Tag: Charlie Saxton

Wizards: Tales of Arcadia (Part 3) – Netflix Review

Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy/sci-fi world comes to a final chapter.

SUMMARY

Starting right where 3Below left off, it turns out that alien gods and Troll lords were not the only threat to Arcadia and the world at large. The forces of darkness, commanded by the Green Knight, have been attacking Jim Lake, Jr. (Emile Hirsch), the Trollhunter, along with Merlin (David Bradley), Blinky (Kelsey Grammer), and Claire Nuñez (Lexi Medrano), resulting in Jim being mortally wounded. Merlin picks up his apprentice Hisirdoux “Douxie” Casperan (Colin O’Donoghue), along with Douxie’s familiar Archie (Alfred Molina), Toby Domzalski (Charlie Saxton), Aaarrrgghh (Fred Tatasciore), and Steve Palchuk (Steven Yeun). They arrive in the now-floating city of Camelot, only for an attack by the Green Knight to send Douxie, Claire, Jim, and Steve back in time to the original reign of King Arthur (James Faulkner). Now they have to try to preserve the past and stop Morgan le Fay (Lena Headey) and the Arcane Order to save the present, with the help of some of the people of the past, including the troll Callista (Stephanie Beatriz), Sir Galahad (John Rhys-Davies), and Sir Lancelot (Rupert Penry-Jones). 

Douxie, please wear some dang armor.

END SUMMARY

So, it turns out that there’s a movie coming out next year, so this won’t be the last entry into the Tales of Arcadia series. Still, this is the culmination of four years of television and two prior series (Trollhunters and 3Below) that were from relatively different genres, and that deserves respect. I can’t ever really tell how much Guillermo Del Toro was involved in the actual plotting of the shows, but even if he just came up with the premises of the three shows, I have to give him credit for coming up with several distinct worlds that all intersect in interesting ways. Obviously, given that he wrote a book of it, he put most of the work into Trollhunters, but the other two series manage to keep expanding and compounding the mythology in interesting ways until the conclusion. 

This series also does a good job of making magic look like sci-fi technology.

The show’s main focus is on Douxie, which works well because he’s been a secondary character up until this point but his design, voice actor, and the way characters interact with him has always made him stand out appropriately. He was first shown to be a musician in the third season of Trollhunters, something that doesn’t really come up for part of this series, then becomes relevant towards the end. Douxie benefits from being both young in spirit but also over 900 years old, giving him a wealth of experience. Compared to anyone aside from Merlin, whose approval he craves, Douxie is a powerhouse, but since Merlin is always there, he has massive insecurities. It makes him an easy protagonist to get behind. As for returning characters, Steve Palchuck maintains his status as comic relief, Claire and Jim maintain their dynamic as protagonist couple with added magic baggage, and Merlin continues to be an overbearing jerk who has the terrible trait of usually being right. 

But tragic protagonists now, sadly.

I’ll admit that the show’s biggest drawback is that it is only one season of ten episodes. They manage to wrap up a bunch of plotlines, but it is done really quickly, leaving a lot of things to feel like deus ex machinae. We get some happy endings and quality story moments, but it comes at you so fast that you don’t really get a proper amount of time to react to the information before the next thing. Still, being able to rely on the past shows allows them to shortcut a lot of the storytelling, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it would with many shows. 

Plus, we get the big epic battle sequence that a finale needs.

Overall, a really solid conclusion to the Tales of Arcadia… or it would be, except they’re doing a movie next year and that’ll probably lead to more shows. Which is cool, cuz I enjoy this universe.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

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Netflix Review – 3Below: Tales of Arcadia Part 2 (Season 2) (Spoiler-Free)

SpoilerFree

Guillermo del Toro’s Tales of Arcadia Trilogy wraps up the second act in a solid season of sci-fi and fantasy comedy.

SUMMARY 

It’s been a few weeks since the events of the Season 1 finale that coincided with the final episode of Trollhunters. Arcadia is now aware that trolls exist, but the troll battle managed to conceal the presence of any alien life, including the Akiridion protagonists Aja and Krel Tarron (Tatiana Maslany and Diego Luna), as well as their dog Luug (Frank Welker) and their ship’s AI Mother (Glenn “Yes, that Glenn Close” Close). They are joined by Akiridion-5 Lieutenant Zadra (Hayley Atwell), who arrived last season to save them from Varvatos Vex (Nick Offerman), who is revealed to have aided General Morando (Alon Aboutboul) in overthrowing the planet before changing back to serve the royals. Varvatos Vex ended up imprisoned on the moon by the Zeron Brotherhood (Darin De Paul and Ann Dowd). 

3Below - 4Crossover.jpg
Raise your hands if you think that’s a lot of cast members.

The siblings are still being pursued by bounty hunters, including the powerful Trono (Danny Trejo), sought by the US Government, particularly Colonel Kubritz (Uzo Aduba) who is now willing to start dealing with some devils to get the Akiridion Royals, and soon will face threats to Earth, Akiridion, and the very universe itself.

END SUMMARY

This season was a massive step up in a lot of ways. 

First, it moves the timeline past the end of Trollhunters and the changes to Arcadia that arose from the events of the series finale are played out through this season. A lot of the supporting cast are now quite a bit funnier and more absurd now that the world itself has become more absurd, particularly Stuart the alien (Nick Frost), Coach Steve (Thomas F. “I’m not just Biff” Wilson), and Principal Uhl (Fred Tatasciore). Each of them is just a little bit more exaggerated than their already unusual character traits had allowed and it really helps. Expanding Colonel Kubritz’s role, particularly in a world that has just dealt with an apocalyptic scenario, creates a more compelling villain who progressively represents the kind of hypocritical and almost insane xenophobia seen throughout the world. 

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Plus, Uzo Aduba just makes her so darned charming and evil.

Steve Palchuk (Steven Yeun) and Eli Pepperjack (Cole Sand) have evolved from just their roles as the stereotypical bully and nerd to being legitimate heroes, something that both feels natural and compelling. Making them have such major character arcs without having them be the main characters of either series is a great set-up for their presumably bigger role in the third Tales from Arcadia series, Wizards. 

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They also have the “Creepslayers” handshake worked out.

One expansion that I don’t actually think worked was playing up the role of Toby Domzalski (Charlie Saxton) as the comic relief. Without Jim Lake (Anton Yelchin (R.I.P.)/Emile Hirsch) and Claire Nuñez (Lexi Madrano) to balance them out and provide emotional moments, Toby and AAARRRGGHH (Fred Tatasciore) rely too hard on the “dumb, weird characters” archetype in this season. Granted, the mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy does work at several points, including having AAARRRGGHH’s magical nature basically trump a sci-fi trope in a humorous way, but it still needed to give them a little more maturity. 

3Below - 7Aaarrrgghh
I do like that nobody finds Aaarrgghh weird. Everyone acclimated immediately.

There are a lot of decent gags in the season as well. I particularly love all the jokes about the Foo-foos, a race of robot rabbits on the moon. It’s simultaneously a reference to “Little Bunny Foo-Foo,” even having characters threaten to bop them on the head, and to the Asian myth of the rabbit on the moon. Also, their primary battle strategy is breeding an army quickly, because… rabbits breed. Get it? Get it??? GET IT??? Eh, still, it’s mostly funny. Also, they take some solid shots at Michael Bay and I love that. 

3Below - 8FooFoo

One thing that really plays well is the season’s theme, because it’s much more coherent than in the last one. This season is mostly about intolerance and the fact that we as humans tend to immediately want to isolate people that are strange to us, but that it’s ultimately better to try to work together. It comes at it from a number of directions and I think it mostly gets the point across without being too preachy. 

Overall, it’s a pretty solid show for kids. I’d recommend parents work it into the rotation. If you’re an adult, well, you can enjoy it, too.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.

Netflix Review – Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia Part 1

Guillermo Del Toro takes an imaginative crack at a kids show.

SUMMARY

Jim Lake Jr. (Anton Yelchin/Emile Hirsch) is a high-school outcast, because he’s the protagonist and that’s pretty much the only thing a teen protagonist can be since Peter Parker. One day, while biking to school with his friend Toby Domzalski (Charlie Saxton), he finds an amulet in what appears to be the remains of a shattered statue. Naturally, it turns out that it’s really a magical talisman left by Merlin (David Bradley) and the statue was actually the remains of its last wielder, the Troll Kanjigar (Tom Hiddleston/James Purefoy). Jim is gifted with the title of “Trollhunter,” the protector of all the good trolls and the slayer of evil ones. Jim is the first human to hold the title. It’s revealed that Jim’s hometown, Arcadia, is actually built on top of a portal to “Trollmarket,” a magical kingdom where Trolls live peacefully, for the most part. However, there is an evil troll named Gunmar (Clancy Brown) who, along with his son, Bular (Ron Perlman), is trying to take over the world. The only thing keeping both the troll and human worlds safe is Jim, along with Toby, his tutor Blinkous (Kelsey Grammer), his protector AAARRRGGHH (Fred Tatasciore), and Claire Nuñez (Lexi Medrano), a gifted martial artist and magically-inclined human.

Trollhunters - 1Cast.jpg
The gnome on the right is named “Chompsky.” Because that’s fun.

END SUMMARY

This show’s strength is world-building. Almost everything about the set-up is a cliche that we’ve seen a thousand times before, but the show uses the audience’s familiarity with the set-up to quickly start expanding its mythology and its setting. The recurring characters each become well fleshed-out and distinct as the show goes on. The locations are all interesting designs that each convey a lot more than any of the characters say, something that always gets credit from me. The villainous monsters-of-the-week, too, are usually very clever concepts or at least visually stimulating, ranging from hive-minded goblins who have amusing idiosyncrasies to mummy assassins.

trollhunters - 2bular
Oh, and big guy with swords. Gotta have swords.

The main strength of the show is that it’s not really “happy” like most kids shows from my youth. The good guys are good and the bad guys are, for the most part, bad, but we do get a lot of gray areas and the entire series constantly has a bittersweet tone. Everyone has to compromise for victory and the mark of the heroic characters is knowing when and where to make those compromises so that they don’t end up destroying the things that they were trying to preserve. The characters make mistakes, sometimes grave ones, when they try to make those calls, and they keep getting more and more consequences for their actions as the series progresses. The emotional growth of the characters is also a big part of the series, with everyone changing a great deal in order to deal with all of the events they go through.

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Also, the power of friendship is a big thing. 

The animation style is going to be divisive, but I thought it was actually pretty spectacular for a television series. The character designs are simple enough for ease of computer animation, but are all distinct enough that you never get anyone confused. Action sequences are, for the most part, very good for this kind of series. It takes a while for them to get more creative than slash and stab, but once it gets there, we start to get fairly inventive sequences.

Overall, this isn’t the best animated series for adults out there (BoJack Horseman exists), and it starts slow, but kids will like it and it does get better over time as you become more invested in the world that you’re watching. It also serves as the first chapter of Tales of Arcadia, which looks to be a very interesting meta-series, combining Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and whatever Wizards turns out to be.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.