My Lion King Forum

Why do you hate this movie? I think this movie is almost as good as TLK1.

Let me explain:

Most people watched the trailer and saw the poster and were like: ''They're ruining my favourite movie'' But it actually is really good. Comedy is of course the most important part of the movie, but there's way more to it. Timon's story alone could be a seperate movie. It's great to see his bond with his family. The songs are also very good. They even turned ''Warthog Rhapsody'' into a brand new, great song!

So for the haters: why do you hate this movie?

Thanks!

I saw this movie for the first time just a week ago and I knew I wouldn't like it

I'm going to give you a straight answer; I don't like childish comedy, Timon and Pumbaa were annoying in TLK and Simba's Pride just because of that. This movie was however full of it excluding those short scenes between Timon and Ma. The Lion King 1½ should have focused on Scar's reign instead

This is just my personal opinion, please don't take it too seriously

Just to make this clear from the start: I am not a TLK3 "Hater". In fact, I like it a bit more than Simba's Pride (that movie had such potential to be really, really good, but that's another post) But, here's the reason I think this movie gets a lot of whack.

A very critical problem with a lot of Disney's direct-to-video sequels is that they give off the impression that they have no understanding and/or respect for their source material. This is most distressing for the older Disney movies seeing as the company still owns the rights to the film so can do whatever they want with the characters, though the original people to work on said film are either dead or retired so have no say in the matter.
An example of this lack-of-faith to the source material is the showing of human's faces extensively in "Lady and the Tramp 2", seeing as in the original film all the humans are generally seen from the knees down (i.e. from a dog's perspective) This gives off the impression that the makers behind the sequel either didn't study the original in order to determine the best way to make the transition from movie one to the sequel as seamless as possible, or they just didn't care, and as a massive fan of Disney, animation and movies as a whole, I find that pretty unacceptable.

Now, to apply that to TLK3, let me first say that I don't think the use of humor is what people have a problem with. The main problem in TLK3 is the undermining of the dramatic and serious tone that TLK seemed to pioneer in terms of Disney: having Timon and Pumbaa be "present" throughout the entire first act of the movie was a pretty ridiculous choice in my opinion. Fair enough to show Timon's back-story, fair enough to show how Timon and Pumbaa came to find the jungle, but anything else was not needed. It seems that almost every deep and meaningful or dark and dramatic moment of the original TLK was spoiled somewhat by forcing Timon and Pumbaa into the scene i.e. Circle of Life, Mufasa talks to Simba (deleted scene), stampede, CYFTLT etc, and I think it was a poorly informed choice on the part of the film makers.

Having said all that, though, I still find the final film of the trilogy very enjoyable to watch. I remember the excitement the first time I saw it when I was about 8 or so (I still remember the excitement of watching the trailer for the first time (on the TLK Special edition DVD! ) Also, I feel like the majority of the hardcore hate for it comes from within the fandom - I don't think it troubled the casual Disney-consumer that much on release.

Because this is The Lion King! Not The Meerkat and Warthog King!

Ninajora pretty much matched my words perfectly. So, again, I am not a hater of the movie, though it is my least favorite movie of the trilogy. The first movie was meant to be timeless outside of the pop culture references and the breaking of the fourth wall ("Pumbaa, not in front of the kids"), and Simba's Pride continued that. With this movie, the filmmakers placed Timon and Pumbaa in a contemporary movie theater in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that just didn't fit with what the movie universe had established: African animals in Africa. Other than that, most of the backlash is inserting Timon and Pumbaa into the original scenes, and making parodies out of them that rubbed fans the wrong way. Not to mention, Timon and Pumbaa are the most overexposed characters in the franchise, and they already had a television show to display their humor so having another Lion King movie about them feels like a lost opportunity to learning about Mufasa and Scar's childhood, Zira's past, and whatnot.

Outside of this, it was nice to meet new characters, and learn about Timon's backstory.

Actually, when I first saw the trailer on my 2003 Platinum Edition VHS, I was actually hyped that they were making another Lion King movie, and having it released the day before my tenth birthday made it even better. It wasn't until later on in my teenage years that I developed gripes against the movie.

Thanks for replying everyone.

I see a little where you guys are coming from, but I still think it's a great movie. Yes, some jokes are childish but the rest of the movie is just great. When Timon tells Pumbaa they're friends, it's such a great scene. I actually like the fact that Timon and Pumbaa were present during Circle of Life, IJCWTBK, CYFTLT a.o. The animation's also fantastic.

But again: thanks for your reply everyone!

.......................

[quote="juhouh"]I'm going to give you a straight answer; I don't like childish comedy[/quote]
^^ This is why I don't want to even the new one, Even though I love Nathan Lane, Its just not my style of movie. I liked the mature plot of TLK more than the immature side characters of TLK. Now while I might say that these components are necessary for a disney movie, I would also say that to fixate on only one of these components would be to forget what the original Lion King was about.

1) Because I'm not really an LK fan...I'm just in it for the hyenas... 2) ...who are hardly in... 3) ...this direct-to-video "movie"... 4) ...which focuses on characters I consider lame... 5) ...and has sappy moments (namely any with Timon and his Ma) that just feel like they were included to appease viewers.

well i'm not a hater , even though i don't really like this movie.

First off it feels like they had to fill up gaps to manage to get 1h30. I can't stand the 4th wall breakers , when they swap channels , pause or else , and i just find it pityful that they destroyed scenes with timon and pumbaa. As we said at the anniversary party , the opening sequence is made into a fart joke , they added tons of sfx that are not actually in the movie for some scenes (CYFTLT i'm looking at ya). They just reused many of the original LK film just to show timon and pumbaa walking there actually.

that being said it's not all negative. I don't mind the scenes with only timon and the colony , and i actually kind of like the "jungle boogie" scene where cub simba is being reckless.