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 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' second act, followed by the final two episodes serving as a 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 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 to Pride Lands and defends the Circle of Life.

Bad Qualities
1. Despite that Showrunner Ford Riley claimed The Lion Guard is a prequel to 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 and timeline issues and adding a random and generic magical roar called "The Roar of the Elders" and its symbolic marks are out of place for the franchise's lore and source material 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" with Kion being inspired by Prospero (Despite the Disney wiki fandom implying that Kion's inspiration is Young Simba (Which doesn't make sense since when Simba was a cub he was never gifted by a magical roar or had a symbolic lion mark on his shoulers) and miserably failed 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 doesn'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 are inspired 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 om 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 looked 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 Mercury Filmworks including Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Star Vs The Forces of Evil (Season 1 only) 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. Also it's not as great as the lion king franchise's previous television series Timon & Pumbaa that was better animated by Rough Draft Studios, Koko Enterpises, Sunwoo Entertainment and Toon City. Though it looks decent enough to look at.

5. Harmful and inaccurate animal portrayals 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, Hafifu and their father King Sokwe). In real life gorillas are smart and powerful (Which the later ape character of the show is Shujaa in the season 2 episode Beshte and the Beast)

6. The songs 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 preschooler as opposed to teens, young adults and old school lion king fans in general (Which is the reason many diehard and older Lion Guard are angered and upset and 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 franchise's source material.

8. Despite other characters of the franchise (Besides Simba, Nala and Kiara) made 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 horribly 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 jerk 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 of 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 marrying Rani as a king of the 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 of 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 that in the original film he was eaten alive by his hyenea minions after betraying them.

15. Zira has been flanderized in this for being tamed unlike in the film that 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).

Good Qualities
1. At least this show did continued the lion king franchise's story.

2. The animation by mercury filmworks at least looked decent (As stated earlier from above) and beautiful fluid to look at and the designs on the characters (Except Simba) are awesome.

3. The show did introduces new and interesting characters in the franchise including Ono, Beshte, Dahabu the golden zebra, Makini, Jasiri, Shujaa, Ajabu, Anga and even the main antagonists Janja and Makucha.

3. Timon & Pumbaa, Nala, Mufasa, Rafiki and Zazu are still likable.

4. The concept of Simba and Nala having a second cub is a good idea and really interesting.

5. Catchy opening theme song.

6. At least it's good to see kovu, Nuka and Vitani made an appearance in here as well.

7. 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.

8. The voice acting is 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, Gary Anthony Williams, James Ear 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.

9. Despite being jerks, Kion, Fuli and Bunga can be likable to some lion king fans at times (Despite of their flaws).

10. The show has a ton of action scenes.

11. Scar much like in the original film is still intimidating and it isn't flanderized in this (Unlike in the 2019 remake).

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 with 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 have 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 a 3.4/5 and a 67% audience score.

Max Nicholson from ING gave the pilot score of 7.7, describing 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 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 it's animation style stating "The Lion Guard is a preschool not only downgrades the original film's storyline, but in the end, makes it's 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 make an attempt on the change.org website to sign a petition of suing Disney for making this mistake.