing credits? Disney changes so much nowadays that I wouldn’t be surprised if the version from Freeform (owned by Disney) “fixed” it to sound more African.

Overall, the movie is good, but the story moved a bit fast at one point in the movie. Admittedly I was distracted a time or two with other things I had to be doing, but after Simba leaves Pride Rock and meets Timon and Pumba it goes fast. Simba meets adult Nala and suddenly they’re a couple when they last saw each other as kids who were royally betrothed but hadn’t hit lion puberty yet. It doesn’t take much to convince Simba to go back after meeting Rafiki (the late, great Robert Guillaume. We see one instance of Simba remembering his dad and his disappointment, after adopting “hakuna matata” as a philosophy. The pace is fine otherwise, but that moment went a bit fast to me.

And after sitting on this review a while I think I figured out why: If Simba has been living in ease this whole time he shouldn’t be able to defeat Skar and the hyenas in battle so easily just because he’s a huge lion who finally is accepting his responsibilities. It needed a scene where Timon, Pumbaa, and Nala help Simba train to be able to fight, maybe come up with some tactings Scar and the hyenas wouldn’t be ready for thanks to two of his trainers thinking outside the box when it comes to tactics, while Nala still brings in the more traditional. Then Simba mixes the two and that’s how he overcomes his enemies.

Simba’s journey is otherwise handled well. Tricked into believing his father’s death was his fault instead of Scar’s Simba finds a way to run from his past but soon accepts something young Simba hadn’t been able to understand before: the responsibility of being king. It seems to be something Scar didn’t quite get either, as he becomes the king that young Simba sang about being, a further wake-up call to older Simba of what he saw as leadership versus what his father tried to teach him.

Timon and Pumbaa (which I just found out is spelled with two “a”s) aren’t just the comic relief in this movie, which is important to good comic relief characters; they need to do more in the story. Having seen a few episodes of their solo TV series and clips from sequels I thought there was going to be a payoff to the “Mr. Pig” bit, but…you know how some jokes have a build-up but no good payoff? This is a payoff without setup, and I was kind of disappointed given how that’s become part of Pumbaa’s character. That sped up part comes into play again. One moment Timon is all upset that Simba may be leaving the group and he’s worried about predators, but he immediately joins the cause, possibly seeing how dedicated Simba was to his training, figuring out why it mattered to him, and also noticing what he’s doing wrong. This drives him to accept what’s happening and to stand with his friend. I’m not saying they had to do the bit where he wants to stay behind but is guilted into it. A turn for the sake of his friend of many years can happen quick. It just feels strange for him to have zero hesitation in going along.

Was it worth the wait: The animation is great, as typical for the Disney Renaissance. The story is good, the acting solid, the final act a good fight. I’m glad I saw it finally, and maybe I’ll check out a sequel someday, but not the photorealistic movies. You can’t capture the same expressions and movements with “real” animals because it just looks bizarre. This story was made for animation, and this was back when Disney tried to stand for quality animation and not replace their library with lesser live-action stories for the Oscar bait. Ignore the CG and stick with the original on this one.