Mufasa: The Lion King Changes Scar's Backstory

Scar's new origin story shouldn't cause an uproar: the villainous lion has had several backstories.

By Cameron Bonomolo

Be prepared: Scar's backstory will be different in Mufasa: The Lion King.

In Disney's original animated version of The Lion King, the treacherous Scar (voiced by Jeremy Irons) murdered his older brother, King Mufasa (James Earl Jones), usurped the throne as ruler of the Pride Lands, and blamed the king's death on the exiled prince Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas). A grown Simba (Matthew Broderick) eventually returned, overthrew his uncle, and took his rightful place in the great circle of life as the new Lion King. 

A 1994 book, The Lion King: A Tale of Two Brothers, revealed that Scar was once Taka, the second-born son of the Lion King Ahadi and Queen Uru. Resentful toward Mufasa for being favored by their father, Scar conspired with his hyena gang — the trio of Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed — to make the animal kingdom lose faith in their ruler and supplant the firstborn son to become first in line for the throne.

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(Photo: Disney)

Taka schemed to have his rival for the throne killed by orchestrating Mufasa's fight with the Cape buffalo Boma, only for the brave Mufasa to save his brother when Boma's herd attacked Taka in a wild stampede. "You must rid yourself of the anger that rules you," Ahadi scolded Taka after the attack that left him scarred by buffalo horns. Taka took the name Scar as a reminder, ominously telling his father and brother: "I won't forget what happened today."

However, The Lion Guard animated series recounted a different Scar origin story. In that version of events, he was named after his ancestor, Askari, and was nicknamed "Scar" for short by Mufasa after a cobra's venom scarred his eye. The spinoff series revealed that the second-born son of the Lion King is charged with defending the Pride Lands as leader of the Lion Guard, and that they have the Roar of the Elders: an ancient power that was stripped from Scar after his first failed coup against Mufasa.

Mufasa: The Lion King will serve as both a prequel and sequel to 2019's photorealistic remake of The Lion King, and like most Disney "live-action" re-imaginings, will put a twist on the animated version. New plot details describe Scar/Taka (voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.) as "heir to a royal bloodline" and "a lion prince with a bright future" who is sympathetic to orphaned cub Mufasa (Aaron Pierre), accepting him into his family as a brother. 

Unlike past backstories, Taka and Mufasa aren't related by blood: Taka is the son of Obasi (Lennie James) and Eshe (Thandiwe Newton), and Mufasa is the son of Masego (Keith David) and Afia (Anika Noni Rose).

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While that's a departure from previously-told backstories, Mufasa and Scar weren't supposed to be brothers in early versions of The Lion King. In 2022, producer Don Hahn told Reader's Digest that Scar was originally depicted as a rogue lion before the filmmakers drew inspiration from King Claudius, the murderous brother of King Hamlet, in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

"We talked about the fact that it was very likely [Scar and Mufasa] would not have both the same parents," Hahn said. "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, 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."

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"There was always this thing about well, how do you have these two [male] lions?" Hahn continued. "Occasionally there are prides that do have two male lions, in an interesting dynamic because they're not equals [since they don't share 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 Mufasa, royal advisor Rafiki (John Kani) recounts Mufasa's origin story to the late king's descendant, Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), the daughter of Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter), telling the cub about "a lion who was born without a drop of nobility in its blood… a lion who would change our lives forever… a lion who will shape our destiny." Mufasa: The Lion King is in theaters December 20.

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