TLG: Battle For The Pridelands Sketches

TLG: Battle for the Pridelands Sketches

To celebrate the 5th Anniversary of one of my favorite episodes of TLG, I decided to do some sketches of some takeaways I had during a rewatch of the episode:

1. Wema, Tunu, Dogo, and Kijana aged up to how old I think they'd be around the time of the episode. Why were they not aged up?? Kiara, Tiifu, Zuri, and Mtoto were given some specific age models only used in this episode, why not the Outlander kids? I feel the jackals would be the equivalent to 12 years old by this time, while Wema and Tunu would be like 8-year-old kids.

2. I've heard people ask where the zebras and baboons were during the final battle, and for a while I was like "Yeah aren't they significant recurring characters? Where even were they in the Pridelands Army arc of Season 2?", but THEN it dawned on me: Baboon. Zebra. Cavalry. When watching the scene where everyone charges to the Outlands, I saw the galagos riding the sable antelope and went "haha like horses, that'd be funny if it was with zebras because equines", then I was like "baboons would probably be like humans while riding zebras" and I was just "WAIT IS THAT WHY PEOPLE WANTED THOSE ANIMALS IN THIS EPISODE". So here we are, Big Baboon and Thurston team up to surprise the Outlanders (and even the Pridelanders) by doing what they do best -- throwing fruit and panicking and running, respectively.

3. A sketch of this sudden visual I got during Ushari and Scar's conversation where Scar promised that Ushari and the rest of the reptiles would have whatever's left of the ravaged Pridelands. I instantly imagined the Pridelands becoming this unrecognizable wasteland ideal only for heat-seeking reptiles after the disastrous volcanic eruption Scar had in mind. The environment would be a tad like something out of the Mesozoic era.

4. One of my favorite aspects of this episode: The famous important-as-hell-but-vaguely-presented lore drop of the Strange Lion's (actually pretty ambiguous) existence as well as his actions accelerating Scar's entitlement and envy of Mufasa (which would kickstart the very premise of the first movie and the franchise as we know it). I love this guy's design for the same reason I love Zira's -- it's just so consistent in shapes and colors that all match with each other.

5. I find it funny that in order to not interfere with the events of TLK 2, TLG just decided to have it so the Outsiders would be completely out of the loop of the fact that Scar's spirit returned. It could easily be explained that Scar kept Zira out of it on purpose, or that he didn't know (and possibly didn't care) that she was still around. I have to think that the Outsiders don't live too far from the Outlands Volcano, so they've had to have heard some commotion and wonder what on earth could be going on. Looks like Zira's fanatic spiritual connection with her beloved Scar can apparently be heard by her peers.