Rumors of the Cub at the end of The Lion King

[xLilacVixenx]

[quote="SuperBabySimba"]Seriously, I don't understand how is it confusing?

1.) The cub's creators called it Fluffy and didn't give it a gender, so it's not Kopa! They did so in 1995 after Kopa already existed in the books. As in, if they meant it to be Kopa, they would've said so. But they didn't. So it's certainly not Kopa. Couldn't be more simple!

2.) As Fluffy isn't an identity and we are talking about who the cub is, and SP is an official sequel, the answer becomes: the cub in the end of the first film is Kiara. Again, very simple.

3.) Kopa wasn't even created, written or developed by Disney at all, which is likely the reason why the cub in the end never was Kopa and why he wasn't taken into the movie universe even later. The first book in the series, 'A Tale of Two Brothers' wherein Kopa first appears, is an original story created and written by the writer Alex Simmons, who isn't part of The Walt Disney Company. Alex Simmons' personal web site, provides that information.

PS. And I don't see how do Simba and Nala look older in SP than in the end of TLK? And even if they did, the most likely reason for it would be the combination of the fact that the animators were not the same as the first film's and the whole style of the animation had obviously changed.[/quote]


This. I mean, seriously guys. Kiara is the cub at the end of the first movie and the cub at the beginning of the second movie. How did you know that Kiara was a girl at the beginning of the second film?

[Pixie]

I'm not going to even bother with this thread. It's obvious.

[iluvnala]

The cub at the end of TLK1 looks like a boy and they nicknamed him Fluffy as a jole. Simbas cub was originally Kopa in the film but the producers decided a boy cub wouldnt fit in the story line so they used Kiara instead

[SuperBabySimba]

[quote="iluvnala"]The cub at the end of TLK1 looks like a boy and they nicknamed him Fluffy as a jole. Simbas cub was originally Kopa in the film but the producers decided a boy cub wouldnt fit in the story line so they used Kiara instead[/quote]

Originally in the film? In those terms we would be talking about the literal content in the film.
Wherein it was just a cub with no name and gender because the film's content doesn't confirm any name or gender. Just because it looks like a boy, doesn't mean it actually is a boy.

Then a boy Kopa appeared in the books after the film had been released but wasn't drawn nor written by any of the film makers, and the film cub's creators didn't call it Kopa or even a boy. As in, the cub in the film's story still remained a cub without official name or gender.

As for the nickname... I'd bet my ass it was not a joke, but just a way to refer to an unnamed and unidentified character. Because it didn't need to have a neme or gender as it appears in the film only for ten seconds and no movie sequel was in plans. It being a nickname as a joke, I acknowledge does make sense to some degree. But if the film's cub had a real, official identity and thus the nickname was "Fluffy" only as a joke, don't you think they would've also mentioned the real identity Especially as Kopa was known only in USA and hardly even there as the books were quite new. As in, if it was just a joke and Kopa was it's official identity in the film, they would've said so.

[Malkia]

I have children's books of TLK and in the end are usual sentences like this: "Rafiki held up their new son" or "their new prince" or something like this. I can see if I can get a shot of it, but it specifically says "son". I'm not saying "It's Kopa" or it isn't, I'm just simply adding further evidence to the "who is it?" pile.

I also heard that for SP it was going to be a boy, then twins, then Kiara. But the biggest reasoning behind it being a female cub wasn't that they forgot about Kopa, but likely because they sat back and realized "TLK was more aimed to boys in the sense of a father/son relationship and a male being the main role." Not saying AT ALL that females can't fully enjoy and love TLK, but it is directed to little boys. Count how many named females are in TLK. And suddenly for SP, the villain is female and so is the main role. Not to mention its underlining following of Romeo and Juliet.

That's just my humble observation, not to be taken too literally.

[atouchofgrace]

[quote="Malkia"]I have children's books of TLK and in the end are usual sentences like this: "Rafiki held up their new son" or "their new prince" or something like this. I can see if I can get a shot of it, but it specifically says "son". I'm not saying "It's Kopa" or it isn't, I'm just simply adding further evidence to the "who is it?" pile.

I also heard that for SP it was going to be a boy, then twins, then Kiara. But the biggest reasoning behind it being a female cub wasn't that they forgot about Kopa, but likely because they sat back and realized "TLK was more aimed to boys in the sense of a father/son relationship and a male being the main role." Not saying AT ALL that females can't fully enjoy and love TLK, but it is directed to little boys. Count how many named females are in TLK. And suddenly for SP, the villain is female and so is the main role. Not to mention its underlining following of Romeo and Juliet.

That's just my humble observation, not to be taken too literally.[/quote]

My TLK book also ends with "Simba and Nala's son"
I agree with you. SP's main plot (forbidden romance between girl and boy) is far more aimed at girls than TLK's (father/son relationship), that's why the protagonist is a female. SP is the typical Disney "love at first sight" story (that's one of the reasons why I don't enjoy it) like The Little Mermaid and that kind of story always has a female main role.

[SuperBabySimba]

[quote="Malkia"]I have children's books of TLK and in the end are usual sentences like this: "Rafiki held up their new son" or "their new prince" or something like this. I can see if I can get a shot of it, but it specifically says "son". I'm not saying "It's Kopa" or it isn't, I'm just simply adding further evidence to the "who is it?" pile.[/quote]

The book universe is not evidence of anything about the film because not a single book was written by the films' makers. Whereas the fact that even after all those books were released, the film's makers themselves did not refer to the cub as a boy in their commentary of the film--resulting in evidence of how no matter what the books say, the cub was not supposed to be a male in the film itself. (I've also thrown in a point that if the film's makers had decided it would be a boy to the degree that they let it out into a profit, public books, it would've been final and they would've confirmed it a boy also for the film. But they didn't, so it is highly unlikely they had anything to do with it turning into a boy in the books, apart from having drawn it look a lot like a boy.)

[quote="Malkia"]I also heard that for SP it was going to be a boy, then twins, then Kiara.[/quote]

And this still remains a mystery to me. Where is the original source of this information? The only source I've found is The Unofficial The Lion King Character Encyclopedia. Hence, the word 'unofficial'--as in not exactly trustworthy for what really happened. I'm not saying that couldn't have been the case in the production, I'm just saying that I don't know of any official source saying that it did and thus I can't consider it a fact.

[quote="Malkia"]But the biggest reasoning behind it being a female cub wasn't that they forgot about Kopa, but likely because they sat back and realized "TLK was more aimed to boys in the sense of a father/son relationship and a male being the main role." Not saying AT ALL that females can't fully enjoy and love TLK, but it is directed to little boys. Count how many named females are in TLK. And suddenly for SP, the villain is female and so is the main role. Not to mention its underlining following of Romeo and Juliet.[/quote]

Wow, that's one heck of a good theory and in my opinion very likely part of the reason why they turned Fluffy into a female. Even Timon & Pumbaa being what they are and turning Simba into a bachelor who burbs and is carefree and T&P being so upset about Simba and Nala falling in love is likely much more appealing to boys than to girls on some emotional level.

[atouchofgrace]

[quote="SuperBabySimba"]Even Timon & Pumbaa being what they are and turning Simba into a bachelor who burbs and is carefree and T&P being so upset about Simba and Nala falling in love is likely much more appealing to boys than to girls on some emotional level.[/quote]
^^ Now THAT is a very good point.

I'd say TLK is definatly a Disney boys movie. Brian Tiemann from lionking.org once said "before SP, the typical TLK fan was the teenage/young adult male, after SP it became the 15 year old female."

[SilverSimba01]

you have to remember that they creators didn't thought that they would continue with The Lion King story, I guess they though that TLK was going to be another great movie, but not as big as we know it

[atouchofgrace]

[quote="SilverSimba01"]I guess they though that TLK was going to be another great movie, but not as big as we know it[/quote]
Jeffrey Katzenberg said "Pocahontas is a home run, it's West Side Story, it's Romeo and Juliet with american indians. It's a hit. It has "hit" written all over it. TLK on the other hand it's kind of an experiment, we don't really know if anybody is gonna really want to see it."
Thomas Schumacher said "no one had faith in TLK".
Even when the movie was completed, the crew beleived it was "going to be a hit or a huge flop."