The
lion King
The
featured animated film gives life to animals with human characteristics. While
doing its best to maintain all natural scenes, the artist fails to maintain the
laws of physics in order to entertain or to illustrate a more dramatic effect.
It does so by inaccurate arc of motion, and unexplainable events are cause by
improbable actions. The Lion King movie, my favorite, is a children’s musical
classic filled with beautiful music and entertaining characters. This film was
released in 1994 by Walt Disney’s Pictures and produced by Walt Disney’s
Feature Animation.
The
award winning film focuses on Simba, a lion next in line to be king after his
father Mufasa. When Simba is fooled to believe his uncle of murdering his own
father, he relinquishes his home at Pride rock and lives in exile. After
leaving, he befriends a Meer cat and a hog who care for him and teach him their way of life after he is found
passed out from dehydration as a young cub. Simba, then, finds himself meeting
a former lioness friend from the past who has told him that he was thought dead
amongst the others and how he is needed
to defend the land that belongs to him, which has become empty, dry, and ugly.
Simba becomes convinced that he must return to save his land from his uncle
Scar and in the process finds out Scar’s nefarious actions. Scar admits to
killing Mufasa, his brother, and the battle begins.
Throughout
the movie, Walt Disney does a good job in keeping the physics elements in mind and
it is seen throughout the movie. However, there are scenes in the movie in
which the world that Simba lives in, breaks the rules of gravity, paths of
action, and improbable arc motion: One scene from the movie in which the laws
are defined is when the bird Zazu, Mufasas wing man, is caught by the hyenas at
the dead elephant’s graveyard. The hyenas being more playful than harmful put him
in a crater filled with lava AKA the “birdie boiler” at the moment. When the
pressure from the birdie boiler reaches its maximum it sends the bird flying
through the air and out of the frame. The direction that the bird followed was
not ordinary. Rather than reaching its apex and falling back down, the director
add more effect on the scene by having turn a slight direction towards the left
side and out of the frame to indicate that zazu has been thrown so high up in
the air and out of sight. There was fire in his trail up into the abyss as if
indicating that he was some type of rocket. When forced into the air, he is
neither flying nor given any type of implementation that that was what he
wanted to do. With that being said, the director portrayed the idea that this
small boiler was the only entity that pushed him through the air.
In addition, one of the most iconic scenes of
the lion king of Scar and his nephew uses improbable arc motion. Scar and Simba
have been fighting back in forth when Scar manages to throw Simba onto the
ground at Pride Rock. At this moment Scar throws himself over the blazing fire
divider by jumping to reach Simba’s side. One would expect that as an animal,
the audience would see Scar’s head followed by the rest of the body during his
jump, rather than the whole body all at once like a human. At the apex of the motion arc, the
character’s body is prolonged in mid-air for a more dramatic effect which in
turn gives the ability of the artists to not give him a more accurate arc
motion because it is no longer the focus-the audience cibcebtrates more on the
awe of the dramatic jump rather than it’s precision of motion. The scene
represents the idea that these animals require some level of human
characteristics in order for the emotional appeal to take effect. The animals
are given a level of some human facial characteristics as well as being able to
make impressions as a human. This jump looked more of that of a human making
the jump as opposed to a lion making the jump.
Improbable
causes. After Nala reunites with Simba and tell him of everything that is going
wrong at Pride Rock, Simba is filled with confusion and seeks peace among the
jungle. When found by rafiki, the baboon, he is lead through the jungle until
they reach a body of water. Out of nowhere, clouds begin to move with no sign
of a change of weather or any outside force. The clouds begin to merge together
to form the body if Mufasa. While this action in the scene was intended for
Simba to gain wisdom from his father , the way it all took place was by mysterious
action of forces. The bamboo corrected Simba when Simba asked if he knew his
father. The bamboo said correction “I know your father,” as if Mufas was still
alive. When the mirage of Mufasa appears distinctively in the clouds one is
able to understand why the bamboo would say such a thing but all be able to
know that this doesn’t happen in the real world. The next scene is at the water
hole where Simba and Nala go to play. The whole illustration of the savannah
scenery turn to various colors for no reason. This begins when Simba starts to
sing. This give the movie a colorful playful scene for the audience to enjoy .
While the film did
its best to demonstrate action by animals with human characteristics was,
overall, well done. They artists studied each animal and their movements in order
to execute them on the film. Although given human characteristics, the artist successfully
kept the vital instincts of a lion, not losing the effect and purpose of the entire
movie.
SCENES REFERENCE :
Zazu in birdie
boiler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMZuJ_YraZ4
Scar jumping over the
fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tawPobeCIk
Mufasa in the clouds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_OMPrqhA_4
