A question about some of the cut dialogue.

[Elton John]

I remember that scar was originally going to say 'goodnight sweet prince' at some point in the film as a reference to hamlet but the creators thought it would have been tacky and awful.

I want to know if it was being said to mufasa or simba.

[Captain Cupcake]

He was probably going to mutter it after he orders the Hyenas to kill Simba. It's definitely not towards Mufasa.

[TheLionPrince]

^Come on, Captain Cupcake, you're better than this!

It was Scar who said "Good night, sweet prince", and it was towards Simba in an alternate version of their fight.



And it was Don Hahn who mentioned the use of the Hamlet line as being too dark on the "Story Origins" bonus feature on the 2003 DVD. However, he said it was Scar's quote to Mufasa before he throws him off a cliff, which always puzzled me because no deleted storyboard sequence has emerged of late of Scar using that line to Mufasa. Maybe, he was correct and it was used alternately for Mufasa's death, but as listed in the video, it was used by Scar towards Simba. Perhaps, he may have had bad memory when he was recording that interview for the DVD.

[Captain Cupcake]

Well, I did have that part in mind at first. Although, my brain was imagining the line said just before Scar was consumed by the flames while thinking he won. Him saying it after telling the Hyenas to off him just sounded like the more natural moment to deliver the line, though.

[Squeely]

My guess is Don forgot where the line was originally going to be used. Got his memories mixed-up about its placement - makes sense, I doubt Don would have gone back and watched deleted scenes, if he even had access to them at all. Wouldn't expect a guy to remember all the details about stuff left on the cutting room floor roughly a decade later.

[fallen prince nuka]

I'm sort of sad they never ended up using the line, I love the Hamlet reference (maybe it's just because I'm a theater nerd lol) and I think it would have made for a seriously awesome line during the fight.

[Rollo]

I actually really like the idea of that line being used in the Simba vs Scar battle! It's disappointing that it was cut, actually. I wouldn't consider that being too dark and I think it would've ended up being very memorable had it been included.

[SimbasGuard]

If the line had been used in the film as it is now, it would have thrown off the timing of Scar confessing to Simba that he murdered Mufasa and Simba's reaction to it. It is a great line, but I don't think it would have fit into the scene as it is now.

[DGFone]

If I remember correctly, I believe the live was cut from the movie on purpose.

A general theme with The Lion King's production is that it started out a lot grittier and closer to Hamlet than the final movie - just read some of the early scripts you can find online. As production progressed, the movie swayed further and further away from an animated re-skin of Hamlet and more towards an "inspired bye", eventually the directors decided to get rid of all Shakespearean lines.

And as SimbasGuard mentioned: Timing is key. Especially considering the labor intensity of producing a 2D animated movie, and you get the effect that every second counts. You can be sure that every single line in the movie got a serious review on should it be kept or not, and if a line was changed or removed, that the production team had a good reason as to why they had to get rid of it.

[Elton John]

https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2016/09/17/making-the-lion-king/

According to this article Scar originally said it before killing Mufasa.

Oh my disney is normally clickbait but this is a fascinating article filled with obscure trivia, some of it I already knew (like how the film was originally called king of the kalahari before it was called king of the jungle) and details I didn't know (Mufasa originally sang a song called 'King of the wild?')

It also goes into detail on how depressingly stacked the cards were against the creators of the film were when compared to the people who worked on pocahontas.

It also talks about the movie while it was very early in development.