3) The Lion King (1994)
The opening sequence to Disney’s The Lion King is arguably the best of any in the Disney catalogue, and that is one tough competition pool. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was almost used as the entry here, purely for the power of Alan Menken’s The Bells of Notre Dame, and the film’s refusal to shy away from Victor Hugo’s original dark material. Tarzan was also almost chosen on the basis of the, er, highly creative fan theory that Tarzan’s parents, who appear at the movie’s beginning, were actually none other than Elsa and Ana’s parents who were lost at sea at the beginning of Frozen (Dear God, please let the Frozen sequel be a Frozen/Tarzan cross-over).
But, there is simply something about the opening to The Lion King that is impossible to outshine. To begin with, it somehow completely surpasses the animated world in which it is drawn. Technically, the drawing style used for these scenes is called ‘enhanced naturalism,’ and it was the brainchild of Production Designer Andy Gaskill.
Gaskill studied hundreds of paintings of the African savannah in order to create the effects used for the jaw-dropping majesty of the opening sequence. Obviously the effects are used throughout the film as well, but it is in the first four minutes that they have their true impact. The rising sun, the river, the waterfall, the mountains, the mist, the skies, the dust thrown up by the animals’ feet – these are not ‘drawings’ – they fully deserve to be called scenery. It is also worth mentioning here that the animators of The Lion King were actually Disney’s ‘B-Team’, the ‘A-Team’ having abandoned the Lion King project to work on the picture that they felt was going to be more successful –Pocahontas. That went well.
But of course, it is not just the visuals that make this scene so incredible. Hans Zimmer spent two years researching and collaborating with African vocalist specialists in order to produce the beautiful African themes of the soundtrack, which most memorably opens the movie over the shot of the sun. For “Circle of Life,” Zimmer worked with lyrics by Tim Rice, and melodies (written in just an hour and a half) by Elton John. When the filmmakers heard the demo of Hans Zimmer’s completed article for the first time, it finished to stunned silence.
So powerful, in fact, was “Circle of Life,” that the decision was made to change the entire opening sequence on its behalf. The original beginning featured dialogue that introduced each of the animals, with music only playing as an accompanying background score. The version that Zimmer had given the filmmakers was an extended one; he thoroughly expected that he would later have to edit and shorten it. Once the filmmakers heard the full version, however, they removed the dialogue in order to accommodate the full four minutes of Zimmer’s work.
And finally, the “Circle of Life” opening sequence became the only complete section of a movie ever to also serve as the movie’s trailer. The trailer to The Lion King quite literally is this sequence, in full. One reason for that could be that by the time a trailer was needed, most of the animators were in danger of dying of old age – it took three and half years just to animate the 6 minutes of the wildebeest stampede.
Or, it could be that it really is just that good.