Dragons: Riders of Berk

You have to wait another week, man. They don't start until September.

And I imagine they'll probably start with the two pilot episodes again, since those were released as a "sneak peek."

^^ Two weeks - it premieres next week, which probably means we'll be getting the episodes we've already seen again. Then the next week we'll be getting more... provided, of course, that next week has both new episodes. Could be three weeks.

; A ; Oh no! I had assumed we'd be getting the new episode on the fourth!

Bummer man. But it's all good I suppose. Does anyone know how well the sneak peek episodes did in terms of ratings? It almost seems like this show is doing pretty well already.

The thing I like the most about this series is the VA. Other Dreamwork stuff is so....shoddy in that sense, so when I heard Jay in Hiccups voice, I thought, "Wow, that's the best Hiccup I've ever seen. Sounds like the real thing." T Hen I did some research and found most of them were still around.

High hopes for this series,

Yeah I'm surprised how much it LOOKS EXACTLY like the movie, and how many cast members returned for the TV show. As opposed to Kung Fu Panda, they're being serious about this!

I can't be the only one who saw this and thought of the Ermahgerd girl.

Well, the town's been called "Berk" since before the meme, but now that you mention it... can't un-see.

So did anyone else catch the sneak peek they aired last night? A snowhill race between Hiccup and Astrid that quickly went downhill due to an avalanche.

No, but I caught the episode today. And on the topic of that scene, it looks like they're going for a bit of UST in regards to Astrid and Hiccup... which kinda makes sense, given their characters.

I really liked this episode. It feels very... full. If that's a good descriptor. Like, for such a simplistic plot there's a lot of content in it.

That was a nice pilot. Wish I caught the movie, but I'll keep an eye on this.

Just saw the fourth episode. Very nice. I like how they only sort of did the tired "everyone thinks that one character is jealous instead of having a legitimate concern" angle and instead played it with Hiccup being more concerned for Toothless than derisive and Toothless having to deal with not being able to make anyone understand - sort of like what a Lassie situation might actually end up as.

The Typhoomerang Dragon is pretty cool, but seems like a starter before we get the really interesting ones. Also, this episode I began to wonder whether we were going to get any other riders beyond the core six. It's a little weird that they set up this academy and yet nobody else has popped up to join them - I'm sure we'll get more by the end of the season, but still... it's starting to get a little noticeable.

"You're just jealous" is the bane of anyone trying to explain a legitimate reason for why they're hating something. I'm glad they didn't go that route/

If toothless could speak English this would not have happened.

When I first heard about this series awhile back, I was nervous on how Dreamworks was gonna handle it, were they finally going to grow up and actually put forth some actually decent television programs for a change, or were they going to create an even worse Broken Base, as they have done in their past television adaptations and movie sequels/spinoffs? After catching the first hour-long premiere, I have to say, my expectations were completely shattered. Not only was the animation quality kept on par with the source movie (save for some minor drawbacks in detail), but they managed to get a majority of the original voice cast to return for their original roles. And those they couldn't, (Gerard Butler), they replaced with some decent and well-known ones (like Nolan North) and added brand new vocal talent (Like the actor who played Biff Tannen as one of Those Two Guys Biff), and actually have enjoyable and good humor and writing, and some genuinely scary moments (Though, even though it was abandoned after the first episode, the "Dragon Dung At 3 O'Clock" bit and Chekhov's Gun was kind of a drawback to their old, juvenile sense of "comedy". I can't wait to see what they do next.

edited 12th Sep '12 8:38:45 PM by HairSecuritySchool

Hey, a two parter! Haven't seen one of those in a while. Looks like Mildew, in trying to get rid of the dragons, has accidentally left the island totally undefended. Just in time for Mark Hamill to attack.

Random note: this episode still has the whole "the island only has five dragons on it" bit, though. I know it's probably necessary to cut back on unnecessary animation, but it still bugs me.

edited 19th Sep '12 7:11:05 PM by KnownUnknown

Maybe more Dragons aren't trained until later? The preview episodes were obviously out of order.

They had a bunch of dragons roaming throught the village in the first episode.

One thing that really bugs me is how they opened up a "Dragon Academy"...for the only group of characters who actually know anything about dragons. When they first brought it up, I was under the impression that Hiccup and co would be teaching everyone else how to train their dragons...

The Book of Dragons short implies that they do get more people who want to learn. But yeah it'd be nice to have some in the actual show.

Presumably there will be more when new characters are introduced; or else the teaching is being done offscreen, when important things aren't happening.

I do wish there were more dragons about. I liked the colorful Nightmare and Nadder in "Animal House", but it seemed a bit weird to have DUMB wandering about to keep an eye on dragons when the only ones about are their own.

I'm pretty sure the main reason we haven't seen dragons wandering around the village or random people having dragons with them as we saw at the end of the movie and in the various specials is because they don't want to animate lots of dragons if they don't expressly need to.

Which is why despite the implication that there are lots of dragons around, the only ones we ever see (with a single exception at the beginning of the series) are the ones that are trained by the main characters, and why the main characters are the only ones learning at the academy.

I'm also sure that's going to change as the series goes on, though.

Yeah I always get annoyed when a TV cartoon tries to economize like that- get rid of the one major thing audiences want to see! It's like the studio of Speed Racer The Next Generation trying to cut as many car shots as possible because they want it to be a "talky" show!

Animation is expensive, though, and time-consuming as well. TV animation does have to be somewhat economized.

And considering how impressive the quality already is, well, I think right now we should just be grateful.