The Lion King

From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia.

The Lion King 1995 VHS cover.

The Lion King (TLK) is an animated movie that was released by Disney in 1994. It is popular in the furry community and is reported by some as their first introduction to the fandom,^{[citation needed]} especially since it was released right at the beginning of widespread public use of the Internet. Many participate in The Lion King MUCK or on one of the other large number of multiplayer worlds inspired by The Lion King. In 2001, Magnwa stated there were "about 10 or 12 TLK mucks out there, some doing better than others. There are about 40 or so private TLK RPG's out there (non forum) that are invite only. There are 40 or 50 or so forums".^[1]

The Lion King is the third movie ever produced by Disney to feature an cast formed entirely of talking animals, after Bambi and Robin Hood.

The movie is part of a three movie series:

The Lion King, released in 1994
Simba's Pride or The Lion King 2, released as a direct to video in 1998 in the US.
The Lion King 1 1/2 (The Lion King 3 in Europe) released as a direct to video in 2004.

1 Controversy
2 Usage of African languages
3 Stage production
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Controversy

There were a few points of controversy with the first movie:

In one scene, Simba flops down into the grass and stirs up some pollen. The pollen hovers in the air of a moment and appears to make a word in the sky before drifting off. Many people claimed they saw 'SEX' as the word, however Disney claims the word is 'SFX' as in 'Special Effects'. While the scene was not modified in the VHS release of the movie, the DVD release has the word darkened out and hardly visible at all.
There are many similarities between the movie and a Japanese anime series called Kimba the White Lion. Originally, The Lion King was to be called King of the Jungle and was to include a white lion as the lead. There are many parallels in characters and story points between the two movies that did make it into the final production. This page goes deeper into the similarities between the two movies, including images of the two.

[edit] Usage of African languages

Although many people believe that the movie takes its inspiration entirely from the Swahili language, all of the songs in the film are written in Zulu (while both are Bantu languages and therefore related^[2]^[3], they are not mutually intelligible). It should be noted, though, that many of the names and phrases in The Lion King are words in Swahili, although other non-African words are used. The most popular of these examples is the phrase Hakuna Matata (lit. "there are no worries").

Swahili Names and their English translations
- Simba - lion
- Sarabi - mirage
- Pumbaa - careless; to be a fool; to be bewildered
- Rafiki - friend
- Banzai - skulk, lurk
- Shenzi - uncouth, savage, demon, barbarous

[edit] Stage production

The Lion King musical stage show is an adapation of The Lion King movie. The stage show uses a combination of masks, puppetry and models to depict the animal characters. All of the costumes are designed to allow the human actors' faces to be seen as well as their animal personas, creating a deliberate duality. The show has been enormously successful, both on Broadway and in London's West End.

Several new songs (many in Zulu) were added for the Broadway production.