Little Known Things About "The Lion King"

Monday, Aug 31, 2020, 11:55 am

By:Tony Williams

1.Sarafina

It is common for lines to be cut from movies before the end product, but for Sarafina it ended up being an absolute disaster. Prior to the edit she had a lot of lines, but by the time they were done she was left with just one single line, so what was the point in having her in there?

2.The soundtrack

People did end up falling in love with the soundtrack and that is shown by the sheer number of copies that were sold. More than 10 million albums flew off the shelves and that means that it is the biggest selling soundtrack that has ever been released for an animated movie.

3.Hamlet

OK so this might be stretching your imagination a bit, but did you know that the plot for the movie is ever so loosely based on Hamlet? Clearly you need to be an expert on Hamlet in order to identify the links.

4.You have no idea

Jeremy Irons is fantastic as Scar, but the scene where he utters the line "You have no idea" is just a complete copy of a line he said in an earlier movie. That movie was Reversal of Fortune and it was a movie where he won an Oscar.

5.Rafiki and his singing

At one point Rafiki sings as he goes searching for Simba in the jungle. The lyrics are in Swahili and they translate as "Thank you very much for the squashed banana, you're a baboon, and I'm not"

6.Nala and her banishing

In an earlier version of the script it was decided that Nala would be banished from Pride Rock due to her turning down Scar who wanted to get his freak on with her. That kind of thing would just be a bit too much for the audience to comprehend, so it was dropped.

7.The wildebeest scene

One of the most amazing scenes in the movie is the wildebeest stampede scene. This lasts for just over two minutes, but it took them almost three years just to animate that part. You have to say that it shows real dedication to their art.

8.Puumba

We all love Puumba, but did you know that he was the very first Disney character to ever fart in one of their movies? Clearly the likes of Snow White and Cinderella never did such a thing, but a warthog was fair game.

9.Be prepared

This scene was actually inspired by a rally that was held by Hitler. Now that it has been brought to your attention you will probably look at it now and notice how similar it is.

10.Can You Feel The Love Tonight

This has to be the most famous song from the movie, but at first they actually gave the song to Timon and Puumba. This just looked strange and Elton John hated the fact it was being sung by a warthog, so it was switched back to the lions.

11.Mufasa

James Earl Jones, think about Darth Vadar, is the voice of Mufasa and he does give those deep tones to it. However, he was their second choice because most of the people involved in the movie actually wanted Sean Connery and can you imagine Mufasa with a Scottish accent?

12.It's name

Disney were being a bit silly at first because they came up with the title King of the Jungle. They did of course have to change it when they realized that lions do not actually live in the jungle.

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