Since in Italy it seems that everything is silent, we are talking about a high quality animated fantasy series, which deserves to be known and which will give us many satisfactions!
We are talking about The Dragon Prince, available in our country through Netflix. This animated computerized series is the result of the work of the Wonderstorm, the small American studio where, among other things, some of the creators of the historic cartoon series work The Last Airbender (on whose new books we have spoken Thu!).
Let's see a bit of the plot (without spoilers!), The strengths and weaknesses!
The Dragon Prince: the synopsis
In the beginning, the magical land of Xadia it was a single great continent where humans and magical creatures lived together and magic drew its power only from the six primary sources, namely sun, moon, sky, earth, ocean and stars.
Everything changed when humans discovered the existence of a seventh source, or magical creatures themselves, thus inventing the dark magic.
Not at all happy with this discovery, the magical creatures under the guidance of dragons and elves made the decision to exile all humans in the western part of the continent. They enclosed everything with a huge mountain and placed the dragon king himself to guard the border and electrocute anyone who dared to cross it.
A thousand years later, humans have finally managed to kill thunder, the dragon king and to destroy even the egg of his rightful heir. The world is on the verge of all-out war, and a group of murderous moon elves roam the lands of men seeking revenge. This will initiate a series of events that will bring two human principles, brothers Callum e Ezran, starting with the elf Rayla for a new exciting adventure.
Background, strengths and weaknesses of The Dragon Prince
Thus began the story of The Dragon Prince. Who knows The Last Airbender he will be immediately at ease: once again, in fact, we are faced with a series that, even if it is heavily inspired by the world of anime, it does not renounce its western origins. His dialogues are full of irony and word games and the story betrays in each scene a deep inspiration to the Game of Thrones and the novels of GRR Martin.
As in The Last Airbender (to which, however The Dragon Prince it is not tied in any way) every season is called Book and takes its name from one of the six primary sources of which we spoke earlier and whose characteristics and philosophy are addressed from time to time.
Each Book it is divided into chapters / episodes, nine for each series released so far. These chapters last slightly longer than the classic twenty minutes of the common animated series, so make each one Book more like a three and a half hour fantasy feature film like The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson, who to a real TV series.
A 3D animation does not always live up to expectations
The use of '3D animation instead of the traditional one it is perhaps the only weak point of the series (it was not the case with Gen: Lock, whose latest episode has been reviewed Thu). In fact, we cannot always say that the animations of the characters are up to the story they tell and, especially in the first series, some movements of the characters often appear. woody e unnatural.
The thing is however destined to improve season after season, as the budget and popularity of the series increased. Already in the second Book the qualitative leap compared to the previous one is truly remarkable.
So if you choose to give it to The Dragon Prince however a possibility, the spectator's patience is destined to be amply rewarded.
High level dubbing and worldbuilding
To save a bit the technical sector is also the dubbing of the characters that, at least in the original, is made by veterans of the series The Last Airbender, whose voices go well with the personalities of the various characters.
The world of The Dragon Prince is a kind of progressive version of the classic fantasy middle ages we are used to. That is, it is a world where people have decided that it makes no sense to criticize and discriminate against others based on ethnicity, skin color, sexual orientation or physical disabilities, when you first take it out on the dirty four-fingered elves.
In a historical period in which in the media the diversity is so exalted and advertised, The Dragon Prince instead, he chooses to adopt an approach similar to that of his characters both inside and outside the series.
Diversity is considered a foregone conclusion that is not worth dwelling on: a kingdom can be ruled by a couple of queens with a daughter in tow, one of the strongest generals in the series is a deaf-mute woman who expresses herself in the American sign language. And the really important things of all these characters are quite different.
A strong cast of serious moral characters and dilemmas
They are really i characters one of the strengths of the series and where the lesson learned from Martin's work becomes more evident to the point that, for those who know both series, it is impossible not to see the influence that people like Ned Stark have had on the characterization of the characters or Jamie Lannister.
Both the heroes and the antagonists of the series are all endowed with a well-rounded personality and highly credible reasons even when it is impossible to share them.
In this series, we can safely say that there is no evil in itself, even when dark magic is used. The latter, in fact, being easier and with immediate results, often seems to be the only viable solution to one's problems, thus creating many interesting moral conflicts.
A series that must improve, but that really deserves!
Summing up The Dragon Prince is one of the most interesting animated series of recent years, but betrayed by a technical sector that is not always up to its content.
Despite all this, the story told so far really deserves to be heard and to make that qualitative leap that would allow it to be on par with its illustrious predecessor.
For this reason I can't help but recommend it to all lovers of the fantasy genre and beautiful stories in general.
I conclude with a little advice: never skip the credits episodes! They are always accompanied by a series of drawings, unique for each episode, containing preparatory sketches, funny curtains and sometimes even real "cut scenes" that only enrich the beautiful world of The Dragon Prince.
I'm Leonardo, Ezran's voice actor, I also believe that the 3D movements of the characters are sometimes a bit ugly, but in the dubbing room I saw that the movements of the characters became better with each episode that passed.
With kind regards, Ezran 🙂
Please to all of you who pass by and read, tolerate the sometimes ferocious tones of this message and do not judge it if and not before you have read it all.
then think what you like, that if your thoughts are made after reading through, it is a real opinion and is currently your whatever it is ::
Considering the construction of the world in this series as excellent (or even just garbage) and comparing it to that of Avatar the last ruler of the air is simply the proof that too many today no longer know what Worldbuilding really means.
Avatar had a world full of culture, entirely based on real cultures of which he took respectfully, simplified but respectful inspiration in everything. he managed to be genuinely spiritual with simplified references to the theology of real religions even!
But above all Avatar was made great by reality! Not only real and human characters but a real and human world, whose dynamics of blood, culture, war, peace, politics, common life seem so true because well, they are.
Everything in avatar is anchored to its inspiration base and uses it to deal with true universes, often untreated themes of humanity. From its destiny to ethics through genocide and colonialism
The Prince of Dragons, on the other hand, has yet another fake Middle Ages done by people without any idea about what the real Middle Ages are like. A world of aesthetics and only aesthetics, I repeat aesthetics and only aesthetics: slapping lesbian queens or catapults for dragons or a hospital are the same thing "Idiocy".
There are practical reasons for many of the most scandalous aspects of the Middle Ages and many archaic societies. People have not lived in oppressive and suffocating schemes, which claim to be a children's machine for women and a machine (for use until death or to die in war) for men. But for survival issues related to the needs of a civilized but low-tech society.
I'm not saying to show them all in a children's program but to go around and show a world that could not in any logical sense is logistic to work, focusing on the beauty of the progressive message to be approved is grotesque
(even the magic of the lore is not a help, we have visited the type of wizard magic of the king of humans, indeed it is the most ingenious thing so far of this series since it is the type of utilitarian magic, even extreme but rare and not pervasive that appears in the stories of the true Middle Ages)
The real problem is that nobody has the courage to make the true equivalent of the last ruler of the air for the western world because you should necessarily speak of:
1) monotheism also invented but monotheism, because talking about the western world, which is never medieval, ignoring that elephant in the room, is not talking about it at all
2) philosophy, politics and real culture of our history as a basis and therefore of the fact: the European continent has gone from a divided feudal mix rich in cultures and beliefs but religiously unity and convinced of being a single state (the empire) also when in fact it was not a set of nations where modern science but also colonialism was born.
Ah today, today that we slaughter ourselves on the manipulation on both sides of the past as much as we would need such a series, a series that frees us from those obsessions for which we can speak of Buddha or Shiva in fantasy but not of Jesus o Muhammad. So as soon as you talk about us the West all there to impose their vision by those who mythologize their distorted idea of the past without knowing anything in reality (right) to those who would like the past not to exist because it disturbs their myth of eternal, mono-directional progress and sure (left).
Today we really need a true legend of our local aang
I'll stop you immediately by saying that worldbuilding and reality don't have to go hand in hand. I'm sorry.
Sorry there is a typo in the part on oppressive and suffocating schemes the correct text is: “did not live in oppressive and suffocating schemes for no reason; schemes that ... "
It's not a typo and, honestly, I don't see a particular error in the text. Thanks for the tip!
It's true that worldbuilding and realism don't necessarily go hand in hand. but worldbulding and self-help (keep standing on its bases) yes!
And worldbuiding is not filling a map with names but creating an environment, realistic or not
This is the point, DP is not an environment, in no way has any real personality AND underlying dynamics. But it's a map, filled with mythology, races and names of nations without real foundations.
I like to see the prince of dragons, it's a nice, funny series, with some problems (which could be clues to turning points prepared by the authors) of ethics management (such as the famous dragon episode or the dark magic controversies)
But I can't understand how you compare it to Aang or even Korra.
In fact, it scares me to compare them for reasons that I think I have already explained
Then maybe there is something I don't understand And I can't see, in which case I would be happy if someone enlightened me (I'm not kidding I'm sincere)