NPO #13: The Lion King IS Star Wars
Good morning, Ticketholders! You can blame my wandering, caffeinated mind for this one.
Seeing as how Disney's The Lion King came out in 1994 (twenty-four years ago, which makes me, at thirty-four, feel ancient AF for some reason that defies words right now), and Star Wars has been around for at least ten years longer than I have, chances are high that dozens of someones have already thought through this comparison for themselves. But because I'm buzzed on a Salted Caramel Mocha right now, I'm going to talk about it anyway.
The Lion King is basically an animated musical version of Star Wars.
Never mind that both films had incredibly difficult tie-in games on the Super Nintendo, or that both properties are currently owned by Disney, or that James Earl Jones, who voiced Darth Vader (AMISH SPOILER: Luke Skywalker's father) in Star Wars is also the voice of Simba's father, Mufasa, in The Lion King. That fruit is so low-hanging that it's bruised on the bottom.
Let's instead start with the character types. Luke and Simba are both prophesied future leaders of their people and symbols of hope. Leia and Nala are their respective childhood love interests, obviously, with the exception that Leia actually ended up with Han Solo after she found out Luke was her twin brother the whole time. The Hyenas are perhaps a mix of incompetent Storm Troopers with a bit of Empire flunky thrown in. Zazu is kind of a Lando Calrissian/Obi Wan Kenobi character, as he serves as an ally and primary mentor to Simba, but is coerced into being Scar's advisor out of fear. Scar, as the hero's villainous relative, is the obvious Darth Vader/Emperor Palpatine parallel here. Add in that Scar killed Mufasa (Obi Wan tells Luke in the first film that Vader killed Anakin Skywalker--a spiritual, metaphorical half-truth), Scar's revelation to Simba that "I killed Mufasa" mirroring Vader's "No, I am your father" (not to mention Simba's and Luke's similar reactions to their respective revelations) and Scar's and Palpatine's tropishly identical deaths, and the comparison is undeniable. On a more superficial note, Rafiki is Simba's nimble, nonsense-spouting second mentor, and is therefore the Yoda of The Lion King. Timon and Puumba are another pair of hybrid characters. They bicker with each other like C3PO and R2D2, but are also lone wolves like Han Solo and Chewbacca. As for which is which, I'd say Timon is more the C3PO/Han Solo character because he is written as the smarter of the two and has a wise-cracking attitude. This makes Puumba the Chewy/R2D2 of the pair: not as smart as his partner, but hairy, strong, prone to anger when insulted, and able to break into just about anything. They are also, in part, a parallel to Luke's adoptive parents, as both Simba and Luke must, at one point in their respective stories, leave them behind to resume or answer their call to greatness.
I think that covers all of the important characters in both properties, so let's move on to world mechanics. The Circle Of Life seems to be Lion King's answer to the Force (which is also said to be at play in the natural order of its universe), with Mufasa even citing the Circle as being responsible when he presents to Simba as a (Force) ghost in an Obi Wan "use the Force" moment. Not only is the Circle Of Life presented as an integral part of nature, but the African landscape is used as a physical metaphor for the Circle itself (which is circular logic, appropriately enough, but moving on). Mufasa's speech about "everything the light touches" could be taken as a segregationist view of the world where the Pride (White Power allegory?) live in a world of light and luxury and abundant resources while the elephant graveyard ("the shadowy place," in Simba's parlance) is the lifeless ghetto where the hyenas (voiced by Latino and African American actors and actresses) struggle and fight over scraps. But that is a view that has previously been discussed by multiple others in my field of interest whose experience and knowledge of socioeconomics vastly outreach my own, so I'll just stick to how it parallels the Force. The Pridelands, in this case, mirror the Light Side of the Force, as they are home to Simba, Mufasa, and Nala, as well as being a Disneyfied ecosystem of order, law, and relative peace. The elephant graveyard, on the other hand, is a place of death, fear, pain, suffering, and disorder, and symbolizes the Dark Side of the Force. This is further reinforced (repetition and pun not intended) by Scar aligning himself with the Hyenas to usurp Mufasa's throne, as well as Simba passing through the graveyard following his father's death and losing his sense of self when he emerges in the desert on the other side. For this reason, Timon and Puumba are not merely character parallels to the droids and HanChew, they also serve, in a way, as tempter archetypes to effect Simba's surrender of purpose. They don't outright turn him evil, but by introducing him to a life of no responsibilities, they briefly turn him into an absence of good, which, as the saying goes, is how evil triumphs.
Character and environment aside, much of the story similarities between The Lion King and Star Wars can be attributed to the tried and troped heroic journey plot that has existed since man could speak coherently. Luke lost his father prior to A New Hope and had to leave his adoptive family behind, later losing a mentor in Obi Wan, and then losing his father a second time later in the trilogy, all events that changed his perspective of the world and/or led him to begin a journey of some kind. Simba was likewise spurred into his own journey of discovery by Mufasa's death. Gatekeepers and trials frequently mark the path of each protagonist, such as Zazu, the Hyenas, Timon and Puumba, Nala (adult Simba's brief fight with her marks the beginning of his rediscovery of self), Rafiki, and finally, Scar. These characters' Star Wars predecessors have previously been discussed above and their gatekeeper/messenger/trial roles in Luke's story are evident to any fan or scholar of the series (R2D2 serves as an anti-gatekeeper and literal messenger for multiple characters in the series, for example), but other such plot elements for Luke include the cave beast, his own struggles with the Dark Side, the loss of his hand and all that it comes to symbolize for him, various space battles (eg: Hoth and the Death Star), and Emperor Palpatine.
So, in short, despite a few family-friendly deviations (like not including twincest in the plot, for example), The Lion King is basically Star Wars. If you can think of other similarities I missed, please put them in the comments below.
Sean Wilkinson,
Ticketmaster,
out.
Seeing as how Disney's The Lion King came out in 1994 (twenty-four years ago, which makes me, at thirty-four, feel ancient AF for some reason that defies words right now), and Star Wars has been around for at least ten years longer than I have, chances are high that dozens of someones have already thought through this comparison for themselves. But because I'm buzzed on a Salted Caramel Mocha right now, I'm going to talk about it anyway.
The Lion King is basically an animated musical version of Star Wars.
Let's instead start with the character types. Luke and Simba are both prophesied future leaders of their people and symbols of hope. Leia and Nala are their respective childhood love interests, obviously, with the exception that Leia actually ended up with Han Solo after she found out Luke was her twin brother the whole time. The Hyenas are perhaps a mix of incompetent Storm Troopers with a bit of Empire flunky thrown in. Zazu is kind of a Lando Calrissian/Obi Wan Kenobi character, as he serves as an ally and primary mentor to Simba, but is coerced into being Scar's advisor out of fear. Scar, as the hero's villainous relative, is the obvious Darth Vader/Emperor Palpatine parallel here. Add in that Scar killed Mufasa (Obi Wan tells Luke in the first film that Vader killed Anakin Skywalker--a spiritual, metaphorical half-truth), Scar's revelation to Simba that "I killed Mufasa" mirroring Vader's "No, I am your father" (not to mention Simba's and Luke's similar reactions to their respective revelations) and Scar's and Palpatine's tropishly identical deaths, and the comparison is undeniable. On a more superficial note, Rafiki is Simba's nimble, nonsense-spouting second mentor, and is therefore the Yoda of The Lion King. Timon and Puumba are another pair of hybrid characters. They bicker with each other like C3PO and R2D2, but are also lone wolves like Han Solo and Chewbacca. As for which is which, I'd say Timon is more the C3PO/Han Solo character because he is written as the smarter of the two and has a wise-cracking attitude. This makes Puumba the Chewy/R2D2 of the pair: not as smart as his partner, but hairy, strong, prone to anger when insulted, and able to break into just about anything. They are also, in part, a parallel to Luke's adoptive parents, as both Simba and Luke must, at one point in their respective stories, leave them behind to resume or answer their call to greatness.
I think that covers all of the important characters in both properties, so let's move on to world mechanics. The Circle Of Life seems to be Lion King's answer to the Force (which is also said to be at play in the natural order of its universe), with Mufasa even citing the Circle as being responsible when he presents to Simba as a (Force) ghost in an Obi Wan "use the Force" moment. Not only is the Circle Of Life presented as an integral part of nature, but the African landscape is used as a physical metaphor for the Circle itself (which is circular logic, appropriately enough, but moving on). Mufasa's speech about "everything the light touches" could be taken as a segregationist view of the world where the Pride (White Power allegory?) live in a world of light and luxury and abundant resources while the elephant graveyard ("the shadowy place," in Simba's parlance) is the lifeless ghetto where the hyenas (voiced by Latino and African American actors and actresses) struggle and fight over scraps. But that is a view that has previously been discussed by multiple others in my field of interest whose experience and knowledge of socioeconomics vastly outreach my own, so I'll just stick to how it parallels the Force. The Pridelands, in this case, mirror the Light Side of the Force, as they are home to Simba, Mufasa, and Nala, as well as being a Disneyfied ecosystem of order, law, and relative peace. The elephant graveyard, on the other hand, is a place of death, fear, pain, suffering, and disorder, and symbolizes the Dark Side of the Force. This is further reinforced (repetition and pun not intended) by Scar aligning himself with the Hyenas to usurp Mufasa's throne, as well as Simba passing through the graveyard following his father's death and losing his sense of self when he emerges in the desert on the other side. For this reason, Timon and Puumba are not merely character parallels to the droids and HanChew, they also serve, in a way, as tempter archetypes to effect Simba's surrender of purpose. They don't outright turn him evil, but by introducing him to a life of no responsibilities, they briefly turn him into an absence of good, which, as the saying goes, is how evil triumphs.
Character and environment aside, much of the story similarities between The Lion King and Star Wars can be attributed to the tried and troped heroic journey plot that has existed since man could speak coherently. Luke lost his father prior to A New Hope and had to leave his adoptive family behind, later losing a mentor in Obi Wan, and then losing his father a second time later in the trilogy, all events that changed his perspective of the world and/or led him to begin a journey of some kind. Simba was likewise spurred into his own journey of discovery by Mufasa's death. Gatekeepers and trials frequently mark the path of each protagonist, such as Zazu, the Hyenas, Timon and Puumba, Nala (adult Simba's brief fight with her marks the beginning of his rediscovery of self), Rafiki, and finally, Scar. These characters' Star Wars predecessors have previously been discussed above and their gatekeeper/messenger/trial roles in Luke's story are evident to any fan or scholar of the series (R2D2 serves as an anti-gatekeeper and literal messenger for multiple characters in the series, for example), but other such plot elements for Luke include the cave beast, his own struggles with the Dark Side, the loss of his hand and all that it comes to symbolize for him, various space battles (eg: Hoth and the Death Star), and Emperor Palpatine.
So, in short, despite a few family-friendly deviations (like not including twincest in the plot, for example), The Lion King is basically Star Wars. If you can think of other similarities I missed, please put them in the comments below.
Sean Wilkinson,
Ticketmaster,
out.
Comments
Post a Comment