Why DRAGONS: THE NINE REALMS Season 2 is a Catastrophe

My official review of DreamWorks' Dragons: The Nine Realms season 2. Today, we take a look at the ways this new season has evolved from the first, and how they missed the mark yet again.
Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=73887839
Instagram: / _dogsarebetterthanpeople_
Twitter: / audriegreywind
Alyssa's Instagram: / _animated_galaxies_
Background music: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio / @ Whitesand
Intro: 0:00-2:34
Corrections: 2:34-8:24
Stuff I Liked: 8:24-10:11
Uniconned: 10:11-20:05
Magma Breather: 20:05-29:28
Dragons of the Undead: 29:28-33:26
Downpour: 33:26-44:11
Antagonist Intermission: 44:11-48:47
The Tangled Web: 48:47-54:46
Follow the Lightning: Part I: 54:46-1:04:08
Follow the Lightning: Part II: 1:04:08-1:13:00
Conclusion: 1:13:00-1:15:34
Replying to Comments: 1:15:34-1:18:50
Outro/Credits: 1:18:50-1:20:45

[@AudrieGreywind]

#ReleaseTheFireTides

[@GojiraFan-in9oo]

Reality is often disappointing

[@connorhaley3190]

Watching this 21 hours since uploaded.

[@evo_strange9584]

#ReleaseTheFireTides

[@TSkillessB]

#ReleaseTheFireTides I only have one request: make a video on that if it gets released

[@isaacstevenson2960]

#ReleaseTheFireTides It’s not too late! There’s still hope!

[@SpooperIsEverywhere]

I just wanna say this now, I HATE how the Mist Twister dragon's torso is yellow, I mean, one of the heads is red, the other is blue, the natural progression of this is making the torso purple, it just infuriates me to no end.

[@grumpyjack9085]

It's even worse when you consider that the dragon being purple would match whats-her-face's color scheme.

[@SpooperIsEverywhere]

@@grumpyjack9085 even worse is that the color idea isn't followed for any of them, as far as Im aware.

[@T_E_G]

As someone who knows color, that was also noticable and distracting ngl

[@itssilver8214]

They probably saw a lot of gold/yellow eastern dragons and just combined them with the red and blue head

[@hamishstewart5324]

Apparently concept art for the most twister showed that it was gonna be a more uniform grey colour and, instead of actual wings, would glide like a flying squirrel. I’m not too sure how I feel about the concept design, the head looks really weird, but it honestly looks more coherent than the official design.

[@GiovanniNero]

Am I really going to ruin my sleep schedule just to watch a girl rant about a children's show? ... OF COURSE I AM!

[@Booklat1]

me 2 hour after you wrote this comment lol

[@Respecthebrotherhood]

Honestly though.

[@darkk-kj9je]

me watching this at 4am

[@NocturnalNightingale]

I suspect that we're all here doing that

[@hellgazer8370]

3:40 am, suffering. but hey, at least school is out

[@fadex2101]

Can we agree that tuffnut is the most comedic character in the series? He just acts so insane so you literally believe he might become a dragon.

[@pressxtodoubt2506]

Especially when Chicken started talking to him

[@i..kindaquit]

Or Ruffnut. At times that girl made me roll on the floor dying laughing.

[@alexjewett7455]

Or you could believe he could believe it.

[@toeeater199]

He's my favorite human character, im sad that they made him an a-hole in the third movie

[@minsurezero6665]

He's so insane he literally believed he himself might become a dragon. Cough cough lycanwing

[@sunburststudi0s224]

Dager for me was a great villain not only because he was dead shit insane, but he was unpredictable. His insecurities made him dangerous, and in some ways even more intimidating. Hiccup felt like he never knew what Dager was going to do next.

[@kingseb2252]

And not to mention he did best hiccup a few times not as much as viggo and not as much damage as viggo caused but still won sonetimes even if it was temporarily so for me it's viggo dagur riker alvan (i love alvans character design and personality) the villain in httyd then httyd 3

[@mr.darkassassin7997]

​@@kingseb2252You mean Alvin?

[@kingseb2252]

@@mr.darkassassin7997 yeah

[@MistyRain-yp7nb]

The knowledge that the creator of the show has not only seen her videos trashing it, but also the fact that she for real MESSAGED him when she found that crazy error and he responded is probably the funniest thing I've seen on KZbin all year.

[@Jirodyne]

It's also the Saddest, cause she points out all these flaws, errors, illogical story elements. They watch these videos. But don't LEARN from them, as seen with Season 3! All this does, is make me glad I never watched this. This is horrible. There are Cartoons from like the 70s with better animation and plot! No amount of 'We didn't have the money' will ever be enough to excuse the WRITING Errors, and illogical plot events. You don't need MONEY to WRITE a STORY.

[@isaacstevenson2960]

@@Jirodyne it’s like someone once told me. “A quality story is free.” Even shows and movies with the most unappealing animation can still have a great, relatable, well written, and timeless story. Some of my favorite shows and movies look terrible but their stories spoke values.

[@Jirodyne]

@@isaacstevenson2960 Oh trust me, I know. I read Fanfiction. Specifically My Little Pony Fanfiction. Been reading the stuff for 10 years. And some of the stories are epically amazing, using lore, history, ideas, and well written situations better than most movies, books, and TV shows I've read/watched. But that wasn't the point of my post. My point is that they didn't learn anything, they didn't grow, they didn't do better. The videos points out all the flaws, and even offers ways it could have been done better, the Writers admit they watched the video, and then the next season comes out and NOTHING changed. It is still as horrible and poorly written as the first season. They watch the video, and didn't learn from it at all, and made all the same mistakes.

[@jazuqua]

@@Jirodyne I have a theory. I think season 1 through 4 were finalized before the first season even aired in December 2021, and are part of a single production order of 26 episodes. That's why the quality hasn't improved, they can't adjust an already finished part of a series. That also lines up with known information of the series being in production since at least March 2020. All 26 episodes probably finished production mid-2021. And explains how they were able to release 4 seasons in a timeframe of a year, they've just been sitting on it for some time.

[@blue-vr8dd]

​@jazuqua 100%, they'll have greenlit a number of episodes and got to work right away. don't know how many that was, but it seems like at least 5 seasons worth. After that, they'll have just kept going so animation never catches up with the writing and they have more to release faster.

[@jackalope3374]

I literally said "Ew, wtf is that?!" out loud when that dragon unicorn thing showed up on my screen. I'm by no means a superfan of HTTYD, but I've always admired the creative and unique designs of the dragons in this franchise. How they managed to create something so ugly and out of place is beyond me.

[@goose7618]

The buck teeth alone made me want to stomp it into the ground

[@CleverFoxStudios]

I showed my friend and she became nauseous 🤣 there's real pain being felt

[@figs-oliomedley]

same, on every point XD

[@yoshinator77_]

Even the silkspanner is looking better

[@ijlayugan4149]

it would have been fine if they just removed those TEETH. That feature damaged my whole body. Why is the teeth like thhaaat

[@ZefDavenport]

One of the things I can't get past is the fact that Tom is electrocuted, *several times* , and all he gets is a burn in his palm. That's it. The kid should have had his heart stopped at least three times by the time the last episode ended with the intensity of that lightning. I've touched electric current once in my life and it was horrible. It was just a moment, but I felt a huge spike of pain, followed by a dull pain that stayed in my arm for the rest of the day, as well as a burn in my finger. It's very uncomfortable and not something you just shrug off. Tom was electrocuted completely, he would have been in severe pain for *days* , not just an "ouch, my hand is a bit burned" and that's it. Heck, when Hiccup got electrocuted by normal lightning, he fell unconscious and remained unconscious for at least one day. Can we get some stakes in this please?

[@wellidontknow1941]

But he can’t stand a punch from this tiny unicorn dragon’s tail in his chin 💀

[@ZefDavenport]

@@wellidontknow1941 In his defense, it's a tiny unicorn dragon's tail. He had to fake it.

[@RadJack14]

Couldn’t he have just fainted or died by that electrocution from the skrill

[@ZefDavenport]

@@RadJack14 Exactly, and he would have had burns all over his body.

[@exoticplushbean7188]

Yes! I was cringing so hard at that part! In Race to the Edge it said the skrill’s blast and Toothless’s blast were at the same power level. Both are SUPER powerful yet all he gets is a little burn?

[@drygonfyre]

Something that really bothered me from the first season: Alex's braids. When I first saw the poster for this show and had no clue about the story or whatever, I assumed that Alex would get the two-headed dragon. Why? Because her braids, of which there are two, are tied with red and blue/purple wires on dark blond/light brown hair. And the two-headed dragon has red and blue heads with a golden body. I thought it was going to be a neat, subtle way to tie her design with her dragon's. But no, the purple girl got the two-headed dragon. _Also, I hear that WolfQuest music in the outro_

[@zachmanf.7479]

OHHH, the purple girl has the red and blue dragon because red and blue together is purple! Why did that take me so long to figure out?

[@starcycle4308]

WOO WOLFQUEST MUSIC -

[@sokaize]

@@zachmanf.7479 yellow

[@aimeeh2079]

I WASNT THE ONLY ONE WITH THE WOLFQUEST AHAA

[@The4Pikmin]

The fact they made another season so quick kinda scares me. Did they do it because they want more money, because it's easily reproduceable, I've got no idea!

[@kyrtuck]

I'm under the impression that season 2 episodes were at least partly done when season 1 was released. Its about timing and not caring to listen to audience feedback.

[@toothlesslightfury1788]

i don't really know, but they could have just made documentaries of toothless and his family living together and they could've been just fine with it

[@myhairhasamindofitsown]

They were probably were asked to make a single 13 episode season that was split into two season, probably to time constraints and marketing reasons. Something similar happened with netflix's She-Ra.

[@Mediados]

A full Season after only 4 months, they absolutely worked on Season 2 while doing Season 1, which would explain the lacking quality.

[@MmeCShadow]

That's not how television production works. They don't make one season, wait for it to be released, and then make another; if they were bought for two seasons the second seasons i already in pre-production while the first seasons is being worked on and most of the team moves into full production while Season 1 is being wrapped. The full pipeline for animation is between nine and twelve months per episode on average, with an additional delay after finalization before they're actually put to television. A comparatively short break between seasons (especially half-seasons like Netflix likes to do) doesn't mean they only spent four months on it.

[@teatimecowboy]

Animator here! Recently, a lot of companies have been releasing 'seasons' faster than normal, but what is actually going on is that they do all the episodes first, including season one and two, and sometimes three. Then chopping them up into seasons. It so gives the illusion the show is doing a lot better than it might. It also puts a lot more strain on the animators.

[@Mediados]

In this case I have a question. Castlevania Season 1 consisted of 4 Episodes and could have easily been merged with Season 2 since it was just a story intro. Why the fuck would you do that? Maybe to see how well ut's received before you really start working, but other shows don't do that either.

[@Malthan]

@@Mediados My guess is the binge watch culture - if you release all the episodes at once you get one short burst of attention. If you split it into 2 shorter seasons released several months apart, you get double the hype opportunity with the same amount of work put into the episodes. I imagine if they were going oldschool and releasing 1 episode a week they wouldn;t do the mini season split.

[@Mediados]

@@Malthan I have never understood the binge watch culture. Entertainment has to be enjoyed, taken in in small doses, not devoured like a plate of fries.

[@brennanwallace1499]

@@Mediados I like to binge watch for the emotional consistency. Yes, absolutely, watching a show one new episode a week it a way to create anticipation and excitement, especially after a cliffhanger episode. While I do enjoy that kind of hype for some longer running shows, there are times where I'm not invested enough and the wait for the next episode starts to kill my enjoyment of a series. Binging a shorter series helps me keep track of where the characters are both in the plot and emotionally and it flows better. Using your plate of fries analogy, fries are meant to be filler and gorged on, but other foods are meant to be enjoyed in one sitting. If you're given a bowl of ice cream, you wouldn't eat one spoonful every hour cause it would start to melt. Each bite would be tasty, but it would progressively get less enjoyable until you're finished eating. I hope this helps you understand people who like to binge watch a bit better. 😊

[@Mediados]

@@brennanwallace1499 One week in between is already too much, after more than 2 days all the emotional impact is gone. I like a system of 1 episode each day to wrap up the last 24 hours. This way I'm already anticipating the next episode while the mind has enough time to process what happened so far and to make up several theories of how it will continue.

[@snakefan3124]

When you were showing the body count in Race to The Edge, you left out both trader Johann getting frozen for eternity, and when Crogen was established as the leader of the dragon hunters after Riker’s death, Crogen chucked his axe into the face of a hunter who wanted to go home. That part legitimately startled me as a teenager

[@DarthCinema]

When you get crossover fanfics that genuinely have more depth and love for the franchise than a multi million dollar show, you know you fucked up HARD

[@rodrigoandorinha9259]

Thats a understatement but i dont know enough english to use anything bigger

[@xpandorasboxx]

I feel so bad for the creator. Dude 100% has knives pointed at him to make this. I hope he can get free at some point and actually make things he wants to make and actually get to decide what happens. That concept art is absolutely adorable

[@RadJack14]

Yah I would agree that the concept art is way superior than anything else in the show

[@SmileyFaceEmoticon01]

They honestly should've made Leonard's nickname "Buzz" instead of "Buzzsaw." Other than the fact that it sounds better, it's a lot less clunky and it also sounds more like an actual nickname.

[@rodrigoandorinha9259]

Buzz saw what? What did you see Buzz?

[@TheRealSparkplugTheFox]

You know what I would have liked to see? A reverse of the Hiccup bonding with Toothless scene. Tom would have had his family symbol passed down to him as a family heirloom that he didn't take seriously but liked the clan marking so he kept it and painted it onto a shirt he wore around the dig sight. Thunder would have seen the marking passed throughout his family via how Toothless learned to draw. He would have taught his children how to do it and have that and the general shape of the clan marking passed down with it. Thunder would have been curious about the humans because he had seen a general human shape that was also passed down with the strike symbol. He sees Tom, recognizes the symbol enough to become curious and start following Tom and possibly leaving gifts before meeting him. Thunder kidnaps Tom whether on purpose or by accident and that's how the two meet up. Thunder would point out the strike symbol, draw one out or try to burn it into the ground and built a connection that way. It wouldn't be like how Hiccup kept Toothless trapped until they bonded (kinda messed up honestly) but just a misguided curious dragon who opened a new world up to an adventurous teen who has home life issues. Tom would want to explore into this to avoid being left home alone or have to think about how his father abandoned his family and connect to a side of his heritage he didn't even know about. This is just me rambling but it would be a way to better connect the old to the new.

[@grumpyjack9085]

I havent seen the first movie in years, but iirc hiccup wasn't "keeping toothless trapped" toothless was crippled and couldn't fly after getting shot down by hiccup. Hiccup needed to bond with toothless so that he could get close enough to toothless to fix his tail and give him his flight back.

[@billcipher8645]

@@grumpyjack9085 yes but Hiccup was the one who crippled him. He actually wanted to KILL Toothless to prove his loyalty and that he can be a viking but didn't have enough courage so he shot in an off angle. While the trapping and crippling wasn't his goal, it was directly caused by him and him constructing a replacement for the lost part is more like a repayment for his mistakes. To do so he had to tame a dangerous creature and in that way he showed his true courage-he wasn't afraid to deal with the consequences of his own actions. This also comes full circle at the end of the first movie, other vikings killed dragons because they attacked them but they never reflected on the fact that their hostility and killing was the reason behind that behaviour in the first place. Hiccup was the only one who wasn't afraid to say "sorry", he freed them from the cruel leader, ball and chain on the arena, he freed them from the mistakes other vikings did Edit: to end my analysis, the op's idea still fits into the theme of "someone accidently traps the other and tries to tame them"

[@eagletgriff]

Need me a fanfic of this lol

[@koolkittykat04]

@@billcipher8645 Toothless getting crippled by Hiccup was, in essence, an accident. To my knowledge, it happened because of the rope capture device, I assume one of the balls hit his tail fin and ripped it off. But when Hiccup was aiming it, he wasn’t aiming for any body part in particular: he just wanted to hit it and capture it. Then, after seeing Toothless up close and seeing fear flash in his eyes for a second before he stabs him, Hiccup realized that he couldn’t do it. He didn’t even realize anything was wrong with Toothless at first. He was curious about Toothless and wanted to get close to him. Then, after hearing Gobber say, “A downed dragon is a dead dragon,” Hiccup realizes he needs to help Toothless get out for his safety. That’s when he made the tail. So, to sum it up, I do not think your memory or interpretation of Hiccup’s actions in the first movie are correct.

[@FullMetalFeline]

@@billcipher8645 I really disagree with your analysis of Hiccup trapping Toothless until they bonded. That feels a very disingenuous interpretation of the story. Hiccup was raised in a society which kills dragons, which is what he attempted to do. After injuring Toothless, he frees him from the ropes and expects him to fly away. Your interpetation implies that he actively shot him down to cripple him, actively traps him, and forced him to bond with him which isn't true to the narrative in the slightest. Toothless accidentally ends up in a place he struggles to escape from, Hiccup doesn't push him down that hole lol, and Hiccup merely uses this accidental scenario to study him. When they bond and he can get close, he fixes his tail, he doesn't even know the tail is the problem until Gobber mentions it, and he wants to fix the tail to help Toothless, not to dominate him. I don't really see how this is 'messed up' and it's kind of sad you'd take that interpretation from such a heartwarming scene. Would you rather he killed Toothless and cut out his heart like he originally intended? lol

[@craftytomato3759]

I was rewatching Race to the Edge and shouldn't Razorwhips be extinct by the time of this show? In the other show it was said that Razorwhips are not only born blind, but also almost went extinct in the past due to male dragons committing infanticide. I would assume that, without the wingmaidens, the razorwhips would have gone extinct in the hidden world.

[@rodrigoandorinha9259]

Maybe with the help of the maidens enough babies got to adulthood and have learned how to take better care of the little ones , like carrying the babies on their backs for protection. That would be a good explanation

[@rowanisonline873]

About Tom keeping his viking heritage a secret: For funzies my family gave my Grandad a DNA test where we found he was 25% Scandinavian, we didn't previously know this so we guessed one of his grandparents wasn't who we though they were and ever since we called him the crazy viking. I then told all my friends about this, sooo if you find out some random fact about your ancestors tell the whole world cause it's a good ice breaker. And I can confirm that no one will care

[@ShadowWolfRising]

Yeah, when doing those tests, you find some wacky things out. Typically one's ancestors got around WAY MORE than people ever think they do, mine sure as hell did.

[@blacky_Ninja]

Can confirm i do not care about anyones heritage, but it‘s always a nice funfact.

[@PUNISHERMHS_2021]

Unless you find a link to a certain man with a funny mustache

[@rejectedcopy4733]

@@PUNISHERMHS_2021 Yeah, that pretty much ruins the first impression I'm afraid

[@evo_strange9584]

On your point about body count and violence in RTTE, there’s also the time Astrid got straight up SHOT by an arrow ON SCREEN in the leg!

[@GlyphWitch]

Oh, there was also the time Krogan threw a knife right into a dudes face.

[@evo_strange9584]

@@GlyphWitch Yeah, I will always admire RTTE for making the most of its rating. The fact that the writers understood the demographic of people that were really invested in the series and did their absolute best to cater to them is amazing.

[@mckenzie.latham91]

Not too mention it was tastefully done, when they did include moments like that it was to raise the tension, make the villains look more dangerous and ruthless, and it was never done for the sake of just trying to be mature because “animation isn’t just for adults.” Violence had a point and purpose, it was not overdone and was artistically mastered too where even if they didn’t show you everything, you could understand what happened even for younger audiences younger than the age rating. Too many people push shows to take the “clone wars” route where they think that you need to show brutality on screen for it to be mature You do not, but if you do have moments make it tasteful and sparse, and keep the goofy and comedic elements, along with the emotional and heartfelt ones and etc that made the show great as well.

[@evo_strange9584]

@@mckenzie.latham91 absolutely, this is a great point. I think the fact that they did use brutal moments in such a sparing and tasteful way only added to the effect when something major happened. When something brutal like Astrid getting shot in RTTE happens, it really is a sort of “Holy Shit” moment that makes everyone seem so much more in danger - despite us knowing they will survive. The show was also very creative with its ways of avoiding gore when needed. Stuff like the dragon hunters helmets actually working like real armor and deflecting arrows when hit both adds to the realism and displays the intention of certain characters and situations while maintaining the atmosphere and tone of the show!

[@mckenzie.latham91]

@@evo_strange9584 yeah, seeing the shot with Viggo having several arrows in his back for example was another one of those serious “oh shit” moments that added weight to the scene and character because you knew this was his final moments. his final act, which made it more meaningful and earned that mature animation.

[@PhoenixFlight8D]

If you look closely, you can see most of their budget in animation go into Alex's glasses cause they warp her hair and face when she moves her head like how real prescription glasses do

[@rodrigoandorinha9259]

At least the budge went to a good character

[@timsmith8489]

I've always assumed that the reason Hiccup and Astrid took their kids with them to the Hidden World is because they know that (1) someone needs to periodically check to make sure the dragons are still safe and no one else has discovered the Hidden Word and check on do any needed maintenance on Toothless' tail and (2) this needs to continue after Hiccup and Astrid are gone. They want to keep the number of people who know where it is minimal, so the plan is that it will the Haddock immediate familiar that handles this. Hence they took the kids so the kids can take over that role when they are older, and I'd expect that Hiccup will also teach one or both of the kids enough blacksmithing to deal with Toothless' tail. The kids will do the same with their kids and so on through the generations. That spear head could have been dropped on one of those later checks by Hiccup or Astrid or their descendants. It wouldn't have to be dropped into the depths. It could have been dropped near the entrance. We've seen dragons that like to collect metal things such as Smothering Smokebreaths. A piece of shiny metal dropped near the entrance could easily end up pretty much anywhere in their hundreds of years later once those dragons found it.

[@noahira3123]

That's a decent theory but it still makes me wonder why they stopped this tradition and the only remnace of it left in modern day is a old helmet with paint on it that somehow survived 1300 years of being used and passed down/around.

[@amadandearbhte4318]

@@noahira3123 I suppose when the viking era ended it became forgotten?

[@painttedHyena1974]

I feel like that would've been a far better premise for the show. They've been doing this for thousands of years and now it's the protags turn to do so.

[@NAME-yg8sl]

@@noahira3123 maybe when Toothless died they thought the checks were unnecessary, or it became more dangerous?

[@maffe_distroyer]

@@NAME-yg8sl that could be a awesome plot point propuse from a teenager annoyed by the tradition

[@TecumsehRulesbcserk]

Remember, the Cartoon Network series had even less time for development than this thing and it still came out with better stories, characters, and animations

[@angelic1411]

That isn’t exactly something good, less time for better stuff just mean that there was a team working under a unrealistic amount of pressure for less money, this show can look bad but is how a rushed and cheap show should look like

[@franciscorui]

You know, being set in modern day you would've guessed that they'd go for a scientific angle for the dragons and such, going into the biology and how they work,, maybe giving the dragons cool tech. But no, doing nothing is just as good

[@Bustermachine]

I mean, I don't see any reason for the dragons to be technological. They were always more like fantastical cryptids. Actually cooking up a basic ecosystem would have been cool though.

[@franciscorui]

@@joshpatterson9844 Thunder could literally produce electricity, you would guess that they used that to power something.

[@christopherpaige7012]

I just realized that the idea of business exploiting dragons isn’t even a new idea for this series. That was Viggo’s goal, hunt dragons and exploit them for profit.

[@miser2570]

Okay lets admit it, somewhere in character design, June became someones (who is writting scenes) OC, because that way of forcing an scene of opening up with her instead of Alex, despite logic and coherence calling for otherwise just reminds me of very similar occurrences in other media with OCs from the writters, and the purple eyes are also an usual sign of this.

[@Felixitations98]

Honestly I'd be more excited to watch a series where the roles between the parents and the kids were reversed. The adults of the series discovering the dragons and trying to learn more abt them while also keeping them secret from evil corp etc etc...... the kids are there also, i guess

[@Mediados]

It would make so much more sense, but then they would have to write the story in a way more mature way

[@SSMp315]

YOO MAKE THE DRAGONS ACTUALLY DANGEROUS AND THE ADULTS TAKING A RISK TO TRUST THEM BECAUSE THEIR KIDS ARE TOO CURIOUS AND MIGHT SCARE/IRRITATE THE DRAGONS UNINTENTIONALLY SO THE ADULTS KEEP THEM A SECRET WHILE JUGGLING THEIR KIDS BS

[@DatScharger64]

But how are you going to hook the child-demographic, when most of the time they'll see boring, complicated adult-stuff?!?!?!?! No, seriously, it would be very interesting to see the whole thematic being handled by grown up people while still having to take care of their duties outside work. Maybe other villains than evil corporations, say, their CEO who just says "Fuck dragons, I want the resources down there and if you refuse, I'll hire people who will do it". Or, probably turning it into a parody, pictures and movie clips leak to the Social Media, drawing tons of attention and making the adults rich - but since everyone and their mother wants to see real dragons, it only creates problems since there are masses of people entering their territories every day. And if you don't mind it to be cliché, just pull the military out. Keep the children, sure, but only when their parents try to keep them away from dragons for their safety. Or maybe you pull a reverse "Forbidden Friendship"-scene with them. "Mark, wake up, quick!" "What the hell dude, why are you calling me at 2 am in the morning?! I'm not on the night shift!" "I know man, but one of those dragon-things has chewed the cables in our excavator, and..." "Then go to Gordon with that, he knows how to fix them!" "Yeah, sure, but some other critter melted the tools and Gordon went missing chasing after it, sooo..." "Ugh, fine, I'm coming." *click* "There goes my weekend, I guess..." "Daddy, there are two huge yellow eyes staring at me from outside my window!" "NO, GOD!"

[@Mediados]

@@DatScharger64 You can easily explore topics that children understand but make them more mature by having adult characters. See Infinity Train Season 4, main topic friendship and understanding.

[@DatScharger64]

@@Mediados Oh, I know. I was just joking. :) I love Stardew Valley for luring you into a cutesy farming-game, until you look beneath the surface and discover some dark and disturbing stuff, without it outright smacking it in your face.

[@sergeantdogmeat2270]

seeing those AWESOME character designs that actually feels more ALIVE and comparing it to the final product makes me really, really sad

[@TeenyTinyGolem985]

Yeah, those designs looks so good. How did the final product have less quality than the suggest design.

[@catkoicalico]

The tangent about Feathers's saddle made me think about Ark: Survival Evolved's incorporation of it. You see, ARK has a dragon capable of disappearing and making its rider and saddle disappear with it. While that's easily excusable as game mechanics, they explicitly explain it in the creature Dossiers, pieces of text you can find to learn more about the animals - Rock Drakes use their long plumage to mask the saddle and the rider with them. It's that easy to explain and they just couldn't be bothered.

[@DragonGirlStar]

It's the same thing with Stealth Dragons in the HTTYD original books, they have enormous spikes that can hide a rider (or 3 small riders, as is the case) while the dragon camouflages.

[@bm194]

"The brony fleshlight" had me dying. Audrie is absolutely hilarious throughout this entire video.

[@nichronos2925]

You're a braver soul than I Audrie. I couldn't stomach watching past episode 2 of the first season. You know what nine realms reminds me of? It's like a doppleganger or a shapeshifter. It found HTTYD, ate its corpse then started parading around in its skin in a macabre dance in an attempt to survive off of HTTYD's ecological niche.

[@figs-oliomedley]

banger of an analogy, dude

[@justapillow2443]

This analogy reminds me of The Thing, but I'm pretty sure even the alien would be disgusted by what this show is

[@MintySweetea]

Honestly that sounds like more of an interesting concept than what NIne Realms did

[@thestrangers3588]

I couldn't even watch the first 10 minutes of the first episode

[@greenhat8978]

Reminds me of the villain from the first Men In Black movie when you say it like that

[@KaeraNeko]

as someone who gets ridiculously passionate about things I love getting godawful sequels or adaptations, I really resonate with your energy.

[@nighthawk6777]

Same

[@ShadowWolfRising]

Same 'Looks at Star Wars'.

[@DirectorDelta]

@@ShadowWolfRising beat me to it.

[@pumba12305]

Best way to have continued dragons would've been to let hiccup and astrids children find their own dragons and friends, find their own path and create their own story.

[@thywolfshark]

Honestly for the unicorn dragon- they missed the opportunity to do a kirin

[@elizabethbarhorst605]

When I watched the show I found it weird that the zombie/shedding Featherhinds kidnaped other featherhinds. Like they just explain it as "Oh they are grumpy since there shedding, so that's why they kidnapped other featherhinds." As a lizard mother of three geckos I can confirm that yes when lizards shed they are not happy, BUT they aren't grumpy enough to kidnap others/they are not aggressive to others. Also, when they shed they HATE moving cause its like moving in a pair of too small pants so they most likely would just sleep in the same spot until they are fully ready to shed. Also, I noticed that the feathers turn into these weird horn things when shedding which (in my opinion) does look cool but in context of the show is very weird. IDK, this plot point to me at least doesn't make that much sense. It would just make more sense to drop the zombie plot point and make the featherhind aggressive to the riders because they are on their territory or they see them as a threat which then you could split the group up from being attacked and they have a A plot or Alex getting over her fear and bonding with her dragon, and a B plot of the other riders trying to find her and figure out why the other Featherhinds are aggressive to them, which you could show more of Tom not wanting to harm them and wanting to find a way around that. (very basic story but helps to start to develop the characters somewhat) Also fuck those unicorn dragon hell spawn like serious how did no one stop and think that those looked demonic. (Forgive any grammar/spelling mistake i wrote this at 4am and i don't care to fix any of it)

[@NuclearNuggetz]

i'm unsure did the ghost reply already say what i'm going to, but when feathers are molting they grow out as pin feathers. pin feathers have this wax like coating that helps the feather grow out of the skin and makes the growing feather spike-like, in some situations actually quite sharp. the dragons having horn like pin feathers jutting out of their heads does make sense since the feathers are huge, thus the pin feathers growing out would be huge as well. not necessarily that big, but u know

[@elizabethbarhorst605]

@@NuclearNuggetz Oh, I didn't know that. That makes a lot more sense, lol. Thanks for the correction.

[@NuclearNuggetz]

@@elizabethbarhorst605 no probs, as a bird-nut i really wanted to explain pin feathers lol

[@Sadfilmguy]

I was trying to figure out why I also liked the Magma Breather so much more than any of the other dragon designs and I think I figured it out. Aside from being a charming chonky boy its design is probably the most reminiscent of the designs in the original franchise. It's a really nice design and I could fully believe it as a dragon in any of the movies or older shows which to me says that there is talent and someone who cares, which is almost more heartbreaking and makes me wonder how much of the show, from the designs to the plots, is a product of 'corporate sanitizing' and trying to make it 'appealing' to the widest possible audience. Anyway, this comment got longer than I expected, but thank you for the wonderful takedown of the series as it stands.

[@dragonseer2251]

Also, me and my friend were talking about the Skrill stuff. If the Skrill died with Vigo in the cave (assuming it did, as people think me included) then there would be at least one more Skrill because in "The King of Dragons pt2" we see a Skrill appear when the Bewilderbeast calls for all available dragons

[@FluffytheFloof]

A KZbin shorts creator found a skrill in the hidden world in the third movie.

[@dragonseer2251]

@@FluffytheFloof oh yeah! Forgot about that, honestly I just wish they kept the to thing where there was only one, made the Skrill more special, even if it did die

[@deerlyqueery]

Regarding the triplets: It's totally possible for a trio of siblings to have that range of skin tones with the same parents. Just look at Encanto with Pepa and Felix. Dolores, Camilo, and Antonio all have varied skin tones. Not sure how likely the skin tone variation is when it comes to triplets but I digress. This sure ain't what this show intended and I don't doubt that they just slapped a black skin tone on one of them, especially given the fire scene messup, but it ain't crazy.

[@angel-ts1lz]

this is an old comment, but to add on to this: triplets are, to my recollection, always identical so it still doesn't really make sense. kind of a minor nitpick though

[@hibikuokudan]

One of my co-workers has twin grandsons from a biracial marriage, and even though they're twins, they have different skin colors. It can happen

[@bugvideos2030]

As much as it can happen the joke is funny tbh

[@DCreed013]

@@angel-ts1lz Not true. Twins (and triplets) can be the result of two different processes. Either A) the embryo has an error during early development and splits into a copy, resulting in identical twins or B) there are two or more separate eggs to begin with that get fertilized. As such, it is entirely possible for triplets to be fraternal if there are three separate eggs released at the same time. It's also possible for them all to be identical, if the same duplication error happened twice to the same embryo. On top of that, it's ALSO possible for triplets to be a pair of identical twins AND a fraternal twin, if there are two separate eggs and ONE of them has a duplication error. In fact, all three triplets being identical is the rarest scenario of the three. The most common is all of them being fraternal.

[@rooksclown316]

Despite the fact that I don't know shite about genetics, I'm sure they said they were brothers, so they didn't have to use different models for them

[@umario251]

My guess for the black recolour model mistake was exactly what you pointed out already. The three brothers were similar in colour initially, as they are.. brothers. Then someone was like "WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH BLACK PEOPLE". They wanted to change a background character's colour therefore who wasn't pivotal, saw the scene with buzzsaw and the trio and were like, "there's not a single black person in this shot" forgetting that it's because the trio are literally brothers. They then went back and changed his colour in every scene.. except the one they forgot to change being in the fire scene since obviously the lighting is distracting and crazy and easy to miss which brother is which. A perfectly logical explanation to both why the "brothers" aren't the same range of tones and colour, and why only in the fire scene is he not black, and adding to the argument inclusivity isn't cared for but is shoe horned in to tick boxes otherwise this wouldn't have ever been a mistake as either all 3 or none of the brothers would have been black.

[@reinerbazzi9744]

Having one of the brothers having that dark of a skin tone in comparison not only makes zero genetic sense but also feels a little jarring to us as viewers Im all for inclusivity but a simple paint job is not how one makes a different race character

[@Coffnist_Charm]

@@reinerbazzi9744 it not that your upset that there's a poc in the show, it how the show handles that poc is the best way I've able to explain it

[@goosegas2087]

Maybe he's adopted, but... just why?

[@reinerbazzi9744]

@@goosegas2087 or mama was cheating ☠️ cause they look like the same model but with different skin tones

[@victory8928]

I think it would have made sense if they made buzzsaw a poc cause why not. Makes more sense and look a poc villain.

[@jacobstachyra797]

I have something to say about the spearhead. WHY DOES THE SPEARHEAD HAVE THE STRIKE SYMBOL. The spearheads/arrowheads we see in race to the edge have the hunter crest on it. It would make more sense to have the hunter symbol on the arrow then say we aren't the first ones here implying that dragon hunters have found the hidden world. This could lead to tom trying to figure out his past and the fight between the dragon riders and the dragon hunters. also, another thing ( correct me if I'm wrong) i don't think we have ever seen an arrowhead with the strike class symbol on it, so basically it is meaningless

[@paradoxtatorstudios9681]

as a fanatic of the show (seriously me and my sis watch the whole franchise every summer) i have never seen a strike arrowhead and after hearing audrie's better idea with hiccup's shoulder pad i am infuriated lol

[@MissJasmine305]

You've officially convinced me to start watching Race to the Edge. I watched the first HTTYD cartoon on CN but I didn't realize there were more. Race to the Edge sounds amazing. Thanks for the rec!

[@lucyandecember2843]

i hope you enjoyed it ^^

[@i..kindaquit]

The show is amazing, btw. I absolutely love Viggo and Dagur. The characters are genuinely interesting. And also, smash.

[@horse14t]

Honestly this series bares a striking resemblance to the Spirit Riding Free series by the sound of it! 1. There's a single character related to the original characters from the original movies and is set in a way that none of the original characters can ever show up. 2. Animation style is noticeably cheap and stiff (and sometimes ugly) with little regard as to how animals move, express and behave. 3. Background/minor characters are infinitely more interesting/fun to watch than the main cast. 4. Both series have remade scenes from their source material that mysteriously get dropped completely after the first couple of seasons. 5. They are both tone-deaf as heck when compared to their original counterparts. 6. Waaaayyyy more focus on the human characters than their original counterparts. 7. At least one overly annoying character that you wish would die or get written out completely! 8. Writing is noticeably _off_ in many ways making the series seem more juvenile or dumb compared to the writing of their original counterparts. Even if the rating has gone up. 9. Both center around characters that are younger than their original movie counterparts. There's probably more but that's all I got on top of my head. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if these similarities are due to the show teams having to work under the same higher ups who call the shots on what can and can't be in the shows.

[@Can_O_Crayola]

I'm getting the same impression off the new Abominable and the Invisible City series. Dreamworks seems to content to try and keep repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over in a low quality, lower budget effort to recapture the lightning in a bottle Trollhunters and HTTYD had.

[@bluetiger2468]

40:50 Honestly, I think they decided to make one of the brothers black as a last-moment idea to add diversity. Because they were called brothers and they basically looked like triplets with all the exact same facial structures. But I guess since they really really wanted to shove diversity into it, they made one of the brothers black but forgot to replace the model in the fire scene. I don't believe lighten issues would cause the character to have the same colored skin as everyone else in the shot. I'm mostly experienced in 2D animation but I've dabbled in 3D and lighting doesn't do that in 3D animation or at least they would have noticed the mistake while animating it. If it was a last-minute decision to change his skin color, now that is something that would be easier to miss, especially if you want to get everything done before a deadline. There's no way John would admit to a last-moment decision to change the skin color of one of the brothers to force more diversity only to forget to change the skin color of the model during the fire scene. It's easier and safer to blame it on lighting.

[@theflickchick9850]

Also, just because they have different skin tones doesn't mean the mom has been "sleeping around'. There's been actual accounts of mixed twins who have completely different skin tones. It's really fascinating.

[@bluetiger2468]

@@theflickchick9850 Yeah! I've heard of that a while back. They can be fraternal twins (or triplets in this case) which means they developed in different fertilized eggs. Since they are not identical triplets, it can allow them to develop unique features like having a different skin color. Those cases are fascinating! However, I doubt that's what they are trying to represent here mainly because when we first see the three characters 35:28, technically all three of them have different skin tones which would make it extremely unlikely since two of them can get the skin tones from their parents but where did the middle one get that type of skin tone? It's not even a lighter brown, it's basically a different race. You can't really have three different races in triplets unless it was a vitro fertilization with a third parent. It's a very strange character design choice, but I mean, we can't really look for logic in a show like this that was obviously rushed and is only using the "How To Train Your Dragon" name as a desperate attempt to get more viewers.

[@TheDoomBlueShell]

@@bluetiger2468 To be fair in 3D is quite normal for grunts do be the exact model with small changes between them, and like are they even real brothers or just Buzzsaw being a weirdo thinking they were brothers?

[@drathonix9930]

@@TheDoomBlueShell This is exactly what they did in Race to the Edge, all the grunts were the exact same model to the point where you'd see exact clones in the background.

[@bluetiger2468]

​@@TheDoomBlueShell I actually think it could have been a communication error between the animators and the writers. Because honestly, if Buzzsaw didn't say they were brothers, I wouldn't even think they were brothers even though they look similar because they would have just done what you said. Copy and past models and change a bit just to have new characters for one episode. It saves a lot of time to do that and time is money. I just feel like the original plan was to copy paste the models, change a few things, keep all of the with the same skin color, and just say they were brothers. Done! Perfect excuse to use the same model. But someone around the end of the production of the episode thought they looked too similar and maybe they didn't know the fact those guys were supposed to be brothers. Then they suggested some last-moment changes to make them look more different and add diversity. The animation supervisor approved of it and they went through with it. Only to forget to do it for the fire scene probably due to deadlines.

[@kylelee5966]

all I wanted was a short prequel film about night furies...showing how toothless ended up being the last of his kind maybe like 30 minutes long... that's all I wanted

[@gothiiispiderz]

wasn't it said that the villain of the third movie killed all or at least most of them?

[@kylelee5966]

@@gothiiispiderz yeah but would be interesting to see what lead up to that from toothless's perspective...plus we never really got to see other night furies in the franchise so it would have been nice

[@blobbertmcblob4888]

Well you heard old James Charles in the 3rd movie. He supposedly killed all of them. How he managed to track down and kill every single very intelligent and secretive dragon of a species? Well that's not important!

[@kspoo10_]

Is it just me or is June's clothing colour choice kind of weird? Everyone else in the group is wearing yellow, green & blue, but she's wearing purple. It really doesn't fit in, so when you look at posters you get the wrong idea of her role in the story. Is she purple because that's a mix of blue and pink, and they want to indicate that she's Tom's love interest?? Even then, why not give Tom some purple and June some blue, green or yellow? That would make it more obvious that they're supposed to get together _and_ make their palettes more cohesive! Edit: Spelling

[@lucyandecember2843]

i thought she was purple cause purple is a combination of blue and red, like her dragons colors

[@kspoo10_]

@@lucyandecember2843 Fair enough. But doesn't her dragon also have a large amount of yellow?

[@lucyandecember2843]

@@kspoo10_ i wouldn't call the yellow/gold a main color, more like ornate detail while the red and blue are the base colors representing water and fire. When thats said, i largely dont like the nine realms design. While i think Jun's purple theme is supposed to be a combination of Wu and Weis main colors, making her scheme represent her dragon, they could have done it so much better. For one thing the specific shade of purple seem out of place as the shade does not resemble what a mix of the specific red and blue shades would create. It would also look nicer if they added in some smaller details of yellow/gold aswell to keep the parralells. Maybe instead of her necklace being neongreen it could have been gold, or perhaps they could have made her eyes brown with a bit of a golden undertone to them. Idk, theres a lot they could do better i 100% agree with you on that. Looking at the main cast with their dragons is like looking at a kids lineup of random action figures from different franchises! God damn polly pocket Jun and paw patrol D'angelo with his discount fireman Sam father💀 Point is i find the overall color scheme for the group and the series characters in general abysmal. Anyways, pardon me for this mini rant.

[@PaintSplashProductions]

Hearing Haley Joel Osment say the word “granddaddy” will be up there in the top 10 cursed things I’ve ever heard in an animated series

[@Venandi_]

Oh gawd buzzsaw is voiced by the same VA who does Sora from kingdom hearts. I can’t unhear the always upbeat Sora trying to sound vicious… and failing miserably. Which is interesting because he voices another character in kingdom hearts, vanitas, and pulls off sounding vicious really well! Welp the series is already kind of an acid trip

[@kevin13cabello]

I didn't realize at first when hearing him talk but at the end of the video when she shows us the synopsis for season 3, I saw it said guest starring Hailey Joel Osment as Buzzsaw and I was like wth!? 😆 Edit: I went back in the video to hear his voice and yeah, that's 100% him lmao

[@Venandi_]

@@kevin13cabello that first clip of buzzsaw I immediately was like “hey… who is that? It sounds familiar…” it took another clip or two I think the one where he says his name and his voice has a higher pitch where I went “no… No…! No. *looks online* Oh NOOOOO-“

[@lily_flower0686]

@@Venandi_ Same, I can't unhear him now, thats not Buzzsaw, thats my little boy Sora 😭

[@dekuisagreatmaincharacter]

Just like Audrie calls Buzzsaw “Not-Daggur”, I call him “Not-Vanitas”.

[@xx_robotkrew_xx1446]

Buzzsaw looks like he’d be a villain in Paw Patrol and I’m not even kidding

[@alchemy5750]

I think too many people give a bad reputation to Dreamworks making this show. It's sad because Dreamworks' last original movie as an independent studio was How to train your dragon 3, and it really felt like they gave in everything they have for that last one, especially visually. That's the best-looking CG animation I've ever seen (purely CG, so Spiderverse doen't count). And then Universal comes, buys DreamWorks, puts the Illumination CEO on the lead (you know, the guy who's responsible for the minions) and he instantly orders a cheap series from HTTYD to milk the series dry. And the fact that Dreamworks gets all the hate for that is just sad... They wanted to finish the Dragons franchise off with 3. Just as they wanted to finish Shrek with 4. And Universal/Illumination now wants to keep on making sequels and spinoffs for both.

[@enderlord8771]

While I think I have a few grievances with that episode, I love that shot of Vigo stumbling over to reveal the arrows in his back.

[@MercuryAlphaInc]

... Yup, about what I expected. As an insight about how the writing can be this bad: it's not always the writer's fault. Producers are to blame. Say you have an idea for a movie or a tv show. You have your agent shop it around and a production company is like "We like your style, write us a script." You do so, you turn it in (you get 10 weeks to deliver it but it's best to deliver it in 8). After about 6 weeks you'll hear back from the studio with "corrections". Now, where do these corrections come from? Not from the CEO, not from the top dog producer, but from the producer several steps below that. Aka the guy/gall that desperately wants to make their mark. So they want morph your story into what *they* think is good and they want you to do the morphing, even if it doesn't make sense or it's absolute shit. If you refuse, they'll fire you and hire someone else to do the rewriting (funny thing is, you might end up getting hired again at the end to fix the shit that they broke). This might be the cause of the utter shite writing. The writing team might be trying to do good but the producers are absolute shlock who think they're competent storytellers but are actually about as competent as a blind and deaf nightguard who is completely paralysed and on life support...

[@axtrep2324]

I know dragonnip already exists in the universe, but I feel it's plausible he said "it's like dragonnip" just as the dragon version of catnip, without knowing what dragonnip is.

[@kspoo10_]

They should have said it's like catnip for dragons before deciding to call it dragonnip, so it seems more like a coincidence and less like he magically knows what dragonnip is.

[@AnixZiel]

Tbh I’d probably say the same thing if it was like involving I dunno… sharks. I’d call it Sharknip and move on

[@erikspyro9801]

27:30 *"Wonder how accurate that is."* As a tower clamber, using this types of ropes, not even close. This ropes can easily hold ten people. Also, these ropes are not solid, they are made up by lots of strings, forming a core, a supportive layer around the core, and a protective outer layer. I did some estimates and that rope should be _at least_ able to hold 4944 kg (long term) and withstand 24720 kg (short term) without breaking. The fact the rope broke is one of the most unrealistic things so far.

[@stoneforest2639]

The second I saw “thunder” on the Internet I thought they were a shitty chad night fury OC someone made. Then I learned it’s a tv show. I hate everything

[@samwortham2385]

Was it implied that there was only one skrill? I thought they were just rare enough that we only came across one.

[@2g33ksgamingttv3]

There were definitely a few lines that implied multiple skrills in a few of the later episodes they show up in RTTE but they were few and far between and easily missed

[@hydreigoncommander2043]

I hope this series gets what I call the "Clone Wars" treatment: in the show, "The Clone Wars," the first two seasons were not liked all that much by fans of Star Wars. However, when season 3 started, people started to get into it a lot more, and gained more of a following. I hope the same goes for Dragons: The Nine Realms. I have a feeling it won't, but hey, why not be hopeful?

[@2goober4u]

Season 2 is leaps ahead of season 1

[@hellboundchaoscommand7567]

Let us be realistic at least the clone wars had an amazing foundation to build off of this show… has the opposite

[@liaminator4950]

Honestly it was like an uphill slope of quality, s2 had some of s1's problems but the show was vastly better and kept on improving

[@samwortham2385]

The thing about The Clone Wars is that while the animation in the first two seasons isn't great, story-wise they were still fairly decent. Animation and story both got better, but they had a solid enough foundation for it. Trying that with this show would be like building on quicksand.

[@sombramemer1230]

Both were better than the ROTS film which was a low effort rehash of the OG Clone Wars with the no soul and very annoying plot holes like Anakin's entire motivation.

[@thatonefinn7062]

I just want to point something out: Uniconned episode reminds me a lot of a Defenders of Berk episode called Worst in Show. Its because in both of them a rider gets a ”second” dragon (in Defenders of Berk Fishlegs gets a Terrible Terror for training purposes) and start to kind of ignore their original one. It might just be a coincidence but wanted to point it out.

[@Alteori]

omg yes lol. You're brave. I couldn't finish the season

[@AudrieGreywind]

I honestly don't blame you lol. But hey RaisorBlade and I are talking about collabing for season 3, you're welcome to join us in the suffering.

[@Alteori]

@@AudrieGreywind That would be awesome. Not looking forward to the suffering lol but it helps if others are sharing the burden lol

[@AudrieGreywind]

@@Alteori Haha cool! We're keeping in touch on Twitter if you decide you're interested 🙂

[@Alteori]

@@AudrieGreywind definitely! 😃

[@msd2420]

42:00 I'm gonna tell you a bit of science(I know it's a kids show and it doesn't have to be realistic, but whatever). So the gas tanks when they explode they create a wave of high pressure air which, when it reaches a person who's organs have normal pressure, makes the organs to implode. The phenomenon is called overpressure and I don't believe that Buzzsaw should have survived...

[@greenhat8978]

I would have preferred that episode

[@opiedopie]

I think what annoys me most is that little was known when Rescue Riders was announced, so everyone assumed it would take place between movie 2 and 3. But then it turned out to be a non-canon kids show (which is fine). Then THIS comes along which actually IS canon and it's TERRIBLE. If they were going to end the franchise but then decide to make one more TV show, shouldn't they have done it with the old characters and set it between 2 and 3, seeing as the fire tides weren't released? I'm furious they chose this over another possible show like RTTE.

[@LunaTheMoonBean]

What’s crazy to me is that even without hearing any of the dialogue, i could tell just from the character design of buzzsaw that he was intended to be a dagur 2.0 its like they didn’t even try to hide it

[@katherina1643]

I just cracked up when I realized Buzzsaw has the same VA as Kingdom Hearts series' Sora, like HOW-

[@kata3436]

Buzzsaw confirmed for smash

[@katherina1643]

@@kata3436 NOOOHOHO

[@kata3436]

@@katherina1643 "For his neutral special, he weilds a gun."

[@katherina1643]

@@kata3436 I'll top you on that one "For his neutral special, he pours gasoline."

[@EvonneSol]

I'm gonna be real with y'all: there's a current running theme of different series' being brought back with worse animation and worse story than the original had. It almost seems like they're hoping nostalgia will carry them and they're finding out the hard way that nostalgia won't. We don't want a cheap rip-off of the original series, we want something creative enough to match the original, whether that's through good writing, good animation, or both. It's a lazy cash grab. That's all this is.

[@yikesyourchunkyhostilityha2321]

Ok, I'm not crazy thinking the animation is shit. I noticdd this trend a few years back and it is freaking annoying. I get "cheap" but they could've done better than this.

[@gabrielalmond3363]

You know it’s just really insulting when a fan of the franchise can up with a better villain than anyone that actually works on said franchise Edit: I’m pretty sure that ending between the Skrill and Thunder actually ripped off the beam lock from 1974 Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla

[@nocontextcrew7380]

Are we gonna ignore the fact that they somehow got HALEY JOEL OSMENT to voice buzz saw of all people

[@scepticalhyenas5750]

Another potential alternative for that last scene could have been finding the broken spearhead wedged into the scales of the skrill. Maybe it falls off when the skrill hits the wall especially hard? Or its wedged in the roof of its mouth? Something like that could mislead the kid to an interesting internal crisis of identity like _"oh my god , what if,, what if my viking ancestors who made this symbol were...... the bad guys?"_ / _"did my ancestors live with the dragons, or did they... did my ancestors KILL the dragons??"_ / _"the dragon realm was discovered BECAUSE OF MY ANCESTORS and hunted BECAUSE OF MY ANCESTORS and now its all gonna happen AGAIN and its ALL BECAUSE OF ME"_ or whatever, idk this was just such a genuinely boring way to do a season finale big reveal cliffhanger.

[@clevergoblin1714]

Cheap to produce, lazy uninspired animation, and its gotten a whole new season lightning quick. Something tells me this doesn't meet any kind of quality standard. Also I found this channel a week ago when youtube reccomended me the season one rant, so while im only freshly here I was kind of excited for another long rant/review type of video like this one. You put so much into it and its always nice to see hard work get rewarded.

[@Bustermachine]

Other people have mentioned, it's not unusual for a show to be signed for two seasons straight out of the gate, since you want to keep the production staff together if you decide to buy more seasons. And the staff basically works continuously. The logic may have used to be that if a show on broadcast was a stinker you'd just immediately can the whole project and shelves the season 2 work that had already been done. You take the hit of paying for part of the second season, but it's better than airing a show in a time slot that could be given over to something more profitable. Streaming services, though, don't have time slots, so the logic is to create quantity of bingeable content. Even a low effort show can distract the kiddies and inflate a streaming services reported catalogue. So it's much more likely even a crappy show will see its second season completed to try and squeeze some viewership out of it.

[@wiseman303]

I didn't see Grimmel as "Viggo 2.0". My reaction on first viewing was "It's Viggo Lite". I don't think there was enough time to build up Grimmel's character in the movie like there was in the show. They should have gone with a different kind of villain, rather than someone who would inevitably be compared unfavorably to a previous character.

[@mckenzie.latham91]

Grimmel has nothing on Viggo Grimmel is literally “dark Hiccup” even to the point their backstory was essentially the same, though instead of freeing his night fury, Grimmel killed it and became the hero of his tribe he would later develop methods of controlling dragons to use them against other dragons. He’s the cliche “mirror” version of the main character but not done in away where the similarity is more about actual circumstance and purpose and instead is just “take the main character and git him an evil doppelgänger etc,” Batman the killing joke does a good job of showing that our hero batman and our villain Joker both were created by acts of fate and violence that changed their lives forever, but where one took his pain and turned it to heroism in order to satisfy his trauma but also prevent others suffering his fate, the other went totally insane, finding cynicism and joy in the absurdity of life, chaos and pain this is the black and white mirror but done in a way where what makes the characters mirrored is their purpose, and how they deal with these actions, Joker is not batman just crazy, he’s totally different but they hare similar themes. They should have Kept Drago from the second film and either had him have a change of heart, sacrificing himself or helping the gang against the other warlords who may be vying for control of the army given Drago’s defeat by Hiccup in the second film having weakened his power or have him become even more dangerous because of being challenged by Hiccup and thus wants to turn the hidden world into a resource to conquer all of the world using the dragons there. Drago was too interesting and good of a character to just be dropped off after the second film.

[@MegaBond101]

@@mckenzie.latham91 nah Grimmel was Viggo lite and Drago was literally a mirror version of hiccup. Heck! He and his bewilderbeast both lost their left hand and tusk just like hiccup lost his leg and toothless lost his tail fin

[@mckenzie.latham91]

@@MegaBond101 Drago was not hiccup, though their wounds and the wounds of their dragons did give them a good parallel that the third film could have reflected more on Drago controls dragons through fear and intimidation while Hiccup uses positive reinforcement Drago wishes to use Dragons to control and rule people, Hiccup wishes for dragons and humans to live together but Drago’s family and home was burned by dragons, an act which both destroyed who he was originally and also took away his fear which allows him to control dragons through his will Hiccup never had an experience like that which affected him Meanwhile in the third film Grimmel literally says like Hiccup he captured a night fury but killed it and became the hero of his tribe and group it’s textbook Hiccup’s story if he had gone the other way instead of freeing toothless.

[@jamisanmatalonis8458]

He probably would’ve been a better villain if Viggo wasn’t there in the first place tbh. He had big shoes to fill.

[@jamisanmatalonis8458]

It actually would’ve been a nice reference if Hiccup at one point said “I’ve dealt with smarter enemies than you.”

[@briannecobb712]

I love how everyone concentrated on the race change but in the same scene the van drifts with its back tires over literal AIR

[@issacthemagus9073]

Here’s a random somewhat unrelated fact: there’s a skylander character who’s also a unicorn dragon. And she looks better than the bubblehorn

[@londyngray3659]

Whirlwind! She was the first Skylander I ever got

[@gasterthemaster6490]

@@londyngray3659 Twwists of fury!

[@mightyandray7260]

@@gasterthemaster6490 as soon as I read this I thought “Jibanyan on a Tuesday”. Don’t know how it being on a Tuesday has anything to do with it but.... I have the most random thoughts....

[@gasterthemaster6490]

@@mightyandray7260 ...Did you just remind me of my favourite childhood franchise (Skylanders comes 2nd)?

[@mightyandray7260]

@@gasterthemaster6490 you’re a yo kai watch fan to!?

[@mothmanmarcus346]

On the skrill thing..I never really considered the skrill being the only one of its kind since it wasn’t really emphasized as being so rare as much as toothless was in the series from what I can remember (still rare though) .. that and the skrill is by no means uncommon in other games like in school of dragons. And I get those are non canon or in their own sort of canon, but toothless still consistently remains the only night fury in every non canon material, and the skrill was never confirmed to be the last of its kind like toothless was. Plus, I think looking at nightfuries and the skrill from an ecological level rather than an individual one makes more sense in this scenario. Toothless and the Skrill HE knew were able to patch up their differences, but nightfuries and skrills in general probably compete for common resources due to the fact they fill similar niches (and since light furies are basically a sister species, we can assume they and any night lights are included) so it’s more of a generational rivalry in that respect.

[@vaehtay]

Hey! Just a little fun fact. If you look up animation jobs right now (I was specifically checking for storyboarders), you’ll find that dreamworks is hiring multiple people specifically to work on animated series’. I’d like to imagine they’re trying to fix the show KXHKDHXIHICH

[@vaitti8096]

Not sure if anyone noticed but the ceiling at 38:33 is the same as the floor, but then changes back to different material in the next shot

[@pyromancersaber]

I love all the cutaway gags you use. I completely died at 28:06 LMFAOOOOO

[@haxorouse3265]

no no, the rope would totally snap, it cut itself on the low poly model/s, in all seriousness sharp rocks and even unevenly worn carabiners can pose a risk to cutting a rope, but unless there's a whole lot of geometry to that rock we don't get to see because they didn't have the budget for more terrain polygons, that rock ain't even close

[@ShockwaveFPSStudios]

Fun fact, Haley Joel Osment (Who voiced Buzzsaw) voices Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series, and Vincent Tong (Who voiced Eugene), has previously voiced Kai from LEGO Ninjago Masters of Spinjitzu. Not only that but the voice of Tom Kullersen is Jeremy Shada, who’s best known for voicing Finn the Human on Adventure Time. Edit: I forgot to mention that both Jeremy Shada and Vincent Tong both have voiced a character in Voltron. Vincent Tong voiced Daniel in Voltron Force, Jeremy Shada voiced Lance in Voltron Legendary Defender (Which is also another DreamWorks show). So we got two Voltron actors in a DreamWorks series.

[@mich4474]

39:10 made me laugh so hard i got a nose bleed. I love how much of a shit show it is. How do they even manage to make mistakes like that 😭

[@RadiSky]

As someone’s who’s gonna graduate from animation too, it makes my head hurt knowing why on 39:45 the skin of that dude changed, they literally must’ve had two models with different skintones (like, why?) or the rendering of those exact scenes had some kind of error and they didn’t care and just went with it or I dunno, because yes, lighting can change the tone of skin and it’s tricky for 3d, but at the same time, his skin looks almost the same as the others. This show is a mess

[@genethemineman]

"sorry this is way above my pay grade"

[@TheDoomBlueShell]

Like at least was just the skin tone in Transformers Cyberverse a character changed between the male and female model between shots, well at least we got the first TRANSformer but still how to you miss a whole model change?

[@Cherubpuppet]

*season 3 rolls around* “Hello, it is I, Hiccup. I have secretly been stuck here for the past 1300 years.”

[@hresvelgr7193]

At this point I wouldn't put it past them

[@gasterthemaster6490]

@@hresvelgr7193 they could use the Mistwister dragon to freeze Hiccup and Toothless for 1,300. And they would think that would be CLEVER.

[@hresvelgr7193]

@@gasterthemaster6490 Please. Don't give them ideas

[@gasterthemaster6490]

@@hresvelgr7193 I wrote it as a joke without thinking too much, but now that I think about it, they could actually do that.

[@samuelzachariah8739]

I’m glad they made a second season It means we get another review 🤣🤣

[@A_ghost_leviathan]

This show literally just exists to remind you how good race to the edge is

[@AntonVoyt]

I mean, I'm thankful for Dreamworks for releasing this series. If they didn't- we wouldn't have these videos to watch. And also, it's kinda flattering that absolutely minuscule issue that I've brought up last time was addressed. It 100% didn't need to be, but its nice it did.

[@HydragonofDeath]

I think the designs for the dragons still sucks the most. HTTYD never had the most realistic proportions, but the designs felt great all around, there was never a dragon whos design I felt was just bad, just some I didnt like personally. The designs for the dragons in this though, are too, weird, I dunno what it is, maybe its something about how they look half-cartoonish but now all the way? Or maybe its the bland, oversaturated, bright colors, because they honestly look more like toys and dont fit into the artstyle with the human characters. I had this same issue with godzilla singular point regarding the kaiju and the humans. Also the two headed dragon, dunno the name, its whiskers feel fake, their wayyy too static, sure its hard to animate whiskers and stuff, but surely they have some physics system for it?.

[@oncreativemode5486]

y'now how you can tell the difference between a semi "realistic", heavily stylized magic shotgun in a video game and a knockoff toy gun from your local supermarket? the latter is basically every dragon design in the nine realms

[@DR1PPYG0KU]

59:30 Don't forget that time that Krogan literally split a dragon hunters head with his axe

[@sebbycat360]

42:39 as a Missourian I wasn't expecting that and I can confirm 😭😭😭

[@noahira3123]

Same, died laughing when heard her say that.

[@sunlightaura3916]

I wouldn't call the animation lazy, but I would call it VERY cheap. The artists probably had a super limited budget, with very strict deadlines. Which is a shame, because if they were given a larger budget, I'm sure they would polish up designs and the art style more. Heck, maybe even a better story. This is just . . Gross. I definitely believe the higher ups were in charge of make a lot of these calls. As someone who graduated with an animation degree and currently is working in the industry . . This whole show is very frustrating to watch. Great analysis though :')

[@Average_Drone]

Oh no, it’s very lazy and rushed. This isn’t to say I blame the animators, they had no choice but to rush it to meet deadlines. it’s absolutely repulsive to look at and I’ve seen better animation from solo youtube content creators that are like 14 years old. How much hair gel do these characters use that their hair never moves. The rigging looks stiff and uncanny, like babies first blender animation. The lighting just doesn’t work with the characters, making them look like plastic, and they simply don’t fit in with their environment. The dragons wings move stiffly as well, making them look like every bone in them are absolutely fused together. I wont even talk about the new dragon designs because that a whole other can of rotting worms.

[@lobaoguara2332]

I'm seriously thinking about writing a fic of this just to give more spotlight to the best girl (Alex) and put a protagonist with reason to do what he does because Tom looks like those actors who only read the script and say they act hahaha

[@Alicewatcheseverything]

“The show starting to look like I walked into a VR chat” 😂😂

[@mollymccall1402]

My jaw dropped when you mentioned Dumbsville and you are entirely correct

[@gopniksaurolophus6354]

Yk it occurs to me that Hiccup himself killed dragons when it was necessary, but didn't feel all that guilty about it.

[@sebastianengelsman7255]

I think it might be safe to say that DreamWorks will do, to Httyd, what Disney is going to do with what was Blue Sky Studios properties. If you don’t know who Blue Sky Studios is they were guys who created Ice Age and Rio. When they were shut down by Disney last year, we thought when the company died, their franchises died with them. But no. Disney created Ice Age frigging 6 and are currently in development of Ice Age 7 and Rio 3!

[@mckenzie.latham91]

I will reserve judgement on those films until i see how Disney deals with them, to be honest Disney has had some good lower quality but well written sequels Lion King 2, Simba’s Pride is actually good, 101 dalmatians 2 Patch;s London Adventure was good, Beauty and the beast Belle’s Magical Christmas was great and had Tim Curry as an evil magical pipe organ etc. I will wait and see if they can do something better than Blue Sky did with their sequels though i did nt know Disney had shut them down if only we could get Illumination to fall like that, at the very least Dr Suess wouldn’t be kept getting raped in his grave,

[@Barabel22]

@@mckenzie.latham91 All those were back in the 90s/early 2000s…todays Disney is NOTHING like the Disney of back then. Look What they did to Star Wars, and how power hungry and greedy they are these days…

[@mckenzie.latham91]

@@Barabel22 *todays Disney is NOTHING like the Disney of back then.* Moana, Coco (Disney Pixar), Zootopia, Encanto, Luca, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, Owl House, Duck Tales reboot, Marvel etc. etc. all within the last 5-10 years... * Look What they did to Star Wars* Who gives a shit...fun fact, there are more properties and works that matter and count beyond star wars, and the whinny pissant over 30 year old armchair lords and basement dwelling neckbeards who keep bitching about star wars online like ragged cunts in heat are more annoying than the actual star wars subjects they covering. * and how power hungry and greedy they are these days…* What’s that, a capitalistic corporation being capitalistic and greedy, who would have ever thought? Again as i said i will reserve judgement until the films are actually out to be judged, anything else is clear sign of bias and not intellectual honesty and if we’re going to do that then at least admit that’s what’s going on.

[@ABlueStitchInTime]

@@mckenzie.latham91 You are naming CLASSIC 2D Disney sequels, we haven't gotten anything like what we got from the 90s/2000s in a long time.. I do think Disney +'s 3D animation will look better then Dragons: The Nine Realms for sure.

[@JotkaJulitkaJula]

The concept art characters are superior in every way

[@TalchoTheFolf]

The part where Len said "A Lightning Bird?" You should've but Zapdos when ever he says that, it would be very funny 😁

[@tokaku]

oh my god I just watched your first part yesterday and you uploaded an update today, nice!

[@viveliamgiraffeknul204]

What's funny is that you're not even the only one LOL. Had the exact same thing happen to me

[@valleyofholmes]

SAME

[@therussianartem]

Same lol

[@JDMSakura]

Same😂

[@SSMp315]

Love your vids!

[@yeeyeeyeeye]

Thank you for (literally) sacrificing your eyesight for our amusement by watching this mediocre, white bread show. I am convinced that practically 90% of this show's problems like the filler dialogue and the random unexplained chekhov guns would have been fixed if it was given more time and it wasn't literally shoved to Hulu/Peacock. Maybe if they just held it back a bit longer - like maybe several more years - the writers would have a direct and clear vision of how this ties into the HTTYD franchise instead of ingenuine, half-assed nods to the original movies, shows, and comics. The fact that new seasons are coming out so soon really doesn't give much hope that it'll get better though.

[@carrot23810]

15:31 w h a t

[@star-crossedallies3667]

One of my favorite show named monkie kid actually works with the same issue of time shortage. There are 10 episodes in a season and each episode is 10 minutes. Knowing this they set the pacing of the show relatively fast (and although it feels a little overwhelming at times) it works really well. Can’t wait for you season 3 vid lol these are too fun

[@softsounds8453]

Steven Universe: Future suffered from this same thing. 11 minute episodes that got their season count cut down to less than a third than what it should've been. Show is rushed as fuck because of it and it shows :{

[@remor698]

Considering that early season 3 synopsis at the end, I guess we have an answer to the question of why the show is called "The Nine Realms" now. Given, that it explicitly mentions not just the Crystal Realm, but also the Fire Realm, it seems safe to assume, that the whole Hidden World has been split into nine realms... a fact that apparently isn't mentioned anywhere in the actual show, so given the variety of underground environments we have seen, there is a 50/50 shot on whether or not we have seen more than just the Crystal Realm so far. Also, if that mean 2/9 realms explored by season 3, this awful show seems to have quite the long runtime planned... Oh well, more content for you to make and us to enjoy, I guess. I just hope your mental health can survive for that long. Also, Silkspanners are a thing in the digital space, specifically Rise of Berk... a httyd mobile game. Not exactly like bringing them into an animated show, but hey, it's something, I guess.

[@hamishstewart5324]

Honestly I feel like, instead of the nine realms just being something as basic as crystal realm, fire realm, etc., they could also go places the original franchise hadn’t gone before and add in other mythical creatures/cryptids aside from dragons. Jun has mentioned cryptids like the yeti and chupacabra, so what if we actually got to see them. What if there were creatures like unicorns, griffins, goblins, etc, hiding down in the hidden world each inhabiting different realms. Hell, they could even add a realm populated by prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs, pterosaurs, megafauna, etc, that managed to escape extinction by going down below the earth and never resurfaced because geological movements over time made it so that they physically couldn’t.

[@TaurielTheElf]

@@hamishstewart5324 That last part would be a bit too similar to Ice Age.

[@SoullessFoxDemon]

So! I can actually comment on the skin color/lighting thing, as that my job! When you render 3d for film/tv, everything doesnt render to how to appears on tv. Everything is split into different layers that a compositing artist then put back together however the scene is suppose to look. Most of the time, lighting doesn't change within the 3d program other than what angle the light is coming from. In compositing you put everything together and change colors as needed, this could mean making things blue for night time scene or red/orange for the fire scenes. We can control the color of almost anything. Based on how the skin color has changed, it looks like the grabbed the color effects from 1 of the characters and just copy/pasted it. This is something that common but should have absolutely been caught by the workers supervisor, lead or the client (Dreamworks) themselves when looking at the show in review. It does mean that the error is explainable, but isnt excuseable. It shows that the Show had something down the line that caused rush jobs/ not proper quality control.

[@alexandergonyea4642]

Another comment I had regarding the whole age-rating situation. I was distinctly reminded of the show Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. Similar overall vibe to Nine Realms, I'd say, especially since both were streaming service exclusives. Yet that show had some BALLS. Like, people died for real, in that show, no questions asked, forcing the creators to get creative with how people died in it, namely by having them happen off-screen; but still making it obvious in terms of the fact that a person was just eviscerated by dinosaurs. Sure, if you wanna split hairs about it, Camp Cretaceous is a TV-PG but Nine Realms is TV-G, but that doesn't change the fact that they're both within the same spectrum of each other, and same general target audience. Yet that show was far more willing to get dark when it needed to.

[@briannecobb712]

I swear to god my reaction to 12:26 was literally the equivalent of that Jschlatt clip where he repeats “that is not funny” into a garbage mic