Post by Kieran on Feb 15, 2011 21:15:39 GMT 2
The series of six books published in 1994, around the film's release. The first book is an original story from Alex Simmons who didn't and doesn't belong to The Walt Disney Company. All the parts in the series are written by different people, all outsider childrens' book or comic writers.
The main character is Kopa, Simba and Nala's son but the books actually tell other characters' stories such as vision of how Scar got his scar, about Nala's days during Scar's reign and one is about Zazu...
This book series was released only in USA and was never re-printed. So, apparently they didn't sell as well as you might think judging by the online community's fawning over them.
The first film's makers confirmed these books are not canon or even semi-canon, by denying these books from applying to their film, by calling the cub at the end "Fluffy" with no gender instead of Kopa.
For some reason this book series became the most popular of the book universe. Perhaps because the cub at the end was given an identity? Because series of books draws more attention than random, individual books?
I've read through only the first one about Mufasa and Scar. I only paged through some of the other parts.
Kopa is almost a clone of cub Simba in every which way--the only way he becomes turly original is if his personality is majorly improved and some original story created for him. The good thing is that the books show him only at certain age, so a reader can imagine his personality almost anything in the end, without contradicting the books. So, Kopa's character didn't really get to me but I'm generally interested in what he might become.
How Scar got his scar was a good idea for a story. But I don't think a buffalo's horn could cause that kind of a scar even if the eye somehow survived the hit. I don't care if that vision became semi-official by the Disney stamp--I would not adapt that into my own fan vision.
The first book starts off similar to the film, from the kid being a lousy bouncer and the dad was to teach him, "broken promise" and the son bugging his dad about it, the promise being taking him up to the top of Priderock to show the kingdom. Then the core story has a stampede.. The stampede itself I didn't find original but I loved how Mufasa related to it. Which in my opinion makes the stampede choice actually somewhat brilliant.. I don't know maybe I'll give the rest of the books a chance some day.
But as the book universe is obviously targetted at young children--(hence, simple plots, not-too-deep new characters, large font, a lot of illustrations along the way)-- they haven't really caught my fascination. I love many of the comic books much better.
The main character is Kopa, Simba and Nala's son but the books actually tell other characters' stories such as vision of how Scar got his scar, about Nala's days during Scar's reign and one is about Zazu...
This book series was released only in USA and was never re-printed. So, apparently they didn't sell as well as you might think judging by the online community's fawning over them.
The first film's makers confirmed these books are not canon or even semi-canon, by denying these books from applying to their film, by calling the cub at the end "Fluffy" with no gender instead of Kopa.
For some reason this book series became the most popular of the book universe. Perhaps because the cub at the end was given an identity? Because series of books draws more attention than random, individual books?
I've read through only the first one about Mufasa and Scar. I only paged through some of the other parts.
Kopa is almost a clone of cub Simba in every which way--the only way he becomes turly original is if his personality is majorly improved and some original story created for him. The good thing is that the books show him only at certain age, so a reader can imagine his personality almost anything in the end, without contradicting the books. So, Kopa's character didn't really get to me but I'm generally interested in what he might become.
How Scar got his scar was a good idea for a story. But I don't think a buffalo's horn could cause that kind of a scar even if the eye somehow survived the hit. I don't care if that vision became semi-official by the Disney stamp--I would not adapt that into my own fan vision.
The first book starts off similar to the film, from the kid being a lousy bouncer and the dad was to teach him, "broken promise" and the son bugging his dad about it, the promise being taking him up to the top of Priderock to show the kingdom. Then the core story has a stampede.. The stampede itself I didn't find original but I loved how Mufasa related to it. Which in my opinion makes the stampede choice actually somewhat brilliant.. I don't know maybe I'll give the rest of the books a chance some day.
But as the book universe is obviously targetted at young children--(hence, simple plots, not-too-deep new characters, large font, a lot of illustrations along the way)-- they haven't really caught my fascination. I love many of the comic books much better.