First of all: don’t blame me if you start to question everything about your childhood now.
The Disney classic “The Lion King” has been one of the most popular animated films of all time. Seriously, who didn’t cry their eyes out during that scene where Mufasa falls to his death because Scar wanted to be a real jerk and not help him up the cliff? It’s what any good brother would do. But there may be a reason for Scar’s betrayal.
Mufasa and Scar aren't really brothers.
Director Rob Minkoff and producer Don Hahn explain to Hello Giggles:
“While making the movie, we talked about the fact that it was very likely [Scar and Mufasa] would not have both the same parents. The way lions operate in the wild…when the male lion gets old, another rogue lion comes and kills the head of the pride. What that does is it causes the female lions to go into heat [to reproduce], and then the new younger lion kills the king and then he kills all the babies. Now he’s the new lion that’s running the pride.”
Wait a second: didn’t Mufasa yell “Brother, help me!” during that heart-wrenching scene?
“There was always this thing about well, how do you have these two [male] lions? Occasionally there are prides that do have two male lions, in an interesting dynamic because they’re not equals [since they don’t have the same parents]. One lion will always kind of be off in the shadows. We were trying to use those animal truths to underpin the story so we sort of figured Scar and Mufasa couldn’t really be from the same gene pool. In fact, that’s what [Scar] says. There’s a line, he goes, “I’m from the shallow end of the gene pool.” When he’s talking to Mufasa, when Mufasa gets mad at him for not coming up to the coronation of Simba.”
MIND. BLOWN.
(VIDEO)