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Monday, October 19, 2015

Day 27: The Lion King


Hakuna Matata What a Wonderful Day: We Watch The Lion King!


1. What movie did you watch?
The Lion King. The film was released in 1994 and directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff with music by Hans Zimmer and Elton John. The story was influenced by Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In order to get the animals and their world just right, the animators and other staff of the movie traveled to Hell's Gate National Park in Kenya to study up. The movie received high critical and audience praise when it was originally released. Including sales of its re-release in theaters in 2011, it is the highest grossing hand-drawn animated film of all time. Fun fact: the movie inspired a Broadway show, which opened in 1997 and is now the fourth longest-running Broadway show in history. 

2. Have you seen it before/ how long has it been since you last saw it?
Maddie: I watched it over the summer! So coming up on a year probably.
Alexis: Probably six months ago or so, it's shown on ABC Family a lot.

3. What memories did it recall?
Maddie: Oh man, so many. It particularly made me think about doing shows with my friends and always including Hakuna Matata because we loved it so much. We would sing along and choreograph dances to it!

Alexis: The Lion King was one of my sister's favorites (along with the Little Mermaid), so it always reminds me of watching it with her. One specific fun memory: we used to have a ton of little Lion King figurines from the Disney store and from happy meals, and instead of making them live in the jungle, we had Simba and friends live in our dollhouses. They were very civilized lions. Then there was the time my sister flushed her Kovu toy down the toilet...

4. What did you think of it?
Maddie: It's one of my favorites! I don't watch it as much because Mufasa's death upsets me so much and I can't put myself through that. I was also much more of a princess kinda gal...but I have a very strong appreciation and love of it. I particularly love Timon and Pumba in this: they are just great and I would sometimes skip around to just their parts. 

Alexis: I love this movie, it definitely makes it into my top 5 favorite Disney movies! The music is absolutely amazing, and the opening scene to the film is one of my favorite openings to any movie ever; it's just so powerful. Also as I've mentioned before I was a huge animal/nature lover as a kid, so seeing the African scenery and animals was really cool for me. I still think it's a beautifully made movie.

5. Favorite moment:
Maddie: My favorite scene of the whole movie is when older Simba talks to Rafiki and sees Mufasa in the clouds:

Alexis: The opening to the movie; the Circle of Life. 


6. Any other comments:
Maddie: The animation in this movie is so beautiful:
Also, Disney animators got to chill with lion cubs to do research for this: HOW COOL IS THAT?!?

Alexis: When Maddie and I took our usual summer break from this blog, we'd already watched Lion King and had this post ready, but I forgot to post it. Whoops, my bad, sorry for the delay folks!

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