The Lion King

Release Date: June 15, 1994

Watch Date: June 9 – June 11, 2023

“Disney’s epic adventure follows the story of Simba, a feisty lion cub who ‘just can’t wait to be king.’ Led astray by his ambitious Uncle Scar, Simba adopts a carefree lifestyle with his hilarious companions, Timon and Pumbaa, and forgets his regal responsibilities. But destiny calls and he must decide when the time is right to return to the Pride Lands and reclaim his place in the ‘Circle of Life.'”

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    Our hundredth movie.

    I mean, when we decided to take the plunge less than half a year ago, I don’t think either of us expected to get nearly as invested as we did in the project, to love it as much, or to have watched as many movies as we did in such a short period of time. Now, a few of these were National Geographic specials, so of course, they haven’t made “The Master List” so we’re still taking our time to fill out “The Top 100”, but still we have technically watched one hundred movies.

    And we knew it was coming, our hundredth, and I don’t think either of us could stand it being a True-Life Adventure from the 1950s. We knew we had to pick something epic, something important. In light of it’s recent live action release, and the fact that we both love it, Bob proposed ‘The Little Mermaid’ but I thought ‘The Lion King’ was just epic enough to earn the spot. As we always do when we can’t agree, we flipped a coin, and ‘The Lion King’ won and here we are, our one hundredth movie.

    This movie was a cast off, a way to feed the masses while Disney worked on it’s next masterpiece – Pocahontas. The plot is Hamlet, but with lions. Disney expected it to do well, but no one expected it to blow Pocahontas out of the water and become the juggernaut that it did. ‘The Circle of Life’, ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ and ‘Hakuna Matata’ are all some of Disney’s most beloved and recognizable songs. ‘Be Prepared’ is one of Disney’s all time best Disney villain songs. The backgrounds are epic, the characters fun, the plot is well thought out and classic – as of course it should be, since it’s Shakespeare. There is a reason ‘The Lion King’ spawned not one, but two, Straight-To-VHS/DVD sequels, and had multiple spin off shows, some coming out in the recent decade. ‘The Lion King’ is a force to be reckoned with, one of the iconic movies from Disney’s Renaissance Era.

    We, of course, had to watch this with our children. This is a family marathon, or we try to make it be so – when we can catch their interest. We set up a blanket fort, made Rice Krispie squares, popped popcorn, created towering confections out of hot chocolate, whip cream and sprinkles. We kept the kids attention for thirty minutes before they went off to do their own thing and demanded all of our attention. And then we got them for another thirty the next day, in a far less austere setting, before they once again wandered off to entertain themselves. For our last attempted viewing we did it early in the morning, only our toddler joined us, and she mostly just wanted to pet the kitties.

    But our children’s lack of interest didn’t change the excitement that we felt, all these years later, as adults, each watching one of our favourite childhood movies. Now, did I watch this film growing up a lot more than Bob did? Absolutely. But did he sing along with the songs, and recite lines along with me? Yes he did. Because ‘The Lion King’ is one of Disney’s most well known classic films for a reason, and that reason is nigh on indescribable. It captures something human, it tells an epic story against an epic backdrop with music performed at a level of intensity that Disney has never been able to capture again.

    If I were forced to come up with a complaint about this movie, my only possible one would be the slow-motion fight scene during the climactic battle. It doesn’t really add anything to it, though I think I understand what they were trying to do. Lions are big animals, and a fight between two full grown, healthy, male lions, is intense. But it’s hard to capture the amount of weight these animals can casually throw around, the strength, in an 2D animated setting, so slowing it down, I think it’s an attempt to make you feel that intensity just a little bit more. I think it falls flat, but I understand the reasoning. If my reasoning is correct.

    All told, the first one hundred movies of this adventure have been…well I can’t say they’ve all be spectacular. But they have all brought us interesting stories, both from the films themselves, and from our own experiences in watching them. We have so, so many more to get through, and I can’t wait to see what the next hundred movies will bring.