1,000 years ago the land of Zadia lived in harmony.
Then everything changed when the dark mages attacked.
*record scratch*
Ok that was just too good of an opportunity, so I had to take it.
But anyways, welcome to my review of the Dragon Prince, the first show from Wonderstorm that
is releasing its first season on September 14th!
I was able to get a sneak peek at the series and saw the first three episodes before the
release, and oh man do I have a lot to talk about.
So let’s start with a brief overview of the plot, then I will get into more specifics
that could get spoilery, and finally my review of the show so far.
As mentioned in my video’s introduction, the land of Zadia was once a peaceful place
with six sources of magic.
But then 1,000 years ago a human mage discovered a seventh source, dark magic.
This conveniently used the essence in magical creatures to create power, so one can guess
how it terrified the elves and dragons of this land.
This caused a lot of turmoil between humans and the other beings, and a few months before
the show is set humans kill the Dragon King and destroy his only egg.
Fast forward to the present day where the current King of the land of Katolis fears
for his life as Elvin assassins close in on his castle, and he wishes to protect his two
sons by sending them away.
Of course, things do not go quite as planned, thus beginning the story of the Dragon Prince.
So now that I gave a very quick look into the story of the show without revealing too
much, I’m going to talk a bit about each of the main characters of the story so far.
Things may get a bit spoilery, so here is your warning!
First up is Prince Callum, the main character of the story.
His backstory is quite interesting because, as you might be able to tell from his appearance
alone, his father is not the current King.
Therefore he is not the crowned prince, with that title going to his younger brother.
Besides that he is a pretty typical 14 and 5/6th year old boy in cartoons, with the exception
being that he has a real talent for art.
But he does try his best, so I gotta give him points for that.
Then we have his younger brother, Prince Ezran.
His father is the current king, making him next in line.
And let me just say Ezran is just so pure and adorable.
And I’m very happy to say than Ezran is quite helpful, even this early in the series.
Which I feel like isn’t the case for many characters his age.
He combined with his glow toad Bait make up a good portion of the comedic relief of the
show, which for the most part is well done.
And to round off the main trio is Rayla, a moonshadow elf.
She is part of a group of assassins who bound their lives to take down the king and his
son.
She and the rest of the elves have what I am pretty sure is a Scottish accent so my
mind immediately jumps to Pixar’s Brave.
And I guess to draw parallels to that she is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
The other notable elf is the leader of the assassins, Runaan.
All elves are awesome.
But back to the humans we also have King Harrow.
He is Prince Ezran’s father and a truly an awesome dad.
Even though he is not the biological father of Callum he treats him like his own son.
And it is clear that wants what is best for his people, even if it means he has to sacrifice
himself to protect others.
Then we have siblings Claudia and Soren, who at this point might be my two favorite characters
in the show.
Claudia is such a dork but at the same time is a very skilled dark mage, while her older
brother Soren can be a bit of a jerk but he is also pretty funny and is a great fighter.
The last character I’d like to mention is the sibling’s father, Lord Viren who also
happens to be a dark mage.
He is the right hand man of King Harrow, and they have a long past together which I hope
is explored more throughout the series.
Now I would like to talk about some of my favorite parts from what I have seen.
Since the first three episodes were really just set up for the big adventure to come,
we did not learn too much about the world the show takes place in, but I’m sure there
will be a lot of that down the line.
Probably the thing I enjoyed the most so far was learning about the Moonshadow elves.
I don’t know much about fantasy races, but if this much creativity is put into all the
different types of elves and other creatures of this world, I will be so excited.
They have amazing accents, purple-tinted skin, sharp horns, and are magical.
What more could I ask for in life.
Often cartoons are very vague on the different cultures and societies of anything that isn’t
human.
This does not seem to be the case with this show, and l could not be happier.
And I really hope we get to learn more about dragons, especially since the show’s title
has the word Dragon in it.
Guess we will have to wait and see!
To end of this video, let’s talk about my opinions of this show so far.
Story-wise, I think there is definitely a lot of potential with not only the setting
of the story but also with the characters.
Callum himself is a bit bland but I think there is a lot of possibility for him to evolve
into a much more interesting person.
And I really want to know what happened to his father and how King Harrow came into power
yet still took Callum as his own.
Most of my interest in the show currently comes from the elves and the other supporting
characters like Claudia and Soren.
So I’m interested to see where the focus is placed in upcoming episodes and how the
story will be balanced between the three main characters and the rest of the cast.
And for some other good news, I’m hopeful that there won’t be any love triangles,
at least for now, since one of the main characters is too young for any of that nonsense.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if Callum gets a crush on every girl around his age or a
bit older than him.
But all this isn’t to say I don’t foresee any future or current issues with the show.
The biggest thing to note, as many people have already discussed, is the way the show
is animated.
Often it seems like there are a lot of frames missing regarding the movements of the characters
and the environment around them.
And for some this may be hard to get used to and might even make the show difficult
to watch.
I warmed up to it eventually, but I would like to note that this was an intentional
stylistic choice that gives it more of a stop motion feeling that allows every single frame
to stand on its own.
But I do understand that this may make the show tricky to get into for some.
One other thing that bugged me a bit is that there is always a “Previously On” section
at the beginning of an episode that talks about the important parts of the prior episodes.
Which is almost exactly what Avatar the Last Airbender did.
However, I don’t really see that as necessary for a Netflix show where people may be able
to binge the season in one or two days.
Between seasons this may be a good thing, but otherwise I felt these sections could
have been omitted.
And while I do want to give points for the show for having some awesome female characters
like Rayla and Claudia, there does seem to be a lack of diversity among the currently
known important characters.
Besides the King and Ezran, every other human has light skin.
And Rayla conveniently has lighter skin than most of the other elves in her group.
And you could say that there’s potentially Marcos as a person of color, but he didn’t
even have a name until SDCC, so he probably wasn’t meant to be an important character.
But maybe things will change in the rest of the series as the cast isn’t too big for
the time being.
I just wanted to mention this because this matters to a lot of people.
But those are my few gripes of the show so far, and I am very impressed with everything
else I saw.
Overall after watching the first few episodes of the show I am now even more hyped to see
the rest of the first season and talk about it with others.
I would say we are in for a real treat, and I can tell this show is made not just for
kids, but with a much broader audience in mind.
The Dragon Prince was created from people that worked on Avatar, so a lot of us are
going in with high expectations.
And from what I have seen it should not disappoint for those that are fans of shows with adventure
and a good story.
So, I’d definitely recommend it to pretty much any animation fan, or even anyone that
enjoyed Avatar the Last Airbender.
But I’m sure the show will eventually get some fans who don’t watch much animation
in general.
I’m even excited about the upcoming tie in video game, and whatever else Wonderstorm
has planned for us in the future.
The first season of the Dragon Prince will be released on September 14th on Netflix.
Thank you guys for watching my review!
This was only about three episodes, yet I managed to make it quite long!
Let me know what you thought of this video and how I could improve in the future since
I’m trying to get a hang of this whole reviewing thing.
If you are new to the channel I would also like to invite you to join Cartoon Universe’s
Discord server where we have text channels for many current cartoons.
I recently made a Dragon Prince text channel, so I would definitely like to talk about the
show with you all there.
The code for the server is CartoonUV.
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Thank you all for watching and have an animated day!