The Lion King not only holds up to 16 years of age, but the Blu-ray transfer for both the hand-drawn animation and the audio brings the film up to the high quality that has been held in my memory for all these years.
The film takes place on an African savanna. The Pride Lands is ruled over by the benevolent lion king Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and he spends his time not only protecting the herds from the nearby hyenas, but also teaching his new heir, young Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the kid-actor sensation at the time from Home Improvement), about being a good king.
The little lion prince is surrounded by Mufasa's majordomo, a hornbill named Zazu (Rowan Atkinson, known mostly in the States as Mr. Bean) as well as his betrothed, young Nala (Niketa Calame). There is one other person in his life, his uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons), who finds the new cub to be just one more thing between him and the throne.
What no one realizes is that Scar is in cahoots with the hyenas and starts a plot with the opposing forces to place Scar at the head of the Pride Lands. The main three hyenas in the film are played by Whoopi Goldberg (Shenzi), Cheech Marin (Banzai) and Jim Cummings (Ed), and they act as the comic relief before Simba is forced to start his new life and he meets a pair of layabouts.
When Scar's plan comes to fruition, he has left his brother dead and believes Simba is also dead, but the young lion has just been cast out in exile. It is there he meets a meerkat named Timon (Nathan Lane) and a warthog named Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), and they teach him about their life philosophy of Hakuna Matata, which means "no worries." While Simba, now voiced by Matthew Broderick, grows up under this mantra, his isolated world shatters around him when the adult Nala (Moira Kelly) wanders into their area to hunt and discovers the long-thought-dead prince and tells Simba what has become of his homeland since Scar took over.
While the "limited time release" coupled with the high definition quality of this disc would be enough for me to buy The Lion King: Diamond Edition by itself, this edition also comes with several special features that are sure to bring in a few more Disney fans.
The Lion King comes with Disney's new Second Screen feature that allows you to watch the movie on your TV and use your iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc) device or computer to go through special features in sync with the film. This includes everything from sketches to flip books and even a few games. In a similar manner, you can also turn on Sing Along Mode and have the words the the movie's iconic songs play across the screen like subtitles.
This release also features an amusing Bloopers and Outtakes reel where, instead of artificially making outtakes like other animated shows might do, the animators just added a face to the unused voicework. Things like Jones attempting to perform Mufasa's roar, or Broderick trying to say Hakuna Matata are just a few of the added animated segments. There is also an added scene and song. The song "Morning Report" was added into the Broadway musical, and for one of the DVD releases, that song was brought to life and added to the movie. Here, it isn't in the film, but still viewable, as well as a few other deleted scenes that didn't make it far past the story board or sketching phase of the production process.
There are also a pair of featurettes, one is a retrospective talking about how The Lion King came to be and how strong it is till this day, and the other is a featurette narrated by producer Don Hahn as he talks about the film. The last special feature menu option is Disney's Virtual Vault, where you will be able to access all of the previous DVD-based special features. Here's the kicker, and as long-time readers might know, one of my pet peeves, they can only be accessed online.
In this case, The Lion King: Diamond Edition isn't as bad as other releases, like any Showtime TV series, but the issue is still there. For Showtime, the box will list many special features, and all of them, every single one, is available online only. The problems I have with that include, but are not limited to, the fact that I believe if it is on the box, it should be on the disc, the ability to watch those features if I don't have Internet access, and there is no guarantee those special features will be there for any length of time, and thus the value of the release isn't as high as it was.
Now, The Lion King isn't nearly that bad. There are a ton of features on the disc itself, and the box says clearly that the classic DVD features are powered by BD-Live. In this case, it's been fairly well established by the previous Diamond Edition releases that the original DVD special features are also included, but in all of those, they were on the disc itself, and so the BD version was a suitable replacement of the previous DVD release. With those old special features being placed online only, I can't say for sure that buying the Blu-ray version even if you already have it on DVD is the best idea. Yes, this package includes the DVD version for portable play, but without the special features. For a Disney fan who wants to watch all of those special features, knowing for sure that they will be able to watch them at any time could mean a lot, and if they get taken down for whatever reason, then those extras aren't available. Like I said above, the Blu-ray version of the film is enough for me to buy the film, but I don't know how many people would say the same.
Now that I've gotten off of my soap box, I can say that this is a great release of the movie, and any fan should want to pick it up. While it isn't the be-all and end-all collector's version, at least not on-disc, it is still a good purchase.
