“Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”
And the towering yet kind voice of James Earl Jones’ Mufasa ensured that we believed it to be true. He was our king and his son Simba would be king after him.
So when the live-action trailer of The Lion King dropped last week, we were all understandably excited.
It’s been a while since I have felt such joy after watching a trailer. It’s not that it was just nostalgic, but the sheer magnitude of that very moment when Rafiki holds Simba and in a way introduces him to the world; a world he is to rule one day.
And remember Timon and Pumba? That is such a weird duo. A warthog and a meerkat.
I can remember singing their songs with my friends and being weird and knowing that it was okay to be so!
And to think of it, they raised the future king. By feeding him worms, but hey, in their defense, for a lion, they are the food.
But Hakuna Matata, right?
That trio was my first lesson in friendship. They taught me that everyone is different and that’s okay. We don’t need to be the same people to be friends and co-exist.
Then there was Scar, the evil younger brother, the Loki of Lions, if you may. And he was the ultimate evil. The job of a good villain was to make the hero look better and he did. He was vicious and cunning and no evil deed was beneath him.
And of course, Mufasa. I still cry every time I see him getting trampled by wildebeests. And then Scar tells Simba, it’s his fault!
And those damn hyenas!
I was born in 1994, the year the first Lion King film released. So watching it in 1998 was fun, but I missed the excitement around it when it first came out.
I won’t, this time around. I will be there with Simba and Nala and the rest of them on their journey.