Do Over: Rewatching The Lion King 17 Years On

“Simba, everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you will need to understand that balance and respect all creatures because we are all connected in the great circle of life.”

A few weeks back, on an intense Disney bender, (it’s like drinking, but you wake up the next morning wrapped in an Aladdin t-shirt that hasn’t fit you since you were six with a banging headache from rewinding and replaying ‘Under the Sea’ in The Little Mermaid a few too many times), The Lion King found its way back into the VCR.

When we were growing up, my younger brother was addicted to two videotapes, worn out from watching. They were The Lion King and, inexplicably, Riverdance. As a result, I saw both more times that was healthy or necessary, but since we grew out of them I haven’t seen either for years.

The usual reactions were queued up. Happy grinning at the antics of Simba and Nala. I think it’s time that you and I arranged a heart to heart. Kings don’t need advice from little hornbills for a start. Ah, classic. Terror when the stampede began. Devastation at the death of Mufasa; straight up bawling when he breathed his last. Childlike joy when Timon and Pumbaa showed up. He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal, he could clear the Savannah after every meal. The songs in Disney films have some of the finest lyrics ever set to music.

It was the ending that galled. I think when I was young I must have assumed that because it was Disney, it had something good to say. But hang on, woah, what? I mean, sure, Scar shouldn’t have masterminded the slaughter of his brother, but just exactly why were the hyenas and the bad brother outcast in the first place? Just because they were a little unsavoury?

I hate to analyse a cartoon, and no doubt Scar was a terrible king who brought down the pride and left the lionesses starving, but in all fairness the uprising probably happened because Mufasa wasn’t such an inclusive king to begin with. Respect all creatures because we are all connected in the great circle of life indeed.

The message in The Lion King is not so awesome, friends. It’s a circle of fail where the haters keep on hating because they’re never shown any kindness. I’m not really entirely sure what was so wrong with Simba’s life with Timon and Pumbaa either, other than the fact that going back to be king was all facing up to his responsibilities and such. There are worse things you can do in life than take up with a meerkat and a warthog and sing about having no worries for the rest of your days. Poor old Simba, those guys were the African plains equivalent of a gap year on an island with a couple of rastas and now he’s stuck married to that all-responsibilities-and-no-fun Nala for the rest of his days, keeping an eye out for insurgent hyenas and checking the levels of chloride down at the watering hole.

If there’s a lesson in this, it’s that you shouldn’t watch movies from when you were little. The disappointment is biting. But let’s not end on a downer, this is still epic: