- Environment
- Explainer
The ‘balance of nature’ is an enduring concept. But it’s wrong.
From the ancient Greeks to the Lion King, people have sought balance in nature—but the real world isn’t like that.
Strolling across his animated kingdom—Pride Rock in the distance—Mufasa explains to his young son Simba: “Everything you see exists together, in a delicate balance.”
The line is a hallmark of the Disney movie the Lion King, which debuted in 1994. A visually rich update of the classic, also by Disney (the Walt Disney Company is majority owner of National Geographic Partners), hit theaters this July. In the quarter-century gap, the film saw a few significant changes—hand-drawn animation gave way to life-like computer-generated graphics and Beyonce’s character Nala got a whole new song. But other aspects of the movie remained unchanged, including Mufasa’s original lesson about nature being in balance.
John Kricher just rewatched the scene from 1994. While the Wheaton
