Boring, long, and too preachy.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

First off, the bad. It's not as good as The Lion King. There was no way it could have been. It also does strange things with the lore, adding characters, letting Kion interact with his ancestors at a moments notice. Some of the voice acting is meh, some of the songs are sung by 13 year old children. Mufasa, Simba, and Nala's voice actors are different. Janja and his hyenas are, well, "furbrains". But for all that, it has its charms. It reminds me of The Land Before Time. And if they'd actually gone for that feeling, instead of "it's the Lion King meets The Avengers" it might have actually been good. But even if it was by accident, they still hit that tone. Some of the one-time characters have been excellent. The characters grow and learn. Some of the songs are actually decent. Every episode, someone learns something--and it's often a genuine lesson. Some of the humor is childish, and some of it is more subtle.I think the biggest thing is to not take it too seriously. It's a children's show, not a masterpiece.

As a big fan of The lion king franchise, I was pretty excited when I found out that Disney is planning to release TV series based on The lion king. However, I was quite shocked by the drop of quality and most importantly, depth of the story in TLG. Of course, let me tell you that I'm aware that a TV show has much smaller budget than a movie, so it basically has no chance of being as good as the original movies, but still, I did expect more in terms of visual appearance and story.Now, the first thing that sucks here is the animation and design. The characters look flat, their bodies look weird and their movement is unnatural. Just look at Simba's feet - his toes don't move at all and when he runs, he looks like he wears shoes. Also, they should tone them down in terms of color - they seem too unnaturally bright.Now the characters. It is true that most of the lion guard members just seem to be pulled out of thin air when Kion assembles his guard. Kion's character seems too blunt for me as a protagonist. Bunga, even though he is supposed to be the funny dude here, is too reckless and teaches kids that being brave means putting your life at risk by jumping from cliffs and trees - not only that this is the total opposite of the first movie, where Mufasa explains to Simba that being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble and sadly, children tend to repeat the actions of their cartoon heroes which can end up in hurting themselves. It is also very disappointing to see them change the personalities of the original characters. Simba, in lieu of being overprotective like in the second movie, seems like he doesn't care about his kids at all, especially about Kion in Return of the Roar - he acts like Kion is just an accident, Nala barely does anything and so does Timon and Pumba,and Kiara? She is completely different. Seriously, the second movie was based on Kiara being annoyed by having to become a queen and she wanted go on adventures, while here, she is a weak snob who is proud of being the next queen accompanied by her even more snobby friends. Yuck! Plus the villains are pathetic. I never get why Janja and his pack keep on hunting in the Pridelands. Why would they over hunt? If the franchise follows the idea of the circle of life, they should integrate the fact that animals (yes, even hyenas) never kill prey just for fun. And if Janja does, then why? If he just hunts there because he is hungry, then I don't see the reason why Kion keeps on chasing him out the Pridelands. Just because he is racist ( you and your kind are not welcome, ever - really??) and the hyenas are just evil for no reason and need to be defeated? Wow. Despite this, I do like Fuli and Ono. Beshte doesn't really do anything.In terms of the story, it is much more shallow than the movies and pretty nonsense at some points. So, we basically have a group of baby animals with superpowers who run around the Pridelands and defeat every villain like nothing - that just makes it really shallow and unnatural when the original story rather follows the laws of nature. Also, the series states for multiple times that the Pridelands will be defenseless without Kion and his group of baby animals. Just come on! How can a group of babies (even with superpowers) be the only ones who can protect a whole pride of adult lions?! Does Simba really need is cub to protect him from villains that he banished before Kion was even born? I know the guard is supposed to be important, but this is just ridiculous. Maybe it would make more sense if Kion became the leader of the guard when he is older - Kiara will also become a queen when she is an adult. This makes as much sense as if Kiara became a queen while she was still a cub. I too don't understand the whole magical roar/cutie mark business. In the original story, there is no magic at all, it doesn't defy the laws of nature in this sense at all. According to my opinion, adding magic to the story wears down it's depth by a lot and makes it seem more like a cheap fairy tale. OK, I maybe get they wanted to make the show more cool by adding the roar, but cutie marks? Seriously? They don't even do anything and I have no clue why they included this nonsense in the series.Overall, this thing has some positives, like some of the characters, concepts ( the LG itself isn't a bad idea, they just didn't integrate it well) and catchy songs, but I think it could have been done way better, as it feels pretty cheap and shallow compared to the rest of the franchise and kind of melts away the original emotional depth. It just lacks the feel and impact the movies leave in me. It also doesn't fit the canon. Kion was never part of the story and it just makes things confusing. In their place, I would put the series in the time gap during the second movie, focusing on Kiara's childhood, her potential friends (Ono? Fuli?) and adventures (more secret meet-ups with Kovu?).

When I heard that Disney was doing another cartoon based on one of their best movies, I was excited. I'd heard a lot about the show, and decided to give it a chance. Even if I don't have cable, I have other ways of watching The Lion Guard. All the members of the Lion Guard are cute, being young and all, and the research for the show was well done. They use a lot of Swahili words in their speech. Perfectly appropriate considering the setting is in East Africa.I don't claim The Lion Guard is better than the Lion King. I do claim that it's fun to watch if you wanted another spin-off of the Lion King. For that, it's worth watching the whole first season just to see how it all starts. I'd heard a lot of not-so-good things about Return of the Roar, so I started with the first episode of the show. And I wasn't disappointed. It's a nice little reunion with old friends.

David Bythewood, its a kids show, nothing more,nothing less, you are seriously reading way too much into the show. I have a child of my own and he enjoys The Lion Guard and I think, if you have children, they won't be reading too far into it as you are right now. On another note, why does the show have to be based on lions and their actual behavior in society when it's a kids show? Do we need to portray the fact that KION would be eaten because the male pack lion eats their own male cubs! Or the fact that the entire pack is consisted of mating with their own family members. On top of the fact that lions hunt live prey. Why would they show that on a kids show? yes hippos are aggressive in real life but again, as a Kids show, there would be no need to show aggression. Kids don't want to see animals eating each other, animals being aggressive. Kids shows are to teach a lesson, to put them to bed, or to entertain depending on age. Hyenas are depicted as bad because in your so called favorite original lion king, they are bad and work with scar. The show is called lion guard and is based around kion and his friends. There is no need to have a backstory of how female hyenas stay back to raise their young. And as shown in the show not all hyenas are bad since kion made a friend with a female hyena.. by the way poombah is spelt Pumba.... simba obviously said not to have any other species other than lions in the lion guard because it's called the LION guard, but it is in no where racism considering kion create his group with different species of animals.... the music is of course never going to top the lion king but why does it need to? It is geared towards sound and easy words for little kids. It is on Disney JUNIOR.