User blog comment:XrosHearts/Xros Rankings: Top 20 Disney Movies of All Time/@comment-3350823-20130725150507/@comment-1598117-20130725204726

I agree that Lion King took risks, but in my opinion, all Disney movies take risks, and the ones Lion King took were not all that great compared to other Disney movies. Heck, Bambi already did the parent dying thing and unlike Lion King, it even added subtle commentary with it.

I'm not saying Mufasa's death is not effective. In fact, it's one of only two scenes I like in that movie (the other being the scene with Simba and Rafiki). The main reason I don't like the Lion King is the characters, honestly. Our hero, Simba, is quite honestly really boring. The movie is supposed to be a coming-of-age story, but we honestly don't even see him grow up. They try to build up the ending to be something epic, but the only real accomplishment is that Simba finally decided to do something. There's no real struggle and we don't really see Simba grow. And besides that, he just doesn't really have a personality. He's a boring hero, imo.

Same goes for Scar. He's slightly more interesting, but he's nothing we haven't seen before. And you're completely right about the drought thing. It's so generic that everything would go wrong when the villain takes over, and it's never explained why. We're just left to assume it's because he's evil.

Nala is pretty much the same. Pretty much shoehorned in because some Disney executive wanted there to be a romance, but she probably has even less personality than Simba.

I'll admit, I find Timon and Pumbaa kinda funny, but compared to previous Disney comic reliefs (Genie comes to mind first), they're nothing all that great. The only characters from the movie that I find memorable are Mufasa and Rafiki.

There's more I don't like about the movie, but it gets a little more complicated. I guess the only other thing that I don't understand is why people like the music in this one. I don't hate the songs, but I always felt they were pretty weak compared to other Disney soundtracks.

There's my rant for the day :P