My Lion King Forum

I feel like Nala gets very little focus for the role she plays. She doesn't come across as a well-rounded character, and ultimately doesn't end up having a lot more to do than the other female players in the movie. Does anyone know why this was? Could they just not find any standing-out characteristics to give her?

The focus of the movie was on simba, and him dealing with his fathers death. While it would have been nice to have a few more nala centric scenes there's only so much story you can fit in an hour and half which is the normal time a disney animated feature film was (and usually still is).

There's a deleted scene where, to put it lightly, scar sexually harasses nala. It's fairly obvious as to why they never included the scene in the film.

I know the focus is on Simba, but my point was that she's got less focus than Scar, Timon and Pumbaa, and is never really given any negative traits. I would have liked all other characters to be used more, especially Banzai and Shenzi, but I can understand why they aren't. Nala, however, stands out pretty glaringly for being something of a Mary Sue.

Anyways, sorry I wasn't more clear.

Having no negative traits doesn't make someone a mary sue.... Being perfect in every single way and having no negative traits aren't the same thing.

giving her a negative trait for the sake of it woud be even worse than being a 'so-called mary sue'

Nala is underused, but as Elton John says that is because it is Simba's story, and due to time constraints. Something I have notices, is that what Nala does say and do speaks volumes.

She's not that underused in the first movie. Her role is very pivotal, and I bet if you counted up the screentime of Nala vs other non-Simba characters, she'd roughly tie with them. I wouldn't write her off as a Mary Sue, either. The opportunity for Nala's flaws to show simply doesn't present itself in the situations the story puts her in, unfortunately.

Now when it comes to sequels and other media outside of the first TLK, heck yeah is Nala underused! And it's a dang shame, too. I would have loved it if SP had delved into Kiara and Nala's mother-daughter relationship more, as it would have made for a great contrast to the first film's father-son bond, but alas. It sort of feels like writers couldn't figure out what to do with her character, so they kept her out of things for the most part. Thankfully, the TLG writers are at least trying to keep her included.

[quote="Squeely"]She's not that underused in the first movie. Her role is very pivotal, and I bet if you counted up the screentime of Nala vs other non-Simba characters, she'd roughly tie with them. I wouldn't write her off as a Mary Sue, either. The opportunity for Nala's flaws to show simply doesn't present itself in the situations the story puts her in, unfortunately.

Now when it comes to sequels and other media outside of the first TLK, heck yeah is Nala underused! And it's a dang shame, too. I would have loved it if SP had delved into Kiara and Nala's mother-daughter relationship more, as it would have made for a great contrast to the first film's father-son bond, but alas. It sort of feels like writers couldn't figure out what to do with her character, so they kept her out of things for the most part. Thankfully, the TLG writers are at least trying to keep her included.[/quote]


Well she has about ten minutes of screen time as a cub, and then disapears for a large chunk of the film, and she has a smaller part in the climax than most other characters, but yes, she does do important stuff.

She's underused. Instead they ended up using half of the movie time on dumb Timon and Pumbaa crap

If anyone was underused it should have been Timon.

I would have personally loved to see Nala get more screen time, honestly, especially considering the fact she's considered a pivotal character yet gets so little of it - more than Sarabi and Sarafina, granted, but sadly we're left to fanfiction to see a broader scope of her character. Timon and Pumbaa mostly existed for comic relief and as a plot device to keep Simba removed from the Pridelands, and, honestly, the movie could have easily existed without them. It just would have had a darker tone.