season 2: what we know yet

[Squeely]

[quote="Elton John"]Rafikis mandrill apprentice?

Wait! Wait![/quote]
Coulda sworn some merch already had her on it, but Google is yielding nothing. I recall her looking like a young, female Rafiki pretty much.

[Panpardus]

[quote="Squeely"][quote="Elton John"]Rafikis mandrill apprentice?

Wait! Wait![/quote]
Coulda sworn some merch already had her on it, but Google is yielding nothing. I recall her looking like a young, female Rafiki pretty much.[/quote]

Yeah, I just found a picture of her: https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=59EA5614 She should provide an interesting dynamic if she becomes a recurring character in the series. I hope her inclusion gives us some much-needed backstory on the baboon sangomas, and hopefully Rafiki himself.

[Kallo]

So Scar looks pretty much exactly how I expected. Although deep down I was hoping he'd be a bit more than just a "floating head" like Mufasa, if that makes sense. Was hoping he'd have a bit more control over his appearance and he could appear as just a head or in his full form as well. Maybe he will, though I doubt it. Kinda disappointed they didn't go with Jim Cummings as Scar's VA. I can definitely see David Oyelowo fit the role very well, and hear him as Scar's voice. The only question is can he do it. His voice as Kallus has lots of Scar-y (heh) elements to it, but that voice is too light for Scar, so I'm hoping he can go quite a bit deeper, to make Scar's voice work. It'll probably have a crap ton of effects on top of it though, so it'll likely be fine.

Btw, I'm not a huge fan of Makini's design. I mean, it's cute, but it's starting to reach a bit too much of an unrealistic direction, as far as The Lion King -universe is concerned. The animals typically look pretty realistic, but Makini looks almost like an anthropomorphic human-animal character (yes, I know she's a monkey, but that's not what I'm referring to). Compare her to how realistic Rafiki looks and she looks like she doesn't even belong in the series.

[Panpardus]

I've been listening to Oyelowo speaking in more villainous British accents for the last few minutes, and I'm pretty comfortable with what I'm picturing for Scar based on that. I noticed that he's looking at another character in the image of him that's been released, though I can't make out who exactly it could be.

I like that Makini exists as a character, though I'm willing to admit that I'm not too impressed with her design. Save for Rafiki, I actually really don't like the designs of most of the monkey characters in The Lion Guard; they're either very simplistic (the generic background monkeys you sometimes see and can't pinpoint to a specific species because they're just that generically designed) or they look very abstracted from the actual animal to the point where they're almost unrecognizable. The baboons I've especially disliked, particularly the babies; I couldn't tell what the heck I was looking at when I saw this: https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/li ... 0320185109
Compared to that though, Makini isn't too bad; she sticks out about as 'unrealistic' to me about as much as Fuli does (which I've only just started really getting used to, even though she's my favorite guard member). Her facial design looks more like she's wearing a bunch of face paint as opposed to all of those being various actual parts of her facial structure and anatomy. Hopefully it'll look a little more put together onscreen; promotional images are usually lower quality than the final TV product.

[Kallo]

Agreed about Fuli. Her face used to bother me as well, when the show first started. But at least it's passable, and other than that she looks rather realistic. Makini, on the other hand, is super cartoonish looking though. I dunno if I'd say she's even passable in The Lion King -universe. As said, she looks like she wandered in from a totally different show. You're also right about her looking like she's just a person wearing face paint. Exactly what I thought.

At least they made her very cute, so it's excusable to some extent. I'm sure her character will be great and lots of fun. I'm glad to see the female cast on the show growing.

[Squeely]

Only thing I find weird about the apprentice's design is the dark peach eyebrow/forehead and ears. The rest is either mandrill-accurate (even got the tail right this time) or accurate to Rafiki's design. Also I always assumed Rafiki's grey-blue thing above his eyes was meant to be his eyebrows, but I guess he's just eyebrowless. Feels weird seeing eyebrows there tbh.

I'm sure I'll get used to her design over time. I have a little headcanon that a lot of TLK's animals are bit... mutated? maybe evolved differently? To what they'd be in real life. Makes it easier to buy a mandrill with Rafiki's tail, or Fuli's weird spots lol.

Regardless, I love the fact that Rafiki is getting an apprentice at all, and I hope we'll see the both of them a lot. I love that TLG does things with the characters from TLK. TLK's characters are interesting, dammit. It feels like a lot of sequel material forgets this. Like the Timon and Pumbaa Show - Yeah it did stuff with T&P and the hyenas, but did little to nothing with the other characters. SP only focused on characterization for Simba. 11/2 only really gave much for Timon and a little to Pumbaa. I love that TLG incorporates the whole cast to decent effect. We've already had good moments for everyone.

[SimbasGuard]

[quote="Squeely"]I love that TLG incorporates the whole cast to decent effect. We've already had good moments for everyone.[/quote]

Agreed

Two things that jumped out at me form the article was the fact that Jasiri was mentioned as a returning guest character How often we'll see her..well... As well as Disney acknowledging that their viewers range in age well beyond their primary target audince. Although I could be overly excited because even my age group was listed in the statistics. It looks as if there is a lot to look forward to in season 2

[Elton John]

Season 2 starts tomorrow. I will be buying the eps off itunes, as usual.

[SimbasGuard]

[quote="Elton John"]Season 2 starts tomorrow.[/quote]

I am very excited for it I hope this new season tops the 1st.

[Elton John]

I hope the songs are better. The first half of s1 had a few decent songs but the second half was mostly filler songs.