This post was originally posted to my Patreon.
If you haven’t seen the discourse over -clears throat- the Live-Action Adaption of The Lion King, where do live? Under a rock? It’s gotten a little out of hand. So this video, I am going to talk about TLK and what it means to me.
For me, the original Lion King film came out around the first semester of third grade. Otherwise known as when school had barely started and I was already out of sick days. My low immune system forced my parents to move me to homeschool. I’m self-motivated, and when I wasn’t behind in my classes due to missed school days, finishing early was a common thing. So homeschooling was a lot of free time on my hands.
During this transition, I was TLK crazy. I had almost every book they’d made, and tried to resist reading them before I finally saw the movie with my cousin and grandmother – which that’s a story by itself, as we got lost and came in just at the end of Be Prepared and had to stay to watch the beginning after we’d seen the rest of the movie.
I colored pictures of Mufasa and Simba, one of which I put my name and my dad’s on and gave to him. It ended up over his workbench. My dog was named Mufasa, I had a cat named Simba. The very first thing I learned to “freehand” draw was Mufasa and what would be called my fursona today. TLK was everything to me for a long time.
Simba’s Pride came out around the time I turned thirteen. That year, I underwent Confirmation, one of the biggest Catholic rites. It’s still one of the most potent memories of my life. I connected Kiara and Simba with myself and my father. It wasn’t long after this that my parents and I moved from my childhood home to the house where, about two years later, my father would suddenly pass away, one month after I graduated high school.
He Lives In You took on a new meaning after my father died. Before he passed away, I made a TLK / Kimba crossover with two VCRs and my stereo. I’ll never forget the grin on his face as he pointed to the screen when I showed him and mom. The sucker was two hours long and took me days. This might explain why my crossover still means a lot to me years later.
What I am saying is, The Lion King means a lot to me. It is tied to some of my most important milestones. And… I’m excited. The new clips, the new songs, everything I see, makes me feel nine years old again. Thirteen again. It’s a happiness I haven’t felt in a long time.
And even if it comes from a “cash grab piece of crap”, I’ll take it.
Hakuna Matata.
