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The Lion King was once the highest grossing animated film of all-time, and Disney considered it a B-team feature during production. Most of the A-level artists and budget went to Pocahontas, which turned out as one of the worst films the studio produced. Perhaps there’s some justice in The Lion King dominating that film, but I am not entirely sold on it being the greatest film of the Renaissance.
Oh, it is undoubtedly one of the best. Gloriously animated, the film is alive with bright and vivid colors, epic vistas of the African savannahs, a decrepit elephant graveyard, and an overgrown jungle paradise. The Lion King provides a visual feast, a series of locations as mythic and epic as the story it tells.
Essentially Hamlet in Africa, but told with talking animals, The Lion King is perhaps the most mythic and operatic modern Disney film. It borrows liberally from story-telling traditions of the land and monarchy tied together. If the kingdom is prosperous, abundant, and peaceful, then the monarch is beloved and bestowed with the divine. If the kingdom is barren and dying, then a usurper has taken power and corrupted the land with his questionable rule.
A sense of divinity runs throughout. The birth of Simba opens the film, and the entire kingdom comes out to bow before the newborn heir to the throne. A light shines from the heavens to bless the cub, bestowing upon him the right to rule. When he returns to the lands to face his past and claim his birthright, the restoration is immediate. Practically all of Disney’s films operate within fairy tale confines, but The Lion King flirts with the grandeur of Shakespeare and divine myths.
For all of the pathos and dramatics on display, The Lion King is not without its comedic relief. Timon and Pumbaa, a meerkat and warthog, fill in the roles of traditional comedic sidekicks to the hero, playing like Rosencratz and Guildenstern to Simba’s Hamlet. They provide moments of fourth-wall breaking, and lighten the mood when needed. Timon and Pumbaa are part of a larger ensemble of strong, memorable characters.
The best of Disney’s films provide a villain who is pleasing evil and menacing, and Scar, an effete lion with haughty delusions and a jealous streak the size of the Sahara, is all of that. As voiced by Jeremy Irons, Scar is an intellectual who wants the power and the glory of title, but none of the politics and day-to-day tasks. His ego is impressive. But his song has always left me slightly uncomfortable. The vision of hyenas goose-stepping in a children’s film is a bit of cultural iconography appropriation that feels slightly ugly and tone deaf to me.
This points to the major problem with The Lion King – the score is good, but the musical numbers are not. With only two being anything of worth, the rest are just kinda there taking up real estate. “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” is gooey and sappy, “The Circle of Life” is pretty visuals and a plain melody, and “Be Prepared” has another example of a Disney villain caked in green lights and puffs of smoke. Someone should write an essay about this reoccurring visual motif. The only musical numbers that linger in my mind are “Hakuna Matata” and “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King.” “Hakuna Matata” is pure joy, and economically gets us from Simba’s childhood to adulthood through montage. “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” looks like nothing else in the movie, and it’s all the better for it. The backgrounds turn into Mary Blair looking geometric patterns, and Disney once more borrows from the Busby Berkeley playbook to create large patterns moving in unison. (Most versions of the film now contain a segment called “The Morning Report.” Not a lot can be said about it, as I think it was rightly dropped the first time around and its inclusion is unnecessary.)
However, this never takes away heavily from the film. I find the maturity and mythic scope of the film more engrossing and enjoyable than anything else. It’s fun to spend time with these characters, equally moving and frightening, heartbreaking and uplifting. There’s a reason The Lion King is the highest grossing hand-drawn animated film. It’s a story well told, with a game voice cast, and great animation. Yeah, it’s a classic.
