My Lion King Forum

Here is another one of those odd differences between scenes from TLK1 and their counterparts from TLK2SP. This one is more of a knit-pick more than anything but it is still one that always caught my attention. ^^

In The Lion King during the stampede scene, pay attention to which way the wildebeests are traveling when Mufasa is falling off the cliff. They are running upwards, (from left to right if you're looking off Pride Rock from Scar's point of view) Now, let's head over to The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride and head on over to Simba's nightmare about his father's death. Watch closely as Mufasa once more, falls into the stampeding wildebeests. Notice anything different? Yeah, they are running in the opposite direction. lol. Now they are running from right to left, or down the screen.

Now before you scream at me and say that this was just Simba's dream and he probably didn't remember which way the wildebeests were traveling, as this was the least of his worries then, I understand that. I know that in dreams, things don't always replay themselves the same way, but what I'm getting at here is, do you think Disney did this on purpose, or was it one of those lazy mistakes that they failed to notice, such as Nala's changing eye color?

I personally think that Disney might have not seen this mistake and just left it how it was. It really doesn't make all that much of a difference in the end, but if you're a die hard fan of the movies, you probably have noticed this too. Just seems really odd. I mean, if Simba can recall this day so vividly, I thought he would also remember which way the things that trampled his father, were running. Like I said though, this is just really one of those very minor oddities that always made me think. So, what do you all think about it, hmm? ^^

It could have been used to illustrate how Kovu is almost a mirror image of Scar. Since the stampede is going the other way, it is seen as though it was in a mirror, it is in relation to Scar changing into Kovu in the middle of the dream.

Hmm, that could be. Shouldn't Mufasa have fallen to the right then though if that be the case? lol. I like your reasoning though Zeke. ^^ Makes a lot of sense, but perhaps it might be a bit too indepth for what Disney was going for? I don't know though. Disney is definitely masters of adding in subtle touches and elements to scenes that one might not notice upon first glance. Or at least, they USED to be. lol. >.>

Hey, that's awesome that you noticed that ^.^

I agree with Zeke 100%. Even though I didn't notice the difference I always felt that the scene was a bit odd, that it didn't make sense. It's one of those subliminal things. I think disney definitely did it on purpose for just that reason; to make the viewer feel that this is strange and somehow unreal. It's a pretty clever thing to change I think ^.^

lol, funny thing is, I was gonna mention this one but you beat me to it.

This is kinda hard to decide since the wildebeest running in two different directions is kinda funny. lol. TLK was released 4 years ago so it's kinda possible for Disney to make a mistake, which is what I'm going for. I guess they got a little lazy and failed to notice. ^^

Oh wow. I didn't even think of that, but I haven't watched TLK in FOREVER. I'm not sure why they did that, who knows. Maybe Disney has the memory of a goldfish, and couldn't remember which way the wildebeest the ran. Or that's just my theroy. Or maybe they thought "Little kids are watching this, will THEY really pay attention to that?" Never thought a forum post would come up about this now did they?

[quote="Nightstar75"]Oh wow. I didn't even think of that, but I haven't watched TLK in FOREVER. I'm not sure why they did that, who knows. Maybe Disney has the memory of a goldfish, and couldn't remember which way the wildebeest the ran. Or that's just my theroy. Or maybe they thought "Little kids are watching this, will THEY really pay attention to that?" Never thought a forum post would come up about this now did they? [/quote]
Haha I think you're probably right. Disney was probably too lazy to pay attention and figure no one would notice.

[quote="Zeke"][quote="Nightstar75"]Oh wow. I didn't even think of that, but I haven't watched TLK in FOREVER. I'm not sure why they did that, who knows. Maybe Disney has the memory of a goldfish, and couldn't remember which way the wildebeest the ran. Or that's just my theroy. Or maybe they thought "Little kids are watching this, will THEY really pay attention to that?" Never thought a forum post would come up about this now did they? [/quote]
Haha I think you're probably right. Disney was probably too lazy to pay attention and figure no one would notice.[/quote]

My point exactlly But you never know. Maybe they did it so the older TLK fans would make a forum post like this and get all confused so Disney could laugh at our misery because WE CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT!!! ....But I like my first theroy better.

you guys got everything execpt 1...right when the wildebeasts were traveling the other direction their also looking up at Simba when he's falling...pause the movie RIGHT before the camera is switching to his back point of view

I think Disney did that just to see if people would notice. they did use CGI to do the stampede scene, so they could just pull up the old files they used for the first stampede and would easily be able to do it in the same direction. plus, if it happened that they used CGI again, all they had to do was program the direction they wanted the animations to run. it's too simple to just make a mistake.

keep in mind also that Disney usually throws stuff in movies to see if we'll catch it