The Lion Guard

The Lion Guard is an American animated series developed by Ford Riley and based on Disney's 1994 film The Lion King. The series was broadcast with a television film titled The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar on Disney Channel on November 22, 2015, and began as a TV series on January 15, 2016, on Disney Junior. It is the second television series to be based on The Lion King, the first being Timon & Pumbaa (1995 - 1999). The Lion Guard is a sequel and spin-off to The Lion King, and takes place during the time gap within the 1998 film The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, with the third and final season taking place in parallel with the film's second act, followed by the final two episodes serving as an epilogue to that film.

The second season premiered on July 7, 2017, followed by the third on August 3, 2019, with the series final airing on November 3 of the same year.

Premise
This follow-up series introduces Simba's son, fun-loving Kion, who is happy that his sister Kiara, is destined to rule the Pride Lands. He soon discovers that as the second-born he has his own destiny: to lead the Lion Guard, a team that protects Pride Lands and defends the Circle of Life.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Despite that Showrunner Ford Riley claimed The Lion Guard is a prequel to The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, its meddling execution doesn't know if it's a prequel, sequel or reboot and contains a lot of plot holes, inaccuracies, inconsistencies and timeline issues and adding a random and generic magical roar called "The Roar of the Elders" with its symbolic marks are completely unnecessary, out of place for the franchise's lore and source material and was the franchise's greatest missteps and the fun about the franchise is that the property has been established as a normal animal film series and this kind of conceptual idea could've been worked if it could've been loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest after the original film based on Hamlet and its sequels (1998) based on Romeo & Juliet and the third film (2004) based on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with Kion being inspired by Prospero (Despite the Disney wiki fandom implying that Kion's inspiration is Young Simba (Which doesn't make sense because when Simba was a cub he was never gifted by a magical roar or had a symbolic lion mark on his shoulders) that miserably failed with this show itself doesn't feel like The Lion King it feels more like a rip-off to My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic and that the Disney wiki fandom thinks that Bunga is inspired by Spike the dragon from that better show (But he's obviously and basically a spiritual successor and shares similarity to that of Gabby from Gulliver's Travels) and it made the franchise go downhill.
 * 2) Despite the Lion Guard educating the audience about animals, eco-friendly environment, and conservation, The show and its illogical fandom mostly don't even get any some animal facts or their habitats right for example; Gorillas living in the Theluji snowy Mountains rather than the iconic Virunga mountains and Bwindi impenetrable forest in deep rain forests in real life and Janja being the leader of his hyena clan while also in real life female hyenas are the dominant leader of the group like they did with Shenzi in the films and the franchise's tv show Timon & Pumbaa (1995 - 1999), etc.
 * 3) Kion, Fuli, and Bunga are unlikable and poorly written characters and unlike the other characters of the franchise in the films, none of them were inspired by William Shakespeare's characters and further content (Despite being new) and they despite being heroes and protagonists they acted like bullies towards other animals including gorillas as well as other mammals that are predators and contains gross-out humor such as farting on them, keeping them off their land and not letting them eat, etc.
 * 4) While the animation from Mercury Filmworks is great and incredibly fluid and the designs on the characters looked beautiful, the design on Simba may look hideous to some lion king fans and thought that the animation style isn't as good compared to Disney's other animated shows that were animated by the Ottawa-based Canadian animation studio including Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Star V.S The Forces of Evil (Season 1 only), Tangled: The Series, Legend of the Three Caballeros and recently The Ghost and Molly McGee and Netflix's own children's animated shows such as Kid Cosmic, Centaurworld and their animated series adaptation of Luke Pearson's graphic novels of Hilda and all of those shows are top-notched. Also, it's not as great as the lion king franchise's previous television series Timon and Pumbaa that was better animated by Rough Draft Studios with additional animation done by Koko Enterprises, Sunwoo Entertainment, Wang Film Productions (The studio who did the animation for the 1994 original film) and Toon City. Though it looks decent enough to look at to some lion king fans that don't mind the style.
 * 5) Harmful and inaccurate animal portrayals and stereotypes in the show such as gorillas being stupid, annoying, and weak (Which are the offenders of this show here are the unlikable and annoying characters Majinuni and Hafifu and their father King Sokwe). In real life, gorillas are smart and powerful (The later ape character of the show is Shujaa in the season 2 episode Beshte and the Beast)
 * 6) The songs from Beau Black including Kuishi Ni Kucheka, Teke Ruka Telaza, The Twelve Ways of Christmas, Poa the Destroyer, The Path of Honor, Big Bad Kenge, and The Worst Hyena We Know are forgettable and generic.
 * 7) This show was also aimed at preschoolers as opposed to teens, young adults, and old-school lion king fans in general (Which is the reason many diehards and older Lion King fans are angered and upset with and began complaining about it) and it's really cheesy and too childish. Luckily Kevin Schon (Timon's voice actor) wanted it to become darker and more faithful to the franchise's source material.
 * 8) Despite other characters of the franchise (Besides Simba, Nala, and Kiara) making a return including Scar, Mufasa, Zazu, Rafiki, Timon, and Pumbaa, None of the other memorable and prominent characters including Scar's hyena henchmen and trio Benzai, Shenzi, and Ed, Timon's meerkat colony, Uncle Max and his mother, Simba's mother Sarabi and the human characters from Timon & Pumbaa including Leslie Lambeau and Quint were never appeared or mentioned and all of them are absent in this continuity (Even though Timon's mother is mentioned in the episode Beware the Zimwi).
 * 9) Simba and his daughter Kiara were both flanderized in this show. Simba went from a very likable and very sympathetic Masai lion monarch and caring father of Kiara and Kion to an arrogant and unlikable jackass of a parent towards his cubs. Kiara was also flanderized from a pure-hearted, likable, ladylike, and mindful cub and princess into a snobby and selfish brat and unlikable teenager.
 * 10) Despite the lion guard being set in Africa like in the entire franchise, The show contains even more plot holes in having Asian and North American animals appeared in the show including Asiatic lions, polar bears, binturongs, giant pandas, snowy owls, and other mammals from those continents (Which is highly inaccurate and unfaithful to the source material).
 * 11) Despite the finale episode's happy ending of the show with Kion and his friends decided to leave Africa to live in Asia (Which the Tree of Life is located) and marry Rani as king of the Tree of Life and not the Pride Lands, It ended on a cliff hanger.
 * 12) The show also contains a lot of animal inaccuracies of their walking cycles and movements, for example; Mtoto the baby elephant is seen running in the episode The Ukumbusho Tradition. In real life, African elephants don't run (Due to their physiology) and they move smoothly to faster speeds without markedly changing their kinematics, yet with a shift from vaulting to bouncing kinetics.
 * 13) In the book and prequel of the lion king franchise titled A Tale of Two Brothers Scar's official origin and backstory revealed how he got his scar and changed his name from Taka to Scar was from an antagonistic cape buffalo named Boma, but here he acquires it from a snake (Which is stupid, unoriginal and misleading and this angers many diehard lion king fans).
 * 14) None of the characters mentioned callbacks that scar after his defeat in the original film, he was eaten alive by his hyena minions after betraying them.
 * 15) Zira has been flanderized in this for being tamed unlike in the film where she was feral.
 * 16) Chungu and Cheezi are very dumb and irritating and tried to be like Ed from the films (But miserably failed).
 * 17) Despite that Disney Junior manager Nancy Kanter erroneously describes the lion guard as "The Lion King meets The Avengers", This none of the characters acted like the superheroes of Marvel (Which Disney also owns), and the first and only character in this show of the franchise that is ironically and literally inspired by one of the avengers is Shujaa (Due to him speaks with illeism/the third person much like Bruce Banner/The Hulk and is powerful like the hulk and even acts like him).
 * 18) The only reason why Miraheze’s repetitive and unexceptional best tv shows page would unfairly add this mediocre show into their best tv shows wiki page and not on their terrible tv shows page was being biased and rude ignored a lot of the show’s criticisms it’s been facing from diehard lion king fans on social media who don’t like the show at all and that this show is average and it wasn’t even well-received and lying that they think the show rocked.
 * 19) The writing from the writers including Elise Allens is mediocre.
 * 20) The editing and pacing are rushed.

Good Qualities

 * 1) While the show didn't kill the franchise, at least this show did continue its story (but on a sour note).
 * 2) The animation by Mercury Filmworks at least looked decent (As said earlier above) and beautifully fluid to look at and the designs on the characters (Except Simba) are awesome.
 * 3) The show did introduce many new, interesting, and decent characters in the franchise including Ono, Beshte, Dhahabu the golden zebra, Makini, Jasiri, Shujaa, Ajabu, Anga, Zuri, Tifu, Mtoto, Ma Tembo, Johari and even the main antagonists Janja and Makucha that are intimidating.
 * 4) Timon & Pumbaa, Nala, Mufasa, Rafiki, Kovu, and Zazu are still likable.
 * 5) The concept of Simba and Nala having a second cub is a good idea and interesting.
 * 6) Catchy opening theme song.
 * 7) At least it's good to see Kovu, Nuka, and Vitani made an appearance here as well.
 * 8) Good and amazing songs so far such as Lions Over All, Shujaa Ponda, Sisi Ni Sawa, Tonight We Strike, Zuka Zama (From the pilot only) and As You Move Forward, My Own Way, Hakuna Matata (Briefly), Life in the Pride Lands.
 * 9) The voice acting was decent, especially from actors Atticus Shaffer, Max Charles, Diamond White, Dusan Brown, Joshua Rush, Gabrielle Union, Eden Riegel, Ernie Sabella, and Kevin Schon (Reprising their roles), Rob Lowe (Though not so great), Gary Anthony Williams, James Earl Jones (In the 2015 pilot only), Christopher Jackson, Common, Blair Underwood, Steve Blum, David Oyelowo, Kevin Michael Richardson, Phil Lamarr, Ana Gasteyer, Steve Blum, Jason Marsden, Lacy Chabert, Ron Funches, Andy Dick, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Landry Bender, Madison Pettis, Sarah Hyland, Bailey Gambertoglio, and Nika Futterman.
 * 10) Kion, Fuli, and Bunga can be likable at times. (Despite their flaws). In fact, they redeemed themselves since the end of season 2 and the third and last season.
 * 11) The show has a ton of action scenes.
 * 12) Scar much like in the original film is still intimidating and it isn't flanderized in this (Unlike in the 2019 remake).
 * 13) Thankfully despite the real best tv shows wiki page and fandom adding this cartoon to their page, they do realize and confessed that the lion guard isn’t necessarily the "best" Disney animated show compared to the company’s previous cartoons from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and the 2010s (Despite the lion guard existed in that decade) that came before it and said that this show is debatable since it’s only a niche audience show at best and criticized its animation calling it poor even though mercury Filmworks was involved with the show.
 * 14) After the show got canceled with Ford Riley left Disney, the show was permanently banned from North American television programming to Europe and ended up being on Disney’s Hulu platform available for streaming and not officially on Disney+ in the United States and Canada but in the UK and South Africa.

Reception
Despite receiving mostly positives from critics and fans of the lion guard, The show itself was heavily panned by older and longtime Lion King fans on social media IMDB gave both the show and film pilot Return of the Roar a mixed-to-average score with a 5.6/10 and the show itself gets a 6.4/10 from the same site. The lion guard has further more average and lower ratings on Rotten Tomatoes with 3.5/4 for season 1, season 2 got a 4.2/5, and the third and final season got 3.4/5 and a 67% audience score for season 1 and season 2 gets a 70% audience score, however, the third and final season gets a 62% audience score and the film pilot Return of the Roar gets a 55% audience score.

Max Nicholson from ING gave the pilot score of 7.7, describing it as "a fun-filled, if younger-skewing, hour television". He praised the pilot for introducing more of the Lion King lore and also the animation, music, and performance of the new voice actors. However, he finds Janja and his clan lacked the appeal to make a compelling villain.

Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph scored the pilot two out of five stars, labeling it a "Soggy Sentimental throwback".

Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gives the series four out of five stars stating "With its strong message about courage, responsibility, and friendship, this series is a fun pick for kids, parents who watch with their kids will enjoy seeing the original The Lion King gang -- including Timon, Pumbaa, and the eccentric Rafiki -- in cameos throughout the series".

Longtime lion king fan DisneyFan202 from the franchise's fandom criticized the show and its animation style stating "The Lion Guard is a preschool show not only downgrades the original film's storyline, but in the end, makes its potential as its own thing a lot more unsatisfactory, and it further pushes the stereotype the animation is "just for kids" which Disney has debunked many other times.

Reviews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgNUSnNrHRQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp8eQc_NYk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnreXjU1K1I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t96yvgtOPKg

Trivia

 * Unlike the previous media of The Lion King franchise, this show doesn't provide any cartoon or animal sound effects (Due to having a more realistic theme).
 * Many older Lion King fans hated this show so much, that they tried to attempt the change.org website to sign a petition suing Disney for making it.