‘LAW OF THE JUNGLE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

This is another ‘Beast Wars’ episode I didn’t see as a kid when growing up in the 1990s. I saw it when I had the ‘Beast Wars’ 15th anniversary DVD box set for Christmas in December 2011. This is also the final filler ‘Beast Wars’ episode to feature in Season 1. 🙂

The next three episodes after this are significant to the Vok alien plotline that’s going on in ‘Beast Wars’ when it was first introduced in ‘Chain of Command’ and ‘The Trigger’. There’s a reference to Cheetor and Dinobot searching for alien artefacts at this episode’s start.

In the episode, a battle takes place where Cheetor and Dinobot are attacked by Inferno, Waspinator and Terrorsaur. Tigatron helps his comrades once Cheetor and Dinobot are outnumbered. Sadly, Tigatron’s dear tiger friend Snowstalker is killed during the battle.

Snowstalker was introduced in Tigatron’’s debut episode ‘Fallen Comrades’. It’s sad that Snowstalker got killed off in this episode, but we don’t really get to know enough about Tigatron’s friendship with the wild snow tiger, since he was only in one episode before this.

After burying his friend, Tigatron, through his grief, decides to not take part in the Beast Wars anymore. This distresses Cheetor and Dinobot is determined to persuade him otherwise when stalking him in the jungle. Tigatron isn’t swayed by Dinobot’s arguments.

According to my research, this episode bears parallels to the 1994 Disney film ‘The Lion King’. Like Simba, the loss of someone close sends Tigatron into exile. He’s criticised by Dinobot for abandoning his duties, just like Nala chided Simba for not returning his home.

Finally, the episode concludes with a fight involving a fire before it’s put out, just like how ‘The Lion King’ ended. Now, I wouldn’t have noticed these ‘Lion King’ parallels to ‘Law of the Jungle’ unless I looked it up. This episode was shown two years after the film’s release.

Thankfully, Tigatron is persuaded to fight again in the ‘Beast Wars’ when he saves Optimus Primal and Dinobot from Inferno. I know this is a filler episode, but maybe Tigatron’s grief should have been properly explored in two episodes, as one episode isn’t really enough.

‘Law of the Jungle’ rating – 7/10