The Lion king characters

The Lion King

                     

There are many misconception in the animated movie "The Lion King". The Lion King is a Walt Disney movie that was created in 1994 featuring talking lions in the African Savannah, Tanzania to be more specific [(Small note: In the movie some animals talk(birds,monkeys, lions, hyena) and some others do not(birds, monkeys, lions, hyena) so we don't actually know Walt Disney rules for animal ability to speak]. The story was based mostly on Shakespeare novel "Hamlet " where Hamlet's father king of Denmark was killed and replaced by his uncle. The father's ghost appear to Hamlet and tell him that he was killed by his uncle. Hamlet must then reconquer the kingdom but soon disappears and fall in love in love with Ophelia but his uncle notice the threat and find a way to get rid of his nephew.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The lion king had also stolen some charachters from the 1960s Japanese cartoon Kimba the White Lion.

 Rafiki as the mandrill, Zazu as the bird

                            Kimba the white lion king theme song (featuring the lion cub pursued by hyenas)

                                           

The same rock

Besides the plagiarism, the Lion King movie includes many mistakes regarding lion's behavior and species distribution. It is true that one single male lion can be the ruler of a whole pride but usually a harem is led by two lion brothers and lioness are not genetically connected to those male lions. In their lifetimes, young lions male are chased by the elders and they start a long journey as vagabond, feeding on carcass. Once the lions brothers are mature enough they can engage into battle against other lions of a new harem and if they win, they will automatically kill all the cubs of the harem and impregnate the lioness so the new lion generation will be their own. Those same brothers will be chased by other rebel lions who will exterminate the cub and so on and son. There is no consanguinity problems between the male lions and the females lionesses. In our story Scar and Mufasa should all be the leaders of the group. Scar as portrayed in the movie seem to be a Kalahari lion which are supposed to live thousand miles away southward under the heat of the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa. As mentioned, lion cubs are all offspring of the male lions which would imply that Nala is the daughter of Mufasa. Simba and Nala are therefore both half siblings. Simba was born as an only child it happens but its not that common. 

There are only two cubs in the pride and Simba is the only one that seemed to have some spot during his childhood while Nala has none. In fact Nala is a white lioness. It does not take 3 days for lion cubs to become mature but 3 years. It is true that lion cubs are subject to hyena predation but there was no record of a lion leading a troop of hyenas. The hyenas portrayed in the Lion King are laughing hyenas. when Simba was chased by his uncle Scar from the kingdom , Simba started his life as a nomad. he met two friends Pumbaa and Timon. Pumbaa being a warthog and Timon a meerkat. Meerkats live in groups,it may be the reason why The Lion king 3 emphasized on timon's family and the reason why he became an outlaw. Simba and Nala started their lovemaking, they withdraw from the two outlaws and "reproduced"(even if it wasn't shown in the movie). They mate between 30 and 40 times a day. Don't worry. It's like spending a whole hour watching two lions and the lion jumps on the lioness only twice.

 It actually does happen in the Animal Kingdom, lion couples leave the pride and spend days, week, mating, wandering sometimes without ever eating, watching lazily a the herd of running buffaloes passing by. Simba conquered the lion pride again and became the King. He had one daughter(only child again!) with Nala and this is how the story ends.

The lion kings charachters in real life

Scar

Simba's uncle and Mufasa's brother and murderer: A black-maned Kalahari lion

Scar in real life

Jerboa in real life

Nala

Nala in real life

                                                   

                                                   

Simba:

Simba in real life

                                                       

Rafiki: 

Rafiki whose name means "friend" in Swahili (most of the names in the Lion King are taken from Swahili, one of the official languages in Tanzania). Rafiki is actually a mandrill and not a baboon and mandrills live in Central America so there is no way fro Mandrills to be found in the African savannah with Simba and Mufasa.

     

Rafiki in real life

                                                                     
Zazu: 
Zazu is a calao

Zazu in real life

The hyenas: 
The hyenas of the Lion King are spotted hyenas.

Th hyenas in real life

Timon:
Timon is a meerkat and "Timon" means "he who respect" in Greek.

Timon in real life

                                              
                                           
Pumbaa: Pumbaa is a warthog and "Pumbaa means "foolishness" in Swahili

Pumbaa in real life

Some of the figurants that make a brief appearance: There is few animals featured in the movie because ti would take hours and effort to produce all of them. In cartoons, the background stays the same, only the charachter move and occasionaly the grass and the rock.

Simba's chameleon before the stampede

Three-horned chameleon in real life

Rrrooaaaarhh!!!

Pumbaa's beetle

A rhinoceros beetle

Rhinoceros beetle in real life

Nala approaches

Zazu's underground friend:

A common mole rat

Common mole rat in real life

The flamingos

Flamingos in real life

             

The gnu(wildebeest) stampede:
Wildebeest

Wildebeest stampede in real life

             

The flying birds of the wonderful place
Cattle egrets

Cattle egrets in rea life

The blue birds almost trampled on by the elephants

Guinea fowls in real life

Weird birds on the water:

Marabou storks

Marabous strols in real life

Ajouter une légende

The leaf's carrier ants:

Leaf cutter ants and no, leaf cutter ants do not live in Africa, they are only found in South America

Leaf cutter ants in real life

                                         

Yes, everyone likes the effect of focus and zoom out wow!

The "evil" birds trying to eat Simba:

Vultures

Vultures in real life

Not necessarily an animal, the Rafiki's tree:

A baobab!

Baobab tree

                               

Some Disney logics:

Howcome there was a tree in the canyon's stampede. If the canyon was supposed to be a river during the raining seaszon as portrayed in the end , how could there be a dead tree in the middle of it?

Simba's tree

Logical questions. Why do Scar and later Zira, Kovu, Nuka as well as all the other lions of the adversary group have dark hue? Why do Simba conquest of the lion pride coincided with the arrival of the raining season and the fire produce by lightning to the battle between the hyenas and the lions? In the beginning, they show the African sunset and all animals coming from all corners of Africa from Victoria Falls in Southern Africa(Zimbabwe-Zambia) to Mount Kilimandjaro in East Africa(Tanazania-Kenya). Really , aren't there borders? By the way in what time does the Lion King take place? Isn't the elephant skull too big in the elephant cimetery? How could the two hyenas walk on the tusks? Why are there anteaters when Simba sings hoping to be the future king? Aren't anteater suppose to live in South America? When Simba flees to defeat Scar, what was that desert? I mean the only closer desert is found thousands of miles away in Kalahari or at least in Northern Kenya or Southern Sudan, was Simba fleeing towards Sahara Desert and... or was he fleeing from Southern Africa passing through Kalahari sand dunes?

WALT DISNEY BONUS:

Nemo and Dori in real life:
clownfish and regal tang

Nemo and his father

               

Dori in real life

The Lion King was originally a book. For more information on the book and its origins visit: http://www.lionking.org/

"This is to date on of the most touching part in the Lion King. Simba meets his father. Look at the sky at night and tink about that moment when Mufasa tells his son to remember who he is."

Some funny parody of the Lion King