The Lion King Still Hits 32 Years On, and It Is Not the Songs

The Lion King still hits, harder than almost anything Disney has made since, and the songs are not why. The songs are what everybody remembers. They are not the thing that hurts. A video essay on The Lion King (1994), directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, and why it still makes a room go quiet 32 years on when the songs are not the reason. The case runs through Hans Zimmer's score, written as a requiem for his father; the silence after the wildebeest stampede, measured on the disc 13 decibels under the stampede itself; Jeremy Irons' Scar telling a child in the gorge that his father's death is his fault; and a climax that hands Scar his own sentence, run away and never return. Then the best case against: the Elton John and Tim Rice songs, the Broadway musical, Frozen's Let It Go and the 2019 remake that kept every song and lost the feeling, with Moana, Frozen 2 and Beauty and the Beast for comparison. Along the way Nala, Rafiki, Mufasa's ghost and Hakuna Matata are read as parts of one story about guilt. Chapters 0:00 The Room Changed 0:45 The Wrong Shelf 1:29 A Requiem 2:15 Thirteen Decibels 2:59 The Stampede 3:41 The Weapon 4:37 Too Young to See 5:26 A Line Said Twice 6:15 Ask 1994 7:16 Destiny, not Sin 8:03 The Case Against 9:20 Less Face 10:17 Walk Back Guilty 11:13 The Picture, Coming Back More at Cutscene HQ:    / @watch-cutscene   #TheLionKing #LionKing #Disney #VideoEssay #FilmAnalysis