My Lion King Forum

Simba only aged a little while Kovu was a young adult!

The changes between cub - teen lion are more notorious than the changes between adult - older adult.
The same happens in humans.

Confused... whats the question here?

Well, Scar wasn't even graying either, or was he?
I mean, he had to be at least five years old - likely older, when Simba was born, and judging by Simba's mane when Nala finds him, he had to be at least five years old himself. Thus, Scar would've had to be 10+ years old when Simba returned, and a lion's old age begins at that age.

The same with Simba. He was 5+ years old, when he claimed the throne, add to that the about a year up to Fluffy/Kiara's birth and the about a year of her growing older, and then the about four years that went by between the scenes of cub Kiara & Kovu and the adult ones... Results in: At Kiara's first hunt, Simba was 11+ year old. And not even graying. Just like Scar hadn't.

Apparently Disney doesn't pay attention to such details.

^^ No one ages that much on Disney movies. Children grow but adults stay the same. But was Simba really 5 years old? He was exiled 2 years (they say it on the audio commentary).

atouchofgrace wrote:But was Simba really 5 years old? He was exiled 2 years (they say it on the audio commentary).

Are you sure you remember correctly? I don't remember them mentioning how long he was exiled. I only recall them saying that the beginning of the film (Simba waking his Dad all the way to the exile scene) happens within two days.

Simba being exiled only for two years is against the biological facts about lions that they claim they studied and followed. A lion cub's tail tuft is fully formed around 7 months of age. A male's mane starts to grow around 1,5 years of age, thus Simba must've been somewhere between those ages when he was exiled. (I personally have always thought he was pretty much 1 year old exactly, just to make the maths simple.) And then... Yes, lions are fully grown at the age of three, around which Simba would've been two years into his exile - but his mane could not have been that big if he was only three years old when Nala found him. The mane is fully grown at the age of five years. And so, if he was exiled only for two years, he would've had to be three when he was exiled, and he evidently wasn't full grown back then, not even the 1,5 years old judging by him not having a head tuft.

Then there is also how male lions aren't usually capable of challenging other males until the age of five years. And I don't think Mufasa would've prefered his son to risk it, especially as he hadn't been learning fighting skills and had been eating nothing but bugs for years.

So, yes, I'm pretty sure he was five years old or even older, when Nala found him and Mufasa made him go home.

SuperBabySimba wrote:

atouchofgrace wrote:But was Simba really 5 years old? He was exiled 2 years (they say it on the audio commentary).

Are you sure you remember correctly? I don't remember them mentioning how long he was exiled.

They said they thought of including a subtitle saying "Kenya, two years later" when Simba grows up.

Wow. What a mess up for a production that was supposed to study lions. And could even the Pride Lands have been that utterly destroyed in only two years? I know the hyenas were greedy and Scar a sucky king, but still... But at least the lion physical development is unrealistic for two years era.

So, I'll still think he was exiled for 4+ years. I have the habit to disregard tier 2 canon stuff if it doesn't make sense seeing to reality. In Harry Potter too, Rowling has said something really silly that I bet no one goes by.

It is a cartoon, it doesn't really have to abide the rules of nature

Jiirani wrote:It is a cartoon, it doesn't really have to abide the rules of nature

Yes it does when they make a big number about how they travelled to Africa to study the lions and even brought real lions into the studio. Why bother to go through all that trouble if you're just gonna mess up like that? =D And why couldn't it have been the 4 years that Simba's physical development screams of? What made them want it to be 2 years?