The Dragon Prince season was good. That is the adjective best capable of describing my thoughts on the show. It wasn’t astonishingly bad or exceptionally good. I’d say it was a low C. It followed the recent trend of shows that tried to copy Avatar: The Last Airbender. While I haven’t watched ATLA, I have watched a lot of shows that try to mimic it or at least draw inspiration from it. And a trend I noticed is they usually have a solid season 1 and then fall apart. The Dragon Prince breaks the trend. It has a good first season and then reaches new heights through the further seasons. In this review I’ll talk about my and most of the community’s criticisms with the first season and how the second and third seasons all but diminish the flaws.
Season One’s Shortcomings
While season 1 was overall a good season but there were some glaring errors. The most obvious one is the animation. The animation is very computer animated. And the series does not even use computer animation to its fullest A major pro to computer animation is that during the fight scenes, multiple camera angles can be shown which are impossible in live action. The Dragon prince doesn’t use this in the slightest.
Another major criticism is the fact that in the first season, the characters do not have motivations except getting the egg to the Dragon Queen. When the princes go with Rayla at the end of episode one, we don’t even know what reasons they have for risking their lives by going on a quest.
There are some plot holes in season one as well. I will let that one slide because I have stopped caring about plot holes. However I can’t stand the fact that sometimes there are no consequences for what the characters do.
Season 2 and Season 3’s Brilliance
It was clear that the directors looked into the criticisms and learned from it.
The two further seasons uses animation drastically better than the first season. The fight between Amaya and the Sunfire elf is so great and uses the animation really well.The final battle is great and shows so many camera angles that help a rather generic fantasy final battle into a great battle.
The characters develop a lot and they feel like nuanced, well developed characters. They have motivations besides saving the world. The magic system and world is revealed through the character’s journey.
The main storyline of Callum is exploring the magic system, ans since the magic system blends so well with the world, we get so many moments of worldbuilding and character development simultaneously.
Each character starts feeling unique and three dimensional. Soren and Claudia feel intresting to watch and their comedic moments together are gold. They both have a coomon goal: getting parental approval. While Claudia gets this, Soren’s moral compass disallows him from achieving his goal. He steals the show in season 3.
In these two seasons, whatever the characters do have real consequence and there are no accidental scenes.
P.S.- I’m currently watching Avatar: The Last Airbender
TDP is like ATLA because the producer worked in ATLA before