One of my favorite movies ever is Disney’s Lion King (1994). I know the music and the script inside out. So when I watched Bambi in 2021, and again when I watched it recently, I was struck by how similar Bambi is to The Lion King. Both movies follow a princely main character through the major stages of his life.
Birth: Bambi and Simba are greeted as princes by the other animals
Friendship: Bambi’s friends are Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk, plus the fussy Friend Owl; Simba’s friends are Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog, plus the fussy Zazu
Romance: Bambi’s girl playmate and eventual partner is Feline; Simba’s is Nala
Loss: Bambi tragically loses his mother; Simba tragically loses his father
Maturation: Bambi’s father challenges him to overcome physical and emotional pain; Rafiki the baboon challenges Simba to overcome the past to fulfill his destiny
Crisis: Man’s fire and dogs threaten Bambi and other animals; A fiery battle with Scar and the hyenas threaten Simba and other animals
Renewal: Bambi and Simba become fathers
In addition, both movies have awesome music, well-researched animal character designs, and colorful stylized environments.
The difference between Bambi and The Lion King is the nature of the dangers the characters face and the responsibilities they therefore must assume. In Bambi’s world, humans are depicted as a kind of powerful but essentially morally neutral disembodied force, whereas in Simba’s world, Scar is decidedly evil: he plots to betray his brother Mufasa. The deer kings merely aim to survive in a dangerous world; the lion kings must maintain order by thwarting would-be tyrants. The Lion King is a more sophisticated, more human story.
This was a new DVD (it was still in the shrink wrap), so I’d never seen these special features before. “Inside Walt’s Story Meetings” was 70 minutes of actors reading transcripts of discussions, with related visuals, to show how decisions were made about developing the story and characters. As part of this feature, there were also modern interviews commenting on various aspects of the movie’s development. I particularly enjoyed learning about the unusually abstract background art style, which was developed by a Chinese-American artist, Tyrus Wong. As is often the case with DVD special features, I definitely appreciated the movie even more after watching the extra material.
I still like The Lion King better, but Bambi definitely ranks high among my favorite Disney movies. Nostalgia probably accounts for some of that: it was originally released before my time, of course, in 1942; but it was re-released in theaters in 1988, and I’m pretty sure I saw it then.
I still have (somewhere, I assume…) some of the fast food toys from that time: Bambi, Friend Owl, and Thumper. I also have, though I don’t know where I got it, a little green plastic TV that you look into to see images from the movie. (Apparently they still make these! They’re called Plastikop and they’re made in Germany.)
I think a lot of people don’t know, but Bambi the movie is based on a book: Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten. When I learned that in 2021, I read the version translated by Hannah Correll. I have a page on my translations website about all the English translations of Bambi.
