Now comes the sort-of prequel, The Lion King 1 1/2. Instead of focusing on Simba and family, the emphasis is on sidekicks Timon and Pumbaa. As you can imagine, if they are focusing on these two, the level of story is squarely designed for kids. Not that that's a bad thing. This DVD will make an ideal babysitter.
The Movie
The Lion King 1 1/2 takes place before the events of The Lion King, eventually merging into the timeline of the original film. By the second half of the movie, many of the events on screen are the same events as in the first film, but from different angles.
It's actually shown MST3K-style, with occasional pausing of the movie to let Timon and Pumbaa, sitting in a theater, have a brief exchange. Like MST3K, all we see is them in black outline.
There's some good news to be had with the DVD. For starters, except for Zazu and young Simba, they got all of the original cast back, even Robert Guillaume (who suffered a stroke a few years ago and has had his speech diminished somewhat) as Rafiki.
As in The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, Rowan Atkinson didn't come back to voice Zazu, but he's in this movie for all of 10 seconds.
Since Jonathan Taylor Thomas is now in his 20s, he's not suitable to play young Simba any more, so they got a Disney "veteran" (for a fourteen-year-old) Shaun Flemming, who also works on the Lilo & Stitch TV series.
The other very good portent is that this is a DVD-only release, at least initially. A VHS release is coming but it won't have the second disc of extras. Even better, there is no full screen version, it's widescreen only. Just think, today's pre-teens will look back at full screen VHS movies the way some of you look back at vinyl records and floppy disks.
It starts out telling the story of meerkat Timon (voice of Nathan Lane), who at the time is living with a clan of other meerkats, including his mother (voice of Julie Kavner, who doesn't disguise her Marge Simpson voice at all) and cranky Uncle Max (voice of Jerry Stiller). Timon is a total oddball among his own kind and they barely tolerate him.
After he screws up while on watch for hyenas (and Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin are back in their roles), Timon decides to leave for a quieter life. He runs into Pumbaa (voice of Ernie Sabella) the warthog and their friendship is formed. Together, they start looking for a new place to call home.
Along the way, we start to see the events from the first film. The pass by the crowd of animals at Pride Rock when Rafiki presents the newborn Simba to the assembly, then later Mufasa goes running by on his way to the badlands to rescue his son. Shortly after that, Timon and Pumbaa have to run for dear life from a wildebeest stampede, and we all know what happened there.
No sooner do they find their paradise, a waterfall with an endless supply of slimy yet succulent grubs, then they find a lion cub unconscious on the edge of their home. The original film skipped Simba's maturity, but this film offers a few glimpses into that. Then he meets up with Nala (voice of Moira Kelly) and goes off to face Scar.
The Lion King was at once a great kids story and an epic tale that worked for children and their parents. The Lion King 1 1/2 is aimed squarely at children, with plenty of pratfalls, physical humor, flatulence jokes from Pumbaa (and thanks for sending that whoopee cushion, Disney. I have to look over my shoulder for Horn when using the phone now).
It will provide plenty of laughs for kids but adults who loved the original film won't find much to hold their interest. It's moderately funny the first time, after that you roll your eyes.
Score: 7 out of 10
The Video
Presented in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen video, it's not quite what we got with The Lion King but it's still better than standard television fare. It lacks the smoothness of the original film, and in some cases it's a bit on the sharp side, with some very minor dot crawl around some edges. I also noticed minor background noise in some of the backgrounds, particularly reds.
On the plus side, this is a rock solid print, thanks to the anamorphic enhancement. I'm so used to animated video suffering from interlacing problems, but not here. Horizontal and vertical pans are perfect and there were no notable compression problems. Color levels are excellent and everything is rich and bright.
Direct-to-video movies are often poor also-rans compared to the theatrical release, and while this DVD still can't compare to The Lion King, it looks much better than direct-to-video efforts we've seen in the past.
Score: 8 out of 10
Languages and Audio
The movie offers an English Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS soundtrack, plus a French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with English closed captions.
After the incredible mix for The Lion King: Special Edition, anything else would just pale by comparison, and this most certainly does. Even though it's a DTS mix, it's not remarkably aggressive. It has good dynamic range, with some LFE action during the wildebeest stampede, and of course plenty of high-frequency sounds.
There's even a little positional audio with action moving around the screen. What it lacks is punch. It doesn't grab your attention the way the original film did. Both the DD and DTS mixes are heavily weighted toward the front channels with not a whole lot of difference between the two mixes.
It's hard to put my finger on what it is, just that this mix, while more than acceptable, especially for home video, is missing something.
Score: 7 out of 10
Packaging and Extras
Like all of the Disney animated films for the past year, The Lion King 1 1/2 comes in a slipcase cover, with a two-disc Amaray case. Inside you get a booklet of coupons for other Disney titles (say what you will, Disney is the only ones doing this consistently), a Disney credit card application (wonder who that's for?) and an eight page booklet listing all of the features of the set.
Among the trailers in the beginning, which you can skip, is a preview of the upcoming Aladdin: Special Edition DVD due in October. That should be fun. Like The Lion King, the mrnu animation takes an annoyingly long time before you get the menu options.
On disc one we have seven deleted scenes that never got past the penciled storyboard. Producer George Mendoza and director Bradley Raymond introduce them and explain why the scenes bit the dust. A couple of extra characters were cut because they felt the cast was too big. For example, Timon was supposed to have a father, but he was cut and the lines were simply given to his mother. Hard to dispute the decisions made to cut these scenes.
Also on disc one, there's the Hidden Micky Hunt. Twenty images of Mickey Mouse's head are buried around the movie, creatively hidden within the background art, the ground, the jungle, sky, whatnot. This feature, which you turn on before watching the movie, warns you when to start looking. It might be a good distraction after watching the movie a few times, but scavenger hunts aren't my thing.
On to disc two. There is very little for extras. Had Disney not gone with a DTS soundtrack, there's no doubt they could put everything on one disc. But I'm glad they did it this way, because it allowed the movie to run at maximum performance.
Disc two breaks down into two areas: featurettes and games. Under featurettes we have Before the Beginning: The Making Of The Lion King 1 1/2 featurettes, which runs 15 minutes. They cover all the bases, including the new Elton John/Tim Rice song "Digga Tunnuh," performed by the meerkats.
All of the voice over actors, including Nathan Lane and Cheech Marin, not to mention Disney artists, talk about making the movie. Every time they get into a point, it's intercut with an element from the movie, which is some times entertaining, other times annoying. It's ok for its length.
Timon: Beyond The Legend is a five minute mockumentary hosted by Peter Graves that takes a dead serious view (well it tries) of Timon, with interviews with his mother and uncle, plus Pumbaa and others. Like most of the stuff here, it's cute the first time.
"Grazing in the Grass" is a music video starring former Cosby kid Raven-Symone, who is a Disney Channel regular.
Among the games is Timon & Pumbaa's Virtual Safari 1.5, which includes Ma and Uncle Max along for the ride. It's definitely not as traumatic as the original virtual safari on The Lion King.
Who Wants To Be King Of The Jungle? drove me up a wall. It's the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? game, with Merideth Viera as hostess and Timon as the contestant. You answer ten questions related to all three films. Not having seen The Lion King II made it difficult, but there were more than a few times when I knew the answer to a question and was still told I'm wrong. It took forever to finally get all ten.
The last game is Find the Face, where Disney characters are shown in a dark silhouette against the movie screen and you have a multiple choice as to which character it is. I found it way too easy.
For DVD-ROM owners, there is a basic InterActual player for viewing the movie and extras on both discs.
Score: 6 out of 10 (8/10 if you're under the age of 10)
