Not the best, but still great!

ajzeg

Wizards is the third and final series in the Tales of Arcadia trilogy. If you don't know what that is, it is a collaboration between Netflix, DreamWorks Animation, and Guillermo Del Toro. The other two series were Trollhunters and 3Below. The first series follows Jim Lake Jr. and his friends, and enemies, as he becomes the first-ever human Trollhunter, destined to protect all trollkind from the evil trolls who seek to destroy them, and the world. The second series follows Krel and Aja, royal heirs to the throne of the planet Akiridian 5, and their guardian Varvados Vex as they flee to earth to escape a coup and get caught up with the characters and events of Trollhunters. The third series, Wizards, follows Douxie, the ancient yet somehow still teenage apprentice of Merlin, being sent back in time along with some of the main characters of the other series to medieval times, tasked with finding out how to preserve the past and save the future from Morgana and the evil sorcerers of the Arcane Order. All three series have really good animation and character designs, great voice acting from an all-star cast, and really investing stories and characters. You grow to love every single one of them. The dialogue is very 2010s, but aside from that I think it's one of the best things Netflix has to offer. They are kids shows, but they can be enjoyed by anyone, very similar to the How to Train Your Dragon movies. But that's the trilogy as a whole. How was Wizards specifically? If I'm being honest, it's my least favourite of the three. It's just too short. Trollhunters had 4 seasons (It was released as 3 but is actually 4.) and 3Below had a shorter but still healthy run of 2 seasons. Wizards is just 10 episodes and there won't be any more. Kind of, but I'll get to that later. This makes for a much faster-paced series than the others. Part of what makes the other series so great is the slice-of-life aspect. There's an overarching plot with fantasy, action, and lore, sure, but there's also lots of time to cool down and just let the characters interact and hang out. Trollhunters has Jim trying to balance his life as the Trollhunter, a high school student, and the caretaker of his overworked mother. There's lots of great character drama there. There's also his friend Toby's relationship with the giant troll Aaarrrgghh!!! (Yes, that's his actual name.), a love triangle with Jim, his crush Claire, and the school bully Steve, Steve's budding friendship with the school nerd Eli, and a TON more. It's not all fantasy stuff, it's also grounded in reality. 3Below also had a lot of character drama, there was Varvados' relationship with Toby's Nana, Aja's relationship with Steve, Toby and Krel making a movie, and more PLUS a bunch of continuing storylines from Trollhunters. Wizards, on the other hand, is all plot, all action, and all lore. It really suffers from the lack of slower, more character-driven episodes like the other 2 series had. You don't get any "filler", but it goes by way too quickly for you to really process what's going on sometimes. Having more episodes to slow down the pace really would've helped. I also don't think this series uses enough from 3Below. Krel shows up near the end but doesn't really get to do much and Aja gets, like, two mentions (You'd think her absence would affect Steve more.), but that's pretty much it. It feels like it mostly forgets about 3Below and focuses mostly on the Trollhunters characters. I'm also not impressed with who they chose to send back in time, which takes up the bulk of the series. They went with Jim, Claire, and Steve, which I feel was a mistake. Steve is really annoying and useless without Eli or Aja to ground him. They should've sent back Toby instead so the original trio could be back together again. Toby's one of the best characters and he's really underused in this series, along with Krel. Okay, so with all that complaining you might think I hate this series. Nah, it was great! You can't really think of it as its own series like 3Below mostly was, it's more like another season of Trollhunters. It expands on the backstory and the lore of the series and continues the story in a lot of interesting ways. I liked seeing the creation of the Trollhunter amulet, the Battle of Killahead Bridge, Aaarrrgghh!! when he was still working for the evil troll Gunmar, Claire's continuing relationship with Jim now that he's part troll and lost the amulet, and so much more. It also turns Morgana, who I thought was a kind of boring antagonist in Trollhunters, into a really compelling and sympathetic character. Again, all this stuff goes by really quickly, but it's still really interesting. Douxie was also a really interesting protagonist, I love how these series take minor characters and make them really important later on. There is also some really interesting sound design in this series. I don't normally pick up on stuff like that, but it really stood out here. Overall, while it definitely could've been a lot better with more episodes and a slower pace, Wizards was a well-done semi-prequel to Trollhunters and setup to the finale of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy. That's right, it may be the third show in the trilogy, but it's not the end! There's going to be a movie in 2021 to wrap everything up, and I'll be back right here to review it! Overall, I highly recommend Tales of Arcadia to any fan of animated series like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Steven Universe, DreamWorks movies like Kung Fu Panda or the aforementioned How to Train Your Dragon, or Guillermo Del Toro films like Pan's Labyrinth or the Hellboy movies. I think you'll get a kick out of it, and there's no better time to catch up! Stay tuned!

score 8/10

ajzeg 6 September 2020

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6069991/