[quote="lelizwe"]
Then I put it into the DVD player, and the disappointment set in. It still hasn't left.
The one thing that has always bothered me about 1 1/2 is the wasted potential. I think it's very unfair on the fans that T&P, who already had a series dedicated to them, were given another theatrical-length film - why not treat us to another character's story, preferably a prequel dealing with Mufasa and Taka? So many fans have said that was their desire, and reading back on archives, when the third movie was announced, a lot of TLK lovers had their fingers crossed that it was going to be a prequel to the original movie. If not that, then a sequel to Simba's Pride, which I wouldn't have minded either despite not liking it that much.
Anything but Timon and Pumbaa, please.
[/quote]
You had the exact same first reactions as me, haha. I was 14 when it came out, though. I remember reading all the pre-movie buzz and hype; I remember when everyone was excited about possibly getting a prequel or another sequel. Which just made it all the more disappointing that we got... this.
Heck, even for a Timon and Pumbaa movie, I feel like it could have been a whole lot better. Show us more events in Timon's past, show us Pumbaa's past, show the two as kids and give us some major adorability... Give us some more original songs! Digga Tunnah was great, but then we're left with the not-so-great "That's All I Need" and cliched pre-existing songs... Do away with events from the first TLK, we already saw those and it doesn't feel like there's much to be gained from seeing them from T&P's perspective. Heck, it sometimes made things worse, like the extra Nala-explaining just made T&P seem dumber, and Timon refusing to join his friends once they left detracted a lot from how well the writers had done portraying Timon in a caring light. Add more original characters, with Swahili names. To this day, Ma and Uncle Max really stick out like sore thumbs when listing TLK names, and they were both pretty meh... It's a shame that those are the only characters unique to the film. Had things been handled better, we could have gotten some fleshed-out characters from both Timon's colony and Pumbaa's sounder, and probably another interesting character or two. Maybe Pumbaa's family is friends with a hippo, for example.
As it is, a lot of the movie just feels not-very-original and uninspired, and I think that's what I dislike the most. Say what you will about Simba's Pride, at least it had a soundtrack full of original songs and a host of new characters.