The Lion King (1994)
Directed by Roger Allers
Young lion prince Simba, eager to one day become king of the Pride Lands, grows up under the watchful eye of his father Mufasa; all the while his villainous uncle Scar conspires to take the throne for himself. Amid betrayal and tragedy, Simba must confront his past and find his rightful place in the Circle of Life.
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13 films that influenced The Lion King
What critics say influenced The Lion King
With an emphasis on character development over plot, the film isn't quite as accessible as some of Disney's more recent efforts; kids raised on plot and gag heavy productions such as Aladdin and The Lion King will likely express confusion at Bambi's relatively docile vibe.
A host of living animals were brought into the studio for this reason, leading some of the animators to complain that it was becoming a bit zoo-like, but the effect is breathtaking: the subtleties of movement and musculature are as close to perfection as imaginable (Disney wouldn't even attempt to create animals this realistic again until The Lion King , more than 50 years later), and the film vies only with Pinocchio as the most technically accomplished work of animation to come from the studio's Golden Age.
Fans of "The Lion King" will recognize similar elements in "Bambi."
In a plot twist unfamiliar to this era of family-values emphasis, the screenplay draws on the same tragic theme expressed in Disney’s 1942 feature “Bambi”: the death of a parent.
Its pitch was simple, and rather peculiar: " Bambi plus Hamlet", and here I was thinking that I was all sorts of clever for spotting a really insane number of parallels between that deer movie and The Lion King, before doing my research for this review.
The death of a parent as a plot device brings to mind Bambi, but mostly this is a film in keeping with the Disney renaissance of the 90s: slick and action-packed, with vain attempts to be seen as 'with it'.
It also pays homage to William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.
Sans scale, I'm left with no less handsome animation, irritating songs, trite pop-culture references, and some ripe symbolism--everybody got up in arms up over a cloud in the movie that dissipates into the word "sex" (yet another subliminal discovery made by people with apparently so little to do, they should be forced into public service), but the parade of hyenas goose-stepping in high Triumph of the Will style passed completely without controversy--to appreciate.
Lane and Sabella, who played together as Nathan Detroit and Harry the Horse in the recent New York revival of Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls," form a completely hysterical team.
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However vacuous, Siegel's questions rupture a dam of nostalgia; Hahn, of course, has to have the last word, veiling a passive-aggressive plug for The Lion King in a toast to the animation giants of yesteryear.
The inspiration for these recent films comes from the earliest feature cartoons created by Walt Disney himself, who in movies like "Dumbo," with the chaining of Mrs. Jumbo, and " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ," with its wicked stepmother, tapped into primal fears and desires.
Nobody remembers this now, but back then, the trades were counting on reunited Silverado collaborators Lawrence Kasdan and Kevin Costner to deliver the sleeper hit of the summer; although back then everybody peripheral to the production tried to pawn the film's failure off on the growing cult of Tombstone worship, the fact is that Wyatt Earp is, if not the most tedious movie ever made, perhaps the second-most.
The striking thing about The Lion King isn’t that this is Disney’s “Jungle Book” meets Hamlet, but how unremittingly bleak and depressing the film would have been if it wasn’t for the comic relief supplied by (a) Scar’s bumbling hyena henchmen (one of whom is voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) and (b) the warthog and meerkat.
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As with so many other films, the idea (the second "officially" original Disney animated feature story after Lady and the Tramp ) was born in the burst of enthusiasm at the end of the 1980s, when the impending release of The Little Mermaid had demonstrated the new management's desire to make good on their promise to return to an era of high-budget animated filmmaking.
We also learn that most of the film's musical talent--John and Rice excepted, of course--came directly from John G. Avildsen's apartheid drama The Power of One.