Rebutting Disney Innocence Over Kimba - A Few Thoughts

Surprised I haven’t got to this sooner in a way. Someone wrote something on DA saying Disney didn’t copy Kimba because it would have been a bad business choice. This sounds a very innocent viewpoint to have, and while I wrote a few points in a comment then (only indirectly addressing the subject), it set me on the track of writing a proper piece related to that and the topic in general. 

First off, as we can see from the modern day, Disney doesn’t care about their reputation. Or at least, it isn’t their main priority.

There is mountains of evidence that Disney did copy it all over the internet, from comparing images, to script that’s the same, to white Simba concept art. All the characters have an exact counterpart who very frequently looks very similar too. 

There’s also the well known fact that half the people working on it thought they were working on a Kimba remake. This at least means, Disney were copying it, even it were a misunderstanding of sorts.

Kimba’s creator and Disney himself were friends – this is too good a shield for Disney and in fact is the primary reason they didn’t get sued. Funny isn’t it. Seems to me they might have known that would happen. The secondary reason, for interest, is that people down the line decided that as Kimba was really about his relationship with humans, an element that didn’t carry over.

The thing is this is all very clever. Disney copies Kimba, but removes a big part of it (that they would have likely removed anyway), then they hide behind supposed inspiration from Bambi, and the taking the storyline from Hamlet. It’s pretty obvious what’s been done here. They’ve set up their own supposed inspiration to cover themselves. They probably also knew that Bambi had served as an inspiration for Kimba, like Pinocchio had for Astroboy, so could cover themselves doubly by using the same inspiration.

There’s a little bit of interesting history here with Disney and other people properties. First, Disney very quickly got a very bad reputation for adapting things that weren’t public domain fairy tales – most noticeably with English properties, particularly Winnie The Pooh (an atrocity to many when it was released), but despite this Disney carried on as if they could adapt anything. Dodie Smith, the author of 101 Dalmatians, was heavily pressured shall we say. But then came a bit of a problem. You won’t find this anywhere else, but the Aristocats is very clearly a film that was originally supposed to be TS Eliot’s Book Of Practical Cats. The authors widow turned down Disney adapting it, and they were forced to rework the material they already had into something that was original. From this point onwards, it was clear, Disney could lose when it came to obtaining rights to adapt something. This is important, when it comes to the Kimba controversy, because it becomes clear that instead of being turned down again, they simply copied the property on the slide, putting things into place to convince everyone of their innocence, or at least not lose a court case if it came to it.

Interestingly enough, there is more evidence they didn’t care about their reputation on the line for the same movie. When they researched hyenas for the film they were allowed to under the official agreement they presented hyenas realistically. They did not. The people tried to sue, but couldn’t get anywhere. 

There’s also Roy Disney’s letter in which he referred to Simba as Kimba, and the Kimba masks in the Disney studio.

The fact that Disney so utterly and completely denied knowledge of Kimba’s existence, a lie they would later be caught out multiple times by in itself is very suspicious, particularly as the show would have been seen by many of those involved during their childhood.

Another thing I would like to bring up is basic practices. Any company as professional as Disney will have researched its concepts to make sure it isn’t too similar to something that already exists. It is unlikely with something as obvious as Kimba that during this process they wouldn’t have come across it, if they hadn’t been aware of it previously.

Here’s a thing more. When they made the Mufasa movie recently they made the villain a white lion called Kiros. This is a blatant reference to Kimba to anyone in the know. Given the controversy this was not a smart movie. If Disney had not copied Kimba, this would have been the last thing they would have done. Instead, it comes across as a smack in the face that they got away with the whole thing.

I could say more, but most of it has been said already, so I think I just end it there.

I will leave you with one final point, though. The real question that nobody’s asking is this: If Disney had decided to adapt Kimba, how different would it be from The Lion King? If the answer is, it wouldn’t be any different, then I think the matter answers itself.