The Lion King Movies Ranked
Next week Mufasa: The Lion King drops on Disney+. Today I thought I’d rank all five Lion King movies. Yes, there’s five movies. The original animated movies, two direct-to-video sequels, and two live action movies. How do I rank them? Let’s talk about it!
5. The Lion King 1 ½: This feels like one of these Disney cheapquels and Disney trying to put out more content for the sake of content. This is the ultimate example of this idea as they took two fantastic side characters with Timon and Pumbaa and put them front and center. Timon and Pumbaa are designed to be spice characters. They’re characters designed to not be leads but to make scenes better. That’s why they became so popular in the original animated movie. When you take two spice characters and put them front and center it doesn’t work. I wasn’t asking myself about Timon’s family and how he’s treated as the outcast of his family. I wasn’t really asking how Timon and Pumbaa met, these were not questions that I wanted answered. This movie also has the prequel problem of feeling unnecessary and hurting the characters that we love. It’s somewhat amusing to have Timon and Pumbaa be at all of the events in The Lion King but the way they do that feels so forced. Having Pumbaa fart that’s what leads to the animals bowing at Simba during the opening sequence. They tie them into the “I Can’t Wait To Be King” musical number which feels such a lazy way to have a cheap joke. That’s what the movie feels like, a bunch of cheap jokes strung together by a story that we know all where it’s going so it just feels pointless. They make a bunch of pop culture references that kids wouldn’t understand so the humor is a weird mix of low-brow fart jokes and jokes that kids wouldn’t understand. Worst of all, it feels like a Timon and Pumbaa tv show that they converted into a movie. It’s very episodic by nature, you can see where the episode cuts would be. It’s a movie that feels pointless and like Disney trying to make a couple of extra bucks off of a brand that people love.
4. Mufasa: The Lion King: There’s an interesting idea in here about showing the downfall of Mufasa and Scar and what turned Scar evil. But the movie’s execution of this idea didn’t work and was a disappointment all around. Like the 2019 film the CGI here is pretty fantastic. This movie does improve upon the animal designs from that movie because their faces are more human like. They emote much better in this movie so they feel more real and life-like. Mufasa’s arc in the movie was handled pretty well, I really liked what they did and it gave him this character arc. You understand how he turned into the person that we know him to be. Some of the jokes with Timon and Pumbaa in the present time were pretty good. They make some nice pop-culture jokes about the 1994’s legacy. Everything else in the movie just didn’t really work for me. The big problem here is Scar’s transformation and the reasoning. Scar is Disney’s best villain and has this Hamlet inspired dynamic with Mufasa. This movie explores the reasoning and why Scar is jealous. The reasoning they gave is a love triangle. Scar was butt heart over Mufasa getting the girl he wanted. That was so lame to me, I don’t get why they decided that. There’s several different directions they could have taken that, but they chose the lamest one. The songs are written by Lin Manuel-Miranda and they’re not great. Which is weird because I love Hamilton and Moana has some great songs. I don’t know if he had a bad day at the office when he was writing these songs. But none of them are memorable or ones that really stick with you. There’s so much disappointment that lingers with this movie when it comes to the plot, characters, and songs. I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did.
3. The Lion King (2019): This is an interesting movie to exist as when it released it made bonkers amounts of money. I made $1.6 billion at the box office and became the highest grossing animated movie of all time. But, the reviews for the movie weren’t great. People on the internet really didn’t like this movie. Ever since it was released, I haven't heard many people talking about it. It’s just this strange cultural phenomena that quickly disappeared. I’ve never hated this movie the way that it seems some people did. This is pretty much a shot for shot remake of the original animated movie, there’s very few changes made. Therefore, since it sticks close to the source material of the animated film this is an entertaining movie. I don’t think it deserves as much hate as it gets. Is it a bit lifeless with the photorealistic animals? Yes. Does it have the magic and spark of the 1994 animated movie? No. Does it not hold up as well watching it at home compared to the big screen? No. There’s still a lot of entertainment to be had here. The songs are great, they have a fun voice cast. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen at Timon and Pumbaa are great. They get a lot of great laughs and their voices fit the characters so well. The source material has so many big themes and emotions in here that it’s a very interesting story with a clear character arc for Simba. Of course, the CGI is pretty flawless. Say what you will about the movie but there’s not one flawed CGI shot in this movie. It all looks pretty incredible and goes to show just how far technology has come over the years. I don’t think this movie is good, but I don’t think it’s bad. It’s right there in the middle as a fine live action remake that is rewatchable. But if I’m in the mood for this story, I’m 100% going to watch the animated movie.
2. The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride: I’d heard decent things about this movie going into it. People called it a decent sequel and one of the better Disney animated direct to video sequels. Besides that I didn’t know the plot or the new characters. I thought it was fine. It didn’t do anything to offend me but it also didn’t do anything that made me love it. It’s a harmless 90 minutes, I was never bored watching it. Some of the elements of the story I found to be rather interesting. The original took inspiration from Hamlet this movie has pulled from Romeo and Juliet. You get another thematically rich movie that provides some interesting dynamics and arcs. At the beginning, Simba’s daughter, Kiara has similar desires as Simba did when he was young. Both are adventurous and that sets in motion the story. But Kiara doesn’t want to be royalty but Simba did. There’s similarities between their character arcs and their personality but their goals are so different. At the same time at points it does copy the format of the original. There’s a number of moments in the first half of the movie that are basically the original but with some details switched. The backhalf does go in different directions from the original and I appreciated that. You feel the limitations of it being a direct-to-video sequel. Some of the animation in the movie isn’t very good. It felt lazy with the way they did it. I don’t know if the artists were the problem or if when they downloaded the movie it didn’t flow quite right. Either way it looked very cheap at points. Like all of the other movies that aren’t the 1994 or 2019 film, the songs aren’t memorable. I don’t remember a single song from this movie and they don’t serve the story as well. This movie is fine, it’s a harmless continuation that does nothing that makes it stand out. It was better than I expected it to be, but still not very good.
1. The Lion King (1994): This isn’t just one of Disney’s best movies, this isn’t one of the best animated movies of all time, but it’s one of the greatest movies of all time. Rewatching this movie for this ranking just solidified all of my thoughts and feelings on it. The script and story here is so rich and it so clearly pulls inspiration from Hamlet. They use that template and it’s able to provide character moments, fun characters, and emotional depth that makes it stand above the rest. The movie is exploring all of these ideas and themes about legacy and potential in life and it communicates this through Simba’s character arc. One of the songs in the movie describes Simba’s fatal flaw. He sings a song basically saying about how he wants his dad to die so he can be king. His dad does die and he runs from being a king. This causes Simba’s journey and arc to rise to be the king. That’s so profound and such a layered character arc that’s put into a kids movie. The movie is able to tell this sweeping story where we see Simba’s life from a cub to a king. It uses music and Hakuna Matata to showcase that. Not only is this Disney’s best soundtrack they’ve done but it’s also the best use of Disney songs. They aren’t songs that are there just to be there. Each of the songs lets you know something about our characters. Without music they’d have to lecture the audience about Scar’s plan or Simba’s desires. No, they made incredibly memorable songs that move the plot forward in terms of music. It probably helps that Elton John wrote the soundtrack so it’s some of Disney's best songs. The big thing that stuck out to me upon rewatch was Hans Zimmer’s score. I forgot just how epic and awesome this score was. It might be the best animated film score of all time. It’s big and loud and fits the scope of the movie so well. This is a movie that 31 years later still holds up as one of the best animated movies of all time and it’s simply fantastic and a near perfect movie. Without hesitation and with no debate, the 1994 original is #1.
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