Few films are as beloved universally as The Lion King . Not only did the live-action version manage to stay true to the source material, but it also explored the story and characters in brilliant new ways.
However, there were a few stumbles along the way. Here are 10+ mistakes from Disney’s live-action The Lion King that you may not have noticed. Hakuna Matata, my friends.
Why aren’t the animals’ pupils dilating?
This happens every time you see one of the animals step from the shade into the sun. Our pupils dilate and constrict to help our eyes control the light level.
For some odd reason, none of the animals’ eyes in The Lion King do this.
Where did the sun go?
This is one of the few major continuity issues that exist within the film. But when Mufasa tells Zazu to take Nala home, so that he may teach Simba a lesson, it’s still light outside.
By the time Simba walks up to him, it’s nearly dark.
Lions can’t survive on bugs alone.
It’s a nice thought to think that somehow Simba is able to survive on a strictly vegetarian diet. However, this is a complete farce.
Adult male lions need to eat a minimum of 16 lbs of meat every day just to survive. Timon and Pumba would have been gobbled up by lunchtime.
The leaf-cutter ants are on the wrong continent.
Just as they appeared in the original 1994 animated film, the live-action remake includes a closeup shot of a group of ants.
However, these leaf-cutter ants are indigenous to South America and wouldn’t be found anywhere in Africa.
Was Zazu covering for Scar?
When Scar delivers the news of Mufasa’s death to the Pride, he laments on how he wasn’t able to get to the gorge in time to save his brother.
But Zazu was with them both at the gorge, so why didn’t he just expose Scar in his lie?
Rafiki isn’t actually a baboon.
This one threw me for a loop, but in both the animated and live-action films, Rafiki is a mandrill – not a baboon.
While both have the distinguishable red rump, only the mandrill has the distinct blue markings on its face.
Timon is on the wrong side of the continent.
In case you needed a quick reminder, The Lion King takes place across the plains of the Serengeti , in East Africa.
Meercats are indigenous to the Namib and Kalahari deserts of Southern Africa.
Nala should have been *The Lion Queen*.
A lion pride is matrilineal . This means that the kinship, hierarchy, and lineage is passed down through the females, instead of the males.
On average, 99% of all lionesses in a pride are related.
Simba and Nala would never mate.
Once again, this harkens back to what we were just discussing regarding lion Prides.
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The best-case scenario is that Simba and Nala are cousins, but given the dynamic of the Pride displayed in The Lion King , it’s more likely that they are brother and sister.
A pack of lionesses would never shrink in fear toward a group of hyenas.
A lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinions of sheep. And to a lion, everything and everyone is a sheep.
If you’ve ever watched the National Geographic channel, then you know these cackling jackals would have been ripped to shreds in an instant.
Lions would never be able to survive a drought like that.
During Scar’s rule, the pride lands are shown as a barren desolate wasteland . There are several signs of a drought, which makes the final purging through flame all the more dramatic.
That said, lions couldn’t last more than a few days without water.
Why are the animals praising their predator?
Everyone knows that lions are at the top of the food chain.
So why would a crowd of animals who are on the lower rungs gather to celebrate the birth of the beast who would one day grow up to eat them?
Zazu doesn’t actually exist.
By that, I mean that he seems to fit into no known taxonomical order of bird species. He seems to be a mix-and-match of different looking Tockus birds.
His plumage says one thing and his bill another.
That’s actually not a warthog.
Before we go any further, how freaking adorable is baby Pumba?! I don’t even care that he’s the wrong species. What we see in the film is called a Red River Hog .
Warthogs don’t have those kinds of markings on their bodies. But they aren’t half as cute either.
A newborn cub would never be ‘presented’ to the Pride.
This was clearly done for Hollywood effect and to help accentuate the fact that Simba is born into royalty.
In real life, lion cubs spend the first six weeks of their lives in total seclusion.
