The Lion King (1994) - 33 mistakes

Deliberate "mistake": At the elephant graveyard, little Simba claws Shenzi in the face. When Mufasa saves Simba from the hyenas, the cuts are gone, a few seconds later. [This was done intentionally, I'm sure, for two reasons. The first being, Disney doesn't let fresh scars linger on the screen too long. Secondly, during that same scene when Mufasa rescues Simba & Nala, he claws Banzai in the rear. To stress the point later in the movie, that severe scar is shown too, but only briefly, it too disappears because of reason 1. Still a "mistake", but there's why.]

Continuity: When Timon rides Pumbaa through the vultures that are crowding around Simba, they run right over where Simba should be, but he's not there. 2 seconds later, after all the vultures are gone, Simba is back.

Continuity: Nala's eyes change from blue to green quite often during the movie.

Factual error: When Mufasa is showing Simba the kingdom from Pride Rock they are facing the sun, yet Pride Rock's shadow is visible below them. Also in the same position, you see that they have shadows behind them. Then a few seconds later when Simba sees the shadow area the shadows are in front of them while you can see part of the sun to their left side. They would be facing south when the sun is east. How are their shadows in front of them?

Continuity: When Simba and Nala fall through the dead elephant, there are some small rocks near them. But after the hyenas say, "Here kitty kitty kitty," Simba makes a small roar and the rocks are gone.

Continuity: During the stampede in the gorge, when Simba jumps up on the dead branch, he leaves very distinct claw scratches. Then in the following scenes they're gone, although other marks and details on the branch remain.

Deliberate "mistake": Rafiki is supposed to be a mandrill, but mandrill's do not have tails. In the recently released Extended-Version DVD, there is a commentary by an animator who specifically admits that he knew that mandrills don't have tails (at least not like the length that Rafiki sports throughout the movie), but he put one on him anyway to make him more monkey-like.

Continuity: When Rafiki is showing Simba where his father is, Simba is following Rafiki through the trees and they arrive at a river/lake. Rafiki says 'shh' and pulls the grass apart. The thing is, he pulls away one side of the grass and the other side parts as well without him moving it.

Factual error: When Simba and Nala meet as adults, they rub heads and begin to purr. Lions can purr, but they only purr when they exhale, and Simba and Nala were purring when inhaling and exhaling, like house cats.

Continuity: When Simba walks away from the jungle and Timon says, "He looks blue," Simba is at a fair distance from the shadow of the tree. But a few shots later, Pumbaa comes to Simba and asks, "Kid, what's eating ya?" but Simba is now closer to she shadow of the tree.

Continuity: When Timon and Pumbaa are inspecting unconscious Simba, Simba's paw is lying over his eye. In the next shot, right before Timon lifts the paw up, it has moved to below his eye.

Deliberate "mistake": As the rain extinguishes the fire at Pride Rock, Simba passes Zazu, who bows to him and you see him mouthing words to Simba. The words "your majesty" were cut out of the film, in order to have a poignant silent moment.

Continuity: When Simba and Nala are in the elephant graveyard, Simba goes to see if "it's brains are still in there" and he's past the base of the trunk. But when Zazu pops up in front of him, he hasn't passed the base of the tusk yet.

Continuity: At the beginning when Rafiki puts the paint on the picture of Simba (on the tree trunk) the paint goes on a different color than it is. The film makers admit this mistake on the commentary.

Continuity: When Rafiki dips his fingers in the orange paint to put a mane on Simba's picture, the paint is not on his thumb. He raises his hand up close to the picture, then, a split second later in the next shot, the paint is on his thumb with which he starts to paint the mane. He did not have time to dip his hand in again.

Continuity: When Simba finally sees his father's ghost in the clouds, he first stands in front of the water. As Mufasa begins to fade away, Simba suddenly runs forward, exactly where the water should be, yet it's not there.

Continuity: After Pumbaa kisses Simba's feet, Timon says, "Don't he's not the king," he puts his hands on the middle of Pumbaa's snout. But in the very next shot, Timon's hands are now at the top of Pumbaa's snout.

Continuity: The whites of Simba's eyes change frequently through the movie, from yellow to white. They're yellow up until the scene where Pumbaa, Timon, and Simba are stargazing; after that they change back and forth frequently. During the Mufasa-in-the-sky scene, when Simba asks, "How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be," they change from yellow to white and back within three frames.

Continuity: When Simba and the animals begin to tower up on each other towards the end of the song "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", a shot shows that the red elephants are close to the bottom of the tower. The camera begins to scan upwards and the antelope are towards the top where Simba and Nala show up. When the animals all fall and quick shots show how jumbled they get, a red elephant somehow ends up falling on top of an antelope's antlers which shouldn't be possible.

Factual error: When Nala tells Simba that she is taking her bath, Sarabi (Simba's mother) tells him "And it's time for yours," and picks him up in her mouth. Her head was animated but not her body (which remains in a sitting position) so her neck appears to stretch a few feet to reach Simba.

Continuity: In the recent DVD release of the film that includes the new animated segment "The Morning Report", Simba is not drawn with whiskers. His nose also changes colour from the previous shot where he is walking and talking with Mufasa.

Continuity: In the scene where young Simba and Nala are singing, "I Just Can't Wait To Be King," and right before making faces at Zazu, Nala steps into the water with both front feet, but in the next shot, all her feet are firmly on dry ground.

Continuity: When the three hyenas are chasing little Simba, Banzaii (a hyena) flies into a thorn patch. When he comes out, he is covered in thorns. Then he walks over to the edge with Shenzi, and all of the thorns are gone (the ones he didn't pull out).

Continuity: In the very first scene in the movie, where Scar is playing with the mouse, the size of the mouse relative to Scar changes between shots. When he's rolling it over his 'fingers' we can see that its body is roughly the same size as a finger, but while it's pinned down as Scar talks to Zazu it seems much smaller than that. Finally, when the mouse escapes, it's much larger than it was in the beginning.

Other: When Scar is circling Ed the hyena during or just before singing "Be Prepared," from the front Ed's tongue is hanging out. But from the side/back view, where the tongue should still be visible, it's gone.

Factual error: When Mufasa is initially showing Simba the pridelands they are facing the rising sun - in other words east. Simba asks about "that shadowy place" which is off to the right, and is told he must never go there. When Simba is later telling Scar about seeing the whole kingdom, Scar says "He didn't tell you what's beyond that rise on the northern border." It's the same place that Mufasa was talking about, as Simba says he's not allowed to go there, but if it was to the right as they faced east it would have been the southern border of the pridelands.

Continuity: When Mufasa confronts Scar after the ceremony, Scar walks away and Mufasa follows. Zazu has disappeared from his hiding spot behind Mufasa's leg and reappears later.

Continuity: When Mufasa is showing Simba how to pounce, Zazu is facing backwards when Simba pounces on him, but when Simba has Zazu pinned to the ground, his paws are on Zazu's front. Simba would hardly have released Zazu to let him turn round. [In the recent release of an Extended-Version DVD, Zazu sings a song called "Morning Report" which was deleted from the original release. Zazu's change in position comes from the material that was cut. Still a mistake, but there's the explanation.]

Continuity: During the scene where little Simba and Scar are talking about how Simba is "gonna rule it all" and Scar explains about the elephant graveyard, the pads of Scar's paws change shape several times. Sometimes the pads are as they should be, other times its covered with color.

Continuity: During the presentation of Simba, two elephants kneel down. In the overhead shots before and after, there is only a group of three and one apart from the others.

Continuity: When Scar pushes Shenzi and Banzi into the geysers, they go flying across the cave. But when Scar is tiptoeing up the ridge, Shenzi is right next to him. The when all 3 are in the bone pile, she's there as well (with the long skull in the middle).

Continuity: When the three hyenas are chasing Simba and Nala in the elephant graveyard, one of them is standing on top of a bone, then next second the bone is gone.

Continuity: This is hard to see, but look at the whiskers on all the lions, the number of them changes about (I'm not exaggerating) 100 times, especially little Simba.