《The Lion King》-Most modern people's understanding of Hamlet is the lion king

In the decade 1989-1999, Disney was called the Renaissance period. Disney not only walked out of the box office haze before, but also revived Disney's understanding of long animated films: animation films are not only works for children, but also suitable for adults to appreciate. Lion King, released in 1994, is arguably the most serious work in Disney's history. Stripping off its relaxed comedy elements and taking off the lively dress of his musical, the core of Lion King is an old and serious main story. Roger Ebert, a film critic, even called it "too cruel to be seen by young children."

Although Lion King is known as Disney's first original script, the reference to Hamlet is obvious in its story. The team also admitted that Simba, the lion king, is inspired by Shakespeare, ancient Greek mythology and even biblical story. The three main characters in the film: Mufasa, Simba, and the brother scar of the old lion are the direct replacement of characters in Hamlet. Simba, like Hamlet, has "delayed" their revenge. For hundreds of years, western scholars have given an explanation from literature, philosophy, psychology and other aspects about why Hamlet hesitated and looked forward to revenge. Especially in the 20th century, it was deeply influenced by Freudian psychology school, especially paid attention to the psychological motivation behind the interpretation behavior, which deeply affected the literary and film creation in later generations.

In Shakespeare's era, plays emphasize the behavior of characters rather than character shaping. Shakespeare's genius beyond the times also reflects in his plays through a large number of monologues, which makes the audience see not only the behavior of the role, but also their psychological activities and motivations. This is very in line with the principles of modern film and television creation. Aiming at Hamlet's Revenge procrastination, lion king gives a simple and clear but reasonable psychological interpretation of Simba's behavior: scar design killed Mufasa, but let Simba mistakenly think that his fault killed his father, and then he exiled himself because of guilt and grew up in avoiding responsibility. Such adaptation makes the story of Lion King more reasonable and smooth than Shakespeare's original.

In 1942, the scene of the hunter hunting the mother of Banbi in Disney animation "little deer's spot by" was rated as the saddest film time in American memory; in this film, Mufasa, the old lion king, was killed by scar design, which undoubtedly became the "childhood shadow" of the new generation of Americans. Although the second half of the film, Mufasa reappeared in the form of "ghost" (a clear adaptation of the old Hamlet ghost in Hamlet) weakened the tragic effect of death, but it can be seen that the theme of Lion King is unexpected serious. The film carefully shows the complex adult concepts such as "killing the monarch", "death" and "cheating" in a harmless way as possible. The writer accurately weaves Disney's view of good and evil into the complex human nature story of Hamlet. Simba's story focuses on responsibility and growth rather than revenge.

In the end, though Simba defeated the scar, he did not kill the usurped uncle himself like Hamlet - otherwise it would turn Simba into a murderer - and the scar was finally killed by a group of hyenas under his own injustice. Unlike snow white and Cinderella, the story of Lion King is still based on the heavy and old theme of revenge. Even if Simba finally defeated the scar and took the throne, it was still impossible to cover up the cruel fact of the battle between bone and flesh. The prosperity of glory stone was based on the killing and anti killing. This makes the ending of the film different from the rest of Disney Classic reunion ending: Simba at the end of the film in the tragic music, taking a heavy step on the glory stone in the rain, inherited the country already devastated, is the expression of this kind of regret happy ending.

On the main line of the tragedy of ancient Greece, the film also interweaves many subtle themes. The philosophy of life cycle, which is derived from the film music "never dies", is told to Simba by the mouth of the Old Lion King Mufasa, and also to the small audience in front of the screen. The lion king in this film is only a title, which can refer to Mufasa, Simba, or even scar. They are the former Lion King on the African grassland. History is moving forward in the succession of kings from generation to generation, as the re interpretation of Hamlet by generations of history. In fact, the restatement of Hamlet in Lion King reflects the rebirth of life.

The reason why classics become classics is that the story patterns originated from these classics to a large extent conform to the development of human history and human nature. In turn, these classics have shaped people's psychological expectations in the oral biography: people are used to the end of the story that justice overcomes evil, princesses meet princes, princes take back the throne... History has become classics in such numerous restatements and adaptations, exaggerations and imagination. In fact, throughout the history of film, those most popular movies often have such a well-known classic story model as the foundation.

Although the box office myth created by Lion King was refreshed by the 3D animation such as "ice and snow strange edge", the lion king has perfect and authentic animation style, emotional music and Broadway style big scene singing and dancing, balance between serious topic and relaxed bridge section, the most important, its magnificent epic temperament and the narration of human eternal topic , make it a monument in the history of Western animation, and also the absolute Disney animation no.1