Blaine: Out of all the Disney animated classics “The Lion King” has always been my favorite.
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
A lion cub, Simba, will become king one day and his father, Mufasa, teaches him everything there is to know about ruling the Pride Lands of Africa. Simba's uncle, Scar, comes up with an evil plan to kill both him and Mufasa so that he can become the king. Scar tricks Simba by luring him in a dried up gorge and with the help of his hyenas friends, Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, they cause a herd of wildebeest to stampede into the gorge. Mufasa goes in to save Simba. Mufasa manages to get Simba on a rock. The stampede carries Mufasa away.
Mufasa jumps and tries to climb up, but Scar lets him fall to his death. Simba sees Mufasa fall and goes looking for him after the stampede is gone. Simba finds Mufasa, but he is no more. Scar shows up and makes Simba believe Mufasa’s death was on him. Simba is scared and doesn’t know what to do. Scar tells him to runaway and never return. Scar sends the hyenas after Simba to kill him, but they fail. Simba runs deep into the desert and passes out. He is later found by a meerkat named Timon and a warthog named Pumba. They take Simba in, teach him to leave his troubles behind him and raise him. Simba grows up in a jungle with his two new friends.
One night while Timon, Pumba and Simba look up at the stars they wonder what’s up there. Simba remembers his father once told him that the great kings live up there. Simba then walks out on a ledge and looks up at the stars. He then collapses to lay on the edge of the ledge. Milkweed floss is stirred into the air by his flop. It crosses the desert. Rafiki, a wise baboon who serves as shaman of Pride Rock, snatches some of the milkweed out of the air. Rafiki senses something odd about it. He puts the milkweed in a turtle shell and does some kind of spell in order to figure out what makes it so mysterious. Once it is done, Rafiki looks at it and it resembles Simba. Rafiki is shocked, then full of joy to find out that Simba is alive. Rafiki goes out looking for Simba.
While Timon and Pumba are wandering through the jungle minding their own businesses, a female lion shows up and tries to attack them. Simba shows up and fights her. Simba then recognizes her as his childhood friend, Nala. Nala and Simba are excited to see each other. Nala thought Simba was dead after Scar told the lionesses that he and Mufasa were killed by the stampede. She is curious to know why Simba stayed in the jungle all these years and never returned to Pride Rock, but Simba can’t tell her why. Simba knows he can’t go back because he’s already ashamed for being responsible for his father’s death. He’s afraid of what everyone will think of him if they find out the truth. Nala tells Simba that everyone needs him back home because he’s the king and it’s his responsibility. She also tells him that the place has become a wreck ever since Scar was put in charge. Simba chooses to ignore what Nala is saying, gets into an argument with her and then just walks away.
Simba then runs into Rafiki. Simba finds Rafiki annoying at first until he mentions Mufassa. Simba is curious to know how Rafiki knew his father and Rafiki tells him that Mufassa is still alive. Rafiki has Simba look closely into a pond. Simba sees his reflection at first, but then it transforms into his father. Rafiki points out to Simba that Mufassa lives within him. Simba then hears his father’s voice. Mufassa shows up as a spirit in the sky and tells Simba he must take his rightful place as king. After that, Mufassa fades away.
Simba knows that he must go back, but he’s afraid what everyone will think of him when they find out the truth that Mufasa’s death was caused by him. Rafiki helps by talking some sense into Simba. Simba returns to Pride Rock and can not believe how horrible it looks. Nala, Timon and Pumba catch up with Simba and want to help him. Timon and Pumba distract the hyenas while Simba goes to face Scar. Nala gathers the other lionesses. Simba sees his mother, Sarabi, trying to explain to Scar that there is no food, the herds have moved on and in order to survive they must leave Pride Rock. Scar refuses to leave and hits Sarabi. Simba shows up and Scar thinks he is Mufasa at first. Simba helps his mother up and confronts Scar.
Scar brings up Mufasa’s death and Simba confesses to everyone that it was his fault. Scar taunts Simba. Scar and the hyenas backs Simba to the edge of the rock. Simba is about to fall, but before Scar lets him fall to his death he whispers into his ear that it was him who killed Mufasa. Simba finds the strength to pull himself up and tackles Scar. Simba doesn’t feel guilty anymore now that he knows the truth and is furious with Scar by tricking him, making him believe he did something bad and taking away someone who meant so much to him. Simba forces Scar to tell the truth to the lionesses that he killed Mufasa.
The hyenas tackle Simba while Scar makes a run for it. Simba, Timon, Pumba, Rafiki, Zazu and the lionesses fight the hyenas. Simba then goes after Scar. Scar is at a dead end and begs Simba for mercy and tries to convince Simba that the hyenas are the real enemy, but he doesn’t believe him. Simba and Scar fight each other. Scar tries to kill Simba, but Simba manages to toss him from the top of the rock. Scar falls to the ground and the hyenas show up. They heard Scar saying that they were the enemy. The hyenas surround Scar and kill him.
Simba and the others have gained victory and now Simba must take his rightful place as king. But before he does that, Simba hugs Rafiki as a thank you for convincing him to return. Simba is now king of the Pride Lands and restores everything as it once was.
Blaine: The idea for “The Lion King” started when Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Walt Disney studios, Peter Schneider, the V.P. at the time and Roy E. Disney were having a conversation while promoting the movie, “Oliver and Company”. Africa came up during their conversation and Jeffrey thought that they should make an animated feature taking place in Africa. They started to develop the project with a few screenwriters and they hired George Scribner to direct it after directing “Oliver and Company”. At first the film was going to be called “King of the Jungle”. George wanted it to look more naturalistic. They hired a second director to team up with George, Roger Allers, who had done a terrific job of being the head of story on “Beauty and the Beast”.
After the screening of “Beauty and the Beast”, Roger, George and a team of artists flew to Africa to do some research for “King of the Jungle”. They were there for two weeks taking several pictures of animals and watching life happen around them. Their guides would tell them Swahili phrases and the phrase “Hakuna Matata” came from that. A lot of the stuff they saw in Africa, like animals doing their natural things, is what they wanted to put into their movie. George wanted a National Geographic kind of sense to it.
Both George and Roger felt that African music would be a good touch for the background to “King of the Jungle”. Sir Tim Rice was already at Disney studios working on songs for “Aladdin” and he got involved with “King of the Jungle” early on. They were looking for a musician to team up with Tim Rice to write songs. They asked Tim who he would want to work with and his first choice was Alan Menken, but Alan already had his hands full working on the music score for “Aladdin”, so Tim decided to go with Elton John instead. Tim thought they wouldn’t be able to get Elton because he’s a busy man, but Elton had agreed to do the project because he has always loved the animated features Disney has made. A lot of people asked how Elton could write music for a movie about Africa. George Scribner felt that Elton John’s music couldn’t go with an African movie and that made him leave the project. Roger Allers was still onboard though.
Rob Minkoff would later replace George Scribner as the co-director of “King of the Jungle”. They wanted to make a fresh new start with the project because the designs that they had weren't suitable. They re-wrote the story and put animators up to speed. They called in an animal expert named Jim Fowler and he brought in three lions, male, female and cub, as models for the animators. The animators and directors learned so much about lions from him. As the project kept moving forward, Peter Schneider realized that this African project was more of an experiment than a movie that should be entertaining. He knew that audiences wouldn’t go for something like that.
They had to re-think the story for “King of the Jungle” again. One of the things they thought of was having the spirit of Mufasa visit Simba. They had amazing storyboard artists to do the storyboards. An artist named Chris Sanders was assigned to do the storyboards for the sequence with Mufasa’s spirit. He spent so much time trying to figure out how that scene would look. He would stay at the studio till two in the morning. That scene needed a good reason for Simba to return to his home and take his rightful place as king.
At one point during the project, a lot of the people at Disney were more interested in working on “Pocahontas” than “King of the Jungle” because it sounded more interesting to them about Indians that believe in magic and that made Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff nervous because no one wanted to make their movie. Of course there were some animators who were interested in doing “King of the Jungle” because they loved to draw animals ever since they saw the film, “The Jungle Book” as kids. “King of the Jungle” almost became something serious so they added humor and romance to it.
The ensemble they put together to do the voices of the characters is one of the best. James Earl Jones as Mufasa, Jeremy Irons as Scar, Matthew Broderick as Simba, Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Young Simba, Moira Kelly as Nala, Nathan Lane as Timon, Ernie Sabella as Pumba, Robert Guillaume as Rifili, Rowan Atkinson as Zazu, Whoopie Goldberg as Shenzi, Cheech Marin as Banzai and Jim Cummings as Ed. Both Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff wanted actors that were very unique in there voice performances.
There’s really great dialog in “The Lion King”. Like for example Rifiki helps talk some sense into Simba to go back to his home and take his rightful place as king. Problem is Simba knows he’ll have to face up to what he did in the past and then Rafiki hits him on the head with his stick. Simba asks why he did that and Rifiki says “It doesn’t matter it’s in the past”. Simba says “ya but it still hurts”. Rifiki says “O yes the past can hurt. But the way I see it you can either run from it or learn from it.” Robert Guillaume, who played Rifiki said his line very good in that scene. And the other actors said their lines very good as well through the voice performances.
Everyone in the recording booth thought that James Earl Jones’ voice was so commanding as he was saying his lines. I really like how they mixed the sound of a lions roar and growling with James Earl Jones voice. Like when his character, Mufasa, falls to his death, you hear James Earl Jones screaming “AAAAA!” and you also hear the roar of a lion mixed with it.
Nathan Lane wanted to do the voice of Zazu and Ernie Sabella wanted to do one of the hyenas. Roger Ellers and Rob Minkoff thought that Nathan and Ernie made a great team after they had them audition together. That got them thinking about Nathan and Ernie doing the voices of Timon and Pumba because they work well together.
While they were recording the voices in Los Angeles, Elton John and Tim Rice were writing the songs in London. The first song they wrote was about a cheese sandwich. As time went on they renamed the title of the movie from “King of the Jungle” to “The Lion King”. “King of the Jungle” didn’t make sense because there was no jungle so that’s why they changed the title.
They hired composer Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Trilogy & Interstellar) to do the music score. Hans was a big help for the songs Tim and Elton had written. He supplied background with African vocalists. It was his idea to put the African feel in “Circle of Life”. Hans was friends with Lebo M., a South African composer and he asked him to do this opening chant for a Disney movie about Africa. Hans Zimmer’s music score helps bring a lot of feeling into “The Lion King”.
Elton John didn’t like it when he saw a screen test of “The Lion King” and Timon and Pumba were singing the song, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. Elton John wanted it to sound more romantic. He told Roger and Rob that they ruined the movie. Elton John had always loved the romantic songs that Disney films had in them growing up. “The Lion King" was his chance to write a love song for a Disney movie. So they re-did that scene and made it more romantic. On January 17,1994, the Northridge Earthquake happened in Los Angeles and it was hard for people to get to the studio because the freeway bridges were out. There was also no electricity. They had a few months to finish “The Lion King” and so they finished it up in their garages. When they were able to get back into the studio, the people who worked there would camp out because their homes were destroyed, they had no power or water. Disney was in a huge rush to get everything done on time.
Africa was in the air because Nelson Mandela was elected as President and that made the people at Disney ask themselves if people would want to see a movie about a lion cub who gets framed for murder? But it was already too late because they got everything developed and there was no turning back. They should know that Disney has made several classic animated features that help take people off of reality as they are watching them and show something magical. And “The Lion King” became another hit for Disney and one of the highest grossing movies of all time by making $968.5 million at the box office during 1994. It’s movie with a lot of heart.
My rating on “The Lion King” is five out of five stars.
