The Lion King II: Simba's Pride
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Short description
Set after Simba has taken his place as king, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride follows his daughter Kiara, an adventurous cub who slips away from her minders Timon and Pumbaa and wanders beyond the borders of her father's lands. There she meets Kovu, a young lion raised in exile by Zira, a follower of the late Scar. Zira intends for Kovu to grow up and take Simba's place, while Kiara and Kovu grow close without knowing what this friendship could cost both prides. The film was released in 1998 as a direct-to-video animated sequel to Disney's earlier Lion King, and it stands as the first feature directed by Darrell Rooney, ahead of Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure and Mulan II.
Matthew Broderick and Neve Campbell lead the voice cast as Simba and Kiara, with Jason Marsden as Kovu, Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella returning as Timon and Pumbaa, and Andy Dick as Nuka. The screenplay is by Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus, and Jeannine Roussel produced. Running 81 minutes, the film mixes adventure, family drama and romance across its animated Serengeti setting.
Audience response has been steady: on IMDb it holds 6.4/10 from around 83,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.9/10 from roughly 4,700 votes. A critics' rating of 6.1/10 from 12 reviews places it slightly below the audience scores, suggesting a generally favourable but not enthusiastic reception on both sides.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initial versions of the names of some characters: Zira - Bianca, Kovu - Nunka, Vitani - Shetani.
- In the original version of the cartoon, Zira's death as a result of the fall is not accidental – she deliberately threw herself off the ledge: at the moment when Kiara extends her paw to Zira, Zira growls: “No… Never…” and jumps off the cliff. Later, this moment was cut and reworked, but the scene remained on VHS.
- A scene was removed from the cartoon where, after Kiara's presentation to the savanna animals, Nuka and Vitani run to tell Zira about the birth of the heir. This explains how she knew about Kiara during her meeting with Kovu.
- The scene from the beginning of the cartoon (Rafiki introduces little Kiara to the inhabitants of the kingdom) and the final scene of the original "The Lion King" have significant differences (the sequence of actions of the characters, the design of the cub itself), however, according to the creators' logic, it is the same episode.
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