Analysing: Steven Universe (ENG)

Warning: these articles are originally written in Spanish. Therefore, some things might have changed because of translation issues, use of synonyms and paraphrasing, or to keep a joke and whatnot; however, the context of the article remains intact. You may see a couple of mistakes too, do warn me so I can fix them. If you do know how to read Spanish, I highly suggest looking at the real deal just in case you missed something. Have a nice Reading!

Ah, a member of what I like to call the current "Holly Trinity", along with its sister Adventure Time and its cousin Gravity Falls. What can I say that hasn't been said before? Let's see and start with the basics: it's the first series on Cartoon Network ever made by a woman, the "Ukelele Villain" Rebecca Sugar (who had previously collaborated in other series like Adventure Time, especially in the music department). I call her a Villain because that woman is definitely capable of taking over the world with her songs: I'm especially happy with the fact that CN's first female producer is that talented and has caused such a big impact already.

There's no doubt, I'm saying this now before I continue: Steven Universe is a precious gem, both metaphorically and literally. I Perfectly understand why is it so acclaimed and adored by almost anyone who has bothered to watch it, although I understand the criticism coming from those who don't love it or it's not of their cup of tea. A gem so desires that rabid fans would defend it ferociously even from its own creators: it happened, and it was a shameful moment considering the fact that who started it was a group of hysterics on Tumblr, harassing a girl for her fan-art until she tried to commit suicide; one of the directors of the series found out and called them out for it through Twitter, and the infamous group answered with comments on how he should be offended because she had dared to draw a character under "discriminatory context" (said character was originally chubby and she drew it skinny). Of course, he politely told them to go bathe in holy water for being such enormous and diabolic snots in one's underwear. What kind of TV series brings to light a bunch of crazy people that would drive a girl to attempt suicide, you ask? Are Steven and his three-and-a-half mothers deserving of this powerful attention and obsession from their public, or are they just a fused-up glorified monster in CN's currently reduced repertoire of shows? take out your magnifying glasses and get ready to measure the karats of this diamond with me, and let's see if it's worth the scandal.

• Premise

Steven Universe seemed to have a simple and basic theme going on in the beginning of its first season: a boy of undefined age living in a small town by the sea with what seems to be three women with magical powers, and who needs to master the abilities he inherited from his mother, for he actually uses them every day to do one of two things: fight a giant monster, or find a magical artefact. It doesn't seem like there's a chronology, and, even if there was some tension in every episode, everything would be solved in the end.

But everything changed when the Fire Nation mid-season episodes attacked. The most observing viewers had noticed with expert eyes that something was hiding underneath all those pastel colours and sayings about pork chops and hotdogs. An actual heavy plot. And so, their predictions and the end of Steven Universe as we knew it were met with chirurgic precision.

Steven Universe now follows the life and adventures of its pre-teen namesake: he lives in a temple with the Crystal Gems, three magical anthropomorphic gems (don't ask me how that works) that used to be compatriots with Steven's mother, and now dedicate themselves to helping him in his quest to perfect his powers while they save the Earth from the supernatural. To Steven's disposition there's Garnet (the silent-leader type), Amethyst (the glutton with fluctuant levels of intelligence type), and Pearl (the perfectionist with OCD type). Neither of the them actually have a clue on how to raise a kid, but they try in the name of Steven's late mother, Rose Quartz (former leader of the Crystal Gems who sacrificed her physical form so her hybrid son could exist).

The particularity of Steven's world is found in its supporting cast: everyone has a name and personality, and interact at one point or another with the protagonists in a significant way: there's repercussions to their actions, because both Steven and the character evolve from these interactions. Among the most recurrent support characters is Greg Universe (father who adores Steven but now shares "custody" with the CG), Greg's generally a decent example to follow as an adult character since he breaks the stupid/negligent father trope; Connie (Steven's friend and possible love interest), grows out from being a reserved and timid girl, learns sword fighting from Pearl and makes it look like she's catching frilly butterflies; and the Homeworld Gems (from the same race as our protagonists), they're Gems part of an absolutist empire from which the CG separated after a 1000 year revolution to stop them from conquering and colonizing Earth. I'd go into more details about the Nazi Gems, but I don't want to spoil too much about them.
All of the protagonists have a dark past and reasons to defend the Earth, and can be summarized in the following way: Steven wants to follow on the steps of his mother since he's the hippiest kid ever made for television and he believes in unconditional love, respect and harmony; Garnet is fighting for her right to stay as a mixed perma-fusion, something considered treason and taboo in Homeworld (basically she's two dwarf Gems in a trench coat trying to enter the theatre with only one ticket); Pearl had has an unhealthy romantic obsession with Rose Quartz and wished to defend her ideals even when the woman sacrificed her physical existence in favour of her child with someone else; Amethyst was born and raised on Earth and that's the only stable fact in her chaotic existence. All of them have at one point (or almost every day) an emotional/existential crisis with musical numbers and explosions of uncontrollable tears included, especially after the first season. What the heck, Rebecca, stop breaking my heart with lesbian space rocks!
The only down point that comes to mind, narratively speaking, would be this: the series focuses, for better and worse, in character development more than the actual plot; this translates into what could be considered "filler" episodes by the hundreds, but I'll leave it to personal criteria to decide whether it's a good or a bad thing.

• Animation

It's divine. The animation in Steven Universe is simply divine. Fluid, clean, consistent, detailed. It follows the parameters of traditional 2D animation, elaborated in digital format; every episode is planned directly into a storyboard instead of going through a written script first, and it shows marvellously: action scenes, body language and fast dialogue is truly delectable, even the musical numbers are enchanting although the character might be only spreading butter on bread (I mean it). The only defect of this working format is, that depending on who's the main storyboard artist, the drawing style may vary: there's episodes where Steven and company look more cartoony, or taller, or shorter, or more thin, and so on. Even so and despite these changes, I believe the show won an award for best character designs once.

But if there's something to praise here... it's the relieving colour palette; for some reason, the current series broadcasted on Cartoon Network all use highly saturated and clashing colours, in horrible combinations that cause sore eyes more effectively than a Brazilian Macumba that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. Steven Universe uses almost exclusively pastel tones, especially in its backgrounds that are very reminiscent of watercolour paintings. When I sat down for the first time to watch an episode, the first thing I noticed and exclaimed was a comment on how pretty and well done everything looked thanks to the palette, a rainbow of happiness that calms you before the EMOTIONAL STORM that EXPLODES IN YOUR FACE when you're watching Steven Universe, If it weren't for the colours constantly telling you how to feel, this series would definitely not be what it is. Everything's calculated so those ten, eleven minutes of animation you actually feel completely and fully invested in the melodrama on your screen. Another point for Rebecca, for getting my sympathy through the wise use of baby clothes' colours.

• Conclusion

Steven Universe is a series of love. The main subject is love towards everything that makes us humans, and all forms of love out there: romantic love, platonic love, loving friends, neighbours, communities, pets, the world, even your mortal enemy that's trying to kill you with lasers (and ho they mean it!). It's about understanding, tolerance, respect, balance, overcoming difficulties and reaching self-validation. Steven Universe was created with love, to spread love and teach love in a time where rendering homage to your favourite series may end horribly because a group of "justice warriors" full of intolerance and on the wrong track can't seem to understand the message they're preaching. No series deserves a public like that, even less a "gentle giant" like SU, but I understand why a cartoon for kids can awaken such passion in people; you just need to remember that such passion, when misguided, can cause grave harm. I strongly recommend SU, but also encourage you to remember its message: virtues must overcome defects, and spread love like a fatal disease because whether you like it or not, you depend on people as much as they depend on you and we're all, ALL connected, so the least you could do is shine as a person for both others' and your own sake. Just like the promotional trailer said, "Believe in Steven".

Signing out!

-Gatt

Analysing: Lloyd in Space

Warning: these articles are originally written in Spanish. Therefore, some things might have changed because of translation issues, use of synonyms and paraphrasing, or to keep a joke and whatnot; however, the context of the article remains intact. You may see a couple of mistakes too, do warn me so I can fix them. If you do know how to read Spanish, I highly suggest looking at the real deal just in case you missed something. Have a nice reading!

The world of Animation is extremely competitive: every time someone makes something new, a small revolution happens inside the industry and everyone tries to imitate and exploit it, like mad scientists looking for a secret formula. There isn't a single animated movie that hasn't contributed with something to cinematography, just like there isn't a single animated series that hasn't contributed to the television industry in one way or another. Yes, even if it wasn't as well-received as it should've or ends up being a total fiasco, there's always something salvageable from every little creation; Animation is closely related to the "trial and error" trick, after all.

Going back to that looking-for-a-formula thing based on previous failure or success, what if copying the exact formula of a previous good product from your own company ends up with a loser hybrid that nobody remembers? If it's supposedly an exact clone down to a molecular level, where did you go wrong in this whole "making a carbon copy of my prize-winning race horse"?

I give you Lloyd in Space, the deformed and asphyxiated brother to the muscular stud that is Recess. Oh Paul, oh Joe, if only it were as simple as having a cheat sheet for the final test that is the public's reception... but no, they had to give Recess a younger sibling and then kick the unborn child when it was barely growing its tiny heart, so they ended up with a malnourished and anemic creature that could barely crawl under the shadow of its gargantuan source of inspiration, until it breathed its last sick breath...

But maybe not everything is lost: there's definitely something to rescue from this family tragedy in the house of Disney, and I'll play my part to find it. Let's start this alien biopsy.

• Premise

Lloyd Nebulon is an alien pre-teen with Miku-green skin, who lives in the space station of Intrepidville (how the heck did writers come up with these names in the 90's?). He lives with his single mother and station commander Nora Li Nebulon, and the supreme "snot in your underwear" of Disney's sisters, Francine, who by the way comes with three additional weapons besides her sociopathic tendencies: telekinesis, telepathy, and a voice as melodic and merciful as a bag full of babies being hit with a bag full of cats in heat.

Lloyd interacts regularly with various characters on the station; most of them are recurring characters in the cast, others just show up on special occasions and some only show up once. Lloyd's group of friends are the ones he interacts with the most, and it's composed of three and a half weirdoes: the Douglas the "brain" (literally, he's a giant talking brain with glasses); the Cyclops cousin of Grimace from the McDonald's franchise named Kurt (the all brawns and no brains of the group); a ginger human named Eddie (the "cool kid" of questionable loyalty to his friends)

 and... well, apparently the station has a sentient robotic extension with British humour called Station (the inept and pacifist love-child of GLaDOS and HAL9000).

It's important to remember that Lloyd's adventures have no chronological order or a true plot: every episode is it's own thing and everything that happens ends up forgotten by the next one; this results in a distinctive lack of character development, so the cast ends up "learning the lesson" and yet makes the same mistakes over and over like dunces with amnesia. This is because the show follows a Sitcom format, you know, the every-day mishaps of your typical north american space family. Or something like that. I don't know, this show has "MADE IN THE 90's" written all over it, no matter how much they try to cover it with pseudo-sci-fi.

• Animation

Nothing to see here. Absolutely nothing. The animation in Lloyd's was the standard 2D technique of the times, when digitalization was more complicated and Flash animation was a wee lil' baby. No 3D planes, minimal movement (normal even for today's series), single colours with no shading and simple but charming designs. Although, when the joke required it they played their part well: the animators may have saved all they could when it came to the little details, but that money went into keeping fluid quick motions and well executed gags.

Another salvageable thing is the character designs: because it takes place in the distant future where different alien races all across the cosmos live their daily lives together, there's quite the variety to go around. Some designs are more creative than others (there's an episode with a giant worm as the tour guide for a wormhole, you judge if that's clever or not), but hey, they actually bothered to make them unique, it's more than I can say about other cartoons I've seen around.

In a way, Lloyd reminds me of The Jetsons: it's the stereotypical every-day life of "today's" family, but in a parody of itself and using a space gimmick based on the sci-fi trends of the times. Therefore, the designs and concepts of space and science in Lloyd's universe obey what was believed (in the early 21st century) to be the possible future of humanity: this show is a testimony of what was then known about space, galaxies, and all those things that would later cause scandals in the world of astrophysics (I'm never forgetting Pluto and the Facebook-relationship-like drama about its planet status). The aesthetics of Lloyd and his universe is a time capsule, and extremely interesting from that point of view.

• Conclusion

Lloyd in Space isn't special. It had bad luck since the day it was aired, as there were many Sitcoms with an "unexpected gimmick" back in the day: from its own sibling Recess to Kim Possible, Pepper Ann and Dough... It lasted about four years with forty episodes, which is quite a lot considering in which situation it was caught in, and that indicates it wasn't a total loss. The first and original broadcast was through ABC Networks (which belongs to Disney) before it was sent over to Disney Channel to a broadcast block on Saturdays, which says even more: Lloyd could've had a chance to thrive, but was cut away too soon and forced to compete with shows that had the same weapons but bigger fame. Could Lloyd have survived if it had been left on ABC's a little longer to gain more street cred? Maybe, you never know.

Ah, almost forgot, anyone remembers how all of Disney's cartoons in the 90's and early 2000's had the absolute need to give life lessons to their pre-teen demographic? Lloyd is no exception, and uses every single topic in the book of "Disney's Recyclable Morals". If you ever sit down one afternoon to watch the channel's broadcasts and then take a look at any random episode of Lloyd's, you can guess with a sniper's accuracy how it will end. This can make the experience of watching it so boring, Lloyd in Space's episodes can be paralleled with kids' cereals: they look charming and colourful and they're good to keep you hanging in there until something more meaningful comes around, but you get bored of swallowing the same junk until it becomes dull and tasteless because you can't take the blandness anymore. Earth to Disney: secret formulas like this one aren't as secret as you thought, and they have side effects and conditions of use.

Signing out!

-Gatt

Analysing: The Lion Guard - Return of the Roar!

Warning: these articles are originally written in Spanish. Therefore, some things might have changed because of translation issues, use of synonyms and paraphrasing, or to keep a joke and whatnot; however, the context of the article remains intact. You may see a couple of mistakes too, do warn me so I can fix them. If you do know how to read Spanish, I highly suggest looking at the real deal just in case you missed something. Have a nice reading!

I thought that if I was to write my first article, it’d have to be about the series/movie that planted the seed in the first place. I want to clarify that I’m not the greatest fan of The Lion King: I do know the characters and the plot to a T, and if the movie’s on I do watch it, but it’s not like it’s my one true and pure love to the point I’m blind to its defects. In fact, between you and me, I once found the original script, the first one ever presented to Production, and I reached to the conclusion that it was far more interesting than the final product we all got to see (though I understand whatever changes they made were to make it less heavy, because it was far more dark and realistic when it comes to the cruelty of the Circle of Life).

Even so, when I learned Disney was planning on another sequel, I couldn’t avoid the horrible chill that crept up my spine: I’m perfectly conscious of how the most famous animation studio in the world has to renew its number of “believers” on certain franchises that, if it were any other way, would disappear due to the lack of public. The kids that got to watch TLK on premiere are already adults, so they need fresh blood in the market or animated heads will certainly roll and, in their stead, a bunch of tridimensional Ice Queens shall rise. The thing is, The Lion King is one of these Disney movies with which not even they get to mess with; not only is it the most successful 2D movie of the studio, it’s the most successful one in the world… and with it comes a horde of monstrous fans that have no qualms in whispering “Long live the King” while they push you of a cliff if you so much as touch a hair on their dear talking lions’ heads. It’s not the first time Disney tries its best to exploit Simba and company, before the current cataclysm there were others that even to this day have an echo in the memories of the younger fans of the franchise: a children books series about Kopa (back then the name of Simba’s cub shown in the flick’s ending), an animated series with Timon and Pumbaa, a sequel oh so painfully obvious it’s referring to Romeo and Juliet and with Kiara as main character (now Simba’s official daughter, screw Kopa), and a mid-quel (term invented in the US used to refer to a movie that takes place in the middle of another, in this case TLK1 from Timon and Pumbaa’s point of view). Of course I’ll limit myself to TLK1 and 2 through this thing. I need to remind you that none of these expansions to Disney’s African universe was especially memorable or successful (except for Kopa’s books, that for some reason are adored on top of altars by some rabid fanatics that insist on how their cub Simba clone is almost Jesus reincarnated as doodle).

I decided to save my opinion on Lion Guard until it finally aired, first with a 40 minutes flick, then with an animated series. Months went by and the premiere date was close, so I decided to do a quick check on the internet; what was my surprise when I learnt LG was going to air through Disney Jr, it’s actually a mid-quel that takes place between TLK1 and 2, and the new eyesore of a Simba clone has a super roar represented by a Final Fantasy-like tribal tattoo on his shoulder. I thought it was especially awful, not because Disney’s apparently incapable of understanding that most of TLK fans are around their twenties or at least not toddlers that watch Disney Jr, but because they practically wanted to over-write the entire base material of the first two movies (even if the sequel was bad, they should affront it with dignity and respect their own screw-ups). Anyways, the next day the new flick aired, so I decided to take notes just in case I ever had to do an analysis… Today is that day.
 

• Plot

Simba has two cubs, Kiara and Kion (the new clone). For some reason Kiara’s the future queen (it doesn’t matter if “she’s the oldest”, they were born from the same litter and it’s against lion nature and basic monarchy rules, so you didn’t do your homework Disney). Kion on the other hand is the playful and carefree deadweight of the family, with no clear purpose besides being scolded and ignored by Simba who clearly favors Kiara throughout the whole flick. Because the writers couldn’t come with anything better, Kion and his honeybadger friend Bunga share a musical number and end up in the Outlands (where the bad guys lived during TLK2, even if it looks nothing like it), and fight against a group of hyenas leaded by the male antagonist Janja (didn’t do your homework again Disney? Hyenas are socially structured around MATRIARCHS). When I say fight, I mean Bunga “the antigravity” badger jumped to the bottom of a canyon with no regards for terrestrial physics and the hyenas only threatened with eating him until Kion, from the safest rock on top of the gorge, used his new Fus-Roh-Da accidentally and scared the hyenas away.

Simba and Nala’s super-hearing (by the way she’s now delegated to trophy wife) allows them to identify the magical roar and think that their baby boy is too irresponsible to carry on with the powers of his Cutie Mark (oops, wrong show), but still papa lion decides that letting a kid keep the Fus-Roh-Da is a good idea and then shows him a secretly obvious cave covered up with three vines and a half and all, along with Rafiki. There he tells Kion the not-so-secret secret about how his grand-uncle Scar was the second son just like him, and he also had the Power of Grayskull or whatever, also his own lion version of the Masters of the Universe too; however Scar felt too confident and tried to become King by using his Fus-roh-Da, but when his bros didn’t support him he “destroyed” them (Disney’s special code word for genocide) and that’s what made him the weak anorexic we saw on the first movie. Simba then asks Kion to recruit lions to form the new Guard, (despite the fact that apparently there’s no other male lions in the pride which brings me to remind Disney of their homework), and that it’s a great responsibility so he expects his neglected son with a mental age of eight to do a great job without adult supervision. Kion of course is socially awkward and isn’t used to talking to his father for more than five minutes per day, so he believes he can bring in anyone and recruits the aforementioned Bunga, an egret named Ono, Beshte the hippo and Fuli the cheetah (also the only girl on the team). All of this with a musical number in the middle that tries to replace Hakuna Matata with Bunga’s catchphrase, Zuka Sama, right in front of timon and Pumbaa’s faces. Also Kion boasts to Kiara how he’s not the deadweight anymore and of course just like any other Disney sister she behaves like a snot in your underwear and goes tattle on him to daddy. On the other hand Janja the transsexual hyena decides through another musical to sneak to the Pridelands at night and then “destroy” animals in the morning just for fun, not even to eat… then he does the EXACT OPPOSITE and takes the boys there during the day and attack at noon.

Simba, father of the year by lion standards, tells Kion how disappointed he is after the five seconds he delegated some responsibility on him, showing that apparently Disney lions are racist pricks or something and they don’t take in non-lions on their Masters of the Universe clique. Kion’s friends try to cheer him up but because the script says that every Disney flick needs a minimum quote of four songs, Kion bursts into a solo that should live him with a cramped neck after bending it that way when suddenly the clouds show Mufasa, who died for our sins,  and he tells the kid in a semi-ambiguous way to “listen to his heart” (aka Simba’s retarded so he shouldn’t listen to him). Meanwhile Kiara and one of her friends are tracking gazelles (for the love of God, cubs don’t track, just observe hunts and under lionesses’ supervision! Disney, DO your homework!), but then the nocturnal-afternoon-y hyenas cause a stampede where Kiara breaks something and gets stuck in the middle of it. Simba and Nala, exerting their roles as negligent father and trophy wife respectively, decide to remain there like desk paperweights until Kion arrives with his gang and chase the hyenas away using his Fus-Roh-Da. They save Kiara in the process and Simba and Nala show how “Hakuna Matata” they are as long as daddy’s little princess isn’t the one in danger of being eaten by the second most dangerous predator of Africa. Everything comes to an end when Simba accepts Kion’s progressive ideas and decides not to be so racist about it, so now everyone’s got their own Final Fantasy- like Cutie Mark. Cut, print, roll credits!

 

• Animation

At first I thought it was pure 2D, then I noticed certain planes on 3D masked up with CGI. It kind of broke my heart for a bit, then I remembered it was Disney, the world’s most famous 2D animation studio that had the audacity to close their 2D department. They don’t deserve mercy, oh no… I understand perfectly well it’s a series aimed to 10 year old kids or lower, but I have to insist on how most of the people actually interested in seeing this are all 20 or older; somebody explain to me, how the hell did they manage to make the characters, ALL OF THEM, move in such a way that they’d made me feel sick each time I saw them do so? Especially those who already had their character models and movements perfectly established from the previous movies, they weren’t short of references. Lions, hyenas, gazelles, Timon and Pumbaa, even cheetahs, all of them had meen established clearly in the previous flicks; it’s not like I was expecting the quality of the greatest 2D animated movie of all times, but this was just embarrassing. Just compare Simba and Kion’s sizes with each other and the rest of the cast, what kind of zebras are you feeding those monsters? Why do the hyenas look like a cross of bulldog with chihuahua? Why does Timon’s head move and bounce like a water-filled balloon each time he moves? Why does it seems like Bunga is the only character they actually put effort into animating, not to mention he’s the first badger in the franchise so they didn’t have references? Why is it so hard to make running and walking cycles that don’t look like muscle spasms with cramps? Why is Fuli’s design so out of place when cheetahs’ designs were actually shown and used in the very first movie? All of this can be pinpointed to the one thing I’ve been repeating over an over throughout this review: Disney doesn’t know how to do homework.

The most basic things, like lip-sinc and sound are OK; the colour palette is OK (although Janja’s song was kind of an eyesore and wasn’t even close to Scar’s epic one); facial expression and body language is OK (although the characters get extremely deformed when sitting down, for some reason); the twelve principles of animation are present and well executed in general… But really, Lion Guard doesn’t stand out on absolutely anything at all when it comes to animation, and this is mostly because Disney seems to ignore the fact that you can’t pretend a toddler show to fill the giant shoes of TLK. Anyone who’s seen the first two movies knows that Simba and company don’t work well with a smaller scale of narration: scenography, music, villains, EVERYTHING in The Lion King is big, even the sequel. If you’ve seen it, then don’t tell me Zira wasn’t a crazy, delirious sociopath with satanic cult leader tendencies; she’d be perfectly capable of mauling Kion and friends with her army of militarized lionesses. The chase scene with Kovu and Simba in the burnt lands was pretty dramatic and well executed, considering the budget. When it comes to a protagonist, Kiara might be a hopeless idiot, but at least she had good intentions and actually ended the conflict peacefully and by herself. There’s really no excuse for Disney if their intentions are those of creating “Avengers but with lions”, like somebody from Production said in an interview.

The Lion Guard has potential when it comes to the story, even with Disney refusing to do homework or respecting their own base material, but the animation needs to be polished. My only ray of hope is that this was only the flick, so TLG has time to become better and stop thinking that making useless small references to the original two is enough to satisfy the public. I do hope they manage to balance out their two demographics (adults and kids) in what’s to come, and at least reach the quality of TLK2 (I didn’t set the bar too high, go for it Disney).

 

• Conclusion

In general, I do think that TLG is trying to be an ice pack for a too big of a fever, in every sense: before reaching greatness, you need to accept you’re under your teacher’s shadow and you need to start from scratch to overcome them, even if your teacher is a record-breaking, ticket-seller, Oscar-winner. As something aside, I’m especially hurt for Disney’s decision to change Kiara’s personality from nice retard to smart cretin. The apparent bad blood between Kion and Kiara is present in at least 90% of Disney’s material, because apparently the concept of two siblings being nice to each other is alien or taboo (Phineas and Ferb don’t count, they’re step-brothers, and Candace isn’t any better). Kiara might have been utterly retarded in her movie, but she never had bad intentions nor wanted to get anyone in trouble or belittle them; this new Kiara seems intelligent, but has a special malice towards her brother and those who surround her that makes her as distasteful as a baby painting the walls with diaper crap. Also, inserting TLG as a mid-quel to TLK2 only increases the number of plot holes it already had, was it so hard for Kion to be born after TLK2? I have friends with 40 years of age gaps between them and their siblings, the gap between Kiara and Kion wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic. Anyways, now I’ll just have to watch the series and wait to see if it’s nearly any better than those 40 minutes I just wasted watching this movie.

Signing out!

-Gatt