[quote="Schindler"]Sarabi and Sarafina were already useless in the first one.[/quote]
Aside from the fact they gave birth to Simba and Nala, lol.
Anyway.. I certainly wouldn`t mind if they cut Timon and Pumbaa out of the plot in SP. True, they were important to Simba in TLK, but in SP they are just pure irritating and useless. They`re only purpose is to frustrate the hell out of Kiara and bring "comedy" into the movie. Yeah I know they are comic relief characters, but overall I hate them in SP and wouldn`t be sad to see them gone.
Vitani doesn`t exactly do much, nor does Nuka. They just act as Ziras servants/sidekicks.. I think Vitani could have been cut out, but Nuka could be kept for comic relief. He`s more enjoyable than Timon and Pumbaa, plus hes actually a pretty complex character, even if he`s not directly useful or important in my opinion.
Zazu is quite useless in SP, sadly. But they couldn`t just remove him, he was such a good friend/servant of Mufasa, and Simba could always use advice from him and his birds-eye view of a situation.. He just didn`t do anything in SP worth remembering.
To sum up, in my opinion they could have cut out: Vitani and Timon and Pumbaa.