Compared to Shakespeare's Hamlet, Disney's 1994 adaption into The Lion King was meant for a different audience and has a simplified and cutesy version of the problems that are seen in Hamlet. The intent was because Disney wanted to make a profit, and why not turn a classic like Shakespeare's Hamlet into capitalistic gain? Disney kept the vaguest, simplest plot of Hamlet, but nearly everything else was changed in order to accommodate the change in audience. The director chose to keep a skeleton of the major plot points while changing nearly everything about the play that was descriptive or filler. This was done in order to adapt the play into more of a child-friendly version. The human actors were replaced with bright and bubbly animated animals, detaching the quality of human life from the characters. Because children don't understand loss quite like those who have experienced it, Disney can get away with showing Simba's motivation and connection to his father before Mufasa dies, and further showing Simba's reaction to his dead father, which was included in order to communicate to a younger audience that Simba lost someone he had idolized. When Simba comes back when he's grown for …show more content…
While Simba wants to take his throne back, Hamlet wants revenge above all. Simba wants to return his kingdom back to its glory, and Hamlet doesn't care if his desire will bring ruin to the kingdom his father built. The details of the plot were altered because a tale of obsession would be harder to communicate with children. Because Disney's adaption is aimed at children, an antihero protagonist is likely to not make much sense to children as most kid shows have relatable characters, and it would promote bad acts to impressionable children. Realism isn't important to children shows because they're also less likely to be interested when compared to bubbly and funny