The Lion King he will soon continue his journey with a prequelfocusing on the past of Mufasa. It will be the fourth film born from an unprecedented and totally unexpected success than this one Disney classic he met the exact moment he came out into the theater, the June 15, 1994. After thirty years, nothing has changed, Simba, his epic, remains a pivotal moment in the collective imagination, from many points of view perhaps the greatest Disney film of all time, certainly the more complex, more mature, bolder onecapable of teaching a lot and at the same time giving a timeless story.
A success as unexpected as it is unrepeatable
The Lion King it wasn’t supposed to be the main title for the Disney in that time. At the time, manufacturers were mainly focused on Pocahontaswhich had a much higher budget and above all it occupied a large part of the animation team. Disney was sure that the story of the Indian princess would be an epochal success, The Lion King instead it was born from curiosity about the possibility of expanding the tradition of anthropomorphic animals, especially after the release of Oliver & Company. The screenplay was very confusing at the beginning, it was thought of as an almost semi-documentary film, much more connected to the reality of the African ecosystem. It took the imagination of Brenda Chapman to get to grips with it and give the right ideas to Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts and Linda Woolvertonwhich inserted elements of the Shakespearean fiction and of mythologyboth Christian and Greek, in creating what it is, even today, above all one of the greatest coming-of-age films that have ever been conceived. The Lion King today it is above all one of the few Disney Classics to be totally original, not connected in any way to an existing narrative.
It is still incredible today how the film is capable of fascinating with its aesthetics, characters and quality of writingas well as of soundtrack, still today one of the most beloved and iconic in the history of cinema, with the double signature of Hans Zimmer and Elton John. But more than that, The Lion King was a pivotal moment for childhood audiences of the time, that of Millennials. Anyone who was a child then, or a pre-adolescent, has a very precise memory of this film, certainly much more involved than other, albeit very notable, titles of that period, the magnificent Renaissance. The little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdinthey had opened a lush path made of Amazing animationof an absolutely mature and respectful attitude towards his audience. The Lion King everything this took him to the highest levelstelling us about the fear of growing up, of changing, of mourning and lossof guilt and of the assumption of responsibility, as had never even been conceived until then in a Disney animated film.
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We will talk and have talked at length about the supposed links between The Lion King with other works, in particular with Kimba the Lion Bank by Tezuka. It wasn’t the first or last time this controversy arose, but we need to remember that in cinema everything is reworking, rewriting, evolutionnothing is born and nothing dies. The Lion King led to a turning point also for what concerned the representation of animals. Were they anthropomorphic here? Yes, but much less than usualin fact Simba, Mufasa, Timon, Pumbaa, Scar are and remain animals, completely disconnected from the presence of man. Their anatomical study equaled in detail what had been done in his time Bambianother Disney masterpiece, also coincidentally focused on growth, mourning and the fear of adulthood. The Lion King it also sanctioned a novelty regarding the use of Hollywood stars in dubbing. Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Moira Kelly, Rowan Atkinson and Whoopi Goldberg.
These not only gave the voices to the characters, but were a point of reference for the graphic representation. But if The Lion King still today it is in everyone’s hearts, it’s also because he was able to give us an incredible villain. Jeremy Irons can claim a good percentage of the film’s success. His Scar it combined the characteristics of one Stalin and of a Hitler, with those of a King Claudius or Richard III created by Shakespeare. In him we have a very powerful, intimate, pathological symbol of betrayalenvy and at the same time intimate mediocrity, connected to a political vision in which totalitarianism embraces populism. However, Scar is cunning, manipulative, narcissistic and opportunisticsubverts the order guaranteed by Mufasa with chaos, whose killing is today one of the most shocking moments in the history of cinema, preceded by the iconic “Long live the king”. The effect was superior to what films like In search of the enchanted valley or the already mentioned Bambi they have had. That lifeless body around which what in all respects is a child moves, we have never forgotten it.
Between the lines, a great story about how to understand life
Even today, if you ask any member of the millennial generation what their favorite Disney film is, 90% of the time it will be this. The Lion King represents from many points of view the culmination of a journey that began in the 1980s, which he had set the younger audience at the center of the village. Those were the years when animation was centered on a vision that is no longer so banal or obvious and above all paternalistic of childhood and youth. Yet, she still remained in fashion often an often watered down declination of youth, no one had ever turned to the public before to show them the truth. Following the tragic epic of Simba, son of a King, forced to find a new home, childhood audiences for the first time realized a harsh but inescapable truth: Everything would change for them one day. They would have grown up, they would have become adults, they would not have reached “Neverland” together with Peter Pan to remain young forever. The Lion King made him understand that their parents would not stay with them forevernot physically at least.
Faced with this fear, Mufasa responds to Simba by talking to him about the stars, the past, the teachings that will keep him alive. Change is part of lifebut at that age it can also be enormously scary. The Lion King poses as a false alternative, the thrill of a totally disengaged life, the one that the wild couple Timon & Pumbaa offers to Simba. “Without thoughts your life will be / whoever wants will live in freedom”, but ultimately even before meeting Nala, we perceive that for him it is something limited, a golden prison that does not allow him to take flight. All this reached an audience, that of childhood, who up until that point had almost always been talked about remain small forever, children forever, without responsibilities and with great adventures with happy endings, the status quo returning to the past. No sir, Simba has to deal with the guilt of having caused his father’s death, something heavy, painful. Rafiki, wonderful philosophermakes Simba understand that the true, great enemy from which he is running away is simply himself, qthat image reflected on a body of water.
The airliner dedicated to Zootropolis
Customized fuselage and interior for the China Eastern Airlines aircraft that pays homage to an area of the Shanghai Disneyland theme park
Who saw The Lion Kingoften shortly thereafter he had to leave elementary school for middle school, or middle school for high school. Change also means giving up something: friends, companies, lifestyles, interests. Self King Leonand still today it has a special place in the hearts of millions of adults, the same ones who perhaps brought their children to see the disappointing live action, precisely because it made them understand that they didn’t have to be afraid of tomorrow. Adulthood, often described as the end of dreams and fantasy, instead offered possibilities, new worlds to discover, and was above all inevitable. Featuring epic moments and breathtaking beauty, extraordinary visual story worthy of the grandest Hollywoodwas also the story of a fatherhood made of sensitivity and example, not of mere muscularity, of understanding and altruism, The Lion King in fact it guides us from childhood to maturity of a protagonist in whom insecurity and fragility are not an obstacle but reveal themselves in the end a means through which to discover oneself.
The great circle of lifethe metaphor that runs through this incredible treasure chest of images and sounds, Simba who is shown as a child by Rock of the Kingsthe same one from which he will peer into the forbidden horizon, from which he will hurl Scar towards the abyss, reclaim his throne and finally see the birth of his own progeny, is not a simple occasion. Up there is the celebration of life in its essence, there is the reality of everyone’s rites of passage and of the world moving forward. This element, the pillar of the true semantics of this highly spectacular drama, was an exceptional antidote to that extreme individualism, which would later besiege Generation Z. The Millennials were in fact the last to think in collective terms, to feeling part of something higher even if undefined. The Lion King was Disney’s greatest animated film because it treated younger audiences as future adults, and reminded adults what it meant to be young and afraid of tomorrow. After this film, nothing was ever the same, fortunately.
