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Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Original Production Animation Drawing of Scar from "The Lion King," 1994

 
Original production drawing of Scar in red and graphite pencils from "The Lion King," 1994; Numbered S-45 in blue and graphite pencil lower right; Size - Scar: 9 1/2 x 8 3/4", Sheet 12 1/2 x 17"; Unframed.

"Well, as far as brains go, I got the lion's share." - Scar

"The Lion King," 1994 is an animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The story centers on an African kingdom of lions, and was derived from William Shakespeare's famous play "Hamlet." The film was directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, produced by Don Hahn, with the screenplay written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. Original songs were by Elton John and Tim Rice, and the original score was written by Hans Zimmer. The film features an ensemble voice cast including: Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Moira Kelly, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Rowan Atkinson, Robert Guillaume, Madge Sinclair, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings.


Close up of the original production animation drawing of Scar.

Prince Taka, also known as Scar, is the Villain of the film. The name Scar is due to his having a small, thin, red gash located above and below his left eye. He was very resentful of Mufasa and his young cub Simba, because Simba's birth ruined any chance of him ever becoming king. Scar was marvelously voiced by veteran screen actor Jeremy Irons. Although he voices Scar for most of the movie, Irons lost his voice while recording "Be Prepared" (Specifically the line "You won't get a sniff without me!"), and the rest of the song is sung by Jim Cummings. Ironically, "Be Prepared" is also where Ed the hyena (also voiced by Jim Cummings) has his only line that is not laughter.

The principal animator for Scar was Andreas Deja, and this is a great quotation of the experience: "Working with Jeremy Irons was a joy. The man can read anything, and you'd want to animate it, I swear. What an inspiring voice!  It was a privilege to be assigned to this character. I remember during production I didn't watch "Jungle Book" once, I tried to do a different type of villain than Shere Khan, as far as design and personality. I wished I could redo a lot of my scenes, but this is all I could do way back. At least the personality seems to be coming through. Scar was evil, but also intelligent. And that's  a dangerous combination. And he sure enjoyed being bad."


Close up of the production number.

Scar topped The Huffington Post's list for Disney Villains and ranked within the top ten of similar lists published by Yahoo! Movies, the Orlando Sentinel, E! and CNN. He has also been ranked among the greatest villains in film history by Digital Spy and Entertainment Weekly. This is a wonderful and very large portrait of Scar; he is eyes open and the drawing is an impressive 9 1/2" x 8 3/4". In addition, there is red pencil highlighting the scar around his left eye.

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