Disney, you deliberately disobeyed us. And, what’s worse, you put the legacy of The Lion King in danger!
Even though every Disney fan and their (Pluto the) dog detested the “live-action” remake when it came out in 2019, they must’ve all gone to see it anyway, as its $1 billion box office earnings ensured a follow-up has emerged from the elephant’s graveyard that is Disney’s IP vaults. The first trailer for Mufasa, a prequel focusing on Simba’s ill-fated pops, at least teases slightly more emotive animals this time and it does have an original story behind it.
Or does it? Hardcore Lion King subjects know that the origins of Mufasa and Scar have already been told. So the way that Disney is ripping up the source material with this new film is leaving them as angry as a pack of slobbering, mangy, stupid hyenas (ix-nay on the upidstay).
Mufasa is rewriting The Lion King origins from top to bottom
Screenshot via Walt Disney Animation Studios
When Disney elected to move forward with a Mufasa prequel, they probably thought they were in the clear — after all, Mufasa and Scar’s childhood is not discussed at length in the original 1994 animation so surely the fans would cut them some slack with this one, right? Wrong! Clearly, the studio underestimated their own fandom’s loyalty to long-forgotten ’90s tie-in merchandise.
Mufasa and Scar’s origins have been told before, just not in film. 1994’s comic book series A Tale of Two Brothers depicts how Scar went from respected prince to villainous schemer. Born Taka, Mufasa’s little brother’s jealousy led him to convince a cruel buffalo named Boma and his herd to attack his sibling, but the buffalo attacked Scar instead. Although saved by Mufasa, Taka gained a scar across his eye, and decided to rechristen himself in honor of it.
An alternate origin, meanwhile, is depicted in the Disney Junior spinoff series The Lion Guard, in which Scar’s real name was instead given as Askari. Due to nostalgia and the fans’ general dislike for the kid-friendly series, A Tale of Two Brothers has renamed the canon backstory for the Lion Princes, though. So the fact that Mufasa is directly borrowing the Taka name but changing everything else about it is infuriating some fans.
In Mufasa, we’re told that Simba’s father was not born into royalty and it was Scar who was actually the oldest son of the king of the Pride Lands. The film’s story sees Scar even welcome Mufasa into his family once the young cub becomes an orphan following a tragic flood. Not only does this contradict the specifics of Tale and the intricacies of Scar’s personality, it also misses the clever double-meaning of the villain’s real name. In Swahili, Taka means “waste,” belying his nature as the second royal son, aka the spare. Whatever the incarnation, the root of Scar’s resentment comes from living in Mufasa’s shadow his whole life. But not anymore apparently.
But the biggest crime, if you ask Lion King loyalists, is making Mufasa a commoner. Is Disney trying to gaslight us into forgetting much of Mufasa’s dialogue in the original film? A glance at the YouTube comments to the trailer reveals many disgruntled reactions. “’Without a drop of nobility’ so this movie literally retcons Mufasa’s whole conversation with Simba, making him the first king of the Pride Lands,” wrote one. “Mufasa was definitely nobility. He kind of explained he was from a line of kings when talking to Simba,” shared another. “I’m not sure what they’re doing here.”
What is Disney doing here? Probably attempting to make a Pumbaa-sized pile of money while leaving your lifelong affection for The Lion King to get trampled under a herd of stampeding wildebeest (what? Too soon? JK, I know, it’s always too soon).
