It’s the circle of life: The Lion King returns

“Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

We know the words. We know the songs. And, tomorrow, thousands of people — young and old — will be rushing to cinemas up and down the country to relive it, all over again.

Disney has released a live-action remake of The Lion King, which was originally released as an animation in 1994. The film has attracted an all-star cast, including Beyoncé, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Donald Glover. James Earl Jones’s rich baritone voice returns as Mufasa, Simba’s tragic father.

What fewer people know is that The Lion King is based on the plot of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, in which an evil uncle plots to kill his brother the king, and keep his nephew from power. It is another example of the way that stories borrow from each other, and change over time.

In his book, The Seven Basic Plots, English journalist Christopher Booker argues that there are actually only seven stories that we retell, over and over again, through film, TV, comic books and novels.

According to Booker’s theory, which he spent 34 years developing, the basic plots are: 1. Overcoming the Monster, 2. Rags to Riches, 3. The Quest, 4. Voyage and Return, 5. Rebirth, 6. Comedy and 7. Tragedy.

It may seem simplistic. What could the 1975 film Jaws, about great white shark plaguing an American town, have in common with the Old English poem Beowulf, one of the earliest works in the English language?

Quite a lot, it turns out. Both are examples of “overcoming-the-monster plots”, along the lines of: beast torments a community; hero fights the beast, and appears to succeed; the hero faces catastrophic set backs, but eventually triumphs in one climactic fight.

Interestingly, Booker singles out Hamlet as a plot that defies his theory. Some critics say Hamlet is a “rebirth plot” that goes wrong.

But when Disney made The Lion King, it made some fundamental, family-friendly changes to the Hamlet plot. Unlike Shakespeare’s Danish prince, Simba in The Lion King avenges his uncle and becomes the king he was destined to be.

I just can’t wait to be king

Are there really only seven plots? Booker admits that Hamlet doesn’t fit any of his classic seven plots, and he also criticises complex, great works by Anton Chekhov and James Joyce that also fail to fall into plot line. His theory might help with the very basics, but it’s problematic to reduce truly great stories into formulas.

But aren’t all stories based on universal themes that recur time and time again? Our hero faces a problem, overcomes challenges and (usually) emerges triumphant and changed. Just look at the plot parallels between Harry Potter, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. They all share classic narratives that humanity loves telling itself, time and time again, to make ourselves feel better.