My Lion King Forum

I was tipped off recently to a book that talks about Shakespearan adaptations in movies. I expected to read about the first Lion King, but found there to be a plethora of information about the sequel. Suprisingly, there were also numerous mistakes. Zira is spelled wronged, the plot summary makes it seem like Kovu joined Timon & Pumbaa, and Kiara and Kovu as said to have reunited atop a "snowy mountain". Anyway, I have the book and was wondering if anyone wanted to me to scan/transcribe the text here. It's only about three pages, what do you think?

Sure. That would be nice.
Even if it is full of fail, I think it will still make an interesting quick read.

Sure! People need to watch the movie!

Go for it! It sounds interesting.

I just finished, here they are:


Cover. There are four big chapters: Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet and King Lear.


Starts on Page 46. From Chapter 2 dedicated to Romeo & Juliet. The paragraphs before this are talking about Pocahontas, another Romeo adaption. Notice that Zira's name is spelled with an "m".


Continued on Page 47. Notice how the author mixes together the plots from Lion King 1 and Simba's Pride. Were they recalling this from their memory?


Last page Simba's Pride is mentioned, after this it moves on to Wishbone.


This is from the Hamlet chapter and is shorter than Simba's Pride's entry which I found odd. Why give the original film a brief passing glance while three pages of material is written for the sequel?


The author must not have seen the Broadway musical: Madness of King Scar anyone?


Index Information. Found on the first page in the book.

[quote="Noahcs"]and Kiara and Kovu as said to have reunited atop a "snowy mountain".[/quote]

But didn't they? Or am I missing something here?

[quote="Regulus"][quote="Noahcs"]and Kiara and Kovu as said to have reunited atop a "snowy mountain".[/quote]

But didn't they? Or am I missing something here? [/quote]

That's my entire point. The author of this book incorrectly wrote that for some strange reason. Go look at the second text page I scanned (11th line from the top). It reads "Kiara follows Kovu into exile, and they reunite on a snowy hillside that turns green as they exchange affectionate nuzzles." Not only that, the book also says "Zima" in place of "Zira" and implies Timon taught Kovu about Hakuna Matata. This man needed a fact checker.

Still weird!

What was the general thesis of the book? What theory was being discussed in the chapter that the TLK franchise was mentioned in?

The movie info might be fail/sketchy, but I find it hard to judge the relative critical success of the reference without the context, it sounds like there's a specific argument it's trying to make but coming into the middle of it I just don't know if it did it well.

He is basically listing adaptions made from four Shakespeare plays: Hamlet, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, and King Lear in four different chapters, about 80 pages for each one. He mentions everything from Lion King to the tv show Wishbone and gives his opinion on how well the shows stayed true to Shakespeare. I'm sure the author is great, but he just used a bad source.