Simba is just beginning to learn the lessons of kingship from his father when Mufasa is cruelly killed in an antelope stampede, thanks to Scar's underhanded trickery. Scar makes Simba think he caused his own father's death, and Simba, fearing Scar will kill him, escapes across the desert like Hamlet leaving the court of Denmark after his uncle killed his father.
In Act Two, a guilt-wracked Simba comes to the SPECIAL WORLD of a lush jungle area where he meets two funny sidekicks, fast-talking meerkat Timon and tubby warthog Pumbaa, the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the piece. To get his mind off his guilt, they teach him the take-it-easy philosophy of "Hakuna Matata" and show him how they live on the jungle's never-ending banquet of bugs. Simba grows into a powerful teen-aged lion and one day has a violent encounter with another lion who was menacing Pumbaa. However it turns out to be Nala, who has grown into a beautiful and powerful young lioness. Their love blossoms in a romantic duet. But Nala is on a mission. She tells him how Scar has tyrannized Pride Rock, enslaved the animals, and tried to take her as his mate. She pleads with him to return and take his rightful place as king. Haunted by his guilt and unsure of his strength, Simba hesitates. Like many heroes, he isn't eager to leave the pleasures of the SPECIAL WORLD. But his father's spirit appears (like the ghost of Hamlet's father in Act One of "Hamlet") and urges him to face his destiny.
In Act Three, Simba shakes off his guilt, returns to Pride Rock, and confronts Scar. A fierce battle breaks out. Simba's "manhood" and right to be king are put to the ultimate test. Simba's ALLIES come to his aid, and Scar falls from power with a touch of poetic justice, echoing the way he allowed Mufasa to fall to his death. Simba takes his father's place and "The Circle of Life" continues.
As the presentation concluded, it wasn't difficult to see the Hero's Journey elements in The Lion King. Simba is a classic hero whose ORDINARY WORLD is that of privilege and the knowledge that he will one day be king. His first CALL is his father's demand that he grow up and face the responsibilities of kingship. Earning the right to rule the land as king is a metaphor for adulthood in many fables and fairy tales. His cockiness and disobedience constitute a REFUSAL OF THE CALL. He receives other CALLS — the temptation to explore the forbidden zone, a call of childhood romance from Nala, and most drastically, the death of his father that calls him to enter a new phase of life in which he has to run away to survive.
'Simba has many MENTORS throughout the story. His father is his first great teacher, showing him the path of kingship and the Circle of Life, but he also learns diplomacy and statecraft from Zazu and something of the magical side of life from Rafiki. In Act Two his MENTORS are Timon and Pumbaa, teaching him their Hakuna Matata lifestyle. At the end of Act Two, Nala comes to teach him about love and responsibility, and his fathers spirit is a supernatural MENTOR encouraging him to face his destiny. In the climax, Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa become his ALLIES against Scar. Nala is also a kind of SHAPESHIFTER from Simba's point of view, changing drastically from a playful cub into a sleek, powerful she-lion, presenting him a face of love but also demanding that he do something to save his domain.
The energy of the SHADOW is manifested in Scar and his underlings, the Jackals. Scar represents the dark side of kingship, totalitarian and compassionless. He can be read as a harsh model of adulthood, in which the early wounds dished out by life have become excuses for jealousy, cynicism, sarcasm, and a victim complex that turns into tyranny when the lifelong victim finally gets power. He is the dark possibilities in our hero, Simba. If Simba doesn't shake off his guilt and take responsibility, he could turn out the same way, a rogue male living bitterly on the fringes, waiting for a weakness to exploit. The Jackals are a lower form of life than the lions, living by scavenging rather than by noble hunting. They are bullies who readily follow the tyrant because they enjoy tormenting his subjects and lording it over them.
Rafiki, the crazy baboon witch doctor, was one of the most interesting characters in the script, combining elements of a MENTOR and a TRICKSTER. In early versions, I felt his function was not clear. He was played for comedy, as a loony fellow who came around to make magical noises but who commanded no respect. The king regarded him as a nuisance and Zazu, the king's bird advisor, shooed him away when he approached the baby Simba. He had little to do in the script after the first scene, and appeared mostly for comic relief, more TRICKSTER than MENTOR.
In the meeting that followed the storyboard presentation, I suggested taking him a little more seriously as a MENTOR. Perhaps Zazu was still suspicious and
would try to run him off, but the more wise and compassionate Mufasa would let him approach the child. I had the impulse to accentuate the ritualistic aspects of the moment, referring to the rituals of baptism and christening, or the coronation ceremonies in which a new king or queen is anointed on the forehead with holy oil. Rafiki would bless the baby lion, perhaps with berry juice or some substance from the jungle. One of the animators said Rafiki already carried a stick with strange gourds tied to it, and came up with the idea of Rafiki cracking open one of the gourds in a mysterious gesture and marking the lion cub with a colorful liquid.
I thought, too, of the presentation rituals in various religions, in which the holy books, images, and artifacts are held up for veneration. I remembered that the Catholic churches I grew up with had stained-glass windows strategically placed to create stunning effects when beams of colored light fell on the altar. It occurred to me that when Rafiki held up the baby lion to show the assembled animals, a beam of sunlight from the clouds could strike the cub, giving the divine stamp of approval to the specialness of this child and to Mufasa's royal line. There was an almost audible crackle of energy in the room at that moment. The image came into several minds at once and I experienced the frisson, the shiver down the back that always tells me when an idea expresses the truth of the story.
One hotly-argued issue at this stage was the matter of Mufasa's death. Some of the animators felt that the graphic depiction of the death of a parent (even an animal parent) was too intense. In the storyboards, Mufasa is trampled to death in an antelope stampede and the young Simba is shown approaching, nudging, and sniffing the corpse, looking for signs of life but finally understanding that his father is dead. Some felt this was too strong for young children.
Others replied that Disney has always shown the dark, tragic, and brutal side of life, and that though the company has often been criticized for it, such scenes are part of the Disney tradition, from the death of Bambi's mother to the death of Old Yeller, the family hound in a movie of the same name. Walt weathered a squall of controversy around Old Yeller's death, and later came to feel that killing off a beloved character was a breach of his contract with the audience. When the question came up on the animated adaptation of The Jungle Book, Walt insisted, "The bear lives!"
In the end, it was decided that The Lion King would confront death directly, and the scene was shot as originally boarded. The arguments that prevailed were that the movie was striving for the realism of a nature documentary, that the audience was used to seeing realistic treatments of animal violence, and that we were making a movie for the entire spectrum of the audience, not just for infants who might be traumatized by the scene. I agreed with this choice, feeling that it was true to the animal world we were trying to depict, but was somewhat disappointed when the movie then strayed from realism in Act Two, with carefree comedy replacing what would have been a desperate struggle to survive.