Steven and Connie try to ride Lion to the movie theater, but Lion has other ideas![2]
Plot
The episode begins with Connie showing Steven the trailer for a new movie called Dogcopter 3 starring Dogcopter, a dog-cop robot that saves a city by shooting missiles from its butt. Connie tells Steven why it is her favorite film franchise, and she hopes it stays loyal to the book. The Gems warp into the house, Pearl with her new outfit felt surprised to see Connie, and Steven asks Connie to show them the trailer. Amethyst sees Dogcopter and decides to shape-shift into it, astounding Connie. Steven assures her that the movie will be more impressive than any magic. Connie, unsure of this, asks how they will get to the movies as the theater is far away.
Outside the house Steven introduces Connie to their mode of transportation, Lion; Connie is shocked. She expresses disappointment with her life compared to Steven's fantastic Gem adventures, and says the most exciting thing in her life are her tennis lessons. She jokingly demonstrates three tennis shots, including "Overhead Death-Strike" which she admits is a made-up move (Steven is impressed anyway.) They then jump onto Lion's back to go to the theater, but Lion refuses to move for a few moments.
When Steven says he isn't trained very well, Lion begins running towards the beach. He leaps above the ocean, terrifying Connie and Steven. Fortunately, he lands on the water gracefully and they discover that Lion can walk on water. He runs across the ocean, taking Steven and Connie on a magical ride. Lion creates a portal by roaring and runs through it, and the three arrive inside an empty training temple.
They walk onto a section of the floor, and it starts to glow. A podium emerges from the floor. Steven places his hand on it and gets stuck. Connie says that they will have to chop his hand off, Steven screams, and a collection of swords comes out of the ground. Connie finds out that poking, tickling, and squeezing parts of Steven's body reveals additional varieties of weapons and armor, Laser Light Cannons (the Quartizine Trio), spiky chain-balls (the Heretic's Anguish), and a giant penny. Steven then unwittingly activates a floating robot that shoots various projectiles at Steven, Connie and Lion. Lion helps them escape the temple and takes them to the Beach City theater, but the robot follows them through the portal.
After being slightly burned by the robot, Steven offers Connie a can of soda to ease her pain. She says to just forget about the movie, as Steven probably has more important things to do than watch a movie. Steven says that Dogcopter 3 is very important to him, and asks why Connie would hang out with him because he messes everything up. Connie asks why he would ever hang out with her, because she is so much less interesting.
Suddenly, the robot comes back, even more aggressive than before. Lion summons a sword from his head to help them defend against the robot, and Connie helps Steven to destroy the robot by using her tennis serves to reflect its shots. The robot gets destroyed.
After dealing with the largely unfazed ticket clerk, they finally get to see Dogcopter 3. Connie is fine with the creative liberties the movie takes from the book. The episode ends in a parody of the lion from MGM logo (Metro Goldwyn Mayer), with Lion in the star.
The title "Lion 2: The Movie" is a play on the phrase "Lion, to the movie", which was also Steven's primary goal in the episode.
Lion has many previously unknown abilities that are revealed in this episode, such as walking on water, summoning a sword from his forehead, and creating portals to teleport to places.
It is revealed that Steven is ticklish.
The giant "shield cent " penny would have been impossible for Rose, herself, to place in her Secret Armory, as the particular design depicted was first circulated in 2010, years after Rose would have "given up her physical form," to create Steven.
The helicopters seen in the Doctopter trailer are similar to the Eurocopter EC135.
Several vehicles appear in the theatre parking lot in different shots; a second-generation Volkswagen Jetta, a first generation Ford Mustang, a third generation Dodge Caravan, a fourth generation Toyota Corolla, a second generation Dodge Van, and a Trabant. The hatchback the Robot Shooty Thing shot at resembled a first generation Hyundai i10.
Cultural References
The scene where Lion runs over the ocean in "Lion 2: The Movie" is a reference to a scene in Digimon.[3]
The "Giant Penny" Steven and Connie discover in the cave is similar to one typically seen in Batman's Batcave.
The iris-out with Lion is a direct reference to the logo for film studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which began all its movies with a roaring lion. (Ironically, Cartoon Network's parent Turner Broadcasting holds the rights to the majority of the pre-1986 MGM library (including their most famous films and TV shows) as a result of Ted Turner buying MGM for 74 days in 1986, then returning it to the previous owner, but keeping the library for usage on his cable networks.)
The green screen at the start of the episode is shown in the beginning of most trailers, although often with variations depending on the movie or feature.
The soda that Connie and Steven drink towards the end of the episode looks exactly like Apple Sidra, which is a Taiwanese apple soda beverage.
Steven drawing the sword from Lion's head was another reference to Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Promotional art of this episode is a reference to The Lion King, a popular Disney movie.
Lion is seen eating a creature with a back half resembling a lizard, but he burps out feathers, implying that it had a front half with birdlike features. This may be a reference to the mythological basilisk or cockatrice, both of which are sometimes depicted with the front half of a rooster and the back half of a lizard.
The poses the Gems do when appearing on the Warp Pad resemble the ones they did in the Pilot.
Pearl is still wearing her post-regeneration outfit from the previous episode, "Steven the Sword Fighter", implying it was permanent.
The podium that controls the Armory has the same design on it as Steven's Shield.
Similar to when Connie asked about Steven's bubble in "Bubble Buddies", Connie asks if Lion has run out over the ocean before, to which Steven responds "No, this is new".
Errors
Some candy sticks can be seen in some scenes, with the other snacks.
When the Robot Shooty Thing appeared in the Beach City Theater, one of the displays of "Dogcopter 3D" was blank.
