It’s a pretty generic story line. Disney does seem to have rehashed it more than once. Or twice. (And, hey, now they own Star Wars, so…)
In your face, space coyote!
You must avenge my death, Kimba - I mean, Simba.
I’m happy for you.
Psst - Macbeth is known colloquially as That Scottish Play in theatrical circles. It’s considered bad luck to refer to it by name.
Though I’d really like to see the version where Nala can’t seem to wash the blood off her muzzle, and the appearance of Pumbaa’s ghost sends Simba into a fit.
Also a heavy dose of Henry V, what with the emphasis on how the realm is only truly stable when the Right Person Is King, and that it is therefore the rightful King’s moral duty to make sure he is, in fact, the King.
Compare:
Nitpick: Only when you’re actually, physically in a theatre (and excepting, of course, during a production of this play).
NVM, looks like EVERYONE said what I was going to say before I said it.
Oh! I thought it was very specifically during a production of Macbeth that you must absolutely not say “Macbeth.” Saying it at any time, during any theatrical performance is bad luck, but actually during Macbeth, it’s super-super bad luck.
Anyway, that’s what one actor told me once…
This is simply not true. Yes, both concern a young “Prince of the Jungle”, which is a rather logical thing to come out of “King of the Jungle”, which meme is centuries old (well at least since the 19th, if not before) .
Kimba had so many episodes over so many iterations that similarities were bound to show up. The basic plot is not like Lion King at all. However, it is more than a little like Hamlet, which Disney acknowledged.
I wonder what ensues if you’re typing forum posts while in a theater, and type M A C B E T H …
A quick look at the character design for Kimba, and that for Simba, renders denials of influence rather implausible.
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/rip-offs-simba-kimba-590x350.jpg
Kimba had so many episodes over so many iterations that similarities were bound to show up.
But anyway- other that the fact they both have a baboon, what’s so similar?
Simba has five lions, a warthog, a meercat, a baboon, a hyena, and a hornbill.
Kimba has two lions, a cheetah? a baboon, a parrot, a impala? and a zebra?
Not to mention the two shots are heavily cropped to show “similarities”:dubious: . If you look at the actual source for Kimba, they cropped out a elephant and a chimp? and the mountain is a primary focus. Compare to the original Disney shot (which adds two more hyenas, Scar and a entirely different scenery) , and the similarities are minor- about what you’d expect in two films about a “Lion Prince” and his animal friends.
They both have a wise baboon as a mentor, a goofy bird as a sidekick, a dead father who appears to them in the stars, an adult lion who is a competitor (although Claw doesn’t play quite the same role as Scar) and goofy hyenas as highly inept villains.
There are even such tiny similarities as lions eating bugs so as not to be carnivorous!
Here is a link to an article on the subject, written by Fred Patten. It’s reasonably scholarly – he was invited to a university symposium in Australia to present it.
Most certainly there are distinct differences. Kimba dealt more with “fantasy” sub-plots, such as the mysterious Mammoth that came to visit from a ghostly mountain, or hidden cities with buried idols. Kimba introduced humans into the story: Caesar was shot by a hunter, and Roger Ranger was a regular character.
And most certainly, some of the similarities are coincidences.
But…there are enough core similarities to make some of us pretty certain that there was conscious borrowing going on.
(Want to try to convince us that Bomba the Jungle Boy wasn’t derivative of Tarzan?)
Simba has nearly fifty major characters. Of course there’s a baboon. And the bird is a parrot, and certainly with 50 characters one would be a bird. There’s also a gazelle, a leopard, a elephant, a owl, and quite a few humans- and there are no humans in LK.
There’s like 10000 hours of Kimba stuff. Look long enough and you’ll find many similarities. However, the first film, the original is not at all similar.
Actually that link only sez
"Then in June 1994, Disney’s The Lion King was released. A controversy hit the news that summer as to whether or not the Disney blockbuster had consciously copied from the 1960s Kimba cartoons. Disney went on record that none of its Lion King production crew had ever heard of Kimba or of Tezuka. This brought publicized hoots of derision from animation professionals, including a “Kimba…I mean Simba” gag in an episode of The Simpsons. This made Kimba newsworthy, but still not available to a curious public."
Note that even Snopes doesnt even bother mentioning the UL.
The Master Speaks:
How would that even work? The play’s title is the main character’s name; it’s said aloud by half of the cast.
It is bad luck to quote the play Macbeth, if you are in a theater. (of course if you are in a production of Macbeth, it is OK)