My Lion King Forum

What do you think Kiara would look like if she had the colors of 'Fluffy' from the last film?






I think she looks more 'vibrant and colorful' and looks more like a combination of Simba and Nala's genes.

Her original colors seem a bit more 'bland and dull'.
What do you think?

That picture would show the difference more clearly. I like her Simba's Pride coloring more just because she wasn't so bright

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Juhouh displayed the difference perfectly. If Kiara had Fluffy's coloring, she would have carried the "brownish gold" fur like Simba has, had a pale tan underbelly fur, and had ear rims, though it remains to be seen if they would have kept or lost as she gradually matured.

yeah the baby cub is Kopa not Kiara, besides why would they make two presentations of Kiara anyway? I mean its all about the details between Simba and Nalas cub at the end of TLK1 and and baby Kiara.

[quote]yeah the baby cub is Kopa not Kiara,
[/quote]

But, if Kopa was THAT cub, wouldn't Disney clarify that? Especially since Kion is being called Simba's FIRST son, not second.

[quote]besides why would they make two presentations of Kiara anyway?[/quote]
Well the designers messed up EVERYTHING in SP so its not really a surprise they would alter the 'presentation' scene.

[quote="gothprincesskiara"]yeah the baby cub is Kopa not Kiara, besides why would they make two presentations of Kiara anyway? I mean its all about the details between Simba and Nalas cub at the end of TLK1 and and baby Kiara.[/quote]

First off, the cub was never named Kopa, but named "Fluffy" by the filmmakers as addressed on the audio commentary on the Blu-Ray/DVD/LaserDisc releases. As confirmed by Kovu's lead animator in an interview with Disney Adventures magazine, Kiara's presentation is supposed to be the same one as Fluffy's, and went as far stating you think the cub was a king, but it's really a queen.

Kopa came from the six adventures books, so he is the one shown at the end of TLK1

[quote="gothprincesskiara"]Kopa came from the six adventures books, so he is the one shown at the end of TLK1[/quote]

True, he originated from the Six New Adventures books, but the filmmakers of both movies never acknowledged or accepted the books' content into the films. The books was released in 1994, and the filmmakers recorded their audio commentary for the Laserdisc which was released in 1995. Regardless of whether they knew the books existed or not, they still stuck to the ambiguous "Fluffy" name a year after the books' release. A storyboard director that worked on Simba's Pride went on the record, and claimed he was never aware of Kopa when making the movie. A transcript of his interview of what he said can be found on page 6. It's also plainly obvious that Kopa wasn't the cub since his name is never brought up once during the sequel.

I have to agree with juhouh and TheLionPrince. I'll address both points here.

Regarding the colors: I, too, like Kiara's end design as shown in TLKII more than Fluffy's. In fact, I really wouldn't mind if she were a couple shades lighter, or perhaps had a different shade of eyes, to reflect that she's related to Nala, not just Simba. The picture that juhouh posted really fits perfectly with this - though Kiara looks a bit too much like Simba, imo, it's still a long shot better than the coloring on the right, which essentially is just a Simba clone and honestly doesn't even look that feminine. That said, Fluffy works for the end of the movie because the creators were not intending to have a sequel, and just kind of wanted to go with a 'full-circle' ending that would link back to the beginning (this is pretty commonly seen to be the case throughout the commentaries/interviews/etc - the creators of TLK were expecting the movie to be second-banana to Pocahontas and were not considering a sequel at the time of release). So, a Simba clone is alright for a brief ending scene. But in a sequel dedicated to Simba and Nala's child, it is notably less so.

Personally, again, I think they could have done a bit more instead of making Kiara a Simba look-alike and Kovu a Scar-clone, but again, it could have been a lot worse (not to mention the Outlanders seem to have Scar's features, so they probably wouldn't have incorporated that into the design of Simba's offspring).

Anyways, rambling, sorry.

In short, I think Kiara's design was alright, though not really anything special. However, I like it considerably more than Fluffy's.

That said, as the poster above me already pointed out, the cub at the end isn't Kopa, nor does it make sense for it to be Kopa. The semi-canon cubs simply don't play a role in the original (as they came after), and didn't affect the making of the sequel at all. So there's no way for it to be Kopa, which explains why Disney didn't mention him in the sequel... as they no doubt would have if he were the cub at the end of TLK II. Overall, I think Disney majorly screwed up their canon of TLK with the making of TLKII... but I still think they would know better than to change the cub like that unless the animators genuinely didn't consider the books. Which it seems that they didn't - otherwise, there would be at least some mention of Kula, or Tama, or Tojo, or Chumvi, or any of those other cubs that were in books only.

So sorry, but I don't, and never will, consider Kopa as a fully-canon cub and the character portrayed at the end of TLK. It just doesn't make logical sense.