by Akril » June 28th, 2016, 7:24 pm
I guess the most infamous opinion I have is that Naanda and Sarafina are the same character. They seem to be considered separate characters despite both of them being Nala's mother in the 1990 drafts of the script and the final film (to be fair, Naanda is one of Sarabi's sisters, but only in the earlier draft -- in the later one, she is just Nala's mother).
I mean, in the early scripts, there's also a huge, muscular, somewhat intellectually bereft rogue lion named Scar who enters the pride sometime after killing his own brother, who kills Mufasa in a fight to the death when Simba is an adolescent. Even though there are far more differences between EarlyDraft!Scar and FinalDraft!Scar than there are differences between Naanda and Sarafina, the two Scars seem to be considered to be the same character that underwent some extreme design/personality changes during the film's production, while Naanda and Sarafina are nearly always considered to be separate characters.
Would EarlyDraft!Scar be considered a different character if he had nearly all of the characteristics of FinalDraft!Scar but had a different name? I dunno; it's just something I've thought about.
EDIT: Also, I think that Rina and Rada are woefully underrated. I was thinking of drawing them giving an infant Bunga to Timon and Pumbaa (saying that they found him on his own, he seemed to be orphaned, and they were too old to raise him themselves) before "The Search For Utamu" pretty much blew that idea out of the water.