Importance of deleted scenes.

[Zonofon]

Do you think the deleted scenes from the TLK movies are important? I mean as the part of the film. In some deleted scenes there are new characters and many of the scenes do not interfere with the development of the plot of the film, that is, may be seen as part of the plot.

Or do you think that if they are not in the movie, it is something secondary and they should not be seen as part of the main film?

[SimbasGuard]

That would depend on whether or not there are similar scenes elswhere in the movie, you don't need two or more scenes that accomplish the same thing. Like for example if you have Lion King on Blu-Ray there is a very interesting deleted scene between Scar and Nala (That was the inspiration for The Madness of King Scar in the Lion King Stage Show) that while being very interesting, I think it may have affected the Movies G Rating had it not been cut. Another thing to consider is the pacing of the movie, do all the extra scenes slow the movie down and cause the audience to loose interest and focus? Another example is when The Morning Report was added to The Lion King, I was glad that something new had been added, but I was annoyed that an excising scene was altered to make it fit. I would have much rather a new scene just been added rather than altering an existing scene.
Another example was when the previously cut Jabba The Hutt scene was added to Star Wars episode 4: A New Hope. I liked that because it added something to the movie and story, without removing or changing anything.

[TheLionPrince]

Deleted scenes are not normally seen as canon having been altered or cut from the film because of story revisions or for time constraints and emotional impact. So, it largely depends on the context of the scene, and how can it fit without altering the events of the film if you deem it still useful for the film. Some deleted scenes from The Lion King II such as Kovu hunting a bug and Vitani and Nuka reporting Kiara's presentation to Zira can be useful because it shows Kovu's training and reveals the age gap between Kovu and Kiara. It can easily fit between the title card and the scene of cub Kiara running out of Pride Rock. However, they were deleted because of pacing reasons according to the director. (Read here.) However, some deleted scenes may have the original characters interacting with the deleted characters, which is definitely not useful for the films since those characters were dropped from the films and unless a name drop occurs, those characters don't exist in the films.

Other scenes could have deleted or altered lines, which are not really useful since the writers created newly written lines for the characters, an actor ad-lib the dialogue, or the line(s) was simply not useful. Lastly, some deleted scenes are often the earlier stages of the finalized scene like Simba's fight with Scar where Scar is engulfed in fire. Overall, I like seeing deleted scenes because it reveals what the filmmakers had to go through in order to develop the characters and the story, and discover for themselves what the characters and the story is about. While more story content is always good when deepening the story, less is more is an abiding principle during the filmmaking process.