Both take the throne after the king is killed. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are friends of Prince Hamlet in Hamlet and provide comic relief, in The Lion King their equivalents are Timon and Pumba who befriend Simba and help him grow as a character. The protagonists are Hamlet and his equivalent in The Lion King is Simba. Both are sons of the king in both plots and nephews of the antagonists. After facing hardships, they both face a difficult situation regarding their purpose in life and what their next step will be. Hamlet's “To be or not to be” soliloquy is similar to Simba's “I can't go back” soliloquy. In Hamlet's soliloquy he is pondering whether it is still worth living and if death is just a sleep and a dream, it is better than living through hardship. Simba is thinking about going back or not facing his past and that being away and alone is better than facing his past. Although Allers and Minkoff's 1994 film The Lion King and Doran's 2009 modernization entitled Hamlet use different approaches in lighting and camera angles, their choices affect the audience's emotions differently and reveal Hamlet's characters and Simba and how their troubled pasts and their reasons for contemplating life.