Why The Lion King Still Works 32 Years Later

The Lion King opens with a ceremony, not a joke. Rafiki, the mandrill who serves as the kingdom’s shaman and advisor, presents a newborn cub to a gathered crowd of animals. The cub is Simba, son of King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi. It is one of the boldest cold opens in the Disney catalog, and it tells you the film intends to take kingship seriously before it ever asks you to laugh.

Trailer, via Disney UK.

A Cub, a Gorge, and a Stampede

The plot is a revenge story dressed as a family film. Scar, Mufasa’s younger brother, wants the throne. He manipulates young Simba into exploring an elephants’ graveyard beyond the Pride Lands, where Simba and his friend Nala are chased by three spotted hyenas: Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed. Mufasa, alerted by the hornbill Zazu, rescues them.

Then Scar escalates. He lures Simba into a gorge and signals the hyenas to drive a herd of wildebeest into a stampede. Mufasa saves his son, tries to climb out, and Scar throws him into the stampede to his death. Scar then convinces Simba the death was his own fault and tells him to leave and never return. He orders the hyenas to kill the boy. Simba escapes.

That sequence is the film’s spine, and it works because the film withholds little. It shows a child being lied to by the uncle who just murdered his father.

The Voice Cast Does the Heavy Lifting

The directors cast for fit, not fame. James Earl Jones was chosen because they found his voice “powerful” and similar to a lion’s roar. He is the reason Mufasa registers as a king rather than a parent with a deep voice.

Jeremy Irons gets the better assignment. Scar has to be charming enough that the audience enjoys him and cold enough that the gorge scene lands. Irons never plays the villain as a monster. He plays him as a man who thinks he is owed something.

The comic pairing arrived by accident. Nathan Lane auditioned for Zazu and Ernie Sabella for a hyena. The two were starring together in a Broadway production of Guys and Dolls at the time. When they met at the recording studio, the directors asked them to read together as hyenas, loved the chemistry, and cast them as Timon and Pumbaa instead.

Rowan Atkinson nearly turned Zazu down. “Voice work is something I generally had never done and never liked,” he later explained. His friend and fellow Mr. Bean writer Robin Driscoll convinced him to take it.

What the Film Is Actually Built On

The Lion King draws from several sources. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the obvious one: a prince, a murdered father, an uncle on the throne. The Bible is the other. The film wears both lightly, which is why it never feels like homework.

The script went through hands. Linda Woolverton, who wrote Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in 1991, drafted early versions before leaving to prioritize other projects. Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts were hired to revise. The film was conceived during conversations among Disney executives, with several writers submitting early treatments under the title King of the Jungle.

Original director George Scribner envisioned a nature documentary-style film. Roger Allers joined as co-director after working in the story departments of several successful animated Disney films, and Rob Minkoff co-directed the finished version. Scribner departed. The documentary idea did not survive him, and the film is better for it.

The Circle of Life, and What It Costs

Mufasa explains the “circle of life” to Simba as a system that connects all living things. He also tells his son that the great kings of the past watch over them from the night sky, and that he will one day watch over Simba from there. The film means both statements literally.

That is the risk the movie takes. It asks a young audience to sit with real grief, then hands them a philosophy instead of a distraction. Timon and Pumbaa arrive afterward with “Hakuna Matata,” and the relief is genuine, but the film never lets you forget what Simba is avoiding.

The runtime is 89 minutes. That is short, and it is the correct length. There is no subplot the film could lose without losing something it needs.

Where the Film Is Weakest

The hyenas are the thinnest characters in the movie, and the source material shows why. The original intention was to reunite Cheech & Chong. Cheech Marin agreed to voice Banzai, but Tommy Chong was unavailable, so the role was changed into a female hyena, Shenzi, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, who insisted on being in the film.

The result is a trio that works as comic menace and never as anything more. Ed, voiced by Jim Cummings, is a laugh. Shenzi is the only one with authority. Banzai is a punchline. Compared to Scar, they are scenery.

The other soft spot is the film’s treatment of Nala. Moira Kelly voices her, and she gets one strong scene pushing Simba to return. Then the movie hands the climax back to the men.

The Verdict on The Lion King

This is a film that earns its reputation. The animation holds, the music does work the script does not have to, and the central betrayal is staged with more nerve than most live-action dramas aimed at adults.

The film’s tagline promises that “the greatest adventure of all is finding our place in the Circle of Life.” That is marketing, and the movie is smarter than its own tagline. Simba’s problem is not finding a place. It is admitting that he ran from one.

What matters most here is the casting. Jones and Irons carry the film’s two heaviest roles, and the movie collapses without either. Lane and Sabella are the reason the middle act does not sag. Atkinson is a small pleasure in a small part.

What is noise? The production history. The King of the Jungle title, the departed director, the writers who came and went. None of that is on screen, and none of it changes what the film does.

The Lion King is not a perfect movie. It is a confident one, and confidence ages better than polish.

1994 film · animation · Disney · Jeremy Irons · movie review · The Lion King