On February 10, Buena Vista Home Entertainment will be releasing Disney’s The Lion King 1½ as a direct-to-video title in America and later on in other parts of the world. This is quite possibly the grandest and most ambitious animated feature to be released directly to video and will go a long way in helping to remove some of the stigma of home releases. Animated News’ Christian recently had a chance to view an advance copy, so follow the “More” link for his full review:

The Lion King 1½: 2-disc DVD Edition

It is well-known that the Disney classic The Lion King is based at least in part on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This has been thoroughly documented and is readily admitted to by the movie’s creators. In fact, producer Don Hahn referred to the movie in its production phase as a sort of “Moses and Joseph meet Hamlet and Elton John in Africa.” And with its tale of two young lovers from warring families falling in love it has been surmised that The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride was based largely on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Once the precedent had been set that “Lion King movies” would be based on “Shakespeare plays” there was speculation as to what a third Lion King movie would be based on. Knowing that there was a play (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead) by a modern playwright (Tom Stoppard) that just so happened to be based on the same Shakespeare play that The Lion King was based on and tells the story of Hamlet from the perspective of its title characters I wondered if a future Lion King movie could be based on that “off-Shakespeare” play. When the public got “wind” of the fact that the third Lion King movie would center on the characters Timon and Pumbaa and tell the story of the first movie all over again but from their perspective I wondered if it was just a happy coincidence but the liner notes for The Lion King 1½ confirm that it is indeed based on Rosencrantz & Guildenstern.

Regarding the unconventional, “fractional” title I recently recalled that The Lion King 1½ is not the first sequel with non-integer numbering. Does anyone else recall The Naked Gun 2½?

Watching the movie is a lot like watching Ebert and Roeper. Throughout the movie we often see silhouettes of Timon (the name itself is Shakespearean) and Pumbaa themselves watching The Lion King in a “home theater” (“jungle theater,” maybe?) and commenting on it and relating for the audience’s benefit how they were really more involved with the events of The Lion King then we previously realized. While not being a scene-for-scene recreation of the first movie it stills follow the basic chronology very faithfully and there are a few moments where actual footage from the first film is used . . . though, with the high quality of the newly produced animation, you’d have to be eagle-eyed to always be able to make the distinction. What we end up with is The Lion King simultaneously getting the Fractured Fairy Tales treatment and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. The result is always entertaining and often gutbustingly funny. Even some of the most sacrosanct and solemn aspects of the beloved classic are fair game for the irreverent jabs and sardonic barbs freely tossed about like so many grubs at a meerkat buffet.

The story? We all know how the story goes. Basically a lion cub is tricked by his evil uncle into thinking that he is responsible for his father’s death and is banished from the pride. He is then befriended by the outcasts Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog and lives a footloose and fancy-free life until his old girlfriend comes back into his life and helps to convince him to return home. He returns to his home, finds out he’s not responsible for the death of his father, and everybody lives happily ever after. But in this version of the story more emphasis is given to how Timon and Pumbaa each became outcasts, how they spent their time in the jungle oasis with Simba, and how they helped to depose the henchmen of Simba’s evil uncle. In doing so, Timon earns redemption and forgiveness from his former meerkat colony.

Not only are Timon and Pumbaa the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern of the savannah but they are also reminiscent of the Abbott and Costello of animated African animals, with one being the brains of the outfit and the other being (on the surface at least) a pudgy simpleton. We get to see a lot of Timon alternating between respect for and insensitivity towards his corpulent compadré. We see more of Timon’s budding skills as a real estate appraiser previously hinted at in the first two movies. We also get to see Pumbaa displaying more of his intuitive knowledge of all things astronomical as well as struggling with his persistent problems with all things gastronomical.

Like the first movie, this new interquel has so many subtle pop culture references that it should keep even the most adroit pop culture junkies on their toes trying to catch everything. On my initial viewing I caught references (in imagery and in dialogue) to Gone With The Wind, Pete’s Dragon, Julius Cæsar, The Fiddler on the Roof, The Little Rascals, Lady and the Tramp, The Sixth Sense, The Lone Ranger, Casablanca and Apocalypse Now.

When the movie ends (so to speak) even the credits are not safe from being fractured and maligned. If you’ve got yourself a DVD budget for the month you can’t go wrong picking yourself up a copy of this movie.

As far as DVD extras goes, this 2-disc DVD set does not disappoint. Highlights are a very funny “Timon: Behind the Legend” hosted by legendary Peter Graves, a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire parody game called Who Wants To Be King Of the Jungle hosted by real-life Millionaire host Meredith Vieira, a “Making Of” feature that is just as unconventional as the movie itself, deleted scenes, and the followup to the Virtual Safari that was included on last October’s Lion King DVD release.

Even Timon Joined In The Search For Little Nemo

“Get a load of the monkey getting all existential on me.”

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