The Lion King

Okay, okay, first off I want to say that I have seen The Lion King an unreasonable number of times since it came out when I was 6. In no way do I dislike this film. However, it's always fun to observe in-discrepancies, even in your favourite things.

From the get-go, I think we need to observe the fact that one of the most beloved characters in this film is a baboon. Baboons, in case you're not aware, are fucking TERRIFYING (Don't believe me? Check here). Through no amount of cartoonification can I be convinced that Rafiki is going to do anything other than rip my face off with his terrifyingly large canine teeth and then perhaps rub his big gross butt on me. In the film, they made it a nice, non-offensive blue-ish colour. In reality, a baboon's butt is not only a frightening shade of bright red, but also disgustingly lumpy and weird. (Look!)

The version I have has a new song added to it called "The Morning Report" which replaced the scene where Simba pounces on Zazu. This new addition straight up sucks for a number of reason. For one, the song isn't even good and is only like 30 seconds long. For another, the original scene was better because it showed a major bonding moment between Simba and Mufasa as he taught him how to hunt. In its place is a bizarre attempt to cut together various parts without having to bring the original voice actors back in.

Moving on, can we address that Simba and Nala are in an arranged marriage? Sure, it works out in the end because they fall in love or whatever, but what if it hadn't? What the fuck are we teaching children? "Okay, so maybe you don't love this guy, but you should marry him anyway because he's going to be the freaking king." Okay, maybe that IS a good lesson for young girls. I'm sure she could find herself a manstress on the side.

As a young child I thought to myself "How does Zazu know that the Rhino sitting on him is female?" The answer has become perfectly clear to me and the only response I can muster is "Ew."

Watching this film through adult eyes is a very strange thing. You realize that in one scene, Mr.Bean is preventing Randy Taylor from being eaten by Cheech and Guinan.

All the lions have these well-thought-out African names. In fact, I think "Simba" means "Lion" in Swahili and "Mufasa" means "king". Scar, on the other hand, has a very poorly-written Bond-villain-esque name that seems to have come directly out of exhaustion. "Fuck this, I am too tired to think of a good name for this character. Let's draw a scar on his face and name him Scar." Also, how did he end up so lanky? They chalk it up to him missing out on the "brute strength" gene. In real life, however, this probably means he's underfed. I like to think it is as a result of him being rude to the huntresses and them being like "Fuck you, dick, you can't have any of the zebra carcass."

Now, we ALL love Timon and Pumba, but the fact remains that no matter how you slice it, Timon is kind of a dick. He takes credit for Pumba's ideas and tells him that he's stupid and smelly all the time. That's really not a healthy relationship by any means. Hey kids! Do you want to be like one of your favourite film characters? Just undermine your overweight friend until they submit to you and you'll be able to ride them everywhere! and all this is even if we disregard my feelings on the topic of subjecting children to bad puns.

I really can't get into how many insects and grubs a lion cub would have to eat on a daily basis in order to reach a healthy level of protein and taurine, but I'm only 20% serious about that. What I AM serious about is the fact that Johnathan Taylor Thomas grew up to be fucking Ferris Bueller. This frightens me.

On to the "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" scene: I know you guys haven't seen each other in a long time and were childhood friends or whatever. And yes, I get that you're falling in love, but aren't your people in another land slowly dying of starvation? Is this REALLY the ideal time to be flirting and throwing yourselves into ponds on ropes? Come on!

This part where Rafiki shows up to show Simba the error of his ways reminds me of something. A young guy meets an eccentric old dude in a jungle area and the old man shows him his true potential and that his father isn't really dead after all - in some way or another. (Oh, and his father is voiced by James Earle Jones). I get the feeling we're suddenly in the Dagobah System.

So when he sees his father's ghost or whatever the fuck, he is like "Look, Simba, I know you're happy in your perfect paradise life, but you're going to have to deal with the fact that isn't good enough. Go fucking get your shit together and be king, otherwise you don't love me." Seriously. Mufasa essentially tells him that if he doesn't go be king, he has forgotten his father. Pretty intense shit. I mean, I guess some lives are in the balance or whatever, but don't you think his dad would want him to be happy? Not when his dad is secretly Darth Vader and also the dude who says "If you build it, they will come." While we're on that subject, how did the father have such a deep, intense voice and the son gets stuck with Matthew Broderick's pubescent squeal? Simba's mother has a deeper voice than him. Maybe it's all the grubs.

I don't have much else to say except that you should check out the slo-mo fight between Simba and Scar. It gets pretty comical, there, for a moment or two "Aaah! You lion pawed me in the face!" "I am leaping through flames to defeat you"

Lessons learned: Don't fuck with the king of the lions, even if you think he's dead; don't fuck with the king of the lions even if you know he's dead, because he'll help somehow; make friends with baboons because they won't murder you, but will, instead, be very friendly and can fight like Bruce Lee.