This past weekend, Disney’s The Lion King hit theatres and scored 30 million on their first three days of sales. This is pretty impressive … especially since it was released in 1995.
As I sat in the theater and watched these little youngin’s see Mufasa die for the first time, I wondered why it was this movie and not others that withstood the sands of time. Why was it not The Great Mouse Detective or Lady and the Tramp being re-released? Why The Lion King? Why was it that when I asked my students what their favorite movie was, they always answer the same?
It’s a question that we as writers face when we think about writing a great book. Not a “good” book. Not even a “eh it was okay” book. Don’t deny it; every single one of us want to write that book. The one that years from now, we’ll have songs written about it and movie trailers following and little kids will still flock to bedtime to hear. Okay, so maybe for some of us, not little kids. But the gist is made.
Jane Austen was not the only novelist of her time. Neither was Twain or Shakespeare or Beckett or any other famous person you’ve heard of. There were hundreds of thousands of stories told, so why is it that there are only four remaining from Greek festivals (barring the fact that most of them went up in a pile of smoke in Alexandria)?
I always tell my students it’s because of a few very important elements the writer hits right.
The Yellow Volkswagon
I’ve talked about the Yellow Volkswagon before, but I’ll hit it again. In order to have a good story, you gotta laugh and you gotta cry. Check out TLK for example. Simba’s father has just died. Scar has just sent this little ten-year-old boy to go die either in the desert or by hyena teeth. These three hyenas go running after him, and his only escape is through thorns. We’re about to cry because it’s so terribly sad … and then Bonzai falls in the thorns and comes out screaming “Ayeeeeeiii!” Shenzi then says, “I ain’t going in there! What you want me to come out lookin’ like you? Cactus Butt?” It’s funny, and we laugh. Whenever anything too terribly sad happens, they play up the laugh. It’s a constant weigh scale, balancing the two masks of drama.
Clear Plotline
The Lion King is what we call a bildungsroman. It is the story of a hero who goes from child to adult. He proves himself. Now does that mean that the movie is drab and a tale as old as time? No, there are twists and shocks and fun parts, too, to keep us entertained along the way. But it isn’t muddled. It all is going toward a goal of the character’s need to be king. When my classes plot out a Disney movie on the Freytag, I tell them to stay away from certain movies (such as The Little Mermaid) because it’s just too difficult to follow. There is no clear ending and clear goal all the way through. Ariel wants to have freedom, but she wants the boy, but she wants her voice back … and who’s the villain? Triton? Ursula? Sebastian? Who?
Complex Characters
However, does this mean that everyone needs to be hero or villain? No. I think one of Mulan’s greatest downfalls is the fact that Shan Yu is clearly a bad guy and Mulan is clearly a good guy. Okay so she’s clumsy, but Shan Yu has yellow eyes. Simba is a little jerk, and he grows up to be a bigger jerk. But we still root for him. Timon and Pumbaa are bums, but we still love them. Scar is terrible, but we still feel sorry for him. Mufasa is a great father, but he’s a terrible brother. All of these characters are complex, and so we find them to be more interesting. We relate to them more …
Heart
Finally, heart. This is the final ingredient you need. It needs to matter to the audience. It needs to hit us in a place that clicks deep inside. There is an entire society here on earth that knows what it means when Mufasa has fallen. Everyone remembers the first time they realized he wasn’t going to get back up. Everyone gets goosebumps when they see Simba take the throne. When they hear Mufasa in the clouds. They laugh when they watch “Hakuna Matata.” It connects deep inside somewhere we can’t really place. We’re not just watching a Disney movie, we’re watching a part of our human narrative.
So go see The Lion King. Take a notebook. Jot some notes. And start writing. I’ll see you in another fifteen years when it comes out in 4D.
