Happily Never After: The Lion King 1½

I think my feelings surrounding the Lion King are far more complicated than they should be for a psychologically functional adult.
Last year, “Happily Never After” saw its crosshairs align with  “The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride,” a film that, for all of its faults, remains one of the best direct to video sequels of a dark time for Disney.

The deep dive into a sequel that worked better in concept than execution forced me to reflect on the legacy of “The Lion King;” both attempting to better understand its mostly deserved reception as a modern animated masterpiece born from being a sincere, emotionally mature and highly cinematic drama in a field growing infamous for pandering more and more towards children and the impact that it had on my own developing tastes in fiction.

While my general contrarian outlook upon it has softened into one of favorability with the benefit of cultural and historical context one context of the franchise has always stuck out as something that I have never particularly enjoyed across, childhood, adolescence or adulthood.

Timon and Pumbaa

I grew up watching these 2 take over the marketing and merchandising of this franchise all throughout the 90s. I watched them seize the focus of the first animated series based on the movie on Disney Afternoon. I saw them become the commercial faces of the film on PSAs about eating healthy. I watched the comic relief overshadow the dramatic and emotional core cast of its own feature. I hated every second of it back then and it still doesn’t sit right with me now.

Simba’s journey of grief, romancing, humbling, and acceptance of responsibility for the greater good was impactful due to how unflinching it was regarding the difficulties that he had to face and Timon and Pumbaa only purpose was to provide a second act levity that didn’t overbear its young audience after learning nothing lives forever.

That context is key in understanding exactly where I come from when processing “The Lion King 1½,” a movie that is passable in theory while representing so much of what I hate about western animation.

As its name would imply, “The Lion King 1½” fits into its series’ chronology as a midquel of sorts. Unlike that name would imply, its actual placement in the timeline positions it as parallel to the events of the original movie, telling Timon’s life story of being an outsider amongst the cowardly meerkat society and how he would go on discover his best friend Pumbaa and raise the future king of the Pridelands.

In keeping with the Shakespearean tradition of “The Lion King” franchise, many have compared the film to “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead,” a comedy written by playwright Tom Stoppard based on the adventures of the titular “Hamlet” characters occurring parallel to the actual plot of the play on which it is based. Although the observation isn’t without merit, much of the impact comes undone as a result of the main characters’ overexposure having already overshadowed the series prior to this entry.

The movie isn’t without a handful of good chuckles here and there across a mercifully short runtime but the reality is that regardless of what one thinks of their actual shtick, Timon and Pumbaa really aren’t compelling enough leads to hold down a feature on their own.

In no place is this more obvious than in the contrived and aimless “sense of belonging search” character arc they attempt to put Timon through, Pumbaa’s lack of exploration or development in the slightest, and most importantly, that the only part of the film that’s actually interesting is their attempts to raise the franchise’s titular rambunctious apex predator in a series of montage gags that are legitimately funny and actually end on a heartwarming note.

Add in a lot of the adventurous flair and yet another stripping of the African infused Hans Zimmer musical score and what “The Lion King 1½” ultimately amounts to isn’t a terrible film in its own right but the flimsy premise just never sat well with me as somebody that appreciated the series’ more dramatic aspirations.

Wherever children oriented media is concerned, not exclusive to but especially regarding western animation, their just seems to be this unwillingness to commit to real storytelling based around techniques of atmosphere, character depth, three dimensional conflict, and progression in ways that invite their core audience to demand more of their entertainment in the future. “The Lion King” was one of those movies and it did impact me in such a way, so when I see it take the easy check for cheap humor, out of place pop culture references, and “shut your brain off” entertainment, it comes off as more than a little disconcerting.

On average, it’s probably a better rounded film in execution than “Simba’s Pride” was but at least that had something in it like Zira as the villain, which is easily more compelling than the sum of this film’s parts combined.

In any case, while I struggle to label my time with “The Lion King 1½” as pleasant, revisiting the Pridelands was at least a decent reprieve from Disney’s return to Chinese folk legends.