YMMV / The Lion King (1997)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: In "The Madness of King Scar," Scar laments that he's never been loved, "not even as a cub." Is it true that his parents neglected him in favor of the older, stronger Mufasa, and is this his Freudian Excuse? Or did his parents love him, and does he just believe they didn't because they tried to curb his narcissistic tendencies, similar to Azula's issues with her mother?
• Complete Monster: Scar commits the same crimes that his aforementioned movie counterpart did and goes beyond that, notably attempting to force himself onto Nala. During the musical, Scar becomes more and more paranoid as time goes by, also feeling that he was being tormented by his older brother even in death. Unwilling to admit that he's terrible at governing the Pride Lands, he instead condemns all his subjects to death so that he wouldn't have to accept that maybe he wasn't as good at being a king that he thought he would be.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Endless Night becomes even more heartbreaking after you learn that Jason Raize — Adult Simba in the original 1997 cast — committed suicide due to a poor relationship with his father.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "The Madness of King Scar", in light of the plot of Simba's Pride, which was released a year after the musical premiered.
    "Without a queen, what am I? A dead end, no line, no descendants, no future. With a queen, I'll have... cubs!"
  • The original Broadway cast features Max Casella as Timon, who is given reddish-orange fur in this adaptation. Four years later, he'd play another snarky, orange animal sidekick named Daxter. He even uses the same New York accent for both characters.
• Hype Backlash: 20+ years on, this show still regularly sells out in New York City, on tour, and in foreign sit-down productions (it's the only Disney show to truly become a blockbuster in London's West End). But with regards to the hardcore musical theatre fan community... it has a lot of haters on the Broadway.com message boards who think it's only worthwhile for the beautifully-staged "Circle of Life" number — which is, of course, the first scene — and nothing else. They chalk up its continued popularity to its Long-Runners status giving the illusion of quality, package tour groups, families who won't expand their horizons to "real", non-corporate theatre, and foreign tourists who easily understand it. Because of its popular, critical, and awards success (in particular beating Ragtime for Best Musical at the 1998 Tony Awards, even though that show won the Book and Score awards) only encouraged more and more Screen To Stage Adaptations, particularly of animated/family-friendly features as opposed to more sophisticated, adult fare, it's one of a handful of shows accused of turning musical theatre as a medium into a shell of its former self (other shows with similarly bitter reputations include the Andrew Lloyd Webber canon, Mamma Mia! and Wicked, and to a lesser extent The Producers). Oddly, the stage version of Beauty and the Beast preceded this show by four years and received a much chillier critical reception at the time, but musical theatre fans are rather more forgiving of its long-running success even though it's arguably just as guilty of Lion King's perceived sins.
• Narm:
  • It may require some effort to take the dancers dressed as grass and flora seriously.
  • One bit that occasionally causes the audience to laugh is when the lionesses pull the sheets portraying their tears out from their eyes during "Rafiki Mourns".^note It happened during the penultimate Dallas show of 2018
• Older Than They Think: The bulk of the new songs, with some changed lyrics, originate from the album Rhythm of the Pride Lands, which was released in 1995. Others were cut from the movie, or made it to the sequel.