Both newly available in multi-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo editions, Dumbo and The Lion King were each developed during one of Disney’s two periods of greatest creative flourishing.
Dumbo came at the height of Disney’s early Golden Age, amid the four towering masterpieces—Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio and Bambi—that laid the foundations for all subsequent Disney feature animation.
The Lion King came at almost the height of the 1990s Disney renaissance, following the early successes of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, and preceding the diminishing returns of Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan and finally Fantasia 2000, which can be regarded as the final nail in the Disney renaissance’s coffin. (See my earlier two-part post on Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.)
Both Dumbo and The Lion King are much beloved, though in my opinion they’re both overrated and comparatively disappointing. Little more than an hour long, Dumbo always struck me as a slight, cruel, unimpressive effort, almost more an anthology of animated shorts than a bona fide feature film, and strangely out of place amid its Golden Age counterparts.
The Lion King, on the other hand, is a self-consciously grandiose and operatic effort clearly striving to be a masterpiece of mythic proportions—but it falls flat, in my opinion, mostly due to a boring, passive, unconflicted protagonist who only acts when he’s told and never thinks for himself. (For more on my heretical views on these films, see my new review of The Lion King and my refurbished review of Dumbo, both with new Product Notes on the latest editions.)
Be that as it may, both films look and sound terrific in the new Blu-ray/DVD editions, and the bonus features on the new Blu-ray/DVD editions offer quite a bit of extra value, so fans won’t be disappointed.
I was particularly interested to learn some more of the back story of Dumbo from a half-hour making-of documentary, “Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo.” I had known that Dumbo was made on the cheap after the financial setbacks of Fantasia and Pinocchio, neither of which were initially box-office successes. What I hadn’t known was that the film was the work of a team of old-school Disney animators who all hailed from the pre-Snow White days and really were short-format animators.
Both editions feature a number of deleted scenes, or sketches for sequences that were never developed, generally illustrating, as such bonus features often do, that deleted sequences were usually deleted for a reason. One of Dumbo’s deleted sequences is a lurid fantasy narrated by Timothy Q. Mouse tracing the elephant’s proverbial fear of mice to a prehistoric time of dinosaur-sized mice terrorizing helpless elephants—like “Pink Elephants on Parade” wasn’t scary enough already!
The Lion King’s deleted sequences includes an icky scene in which Scar, as king of the pridelands, chooses the grown Nala as his queen—an exhausted cliché that takes away Nala’s initiative in fleeing the pridelands to search for food and to find help, since Scar winds up exiling her when she refuses.
It also weakens the film’s naturalism, since a pride comprises a male and a number of females who are all the male’s mates. Understandably, the finished film glosses over this, emphasizing Mufasa’s relationship with Sarabi and Simba’s relationship with Nala as if they were monogamous relationships. Still, I appreciate that the film doesn’t explicitly establish this.
Incidentally, note that we see Nala as a cub with her mother (whom the credits name as Sarafina)—but who is Nala’s father? The only onscreen candidates are Mufasa and Scar. If it’s Mufasa, you’ve got a serious Luke and Leia thing going between Simba and Nala. And if it’s Scar, then that deleted scene becomes much, much more messed up. (According to Allers and Minkoff, a version of this sequence wound up in the stage version; I wonder how it plays there.)
So what do you think? Am I nuts to rate these films so tepidly? Do you think I’m overrating the other films from their respective periods? What are your favorite Disney movies? Your least favorite?
Read more: The Lion King, Dumbo
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Well the Lion King wouldn’t last very long if you were going to point out all the natural inaccuracies (Simba/Nala would be related, a lion wouldn’t be ruling over a bunch of hyenas or make friends with animals of prey, etc.)...but neither would some other Disney movies like Hercules (Zeus is a faithful husband?), or even Aladdin (I’m thinking of the part where the Sultan says something like “Praise Allah!”, and his daughter basically walks around without a real shirt, so they’re probably not devout Muslims). But hey, it’s Disney! :)
The Lion King is my favorite Disney movie for several reasons (my best friend and I loved animals, especially big cats, I love the songs, and I was just the perfect age, about 5 or 6, to be able to pay attention & become attached to the pretty kitties but not so able to critique storylines), but, in terms of storyline, you’re probably right about LK not being as strong as Beauty in the Beast or Aladdin, although I personally always hated the Little Mermaid (“I have so many things! But who cares, I want moooooooooore!”). Being somewhat of a tomboy, I preferred the ones like Pocahontas, Mulan, Aladdin, etc. because the “Disney princesses” actually did something besides just sit there (or lie there, in Sleeping Beauty and Snow White’s cases). Never saw Dumbo, so no opinion on that one.
What makes me hate The Lion King is that the beginning is, as you say, so truly awesome that it brings me to tears. To have it followed by such a lame story is just a crime. Don’t even get me started on Dumbo.
@JG,
Thanks for your comments. I admire your ability to acknowledge that even though The Lion King is your favorite Disney movie, storywise Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin may be better.
I agree with you about preferring heroines who actually do stuff. I wish there were more of them. I’m not crazy about Pocahontas (or P.C.hotas as it’s been called) or Mulan, though. I have problems with The Little Mermaid too, and her rebellious relationship with her overbearing father, but I don’t really mind the “I want more” thing, since what she means is not “I want more stuff” but “Stuff alone isn’t want I want; I want new experiences, a new world.” (The ending is lame too, specifically the defeat of the Sea Witch: lame lame lame lame LAME!)
To clarify, I certainly don’t expect real naturalism from a movie about anthropomorphic lions! I’m fine with the fact that e.g. Mufasa talks to Simba about Simba inheriting Mufasa’s reign, even though in reality Simba would be exiled from the pride on reaching maturity. I’m also fine with the appearance of monogamous relationships between Mufasa and Sarabi on the one hand, and Simba and Nala on the other.
That said, where the film is able to preserve some connection to naturalism, I appreciate that too. I like the fact that the movie openly acknowledges that lions eat gazelles and zebras, even though in the movie the herbivores regard the lions as their sovereigns. I appreciate the frank insectivorousness of Timon and Pumba.
I appreciate, too, that the lions live in a pride with a single dominant male, Mufasa (technically it’s a coalition since there is a second male, Scar) and a group of females, as opposed to fully anthropomorphic nuclear families (Mufasa, Sarabi and Simba; Nala, Sarafina and Mr. Sarafina, etc.). I appreciate the movie’s ambiguity on this front, and the deleted scene between Scar and Nala would have compromised that (as well as introducing the additional problems noted above).
Finally, someone said it! Visually, the begining is so lovely, and everything else goes down hill.
For plot, please. It’s Hamlet with Fangs, without the compelling internal strife or eternal words. Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Timon and Pumba. It would have benefited from allowing for a dose of feigned madness.
@Sherry,
I love your phrase “Hamlet with Fangs, without the compelling internal strife or eternal words.” Did you click through to my review, where I said I was tempted to call it “Hamlet without Hamlet”?
Caveat Lector, it’s from Cracked:
http://www.cracked.com/article_17299_6-famous-characters-you-didnt-know-were-shameless-rip-offs.html
This link shows how Disney ripped off some anime movie from the 80s to create the look of The Lion King:
http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm
(Hahahaha! The captcha thing was “age35” and I am 35 years old!)
When i was little a girl , I love The lion king but Now, i think it was a great movie and good music.
I am between love Aladdin and Beauty and the beast.
Beauty and the Beast was my first and favorite movie because I love the story, the music and Belle.
Aladdin was my second favortive movie because story was great and music was an awsome.
Only thing i Really like about the little mermaid was song of Under of sea. I dont like the story at all.
Someday, If i have kids.. there will be allow watch mulan, beauty and the beast, aladdin and the lion king.
When I first saw The Lion King, the first five minutes had me expecting greatness on par with Beauty and the Beast. It rapidly went downhill from there. Weak story, weak protagonist, average animation and music that ranged from average (when the Elton John songs were left with Elton John-style arrangements) to good (when Hans Zimmer transformed them into something more). Definitely not my favorite.
For what it’s worth, there’s a fan theory that Nala was sent from another pride, which is why Simba was specifically betrothed to her. (I suppose from experience the lions would know something about inbreeding.) Of course, there’s nothing in the movie to support this. Nala’s name, however, means ‘gift’ in Swahili.
I always assumed that the way prides in Disney work is, although the male lion mates all the lionesses, he has a queen, rather like a favorite wife in a harem, whose cub is the heir.
@ Dr. Eric: Same Cracked caveat: Look for the bit with the hyenas. This, um, cracked me up (obscenity/profanity warning).
It’s kind of amusing that you’d say one of The Lion King’s deleted scenes weakens the movie’s “naturalism”, since there’s absolutely nothing naturalistic about the very concept of a “lion king” in the first place. One of my original complaints about the film, to quote the review I wrote at the time, was that, “Where a culturally accurate story would have displayed roving tribes of different animals, parallel to the nomadic humans that roam the Serengeti, The Lion King revolves around a quasi-colonial hierarchy. The antelopes, giraffes, zebras, and other animals who pay homage to the young prince do not seem to mind living under the imperial sway of felines who, by their own admission, feast on the flesh of these lesser beasts.” I saw this film, incidentally, only a few weeks after seeing the IMAX film Africa: The Serengeti (which also featured the voice of James Earl Jones!), so the contrast between “real” lions and Disney’s lions really stood out to me.
@Peter: See my comments in response to JG above.
I think that ‘The Little Mermaid’ could’ve been a better movie if they had kept the REAl ending. i mean, seriously! what lesson does Ariel learn besides ‘If you really really whine a lot, then you’ll eventually get what you want.’ if they had kept the real ending, she would’ve grown up, and made an almost heroic desision. but i’m a contrarian, sooooo, yeah. i’ll stop ranting now.
Steve, I don’t know if this clarifies things, but I certainly don’t mind the fact that the lions in this film are anthropomorphic. The bigger problem, for me, has always been that they are European, and that their culture reflects a European-style monarchy (complete with Rowan Atkinson as a Blackadder-esque courtier)... in a supposedly African story.
Peter: I don’t mind that they’re anthropomorphic either. But to the extent that they retain elements of naturalism, I appreciate that, and so I’m glad that a scene that (among other things) would have compromised those vestiges of naturalism was left on the cutting room floor.
The casting of Mufasa and Sarabi are a pretty formidable exception to the charge that the lions are “European.” Beyond that, the film’s Eurocentric pseudo-Africanity is pretty conventional stuff, from Aladdin to The Mikado. (Mutatis mutandis of course.)
The Eurocentric sensibility is pretty conventional, yes, but when the film first came out, it was touted as the first Disney cartoon to tell a purely non-European (or non-American) story… so the fact that it basically told a European story in an African setting, as opposed to an actual African story, was a disappointment.
The fact that the main character’s parents are voiced by actors of African descent (one via Jamaica, the other via the United States) is certainly interesting, and James Earl Jones in particular makes his presence felt, but I don’t know how “formidable” an exception they are. Ditto the casting of Whoopi Goldberg as one of the villainous hyenas.
Oh, a Cracked link, thanks. It’s not like I have anything better to do tonight ;)
Peter: It sounds like your beef might be more with how the film was “touted” than with the film per se. Since Mufasa is the original Lion King, I think “formidable exception” is a reasonable characterization vis-a-vis the “lions-are-European / European-style monarchy” charge, but if you don’t like the word, I won’t argue about it. :-)
On your Dumbo take, yes I think you’re nuts. One thing I love about it is the depiction of circus clowns—boozing, hairy bums. A quick, almost subliminal peek behind the curtain for the kiddies. In general, I think you overstate the weaknesses and understate the strengths of the movie.
But I still love your reviews!
Hmm, my problem with the Lion King was always that it was a mess of 1970s new-age nonsense and pagan animism. When everyone dances around and worships the sun, you have much larger problems than whether the characters display sufficient agency to move the plot. And why on earth should we care about “naturalism” in a line of movies in which almost all the main characters are talking animals?
Dude, It’s a cartoon. The 5 year olds that are watching it are not wondering about the mating habits of REAL Lions in the wild.
@ Titus: I’ve watched The Lion King numerous times and never noticed any “sun worshiping.” I’ve written about “New Age nonsense” in lots of films, including Disney films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Brother Bear, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here. As regards my comments about naturalism, see my comments in response to JG above.
@ Michael: In the first place, are you implying that cartoons are only for five-year-olds? In the second place, if you think five-year-olds aren’t interested in questions like “Who’s Nala’s papa?” then perhaps you haven’t known enough five-year-olds.
@ Frank Sales: I don’t disagree with you about the portrayal of the clowns.
I completely agree with you on Dumbo; however, I think The Lion King is one of Disney’s best. (David Dicerto pretty much summed up my opinion of it on Reel Faith.) Of the Disney films I remember seeing, Pocahontas is my least favorite, although I did not last for more than half an hour of Hercules, and Brother Bear, which I know I saw, has completely evaporated from my memory.
Steven, I believe that there is a pernicious racism at work in the Lion King. While the King and Queen are voiced by black actors their diction is a study in Shakespearean speaking. The hyenas—portrayed as both stupid and evil—are voiced in the language and diction of America’s urban poor. Specifically, one of the speaking hyenas is voiced by Goldberg and the other by the hispanic actor “Cheech” Marin. Both, it seems to me, deliberately adopt and exaggerate the diction of poor people of color. This suggests that there are black people who can play “lions” because they don’t even sound like the black people we are likely to think of when we think stereotypically about black people, but that the remainder of black and hispanic people are, in fact, properly identified as “hyenas” who must be lead by Scar (voiced by the very English Jeremy Irons) because they are to stupid to act on their own (see the “You won’t get a sniff without me” sung by Scar).
@M.D.M.Haefner: I have to respectfully disagree. Rafiki is voiced by black actor Robert Guillaume, who sounds most like a “poor person of color” and he is supposed to be one of the wisest characters in the film. Disney wanted the hyenas to be funny to mitigate the scariness; therefore, they chose talented comedians, who exaggerated their vocal sounds to be funny. The hyenas are also smart enough to turn on Scar, using his own words against him, “I thought he said we were the enemy.” Finally, James Earl Jones’ voice has a distinctly African sound, even if he has been trained in Shakespearean diction.
@M.D.M.Haefner: Following Evan’s argument above, I’d say if you want to make a case about the sociology of The Lion King, it’s going to be an economic or class-based case, not a racial case. Even then, it’s too complicated.
I can’t imagine what you’re getting at when you suggest that James Earl Jones can play a lion because he doesn’t “sound like the black people we are likely to think of when we think stereotypically about black people”—are you suggesting that “thinking stereotypically about black people” means poor black people? That seems more racist to me than anything in The Lion King.
I think Jones’s voice is redolent with blackness, but in a well-educated upper-class mode. At the same time, Jeremy Irons, who is white, exudes upper-crust British sophistication, yet he’s the villain of the piece. Conversely, Rowan Atkinson plays a similarly whitebread British royal attendant.
Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin bring their respective ethnic speech patterns to the portrayal of poor riffraff hyenas, which could be considered classist—but then, as Evan points out, there’s Robert Guillaume as Rafiki, also doing a very ethnic turn in a wise and enlightened character.
Then you’ve got the Borsht-belt humor of Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella as Timon and Pumbaa. What does that tell you? I don’t know, I’ve lost track.
The Lion King to me was a great film, but it was never my favorite. My favorite was always Beauty and the Beast (especially more so now because I learned more about the film as an adult). But, I do love the music and a good amount of the lines in The Lion King.
There is one thing I must mention because it was something my fiance and I stated after going to see The Lion King in 3D; that now that we are older we see the questions that you are stating, but as kids we never looked at that. When I watch the film, I guess I understood that it was about the animal kingdom with a twist (talking in English and singing), so I never associate the ideas of Nala and Simba being related, because I knew in the animal kingdom it happens especially with Lions.
Dumbo, I liked a lot more than Snow White because Dumbo did not have a very high-pitched voice. The one thing I learned from Dumbo is idea of racism of the time. It is something you really see in Dumbo than in almost any of Disney’s earlier films. I remember re-watching the film and seeing the Crows and instantly thinking, why crows…Jim Crow laws.
I think sometimes we look too critically to films and PC the heck out of them now, but in the end, the goal is to watch the films with your children and if they have question answer them, if they ask about Nala’s father, you in turn have to explain the animal kingdom is different from humans for God created man to be one man and one woman. Plus, parents should just pick when to let their kids see these films maybe when they (kids) are older and such.
But that is my opinion. I hope it makes some sense.
God Bless,
Nikita
PS: One thing I did dislike about the release of The Lion King was it was put in theatre while Beauty and the Beast which was a better film only recieve the release of Blue-Ray/DVD combo pack.
SDG: What’s your opinion on the The Lion King 2?
I share your feelings about both Lion King and dumbo. The Lion King is, of course, particularly dissapointing because of the awesome power of the opening scene and the truly devastating emotional impact of Mufasa’s death. The discussion of the limits of naturalism in an animated movie are truly interesting and its obviously a difficult dynamic - consider the terrible confusion and weak storytelling that results in something like the Madagascar series where the creators actually advocate pescatarianism as the solution to the “evil” of a carnivorous animal eating other mammals!
My favorite film, by far, is Beauty and the Beast. I think it unique in showing character development in all the central characters - even the villian. Now I love a good totally evil villain like Ursula or Malificent (my special favorite) for storytelling, but Gaston is remarkable because he starts out like a simple arrogant buffoon, but will later try to commit an innocent man to an insane asylum and try to murder his romatci rival. I think it’s an excellent reminder of how apparently minor vices and sins can develop into major ones - a concept we seem to have lost in our culture where we tend to view people as naturally good or naturally evil. On a related note, I actually quite like Hunchback almost entirely because of the song/scene “hellfire” which I find incrediby evocative. In Frollo we have a man who has committed many sins, but apparently in the complete conviction that what he is doing is righteous, but know, for the very first time, he is actually recognizes his own impulse as sinful - it’s a moment of great drama - it could be the moment in which he finds conversion and salvation, but instead he ends by denying his own culpability - casting responsibility not only on Esmeralda, but on God himself (“It’s not my fault if in God’s plan he made the devil so much stronger than a man.”)and we later see him quite clearly cast into hell. Finally, I must confess a fondeness for Hercules. I find the “modernized” Greek gods quite hilarious, especially Hades, and enjoy the self aware critique of commercialism. Plus the Hydra is magnificent. However, it’s spoiled for me by that one song, “The Gospel Truth.” Equating Greek myth with the Gospel is deeply problematic and I wonder whether the producers/writers etc were just completely unaware of that problem (perhaps the only association they have with the term gosepl is a musical form)and its sad because it makes me wonder if I could ever show it to my children.
Robin Hood is my favorite Disney movie. Pinocchio is probably a close second and I think Sword in the Stone is the most underrated Disney movie.
Also loved Jungle Book, but could be partial to that one because my father used to read the book to us when I was a young boy.
Steve, no offense but its hard to take you seriously on this. First of all, Dumbo has never been highly rated-if you want to tackle overrated Disney films, why not attack the ones that are omnipresent, like Aladdin (3 spin off movies, a television series) or the ultimate, Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the pooh is probably the ultimate overrated film, a forgettable one that spawned a massive industry, even more so then “The Land Before Time.”
Second, you cannot pull the naturalism card on films that have lions using musical numbers and talking. The 90s Disney films are broadway musicals and should be treated as such. Kind of hard to justify your remarks based on it.
@Twobaglife:
Dumbo currently enjoys a rarefied Tomatometer rating of 97% fresh at RT.
In fact, Dumbo would enjoy a perfect 100% rating, if not for a single C-plus / rotten review—mine. :-D
In 2009 Time called Dumbo “probably Disney’s best all-round picture to date.” The esteemed Dave Kehr (Chicago Reader) called it “one of Disney’s most charming and perfectly proportioned films.” “A film you will never forget,” raved Bosley Crowther (New York Times) back in the day.
At IMDb, over 24,000 users collectively rated Dumbo within fractions of a point of Snow White, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Robin Hood, The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. (All these films are in the 7.x/10 range; Dumbo is 7.4. Even Beauty and the Beast is only an 8.0. The Lion King, at 8.3, is way overrated.)
IMDb.com users rated Dumbo higher than Cinderella, Peter Pan , One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Lilo & Stitch and Bolt, and equivalent to Sleeping Beauty and The Emperor’s New Groove. All of these films, in my opinion, are better than Dumbo.
On naturalism, my comments in the combox in response to JG and Peter Chattaway above must suffice.
No offense taken. Cheers.
I have always thought that there was a scene missing from Lion King. Simba acquiesced to his exile from the other lions because of his sense of guilt. That is, his deep overwhelming guilt and sadness for having killed his father; a guilt and sadness which paralyzed his adolescence.
Simba returned to the lions because Raftiki told him to “put it in the past.” Decidedly hollow advice for someone who is a revered adviser. I am uneasy at this advice, especially since Simba’s mother is still alive. The scene that is missing in the film is the one where Simba faces up to his guilt and seeks out his mother for the purpose of obtaining forgiveness. The weakness of the film is that Simba dealt with his guilt by ignoring it.
I agree that those two movies are overrated, though that doesn’t mean I don’t like them. My thoughts on the Disney Golden Age and Renaissance animated features:
Snow White = bad movie;
Pinocchio = almost a good movie but a major plot hole prevents this;
Fantasia = awesome animation, for the most part;
Dumbo = bad movie (but I feel guilty saying so);
Bambi = excellent unconventional movie;
The Little Mermaid = bad movie;
Beauty and the Beast = phenomenal movie;
Aladdin = good movie but I don’t like the style;
The Lion King = literally spectacular, as in great art but bad storytelling.
You know my problem is this i hate how everyone wants to sit and bash the lion king like it wasnt that good of a movie. They sit there and look at it from an adults perspective when the movie was A CHILDS MOVIE. Even the critics during the time have praised lion king on a number of its things. The thing that kills me is how people try to break it down, with the natural inaccuracies. Talking lions, this is disney majority of their movies have talking animal(mickey mouse,donald duck,the mouse from dumbo, etc.), the weak story, lion king’s story is based off hamlet one of the best plays so how can you say that.
Interesting article. I used to love The Lion King when I was 4 and I even memorized all the characters’ lines at that age! The film felt very, shall I say, memorable especially the supporting characters at that time. I revisited the film a year ago to see if it still holds up well as I had viewed it years ago. It surprised me so much more than even how I viewed The Little Mermaid after revisiting it a few months ago. The film felt, for a Disney Renaissance film, dated. A lot of the characters were cliches save for 2 of Simba’s pals (yeah I love Nathan Lane). The beginning set the tone right for the story but like some commented, the rest of it just felt trite and derivative. It would have been so much more interesting if they made the main characters a little bit edgier, especially Simba. And I used to adore him so much! Interestingly, Toy Story still never fails to captivate me (Pixar is always great at storytelling). TLK isn’t even as daring and innovative (for a kids’ film) as the criminally underrated The Hunchback of Notre Dame. To the post above my main complaint isn’t so much that it is a kids’ film (the 2 I’ve mentioned are also for kids) than it was just very cliched in both character and plot which certainly was a very underwhelming reviewing experience for me.
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