MovieChat Forums > The Land Before Time (1988) Discussion > Lion King ripped off this movie (spoiler...

Lion King ripped off this movie (spoilers obv)


small male child loses a parent, begins a journey, has a female companion. old dinosaur mentions the "circle of life." Later, they meet friends. continues on, male sees a cloud in the sky shaped like a parent, then we get a happy ending.

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Yeah that's a handful of simularities. Completly ignoring the fact that both films flow incredebly differently. And what do you mean "female companion" - do you mean Cera? I wouldn't compare her to the "female companion" in Lion King, in this film she and LittleFoot hated each other (at least at first) while in Lion King they where close from the start (Cera and Littlefoot aren't a "match up" as far as one can tell).

In my opinion this film is lightyears ahead of Lion King, but that is also a good film, and it is unfair to call it a rip off - at least of LBT.

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Big news

Lion King ripped of of Kimba the White Lion...

also, Lion King = Hamlet.

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Yeah, beacuse it has a Lion with a name that rhymes... Oh, and any film with a parent dying (LBT, Lion King, Bambi) is a rip off of the one before it. Infact which everone I like best is the original, it doesn't matter if it was the first one made - I think it's better, so it's the orginal, everything else remotly similar is a rip off. [/sarcasm]

It's amazing how easy it is to be accused of unoriginality and "ripping off" these days - all you need is one minor simularity.

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Actually, if this hasn't been mentioned yet, some Disney dude was friends with the Japanese dude who did Kimba... got some permission of sorts. I don't know the full story, but I'm certain someone on imdb does.

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MeZergy, I think I know the story.

Walt Disney and Tezuka did know each other. Tezuka was a big fan of Walt's work (which is why his characters look Disney-esqued) Tezuka tried to gain rights to write mangas (comics) of Disney version of Bambi but then came up with Kimba the white lion. There are simularities in those two as well. (Young Prince, 2 sidekick characters) Also, if you watch the first episode, the mice on the ship look almost exactly like Jac and Gus from "Cinderella". (Only putting that fact in to help explain the fandom)

http://www.stonebridge.com/DREAMLAND/dreamland.html

There were some people behind lion king that confused the two because of the name.
That explains a lot. That and the fact that both Kimba and Lion King were both inspired by Disney's Bambi.

"The Land Before Time" is also based off Disney. "The Rite of Spring" sequence in "Fantasia" and "Bambi". I have suspition that the Land Before Time may have also took from Nestor the long-eared Christmas donkey (Rankin/Bass 1977).

So, all in all, Kimba, the land before time and Lion King came from the exact same resources but are very different in plot.

Bambi - Life of a Prince deer (grows up)

Kimba - Lion cub born on ship and must fight his way through Africa to take his place as king.

Nestor - Abused, orphaned donkey is guided by a cherub(Angel) on a journey then takes Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.

Land Before Time - Young dinosaur guided by his mother spirit, takes his friends to a new home full of life.

Lion King - Lion cubs uncle kills father and blames himself. He runs away until adulthood when childhood friend and fathers ghost tell him to go back and fight.

Very different plot lines.

Jesus loves you no matter what race, whether your straight or gay. He will save you no matter what.

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Oh, and any film with a parent dying (LBT, Lion King, Bambi) is a rip off of the one before it. Infact which everone I like best is the original, it doesn't matter if it was the first one made - I think it's better, so it's the orginal, everything else remotly similar is a rip off. [/sarcasm]

I wanted to say that! Just because a more recent film has a character - in this case a parent - dying doesn't mean it ripped off a movie that came out before it with a similar character dying! Haha. So every animated or non animated movie that has a mother character die in it EVER is a rip off of the very first movie that had a mom die?

By the way, not everything is a rip-off. Some things are based on others. The Lion King was BASED on Hamlet but was a RIP-OFF of Kimba.

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The Lion King is an adaptation of Hamlet, so if anything it ripped off Shakespeare.

Witty closing remarks have been replaced by massive head trauma and severe hemorrhaging.

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Yup, and aside from James Horner's score for TLBT, The Lion King is the superior production. (And even then, Hans Zimmer's score for TLK is probably better.)

Don't get me wrong, I saw The Land Before Time in theaters and still enjoy it, but it's execution is more typical of the animated genre, whereas the Lion King was a fresh take on a tired subject. (talking animals with singing/dancing numbers)

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I don't think anything ripped off anything else. There's tons of movies where the parents die and the orphan is left for an adventure.
And i believe Lion King was based on Hamlet, just how Oliver and Company was based on Oliver. It's not really ripping off, there's just similar elements, but different plots.

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"Bambi" "The land before time" and "The Lion King" I've watched all three and they are different from one another.

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Don Bluth is an independent animator and always loved his craft. He came up with original ideas (do all dogs really go to heaven?) and (off course) borrowed here and there to make a complete story. Yes, he made some terrible rip-offs in the 90's (not counting Titan A.E.), but it was not even close to how often DIsney ripped-off during its long history. Shame on you, big mouse!!!
:P

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Also, I think Disney ripped Treasure Planet's space setting of Titan A.E.

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Actually, Treasure Planet took 10 years to make. Yes it was released in theaters after Titan AE. Deep Impact and Armageddon came out about the same time too. Pretty much the same tag line, an asteroid is coming to destroy earth. But that's about the only thing that's similar about it. Everything else is different. For awhile there though, it seemed like the movies that came out where basically the same thing but yet different, its like the folks in hollywood were just throwing at straws.

Disney hasn't ripped off anybody, they get the rights from other people to do the movies that they do. And on the description of Oliver and Company it says that it was inspired by Charles Dickens "Oliver Twist". That's totally different then ripping it off. Says it right there on the back of the movie. And isn't "annie" the same thing, but the main character is a girl, and not a boy? Just like a majority of all fairy tales have a princess in some sort of trouble and the prince or a guy has to come and save her. And you can't really blame all that on Disney. Though some people have tried to. They just didn't do the research.

Now as for Shakespeare, a lot of his stuff has been done, and remade or adapted into something else or a new twist. You know why these are done? Because the people who want to do that, actually like the person.

The Lion King didn't rip off The Land Before time either. Yes there are some similarities, but completely different story. One big differnce is: Simba runs away after his father was killed by his uncle, but he thought he's the one who got his father killed, so instead of facing the heard, he runs away. That's called running away from your problems. Then when his childhood friend, finds him, and has the cloud that looked like his father, he returns, finds out the truth and faces his problems head on, and takes his rightful place as the king.

Littlefoot...loses his mother. He's alone after the big earthquake. Is separated from his grandparents and continues his journey to the great valley in search of them. Yes he has friends along the way, with some guidance from his mother (through out the whole movie), and him and his new found friends face the big bad Sharptooth that killed his mother. Makes it to the great valley where he is reunited with his grandparents, and his friends are reunited with their families too. In this story, Littlefoot never gave up. He knew what he had to do and that's continue on, even though he lost someone he greatly loved.



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The Big Rip Off Disney mad of this movie was not the Lion King but obviously Dinosaur. I saw that movie when I was 16 with may family and the first thing we thought when we left the theatre was that it ripped off The Land Before Time

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@Bostimore Marychusetts: EXACTLY. This one I agree with. Dinosaur was very much a rip-off of The Land Before Time. Not in every detail, but still--a dinosaur movie with everyone on a great journey to land of paradise to escape all the desert/lava/etc., where different groups and types of dinosaurs have to learn to work together and herbivores=good while carnovaurs=bad. If the characters weren't mostly grown up, it would feel like a remake.


The Lion King is an adaptation of Hamlet combined with Disney's own production of Bambi. It also, admittedly, borrows a few elements from Kimba the White Lion. (The baboon, for instance is very very similar in each.) This does not make it a total rip-off, it still feels very new and original. And, I would submit, that considering every plot element of every movie has probably been done before somewhere, the feeling we get while watching that what we are seeing is new and exciting is the most important thing. If we watch a movie and feel we can predict it all because we've seen the plot before, that's bad. But if we feel we are seeing something new and we don't know where it's going and we're held in suspense and entertained, then we shouldn't call it a rip-off but enjoy it for what it is.

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You could really only say Disney doesn't "rip" anyone off if all of their movies were original stories.... and very, very few are.

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