D&D General Legend of Vox Machina Trailer Released

Critical Role’s The Legend of Vox Machina will be released on Amazon streaming in batches of three episodes. Season 1 will release on Amazon Prime Video as follows:

• Friday, January 28th: Episodes 1-3
• Friday, February 4th: Episodes 4-6
• Friday, February 11th: Episodes 7-9
• Friday, February 18th: Episodes 10-12

 

[Seramus]

There's always Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and Holly Wood (Cool World).

 

[Shardstone]

It’s 2022. Cartoons stopped being for just kids many years ago now. I know some of you are older but try to see that your preconceptions of what people my age watch are not bound by the nonsensical “cartoons are for kids” logic off 30-40+ years ago. Seriously, Primal exists. Get with the times.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure there were. But I don't think it was mainstream or even common for adults to be into animated show, other than a few exceptions that proved the rule. Even with rapid growth of cable-TV animated series targeted at more adult audience, the assumption that cartoons were for kids died slowly and I think that assumption is only now on its deathbed, likely due to my parents generation and older dying out and no longer being where the purchasing power lies.

Anime started gaining traction in my area in late 80s. Popular enough for an anime-focused movie-rental place opened in Minneapolis. But it was very much a nice, geek-culture thing and even in the geek culture, I can't recall a single person older than the low 20s who was into it. (Yes, I'm sure there were, but it was hardly mainstream.)

Now, it is truly mainstream. Any surprised at an animated show on streaming service that is not appropriate for children is extremely out of touch.

I myself only got going in the late 80's, it's very generational, I think.

 

[Reynard]

It’s 2022. Cartoons stopped being for just kids many years ago now. I know some of you are older but try to see that your preconceptions of what people my age watch are not bound by the nonsensical “cartoons are for kids” logic off 30-40+ years ago. Seriously, Primal exists. Get with the times.

Primal was so good! But that last episode, tho...

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sure. But it wasn't mainstream and took a bit of effort to access it, especially if you didn't live in a big city (this is an American's perspective).

I think that it is safe to say that, until recently, many people outside of what at the time was a niche corner of geekdom, would be shocked and upset at a cartoon that was gory, depicted sexual acts, and/or had a lot of profanity. They would look at the "cartoon" cover on the video and just assume it was kid friendly. We now have a couple generations of parents that grew up with lots of adult animated content and no longer make those assumptions. But, in America at least, this is fairly recent.

Fritz the Cat? Heavy Metal?

The Loony Tunes? Yes, they were originally created for adults, referencing celebrities of the time and providing war propaganda ahead of adult cinema.

Like the idea of people being short-sighted in thinking all animation is for children has been a joke since I was a kid.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

From what I understand there's more of a push for adult-oriented animation now due in part to Covid (producing animated shows doesn't require actors and such being in close proximity) and due to a lot of the newer talent in the animation industry growing up watching anime and being influenced by it. I think this second factor is especially relevant because even anime that isn't explicitly aimed towards adults can be pretty different from older Western cartoons (for one thing, anime series are more likely to be serialized while Western cartoons were more episodic). However, Covid is definitely an indirect influence on why an adult-oriented sequel to The Flintstones and an adult-oriented series based on Velma from Scooby Doo are currently in the works.

It's also interesting to note that Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina is essentially the modern, Western equivalent of a Japanese series called Record of Lodoss War. Whereas this new show is originally based on live streamed Dungeons & Dragons sessions, Record of Lodoss War was based on transcripts of Dungeons & Dragons sessions published in a gaming magazine (which proved popular enough to get full novels, an anime series, and its own TTRPG).

 

[Von Ether]

It’s 2022. Cartoons stopped being for just kids many years ago now. I know some of you are older but try to see that your preconceptions of what people my age watch are not bound by the nonsensical “cartoons are for kids” logic off 30-40+ years ago. Seriously, Primal exists. Get with the times.

I hear ya, but my gf is stuck in that "If I think it's good, it's no longer genre/animation stuff." It's a weird double standard where Star Wars (especially Baby Yoda) or the new animated Spider Man film is great. But Star Trek, the Expanse or Dragon Prince puts a nose up in the air.

I still have a firm belief that soooo many of our cultural attitudes get ossified around the age of 12-14, and then it's so hard to get them out of that comfort zone. And what we remember of those things at that age is more essential to our love of it than what it was really like (how much of ST's political messages seem to have slipped under the radar for so many.)

 

[Hexmage-EN]

One thing that I wish more people realized is that a lot of modern "live action" movies are essentially animated movies anyway due the extensive use of CGI.

 

[jgsugden]

...Not really made to appeal to those over 35 (though there will be those that age and older who it WILL appeal to, don't get me wrong, just not the audience they are wanting) as it sounds (the trailer) actually written for kids (but see the above)...

That is a bit ageist, and fairly wrong. There are a lot of diverse people over the age of 35.

This is the first time we're going to see a real representation of a D&D game in video entertainment. What abpout LoTR, WoT, GoT, etc...? Lord of the Rings is a fantasy story, and it inspired D&D, but D&D was only inspired by LotR. It has grown into something else, and we've never seen that 'table presence' of a D&D game translated back into a video based media.

ANYONE that has played D&D for a while will see a reflection of part of their games in this cartoon, and that is going to appeal when they give it a chance. We have people that were older than 40 in 1980 that have played D&D for more than 40 years. People play it in retirement homes. The guys that most contributed to the earliest editions would be in their 70s and 80s now. I know over a hundred people, personally, that are over 35 and are looking forward to this cartoon.

Further, putting aside D&D players, this is going to appeal to people that grew up on cartoons. The people making it understand the cartoon audiences - from anime, to old school. D&D wasn't their first area of expertise - cartoon shows are. This is a confluence of amazinglyu targeted high talent coming together to create the greatest ad for D&D there has ever been.

I think people are going to be blown away by how widely this is accepted, embraced and further monetized in the coming years. I expect they'll greet light Might Nein, the Bell-igerants (current campaign - not their real name ... yet), and new stories with original characters set in Exandria - all in the next 3 years.

 

[Mort]

One thing that I wish more people realized is that a lot of modern "live action" movies are essentially animated movies anyway due the extensive use of CGI.

Yeah, it's everywhere now and has been for some time.

For example, Forest Gump has a sequence where Gump is shown to be an absolutely brilliant ping pong player.

It's clearly Tom Hanks playing ping pong. How did they get it to look so good (Hanks is not an Olympic level player)?

Answer: The ball is CGI and was drawn in later - Hanks is swinging at empty air pretending to play ping pong.