My Lion King Forum

As we all know, Nala goes through a horrific change from TLK-SP. But in 1 1/2 she has her original dark fur and green eyes.. If Disney was able to do that.. WHY couldn't they have replicated this in SP? Couldn't the Disney animators have made her the same fur color and green eyes but more fuller and Queenly like Sarabi? Even the background looks as vibrant as TLK! I mean, it's like SP is some sort of nightmarish and dark world where the colors are wonky and bland.. I just.. I do not understand their decision. Unless, Nala is blind and suffered a complication from child-birth that impacted her strength and mind?
Was anyone else confused by this or is it just me?


Could Nala have suffered an eye infection?
It makes me wonder, especially with this quote. "I can see them just as well as you can."

I highly doubt anything happened to her vision, and that wouldn't have changed her fur color. Here's quite simply why she looks properly colored in 1.5: they used some scenes from the first movie in this one, in their original form, and had no choice but to match Nala to the scenes from the original film. Plus, they probably had different people working on SP and 1.5. Obviously the people working on 1.5 were more interested in capturing the original appearance of the characters, as you'll notice that their builds and face shapes (especially Simba's) are much more on-model as well in 1.5 than in SP. It's just that the people who made SP decided to change the designs for some unknown reason, like what often happens in sequels to all kinds of things. At least these designs weren't butchered as badly as the characters from Ginga Nagareboshi Gin were when they appeared in Ginga Densetsu Weed. That was a real design failure nightmare...

Anyway the summary is, different people worked on the movies and TLK 1.5 used scenes from TLK so Nala had to match.

Yeah, the animation of the sequels definitely is inconsistent. Personally I wonder what some of the characters exclusive to the sequels would have looked like in the original.

For years, I always believe the filmmakers of 1½ were simply given better production values than the filmmakers had with Simba's Pride. Also, because the film takes place during the events of the first movie, the artists and animators had to stick close to the original character designs and colors in order to maintain artistic consistency. Anyway, I reminded myself of this source:

[quote="DVD Dizzy"]
Although the story is set within the framework of the first "The Lion King," the director points out, "It's really an original movie." [Bradley] Raymond was pleased and reassured to see that many of the men and women who had worked on the original "The Lion King" were on board for this film. "I was lucky, because the studio gave me a lot of support and brought in tons of great people. Roger Allers, who co-directed the original, and Irene Mecchi, who was one of the writers on the original, came in to help consult. We had plenty of time and great talent to put together this project.”

In addition to veterans from the original film, Raymond brought in a new team of talented artists whom he credits with giving the film an updated new look and pace. "Our art director James Gallego was able to capture the look of the original film. He spent countless hours studying the original, but also brought his own artistic perspective to our movie.

"And Editor Joyce Arrastia really worked magic in the edit bay. "'The Lion King 1 1/2' is unique because we cut from silhouettes of Timon and Pumbaa -- to scenes from the original -- then back to new scenes. Joyce was able to edit the film so that the audience could follow the story while keeping the pacing fresh and exciting."[/quote]

We fans should grateful because the look of the film would have been a lot worse if Disney stuck to the original production schedule. Originally, Disney hired their writers in April 2000, and then expected to release the film on video the following year. Animation (unless you want it rushed) just does not work that way.

What I think many people don't realize about this film is that before the latter stages of the production, there Are indications that it was at one point planned to have a theatrical release. The film's creators also had consultation from those who were part of the original film staff.

But according to the production notes information on Big Cartoon Database:
[quote]Production Notes:
Originally planned as a direct-to-video release, it was upped to theatrical release- and then sent back down to a direct-to-video again in May 2003.[/quote]
So this would explain at least 50% of the reason why the quality of film and character appearances is similar to that of a theatrical one/TLK 1, including the score.

I had also read on this film's news archive prior to its release, on Lion King.org, that there is a rumor statement showing that the creators had a theatrical release in mind below:

[quote="The Lion King WWW Archive: TLK1.5"]Rumor:

Lion King Midquel To Get Theatrical Release?

According to Animagic, Disney is planning to release The Lion King 1 1/2: Hakuna Matata, as a theatrical feature instead of straight-to-video. The project is expected to start production in Australia this month.
So now they're calling it a "midquel". Fine...

If it's a theatrical release, that may mean better production quality than we had to settle for in Simba's Pride. But then again, just because something is made for the big screen doesn't mean it's automatically better quality than TV animation; just look at the Hey Arnold! movie.

October 4, 2002
Submitted by Kat Green
animated-movies.com

[/quote]__________________________

But the only actual credible source I've found so far on this is the hyperlink to Big Cartoon Database page I put near the top of this post. Although, the film being produced in Australia is correct given what is shown in the making of this film DVD featurette and the film's details on its IMDB page.

[quote="TheLionPrince"]We fans should grateful because the look of the film would have been a lot worse if Disney stuck to the original production schedule. Originally, Disney hired their writers in April 2000, and then expected to release the film on video the following year. Animation (unless you want it rushed) just does not work that way.[/quote]
Actually, any kind of art (even performing arts and fan fiction) should never be rushed when developed. It takes time to bring out the real beauty in any kind of work because new ideas/creativity always come about in a person's mind with time. That's why, especially for a film, the more time that's spent on making it, the better it will generally be overall when others see it.

With this film, I can see that even though the planning started for it much earlier before the actual production did, the fact that the actual production process started much later indicates that they had complications in the development process and it also explains the plot inconsistencies. But nevertheless and the film being centered on Timon, I'm personally satisfied overall with the final outcome of it.