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The Dragon Prince |OT| The Last Frameratebender (Update: Renewed through season 7)
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your posts have been cracking me up
but yeah, thats it. only 9 episodes
Just finished it myself. Wow the writing and pace fell off the cliff after episode 3. Entire show is spectacle over substance, and the case of way too much telling not showing. I know it's a kids show but it's just sloppy story telling. Ham-fisted drama, and untimely and constant joking subverting itself at every turn. I had friends work on it but I'm really disappointed with the character lighting for 80% of the shots. Rembrandt triangle was really distracting, and over used. Probably poor templating for various conditions for what I know there were a bunch of juniors on the show...
World is super fascinating though. I really am interested where the game is going to go.
World is super fascinating though. I really am interested where the game is going to go.
It literally feels like a third of a season, and not even a great third at that
With some editing they could have gotten it down to like an hour - hour and a half pilot episode.
I'm so disappointed but I'm even more perplexed at the good reviews
Echoing that I feel your posts.
After the fact I do feel kinda warmly toward it but maybe that's just because Korra really lowered my expectations for anything like A:TLA ever happening again
So I'm watching this and wondering, was the humor in Avatar: TLA this prevalent and this juvenile? Maybe it's because it's been a while since I've seen it, but watching this is like if 90% of the characters constantly cracked dumb jokes like Sokka all the time
No. As someone said earlier in this thread, each character in TLA had their own style of humor that was uniquely indentifiable to their character. A joke by Toph could never come from Aang, Zukko, or Katara.
That and TLA did a better job in the first season of balancing the childish humor well timed moments of serious character development.
Early avatar had very vanilla humor, and it still had some gold moments like a fire nation officer throwing a man off the boat, demanding to speak with the captain and then they tell him he just threw the captain overboard.
Sokka was there for dumb jokes, toph was the self deprecating and sarcastic jokes, aang was there for gags occasionally.
Hell I'll never forget the fire nation thinking momo was earth bending and that was early/mid season 1.
That's not even mentioning the other side gag characters like the cabbage seller, the foaming mouth dude, and others.
My wife and I just finished it, I have to read most of the thread still but Im glad to see Im not the only one who thought it was pretty badly written.
The animation style is mosrly a negative little annoyance that I forgive easily (my wife called it "like watching a video that buffers often") but theres soo much style over substance, so many plotholes, so many timing and storytelling issues. It really feels like they had these cool moments all planned and they didnt care how they got there. The last 4 episodes were straight up terrible.
The animation style is mosrly a negative little annoyance that I forgive easily (my wife called it "like watching a video that buffers often") but theres soo much style over substance, so many plotholes, so many timing and storytelling issues. It really feels like they had these cool moments all planned and they didnt care how they got there. The last 4 episodes were straight up terrible.
Huh, just listened to an old Waypoint podcast where they were praising the show. I jumped in here to say I'm finally giving this a shot and the opinion from the last few posts are definitely less than stellar.
I'll probably watch it anyway. It's only nine episodes.
EDIT: I do feel like I should go back and watch Avatar though. I only watched the first 3-4 episodes.
I'll probably watch it anyway. It's only nine episodes.
EDIT: I do feel like I should go back and watch Avatar though. I only watched the first 3-4 episodes.
Taking just a tiny look at Avatar's first 9 episodes really shows how weak The Dragon Prince is.
Comparatively, almost nothing actually happens in The Dragon Prince. The characters move throughout the world but they never expand beyond their initial states, no interesting wrinkles or added pathos or anything. Avatar was wise enough to throw in this stuff early, it helps fuel the drama and makes us like the characters more, but The Dragon Prince seems content to show us Rayla's fear of water and not, say, anything about Callum and Ezran's mother. Or even Callum's feeling about being the stepson to the king and not his flesh and blood, a fact that is brought up and never expanded upon. Let's chase after a magic knife that won't work to solve our problem instead of learning anything about Rayla's part of the world. Just look at how they throw in a last minute "Ezran is different and has no friends and can talk to animals" presumably because they realized they had done absolutely nothing with him.
And let us not forget Claudia and Soren who are so ill-defined that it is hard to even call them one-dimensional. The show does a criminal job of conveying how they feel about any of the things they are doing. Zuko and Iroh were fairly well-drawn initially, it is easy to poke fun(and the show itself did) at Zuko's simpleminded pursuit of "Honor!" but Iroh was always there for Zuko to bounce off of. But the masterstroke of Avatar was bringing in Zhao as an antagonist for them, his actions and demeanor were used to show Zuko(and Iroh) in a different light. But the two sibling here are just casually going about their murder mission with not a care in the world.
I think the biggest problem with The Dragon Prince is that it reaching too far, too fast. We shouldn't be spending as much time as we do away from Callum, Rayla, and Ezran but every episode we get asides to what Viren, his kids, and Amaya are up to. The nebulous villain plot in this show is so prominent that all of the twist and turns in the story happen away from our three leads.
- "The Southern Air Temple" is the first episode after the opening two-parter. Prior to this Aang has been a predominately carefree character and it only takes until episode 3 before the show adds some dimensionality to him and ups the dramatic stakes of the show. Aang finds all of the dead monks including Gyatso and goes into the Avatar state.
- "The Warriors of Kyoshi" is relatively lightweight but it also is used to add dimensionality to Sokka, who was primarily a comic character up until this point, by tackling his male chauvinism. We also got foaming mouth guy.
- "The King of Omashu". Another relatively light episode, although this ends with the Bumi reveal, another poignant piece of Aang's 'boy out of time' story.
- "Imprisoned" is important because it shows us the Fire Nation war effort and its direct effects on other characters and the world, not just our protagonists.
- "The Winter Solstice Parts 1&2" are self explanatory and are the exact type of story The Dragon Prince needed to go out on. The hatching of the dragon egg is definitely trying to be a big moment like Aang talking to Roku but it doesn't up the stakes in any way and actively removes one of the few interesting hurdles the show threw out there in Rayla's wristband-o-doom.
Comparatively, almost nothing actually happens in The Dragon Prince. The characters move throughout the world but they never expand beyond their initial states, no interesting wrinkles or added pathos or anything. Avatar was wise enough to throw in this stuff early, it helps fuel the drama and makes us like the characters more, but The Dragon Prince seems content to show us Rayla's fear of water and not, say, anything about Callum and Ezran's mother. Or even Callum's feeling about being the stepson to the king and not his flesh and blood, a fact that is brought up and never expanded upon. Let's chase after a magic knife that won't work to solve our problem instead of learning anything about Rayla's part of the world. Just look at how they throw in a last minute "Ezran is different and has no friends and can talk to animals" presumably because they realized they had done absolutely nothing with him.
And let us not forget Claudia and Soren who are so ill-defined that it is hard to even call them one-dimensional. The show does a criminal job of conveying how they feel about any of the things they are doing. Zuko and Iroh were fairly well-drawn initially, it is easy to poke fun(and the show itself did) at Zuko's simpleminded pursuit of "Honor!" but Iroh was always there for Zuko to bounce off of. But the masterstroke of Avatar was bringing in Zhao as an antagonist for them, his actions and demeanor were used to show Zuko(and Iroh) in a different light. But the two sibling here are just casually going about their murder mission with not a care in the world.
I think the biggest problem with The Dragon Prince is that it reaching too far, too fast. We shouldn't be spending as much time as we do away from Callum, Rayla, and Ezran but every episode we get asides to what Viren, his kids, and Amaya are up to. The nebulous villain plot in this show is so prominent that all of the twist and turns in the story happen away from our three leads.
- Viren jockeying for the throne.
- His butting heads with Amaya and eventually capturing Gren.
- Viren being willing to sacrifice his own son for the egg.
- Whatever is up with the mirror and his torture of the elf. His coin prison magic thing.
- Viren's evil face of evil at the end.
Everything you've said has hit the nail on the head in regards to why I think the dragon prince is so far a failed experiment.
Especially what you said about it reaching too far too fast. Especially with them creating a video game along side the show? I would have preferred more of that dev time go towards the show that as it stands is very, very weak. Create your extended universe once you have a hit on your hands. But if no one likes your show you now have two failed expensive projects instead of one.
I just got to that line and did a double take, because it came out of nowhere
People who like it are welcome to like it, but if you're going to selle your show with "from people who brought you avatar" and it doesn't remotely meet anything of what I liked of avatar, I'm going to be harsh. I was harsh with Korra as well.
The only thing I agreed with Austin on was that Callum is a sheltered white kid like I said here a few pages ago.
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Like Psychoward said earlier, it's very curious how most (all that I read, at least) reviewers saw no issues with the show. That's not to say I didn't like it and am not waiting for more, but I'm aware of its flaws.
lol, i'd been thinking about this too
i guess the take away from all this after watching them both is that the writers and directors of both korra and TDP were all better together. i also think people are a little bit harsh on korra after all these years, even when taking into account all the problems i had with it. for comparison, season 1 of korra was mostly great until the last few episodes, and even those had their moments.
the TRUE ENEMY of animations like korra/dragon prince seem to be the fact that they're just not guaranteed more than one season, and the season they do get is fucking short as hell. season 1 of korra and season 1 of tdp would probably have been drastically different from what they were if there was some sort of surefire knowledge that they'd get to tell more of the story. like Amon and Tarrlok could have easily gone far past 12 episodes but they didn't even know they'd get more until the season was finished in production iirc.
there's also something to be said of the idea that the writers could use the short time that they have much better than they choose to by cutting out a lot of the fat. korra didnt need to focus so much on probending, as fun as it was to see and expand the world's lore. tdp didnt need the first 3 episodes (out of 9) to explain the lore and get the actual adventure surrounding the prince underway, and then the plot surrounding the mountain in the last two episodes could have been condensed into one, etc...
"Look at these bad things I do. I'm such a bad guy."
Too much stuff for so little time. I still enjoy some of the characters and hope that they'll get a lot more episodes with a lot more time to work on these characters.
Honestly I don't even think the Probending was the problem. The problem is the large amount of side characters. I recently watched a video that compares the amount of characters with ten or more appearances in the show. In Avatar, iirc it was around 22. In Korra, in was in the mid-30s. With less episodes and less time per season, coupled with the seasonal episodic nature due to production problems, created a show where nearly everyone but Korra got service level character development and what they did get wasn't very much.
I feel like TDP has a similar problem. We get characters Like Amaya or the weird assassin dude the show forgot about and then they disappear the next episode.
Basically both shows were trying to do what they did in Avatar naturally, led by their storytelling. Now they're taking shortcuts to the end result but I'm not sure if they know it or not.
Also, I think Korra, with all its faults, is ten time better than Dragon Prince is. Even if we only compare to season 1 of Korra.
Most definitely. Granted it had the whole of TLA to provide ample world building and backstory that it only had to build upon, but still. This show doesn't seem to be able to properly juggle its serious and comedic elements. It feels like there's a joke or visual gag every 30 seconds even when the situation calls for a more serious tone. Korra definitely felt more tonally consistent in that regard. Also, it seems Korra was made to target an older age group
I'm still sorting out my thoughts on how TDP compares to TLA or Korra, but I can see how it could become a fantastic show down the line. I'd even call S1 a great season had the finale been more satisfying, maybe ending in a dramatic confrontation between the princes and Viren's children, but that's sadly not the case.
On the positive side, I really sympathized with most of the main characters, even Viren. But it was truly Rayla's show for most of the season, as I anxiously wondered what would happen to her if she couldn't break her binding. That, and her bonding moments with the princes... it's what really makes this show worth watching, imo.
I actually might like the characters in TDP more than Korra. Maybe.
On the positive side, I really sympathized with most of the main characters, even Viren. But it was truly Rayla's show for most of the season, as I anxiously wondered what would happen to her if she couldn't break her binding. That, and her bonding moments with the princes... it's what really makes this show worth watching, imo.
I actually might like the characters in TDP more than Korra. Maybe.
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This is such a good post. Worded way better than I could.
I would reccomend everyone here to watch HILDA, also on Netflix. It does a fantastic job introducing its world, setting and characters while expertly tip toeing the line of catering to kids and adults. It really exposes a lot of the flaws TDP has.
I'll have to check out HILDA. Thanks for the recommendation!
I spoke too soon. Finished the last 4 eps and just feels like an uneventful mess. There is room for growth in both animation and story at least. I think one major issue I have is how empty the world feels, the only time I felt their kingdom was actually populated was
the funeral scene.
Also Rayla's fake scottish accent is fucking horrendous.
Same, when that part came up I was left confused. Maybe if they did a bit more foreshadowing with other animals other than his pet it would make more sense. I just thought he talked to Bait since everyone who has a pet talks to their pet like that. Not because they can actually understand animals.
Just finished it. Like others I gave it a shot based on TLA, and the design looked all right. But...mmmm. I didn't hate it, but felt really weak. So many plot/character issues, so many random writing decisions that left me scratching my head. Some things:
I liked
- The character designs
- Aunt Amaya (weapons grade breeeeeead)
- Claudia and Soren (they didn't give them much to work with, but I still liked them)(Claudia's lack of squeamish-ness is great)
- Family dynamics (step-son and dad-king w/ a happy relationship? Shocker.)
- People behaving w/ common sense (Amaya not buying Viren's sincerity)
- Viren's relationship with the king
- Gren (dumb but pretty)
I didn't like
- Forced humor (Many, many times, but that jerk-face dance...)
- WTH moments (I can talk to animals! I'm a wolf with only 3 legs, but I can carry/run w/ lots of people on me! I'm a master tracker/badass with an anchor chain, but I'm stuck in a ditch!)
- How Do I Storytelling:
*His name is Bait! Bc he's bait! Oooo, giant fish trying to eat Bait to hammer home that bit of background we just spoon fed you.
*Argument! Be flustered and leave bread! Looong, deliberate parting shot of bread, so specific that you wonder if the bread is some kind of undiscovered primal magic that Callum will need to defeat Viren someday. Oh, no food now? Yes! Now we can talk about the fact that elves and humans haven't really interacted much and have bad ideas about each other! Thanks, bread shot!
- People behaving w/out any common sense (The priestess distrusts Viren and his actions so much she refuses to light the funeral pyre, but then is OK crowning him?)
- It's an ultra dragon egg baby! It's weak, it's dying! It's hatched...a frolicking dragon puppy mascot thing...
I liked
- The character designs
- Aunt Amaya (weapons grade breeeeeead)
- Claudia and Soren (they didn't give them much to work with, but I still liked them)(Claudia's lack of squeamish-ness is great)
- Family dynamics (step-son and dad-king w/ a happy relationship? Shocker.)
- People behaving w/ common sense (Amaya not buying Viren's sincerity)
- Viren's relationship with the king
- Gren (dumb but pretty)
I didn't like
- Forced humor (Many, many times, but that jerk-face dance...)
- WTH moments (I can talk to animals! I'm a wolf with only 3 legs, but I can carry/run w/ lots of people on me! I'm a master tracker/badass with an anchor chain, but I'm stuck in a ditch!)
- How Do I Storytelling:
*His name is Bait! Bc he's bait! Oooo, giant fish trying to eat Bait to hammer home that bit of background we just spoon fed you.
*Argument! Be flustered and leave bread! Looong, deliberate parting shot of bread, so specific that you wonder if the bread is some kind of undiscovered primal magic that Callum will need to defeat Viren someday. Oh, no food now? Yes! Now we can talk about the fact that elves and humans haven't really interacted much and have bad ideas about each other! Thanks, bread shot!
- People behaving w/out any common sense (The priestess distrusts Viren and his actions so much she refuses to light the funeral pyre, but then is OK crowning him?)
- It's an ultra dragon egg baby! It's weak, it's dying! It's hatched...a frolicking dragon puppy mascot thing...
Just finished it. Enjoyable enough. But maybe I'm being generous because Korra left such a bad taste in my mouth. Mostly it reminds me of the first half of ATLA, which is fitting I guess. It's very kid-appeal with its humor and light-heartedness, like season 1 of ATLA. That made sense for Avatar because that was the only way the show could be allowed to be produced, appeal to kids so they buy the toys so the network turns a profit before the show showed it could stand on its own with its writing and characters. Not sure why it's like this in the Netflix financed streaming show though.
Ending was abrupt, "we're going up this mountain to heal the egg, oh this person can't heal the egg, oh the egg hatched, oh it's the end of the season". It constantly feels the need to have jokes and humorous moments which is a mixed bag. On one hand a lot of the jokes are are quite funny and humor is a good way to make a character likable or even flesh them out, on the other hand it also made it hard to take moments seriously when characters are cracking jokes and if you don't like the show's sense of humor then this will be a painful watch for you.
In comparison to Avatar (and the show very much wants you to compare it to Avatar) the setting is much less interesting. Avatar was a heavily eastern influenced show that was refreshing and novel, whereas Dragon Prince is western fantasy with magic, elves, and dragons. which isn't super original and means the Dragon Prince feels like it has a weaker hook. I like the aesthetic and apparently it's influenced by Fire Emblem? I heard that and haven't found a source but I can see it and maybe that's why I like it.
The characters are likable but they're still kind of flat and not interesting enough. There's still potential to explore there so I guess I should wait before deciding one way or another. On the positives there are clear character arcs established for both Callum and Rayla, their motivations and reasons for traveling together are well established, and there are some good character moments sprinkled throughout that give them some depth. Not so positively, Ezran hasn't gotten much to do and is mostly kind of just around.
Viren could be interesting, but it's hard to say one way or another. Same for Soren and Claudia. I think those two are going to do a Zuko redemption thing, but neither of them are as villainous as Zuko was to which helped make that arc so satisfying so I'm not sure how that'll work. There's potential drama in them going against their father who they have a better relationship with than Zuko did with Ozai so we'll see.
I find it hard to put into words why I'm not super into the show right now, but I think the show is lacking it's "The Storm" moment from ATLA. That was the episode that made Avatar more than just a standard fantasy adventure show by having a dramatic somber episode that deepened both Aang and Zuko as well as showing a deeper thematic connection between them. That was the episode that made people actually start to realize that ATLA actually was something special and Aaron Ehasz even wrote it if Wikipedia is to be believed. But right now, The Dragon Prince is just fine. I'll keep watching and see where it goes, it's not a frustrating watch like Korra was. At it's worst it's just kind of dull. But I hope that it's creators want and are hoping to make it something more.
Ending was abrupt, "we're going up this mountain to heal the egg, oh this person can't heal the egg, oh the egg hatched, oh it's the end of the season". It constantly feels the need to have jokes and humorous moments which is a mixed bag. On one hand a lot of the jokes are are quite funny and humor is a good way to make a character likable or even flesh them out, on the other hand it also made it hard to take moments seriously when characters are cracking jokes and if you don't like the show's sense of humor then this will be a painful watch for you.
In comparison to Avatar (and the show very much wants you to compare it to Avatar) the setting is much less interesting. Avatar was a heavily eastern influenced show that was refreshing and novel, whereas Dragon Prince is western fantasy with magic, elves, and dragons. which isn't super original and means the Dragon Prince feels like it has a weaker hook. I like the aesthetic and apparently it's influenced by Fire Emblem? I heard that and haven't found a source but I can see it and maybe that's why I like it.
The characters are likable but they're still kind of flat and not interesting enough. There's still potential to explore there so I guess I should wait before deciding one way or another. On the positives there are clear character arcs established for both Callum and Rayla, their motivations and reasons for traveling together are well established, and there are some good character moments sprinkled throughout that give them some depth. Not so positively, Ezran hasn't gotten much to do and is mostly kind of just around.
Viren could be interesting, but it's hard to say one way or another. Same for Soren and Claudia. I think those two are going to do a Zuko redemption thing, but neither of them are as villainous as Zuko was to which helped make that arc so satisfying so I'm not sure how that'll work. There's potential drama in them going against their father who they have a better relationship with than Zuko did with Ozai so we'll see.
I find it hard to put into words why I'm not super into the show right now, but I think the show is lacking it's "The Storm" moment from ATLA. That was the episode that made Avatar more than just a standard fantasy adventure show by having a dramatic somber episode that deepened both Aang and Zuko as well as showing a deeper thematic connection between them. That was the episode that made people actually start to realize that ATLA actually was something special and Aaron Ehasz even wrote it if Wikipedia is to be believed. But right now, The Dragon Prince is just fine. I'll keep watching and see where it goes, it's not a frustrating watch like Korra was. At it's worst it's just kind of dull. But I hope that it's creators want and are hoping to make it something more.
Soo, do people actually like this compared to Korra? Because even the weakest of Korra, season 2, was better IMO. Viren gives me a newly found appreciation for Unalaq, who I thought was the most "mustache twirling" villain of Korra
My main issue is they need to STOP TELLING JOKES. Even serious scenes are peppered with jokes and characters seem to forget the situation and are wise cracking 30s later.
A good example was Soren. I thought the entire time on the mission given to him by Viren, he'd be weighed down by the fact he has to kill the princess for basically no reason, but that seemed to have only bothered him during his brief conversation with Viren and afterwards him and Claudia are telling fart jokes like they're going on a casual stroll
My main issue is they need to STOP TELLING JOKES. Even serious scenes are peppered with jokes and characters seem to forget the situation and are wise cracking 30s later.
A good example was Soren. I thought the entire time on the mission given to him by Viren, he'd be weighed down by the fact he has to kill the princess for basically no reason, but that seemed to have only bothered him during his brief conversation with Viren and afterwards him and Claudia are telling fart jokes like they're going on a casual stroll
The difference between Unalaq and Viren is that nobody in TDP is really fooled by Viren. Korra was tolerating Unalaq even after he brought his army into the South.
The Soren thing didn't really bother me, because it feels like something that will weigh on him more the closer he gets to finding the princes.
They aren't fooled...but they still just blindly follow him without more than their initial skepticism. Like the priestess who wouldn't light to torch, but still went along after Claudia used her magic to. Or the soldiers that just got done hearing Amaya's orders then immediately lock up Gren. I'm not saying they're in a position to question his orders, but it just seems like the show keeps telling us how much Viren isn't to be trusted and the characters say they don't trust him, but their actions show them blindly following him anyway
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Was it actually those soldiers that locked Gren up? I don't remember if Viren 'relieving' Gren of duty came the next day, and we didn't see what happened between Viren telling Gren to meet him and then Gren suddenly being in chains. I do totally agree that they sacrifice all impact or gravity of bad situations for dumb jokes. They had Amaya trust Gren, warn him explicitly, and then make it all pointless for a fruit gag. It's pretty lame.
I don't really disagree with your points, but I recently rewatched some of the second season of Korra and those first couple of episodes were rougher than anything in TDP.
Rewatched it again and don't know how people think the "He can talk to animals" line comes out of nowhere. Literally the inciting incident of the adventure is the egg telling Ezran that it wants to go back to its mother.
Both have children characters I don't care about
*crosses arms all cool and gives you a 'yeah i went there' eyebrow wiggle look*
Good to hear. Let them expand and retool what they feel is needed to tell the best story they can. There's enough here that the ensuing story direction can go in some compelling ways. I like the characters we've got so far quite a bit, and I'm excited to see where they take things.
six prime sources of magic: the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the sky, and the ocean
Book 1 Moon down I guess they go with sky or earth next.
