20 Reasons Why "The Lion King" is Still King of the Disney Movies

I wrote this on my facebook wall, thought I'd post it here too:

Seventeen years ago I went to go see "The Lion King" at the Arlington theater in Santa Barbara (my favorite theater to this day). I was already a young Disney-phile at the time, having transitioned from my youngest "Dumbo" phase through my "101 Dalmatians" phase, and was currently stuck in my "Aladdin" phase. Yet upon seeing "The Lion King" on the big screen I was blown away. Here was a lush, gorgeous, fantastic-looking and sounding film that quickly became my new favorite. Classic Disney movies are, for better or worse, 1/3 of the reason I've embarked on the career I have today (Star Wars and Lord of The Rings round it all out), and for me "The Lion King" has always been the best of those films that made me think "I want to work on stuff like that" so many years ago.

So I was delighted when The Lion King got it's 3-D rerelease in theaters, but also a tad apprehensive. Some movies you remember loving as a kid don't always hold up as well when you see them later in life. I recently saw "The Land Before Time" in theaters at a special screening a few months ago, and while the animation and tone is still wonderful, the writing is shallow and the pacing far more uneven than I remembered. Would The Lion King be the same way?

Short answer--NO. It's still the masterpiece I remember. But here are some things I noticed and questions I have now that I'm a bit older and have learned a bit more about filmmaking and life in general:

1. First off, look at this picture of the warthog and the meerkat for a minute. Isn't it awesome?

2. One of my favorite things about the film is it's attention to detail in terms of its wildlife. It would have been easy to pepper the film with simplistic versions of the animals everyone knows (lions, giraffes, elephants, zebras) and call it a day, but it's very clear real research was done not only into how these animals look, but how they move and behave as well. It grounds the entire movie with a sense of realism that could have easily been overlooked. In the opening "Circle of Life" sequence I found myself thinking, "Oh cool...marabu storks! And look at those vulturine guinefowl running between the elephants' legs!" And it works for the main characters too..even Zazu is a pretty accurate example of a red-billed hornbill.

3. I have been known to sniffle through a Disney movie here and there, and "The Lion King" is one of the biggest offenders in the scene when Mufasa dies (oh...uh, spoiler I guess? Seriously, who hasn't seen "The Lion King"?). Scar's line, "What have you done?" gets me every time. I promised myself I would keep it together for this viewing, and while I certainly got chills in this scene, I stayed strong. What I did NOT expect was how the opening "Circle of Life" sequence blew me away. A combination of the music, the stunning visuals, and maybe the fact that I'm maybe a little farther along on my own "circle of life" now really got me choked up, and that was only the opening number! So much for keeping it together.

4. One thing that gets missed on the small screen that really is evident in the theater are the stunning background vistas that go behind all the animation. Where do those things go when the movie is done being made? I want one to hang on my wall.

5. Rafiki says "You're a baboon...and I'm not." Uh, no. He's a mandrill. Look it up!

6. Tim Rice and Elton John are given tons of (deserved) praise for their amazing song work, but people shouldn't overlook the actual SCORE of this film either. Hans Zimmer (THAT guy again!) did a fantastic job creating a unique score inspired by African tribal music, and it really gives the film a grand epic feel unlike anything else Disney has put out. Take some time off from humming "Hakuna Matata" and listen to the score itself for a moment...you'll be surprised.

7. I don't know if they remastered the sound mix or not, but part of the reason I wanted to see this in theaters was to LISTEN to it more than anything. And it sounds fantastic. BUT...is it just me or did they mix down Scar's death scream at the end? I remember Scar letting out one final shriek before the flames rise up, but it was gone in the theater. Can anyone with the VHS confirm this for me? Maybe it was deemed to violent and mixed down. I know "The Lion King" received some flak when it came out for being rather intense for kids, and so I can sort of see that they might decide to lose it for this release. But on the other hand if I were a parent my motto would be, "Hey kid, nature's pretty brutal. You'd better learn about it sooner or later." Plus I always liked the image that scream put in my head of Shenzi ripping out Scar's throat.

8. SO happy this was the version without Zazu's "Morning Report" song. It's a cute tune that works well on Broadway, but it completely breaks up the pacing in the film. Glad they went back to the original version.

9. Yes, we all fell in love with this movie ages ago when it was in 2-D. But let's hear it for the new stereoscopic team! Stereoscopic conversion is NOT an easy job (some of my friends do it), and when rushed it can look absolutely terrible. But you can tell real care was done in this film to make it pop, and it was done very well. It's fantastic how even the muzzles of Mufasa and Simba seem to slope out of the screen naturally, even from an original 2-D image. Great job!

10. "The Lion King" unfortunately falls on my short list of movies where all my favorite parts happen at the beginning. My two favorite sequences are "Be Prepared" (goose-stepping hyenas!) and the wildebeest stampede, which occur at about the end of Act 1/Act 2 transition. After that the rest of the movie is still great, but it's never quite as dynamic and visually stunning as those early scenes to me.

11. Speaking of the wildebeest stampede, can I just say that this is probably one of the best-directed scenes in any animated film in history? That harrowing vertigo-zoom on Simba as the herd starts thundering down the gorge, the percussive thunderous music, the heroic semi-sillouette against the sun as Mufasa leaps out of the herd and struggles up the cliff, and finally the terrified look in Mufasa's eyes as his brother betrays him...this is pure cinema, and anyone who writes "The Lion King" off as just a kid's movie should be devoured by a pack of hyenas.

12. It's kind of neat how the movie's plot is reasonably accurate from a scientific standpoint. One male lion really does control a pride of lionesses, and other male lions will often try to kill that male or its cubs in order to gain control. So Scar plotting to kill Simba and Mufasa actually makes sense. Also, lions and hyenas really do NOT get along in real life either.

13. I'm definitely overthinking this, but I was curious whether or not "The Lion King" makes any sense from a geographical standpoint. Simba grows up on The Pridelands, crosses a desert (complete with HUGE sand dunes), and hangs out with Timon and Pumbaa in some sort of jungle. I pulled out a map to try and make sense of it--Africa is a BIG place after all.

I first assumed the "jungle" we see must be The Congo, though it's interesting that Timon, Pumbaa, and Simba never encounter any chimps or gorillas (a Tarzan-Lion King fanfic, anyone?), and the Pridelands are the Serengeti. But there are not really any deserts to cross to get to the Congo that way, so that doesn't really work. He'd also have to pass through Rwanda, which is pretty well-populated with people I think.

Then I assumed the Kalahari Desert would be the desert Simba crosses. There are some pretty lush areas of Botswana (the Okavongo Delta for example) that could work as the Pridelands, and if he went North he would move across the Kalahari into the Congo area. But this is a REALLY long journey.

Then I remembered that there's that iconic shot of Kilimanjaro in the "Circle of Life" sequence, which means Botswana is out, and places the Pridelands directly back in the Serengeti Tanzania/Kenya area. This also makes sense as a lot of the African names (and that annoying song Rafiki sings!) are Swahili in origin, and Swahili is accurately spoken within this region today. There are also some rain forests on the edge of east Africa that could work as Timon and Pumbaa's hiding place, and while I still don't know about the desert, I think there must be some arid areas in there somewhere. So Simba travels from northern Tanzania/southern Kenya southeast to the eastern coast of Tanzania/Mozambique. Makes sense to me!

14. For a movie that prides itself on its scientific accuracy, I do have one big nitpick. In "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" why are there a group of anteaters supporting young Simba and Nala??? Anteaters are native to SOUTH AMERICA!!! They could have used aardvarks, which would have been fine. Oh well.

15. Can I just mention how much I love the color in this movie? How did they do all that beautiful shading? Simba and Mufasa's manes seem to perfectly reflect moonlight in the starry night scenes, and even the orange-red gradient on Zazu's beak is marvelous to look at. I've learned a fair amount about animation, but I have no idea how this colorization stuff works. It's really cool.

16. When Nala attacks Pumbaa and Simba comes to his rescue, I had always thought Timon was cheering, "Spectacular! Spectacular!" I just now realized he's shouting, "The jugular! The jugular!" Gee...that's a tad more graphic than I remembered.

17. Even a kid I always liked the voice work in this movie. Jeremy Irons is deliciously "fahhh-bulous" as my favorite Disney villain ever (seriously, watch his pinky claws), and it's super cool that Nathan Lane, Rowan Atkinson, and even Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin have fun little roles (off-topic, but hasn't it been at least a decade since we saw Whoopi in a movie?). Yet the one voice that really struck me this time around was James Earl Jones as Mufasa. As a kid you don't really realize how important a role this is, but Jones' resounding baritone really makes him sound like a true wise king and formidable father. His performance really anchors the film with a sense of weight and majesty that I never really noticed as a child. The scene where he teaches young Simba about the kings of the past gave me chills, really hitting home the worst of those father-son talks when you knew you'd done something bad and had to face the music.

The downside to all this is that now animated films usually get big names for the voice talent, regardless of whether or not they actually fit the part at all (Dreamworks is the biggest offender of this, but all the studios are guilty of it).

18. So, what does being a "king" entail, exactly? Because Scar REALLY screwed it up fast. Nala tells Simba, "You're our only hope," but what does Simba actually do to fix anything anyway? It's not like we ever see Simba or Mufasa going over a bunch of taxation paperwork to get the antelope better wages. Sure, Mufasa does get his "morning report" from Zazu, but he kind of shrugs it off and instead gives his son a "pouncing lesson." I guess Mufasa's job partially entails bashing in the heads of a few hyenas now and then, and when Scar takes over there is mention of how the hyenas are overhunting everything. But why would that cause a drought too? Was it just bad luck that Scar took the reins during a long dry spell? And where were all those hyenas living in the first place? Being stuck in an elephant graveyard can't sustain a population of that size for very long! Maybe it's just one of those "aura" things. Simba and Mufasa are just "good dudes" with a respect for the "circle of life" and "balance" and "nature" and letting things be totally groovy, man. Scar's just a lazy jerk and a bad guy (his fur is BLACK AND DARK ORANGE!!!), so everything just withers and dies wherever he goes. Wow, now I feel kind of bad for him; talk about determinism at its worst.

19. It was so cool to see this movie in a theater full of KIDS!!! Hearing them laugh of get scared again was a delight (yes, actually hearing kids get SCARED in a movie again is a welcome sound). I think "The Lion King" is a far more mature movie than many children are used to these days (aside from much of Pixar...yay Pixar!), and I think it's good that they're seeing it in theaters the way it was intended.

20. Finally, the main reason I think "The Lion King" holds up so well as a classic is because it is truly a timeless story. It borrows heavily from old biblical and Shakespearean tales of destiny (it's basically "Hamlet" with talking animals and a happy ending), and it's a story that resonates deeply with adults while still being simplistic enough for kids to understand without talking down to them. It's a movie that you can tell was made by filmmakers and artists with a respect and love for nature and storytelling, and not a bunch of suits or a committee (hate to rag on you again Dreamworks, but I'm looking at you and your four "Shrek" movies). Most of the humor in the film comes naturally, not through pop culture references. I love "Aladdin" for example, but it hasn't aged as well for this reason. Even Timon singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is still an old enough song to feel classic; if he was singing something like, say, Toto's "Africa," it would have been pretty funny too, but it wouldn't have felt right.

Every little section of this movie is realized beautifully, and the ultimate tone it hits is greater than the sum of its parts. Disney has tried to recapture this film's magic with varying success, but it still stands alone as a unique and glorious artistic vision yet to be equaled in my opinion.

Bottom line...I really like "The Lion King." Anyone want to go again?!