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SyFy Wire Exclusive: ORIGINAL LION KING WRITER Linda Woolverton AND DIRECTOR Rob Minkoff ADDRESS ‘KIMBA’ CONTROVERSY 25 YEARS LATER
- Thread starter Deleted member 3812
- Start date
Don't believe your lyin' eyes, all this smoke comes from our patented Walt Disney Co. branded smoke machines, there's no fire here.
Ha, I wanted to post this.
I love Disney but this case is such a damn shame.
The most and The Lion King being back in the news is everyone going extra hard to pretend they care about "Kimba the White Lion."
Most people who bring this up have never even seen the damn thing. And say they do come out and admit that borrowed from it. What exactly does that do? The Lion King will remain one of the most beloved animated films ever, and Kimba will remain some obscure anime most people have never heard of.
The internet chooses the strangest hills to die on.
Most people who bring this up have never even seen the damn thing. And say they do come out and admit that borrowed from it. What exactly does that do? The Lion King will remain one of the most beloved animated films ever, and Kimba will remain some obscure anime most people have never heard of.
The internet chooses the strangest hills to die on.
? of course there were. Message boards are one of the oldest concepts on the internet. They just weren't on the World Wide Web. You had BBSs, newsgroups and the channels offered by ISPs like aol/prodigy/compuserv
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What the fuck does the popularity of the movies have to do with this???
Disney ripped the hell out of other peoples work, made billions off of it and still acts like they never even heard of the original even though their early concepts clearly show that Simba had white fur and was named Kimba.
Why would you even defend Disney on this??? Are you paid by them or are you just being delusional and don't want to accept that your favourite childhood movie was not so original.
That's not the point. They straight out copied scenes from Kimba.
Has anyone that is defending Disney actually looked up what the problem is?
They didn't copy the story, they directIy ripped off designs, concepts and shots.
If you watch this and actually think Disney wasn't aware of Kimba then you are just delusional:
I never believed their lies but never saw a side by side comparison, but how the fuck can anyone deny this obvious rip-off? Have the owners of Kimba never tried suing Disney over it?
They commented that they feel uncomfortable about the situation but don't have the funds to go after Disney
TLK has various shots that were likely stolen from Kimba by an animation supervisor, but the actual stories have nothing in common and many of the comparison videos on the internet are out of context. You'll notice Woolverton is specifically talking about the story of the film, which she wrote, and which is not similar to Kimba. She is defending her writing as not being a ripoff.
The problem is it's difficult to defend TLK because the narrative basically writes itself: the evil American colonizer corporation stole the innocent Japanese anime and if you try to defend it, you're defending a megacorporation. Disney is so hated in film circles and anime so revered that there's not really a way to defend the film so there's no point in trying.
The problem is it's difficult to defend TLK because the narrative basically writes itself: the evil American colonizer corporation stole the innocent Japanese anime and if you try to defend it, you're defending a megacorporation. Disney is so hated in film circles and anime so revered that there's not really a way to defend the film so there's no point in trying.
I'd say "defending the plagiarism of a highly litigious, billion dollar corporation that singlehandedly dismantled US copyright law for its own profit" is a much weirder hill to die on than "taking somebody else's work is wrong."
No one's saying you can't or shouldn't like TLK anymore. It's not a demand to call someone on their bullshit.
This topic is not about Star Wars, also George Lucas is very honest about the inspiration he used to make SW.
Disney on the other hand claimed to have never heard of Tezuka.
I don't think I've seen many people say TLK ripped off Kimbas story. But it definitely copied some of its visual identity. And in a visual medium like film, isn't that pretty fucking important?
Also, I have failed to see anyone defending TLK actually respond to the many people asking them to watch the comparison video. It's as if they have no idea what people are actually specifically referring to when they say TLK stole from Kimba.
TLK is a great movie and an amazingly well made animation but why can't we also acknowledge that it ripped off a previous film?
"They didn't plagiarize the story, just specific shots, sequences, character designs, and core components of its visual identity!" is a really bad defense.
And it's pretty hard to believe it was just some rogue member of the animation team when the concept art started with a white lion cub, who Roy Disney himself called Kimba.
We're not decoding the fucking Voynich manuscript, here.
At least they will be honest about what and where they borrowed from.
But, hey, plausible deniability is better than risking to be sued, it isn't?
GIGANTIC DISNEY PROPERTY
HOLLYWOOD
LAWYERS
$$$$$$
"Completely coincidental."
Ok, sure. Feed me the next corporate sponsored PR puff piece, thanks.
It's not just the story though. The direction straight up steals scenes. What a ridiculous claim to say you didn't know of Kimba.
Wow, I just...
Even after all this time, they still won't own up to it.
From what I understand, and it's based off information that was available at the time, Tezuka Productions had shopped around to work with an International studio in the late 80s, with the title being Kimba specifically. It's likely Disney and Tezuka Productions had initially negotiated and began early work on the project. We know during the early production phase of the movie, it was still a Kimba project, but reportedly the deal ultimately ended up falling through.
It's not clear why, but someone pointed out the death of Tezuka in 1989 likely contributed to the project falling apart. In fact, there was a lot of weird things that went on with a number of Tezuka Productions projects at this time (also delayed the "In the Beginning" project that much longer, which was already a rough project to begin with).
As for the story, it's clearly influenced or borrowed elements of that of Kimba (as well as other influences at the time). I think what ultimately happened is that the studio ultimately decided to salvage the project and re-work it into the concept that is known today. But even back then, the public, despite not inherently being big Japanese animation fans (which besides Tezuka projects, Ghibli/Miyazaki, Gatchaman when it was released as Battle of the Planets, Yamato, Robotech/Macross, and a couple handful of exceptions, anime wasn't super well known in the states), immediately noticed all these similarities and caused a huge stink back then.
I'm really not sure why, at this point, no one wants to talk about what happened during this period. I can't help but feel Disney's legal team is still applying pressure on the whole situation, even years later, which is why people continue to say the things that they do. It's just odd, given we have early emails and stuff, communication, production artwork, etc., that completely prove otherwise to the above comments, but again, I just think it's Disney's legal team continuing to say these statements.
But then again, it.. happened with another project years later, and this one is a bit... more on the nose...
(I'll need to note: While it's true Nadia and Atlantis, at its roots, are based off of the same novel, and some similarities cannot be avoided, it carries so many of the changes that Nadia did, not just in design, but outright framing of shots and elements...)
Even after all this time, they still won't own up to it.
From what I understand, and it's based off information that was available at the time, Tezuka Productions had shopped around to work with an International studio in the late 80s, with the title being Kimba specifically. It's likely Disney and Tezuka Productions had initially negotiated and began early work on the project. We know during the early production phase of the movie, it was still a Kimba project, but reportedly the deal ultimately ended up falling through.
It's not clear why, but someone pointed out the death of Tezuka in 1989 likely contributed to the project falling apart. In fact, there was a lot of weird things that went on with a number of Tezuka Productions projects at this time (also delayed the "In the Beginning" project that much longer, which was already a rough project to begin with).
As for the story, it's clearly influenced or borrowed elements of that of Kimba (as well as other influences at the time). I think what ultimately happened is that the studio ultimately decided to salvage the project and re-work it into the concept that is known today. But even back then, the public, despite not inherently being big Japanese animation fans (which besides Tezuka projects, Ghibli/Miyazaki, Gatchaman when it was released as Battle of the Planets, Yamato, Robotech/Macross, and a couple handful of exceptions, anime wasn't super well known in the states), immediately noticed all these similarities and caused a huge stink back then.
I'm really not sure why, at this point, no one wants to talk about what happened during this period. I can't help but feel Disney's legal team is still applying pressure on the whole situation, even years later, which is why people continue to say the things that they do. It's just odd, given we have early emails and stuff, communication, production artwork, etc., that completely prove otherwise to the above comments, but again, I just think it's Disney's legal team continuing to say these statements.
But then again, it.. happened with another project years later, and this one is a bit... more on the nose...
(I'll need to note: While it's true Nadia and Atlantis, at its roots, are based off of the same novel, and some similarities cannot be avoided, it carries so many of the changes that Nadia did, not just in design, but outright framing of shots and elements...)
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Usenet was a distributed message-board like system that went back to the early 1980s. Although this question was already answered, talking to other people on the internet didn't start in the mid 1990s.
Era just copied the old place. PLAGARISM.
Ya'll are still delusional about this. Acting like culture transmitted the same way preinternet. It's highly likely that the people who saw Kimba were exceptions, not the rule. Anchronisms ahoy.
Prodigy
That looks like an email. How legit is it? I don't remember prodigy bulletin boards looking like that.
There is no controversy
open source can do whatever they want
if there was a copyright, maybe I'd see an issue
open source can do whatever they want
if there was a copyright, maybe I'd see an issue
"My name is BDS and I'm here to complain about people being mean to the megacorporation by setting up a a strawman and defending it on lines it was never attacked on, hi how are you"
That's what I meant by 'like they are today.' I should have clarified when I made that post. I have never seen anyone call BBSs, newsgroups, etc. forums. BBSs were still very niche. How often would famous people answer questions on then back then? They certainly weren't as widespread and accessible as they are today. I've been hearing about this controversy since the lion king was released and I don't ever remember anyone bringing up BBSs posts or anything remotely like that.
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This was used in an early presentation for The Lion King.
All just one big coincidence.
Matthew Broderick also told everyone he was going to play "Kimba" for a while, when asked why he said he must have gotten confused and it was Simba.
He said he was familiar with the Kimba anime before he got the role...
So pre-release Disney has somesort of promo/early presentation picture with a White Lion, Roy Disney actually calls the character Kimba, and finally Matthew Broderick Simba's voice actor initially told people he got the roll of Kimba only to later backtrack and say he was confused after the movie was released.
Then the movie was released and fans notice a bunch of similarities, but Disney denies it.
And despite all that I'm also still supposed to believe that Disney of all places didn't employ one single person who was an animation nerd enough to know about Tezuka's work in Japan.
hmmmmmmmm.............
That could be an explanation for what happened. Seems more believable compared to Disney's current statements.
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No one involved in making The Lion King is ever going to admit to any sort of inspiration gained from Kimba the White Lion. Doing so would just open up the possibility of a lawsuit against Disney.
Settle your tea kettle. I'm fully aware of the connections between the two and not defending Disney. I saw Kimba when I was a kid and picked up on it immediately. I know it's a thing. I'm more over people bringing it up every single time The Lion King is mentioned as some kind of "Gotcha!" or like Kimba was this great piece of art that was somehow robbed. Most of yall don't give a single slice of a fuck about Kimba, and you know you don't. It's a tired conversation, and one that is never going to have a resolution cause Disney is NEVER going to admit to that shit.
I think it's a strange hill to constantly fight a battle you know you'll never win over two pieces of children's entertainment, but hey. Do you boo boo. Live your life.
It doesn't, but I'm trying to understand people's motives here. Do you want Kimba to suddenly become this massive hit? Or is this just about sticking it to Disney? I'm assuming the latter, and in that case, I feel there's a lot more heinous shit you could go at Disney over than this.
All I'm saying is that with the way people act, you'd think Kimba was this beloved series everyone grew up with and not a so-so anime even most hardcore anime fans would never bother with. It's strange, but apparently, yall are a lot more passionate about plagiarism than I am. lol
Who's defending them? I'm not. I don't really care about people attacking Disney for shit, nor do would anything anyone says on here ever affect enjoyment of The Lion King or anything else for that matter. I find the Kimba thing annoying because it's been decades and folks still bring it up like fresh. This is just a lot of carrying on for an anime most of y'all don't really care about over an issue that's been a known thing for almost 3 decades. Like, every Lion King thread eventually has people complaining about Kimba. Really? Hearing Disney say, "We goofed" means that much to you?
I don't get it, but given the response to my post, I guess it's a thing people are really stuck on. *shrug*
I feel if the people who actually made Kimba felt a way about it to the point that getting sued was a possibility - or at least, worth the hassle - they'd have done something by now rather than waiting for millenials on the internet to raise a stink about it. The Lion King has been a thing for going on 30 years; plenty of time to put together a case. And hey. If they put that case together, I'll happily root for them and wish them all the best. However, that's not really happening, is it?
Just saying I don't get essentially seeking vindication that is never going to come. Disney is never going to confirm the connections between the two, and if the people behind Kimba aren't pressing them on it, I'm not going to. Make jokes about it, sure, but some folks are legit mad about this and it's like....where have you been? lol
I actually really like Disney but Osamu Tezuka deserves al the recognition he can get. The way Disney handled this is disrespectful
The bizarre thing is that it was recently said the story was "originally" about lions and baboons going to war with each other on the recent special Disney put out on ABC about the franchise, with concept art backing that up. That doesn't seem very Kimba or Hamlet to me. It was the first time I'd ever heard of it though. Where that fits into the timeline between Tezuka studios shopping around (the production pic of the white lion cub in tandem with Roy's memo is pretty damning) and the "Hamlet Lion" is what I want to know. And why are we only just now finding out about it, if Google isn't lying to me?