Analysis Of The Lion King

How Film Components Emphasize the Scene

The 1994 film The Lion King is a children’s movie by Disney directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff with the plot almost parallel to Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. The 2009 modern film Hamlet directed by Gregory Doran is a modernization of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. The 2009 film follows the play’s plot very close except for a reorder in some scenes while The Lion King has its characters based on characters in Hamlet. In The Lion King Mufasa is the king of the pride lands and similar to King Hamlet who is killed before the play starts. Both are killed by their brothers. Their ghosts play a role in inspiring Hamlet and Simba to take action and that the person who should be on the throne is them. The

Both take the throne after the king is killed. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are friends of Prince Hamlet in Hamlet and provide comic relief, in The Lion King their equivalents are Timon and Pumba who befriend Simba and help him grow as a character. The protagonists are Hamlet and his equivalent in The Lion King is Simba. Both are sons of the king in both plots and the nephews of the antagonists. After facing hardships both face a predicament for their purpose in life and what their next step is. Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” Soliloquy is similar to Simba’s soliloquy “I can’t go back”. In Hamlet’s soliloquy he is contemplating whether life is worth living anymore and that if death is just a sleep and a dream which is better than living through hardships. Simba is contemplating going back or not to face his past and that being away and alone is better than facing his past. Although Allers and Minkoff’s 1994 film The Lion King and Doran’s 2009 modernization titled Hamlet use different approaches in lighting and camera angles, their choices affect the audiences’ emotions differently and reveal Hamlet’s and Simba’s characters and how their troubled pasts and their reasons of contemplating life