I was bothered by one structural element in Act One — the excursion to the scary Elephant's Graveyard. Instinctively I felt that though it was a good scene, it was in the wrong place. It was a dark visit to the country of death, and it felt more appropriate as the stage for an Act Two ordeal. Act One was already heavily weighted with the death of Simba's father, and I felt the Elephant's Graveyard sequence both made the first act too long and overwhelmed it with death energy. I suggested saving the Graveyard location as an INMOST CAVE for an Act Two central crisis of death and rebirth, and replacing the Act One scene with some other transgression by Simba that tests his father's patience, but with a lighter, less morbid tone. This bit of advice was not taken and who can say if it would have made any difference.
I do feel, however, that the movie is weakened by the turn it takes in Act Two. The almost photographic realism of the Act One animal scenes is replaced with a more old-fashioned Disney cartoon style, especially the comic rendering of Timon and Pumbaa. Simba is a growing carnivore and there is nothing realistic about him subsisting on a diet of bugs. I feel the movie missed a big chance to follow through on the promise of the first act with a realistic series of TESTS, leading to a life-threatening ORDEAL near the midpoint. Someone should have been teaching Simba real survival skills, how to stalk his prey, how to hunt, how to fight for what is his. I offered a range of possibilities. Timon and Pumbaa could teach him, he could meet another lion to teach him survival skills, or Rafiki could appear to carry on the teaching of Mufasa. I advocated creating a scene where Simba is truly tested, a real ORDEAL in which he discovers his mature power in a battle with a crocodile, a water buffalo, a leopard, or some other formidable foe.
The development of Simba from a scared little cub into a jaunty teen-aged lion is handled too quickly, in my opinion, with a few quick dissolves of him growing older as he crosses a log bridge. A montage of scenes of him learning to hunt, first comically and then with greater assurance, would have been more effective storytelling. Timon and Pumbaa add much-needed comic relief to the story, but fail to dramatize the stages of Simba's development, the individual lessons that he has to learn. They teach him how to kick back and enjoy life, but they don't give him what he really needs. The lessons learned in Act Two (be laid back, relax, enjoy life, don't stress out, be scoundrelly and a little gross, recognize love when you find it) don't prepare Simba for the ORDEAL he must ultimately face.
Meanwhile I felt there was more work for Rafiki to do in this story. I wanted him to be more like Merlin, an experienced wise man who had perhaps been the king's counselor at one time, who pretends to be crazy so he can appear harmless to the usurper, and who is charged with looking after the young prince as he grows up in obscurity, training him for the moment when he's ready to take his rightful throne. I advocated weaving him into Act Two as a MENTOR who accompanies Simba into the SPECIAL WORLD and does a MENTOR'S function — giving the hero something needed to complete the journey and outface death. Rafiki was needed to teach real survival lessons that Timon and Pumbaa failed to impart. I envisioned Rafiki showing up soon after Simba arrived in the SPECIAL WORLD, and that he would guide Simba through a series of escalating tests that prepared him for his ultimate showdown with Scar. Of course Timon and Pumbaa would still be there as welcome comic relief.
The character of Rafiki grew significantly through the rest of the development process. The animators ended up making him a true MENTOR, a gruff Zen master who gives Simba tough advice and hard knocks, but also the gift of inspiration, guiding him to the vision of his father's spirit. He wasn't as active or present as I would have liked, although a couple of brief scenes were added in the first half of Act Two. Rafiki witnesses the devastation of Pride Rock by Scar and, thinking Simba is dead, sadly smears a drawing of him on a cave wall. Later, Rafiki's shamanic powers tell him that Simba is still alive and, after adding an adult lion's mane to the rock drawing, he sets out to summon the young hero to his destiny.
Rafiki really comes into action at the end of Act Two as he takes Simba on a vision quest that has elements of a CALL and REFUSAL, and an ORDEAL in which Simba has an encounter with death (the ghost of his father) and wins a REWARD in the form of enhanced self-confidence and determination.
The encounter with the father's ghost is another borrowing from "Hamlet," although in Shakespeare the young hero encounters his father's ghost in Act One. It made for a powerful scene in The Lion King, although one that small children sometimes find confusing. When I saw the film I heard children in the audience ask their parents questions like "Wasn't he dead before?" and "Is he back alive again?" The appearance of the ghostly father is dramatic and emotionally moving, but it plays mostly on the verbal and intellectual level. Simba gets encouraging advice, but the lessons are not dramatized as tests. The teaching of Rafiki is more satisfyingly concrete and physical — the baboon shaman raps him on the head to teach him a lesson about putting his mistakes in the past.
At the time of the storyboard presentation, the details of Simba's return to Pride Rock had not been worked out. We discussed many options. Simba could leave the SPECIAL WORLD with Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa, agreeing to face Scar together. Simba and Nala could go together, after having a parting of the ways with Timon and Pumbaa, who might show up later having had a change of heart. The final decision was to have Simba go off alone during the night, leaving Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa to wake up and find him gone the next morning. Rafiki tells them Simba has gone to take his rightful place, and they hurry to join him.
Act Three marches swiftly to the climactic battle, although it feels somewhat weighted down by Simba's lingering guilt over his belief that he caused his father's death. Scar dredges it up again, hoping to turn the lions against Simba by getting him to admit his responsibility for his father's death. I felt the writers played too heavily on this note, making the story seem turgid and overly melodramatic, and turning Simba into an angst-ridden modern protagonist, more appropriate to a novel than to an animated film about animals. However, it does provide a RESURRECTION moment in which Simba passes a final test by accepting responsibility for his father's death instead of running from it.
The Lion King can be faulted for giving center stage to the male characters and relatively little energy to the females. Nala is fairly well developed but Simba's mother is underutilized and passive. She could have been more significant in training Simba in Act One and resisting Scar in Act Two. This imbalance is addressed in Julie Taymore's stage version of The Lion King, which gives more weight and action to female characters, and which makes Rafiki a female shaman.
There was considerable suspense around the release of The Lion King. None of us in the production knew how the film would play for the audience. The Disney animated films had been climbing in popularity with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and many wondered if The Lion King would fail to top them. To everyone's relief, it performed even better, becoming the most successful animated film to date, and the most profitable motion picture in history. Why? Partly because people were delighted by the animation of the animals and the exuberant, African-flavored music, but also thanks to the universal power of the Hero's Journey patterns in its story. The challenge of growing up and claiming your rightful place in the world is a classic Hero's Journey motif that naturally struck something deep in many people. The familiar rhythms of the Journey were not the only principles guiding The Lion King — in fact, at times, they were outweighed by other concerns like low comedy and sheer fun — but I can say that this is one case where they were applied consciously to make the work more accessible to a broad audience and more dramatically satisfying.