The Lion King Series Movie Mistakes

The Lion King

Continuity Errors

• When Timon rides Pumbaa through the vultures that are crowding around Simba, they run right over where Simba should be, but he's not there. Two seconds later, after all the vultures are gone, Simba is back.

• Nala's eyes change from blue to green quite often during the movie.

• When Simba and Nala fall through the dead elephant, there are some small rocks near them. But after the hyenas say, "Here kitty kitty kitty," Simba makes a small roar and the rocks are gone.

• During the stampede in the gorge, when Simba jumps up on the dead branch, he leaves very distinct claw scratches. Then in the following scenes they're gone, although other marks and details on the branch remain.

• When Rafiki is showing Simba where his father is, Simba is following Rafiki through the trees and they arrive at a river/lake. Rafiki says 'shh' and pulls the grass apart. The thing is, he pulls away one side of the grass and the other side parts as well without him moving it.

• Mufasa's eyes flicker from yellow to white briefly while he says, "Let an old pro show you how it's done," in the Morning Report scene.

• When Rafiki dips his fingers in the orange paint to put a mane on Simba's picture, the paint is not on his thumb. He raises his hand up close to the picture, then, a split second later in the next shot, the paint is on his thumb with which he starts to paint the mane. He did not have time to dip his hand in again.

• After Pumbaa kisses Simba's feet, Timon says, "Don't he's not the king," he puts his hands on the middle of Pumbaa's snout. But in the very next shot, Timon's hands are now at the top of Pumbaa's snout.

• The whites of Simba's eyes change frequently through the movie, from yellow to white. They're yellow up until the scene where Pumbaa, Timon, and Simba are stargazing; after that they change back and forth frequently. During the Mufasa-in-the-sky scene, when Simba asks, "How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be," they change from yellow to white and back within three frames.

• When Simba and the animals begin to tower up on each other towards the end of the song "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", a shot shows that the red elephants are close to the bottom of the tower. The camera begins to scan upwards and the antelope are towards the top where Simba and Nala show up. When the animals all fall and quick shots show how jumbled they get, a red elephant somehow ends up falling on top of an antelope's antlers which shouldn't be possible.

• When the three hyenas are chasing little Simba, Banzaii (a hyena) flies into a thorn patch. When he comes out, he is covered in thorns. Then he walks over to the edge with Shenzi, and all of the thorns are gone (the ones he didn't pull out).

• When Mufasa is showing Simba how to pounce, Zazu is facing backwards when Simba pounces on him, but when Simba has Zazu pinned to the ground, his paws are on Zazu's front. Simba would hardly have released Zazu to let him turn round. (In the new release of an Extended-Version DVD, Zazu sings a song called "Morning Report" which was deleted from the original release. Zazu's change in position comes from the material that was cut. Still a mistake, but there's the explanation.)

• During the scene where little Simba and Scar are talking about how Simba is "gonna rule it all" and Scar explains about the elephant graveyard, the pads of Scar's paws change shape several times. Sometimes the pads are as they should be, other times its covered with color.

• During the presentation of Simba, two elephants kneel down. In the overhead shots before and after, there is only a group of three and one apart from the others.

• When Scar pushes Shenzi and Banzi into the geysers, they go flying across the cave. But when Scar is tiptoeing up the ridge, Shenzi is right next to him. Then, when all three are in the bone pile, she's there as well (with the long skull in the middle).

• When Mufasa confronts Scar after the ceremony, Scar walks away and Mufasa follows. Zazu has disappeared from his hiding spot behind Mufasa's leg and reappears later.

• When the three hyenas are chasing Simba and Nala in the elephant graveyard, one of them is standing on top of a bone, then next second the bone is gone.

• This is hard to see, but look at the whiskers on all the lions, the number of them changes about 100 times, especially little Simba.

• In the Stampede scene, when the tree Simba is clinging to is hit, sending Simba flying, you see the small, dead tree get broken completely and when Simba finds Mufasa's dead body the tree is somehow connected to the stump again.

Factual Errors

• When Mufasa is showing Simba the kingdom from Pride Rock they are facing the sun, yet Pride Rock's shadow is visible below them. Also in the same position, you see that they have shadows behind them. Then a few seconds later when Simba sees the shadow area the shadows are in front of them while you can see part of the sun to their left side. They would be facing south when the sun is east. How are their shadows in front of them?

• When Simba and Nala meet as adults, they rub heads and begin to purr. Lions can purr, but they only purr when they exhale, and Simba and Nala were purring when inhaling and exhaling, like house cats.

• During the scene "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" when animals begin to tower up on each other with Simba revealed at the top, there are anteaters on the tower, flicking their tongues out. Giant Anteaters, in fact all anteaters are restricted to South America, none exist in Africa. A more appropriate choice would have been an Aardvark or even Aardwolf which both have long tongues, but this is probably as much for show as for ignorance.

• When Mufasa is initially showing Simba the pridelands they are facing the rising sun - in other words east. Simba asks about "that shadowy place" which is off to the right, and is told he must never go there. When Simba is later telling Scar about seeing the whole kingdom, Scar says "He didn't tell you what's beyond that rise on the northern border." It's the same place that Mufasa was talking about, as Simba says he's not allowed to go there, but if it was to the right as they faced east it would have been the southern border of the pridelands.

Possibly Deliberate Errors

• At the elephant graveyard, little Simba claws Shenzi in the face. When Mufasa saves Simba from the hyenas, the cuts are gone, a few seconds later. This may have been done intentionally for two reasons, the first being, Disney doesn't let fresh scars linger on the screen too long. Secondly, during that same scene when Mufasa rescues Simba and Nala, he claws Banzai in the rear. To stress the point later in the movie, that severe scar is shown too, but only briefly, it too disappears because of reason one.

• Rafiki is supposed to be a mandrill, but mandrill's do not have tails. In the recently released Extended-Version DVD, there is a commentary by an animator who specifically admits that he knew that mandrills don't have tails (at least not like the length that Rafiki sports throughout the movie), but he put one on him anyway to make him more monkey-like.

• As the rain extinguishes the fire at Pride Rock, Simba passes Zazu, who bows to him and you see him mouthing words to Simba. The words "your majesty" were cut out of the film, in order to have a poignant silent moment.

The Lion King II: Simba's Pride

Continuity Errors

• Zira scratched Kovu across the face and gave him a scar on his left eye earlier in the film. As Zira plummets to her death, they show Kovu choking back tears. Look closely, and you will see that his scar has miraculously disappeared! In the next shot, he has his scar again.

• When Zira is singing "My Lullaby" the cut on her ear is on one ear, then the other, then back again. It does this four times by the end of the song.

• When Simba and young adult Kovu are walking through the burnt forest, they are ambushed by the Outsiders. But when there is the aerial shot of them walking, the Outsiders are nowhere to be seen. (DVD widescreen).

• Toward the end of the song "One Of Us" when Kovu is running away and the birds are chasing him, Simba is standing on Pride Rock looking down at Kovu. In the next shot of Pride Rock, Simba is gone, but in the next shot, Simba is back, in the same position as in the first shot.

• In the scene where Zira and Kiara are rolling down the cliffs near the end, watch carefully and in one shot we see both of them roll over an edge, and then another Kiara rolls down and grabs on to stop falling.

• When Nuka and Vitani are at the Elephant Graveyard igniting their sticks to set the Pridelands ablaze, Vitani is first drawn with dark ear stripes. There is a close-up of her rolling her eyes at Nuka and the ear stripes are not coloured in, but the lines indicating where they are are present. When the stick ignites and Vitani grabs it, the stripes are back. The stripes disappear again when Vitani is setting some dry grass on fire. This mistake is repeated throughout the film.

• During the final battle, the number of lionesses changes dramatically. When the two clans are standing in line, there are dozens on both sides. However, when Kovu and Kiara see the battle from across the gorge, there only appear to be ten at most. Also, both Zira and Simba are gone as well as any of the existing land formations (Such as Zira's rock). *There was a mistake similiar to this that was corrected stating that Disney would not show dead lions or that some lionesses had run away, but this happens all in one quick sequence and all of the lions are back once Kovu and Kiara intervene. Also, that doesn't explain the missing characters or land formations.

• At the end, just before the final fight scene, Zira's pride is lined up with Zira in the center on a rock, placing her above the others. Shortly after you see a close up of her with a couple of lionesses beside her - at the same height as her. They disappear in the next shot of her.

• When Rafiki is in the tree and Mufasa formulates a plan, there is a gourd that falls and breaks and Rafiki then picks it up to symbolise the plan. Then he says "Are you crazy? This will never work!" and makes a hand gesture, meaning that he dropped the gourd pieces. However, they are not visible in the overhead shot when he says, "I just hope you know what you are doing!"

• The bite mark/scar on Zira's ear changes ears throughout the movie.

• After the song 'Love Will Find a Way' when Kovu and Kiara are peering into the water and Kovu says, "We are one," the scar on Kovu's face is on the wrong eye.

• During Simba's nightmare when Scar transforms into Kovu, One of Kovu's Whiskers is not attached to his face.

Factual Errors

• Near the end of the song "One Of Us" when Kovu is exiled, the beisa oryx at the front of the animal chorus (the one shaking her head slowly) has incorrect facial markings for her species. The other beisa oryx in the background has the correct markings. When she sings "He is not one of us," solo, she has correct facial markings, but lacks the correct leg markings, which she had when her facial markings were incorrect.

Audio Errors

• In the scene where Simba is being attacked by Zira and the other outlanders, he rolls down a small cliff. Zira then says, "Yes, we've got him", but if you watch her mouth she is actually laughing and her mouth isn't moving at all.

• During the song "My Lullaby" where Nuka makes his comment which at the end of it causes Vitani to push him off the rock/tree stump, he is still calmly singing his line about half a second after Vitani pushes him off.

• In the part where Zira and Kiara are falling down the cliff near the end, Kovu shouts 'Kiara' but with Nala's voice.

The Lion King 1½

Continuity Errors

• Throughout this movie, some of the characters from the first movie are given new scenes. The problem is that in these scenes they don't look very much like their first movie counterparts. The obvious example here is Nala when she's explaining the whole Simba VS Scar thing to Timon and Pumbaa - her face is not only a different shape, but she's a completely different colour.

• When Rafiki is telling Timon "It" means - Look beyond what you see", there is a glitch in the shading on Rafiki's left arm just before he moves his palm upwards and gestures. It disappears before he raises his hand.

• When Mufasa is shown racing to save Simba and Nala from the hyenas in the Elephant Graveyard, Zazu's white underbelly has not been drawn in.

• In the credits, Zazu, the hornbill that is adviser to King Mufasa, is incorrectly listed as "Zasu".

• While Simba and Scar do battle at the top of pride rock, Timon, his mother and his uncle take care of the hyenas. Banzai, Shenzi and Ed were also down there with Timon and Co. throughout the scene, while in the first movie they can be seen on top of pride rock while Scar tells Simba it is the fault of the hyenas, which subsequently leads to Scar being killed by the hyenas.

• When the tower of animals collapses in the "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" sequence and all of the animals are lying in a heap, the visible sable antelope is drawn incorrectly. His white facial markings that he had in the tower and when the elephant fell on his horns are gone, and he simply has a white muzzle instead. Also, the giraffe that is the middle of the heap has no horns.

Factual Errors

• This may have been considered before drawing it this way, but it's a mistake nonetheless: When Tinkerbell shows up at the end with all the other Disney characters to watch the movie, she is back lit and silhouetted just like everyone else, and so is the pixie dust she is trailing. This is done simply to resemble a dark theater full of patrons, not to play some sort of impromptu guessing game. Her pixie dust has always been luminescent so it should not appear as a shadow against the theater screen. It'd be impossible to be silhouetted to that degree if it gives off its own light.

• When Timon meets Rafiki for the first time, Rafiki is hanging upside down, yet his beard is not affected by gravity and remains pointed upwards.

• When Timon wakes up to Simba singing "I Just Can't Wait to be King", it is implied to be the morning after Simba's birth. Naturally it would take longer than one night for a lion cub to reach the size he is in the song.

Audio Errors

• When Timon and Pumbaa awake from their first dream home by the rocks, they look up to see the animals towering and singing "I just can't wait to be king", but their mouths don't match the words of the song. They are actually out of sync by a few seconds because in the first Lion King movie the chorus was already sung at this point.

External Links

• Some errors were taken with permission from Movie Mistakes.