What from The Films is MOST Important/Interesting?

[Timon the great]

I don't think a topic about this subject has ever been started before on the forum. But I have started a poll on this and have hopefully covered all the major things.

An explanation in a post would also be nice, but not extremely necessary.
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For me, it's definitely the character(s). At least in animated films to me, they always and should be the most important part from them with story aside. Call me a very character-oriented person. But they're definitely people to me and I look on my favorites just like we look on those we know in our own lives.

But it is very interesting how the LK film creators put a lot of thought into many of them and bringing them out as just like an actual person, despite their form being of the non-human physical form type, even though such characters like my fav, are also quite interestingly humanized in this aspect too especially from 1 1/2

[Haraka]

Well it is hard to choose only one thing.

I for one am very attached to good music , be it in video games or movies. Needless to say , the orchestral scores are magnificient and the songs are catchy. They actually have an impact on the spectator

Then the story. It is not 100% original but it's enjoyable nonetheless. Hell , the villain even wins for a while , i love that ! that being said i do believe that it was written so well people actually got attached to the characters , we cared for little simba and to some extend mufasa.

The characters. It kinda repeat what i said ^. The characters had their own motives , purpose , each voice actor bring life to his character like we've rarely seen before (and after!). The most important part is that we got attached.

Well then comes the visual/animation. The animators truly did an amazing job at capturing and reproducing the movement of our lions. The scenery is beautiful and i don't feel like it looks outdated even being 20 years old.

So personally , i'd say that the music and the characters are the most important part , but no part has no importance. They all have a role , which they should and do fulfil in this case.

[it means no worries]

The music and animation was great, I like all of the songs, from Hakuna Mata to can you feel the love tonight to the instrumentals such as this land. But for me the thing that made it a masterpiece was the emotion, from the relationships between Simba and Nala or Simba and Mufasa to the death of Mufasa.
(This may sound very odd, but at the death of Mufasa i am never sad at all for Mufasa, i don't feel anything when he dies or when Simba screams, it's only when he actually tries to wake his father up and realizes he is dead and then starts crying is where the tears come rolling. Do people find that odd?)
Anyway yeah, it's the emotion that in my opinion makes it a classic masterpiece, worthy of watching even after 20 years!

[SimbasGuard]

Similar to what Haraka said for me it was the characters that garbed my heart. I truly fell a strong connection to them (especially Simba) I very much wanted to know what their lives were like after the events of the movie. It is my love for the characters that made me thrilled to find out about The Timon and Pumbaa Series, Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, and Lion King 1 1/2. My love for the characters is also what has me so excited to see The Lion Guard even though I am a 38 years old and nowhere near the target demographic.

[quote="it means no worries"]This may sound very odd, but at the death of Mufasa i am never sad at all for Mufasa, i don't feel anything when he dies or when Simba screams, it's only when he actually tries to wake his father up and realizes he is dead and then starts crying is where the tears come rolling. Do people find that odd? [/quote]

I don't find it odd, People react differently to different emotional stimulation. I personally have never cried at all during Mufasa's death, however I still feel the emotion of the moment. Particularly I feel the strongest emotional tug when Simba is crying and calling for help. It sounds to me like for you the emotion of the scene doesn't you until it hits Simba.

[TheLionPrince]

The storylines are the most important because the characters and the music come into full development when the storyline is good enough to work with. If you read about the production history of the first movie, the storyline was a mess with Simba being an unlikeable protagonist, an unresolved father-son relationship, and lacking in comedy. It wasn't until Scar was rewritten into Simba's uncle that the story as we know it became to take form. If the filmmakers went ahead with the 1990-1991 story drafts, it probably wouldn't have been the masterpiece we see today.

The Lion King movies did not have to have musical numbers, but the filmmakers decided to have them to help deepen the characters and plot and to emphasize their struggles, as well as to capture the sound and feel of Africa. The characters evolve around the storyline. If the storyline lacks depth and not emotional, the characters most likely will have no depth and have no emotional connection with the audience. Visuals are important since a movie has to look good, but sometimes visuals can be overdone and become more about style and less about substance. Plus, there are some good movies that may lack in visual brilliance, but have a well-told plot.

[Zonofon]

I support opinion of TheLionPrince, because the music can be not very powerful and characters can be very simple (in real life we rarely see heroes), but when we see them in extraordinary situation, then we can see all good (or bad) parts of their character. Plot it is movement, but movement it is life, so it is plot and events what make film closer to the life, because they help to see what characters of film think about life around them and what they can do to the others.

[juhouh]

The characters are the most important for me

[ScarsLove]

I believe the most important thing to maintain in any story, whether it be live-action or animation, is it's character. You can have a wonderful storyline with the most original twists and turns that nobody has seen before. But if you don't have the right characters to represent and breath life into it then it will just fall apart and make everything you've worked towards nothing. A colorful cast of unique characters can make even the most cliched sorry-excuse-for-a-story an almost-masterpiece.

[Queen_Nala]

I also think the chars are the most important thing that makes these tlk movies so great. Not that story/plot comes far behind.

[Timon the great]

Based on what I'm seeing from this topic, It's good to see that more people say that the characters themselves are the most important aspect from the LK films. And I truly believe that is how it genuinely should be
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[quote="TheLionPrince"]The characters evolve around the storyline. If the storyline lacks depth and not emotional, the characters most likely will have no depth and have no emotional connection with the audience.[/quote]
While you do make a compelling statement about the storyline itself, I don't see that a character him/her self (especially the main one) has to be bound to the story in order to have purpose, meaning, attraction, influence or connection to us, at least from animation or fiction. I mean, good or interesting characters can be created just by the imagination itself and not necessarily needing to be labeled with a story on them as soon as they are created or vice versa, or even a story at all.

When it comes to the character actually being alive, the creator also has to care for the creation of that individual and give them plenty of inner thought of who they really want them to be and/or their alignment (good or bad person).

Like I wrote on this topic, they're people like you and me. When we were born on this earth, we didn't have a story of our own, but we already had an identity. So I can see this being much like how it is when a character is created because many of them are also created without a story already given to them.

People even get interested in a character, simply by looking at their appearance alone, because at least some things can be conveyed to us simply by that. Such as their alignment and also whether they may have a comical or serious nature for another example. When I first saw Timon for the first time in my life, it didn't take me long at all to see that he has, what I know now in life, a comical nature.

Then again, look at LK 1 1/2. When you look at the story and the plot here, it's not a strong one and I'm pretty sure that you'll agree with me on this. But, there are at least a few single moments on this film (like this one) between the characters themselves that just like when you see two actual people expressing love to each other (regardless of the type of relationship) in a moment for example, the feeling/connection with that is no different than how it is in actual life.

These are reasons why I can see that the characters can definitely breathe out to us without being confined to a story. A person may not even know what the story is about because they've never watched the film, for example, but have already seen at least one of the characters, but such single moments or images (even plainly described in text) of or coming from a character(s) like I mentioned in the last paragraph above can definitely still have inner effects alone on us.

The very main idea here is what I have in mind is that a fictional character can definitely touch us outside of a story as well.
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Spoiler: show

Concerning film itself, I do also understand that storyline, along with the visuals and music all have their own importance like Haraka mentioned. So hopefully, you won't "attack" me on any of what I've said above outside of this spoiler. Especially concerning a character alone, that is...