The Lion King 2 - Simba's Kingdom

Movie
German title	The Lion King 2 - Simba's Kingdom
Original title	The Lion King II: Simba's Pride
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1998
length	81 minutes
Age rating	FSK o. A.
Rod
Director	Darrell Rooney , Rob LaDuca
script	Jonathan Cuba , Flip Kobler
production	Jeannine Roussel
music	Nick Glennie-Smith
cut	Peter Lonsdale
synchronization
chronology
←  Predecessor The Lion King Successor  → The Lion King 3 - Hakuna Matata

The Lion King 2 - Simba's Pride from the year 1998 is the successor of Disney - animated film The Lion King from 1994 . The film was the most commercially successful video release at the time.

action

After Simba has taken his place as the rightful king at the side of his partner Nala and his friends Timon and Pumbaa, he and Nala have offspring: a girl by the name of Kiara. Like his father before, Simba also teaches his daughter everything he himself has learned from Mufasa about the circle of life. Timon and Pumbaa serve him as "nannies" who should always keep an eye on Kiara.

On one of her forays into the kingdom, Kiara crosses a river and enters the "Shadowland", which Simba and Zazu had warned her about beforehand. There she meets the young lion Kovu. At first he is hostile towards her, but the two quickly fall into childish gimmicks. Kovu explains to Kiara that he can take care of himself in the Shadowlands. Neither of them noticed that some hungry crocodiles became aware of them and were hunting the young lions. They barely manage to escape the crocodiles and approach each other, but then Simba appears unexpectedly and interrupts their game together. Kovu's mother Zira, who watched the two lions play, also appears. After Scar's death, Zira and her entourage were banished from the Consecrated Land by Simba. She now gives Simba to understand that Kovu, as Scar's successor and legal heir, has sole rights to the kingdom. After this encounter, Zira devises a diabolical plan how she can infiltrate Simba's pack with the help of Kovu. While Kovu is growing up, Zira specifically manipulates him to stir up his hatred of Simba so that he kills him at an appropriate time.

Meanwhile, Kiara has grown up and goes hunting alone for the first time. Simba sends Timon and Pumbaa out again to take care of them, breaking his promise to Kiara to let them hunt "alone" and independently. Zira then starts her project and lets her children Nuka and Vitani set a steppe fire. When the fire rages, she sends Kovu to rescue Kiara and thus gain Simba's trust. He sees the black plume of smoke in the distance and rushes to help Kiara. Meanwhile, Kiara tries to escape the fire and is able to save herself on a ledge before she passes out. Kovu eventually brings Kiara out of the danger zone and back to the Sacred Land. Zazu, who had flown ahead, sees Kovu rescue Kiara and flies back to Simba to report back to him. Finally, Kiara comes to and finally recognizes Kovu after a brief argument about her rescue. But Simba is there immediately and wants to protect Kiara from Kovu. He tells Simba that he has been cast out by the other lions of the Shadowland and asks to be accepted into his pack. Simba is initially suspicious, but agrees after Zazu's advice. Over time, Kovu integrated himself on the Königsfelsen and fell in love with Kiara. This fact makes him doubt the murder plans of Simba.

One day, Kovu wants to take heart and tell Kiara about Zira's plans to murder Simba and his role in them. But he doesn't get around to it, because Simba invites him to take a walk to talk to him in private. When Simba roams the savannah with Kovu and tells him his version of Scar's story, they are surprisingly surrounded by Zira and her lionesses. Simba believes that Kovu deliberately led him into this ambush, but he was unaware of it. He wants to protect Simba from the pack attack, but is quickly knocked unconscious by his sister Vitani. The lionesses throw Simba into a ravine and pursue him further to a dam where Simba wants to climb up to escape the attack. Kovu's brother Nuka pursues Simba and wants to kill him in his place in order to convince Zira of himself as Scar's successor, since he thinks he is better than Kovu. Simba escapes, however, slightly injured, Nuka falls down the dam and is killed by a tree trunk falling with him. Zira then blames Kovu for the death of Nuka and plans cruel revenge. Kovu returns to King's Rock and asks Simba for forgiveness. However, Simba shows no mercy and banishes Kovu from his kingdom. Kiara tries in vain to prevent Kovu's banishment because she does not believe in his betrayal. She defies Simba's order not to leave King's Rock alone and tries to follow Kovu.

When she finally finds him, she convinces him to reunite the two packs. Otherwise they would remain enemies forever if Kovu and Kiara "run away " at Kovu's suggestion and start their own family. A fierce battle is already going on when they return. Just before Simba and Zira clash in a final duel, Kovu and Kiara intervene and stand in the way of the fighting. With the help of his own words, Kiara can convince her father that there is actually no real difference between them and the others. All the members of Zira's pack then gradually give up the fight and take Simba's side. Only Zira, soaked in her lust for murder, does not allow herself to be softened. When Simba is distracted for a brief moment, Zira takes her chance and attacks him. Kiara throws herself between the two and falls with Zira down a cliff under which a dam has now broken and a raging river rages. Zira rushes in and dies after turning down Kiara's help. Simba now realizes that he was wrong and takes the exiled lionesses back into the sanctified land. Together they return to the King's Rock and celebrate their victory and the peace that now reigns in the sacred land.

synchronization

As with the first part, Berliner Synchron took over the setting. Frank Lenart wrote the dialogue book again and directed the dialogue.

role	Original speaker	German speaker
Simba (language)	Matthew Broderick	Frank-Lorenz Engel
Simba (vocals)	Cam Clarke	Cush young
Nala	Moira Kelly	Alexandra Wilcke
Young Kiara (language)	Michelle Horn	Debby Van Dooren
Young Kiara (vocals)	Charity Sanoy
Kiara (language)	Neve Campbell	Natascha Petz
Kiara (vocals)	Liz Callaway	Jasna Ivir
Young Kovu (language)	Ryan O'Donohue	Dorian Brecht
Kovu (language)	Jason Marsden	Matthias Hinze
Kovu (vocals)	Gene Miller	Hendrik Bruch
Young Vitani (language)	Lacey Chabert	Tanya Kahana
Young Vitani (vocals)	Crysta Macalush
Vitani	Jennifer Lien	Sandra Schwittau
Nuka	Andy Dick	Mario von Jascheroff
Zira	Suzanne Pleshette	Cornelia Froboess
Mufasa	James Earl Jones	Wolfgang Kühne
Scar	Jim Cummings	Thomas Fritsch
Rafiki	Robert Guillaume	Joachim Kemmer
Pumbaa	Ernie Sabella	Rainer Basedow
Timon	Nathan Lane	Ilya Richter
Zazu	Edward Hibbert	Eberhard Prüter

The song of the opening sequence "He Lives in You" (He Lives in You) was composed and sung in the original English version by Lebo M ; Henrik Ilgner took care of this for the German dubbed version .

New figures

The meaning of the names in Swahili is in brackets. The explanations of characters already known from the previous film can be found on The Lion King .

Kiara (from Latin clear = bright, radiant)

Daughter of Simba and Nala. Later partner of Kovu. Kiara is headstrong and just as adventurous as her father Simba when he was a teenager in the first part. In the end, it is she who can finally convince the two warring packs to give up the fight and reconcile. Her name was initially Shani ("adventure").

Kovu ("scar")

Heir, but not biological son of Scar. Son of Zira and partner of Kiara. Determined by his mother to succeed Scar, he is entrusted by her with the task of killing Simba in order to become ruler of the Consecrated Land himself. The love for Kiara and Simba's increasing confidence over time, however, keep him distracted from this plan. When his brother Nuka dies trying to kill Simba, Zira blames Kovu and punishes him with a scar over his left eye, which inadvertently gives him an even greater external resemblance to Scar.

Zira ("hate")

Originally Bianca in early drafts . Mother of Kovu, Nuka and Vitani and a loyal follower of Scar. As the leader of the displaced lionesses, she chooses Kovu as the chosen one for her planned retaliation against Simba. When all the members of her pack finally overflow to the other side in the finale, she wants to attack Simba, but is stopped by Kiara, whereupon both of them plunge into a ravine under which a raging river rages. Kiara lands on a small ledge and wants to help Zira, who threatens to plunge into the river, but Kiara's help refuses and falls down to her death.

Nuka ("stench")

Elder son of Zira. Brother of Kovu and Vitani. Nuka has been jealous of Kovu all his life, as he does not receive the same attention from Zira that Kovu has designated as the rightful and sole successor of Scars instead of him. When he tries to prove himself to his mother, he dies trying to kill Simba.

Vitani ("war")

Sister of Kovu and Nuka. Vitani initially stands behind her mother's intentions and, with Nuka, sets the fire on Kiara's first hunt. In the final fight, however, she is the first to admit to herself that Kiara is right and then switches to Simba's side, in which the other lionesses of the "Shadowland" follow her. Originally it should be called Shetani ("devil").

production

After the great success of the first part, the second part, although intended as an immediate sequel within the next year, was only released four years later on October 27, 1998 in the USA. Four months later, on February 25, 1999, the film was also released in Germany. As a direct release on VHS and almost a year later in the first limited edition also on DVD , there was a similarly big commercial success. In the US alone, the film sold several million times within the first few days.

The budget cuts, which are mostly common for sequel films, had a clearly noticeable qualitative effect on the film. No member of the ancestral team that had worked on the first part was involved in the artistic implementation. Much of the animation was created in the Walt Disney Television Animation Studio for Walt Disney television productions in Sydney . The usual Disney collaboration with well-known music stars did not take place this time either. Superstars like Elton John or the Oscar-winning producer Hans Zimmer , who were responsible for the soundtrack of the first part, were not signed up again.

The script was fundamentally revised several times, which was mainly due to external circumstances that influenced the production process. The role of Sarabi, Simba's mother from the first part, was intended to be an integral part of the plot, but had to be discarded after the sudden death of her spokeswoman Madge Sinclair in 1995. In early drafts, Kovu was initially created as the biological son of Scars, which was changed later when the incest problems between Kovu and Kiara that would inevitably arise became aware. The characters Zira and Scar are therefore in no closer relation to one another; Whether Nuka and Vitani are possible descendants of Scars is not discussed in the film.

reception

As with all direct-to-video releases, the film did not receive the same critical media attention as its predecessor. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four possible stars on their TV show Siskel & Ebert and described it as a “satisfactory continuation of one of the most successful films of all time” , but noted that it was similar to its predecessor in key points such as the soundtrack, which lacks the originality of the first part, is subject to.

The American film magazine TV-Guide gave the film 2½ out of four possible stars and essentially criticized the somewhat unimaginative plot ( "which would have offered far more potential" ) and the seemingly second-rate soundtrack, which could not compete with the catchy hits of the first part . Stephen Witty of Entertainment Weekly found much harsher words and described the film in his review "not as a film, but as a merchandising concept that nobody really needs to spend money on" .

On Rotten Tomatoes , the film received a similarly negative response from the specialist critics (33%), but was received favorably by the majority of fans (60%), who for the most part see it as a successful sequel.

Songs

He Lives In You (He Lives In You)

The intro of the film. Originally intended for the first part, the structure and sequence are very reminiscent of the opening sequence of the predecessor.

We are one

Simba teaches Kiara that she is part of the eternal circle.

My Lullaby (My Lullaby)

The song thematizes Zira's deeply cherished feelings of revenge and her diabolical plan to train Kovu on Simba in order to kill him and become king herself.

In Upendi (In Upendi)

Rafiki shows Kiara and Kovu the beauty of love.

Exile (Not One Of Us)

Simba banishes Kovu from his kingdom when he learns of his alleged betrayal of him.

Love Will Find A Way

The song is about the deep feelings Kovus and Kiaras have for each other, who triumph over the quarrel between the two previously feuding pride of lions and ultimately resolve it.

Web links

• The Lion King 2 - Simba's Pride in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The Lion King 2 - Simba's Kingdom in the online movie database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Lion King 2 - Simba's Kingdom. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on February 23, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Susan King: 'LION KING': Roaring Only in Stores. LA Times , October 26, 1998, accessed January 13, 2014 . 
3. ↑ TV Guide: 'The Lion King II: Simba's Pride Review'. 1998, accessed April 26, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Stephen Witty: The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Entertainment Weekly , October 30, 1998, accessed April 26, 2014 . 
5. ↑ The Lion King 2- Simba's Pride. Retrieved April 26, 2014 .