Reviewing - The Lion King (1994)
This is the greatest movie of all time.
There is no movie like The Lion King. From the opening second, you know this is not going to be a typical animated film, and as the plot begins to unfold, you learn more and more about the level of mastery that the storytellers have achieved. This is a cinematic masterpiece that pushes the boundaries of film, animation, and family entertainment. It is a story with universal appeal, breathtaking techniques, and masterful execution. What follows is but a glimpse of the picture’s triumph, as we examine the various facets of the 1994 hit that made it the timeless classic that it is.
In case you’re here for a good time and not a long time, here’s the heart of my argument summed up. The Lion King is unequivocally the greatest film of all time because of the following reasons:
The voice actors infuse the story with charisma and depth – and perfectly perform the characters to which they were assigned.
Though The Lion King is a traditionally animated film, the filmmakers integrated complex live-action cinematographic techniques to great effect.
The Lion King is a stunning blend of traditional animation and CGI, taking the best of both to deliver the story with astounding efficacy.
Those who label this as a “kid’s movie” have tragically missed so much of the symbolism and multilayered imagery that Disney’s animators painstakingly wove into the movie.
The award-winning music of The Lion King does more than set a mood or get you tapping your toes – it develops and enhances the themes and ideas of the film like a second storyteller.
The Lion King presents a morally edifying story that tackles themes most ‘kid movies’ would run from, from self-sacrifice to spirituality.
1 - Voice Actors
Mufasa
Let’s start with the voices that bring the characters to life. James Earl Jones is not one but two of the most iconic cinematic fathers of all time – Darth Vader and Mufasa. In this film he lends his signature voice to the King of Pride Rock, providing a deep, rich timbre that rumbles with emotion and authority. There are several points in the film where they simultaneously pair Jones’ own roar with the roar of a real lion: for example, his demand for “Silence!” from the hyenas he’s just defeated is accompanied by a vicious snarl, and it’s terrific. He sounds just as you imagine a lion would sound if it could actually speak. He’s powerful but restrained, wise but far from elderly. There’s a reason they asked Jones to reprise his role for the 2019 remake. It’s hard to imagine anyone else filling such enormous shoes – or rather, such an enormous pawprint.
Scar
Opposing Mufasa is his delightfully wicked brother Scar, played by Jeremy Irons. Again, it’s hard to picture anyone else muttering out Scar’s lines. Irons has an unforgettably dark voice with a hint of a rasp that harshens every word that escapes his lips. He delivers his lines with a subdued and sassy bitterness. He’s sarcastic and dry, but beneath it all he’s brimming with hatred for his brother. The animators really played up the melodramatic aspect of Irons’ performance in his movements and facial expressions, and it’s what makes Scar the kind of villain you love to hate. He’s dripping with overconfidence. Although Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a valiant and spirited performance in the 2019 remake, I have to admit that the personality of the 1994 Scar takes the cake…and crown.
Timon and Pumbaa
Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella are irreplaceable as Timon and Pumbaa, respectively. Lane nails his snarky, laid-back bachelor vibe, and Sabella is…well, he’s Pumbaa. He’s a lovable, bubbly, dim-witted but full-hearted warthog that you can’t help but love. Sabella has reprised his role as Pumbaa countless times in video games, theme park attractions, television shows, direct-to-video movies, and more. You can tell that Sabella has just as much fun voicing Pumbaa as Pumbaa seems to have just living his life. The contrast of Lane’s higher pitch with Sabella’s bumbling timbre work together perfectly. They’re one of the greatest duos in Disney animation. Is there any line Lane delivers more perfectly than, “What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?”
Minor Characters
Many of the other voice actors leave their mark on their characters. Rowan Atkinson’s Zazu is cheeky and classy. Robert Guillaume’s Rafiki is giddy and matter-of-fact with almost every single one of his lines. Madge Sinclair’s Sarabi is composed and compassionate. Then there’s the hyenas: Whoopi Goldberg as a sly Shenzi, Cheech Marin as the ever-hungry Banzai, and the inimitable Jim Cummings as Ed. Even those who have never heard the name of Jim Cummings have certainly heard his voice – he’s provided the voices of Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, the Tasmanian Devil, Dr. Robotnik, and countless other minor roles across his resplendent career. Though Cummings never actually says a word as Ed (his vocal contributions under that character’s names are a series of unintelligible giggles and laughs), he also provides the voice of the Gopher (“news from the underground”, as you may recall) and the singing voice of Scar – sort of. See, what happened was Jeremy Irons was recording for “Be Prepared”, and he thrust out the line “You won’t get a sniff without me!” It’s a terrific delivery – but it was so good that he threw out his voice. Unable to continue on, Jim Cummings stepped in to record the rest of the song. So from that line until the end of the track, it’s Cummings singing. That blew my mind when I first learned about it. First of all, it was insane to think that Winnie The Pooh and Scar were the same person. Secondly, the fact that two different people sang for the same character, and I had never even noticed until it had been pointed out. Jim Cummings is legendary.
Simba
If there’s one casting choice in The Lion King that has been viewed with some skepticism, it would be Matthew Broderick as the starring role of Simba. Some have criticized Broderick’s voice of not being able to carry the dramatic weight of the story in the same way as Irons or Jones did. Immortalized by his role in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, Broderick’s voice was bound to remind people of the lackadaisical attitude he had previously portrayed. He certainly doesn’t sound like a lion. While I agree that Broderick’s performance may not be as iconic as some of the other voice actors’ were, I still think he was a good choice. Broderick’s performance is youthful and inexperienced. He sounds like Simba should – a young man who’s been running from responsibility his whole life. Perhaps if Mufasa had never died, Simba would have grown up to be voiced by Liam Neeson or Morgan Freeman: a voice rich with maturity and self-discipline. But Simba was raised by Timon and Pumbaa, so it makes total sense that his voice would match his upbringing. More than that, Simba sounds like someone who could be your friend. If we’re supposed to see ourselves in film (and we are), then it makes sense to have the protagonist be someone the audience could see themselves in fairly easily. In providing a relaxed, friendly voice through Broderick, I find Simba that much easier to relate to. I’ve never seen myself as Mufasa, though I’ve always wanted to someday be a father with at least half of his gravitas. But I’ve often felt like Simba, someone who struggles with their own failure but ultimately does his best to make things right in the end. I think a lot of us sympathize with Simba in that regard, and that is at least in part thanks to the performance of Matthew Broderick.
A Movie For The World
Beyond the fact that so many of the voice actors nail their performances, the diversity of the voice cast is something to applaud. The Serengeti setting and Zulu chants throughout the film situate this story firmly within Africa, but in a sense this is a story for all cultures and peoples. The locale may be Africa, but this is not a film that focuses on one people group or ethnic setting. The fact that our characters are all animals builds on this idea that it is rather a story about all of us rather than some of us. Young Simba is voiced by a white actor, but his singing voice is a black actor. The hyenas are especially eclectic – Goldberg is African-American, Marin is of Mexican-American descent, and Cummings is Caucasian. I admire and respect Jon Favreau for choosing an almost entirely African-American cast in the 2019 remake. There is no use separating this story from its African heritage. Even so, I love the cultural diversity that is present in the original. The mix of voices from different parts of the world makes this a story for all mankind.
Summed Up: The voice actors infuse the story with charisma and depth – and perfectly perform the characters to which they were assigned.
2 - Cinematography
In strictest terms there is no ‘cinematography’ in The Lion King. Every frame is a static hand-drawn image, not the result of a film camera capturing a moment on a stage or set. There’s no one standing on Pride Rock behind Mufasa and Simba with a boom mic and an anxious director. Obviously you knew that, but I’m saying this draw attention to the fact that Disney’s animators worked so hard to really make it seem that way. I don’t mean that they wanted you to constantly think of this film as a manufactured product – what I mean is that they wanted this to feel like a live-action movie.
How Animation Works
If you’ve ever made one of those little flip-drawings out of your math textbook by putting a stickman or something on the corner of every page and moving it just a little each time (or if you’ve ever tried ‘Flip-O-Rama’ from Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants books), then you understand the bare minimum of how traditional animation works. You draw an image, and then another image that varies slightly, and then another, and so on and so on. When you view these images in rapid succession, it creates an illusion of movement – it tricks your mind into thinking you’re actually only viewing one object in motion instead of many objects in succession. And if you’re one of those people who’s used this trick to make a stickman walking in their textbook or a ball that bounces and then inexplicably explodes, you know that the easiest kind of movement is two-dimensional, just like the images you’re creating. It’s much easier to make the stickman walk from left to right in your book than it is for the stickman to walk from far away to incredibly close. That’s because when the stickman’s walking left-to-right, none of his features need to change in size or shape. All you’re doing is changing the position of those features. Piece of cake.
Moving the stickman closer of further away from the viewer is a bit tougher. You need to make each of the stickman’s features shift in size as well as position, and the change needs to be proportionate. His head needs to get bigger at the same rate as his arms. As well, the speed of change needs to be consistent, otherwise it’ll look weird. If the stickman is far away, walking towards you at a set speed, and then all of a sudden he’s right in front of you without any warning, you’ve probably gotten the consistency part wrong.
Then there’s a level of animation that I find truly incredible – rotating. What’s crazy about trying to pull this off is that you’re effectively converting your two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional figure without ever pulling it off of the page. The way to do this is to gradually remove the left side of your figure and gradually add more to the right side, if you get my meaning. Virtually every aspect of your figure will change in size, position, shape, and proportion all at once – and you still have to remember to keep it at a consistent rate of change. At this point, I imagine many people giving up on the stickman in their textbook and actually trying to give their math homework a shot.
Naturally, you’ll see lots of left-to-right (and vice versa) movements in a traditionally animated film. Granted, you’ll find plenty of those kinds of movement in any film, but it’s particularly in the positioning of the ‘camera’ that you’ll notice this kind of movement in animation. In a live-action film, there’s nothing stopping the cinematographer from swiveling around a character, spiraling from a high-up place to a down-low place, or doing the really cool “dolly zoom” technique. That’s a trick where the cameraman moves towards a character while zooming out, or the other way around. It creates this really cool warped visual effect that directors usually utilize to accentuate a moment of great realization. That said, none of these movements are natural for a traditional animator. Remember, there’s someone sitting at a desk, drawing on a piece of paper. If the camera is their eyeball, it’s always in the same place. It never moves.
The Lion King pushes traditional animation as far as it can with astounding brilliance. Sure, they’ve got characters moving left, right, up, down, closer or farther away from the ‘camera’, or even spinning around. That’s rookie stuff for Disney. Check out some of the amazing things they pulled off that take this film to the next level.
1 - The A-Z Shot
In the opening song Circle of Life, there’s a bunch of shots of various animals on their way to see the new Prince of the Pride Lands. One shot features zebras trotting towards the lower-right corner of the shot in the background, while ants in the foreground go marching one by one along a slim branch towards the upper-right corner. While the zebras are in focus, the ants are blurry, and then as the focus shifts to the ants, the zebras become blurry. There’s no need for something like this to occur in animation – both could certainly be in focus. What the blur does is create an illusion of a ‘rack focus’: a cinematographic term where the camera adjusts its focus based on the depth of field in the shot. Your eyes do the same thing – if you look at your finger up close, you’ll notice everything behind it gets fuzzy. And then, the moment you start looking at whatever is behind your finger, your finger gets fuzzy. The animators certainly didn’t need to replicate this. If everything had stayed in focus, you’d still understand that the ants are up close and the zebras are further away – mainly because we all know that ants are smaller than zebras, but also because the ants are in front of the zebras, implying a closeness to the ‘camera’. But by adding this shift, the shot more closely resembles a traditional cinematic technique and we get a deeper sense of depth. You can naturally sense the distance between these two moving groups because of this technique. This ‘rack focus’ was digitally added, which I think is a really neat animator’s trick.
And by the way, I don’t think it’s an accident that the producers decided to contrast these two specific groups. Sure, there’s the ‘big and small, we’re all part of this world’ idea you get from seeing the ants against the zebras. But it’s also an act of wordplay. Every thing from “A” to “Z” plays a role in the Circle of Life. Clever!
2 - The Money Shot
I call this the money shot because I think it’s one of the most iconic and visually stupendous shots in the entire film. It’s the one where Simba and Mufasa are atop Pride Rock as the sun rises over the Serengeti, and Mufasa is explaining how “A king’s time as ruler rises and falls like the sun.” At the beginning of the shot, we the audience are viewing the father and son from a distance so as to take in the beauty of the sunrise along with them. They are small and in the center of the shot, allowing us to peer over their shoulders at the golden light pouring over the land, bringing it to life again. But then the camera does something insane – we begin to get closer to Simba and Mufasa. Not in a straight line, mind you. No, the ‘camera’ moves left and forward, effectively orbiting the characters as it comes closer and closer. By the end of the shot, we are in front of and below Mufasa, the low angle emphasizing just how mighty and powerful he is compared to his fresh-out-of-the-womb son. It’s a movement of incredible skill. Like we talked about earlier, the animators had to change the size, position, shape, and proportion of Simba and Mufasa in every single frame. The ‘camera’ rotated, dollied, and fell all at once. Again, this kind of shot isn’t something that naturally shows up in traditional animation. It would have been far easier to cut from the opening second of the shot and move to the second major angle where Mufasa is up close and viewed from below. The animators could even have kept the rotation simple by keeping it at the same height in relation to the characters – like spinning a doll atop a Lazy Susan. Choosing to mimic this kind of active camera movement makes the shot feel truly three-dimensional. It adds that much more depth to the landscape Simba is taking in for the first time, and it makes the whole scene feel more fluid and alive. It’s the animators showing off. It’s a move so breathtakingly complex that I can’t imagine a single contributor watching it without smirking at their own brilliance.
3 - The “Oh Shoot I’m Gonna Die” Shot
Simba has just surprised himself at the bottom of a dry and dusty gorge. While practicing his roar, he lets out a snarl that reverberates off of the rock walls – and a moment later, the small stone shards that litter the ground begin to click-clack nervously. Something is causing the entire gorge to quake, and Simba looks up to see a cascade of wildebeest beginning to pour its way down into the valley…directly towards Simba.
We see Simba’s face from a distance. The ‘camera’ is more or less at his eye-level, and it suddenly zooms in with great speed while everything around Simba suddenly seems to swirl and spin. It’s the famous “dolly zoom” technique we mentioned earlier where a cameraman zooms in while moving backward. Alfred Hitchcock was the first one to use it in his 1958 film Vertigo, and it’s been used in other major blockbusters like Steven Spielberg’s Jaws or Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. It’s a visual effect that doesn’t happen naturally with the human eye, so it’s a little disorienting and trippy. The result is a visual interpretation of the feeling of sheer abject horror that has suddenly overcome young Simba. An unimaginable and seemingly insurmountable doom has just appeared out of thin air. This shot not only captures the perfectly designed look on Simba’s face, but it effectively gut-punches the audience with the emotion that the producers were going for. But without a physical camera to make it happen, the animators resorted to a combination of digital and traditional animation techniques to replicate the effect. The result? A shot that every 90s kid remembers just as clearly as if they had seen it yesterday.
Summed Up: Though The Lion King is a traditionally animated film, the filmmakers integrated complex live-action cinematographic techniques to great effect.
3 - Animation
The decade in which The Lion King was released is known by cinema historians as the “Disney Renaissance”, where the entertainment corporation released a series of commercially and critically successful movies back-to-back-to-back. Officially, the Renaissance began with The Little Mermaid in 1989, and continued up until 1999. In that time span, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan all received international acclaim. I mean, The Rescuers Down Under came out as well, but no one really remembers that one. Personally, I collectively view these films as the pinnacle of traditional animation for two main reasons: the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) and the integration of computer generated imagery (CGI). These two developments allowed animators to pull off more vibrant and complex scenes than ever before while still relying on traditional animation as their main storytelling device.
Fully computer-animated films are certainly incredible and beautiful in their own right, Disney’s Moana or Warner Brothers’ The Lego Movie being two notable examples I greatly appreciate. But what’s great about traditional animation is the clarity with which you can see the artistry of the people behind it. Cinemagoers can sometimes attribute a beautiful shot in a CGI film to ‘the graphics system’, ‘camera resolution’, or simply ‘computers’ instead of the actual animators who have slaved over each individual shot. I’ve never found a similar issue when watching traditionally animated films; you’re always aware of the artist’s handiwork because you’re looking right at it and you know that every second of film works out to generally 24 individually drawn images. More than that (and I readily admit that this is a personal preference), I see traditional animation as a very real and personal form of artistic expression. I like that the characters onscreen have been drawn by hand and that those original drawings are locked up somewhere in a Disney vault. I like knowing that the distance between the artist and their creation is only as long as their pencil – that their creation is as concrete and tangible as the artist themselves.
Colour and Light
What makes the Disney Renaissance so special is that it blends the best of both these worlds: the traditional and the computer-generated paths of animation. The Lion King has the personal and tangible feeling of a traditionally animated film, but it is so much more alive than one of Disney’s earlier films. If you compare the use of colour in Disney’s first animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (released in 1937) to The Lion King, it’s impossible to deny the vividness of the colouring in the 1994 flick. The reason for this has to do with the Computer Animation Production System developed by Disney. Back when Snow White was released, every frame had to be coloured in by hand. As if drawing the characters wasn’t enough, the production team had to consistently colour and shade every inch of space on the screen. What CAPS did was allow the production team to assign a certain colour – any colour they wanted – to a specific area onscreen. This made colouring in Simba, for example, extremely easy. It’s kind of like the “paint bucket” button in Photoshop or Paint on your computer; it fills in an entire space with whatever colour you’ve selected. What this means is that the animators are not limited to colours that are cost-effective to produce or quick to insert. More than that, digital colouring can come across as much more clean and consistent than a human hand can pull off. Oh yeah, and shading now becomes way easier than it used to be.
If you look again at those zebras we talked about earlier, you’ll notice that one part of them is coloured in with a darker set of colours, while another part is coloured in with a lighter set. This is a relatively simple animation technique that Disney used to pull off all the time – it makes the subject appear three-dimensional because light is only hitting one side of it. It’s not overly complicated to do this through traditional colouring either.
But look at this rhinoceros in the opening moments of the film. There’s a golden glow on the edges of its horns and on the tip of its visible nostril. That’s the kind of lighting that CAPS made possible. This is used to beautiful effect many times throughout the film, and it either gives us an extra glint of sunlight on the contours of characters, or an extra bit of shadow on their undersides. It’s beautiful.
Pencils and Programming
Do you remember when Belle and the Beast danced in a grand ballroom? Or when Hercules fought the Hydra? Hopefully you recall the scene in Dreamworks Animation’s Prince of Egypt when Moses parted the Red Sea. What I love about each of these scenes (and animation as a whole leading up to the turn of the century) is that they blend traditional animation with computer-generated imagery. While Beauty and the Beast were traditionally animated, the scene around them was CGI. When Mulan took on the entire Hun army in the mountains, the impending horde was in part crafted with CGI. CGI can create an army much quicker than traditional animation, and can more easily pull off complex camera movements like the swooping shots we see while Belle and the Beast dance.
One of the most iconic scenes in The Lion King is the wildebeest stampede, and it is a scene that would not have been possible without the integration of CGI into a traditionally animated environment. While Simba and the gorge he finds himself trapped in are animated the old-fashioned way, the wildebeest thunder in entirely on the strength of what was at the time a relatively untested technique. It took more than two years to create a scene that was only two-and-a-half minutes because the technology was so new. They had to create a few variants of wildebeest digitally, replicate the variants dozens of times, and then figure out how to program the wildebeest to all stampede down into the gorge without running right through each other. The result is a scene that takes your breath away. Without the CGI, the wildebeest would have been next to impossible to animate. The directors would have been faced with either significantly reducing the number of wildebeest or changing the nature of the scene altogether.
The mix of traditional and contemporary animation work together to create a scene that takes your breath away. When the wildebeest begin to pour into the gorge, you feel the same sense of panic that Simba does. The “Oh Shoot I’m Gonna Die” shot that we mentioned earlier packs that much more of a punch because it’s backed up by a visually stupefying onslaught of crazed quadrupeds. It shows the audience how the Disney animation team was at the cutting edge of their trade, utilizing every available tool to tell their story with more efficacy and style. The seamlessness of this blend is further testament to their skill – this isn’t like those times at the movies where you can immediately tell the actor is standing in front of a green screen. The animators married two approaches in such a way that the audience doesn’t even know it’s happening. That’s incredible.
Summed Up: The Lion King is a stunning blend of traditional animation and CGI, taking the best of both to deliver the story with astounding efficacy.
4 - Symbolism
We’ll get to the beauty of the plot itself soon, but there are some moments in The Lion King that demand far more of your attention than simply the amount of time they are on the screen. The most obvious example is the shot where Simba falls into his father’s pawprint, basically looking at the size of the shoes he is expected to fill one day. Though I loathe to use the cliché, it’s the picture worth a thousand words. In this moment, Simba looks at a representation of so much of what he is currently struggling with:
Although Simba wanted to be as powerful as his father in the elephant graveyard, this pawprint is a reminder of how much physical growth Simba still needs to accomplish.
Whereas Simba had recently sung how he just couldn’t wait to be King, he now sees how short he falls morally in comparison to his father.
The words of Mufasa may as well be echoing in Simba’s head here: There’s more to being King than getting your way all the time. Simba thought the world was full of adventure, but he now knows it’s much larger than that, and filled with something else too: fear.
Simba has small feet. Okay, that’s probably not the point.
A shot like that is almost too perfect to even try unpacking. The simplicity and depth of the image evokes an understanding that is practically beyond words. That said, I want to call attention to a few other moments in the film where the storytellers went above and beyond in conveying rich, layered meaning.
Don’t Dawdle, Hurry Up
When Simba runs away from the hyenas after the death of Mufasa, he is becoming bound hand and foot by a strangling lie – that he is responsible for the death of his father. Scar’s deception and wicked advice is what sends Simba running off into the desert. Before reaching the wide-open spaces beyond, Simba desperately crawls through a mess of thorny vines. In the shot where he tumbles and scrambles through the brush, he moves from the left side of the screen to the right.
Fast forward to the fateful meeting of Simba and Rafiki late one night. Rafiki promises Simba that his father is alive and that Rafiki can prove it. Rafiki then runs into a thicket, and Simba finds himself chasing after him. Over roots and under branches, Simba is whipped by the foliage as he tries to close the distance between himself and…well, I suppose Rafiki or Mufasa are both acceptable answers. And therein lies the hidden brilliance of the animators.
Here, Simba runs from the right side of the screen to the left – the opposite direction from his initial thorny scramble. With the thorns as a kid, he was running away from his father, and away from the mistake he thought he had made. Now, Simba is running back towards his father, but he must work through the jungle of deception and self-doubt that started growing ever since Scar planted the first seed. It’s the part of the story where Simba finally confronts the demons of his past, and the storytellers emphasize this by mirroring the scene where it all went wrong. Wow.
The Future Is Littered With Prizes
This one may be a bit more obvious to the casual cinema-goer, even if it may go over most kids’ heads. When Scar sings “Be Prepared”, there’s a bit where he sits atop a high rock while the hyenas march by. Now, hyenas don’t usually march to begin with, but their style of marching is incredible specific to boot. They’re goose-stepping as they sing “It’s great that we’ll soon be connected with a king who’ll be all-time adored”. The goose-step is a stylistic march most notoriously utilized by the Nazi armies of World War II under Hitler’s leadership. Scar, then, is Hitler, and the hyenas are his loyal compatriots. The parallels between the two characters are brought to the forefront of the audience’s mind as the army marches on. Like Hitler, Scar promises a dramatically altered status quo to a nation of outcasts. Germany had been humiliated on a global scale at the end of World War I, and Hitler longed to correct that. The hyenas have been pushed to the outskirts of society, and long to have their chance at the top of the heap. Like Hitler, Scar’s plans for the seizure of power are rooted mainly in his own bitterness against one particular antagonist. For Hitler, it’s the Jews, and for Scar, it’s Mufasa. The Germans (and much of Europe) had little compassion for Jews to begin with, but Hitler villainized the Jews on an increasingly extreme level. In the same way, Scar paints Mufasa as the root of the hyena’s problems, when in reality it is their own greed and inability to live in harmony with others that forces them into isolation. And in the end, both Hitler and Scar pursue their own self-interests instead of remaining loyal to the empires they created. Hitler’s increasingly poor military strategy and his eventual suicide doomed Nazi Germany, and Scar’s ineptitude as King combined with his betrayal of the hyenas make him an intriguing parallel to the German dictator. Most adults who watched The Lion King in its year of release would likely have picked up on this imagery, but for those who missed it the first time around, I hope this increases your appreciation for the film.
Nants Ingonyama Bagithi Baba
Disney has a knack for beginning many of their projects with a visual of a classic storybook opening. You can see this in at least 12 of their short films and 16 of their full-length pictures, not to mention Chicken Little, which openly mocks their own cliché. Though many of their other works begin in varied and interesting ways, there is no film that opens like The Lion King. Putting aside the magnificence of the opening cry uttered by now-legendary musician Lebo M (as hard as that is), just look at how they decided to kick the movie off.
The opening shot shows us a massive yellow sun rising above the African savannah. This one shot accomplishes so much at once. Sure, it shows us that the movie is starting at the beginning of a day in Africa. But look a little deeper. The opening scene that this shot kicks off is set to the song ‘Circle of Life’, just as this massive life-giving circle rises into view. The circular approach that the film takes with ideas of destiny, responsibility, and nature as a whole is symbolized in the opening second. Mufasa literalizes the opening shot’s message when he later tells Simba:
“A king’s time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day, Simba, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new king.”
This particular sunrise coincides with the rise of another son: the dawn heralds the new king’s approach. Truly, it seems like the animals had no other sign to lead them to Pride Rock that moment apart from the new morning. And just as the arrival of the sun brings new light and new life to the world, so too does Simba’s ascension to the throne at the end of the film mark the end of darkness in the Pride Lands. When the son rises, death and waste pass away, making way for new life and new beginnings. The theme that runs through the entire film from beginning to end of the circular nature of the world is introduced right from the get-go in a language beyond words. That’s something to marvel at.
There are many other moments and scenes with multilayered purposes and degrees of depth, and this is what sets The Lion King apart from so many of its competitors. Even as a silent film, the circle of life still shines through, imbuing every second of the audience’s time with powerful images and thought-provoking ideas.
Summed Up: Those who label this as a “kid’s movie” have tragically missed so much of the symbolism and multilayered imagery that Disney’s animators painstakingly wove into the film.
5 - Music and Score
Realistically, I shouldn’t need to take the time to tell you how great the music in The Lion King is. The film won two Golden Globes for ‘Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy’ and ‘Best Original Score’, and two Academy Awards as well for ‘Best Original Score’ and ‘Best Original Song’. It might be hard to guess which song won – there are so many hits in the film that are forever engrained in the minds of the contemporary public; that said, Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” took the top prize home. It’s funny how it’s usually children’s movies that are musicals more often than adult-oriented pictures given the incredible storytelling power of music. Those who think musical films are for kids haven’t seen 2012’s Les Miserables. Think of these lines from Elton John’s song:
Simba: So many things to tell her, but how to make her see? The truth about my past? Impossible. She’d turn away from me.
Nala: He’s holding back – he’s hiding. But what, I can’t decide. Why won’t he be the king I know he is? The king I see inside?
Sure, we could remove the rhyme and rhythm from these lines and turn the scene into one without music:
Simba: I have so many things to tell her, but she’d turn away from me if she knew the truth about my past. I can’t do that.
Nala: He’s holding back something from me, but I can’t decide what it is. Why won’t he be the King I see inside of him?
It just doesn’t hit with the same level of intensity, does it?
There’s something about rhyme and rhythm – about music – that impacts us on a deeper level. Pixar’s film Coco delves into the healing and supernatural power of music. It’s why we sing far more often about love than taxes. It’s because music comes from the heart, not the head. That’s not to say that the head isn’t involved, but there’s a gut thing when it comes to taking in music and appreciating it. There are songs that remind you of places and people, and songs that fill you with emotion no matter how many times you listen to them. The fact that this film utilizes music so effectively is a huge part of why I think it’s the greatest film of all time. There are many incredible films out there that don’t feature musical numbers, and many of them probably wouldn’t feel right if they had (for example, it’s hard for me to picture Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight as a musical). But movies that take full advantage of the power of music in their score and soundtrack stick with you in a different way. What if Star Wars didn’t have its opening theme? What if you never heard the motif of the Shire in Lord of the Rings? What if Beauty and the Beast just had our lovebirds dancing to a wordless waltz?
The Lion King doesn’t just utilize music…it captures it. It subjugates every note in its runtime to the furtherance of the plot and themes. Not a moment of score is wasted. And even though I’m about to try and prove it to you, don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself.
Circle of Life
Come on! How can you not appreciate the wonder and majesty of this song? The song was so good that they used the entire thing as the very first trailer for the film, and the world just about lost its marbles. It’s a song written partially in Zulu, partially in English, about characters with Swahili names. The Zulu opening was performed by Lebo M, who worked with Hans Zimmer for much of the film’s music. The duo actually released a full album titled “Rhythm of the Pride Lands” with all the music they created together that didn’t end up in the film. For “Circle of Life”, it’s said that Elton John received the lyrics for the song and had written the music and recorded a demo in an hour and a half. When Hans Zimmer presented the track to Lebo M, the two began discussing ideas, and then Lebo M spontaneously let out that now-immortal cry that everyone immediately agreed would serve as the opening moment of the film. It’s boggling to think of all the talented artists who had a hand in the creation of this song: Elton John (the superstar), Hans Zimmer (the already-renowned composer), and Tim Rice (the lyricist who had worked on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and multiple musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber). It must have been incredible to be among the first people to hear the demo when the movie was still in production. It’s the song that shaped the tone and scope of the entire film. In fact, when that trailer was first shown with this song, people were so astounded by its magnificence that the production team (who had not yet finished the film) started getting nervous that they’d set their own bar too high in the film’s opening minutes.
We’ve already talked about how the visuals that went with the song have so much layered meaning to them, but let’s look at the music and lyrics itself. “Nants Ingonyama Bagithi Baba”, the opening line, translates to “Here comes a lion, father”. You might think the lyrics are hitting the nail a little too much on the head – but first of all, us non-Zulu speakers wouldn’t have noticed anyway so who cares – and secondly, the moment we hear these lyrics is the moment animals start heading towards Pride Rock. It’s like Lebo M’s voice is the unseen spirit that prompts these creatures to the royal birth. The scene is about the lion that comes as a fulfillment and continuation of the circle that the song sings about. I think that’s pretty cool. And I love the way that they blend voices together – Carmen Twillie’s English verse and chorus are backed by a triumphant Zulu choir. On top of that, what a finish! The song just builds in power and volume as Rafiki thrusts Simba into the air, and then with an authoritative thundering drum hit, the song ends. It closes as dramatically as it opened. Wow, what a song. There’s really no arguing its significance here – who could say “Nah” to something this powerful?
I Just Can’t Wait To Be King
This may be just me, but I’ve always noticed that the opening riff of this song sounds very familiar to the opening riff of “Under The Sea” from The Little Mermaid. If you play them back to back the similarities become fairly apparent – to me, at least. What’s great about this song has almost as much to do with the animated delivery of the music as it does with the music itself. When Simba bursts into song, the rest of the world bursts right along with him – an intensely vibrant colour scheme enveloping every rock, tree, and creature the moment the young prince opens his mouth. The stunningly lifelike elephants from “Circle of Life” loosen up with a bit more cartoon-flavoured fun as their skin changes from grey to deep red, and brilliant patterns zig-zag their way across plants, waters, and skies. It’s a zany tonal shift but it’s so much fun you can’t help but roll with it.
There’s more than a few clever moments in this song, but I thought I’d point out when Simba says “I’m gonna be the main event” while showing off a fake lion’s mane made from red leaves. There’s also a little joke when Zazu says “This child is getting wildly out of wing” – because as a bird he can’t really say “out of hand”. But what I really love about the song is how it gives us more than just a happy Disney-fun moment. It’s a song that shows us how young Simba is and how much he has to learn about what it really means to be king:
“No one saying ‘do this’! No one saying ‘be there’! No one saying ‘stop that’! No one saying ‘see here’! Free to run around all day! Free to do it all my way!”
At this point, Simba thinks being King is gonna be all fun and games. He hasn’t yet had the talk from Mufasa where his father tells him, “Being brave doesn’t mean you go looking for trouble.” It’s this song and this mindset that Simba needs to grow from over the course of the film. This song isn’t a musical number squeezed in for music’s sake – it’s a setup that makes the climax of Simba ascending the throne that much more effective. When Simba’s finally king, he knows it’s not about the fact that he doesn’t take orders from anyone. It’s about the kingdom that needs a righteous ruler. Being king isn’t freedom but self-sacrifice to something more important than oneself. And they set up this emotional finish with a bumping and toe-tapping tune.
Hans Zimmer’s Score
Instead of spending time going into the brilliance of the other tracks from the film (and boy, would that be an easy way to kill some time), I thought I’d close this section off with drawing attention to the genius of Hans Zimmer’s score that permeates the film. This is a composer who knows how to move you to tears with just a few quiet instruments just as well as he knows how to rattle you to your core with empathic drums. There’ve been several releases and re-releases of the score that Zimmer put together, but if you want the full experience, you’ll want to look up Walt Disney Records’ Legacy Collection edition of The Lion King. There’s some great motifs Zimmer uses to great effect – a motif being a musical melody you hear more than once in a film - not the least of which being the motif you hear when Simba ascends Pride Rock to take his place at King. You hear that piece of music several times over the course of the film, but here, Hans Zimmer gives it everything he’s got. The rain’s coming down, the drums are pounding, the choir sings triumphantly, the trumpets roar, and the crescendo of the entire film comes to that one magical moment where Simba lets out a fearless and triumphant roar.
Another motif can be heard in the track “We Are All Connected” – which pairs with the scene where Mufasa tells Simba all about the Circle of Life and his future responsibility as King. We hear a somber motif here that is played again in “Mufasa Dies”...you know...when Mufasa dies. The effect of this is that just when the reality of the King’s death settles in, we are reminded musically of the very theme Mufasa warned Simba about. “When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass,” he says at the very moment the score foreshadows his own death. COME ON! Brilliant! And then – get this – we hear it one more time right before Simba ascends the throne. He’s learned the lessons his father has taught him, and with that musical motif – with that lesson of life and death – now firmly rooted in his mind, he’s ready to become King. This isn’t just music to set the mood – this is music that ITSELF is part of the story.
Summed Up: The award-winning music of The Lion King does more than set a mood or get you tapping your toes – it develops and enhances the themes and ideas of the film like a second storyteller.
6 - The Story
We’ve talked about the voice actors, the cinematography, the animation (and the symbolism they incorporated into that animation), and the musical numbers / score of the film. All of these are vitally important to proving my argument that The Lion King is unquestionably the greatest film of all time. But none of these are in and of themselves – or even combined – sufficient to make a film that really stands apart from the competition. All of these aspects of the film are there to service something greater; at the end of the day, if you don’t have a good story, you don’t have anything. Movies are just one medium of many for the oldest and most immortal of all human traditions: storytelling. Storytelling makes us human. We’ll flock to Broadway, the movie theatre, opera houses, school auditoriums, libraries and bookstores, our television screens, or even the newspaper (if we’re really desperate) just to hear a good story. And though the question of “what makes a good story” is really hard to answer, I want to bring attention to some aspects of this particular story that I think deserve praise.
Remember Who You Are
The Lion King is a bildungsroman – a fancy term for a ‘coming-of-age’ story where a protagonist struggles with growing up before typically being accepted into society in a moment of self-actualization. This is a kind of story that is relatable to everyone from the get-go. We all know what it’s like to struggle with finding our place in ‘the circle of life’. Many (if not all) of us can relate to the wide-eyed innocence of Simba’s childhood, the world-shaking sobriety of a traumatic event, and hopefully the memory of a day where we overcame a significant obstacle to become in one sense or another the person we were born to be. And if you’re not yet at that third stage, you’re likely very consciously working towards it. If you haven’t grown up yet, you soon will (and if you haven’t grown up yet, I applaud you for reading this much about a film that was released long before you were born).
More than being a story where it’s easy for most people to situate themselves within it, The Lion King takes a clear step in a morally praiseworthy direction within its bildungsroman framework. Within a bildungsroman or any other kind of story, there can be multiple morals or ‘big ideas’ tied to it. That said, there tends to be one moral that stands above the rest as the central theme. There are growing-up stories where the protagonist rejects the society of their youth, or where they chart their own course by leaving behind the small town they were raised in. The big idea in these kinds of stories might be something like ‘You’ll find yourself when you leave your broken past behind’. There’s a time and place for these kinds of stories and they’re not necessarily poor in moral quality (though I find many tend to be). But what’s great about the moral of The Lion King is that it’s all about stepping up to a greater level of responsibility and believing in something bigger than yourself. Simba has gotten what he’d always wanted in the throne, but that’s not the point. The point is that he’s fulfilling his role as a part of society by sacrificing his own desires to a greater good. Because Simba gave up his ‘Hakuna Matata’, it means that so many others can have it. It’s a moral of self-actualization through self-sacrifice, and that’s something this world sorely needs. We’re shown through countless commercials and far too many Hollywood films that self-actualization / finding yourself comes through getting something that you want, or having an unforgettable experience. Simba’s story teaches us that you find yourself when you give yourself away. That’s something that I need to remember.
The Past Can Hurt
This is one of the most obvious lessons that The Lion King tries to teach, and it teaches it in a funny and memorable way when Rafiki whacks Simba over the head with a big stick.
Simba: Ow! Geez! What was that for? Rafiki: It doesn’t matter! It’s in the past! Simba: Yeah, but it still hurts. Rafiki: Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it you can either run from it – or – learn from it.
Timon gives us the antithesis of this message when he says “When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world.” This is actually a message that gets drilled into us on a regular basis. It’s the groundwork for any great revenge story or action hero movie – John Wick being a great example. But while a movie where Keanu Reeves blows up half the city because of one guy killing his dog may be fun, it’s not exactly a film that will or should edify us morally. A movie that tells us to learn and grow from our past is a movie that’s preparing us for the real world, and that’s exactly what Rafiki does for us in this scene. What’s more, he does it in a way that’s easy to remember and visualize. Think about all the sermons or lectures you’ve been to in your life. How many of them can you remember? I’d wager that more than 90% of them are absolutely lost. But effective visual presentations stick with us, and so do times where we get knocked in the head by monkeys with sticks.
The Great Kings Of The Past
The Lion King taps into something that we all have encountered in our lives: spirituality. Religion is the butt of many jokes as far as Hollywood is concerned. How many times have you seen the hypocritical or corrupted preacher cliché before, or the snarky cynical character who gets painted as intelligent for never having believed in God? For every faith-affirming Captain America Hollywood gives us (“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that”), we get ten cynical Sherlock Holmes-es (“Contrast is God’s own plan to enhance the beauty of His creation. Or it would be if God were not a ludicrous fantasy designed to provide a career opportunity for the family idiot”). Yet the place of faith in our lives is by no means a small or insignificant one. More than 80% of the world believes in some sort of higher power. You may not believe in the same higher power as me, but there’s still some definite thematic similarities between the different faith groups. I certainly don’t mean to argue that all religions are the same. My point is that when The Lion King discusses ideas of afterlife and an eternal significance to our actions, the film is striking a chord that should ring true to far more people than Sherlock Holmes would care to admit. And that kind of near-universal appeal isn’t something we should take lightly.
Even if you don’t believe in the “Great Kings of the Past” that Mufasa talks about, the idea of believing in a universal law beyond yourself is still a morally laudable idea that The Lion King puts forward. Some things are always right (like courage) and some things are always wrong (like cannibalism). When we believe that, we start getting the foundation for a healthy and beautiful society. And if you are a believer in something like I am – I was raised a Christian and still practice my faith regularly – then this film has even more poignance. Take the fateful meeting of Simba and the ghost of his father, for example. With the swirling clouds, the rich deep voice, and the call to action, there’s little doubt that the production team meant Mufasa to symbolize God in some way. When we view him as God and view Simba as a prodigal son, their conversation takes on a deeply layered purpose
Mufasa: You have forgotten who you are, and so, forgotten me.
Instead of bringing Simba to the ‘sin’ of his past, Mufasa forces Simba to examine himself in the here and now. Right now, Simba isn't being who he's supposed to be. It reminds me a lot of Moses and the Burning Bush, which makes sense given that the film’s producers admitted to drawing from the biblical stories of Moses and Joseph when putting the story together. Like Mufasa neglecting to address Simba’s misunderstanding of how he died, God in the Bible doesn't address the fact when he starts speaking that Moses had killed a guy earlier on in the story. He doesn't even address it! Instead, God says "Bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt". Both Simba and Moses respond the exact same way. For Simba, it's "How can I go back?" For Moses, it's "Who am I that I should go to Pharoah?" Don't you know what I've done? Don't you know how broken I am? How can you use me?
But Mufasa doesn’t worry about Simba’s ‘sin’ the way Simba does. Instead, he says, “Remember who you are. You are my son.” Mufasa is calling Simba to assume his rightful place by remembering that he is a child of the King. His relation to the father above gives him purpose in the world below, just as our faith in God is the thing that gives us identity. If you’re a creation of God, that means you have a job to do. And if you’re the son of the king like Simba is, the same is just as true.
What Mook Made That Up?
What’s great about including themes and discussions of spirituality in this film is that the producers weren’t hesitant to admit that not everyone believes in this sort of thing. Look at this abbreviated exchange from the film:
Pumbaa: Timon? Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there? Timon: They’re fireflies that got stuck up on that big, bluish-black thing. Pumbaa: Simba, what do you think? Simba: Well, somebody once told me that the great kings of the past are up there watching over us. Timon and Pumbaa: *hysterical laughter* Timon: Who told you something like that? What mook made that up?
Simba has to deal with insult and mocking from his two closest friends in the world for bringing up a belief in the faith he was taught by the most important person in his life. And though it wasn’t necessarily meant by Timon and Pumbaa to hurt, it cuts Simba on a deeply personal level. Faith is something that’s hard to talk about. You can face ridicule for bringing it up – even if it’s the only thing that keeps you going. And for that, I love that they included this little moment in the film. Your faith may be the most important thing in the world to you, but you will be made fun of for it. But this film shows us that this doesn’t make our faith not worthwhile and it certainly doesn’t make the object of our faith untrue.
This movie, like nearly all movies, is trying to entertain you. But this film does something that few attempt: it teaches and edifies you. It talks about deeply important issues, and invites you to believe in something. There’s a heartfelt, earnest, and vulnerable honesty in that kind of storytelling. When you tell a story like this, you run the risk of being made fun of for being too sappy, sentimental, or cheesy. But that doesn’t mean your story isn’t worthwhile.
This Is Not A Kid’s Movie
“The important thing is the family,” Walt Disney once said. “If you can keep the family together – and that’s the backbone of our whole business, catering to families – that’s what we hope to do.” Walt didn’t set out to make kid’s movies. He set out to make family movies, and there’s an important difference there. Consider the inception of Disneyland, for example. One day, Walt was sitting on a bench watching his daughters ride a carousel at an amusement park. He noted how there wasn’t much for him to do with his daughters, and that the overall atmosphere was a bit on the dingy and run-down side. He made Disneyland to fix this problem: a place where parents could have fun with their kids in a clean and magical environment. He took a similar approach with his films, working hard to ensure that parents would get just as much out of his work as kids would. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is a kid’s movie. You know this because it ends with a pop-infused dance fight where Dracula plays positive vibes to defeat a Kraken. Captain Underpants is a kid’s movie, and I shouldn’t have to defend that further than presenting the film’s title. To lump a film like The Lion King into the same genre as these other films is a hakuna ma-travesty. Are there fart jokes in The Lion King? Yes. A helping of physical comedy? You bet. But this is also a film where a son watches his father die, where a mother is attacked by her late husband’s brother, and where a cub becomes a lion after a spirit descends from the sky to tell him he’s forgotten his place. It’s a movie about what it’s actually like to be a grown-up. It’s about what putting others before yourself means when you’re in a position of authority. Obviously kids can enjoy this film, but to say this movie is just for kids is like saying ketchup only goes on fries.
Summed Up: The Lion King presents a morally edifying story that tackles themes most ‘kid movies’ would run from, from self-sacrifice to spirituality.
In Conclusion
I made an admittedly outrageous claim way back at the start of this piece: I claimed that 1994’s The Lion King was the greatest movie of all time. Outrageous as that claim may be, I believe it. The movie is enjoyable for all ages, which gives it an advantage over other favourites of mine that are decidedly not kid-friendly (as masterful as Lord of the Rings is, it’s too long and too scary for younger audiences). For a movie to be the greatest of all time, it stands to reason that it would be enjoyable by the greatest number of people, and an all-ages film certainly fits that description. The Lion King tells its story with award-winning songs and score, created by musical titans like Elton John and Hans Zimmer. Its voice actors delve deeply into the personas of their characters, bringing out rich characterizations and enhancing the overall themes of the story. The film blends traditional animation with the cutting-edge CGI of its time, resulting in a narrative world alive with movement and artistic splendour. It takes its place as a masterpiece of cinematography by the way the animators pushed their technology and techniques to new limits. Each of these aspects are more than enough to make The Lion King a great film. What makes this movie truly remarkable is the way that each of these facets of the film work together to bring a deeply resonant and moving story to life within the hearts of its audience. And even further, it’s not just a fun story that comes to life. It’s a story that makes those who engage with it better people. It teaches us to be courageous and selfless. It teaches us that our time is short and we are all connected to each other. It teaches us that we are not simply flesh and blood but pieces of an intricate global puzzle.
The Lion King is probably not your favourite movie, and for all the work I’ve done, I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t wholly convinced that it is the greatest movie of all time. But if in reading this you’ve seen something that you hadn’t noticed before about the film, then honestly, that’s enough for me. If a 25 year old movie can still surprise you, then that’s pretty cool, and I don’t mind leaving it at that. And if you ever sit down to watch the film yourself again, let me know if you spot something neat about it. I spot something new myself almost every single time.
So until you find your place on the path unwinding, I wish you no worries for the rest of your days. But if you're one of the few who can't yet find a thing to like about my favourite movie, all I have to say is "Asante Sana, Squash Banana".
To hear what I thought of the Broadway musical, click here.
To hear what I thought of the 2019 remake, click here.
To find out if there's anything else I care about besides The Lion King, click here.