[SPOILER ALERT] lion guard return of the roar!!!

[SimbasGuard]

Fuli is definitely a female. She is the only female member of The Lion Guard.

[_TravelerBlu_]

I never realised that they referred to her as a he. I don't think they do, but she is a tomboy...
I am not the only one in my family who loves the lion guard. I was watching the lion guard again at my grams house and noticed my sister was singing along to all the songs (not very well but still) I also walked past her one time to go get something, and she was singing Kion's lamnet! One morning I woke up and walked into the living room and sat on the couch and realised that she was watching the lion guard! I hope that she will get into it

[DGFone]

So I finally saw TLG.

To be completely honest: I didn't enjoy it too much. I guess I will have to find the time to do a more complete review later, but it took me two tries just to get through it: the first time I didn't last five minutes before I had to turn it off because I found it too... childish.

Though at the same time, it could have been a lot worse, I will give it that.

[KentuckyWildcat]

It's been forever since I've been around here, but new TLK material after such a long time was a big enough event to bring me back. I honestly didn't have high expectations for something airing on Disney Jr, but my worst fears about it weren't realized. However, I didn't think the premiere rose much above being decent either.

The Good:
1. Kion is a truly likable protagonist. He's capable of being quite thoughtful, yet he still has a playfulness befitting his young age. Even though it probably won't win any awards for originality, the hints in the opening that he's searching for his personal identity also leave plenty of room to full explore and develop him as a character.

2. The callbacks to the original film were well done for the most part. I especially enjoyed the reference to Can You Feel The Love Tonight that was squarely aimed at an older audience.

3. The animation is quite good for a TV show.

The Mediocre:
1. Janja has the potential to be a good enough villain. I thought it was strange and unnecessary that the threat he posed was undermined by having him become distracted from his menacing plotting to frantically and unsuccessfully snap at a bug on two separate occasions though.

2. The songs were just kind of there for me. Nothing truly terrible, but not a single one of them nearly as memorable as the music from the original film either.

3. With respect to those who have tried to find creative ways to explain how this could still be the same Kiara from SP, I feel that it just requires too many mental gymnastics to do that. That means that this is in fact yet another alternate timeline following the end of the first movie. That isn't terrible in itself and works just fine when discussing the show in a vacuum, but as a longtime fan, I do wish that Disney would pick a continuity and expand on it rather than starting over every time they do another TLK story.

The Bad:
1. Bunga is really annoying. His personality is that way to begin with, and it's only made worse by the fact that the writers seem to be trying way too hard to make "Zuka Zama" a new catchphrase. Even if it's supposed to be a modern answer to "Hakuna Matata", Timon and Pumbaa didn't go around saying that every 5 seconds. I hope he's toned down in the future.

2. I appreciate the effort to give The Lion Guard a history and lore, but the end result didn't work for me. There's just too many inconsistencies in the way they tried to tie Scar into it. If he had murdered his entire Lion Guard for not assisting him in a coup, then I don't see how he would have still been an accepted member of the pride at the beginning of the first movie. Even though it's not a great explanation, I could almost believe that he was such a great liar that nobody knew the truth except that his treachery is apparently a well known legend that was even immortalized as a painting in the Guard's lair. It just doesn't add up.

3. Given that they seem to be cubs, why were Kiara and her friends stalking gazelles without any adult instruction/supervision? And why did they have serious discussion about whether or not to bring one down since that should be impossible at their age and size? This was a pretty illogical way of putting Kiara in danger for the sake of the plot.

4. Not one but two scenes were resolved with a fart joke, including the main climax. Even if real honey badgers do smell bad, Bunga's line about learning the technique from Pumbaa makes the toilet humor intended in that scene all too apparent. Although I wasn't expecting anything dark and gritty, I was hoping for more mature writing than that.

I might still check out the show when regular episodes start, but this premiere unfortunately didn't impress me enough for it to be something I'm eagerly anticipating either.

[Mufawesome]

I'm not sure if this is the main discussion thread where people are post their opinions on The Lion Guard so if I am in the wrong place I apologize.



So I finally got around to watching the film earlier today. I didn't know much about the show prior to today other than it was an eventual series to preview on Disney Junior.

Here's my two cents anyway,

Firstly I'd like to say that I loved the animation. It was the biggest pro of the show for me. Everything looked sharp and the views of the Pridelands were stunning much like the original film.

In regards to the characters, there were some hit and some miss. I really like Kion. He's intelligent but also just a fun character all-around. Simba returns, his personality very similar to the one we saw in TLK2, although I didn't appreciate the attitude he gave towards Kion when the Lion Guard assembled wasn't made up of only lions. It just made him a little unlikable to me. Like others, I found Bunga to be very annoying. He seemingly is willing to accept any risk no matter the repercussions and I feel this could end with him getting either himself or Kion into some serious trouble. And I just don't feel the phrases he frequently used (unbungalievable, Zuka Zama) are going to catch on. The biggest disappointment for me, however, was the inconsistency between Kiara's character in TLK2 and The Lion Guard. Why all of a sudden that she "just can't wait to be queen?"

Now my biggest problem with the entire movie: the music. I was really disappointed in the soundtrack. My honest opinion is that the best music heard throughout the entire film is the five seconds of the original film's score at the beginning. I just did not find any of the songs memorable or even remotely close to what TLK and TLK2 featured.


My overall score for The Lion Guard:

6/10

It was good enough to sit through the whole thing, however, I don't feel like I will be a regular viewer unless I can find the time to binge-watch all the episodes when they become available.

[Captain Cupcake]

[quote="Mufawesome"]My honest opinion is that the best music heard throughout the entire film is the five seconds of the original film's score at the beginning.[/quote]

Or, to be more precise, a new rendition of material from the original film's score, which raises the question as to whether we'll be seeing more fresh arrangements of familiar themes pop up in the show or not. The composer went out of his way to reference a motif, so it stands to reason that there should be more utilized when appropriate. What I found a bit funny was how this new rendition of Mufasa's motif is used at the beginning of the pilot, but there's no other new fancy variant of it used when he shows up. One would think it'd make more sense for his own leitmotif to play when he's actually on-screen.

[Squeely]

TLG was overall enjoyable and fun. Not really great, but not bad either.
Pros: - Strong, promising characters.
- Pretty good music. Not up to par with the feature-length films but in all fairness, that's probably too high of a standard to hold them to. They're good for what they are.
- Solid animation, and I especially like the Rafiki-painting style a lot of it is done in. Hope that style makes some more appearances throughout the series.
- A very good setup to the world and story; I'm interested to see where it all goes from here.

Cons: - Kiara's character seems almost opposite to how she acted in SP, which was really off-putting. But who knows, maybe we'll get an explanation for it in a future episode?
- Everyone other than Kion and Bunga feel underdeveloped. That's to be expected of a pilot though, and I place my bet on these characters getting fleshed out as the series goes on. But as of now, I don't feel like I know that much about the new characters.
- Bunga and Kion overuse their catchphrases to the point of it becoming an annoyance. Something I hope will get ironed out as the series progresses.
- While the animation is solid, it's also a bit weird and wonky in places. But it's yet another thing that I'm assuming will get better over time.
- Even if stink spray is something badgers have, I'd rather the fart jokes be kept to a minimum. It's a bit of a shame - I do find fart jokes funny, but they've been so overused in cartoons for so long now, that they annoy me when used in cartoons. And I see I'm far from being the only person who feels this way. It makes me wonder whether a large percentage of kids find fart jokes funny, or if adults wrongly assume that they do.

Overall I'd give TLG a solid 7/10. A strong start to what will hopefully be a good series.

As an aside, this seems like it'll be the sort of thing I've always wanted from a TLK show. When I was a kid, I would play with my LK/jungle animal toys and come up with adventures, and this feels like it'll be a lot like that. I liked the T&P show but was very disappointed with the fact that it wasn't anything I wanted a TLK show to be. I'm glad that, 20 years later, it FINALLY feels like we're getting a TLK show proper.

[SimbasGuard]

In regards to Kiara's change in character. While I am not trying to knock anyone's opinion that Kiara's change in character indicates that The Lion Guard takes place in an alternate universe (Which could be the case). The one thing I think people are overlooking is that Kiara now has a younger brother. If she were to reject the idea of being Queen, there is the very real possibility that Simba could have then chosen to give the Kingdom to Kion. That would suddenly make the idea of being Queen something to be sought after.

[Squeely]

[quote="SimbasGuard"]In regards to Kiara's change in character. While I am not trying to knock anyone's opinion that Kiara's change in character indicates that The Lion Guard takes place in an alternate universe (Which could be the case). The one thing I think people are overlooking is that Kiara now has a younger brother. If she were to reject the idea of being Queen, there is the very real possibility that Simba could have then chosen to give the Kingdom to Kion. That would suddenly make the idea of being Queen something to be sought after.[/quote]
I've since changed my opinion of Kiara's character. Upon giving it more thought, there are a multitude of reasons for her to act the way she does. It just took me a day to give it thought and realize that it actually makes a lot of sense.

[KentuckyWildcat]

[quote="SimbasGuard"]In regards to Kiara's change in character. While I am not trying to knock anyone's opinion that Kiara's change in character indicates that The Lion Guard takes place in an alternate universe (Which could be the case). The one thing I think people are overlooking is that Kiara now has a younger brother. If she were to reject the idea of being Queen, there is the very real possibility that Simba could have then chosen to give the Kingdom to Kion. That would suddenly make the idea of being Queen something to be sought after.[/quote]

I wasn't too clear about it in my inital review, but Kiara's personality, although noticeably different, is only a small part of the reason I'm pretty convinced that TLG is an alternate universe from SP.

Most of my reasoning simply comes from the fact that the events and new characters from TLG are very difficult if not impossible to fit into the SP narrative. For starters, TLG prominently features a sizable pack of villainous hyenas even though Nuka explicitly states in SP that the hyenas are gone. It seems likely the Zira would want to align with such a group, but even if she didn't, I have a hard time believing that the two groups weren't even aware of each other since these hyenas are apparently inhabiting the Outlands.

Then you have the Lion Guard themselves. We're told that it's their honored duty to protect the Pridelands, yet no such entity ever makes an appearance in SP despite the repeated, serious dangers that occur. At the very least, I would expect them to be involved when the situation devolves into all out war at the climax of SP since even Timon and Pumbaa were directly involved in that action.

Finally, Kion deserves a mention of his own. It's difficult enough to reconcile that he's never around his family in SP, but what's even more incongruous to me is that he's never accounted for in Zira's scheming. In her plan to kill Simba and his heir (Kiara), she would certainly also need to kill Kion to be thorough. At the very least, he'd be a significant threat to account for given that he doesn't seem very much younger than Kiara in TLG and thus would be fully grown or at least very nearly so by the time she actually enacted her plot. There's no way she simply didn't know about him either. If she somehow missed his birth announcement, the news that he was using the Roar of the Elders would certainly reach her quickly enough.

I'm not knocking anyone who wants to think that SP and TLG are within the same continuity, but the things I just listed are simply too numerous and too significant for me to personally believe that.