Compare/Contrast paper

Whoever would have thought that a children’s movie that brightens the lives of many and causes people to smile would be a spinoff of a sixth century dramatic, tragedy play? Both are one in the same in many aspects; however, many never make the connection of the two because the two are written for different purposes. Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, is a play that starts with a horrible event and continues to have terrible events all throughout the play until the very end. It is a tragedy play that is not suppose to make people laugh; however, there is a movie that is written off the play that is suppose to make people laugh, and that children enjoy to watch. It is a famous Disney movie that most people have not seen or have not heard of. Walt Disney’s movie, The Lion King, has a different idea from Hamlet, yet The Lion King and Hamlet both share many character traits, themes, and plots.
At the beginning of Hamlet, in the very first screen, Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father. Hamlet was informed by the ghost about his father’s death and how his uncle killed his father for the kingdom and the queen. The ghost told Hamlet to get revenge on his uncle for the murder and Hamlet agrees to do so. In the Lion King, Simba is also visited by his father’s ghost; however, the ghost does not appear at the beginning of the play and his father’s ghost does not tell Simba who really killed his father. Simba is left alone still thinking that he killed his father, not anyone else. That is one thing that is different from the movie and the book, in the book, the character knows who killed his father and knows it is not him; on the other hand, in the movie, the character blames himself for the murder because he was tricked into thinking he did it by the uncle. Since the ghost of Hamlet’s father visits Hamlet in the beginning of the play and tells Hamlet to get revenge against his father’s murder, the uncle, so Hamlet thinks about revenge throughout the whole play. Simba does not find out who actually murdered his father until the very end of the movie so revenge is not thought about throughout the movie. Simba actually thinks that he is the one that killed his father so he runs away but returns at the end. In both the play and the movie, the uncle ends up killing the king, the brother, for the kingdom. In Hamlet though, Claudius kills the brother for both the kingdom and for the queen. Scar never marries the queen, or wants to marry the queen in The Lion King.
In both the movie and the book, both main characters have two best friends. Hamlet has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Simba has Timon and Pumbaa; however, the best friends in each the movie and the book are totally different. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ended up turning on their best friend Hamlet and actually turned out just being spies for the uncle, the new king, and the queen, Hamlet’s mother. They watched over Hamlet and reported everything back and sometimes they even tricked Hamlet just as the uncle and Hamlet’s mother had asked them to do. Timon and Pumbaa are true friends to Simba because they supported him and helped him become happy again. When Simba first met Timon and Pumbaa, Simba was very depressed but after hanging with Timon and Pumbaa, Simba was brought back to life. When the battle happened in Pride Rock, Simba’s kingdom, Timon and Pumbaa was right there beside Simba fighting with him even though that was not the kingdom where they lived; they just wanted to help a friend. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never helped Hamlet at the end when the uncle is murdered. They were never true friends like Timon and Pumbaa were.
Both Hamlet and The Lion King illustrates the timeless theme that avarice is the root of all evil. In the movie as well as the book, the uncles lust for what they cannot have which is the kingdom and as well as the power. However, the uncles’ greed costs them not only the kingdom and power, but their lives as well. The murder of the uncles happens differently in the movie than the book. In the movie, Simba never actually kills his uncle. Simba finds out that it was his uncle that killed his father not him and now Simba is angered with revenge against his uncle. Simba fights with Scar for a while but ends up flipping him off of a cliff where the Hyenas kill Scar, not Simba. In the book, Hamlet kills Claudius himself without any help. Even though the murder happened differently, both uncles still die because they first murdered, and the reason why they first murdered was because of greed and desire of what they could not have. The theme between Hamlet and The Lion King is the main thing these two have in common. That is how the movie was formed. Walt Disney created The Lion King from the theme of Hamlet. Many people will never know that because the two are in two different categories; one is a tragedy play and one is a children’s movie. The two different categories is the main difference between the two.
Two different things, yet one in the same, that is how The Lion King and Hamlet are. Once someone reads the play Hamlet, the comparison is not hard to recognize. Of course with everything in the world, not everything is the exactly the same. There will always be something different between two objects, or subjects. It is pretty easy to see the differences between The Lion King and Hamlet because one is about people and the other is about lions. These two shows everyone that even though they can be totally different, they can be the same at the same time.