My Lion King Forum

All over the online fandom they say that Simba's Pride's makers were originally writing with two cubs, Chaka and Shani (Kiara's early name), but cut Chaka out and continued only with the girl. But the only part of that story I can find official support for, is the name Shani.

Someone has said that on the 2-disc special edition DVD there's concept art with Chaka labeled on it but another one says they've never seen such but only the concept are of Shani. I don't have that DVD release yet so I can't check it out.

Are people trusting the Unofficial TLK Character Encyclopedia at The Lion King WWW Archive? It mentions Chaka. But even that page does not say anything about Chaka being a brother to anyone. And hence the word unofficial, and it doesn't even state its exact source.

Because of all this, I have to believe that apart from the name Shani, all of this is just another case of a rumour widely accepted as truth with no facts to back it up.

Can someone help solving this confusing issue?

I have the two disc special edition thing and yes Chaka was an early brother that they cut from the concept art. I don't know about the script though. But Shani was Kiara's original name I like Kiara better though.

I actually did a few searches of the TLK List trying to find where the names of the various characters may have first appeared (Chaka, Shani, Aisha, etc.). I found a few posts which cite various sources (even Variety magazine in one case -- though it doesn't seem to have its facts straight; it says that Scar and Simba are brothers). Here are some of the more interesting links I found:

April 1998 (discussion of SP's plot and the identity of Simba's cub)
August 1998 (mention of an early version of the SP script)
December 1996 [excerpts from an article in Variety Magazine]

Hehe. I wouldn't trust at all, any article that gets its fact that much off. I mean if a person can't even get Simba and Scar's relation right, how much could they possibly care about getting the facts correctly out? As we know even Disney's official site messes up infos big time.

So the only sources I really trust are commentary tracks on DVDs, scanned magazine articles of interviews with the movies' creators, concept art on DVDs, video documentaries and such stuff.

@ TheLionQueen:

Could you take a screenshot of the concept art as shown in the DVD extras and of whatever is said about it there, and then post it here? Just so we'd get literal proof for those who don't have the DVD.

Sure, I'll see if I can get my hands on the disc. It's in storage I'll have to get it. It's with a bunch of different old movies.

Thank you.

I just have to wonder that if it really is there, why in the world has it not been screenshotted and put online like everything else has?

I've got the 2-disc special edition SP DVD, and I don't remember seeing any art of Chaka or hearing the name being mentioned. I think the only concept art on the DVD is in the "Proud of Simba's Pride" documentary. As I recall, a couple of sketches of Kovu make an appearance as well as a few sketches of Kiara/Shani, but that's pretty much it.

(While we're on the subject, I've heard that a lot of concept art of Binti existed (some of it was briefly described in some of the TLK-L posts I mentioned), but I've never seen any of it.)

Really? I heard they were going to name her Aisha... and then she was going to be Timira. I don't know, I remember seeing this on a detailed website. Not the same one, though. Too many names Kiara was a good choice, it sounds pretty, although it means "small dark thing"

No way! I thought it meant Beautiful?

Nope. Hahaha, I think "small dark thing" describes Kiara's brain