TV Show Reviews: The Lion Guard

Today, I will be discussing an upcoming new American animated television special made by good ol' Disney. That's right, I am writing about something that made me practically speechless when I first heard of it. The upcoming program in question is The Lion Guard, based on Disney's peak in success back in 1994, The Lion King (one of my all-time personal childhood favorite films).

This new series will broadcast first as an hour long television film, titled The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar on November 22 and later as a series in January on Disney Junior and Disney Channel. It is the second television series to be based on The Lion King, the first being The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa which ran from 1995 to 1999 and will serve as a midquel to the first film's 1998 sequel The Lion King II: Simba's Pride.


Here's the premise of the hour-long pilot:


The series will recount the efforts of Kion (voiced by Max Charles), the determined son and youngest child of Simba and Nala, to assemble a team of Animals to protect the Pride Lands, known as the Lion Guard (it is also revealed that Scar was originally meant to be the leader of the Lion Guard himself until he turned evil). Kion has indeed assembled a team, made up of his non-Lion friends: Fuli the sassy Cheetah, Beshte the friendly Common Hippopotamus, Ono the observant Cattle Egret, and Bunga the daring Honey Badger. However, King Simba does not exactly approve of this, because traditionally the Lion Guard has always been consisted of only Lions.

Meanwhile in the Outlands, a great pack of Spotted Hyenas, led by the cunning Janja (voiced by Andrew Kishino), plans for an assult on the Pride Lands since his scouting majordomo named Mzingo (a Rüppell's Vulture) reported that the new Lion Guard is only made up of five youngsters.

Now Kion has to prove to his father that anyone can protect the Pride Lands, whether they are Lions or not.


Of course, a lot of characters we already know will be coming back. Simba (now voiced by Rob Lowe instead of Matthew Broderick or Came Clark), Nala (now voiced by Gabrielle Union instead of Moira Kelly), Zazu the Southern Red-Billed Hornbill (now voiced by Jeff Bennett instead of Rowan Atkinson), Timon the Meerkat (now voiced by Kevin Schon, as in the previous TLK TV show, instead of Nathan Lane), Pumbaa the Common Warthog (once again voiced by Ernie Sabella), Rafiki the Baboon (now voiced by Khary Payton, AKA Cyborg from Teen Titans, instead of Robert Guillaume) and the spirit of Mufasa (once again voiced by James Earl Jones). We'll also have Simba and Nala's daughter Kiara (making her Kion's older sister) from the second movie, now voiced by Eden Riegel, though she is still a cub here, not a young adult.

As for the new characters, I already established Kion's friends: Ono (voiced by Atticus Shaffer), Beshte, Fuli (voiced by Diamond White) and Bunga. I've already briefly established their personalities. One thing that also clear is that Bunga is Kion's closest friend and is strangely adopted by Timon and Pumbaa, similar to how they brought in young Simba in the first movie.

I already mentioned the lead Hyena Janja and his majordomo vulture Mzingo (voiced by Greg Ellis), but there also other prominent members of his pack, like the crazy Cheezi (voiced by Vargus Mason) and the tough Chungu (voiced by Kevin Schon).

There will also be two new lioness cubs, named Tiifu (voiced by Sarah Hyland) and Zuri (voiced by Madison Pettis), who are friends of Kiara. Not to mention a Giraffe named Twiga.

Now, to be honest, I got really excited for this at first. I was like, "Call me a little kid all you want, people! I'm watching this anyway!" The first released clip and teaser were very promising and charming.......but when the official trailer finally came out, I was then starting to have unsure thoughts about it all. For one thing, this may have plot elements and character development points that won't just conflict with TLK 1, but TLK 2 as well. Sure the second film had a few things in it that also conflicted with the first film (it was even more conflicting in The Lion King 1 1/2), but this might really be troubling in continuity.

Over all, I will wait for it to come out and see how this special really holds up.