The Lion King doesn’t so much invert the usual Disney principle as confound it: black doesn’t become beautiful or white servile; rather, the categories get mixed up, stirred together into a melting pot. The lion hero, Simba, is seemingly white — Matthew Broderick is the voice — yet the lines of his father, Mufasa, are delivered by the recognizable voice of James Earl Jones; and Simba’s first musical number, “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” has a distinct Michael Jackson sound.

It’s structured like a savanna Bambi, with the trauma of a parent’s death bisecting its coming-of-age story. But the emphatic vastness of The Lion King’s canvas makes its forebear look like a modest romp through the forest. Propulsive set pieces through gorges and caverns alternate with gaudy musical extravaganzas.