• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

SyFy Wire Exclusive: ORIGINAL LION KING WRITER Linda Woolverton AND DIRECTOR Rob Minkoff ADDRESS ‘KIMBA’ CONTROVERSY 25 YEARS LATER

HotHamBoy

HotHamBoy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
16,423
CrazyDude said:
This was used in an early presentation for The Lion King.
Earlypresentationreelwhitelionking.jpg

All just one big coincidence.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They're lying.

The shit in the OP is the same shit they've been saying since the movie came out. There is nothing new here.

I understand parallel thinking is real but the amount of coincidences are unbelievable, especially given that the Disney studio is made up of animation nerds who most certainly know their shit and keep up with the global animation community's output.

There is no way that not one of the 200+ animation nerds working at Disney at the time brought up Kimba to anyone else during production. There is no way that they had zero awareness of it until after TLK released. Even if it was all a coincidence when production began I can't believe that the comparison never came up during production.
 

Deleted member 6730

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,526
julian said:
Lol.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Can we not pretend that it wasn't based on Hamlet? Like we had to read Hamlet and high school and my English teacher put on the Lion King and no joke, even quizzed on its similarities. They even continued the Shakespeare motif in the sequels. The Lion King being a kid's adaptation of Hamlet is generally the agreed consensus among everyone and the Kimba similarities are basically in premise alone despite major differences between the two especially thematically and structurally. Point is no one really cares about this besides being overly repeated thing on the internet.

Like Disney sucks objectively, but there's a million more things wrong with them than this.
 
fontguy

fontguy

Avenger
Oct 8, 2018
16,155
Oh, that's cool! Because I was working on my new, original character, Mackey the White Mouse, and some people told me he reminded them of some Disney thing.

69-C1-E107-6-C19-4-CCC-9803-268-B69-A7453-D.jpg


I was worried Disney was gonna give me a hard time about it, but I'm glad to hear they're so chill about this stuff. Great minds think alike, huh? :)

EDIT: Also his story is based on King Lear so that should really clear things up.
 
Last edited:
julian

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,786
Spyder_Monkey said:
Can we not pretend that it wasn't based on Hamlet? Like we had to read Hamlet and high school and my English teacher put on the Lion King and no joke, even quizzed on its similarities. They even continued the Shakespeare motif in the sequels. The Lion King being a kid's adaptation of Hamlet is generally the agreed consensus among everyone and the Kimba similarities are basically in premise alone despite major differences between the two especially thematically and structurally. Point is no one really cares about this besides being overly repeated thing on the internet.

Like Disney sucks objectively, but there's a million more things wrong with them than this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Something is allowed to be two things at once.
 
thetrin

thetrin

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,654
Atlanta, GA
You are telling me, that a prominent animator during Disney's rennaissance DIDN'T know who Tezuka was, or what Kimba was?

Not fucking likely.
 
gforguava

gforguava

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,705
Allers lived and worked(in animation) in Japan before directing The Lion King but he is just somehow unfamiliar with Tezuka. And people buy this.

Bunch of scummy liars.
 
Heshinsi

Heshinsi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,093
makonero said:
Hamlet, and similar "King if the animals." It's believable to me.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Have you seen the comparison video? Forget the story. There are whole scenes that are lifted 1:1 from that other animated film.



Let me put it this way. Imagine someone doing what Disney did but to say one of Disney's projects. How fast do you think Disney would have sued them into oblivion?
 
julian

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,786
Also what's with claiming this is a meme? This was in a Simpson's episode over 15 years ago. This isn't some new thing

Edit: the episode aired in 1995?!
 
Last edited:
IDreamOfHime

IDreamOfHime

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,444
"I didn't even know what that was until years later when people were talking about it," Woolverton tells us.

Suuuuuuuuure. 🙄

He added "I've never even heard of Japan. Juh-Pahn? Are we sure that's a real place? I don't think so and therefore we can't have copied something from somewhere that doesn't exist."
 
Stiler

Stiler

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
6,659
Disney is literally BUILT upon the backs of using someone elses stories and "adapting" them. That's what a majority of their animated movies back in the early days were.

Which is ironic because of how much they've fought tooth and nail to extend copyright so Mickey and others aren't put into the public domain.
 
Particle Physicist

Particle Physicist

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,763
jediyoshi said:
"No one brought it up, talked about it, discussed it — nobody mentioned that there was even any similarity. It was only after the film was made that people said, 'Hey, this is based on Kimba.'

Roy Disney literally referenced Kimba on a message board prior to release and Simba's VA literally thought it was a Kimba remake.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Huh. Lion king was released in 1994. What message board did Roy Disney post in?

 
CloudWolf

CloudWolf

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,631
Whether they're lying or not, it's bullshit that the original writers aren't credited in the new one.

julian said:
Also what's with claiming this is a meme? This was in a Simpson's episode over 15 years ago. This isn't some new thing

Edit: the episode aired in 1995?!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hell, people were mentioning it in reviews the day it originally released.
 
Mewzard

Mewzard

Member
Feb 4, 2018
3,456
I mean, Walt Disney knew who Osamu Tezuka was. They even met and spoke in the 60s, Tezuka is not some unknown figure to Disney.
 
JakeNoseIt

JakeNoseIt

Catch My Drift
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
4,536
I'd say they could almost, maybe make the argument

but Kimba vs Simba is, uh, bad
 
Uncle Squingis

Uncle Squingis

Member
Jan 3, 2018
3,406
Heshinsi said:
Have you seen the comparison video? Forget the story. There are whole scenes that are lifted 1:1 from that other animated film.



Let me put it this way. Imagine someone doing what Disney did but to say one of Disney's projects. How fast do you think Disney would have sued them into oblivion?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Wow, I never saw that video before. Do we know for sure all the Kimba animation here was done before the Lion King released? If so, that's pretty fucking crazy.
 

Jiggy

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,290
wherever
It was obviously supposed to be a Kimba adaption at some point, but then it became an original IP for whatever reason and they didn't feel like throwing out all their work.
 
JaseMath

JaseMath

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,394
Denver, CO
"I didn't even know what that was until years later when people were talking about it," Woolverton tells us. "I originated the story, myself and the people in the room with me, and that wasn't a part of it in any way and it certainly wasn't a rip-off of it."

Okay, dude. Okay.
 
Kaz Mk II

Kaz Mk II

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,635
Heshinsi said:
Have you seen the comparison video? Forget the story. There are whole scenes that are lifted 1:1 from that other animated film.



Let me put it this way. Imagine someone doing what Disney did but to say one of Disney's projects. How fast do you think Disney would have sued them into oblivion?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...




Holy shit, how have I never seen this before? I dont believe them at all.

There are TOO many similarities.
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,053
SyFy Wire Exclusive: ORIGINAL LIMBO OF THE LOST DEVELOPERS Steve Bovis AND DIRECTOR Tim Croucher ADDRESS 'OBLIVION' CONTROVERSY 25 YEARS LATER
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,053
Did revenge stories not exist before Hamlet?

Did everyone in the movie die because Simba kept doing stupid things instead of just making a decision?
 

Deleted member 48897

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 22, 2018
13,623
Heshinsi said:
Let me put it this way. Imagine someone doing what Disney did but to say one of Disney's projects. How fast do you think Disney would have sued them into oblivion?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Honestly the direct-to-vhs attempts to copy from Disney's adaptations of public domain works are far more blatant than even this and of course don't improve on the visuals of the Disney work the way TLK does over Kimba.
 
Particle Physicist

Particle Physicist

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,763
SquirrelSr

SquirrelSr

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,024
Remember when Disney got sued for copying a snowman short animation? And they tried and failed two times to get it dismissed and had to settle it out of court?
 
Doukou

Doukou

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,531
Do people think Lion King is the first animated movie? Even if we ignore Kimba unless you literally think Lion King is the first animated movie it clearly has inspirations other than Hamlet and King of the Animals, Disney even doesn't agree with that claiming Bambi is an inspiration.
 
wandering

wandering

flâneur
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
2,136
Spyder_Monkey said:
Huh? I did and I don't understand the aggression. It was originally noticed by people on the internet. The Roy Disney and Broderick quotes were uncovered later. But honestly comparing both has always been more reductive than it seems not only because they're actually way different from each other but both artists were basically at the peak of that time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

lol your first post was aggressive itself.

People have been noticing the similarities literally since The Lion King came out. Tezuka was a legendary figure, lots of artists and animators paid attention to his work. It isn't about story details, it's about visual motifs and very specific designs. You should watch the video posted in the thread.
 
Last edited:
immortal-joe

immortal-joe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,422
Watching people try to deny this really feels like a fever dream.

There are many artistic merits to the Lion King, and the execution is a masterclass, but it did ripoff many elements from Kimba, and watching Disney deny it to this day, while they helped define IP protection in the modern era, is beyond ridiculous.
 
Hercule

Hercule

Member
Jun 20, 2018
5,416
Spyder_Monkey said:
It's fucking Hamlet with lions jesus that was what they were going for because it's the most famous Shakespeare thing and Lions are kings which is what the main characters in Hamlet basically are. It doesn't even have nearly as many similarities as you think (besides some superficial ones) it's just a dumb meme repeated in nerd spheres to make them seem more knowledgeable and cultured than they actually are.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The movie literally has frames that are straight out a copy of Kimba.

It is impossible that they didn't copied that movie
 
Knight in Shining Armani

Knight in Shining Armani

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,967
The only reason why they're not even more similar is because Disney only had 90 minutes in the Lion King.

LK is my favorite movie ever but this shit is so blatantly copied it's laughable. Just the way that Scar gets thrown off the cliff by Simba at the end completely seals that.
 
Last edited:
Window

Window

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,284
Heshinsi said:
Have you seen the comparison video? Forget the story. There are whole scenes that are lifted 1:1 from that other animated film.



Let me put it this way. Imagine someone doing what Disney did but to say one of Disney's projects. How fast do you think Disney would have sued them into oblivion?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't know how anyone can look at this video and believe the writer/director's statement. It's pretty blatant.
 
Kain-Nosgoth

Kain-Nosgoth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,579
Switzerland
Uncle Squingis said:
Wow, I never saw that video before. Do we know for sure all the Kimba animation here was done before the Lion King released? If so, that's pretty fucking crazy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

KImba the white lion was a 3 volume manga by Osamu Tezuka that was released in 1950, then there was the animated serie in 65, followed by a movie in 66... there was many adaptations of it, inluding one in 89, so still before the lion king
 
You must log in or register to reply here.