He Just Couldn’t Wait to Be King

It’s odd that I’ve been doing the current incarnation of this site for over seven years now and I still, somehow, haven’t gotten to one of Disney’s biggest animated features. I’m going to blame the remake, 2019’s The Lion King, for this because that film came out and basically sucked all the interest I had out of the concept. That film was a soulless cash grab that somehow went on to make $1.657 Bil at the Box Office, teaching Disney that there’s money to be made from soulless cash grabs. Which is sad because the original, 1994 The Lion King was anything but soulless.

I loved The Lion King when I was a kid. I was 13 when it was released and had already turned against most Disney animated efforts. It didn’t help, of course, that most of Disney’s movies at that point were Disney Princess films, like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Certainly those were good films, and on an objective level I could acknowledge that then (as I do now), but that didn’t mean I wanted to watch them over and over. I was already not a huge fan of musicals, and Disney Princess musicals were on a whole other level that I didn’t really enjoy. Aladdin was good fun, sure, powered by a great turn from Robin Williams, but even then I didn’t really need to hear the songs over and over again.

For whatever reason, despite the musical nature of the film, I really loved The Lion King. I think it was in part the fact that the story had some darker moments that felt like it pushed its character to a more complete story. I don’t think 13-year-old me would have put it in those terms, but that’s certainly a reason why it’s stuck with me over the years. If we look at a film like The Little Mermaid, the story is really, “a girl makes a bad deal so she can have a life she always wanted.” The issue is billed as one where the girl needs to find who she wants to be, except she knows all along. She wants to be human. Her problem is really one of communication, the fact that her father won’t listen to her. Ariel doesn’t really have an arc in her own story; her father, King Triton, does.

I think this is an issue I have with a number of Disney’s efforts during the time period. Yes, they’re artistically stunning – the ballroom sequence in Beauty and the Beast, the lava escape in Aladdin – but the arcs that the characters go on feel rather shallow. Aladdin starts off as a street rat with grand dreams and, sure, he learns that being a street rat isn’t so bad but his adventure barely supports that. Belle falls in love with a beast after she’s kidnapped and imprisoned in his castle. Is he a good guy deep down? That’s debatable, but the fact is that Belle isn’t really the active agent in her own story. She’s the face, but it’s Beast that really has the arc.

I don’t feel the same way, though, about Simba from The Lion King. Looked at from a certain perspective, Simba is a spoiled brat that thinks he should be king simply because he was born into it. His uncle, Scar, feels the same (but, you know, with Scar being the one that should be king). Through his uncle’s machinations Simba is framed for the death of his father, Mufasa, and made to feel like the only solution is to run, to pretend that he’s dead as well, so that no one comes to look for him. Then he goes off and makes new friends free of the potential burden of being king, only to learn that his people need him so they can throw off the tyranny of Scar. Simba has to learn to become the man his father wanted him to be instead of the spoiled king that, in effect, Scar actually has become. There’s depth to that arc that I don’t feel is really in other Disney fare.

And, yes, the film is artistically rich. Coming when it did during the Disney Renaissance, The Lion King is the crowning achievement for Disney’s artistic ambitions, subtly blending in 3D animation into their 2D, hand-crafted output. The sweeping vistas are rendered beautifully all while well-animated, brightly colored characters run, jump, dance, and sing throughout the film. There is a level of craftsmanship here that few other Disney films could match. Its 3D is better integrated than in the films that came before, done in a way that doesn’t feel showy. At the same time, the later works from Disney relied more and more on 3D animation, making the 2D begin to feel like an afterthought. This film had the right blend at the right time, creating a stunning animated movie.

The voice acting also helps the film a lot. Simba is the main character, with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick providing the voices of child and adult Simba respectively, and he’s solid, but I think it’s a lot of the character actors on the side that really flesh out the film. No one is ever going to complain about a James Earl Jones performance, and the gravitas he brought to Mufasa was so strong that they had to bring him back to voice the character again for the 2019 remake. No other voice would do. Rowin Atkinson is fantastic as the erudite Zazu, getting that right needley edge to his voice. Everyone loves Jeremy Irons as Scar, and his performance makes you feel like he’s tasting every word as he says it. And then there’s Nathan Lane as Timon and Ernie Sabella as Pumbaa, Simba’s meerkat and warthog friends, who provide the much needed comedic relief late in the movie. The film wouldn’t be what it is without all these actors (as evidenced by how few of their replacements really worked in the remake).

I don’t even mind the music that much. Certainly “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” is one of the big hits everyone remembers, even if it’s one I could skip on a rewatch if I felt like it. “Haukna Matata” also gets a lot of love, since it’s the fun, transition song that also taught a bunch of white people an African phrase that they then overused far more than they should have. And with Elton John penning “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” that was always going to be a breakout pop hit. Still, “Be Prepared” is the best song on the soundtrack, and I won’t hear otherwise. It’s the best villain song Disney has ever put out, perfectly encapsulating its character and his fearsome vision, all while being a real banger as well.

All of this works to the film’s benefit, but you could say the same for so many other films from Disney, especially after this film came out. Between Aladdin and The Lion King what Disney took away was that they needed a cast chock full of big name stars, one good villain song, and a few visually stunning set pieces and they’d have a surefire hit. They did it a few more times after this film with the likes of Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Tarzan, and while it worked over and over, arguably each time it also felt like diminishing returns. Tarzan has its fans, but does anyone care for that film the same way they love The Long King?

The reason why The Lion King works is because it doesn’t feel like it was engineered to be the “next big Disney hit”. I’m sure the studio put all they could into it, but the formula for what could work was still coming together. That allowed the film to find itself in the process, cohering not around the stars or the song but around the story. Its story is strong, lending its lead character a solid arc, and that feeds into everything else about the film. The movie rises because its story is so good, and all the engineered films that came after failed, deep down, because they lacked the solid story hook needed to keep people invested.

The Lion King was magic, but it was also almost impossible to reproduce. Several other Disney animated films tried, and they couldn’t quite reach the heights of The Lion King. Sequels were made, and they were only marginally successful in their own ways. Only the remake was able to reach the same Box Office blow out levels, and one has to think that’s more because the original was so good and nostalgia was high more than that the remake itself was solid. It wasn’t. It sucked. It lacked the very soul that the animated original had, but the strength of The Lion King still carried it through.

Sure, we have the remake (and its prequel, which… why?), but there’s no replacing the original. Far above everything else Disney has made, before and since, there stands The Lion King, a fantastic film that effectively ruined everything after. Disney might try, but it’s hard to see them every finding this perfect magic again.