Hacker Cinema
The Dragon Prince
2018 · TV series · 26 min episodes · 7 seasons
Created by Justin Richmond, Aaron Ehasz
AnimationActionAdventureScience FictionFantasyFamily
An extraordinary discovery inspires two human princes and an elven assassin to team up on an epic quest to bring peace to their warring lands.
7 positive1 negative2 mixed3 neutralfrom 13 commenters
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14 comments on Hacker News
I commented on here before about this. I'm certainly not perfect, but what I've done is basically YouTube is something the kid doesn't watch on their own. They can watch documentaries with me or whatever (occasionally some video game stuff), but almost all YouTube kids is awful. There are a lot of really good kids shows out there across different streaming services with actual plots and character development that make them think without frying their brains. For a kid in the 8-14 year range: Avatar the Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, Owl House, Dragon Prince...etc are prob fine depending on the kid (dragon Prince is a bit darker). As a parent you need to make sure they're not watching content you object to though. I'll also find some episodes of something like Star Trek that is interesting with some moral dilemmas and just talk it out with them. TV is fine in moderation. Make sure you keep reading to them as well.
I'm not sure there's ever been more options for good shows that a parent can watch and genuinely enjoy with their kids. Try Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Hilda, Sarah & Duck, Adventure Time, Miraculous, The Dragon Prince, MLP Friendship is Magic, She-Ra and the Princess of Power, Samurai Jack, Gravity Falls, Ducktales (the new one, but the old one isn't bad either), Cleopatra in Space, Amphibia, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Owl House, Craig of the Creek, Steven Universe, LEGO Elves, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Over the Garden Wall, Infinity Train, and the Disney Fairies movies.
I'd also recommend getting your hands on the cartoons you enjoyed as a kid. Odds are good your kids will like them for the same reasons you did, although you may find that they don't all hold up for you.
So stop watching it. That’s the answer.
The problem with all this “modernisation” (what a euphemism) stuff going on in entertainment is that you’re trying to transform and change existing characters and franchises.
It’s just a money grab to capitalise on existing characters with existing fan bases.
Inevitably it’s ruined. Bond fans aren’t watching Bond movies thinking “this is sexist”. LoTR fans aren’t reading a fantasy series with influences from Christianity and a white guys experience in WWI thinking “we need more representation of people of colour and genders”.
The solution to this is also trivial: Forget all the old stuff. Write new characters and stories. Or build fans for modern works.
We’re already seen this done: Avatar (not the blue alien one), Dragon Prince, Wheel of Time.
I'm somewhat this way, but more than somewhat when it comes to TV shows. I think something like 80% of my favorite shows were cancelled early. Firefly, Freaks & Geeks, Shadow & Bone, ...
Perhaps I should set up a Patreon where people can give me money to not watch things.
(Admittedly, this may be a mathematical artifact. Cancelled shows have less opportunity to decline in quality. At one point, The Dragon Prince was my all-time favorite show. I haven't even bothered to watch the last several seasons. It is even possible that the people cancelling the show are able to accurately predict that something is going to go downhill in the future, though I doubt it.)
Funny timing that this particular topic made it to HN. From the recently-released Season 4 of The Dragon Prince, this is one of the reasons Claudia is so infatuated with Terry, an Earthblood elf.
Netflix ending binge watching is reported to be a rumor: https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/netflix-binge-release-series-strategy-1235407736/
(/me busy binge watching the latest Dragon Prince release).
This is disney+hulu+espn combined!
When hotstar was bundled with Hulu - hulu suddenly got huge infusion of Indian movies and shows. Nothing Netflix has even comes close.
I wonder also, if they are counting hotstar, which is pretty big in India.
Having said that - I personally find content on disney+ boring and stale. Some Marvel and Star War spin offs are okay, but most are meh. I don't know how to put it, but disney+ is trying too hard to en-cash popularity of existing franchise and I believe lacks depth.
Netflix while has uneven programming has/had shows which are pretty good and break new ground(IMO). Queen's Gambit, Dragon Prince, Arcana etc are pretty good. They have also wasted money on the whole witcher show and their "original" movies are by and large meh.
I was surprised to see The Dragon Prince but not ATLA.
Even on rewatches, the show is powerful for me. There are two episodes that will always make me at least tear up. I would almost hazard to say it is a perfect show for youth. Even the youth qualifier feels shaky sometimes.
Just to add in, an animated show I have rewatched a lot that still inspires me is "Ping Pong the Animation". I recommend the original voice work for the initial run, especially if you understand Chinese. They recasted one of the characters for the bluray release, and the delivery is not quite right in my opinion.
Animated movies that I often rewatch (in no particular order):
- Spirited Away
- Grave of the Fireflies
- Finding Dory
- Up
- Tokyo Godfathers
- Akira (NOT the English dub, which completely changes the story and dialogue for the worse, and for no good reason)
- Mononoke Hime
- Ghost in the Shell (the original one)
- My Neighbor Totoro
Animated series I'll rewatch:
- Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
- Castlevania
- Futurama
- Archer
- Arcane
- Cowboy Bebop
- Ergo Proxy
- The Dragon Prince
- Hakaba Kitaro
- Star Trek: Lower Decks
I'm not a twitter user, but I would think these stats speak to some measure of pop-cultural relevancy?
"‘Euphoria’ Is the Most-Tweeted TV Show of the Decade (So Far)"
https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/euphoria-most-tweeted-tv-show-1235190599/
and
"‘Abbott Elementary’ Is No. 1 Most-Tweeted TV Comedy of the Year to Date"
https://news.yahoo.com/abbott-elementary-no-1-most-171433284.html
Also this https://www.imdb.com/chart/tvmeter/?ref_=tt_ov_pop list has Euphoria as #2 (formerly #1), although to be fair Abbott is not on the list, and I'm personally not familiar with Pieces of Her. So fair enough, might be overestimating for Abbott - but it is on ABC so perhaps relevant to average people. And of all of these shows mentioned, I've only seen The Dragon Prince - I'm only aware of the other ones via discussions.
Aside from what my sibling comment said about a fantasy world, why'd you pick Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and The Dragon Prince? Surely shows like Abbott Elementary and Euphoria would be more culturally relevant? Or recent animated movies Encanto and Turning Red?
And even as far as the Dragon Prince is concerned, it's interesting how you mention it as overrepresentation when much of the diversity is relegated to secondary characters. Callum, Rayla, Claudia, Soren and Viren are all white (elves are in some ways minority coded, but the British accent makes that remain firmly in the realm of coding), and seem to be straight and cisgender.
I personally love stories with "overrepresentation" - and not only just to make up for a massive history of erasure and underrepresentation. It makes me so happy to hear people saying "I usually don't feel seen, but THIS character, they look/sound/act like me!" Honestly, as a gay man I still don't feel especially seen - and as far as gay characters I feel connected to beyond just that, it's pretty limited. I can think of maybe... 4 main characters? And they're all in the past few years.
Not every show, but lots of shows over represent minorities in main cast in what appears to be a conscious DEI effort.
For example, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist gives the impression of high representation of minorities in tech (Sprqpoint is extremely DEI friendly being a woke silicon valley tech company, but even the main character's non-techy neighbor is a black genderfluid woman dating a gay black man).
The Dragon Prince gives the impression of high representation of minorities as well (with 1 main character and his kingly father black, 1 main character having gay parents, the rulers of the neighboring country being lesbian, etc).
I'm not saying that's wrong, just that minority groups don't need to make up 126% of TV actors in order to be overrepresented in main cast.
Heck, even outside of media, look at the Supreme Court. Soon 2/9 justices will be black, which is 22% of the court - an over representation of the black population. Again, not that I have a problem with that, just that DEI efforts can cause high visibility groups (such as a TV show's main cast) to be overrepressented by minorities.
To answer some of the comments:
The show with Jason Mamoa was unwatchable, pun intended.
I also watched all the kids content which was either boring or bad. I had high hopes for the Charlie Brown content but my kid who loves space was pretty bored by their show on Snoopy going into Space.
Netflix has can’t-miss comedians like Dave Chappelle and all their specials. They have excellent kids shows like Dragon Prince and a ton of Captain Underpants offerings. HBO Max had new movies coming direct to streaming. Amazon Prime has a bunch of movies for free and it has The Boys. I think their kids shows are decent. Disney+ had all the MCU content including the new shows.
AppleTV+ had none of the above. They may have one-off shows that aren’t horrible but it’s not enough to sustain a subscription. I haven’t heard any buzz about them from my social network because absolutely no one uses AppleTV+. I’m the only one I know that even gave some of the content a shot. I would say that’s a complete failure for a trillion dollar company.
Some Netflix shows are over the top with political correctness.
Dragon Prince is one example. Cute show, but very in your face.
Old 80s sitcom Dinosaurs, ran into the same problem. Later episodes often made you feel bad. Not the best for a comedy show.
You can agree with a stance, but you don’t always want it shoved down your throat.
Oh look every cast member is a different race/ gender/ orientation. Oh great, but is the show any good?