season 3: The final TLG season!

[zerodix]

No airing date is known yet, but what I know so far:

Rani will be a new lioness character, she leads a group of lions called "the night pride"

We will see Makini's parents.

Snow leopards and snow monkeys will appear (?)

Animation is finished, this season is ready to air. There will be 18 episodes.

A rumor (not checked if it is true:) there will be an episode about the former lion guard. Does anyone know if this info is correct?

I will update this post when more is found out about this season!

[Panpardus]

Animation is finished, this season is ready to air. There will be 18 episodes.

Not to mention the double-length episode à la "Return of the Roar" and "The Rise of Scar".

A rumor (not checked if it is true:) there will be an episode about the former lion guard. Does anyone know if this info is correct?

Askari -- leader of the first lion guard (he's been mentioned a couple times in recent episodes) -- is confirmed to appear as a character with a speaking role, voiced by Michael Luwoye. I don't know if this means he'll appear in spirit form or in a flashback episode, though the latter would be pretty cool.

It's been implied by various people behind-the-scenes that Zira and her pride will appear again, although Ford Riley implied they're unrelated to (and possibly even unaware of) anything going on with Scar, so they probably won't be a major presence in this series. Exact words from a comment he made on his Instagram post (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bgo3m9ggQED/): "As for Zira’s pride? I can’t say anything other than she has her own scheme for revenge, which you can see in Lion King 2."

[Hatari05]

Animation is finished, this season is ready to air. There will be 18 episodes.

Not to mention the double-length episode à la "Return of the Roar" and "The Rise of Scar".

A rumor (not checked if it is true:) there will be an episode about the former lion guard. Does anyone know if this info is correct?

Askari -- leader of the first lion guard (he's been mentioned a couple times in recent episodes) -- is confirmed to appear as a character with a speaking role, voiced by Michael Luwoye. I don't know if this means he'll appear in spirit form or in a flashback episode, though the latter would be pretty cool.

It's been implied by various people behind-the-scenes that Zira and her pride will appear again, although Ford Riley implied they're unrelated to (and possibly even unaware of) anything going on with Scar, so they probably won't be a major presence in this series. Exact words from a comment he made on his Instagram post (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bgo3m9ggQED/): "As for Zira’s pride? I can’t say anything other than she has her own scheme for revenge, which you can see in Lion King 2."

That makes sense regarding Zira however at the same time when a writer says I can't say anything followed by something else it often means they are hiding something and trying to direct away from it. Something I have noticed is that usually a storytellers efforts to keep spoilers hidden results in them dropping them by accident due to their words. The as for Zira comment implies he is excited, I can't say anything is often said to avoid spoilers but it also implies excitement over the topic they are referring to.

I think Zira's role in 3 is going to completely change the context of everything in SP including her motive in fact LG already has changed quite a bit about the context of SP. Simba was forced to exile the outsiders because Zira tried to kill him, which makes his distrust of Kovu different as another member of Scar's family already tried to backstab and kill him. It makes fear a much larger part of Simba's motivation paranoia that so many want to kill him and he fears one day they might succeed. It makes Simba a lot more primal and instinctive.

This is something that excites me most about the final season how much it will change the context of SP how much it rewrites certain scenes and arcs. LG has already changed SP building on the arcs in it so whatever Zira's part is the idea of how it will change the context of her role in SP excites me.

[Elton John]

according to kevin schon kovu and kiara will have a much bigger role in s3.

but i’m going to take that with a huge grain of salt. not that I don’t want it to happen....

[zerodix]

that would mean that the 3rd season is going to be much better than season 2! untill now, season 1 was my favorite season because of the catchy song, learning elements and variety of characters.

[SimbasGuard]

For me. The Lion Guard has not changed anything about Lion King 2. The scene in "Lions Of The Outlands" where Kion "Roars" The Outsiders back to where we saw them in Lion King 2 and Zira saying:

Our new home

Only makes sense plot-wise if it is viewed as Zira being sarcastic. The Lion Guard has never tried to retcon anything out of Lion King 2. The Lion Guard just retconned itself into Lion King 2.

Although it has shown us things that before now we have had to just speculate on.

Zira's line:

Scar and I were close,very close.

Still has me wondering if my suspicions about their relationship could be true.

[Kallo]

I'm still somewhat wondering.. has it really been confirmed that Season 3 will be the last one? I'm completely prepared for it, and not really even doubting it at all, but it seems to be a rather accepted theory despite there being absolutely no official statement from what I understand.

I just became recently curious if this is truly the case, because Mufasa's voice actor tweeted that he was back voicing lines for the character less than a week ago. If even the animations for the season have been completed, it would be REALLY weird for him to be recording his lines, unless it's some very small re-records or things like grunts etc. (which would seem unlikely for Mufasa). For reference, voice-work for cartoons is usually finished like 9 months (but also varying anywhere between 6-15 months) before the episode airs, while animation is still usually being worked on a month or two, sometimes even a couple of weeks before release (seriously, they really work on every tiny detail up until the last moment). Of course, with the airing schedule having been what it is for the show, the animation is obviously ready much earlier than what it would normally be for cartoons, but this doesn't change the fact that voice-work would have in that case been ready for even longer. The only thing I can think of is that since they basically have everything ready, they're doing some very atypical "after-the-fact" edits to dialogue/animation.

Are we sure they haven't been renewed for a fourth season without us knowing? Because what would make sense much more, in fact perfect sense, is if they have everything ready for S3, and all that time to wait until Season 4 needs to be on TV, this is the time they would have scripts ready and be starting to record voices for Season 4. It fits pefectly timeline-wise. Perhaps I am totally wrong in my suspicions, but it's just a thought that popped into my head.

[Hatari05]

I'm still somewhat wondering.. has it really been confirmed that Season 3 will be the last one? I'm completely prepared for it, and not really even doubting it at all, but it seems to be a rather accepted theory despite there being absolutely no official statement from what I understand.

I just became recently curious if this is truly the case, because Mufasa's voice actor tweeted that he was back voicing lines for the character less than a week ago. If even the animations for the season have been completed, it would be REALLY weird for him to be recording his lines, unless it's some very small re-records or things like grunts etc. (which would seem unlikely for Mufasa). For reference, voice-work for cartoons is usually finished like 9 months (but also varying anywhere between 6-15 months) before the episode airs, while animation is still usually being worked on a month or two, sometimes even a couple of weeks before release (seriously, they really work on every tiny detail up until the last moment). Of course, with the airing schedule having been what it is for the show, the animation is obviously ready much earlier than what it would normally be for cartoons, but this doesn't change the fact that voice-work would have in that case been ready for even longer. The only thing I can think of is that since they basically have everything ready, they're doing some very atypical "after-the-fact" edits to dialogue/animation.

Are we sure they haven't been renewed for a fourth season without us knowing? Because what would make sense much more, in fact perfect sense, is if they have everything ready for S3, and all that time to wait until Season 4 needs to be on TV, this is the time they would have scripts ready and be starting to record voices for Season 4. It fits pefectly timeline-wise. Perhaps I am totally wrong in my suspicions, but it's just a thought that popped into my head.

You make a point though he could be doing recording for some of the later episodes maybe the series finale however considering animation is said to be completely finished I do admit that doesn't seem very likely, so it does support the possibility of more after this season, maybe a time skip.

I know it was said somewhere LG season 3 would be the season that ties everything together, they even showed a great deal of excitement in their statement though I don't exactly know where I can find that quote. So I think season 3 will feel like a final season and close out the story while leading into Simba's Pride tying the whole franchise together. However that doesn't rule out a time skip a season 4 that is almost a new show or maybe a straight up sequel show. With the remake coming out the LK franchise is only going to gain more popularity which could pave the way for a post Simba's Pride story.

People have been asking for it for quite a while and while it has been a long time since Simba's pride was released there have been other franchises with huge gaps of time before releasing a follow up. I think it's possible what he is recording takes place after Simba's pride and it just hasn't been announced yet maybe by tweeting he actually let something slip.

[Kallo]

You make a point though he could be doing recording for some of the later episodes maybe the series finale however considering animation is said to be completely finished I do admit that doesn't seem very likely, so it does support the possibility of more after this season, maybe a time skip.

Unless they're doing a special finale now months later, it seems unlikely. If animation is 100% done (meaning animators are paid and are outta the studio as far as animating S3), it means the script can't be changed, which in turn means there wouldn't be any altered lines to re-record, which leaves 3 options: 1) either they're doing this in some very unusual way which would leave Mufasa to be dubbed afterwards, 2) whatever he's recording for, it's not Season 3, or 3) animation is actually not finished (again, do we have confirmation for this either?) and they're just now recording lines for some of the later episodes of S3. I think the last one seems the most likely option, in all honesty.

I know it was said somewhere LG season 3 would be the season that ties everything together, they even showed a great deal of excitement in their statement though I don't exactly know where I can find that quote. So I think season 3 will feel like a final season and close out the story while leading into Simba's Pride tying the whole franchise together. However that doesn't rule out a time skip a season 4 that is almost a new show or maybe a straight up sequel show. With the remake coming out the LK franchise is only going to gain more popularity which could pave the way for a post Simba's Pride story.

Maybe. In any case, "tying everything together" doesn't necessarily mean ending the show. Again, there's no saying that anywhere there. So far, the only "confirmation" I've seen of the show ending was months ago (if not almost two years, at this point), of a screenshot of a Facebook message floating around online. It was from a show worker indeed saying S3 would be the last. But that's literally all we've had as far as I know, and all the talk about the show ending has seemed to be based on this ever since. Meanwhile, I'm not sure if we even know if that screenshot was real or not, if the account behind the show staff member was real, if there was misunderstanding between the fans and the message, if they were just misleading/messing around with us, or if plans have simply changed at Disney since. What seems really weird is that they would just outright reveal it like that. Disney is an extremely secretive company when it comes to these things... it seems downright impossible for an everyday fan to just randomly one day go ask publicly on Facebook if the show is ending and to be answered "yes" just like that. Years before the show would end, no less.

Again, I'm not really even debating the show's ending. I'm still almost 100% expecting S3 to be the last. But I just thought I'd bring these points up, because a lot of things we currently know just don't seem to be sitting right with S3 being the last one, and I'm not sure we even really had much proof to go with that notion anyway. Just can't wrap around my head why he'd be recording Mufasa's lines right now is all.

(EDIT: Found the Facebook message from Mercury Filmworks indeed saying the animation had finished. And pretty much confirming they were done with the show as as whole. However, I'd like to point out that it's hard to tell via that message whether just a portion of the team is done and there are still other groups working on the animation which would support theory #3, or if this particular studio is done with animating the show but the show is moving to some other animation studio, which would support theory #2. Sad if the latter one is the case too, cause the characters have grown with these animators and they have really developed each character their own visual style)

[echostone]

I can't wait to see how it ends. Seeing a new pride of lions and Rani will be intersting.
I really hope that they will answer the question on wether Zira was Scar's mate(or misstress), daughter, or just a loyal follower to him.