The Lion King

Corrected entry: At the start of the film, the tiny baby cub is presented to everyone. In real life, a lioness would hide her offspring for about 2 months. This cub is way too small to be old enough that his mother would present him.

Correction: And in real life a mandrill wouldn't hold him up to show all the animals that gathered to see him. And in real life a lion wouldn't sing songs with a meerkat and warthog.

Bishop73

Corrected entry: Pumba can't live on bugs as warthogs are herbivores, not insectivores.

Correction: This would be better under trivia given everything else animals do in "The Lion King" that animals don't actually do, not including talking. For example, Meerkats don't walk on their hind legs.

Bishop73

Correction: Warthogs are omnivores, known to eat insects. Besides, nobody says Pumba isn't eating roots and grass as well.

lionhead

Corrected entry: Dark manes are more attractive to lionesses. Scar should've been more popular as his is pure black.

Correction: The lions in this movie are also anthropomorphic. Lionesses may be attracted to darker manes in real life, but Scar's doom and gloom attitude would certainly be off-putting in this work of fiction where all animals have human traits.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: After Scar warns Mufasa never to turn his back on him, he turns away and walks gingerly out of the cave. Scar is about to take a step with his right paw immediately before the shot changes. Once it does, his left paw takes the next step instead. (00:06:20)

ryguy_1983

Correction: We see Scar take a step with his right paw then the shot changes and he takes a step with his left. No mistake.

Ssiscool

Corrected entry: In the scene where Scar tells the hyena's that they couldn't even get rid of the two cubs, (in the steam caves), Shenzi tells Banzai that hearing Mufasa's name makes her shudder. Banzai repeats Mufasa's name several times and Shenzi falls back with tingling laughter, but her face changes from her character's face, to Banzai's.

Correction: Watch the scene again. At no point does Shenzi fall back or experience a face change resembling one of her fellow hyenas. Shenzi starts laughing, but once the shot changes it's Ed we see falling back with laughter - the giveaway being notches on both ears, which Shenzi lacks.

ryguy_1983

Corrected entry: During the "Be Prepared" scene, Scar kicks one of the hyenas off the ledge into the bone pile. When the hyena climbs back up the ledge, and is dropped off again by Scar, the background turns yellow and you can see that the ledge has changed drastically.

Piemanmoo

Correction: By this point, the song has turned into a fantasy sequence as evidenced by the stylized shadows and designs on the wall behind him, the hyenas goosestepping on a lined field, and Scar's ascension on a rock propelled by magma.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: After Simba collapses on the ledge, sending the seeds flying back to the Pride Lands, we see Rafiki catch them and he recognizes that Simba is alive. However, Rafiki's tree looks just the same as it has throughout the movie. Since the rest of the Pride Lands is dark, gray, and dead looking by that time, with all the trees bare and the grass gone, why does Rafiki's tree still look brightly colored with lots of green leaves on its branches?

Correction: We're never shown where Rafiki's tree is. He could live outside the Pride Lands, in an area similar to where Timon and Pumbaa live.

Corrected entry: Pumba supposedly became an outcast because he smelled so bad, and he apparently still does because Timon often makes references to it. But neither Simba, Nala, nor any of the other animals meeting him for the first time react to his smell in any way. Of course they wouldn't make a big deal out of it if they're trying to be polite, but you'd think if he smelled that bad they'd have some reaction.

Krista

Correction: It's not exactly his regular smell that made him an outcast. It's his flatulence problem. It may very well be that, during those scenes that we are shown, Pumbaa is simply not tooting.

Garlonuss

Corrected entry: "Mmm...tastes like chicken." How would Timone know what chicken tastes like? There are no chickens in Africa.

redbaron2000

Correction: There are lots of chickens in Africa. http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/W8989E/W8989E01.htm.

jle

Corrected entry: When the wildebeest are stampeding, they appear to defy gravity by running straight down the side of a near-vertical side of the valley.

Correction: Watch some real-life footage of wildebeest stampedes - they run down some astonishingly steep slopes that look near-vertical in the footage. Strange as it looks, this is actually quite authentic.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: On the Extended DVD version, in the scene where Timon and Pumbaa finally wake up Simba and talk to him, Timon says "Ghee, he looks blue" then Pumbaa replies "I'd say brownish gold", according to the subtitles it was Timon that said the "Brownish Gold" quote not Pumbaa. (00:43:35)

Correction: Mistakes in the subtitles are not movie mistakes.

Corrected entry: Apples do not grow in the African savanna. Also, Pride Rock has totally dried up. But when Pumbaa and Timon create the diversion, Pumbaa has an apple in his mouth.

Correction: Hula skirts and flower necklaces aren't available in Africa either, nor do meerkats dance the hula. It's just done for a gag.

I don't think warthogs sing and dance either.

Ssiscool

Corrected entry: When Simba finally sees his father's ghost in the clouds, he first stands in front of the water. As Mufasa begins to fade away, Simba suddenly runs forward, exactly where the water should be, yet it's not there.

Correction: There are some close ups of Mufasa's head at this point. The pond is not very wide across; Simba had a large opportunity to step across.

Corrected entry: When Mufasa is hanging off the cliff he calls to Scar, "Brother..." You can hear someone whisper this to him before he says the line.

Piemanmoo

Correction: It's true that you can hear a muffled "brother" before Mufasa cries it out. But that's actually Mufasa, struggling to hold on to the cliff. Listen to it, it's spoken by James Earl Jones, voice of Mufasa.

That's not Mufasa saying it twice. For one, his mouth doesn't match what is said on the first one. Secondly it's in Scar's voice.

Corrected entry: When Simba and Mufasa look up at the stars at night (after the elephant grave yard), you can see the constellation Leo (obviously because the films about lions). but Leo can't be seen in Africa.

Correction: Actually, the constellation Leo can be seen in its entirety from anywhere on Earth above about 60 degrees South latitude. This includes all of Africa.

Corrected entry: During the singing of "I just can't wait to be King", when Simba sings, "Everybody look left, Everybody look right", he's actually moving to OUR left, then OUR right, the opposite direction of what he is saying. (00:17:25)

Correction: In Disneys the Lion King Simba moves to the "kids viewing" left and right on purpose. It is difficult for young viewers to seperate your left from my left. The words are sung from viewers point of view.

Corrected entry: In the opening scene, you see a bunch of leaf cutter ants walking across a branch. Leaf cutter ants are found in South America, not Africa.

Correction: The profile of those ants in the film is not indicative of leafcutters, since leafcutters tend to have more rugged, spinose bodies with smaller abdomens.

Corrected entry: At the beginning of the film, Scar says, "Oh, no Mufasa. Perhaps you shouldn't turn your back on me." Mufasa runs up to Scar, roaring, and says, "Is that a challenge?" Problem is, the roar is still going on while Mufasa is speaking.

Deidra Goins

Correction: They're in a cave. It's an echo.

Kara

But there is no echo for the rest of the words spoken.

Ssiscool

Corrected entry: Simba is taken to a small pond through roots of trees and thorns and bushes by Rafiki to show him where Mufasa is. Soon after, Mufasa appears in the clouds, reveals to Simba who he really is, and disappears. The place where Simba stands shows no trace of the path covered.

Correction: The grass is tall and thick all around Simba. There would be no discernible paw prints from the side 'camera' angle, possibly only if it were veiwed from above.

Super Grover

Corrected entry: In the stampede scene, Mufasa is crawling up a slanted slope, but when we get an overhead view, it's straight down.

Correction: When viewed from the top of the rocky cliff, the steepness of the rocks isn't clear, so the view we have is more dramatic for the shot. It's only from a side view that can we see the incline.

Super Grover

The Lion King mistake picture Video

Deliberate mistake: At the elephant graveyard, little Simba claws Shenzi in the face. When Mufasa saves Simba from the hyenas, the cuts are gone, a few seconds later. [This was done intentionally, I'm sure, for two reasons. The first being, Disney doesn't let fresh scars linger on the screen too long. Secondly, during that same scene when Mufasa rescues Simba & Nala, he claws Banzai in the rear. To stress the point later in the movie, that severe scar is shown too, but only briefly, it too disappears because of reason 1. Still a "mistake", but there's why.] (00:21:50)

More mistakes in The Lion King

Timon: What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?

More quotes from The Lion King

Trivia: In Swahili, 'Simba' means lion, 'Rafiki' means friend, and 'Shenzi' means uncivilized. There are many Swahili references throughout the film, and we can assume it takes place in Tanzania or Kenya, since Mt. Kilimanjaro is shown in several scenes.

More trivia for The Lion King

Chosen answer: Rafiki is a bit of a msytic or a shaman; a quasi-magical character. He was able to smell Simba on the wind that we followed from one to the other.

Phixius

Answer: Rafiki just knows because he's wise.

More questions & answers from The Lion King

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