"I Just Can't Wait to Be King" Is the Most Devastating Line in Animation History

I re-watched The Lion King with my kid. Thirty years later. And I finally understood what the film is actually doing to you.

"I Just Can't Wait to Be King" is Simba telling you — and the movie — exactly what he wants. Right now. Immediately. And the film gives it to him. Just not the way he expected. His father has to die. That is the only path to the throne. He doesn't know that yet. We eventually do. That gap is the whole movie.

That's not a children's song. That's Hamlet, hiding inside a children's song.

Required. Watch it again as a writer.

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