- Released: September 14, 2018
- Created by: Aaron Ehasz, Justin Richmond
- Amount of seasons:4
- Seasons watched: 4
- Rating: 3/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
I know I haven't done a Series Thoughts on seasons one through three because I wasn't doing Series Thoughts back when those released. I may someday go back to do reviews on them respectively, but for now I'll continue where season three left off. There really has been quite the hiatus between seasons three and four, huh.
Also, for a brief recap of my thoughts on the first three seasons: I liked them, with season three being my favorite. Season four is the start of a new "phase" of the series, subtitled The Mystery of Aaravos. I've never watched a series that is subdivided into phases, but okay, interesting.
Two years after the war of season three, the team has now aged up quite a bit. They go looking for the mysterious imprisoned Elf Aaravos who seems to be pulling the strings on quite a few events past and present. Meanwhile, Lord Viren is brought back to life by Claudia. They together seek to find Aaravos as well. Meanwhile, the Sunfire Elves are also facing difficulties as human-Elf conflicts are on the rise and the Sunfire queen Janai intends to wed Amaya, a human.
So while I liked seasons one through three, and after such a long hiatus between seasons, I gotta say that I'm a bit disappointed with what we got here. I won't call it outright bad, but to be honest I was quite bored throughout the entire thing, which hasn't been the case for previous Dragon Prince seasons. Even in the slightly more mundane season one it consistently kept my interest. But here? I was mentally checking out quite a lot and had to take breaks while watching episodes to make sure I stayed engaged. Which, you know, is never a good thing for a show.
The plot also just...didn't interest me. I was so intrigued by the buildup of Viren and the war in the previous three seasons. And what do we get now? Basically a large side quest to find Aaravos that amounts in little to nothing for the heroes. And for the bad guys all they get is a map. Like, after these nine episodes so little progress has been made and the quest itself was very boring to me.
That said, the conflict with Amaya, Janai and Karim actually did have me engaged, though it has the lesser focus this season. I thought it was interesting to see the Sunfire Elves cope with their home being gone and their way of life clashing with the humans they live among. Both have very different views on things and honestly, in the conflict with the one Elf whose mother passed and the architect both have good points. Religious rituals important to the mourning Elf should be allowed to be observed, but the safety of the rest of the camp should also be maintained, which is unsafe with the fire on. I'm not saying it should've been put out, but damn. Both have valid points and for Lucia to be almost condemned to death over this...harsh.
And this is made more interesting by the interpersonal drama here. Janai loves Amaya and they're set to be married, while Karim, her own brother, is consistently working against her with his anti-human rhetoric and eventually challenges his sister for the throne. I also just love how determined Janai is. She's not afraid to go against tradition if it means being more compassionate, as she shows multiple times throughout this season. Yet she also loves Karim, despite how wrong his morals may be this season. I just found this interpersonal drama and the human-Elf tensions in the camp way more interesting than whatever quest the main characters were going on this season.
Lightning rounds of other things I have to comment on, let's go. I think Zym should at least be able to start talking by now. He seems to comprehend things and understand things people tell him way better than any toddler could, yet he still only makes dog noises. I don't need him to talk fully formed sentences yet but by now I'd like to see him try talking at least.
Stella the cuddlemonkey is absolutely pointless. She's just there to look cute. I think she did one minor thing of note in the finale and that's it. We already have Bait and Zym to be the cute animal companions of the team, Stella really adds nothing and I don't even think she looks cute, she's kind of freaky-looking to me.
The animation is still fine. I know I haven't reviewed the previous seasons so I haven't commented on it yet, but I like the visual style this show has. Kind of rough around the edges but at the same time quite unique. Not a super high frame rate but it looks fine to me. It's not outstanding but definitely unique-looking enough for me.
That aside, I was rather underwhelmed by this season and hope that future seasons are more impactful. This quest was just so damn boring and didn't have a very big outcome in the finale, I'm sorry to say.
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