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I would love to see this thread alive again now, when we have The Lion Guard.
And I would like to presents some facts.
http://i.imgur.com/IemndOZ.png
KieranTheWolf asked Alex Simmons some questions about 6NA.
Aaaaand Phil Weinstein (Simba's Pride storyboard artist) had no idea about Kopa:
[img]Aniu: Are you familiar with Kopa, the original son of Simba and Nala? And if so, was there a reason you all opted not to put him in The Lion King 2?
Phil: No…what was his name?
Aniu: Apparently his name was Kopa, and it was—I forget exactly where the fan knowledge comes from, because I’m not—
Skul: [interrupting] I can answer that. Kopa was the son of Simba and Nala in a series of books that were published immediately after The Lion King . And there were six books total, all of them 100-page kids books, but they all had Kopa in them.
Phil: Wow. No, I wasn’t aware of that.
Skul: Yeah. A bunch of people have been wondering why it was Kiara instead of Kopa in Lion King 2 . And, I guess not even you know the answer.
Phil: No, you’re going to have to track down—gosh, I can’t even remember. Who wasit…was it Darrell Rooney that directed Lion King 2 ? Is that right? I think he was the one who ended up taking it to the finish line.
Aniu: Okay.
[Note from Skul: Yes, Darrell Rooney was the director]
Phil: So you’ll have to find him or one of the writers and ask them. They might know.
Aniu: Okay. We’ll definitely have to track him down and ask that question eventually.[/quote]
Source: http://www.animationsource.org/sites..._interview.pdf
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I've said this before and I'll be saying it again, haha. I think the fandom obsession with Kopa is just a liittle bit crazy. I am both kind of impressed and kind of weirded out by the fact that there are people who are actively seeking out people who worked on the books and worked on Simba's Pride to ask them about the character. Come on. There is no Great Mystery to solve. Kopa was a one-off for a small book series whose production was entirely separate from the film production. They clearly never intersected and the deeply invested TLK fandom are more or less the only people who know about him.
Kiara and Kion are Simba's cubs. Kopa does not exist in the canon and he never will. End of story.
But I see absolutely no problems with fans taking Kopa and creating fan works centred around him! I love seeing those theories and stories and it's really fun to toy with. But I do think that people seriously need to stop trying to "prove" or "disprove" him. The character is here to stay, clearly, but gosh, stop pestering production staff about him @_@