Wonderstorm

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The dragon prince (season 2)
1.13px Youtube screen shot
Country of origin	USA Canada
No. of episodes	18
Release
Original network	Netflix
Original release	14 September 2018 (2018-09-14)
Additional information
Website	www.netflix.com/au/title/80212245

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Wonderstorm, Inc. is a Los Angeles based media studio founded by Aaron Ehasz, Justin Santistevan and Justin Richmond in 2017. All three founders previously worked at the game development studio Riot Games, which is most famous for creating the massive online battle arena game League of Legends (Sinclair, 2017).. Wonderstorm is most popular for its animated fantasy series The Dragon Prince, which premiered on Netflix on September 14, 2018, with a second season that aired on February 15, 2019. A “AAA-quality” video game adaptation of the show, which will be set in the same universe and developed by Wonderstorm, has also been announced by the creators of the show, although no set release date has yet been announced (Clark, 2019)

History

The company was founded in 2016 when the three founders left their previous jobs at Riot Games create their own studio. Aaron Ehasz was best known for his position as the head writer and director of the renowned series Avatar: The Last Airbender. He began the company alongside Justin Richmond and Justin Santistevan. The former was most famous for being the director of the popular PlayStation video game, “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception”, and the latter was known to have worked for 4 years at Riot Games on its flagship franchise League of Legends. Giancarlo Volpe, who had directed 19 episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, had also been brought along by Ehasz to help in directing the show. (Kleinman, 2018) Wonderstorm is currently being supported by MWM (formerly Madison Wells Media), which is its lead investor and executive producer for both the game and show. MWM will be helping in the production of this franchise due to its interests in various mediums including TV, VR/AR, film and live events . The first season of the Netflix original, The Dragon Prince, was released on September 14, 2018, while season two came out on February 15, 2019; each season having 9 episodes. A third season has been confirmed although a release date has not yet been announced (Griffin, 2019).

Noteworthy people

Aaron Ehasz is most famous for being the head writer and director of the critically acclaimed Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. He began his career in the year 2000 as a writer for the TV series Ed and Mission Hill. In 2001, he was hired as a writer on Simpsons’ creator Matt Groaning’s new show on Fox, Futurama, where he worked until the show’s cancellation in 2003. He was rehired on Futurama after the show’s revival in 2009. Between Futurama runs, Ehasz was head writer, director and co-executive producer on Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated TV show. The show was an anime inspired TV series about a young martial artist destined to bring balance to the four elements of antiquity and his conflicts with the nations of martial artists who oppose him (Robinson, 2018). The series won critical acclaim and Ehasz was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding animated program in 2007 for his work on the second season of the show (Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 2009). The series was made into a critically panned live action film in 2010 by M. Night Shyamalan, but was otherwise successful, resulting in a spin-off series titled The Legend of Korra in 2012 (Robinson, 2018). Regarding his work with Wonderstorm and on The Dragon Prince, Ehasz has said "...from the beginning, [The Dragon Prince] is intended to be an amazing story, but also a world from which we can build incredible games and play experiences." (Farough, 2019). Justin Richmond is the co-founder of Wonderstorm and the co-creator of The Dragon Prince alongside Ehasz. He previously worked as a game designer at Riot Games, working on their flagship series League of Legends. He is also known for being a game designer on the critically acclaimed video games Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Robinson, 2018). Regarding his experience founding Wonderstorm, Richmond has stated "We got very lucky that every time I thought was the lowest point, some very positive thing would happen and we'd have a big sign of success on the horizon, so that allowed me anyway to just keep hanging on. … there was always some sign that [said] 'Yes you're doing the right thing, you're getting really close.' (Farough, 2019) Justin Satistevan is the third co-founder and president of Wonderstorm. He was born and raised in Sandy, Utah and has credited his love for immersive storytelling to a childhood passion for video games. He originally planned to enter a career in private equity and finance until he entered the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he considered a career in the entertainment industry. He met his future business partner Aaron Ehasz shortly afterwards, at a playground where the two had taken their children. Ehasz and Satistevan went to work and Riot Games, which is where they met Justin Richmond. The trio left Riot Games in 2015 to co-found Wonderstorm together, releasing The Dragon Prince in 2018 for which Satistevan is an executive producer. Regarding The Dragon Prince, Satistevan has said “This is a smart show with high stakes — a lot of drama, a lot of action, a lot of intrigue. There’s a depth of storytelling and world-building that rewards you as you notice details and you learn about the characters and the backstory. Hopefully, that comes through.” (Marquez, 2018).

The dragon prince

The Dragon Prince is an animated fantasy TV show aimed towards a broad audience. The story is set in a fantasy world where different creatures such as humans, elves and dragons live in harmony. Magic is featured prominently in the series, with six main forms of light or ‘good’ magic being derived from six primordial natural forces: the sun, the moon, the ocean, the sky, the stars and the earth. This peace takes a sudden turn when the humans discover dark magic and use it to wage war against the elves, even going so far as to murder their protector, the King of the Dragons and seemingly destroying his egg. The egg is later revealed to have been stolen by the humans. The story in season one (released on September 14th, 2018) follows two human princes, Ezran and Callum, who discover the dragon egg in their father’s castle. After their father is assassinated as part of the elven-human war, they team up with a young Moonshadow elf named Rayla on a journey back to the elven lands to return the egg and put an end to the war between the two races (Kleinman, 2019). Season 2, released on February 15th, 2019 sees Ezran, Callum and Rayla continuing their journey to the elf kingdom. Their father’s adviser, who seeks the throne for himself, attempts to thwart their progress and tries to send his two children to kidnap the princes and bring them back. The series also sees Callum learning more about magic and connecting with one of the primordial sources of natural magic so that he may harness its power, becoming the first human to do so (Nelson, 2019). Season 3 was announced at Wondercon 2019 although no release date has yet been set. According to Wonderstorm and Netflix "Season 3 finds Rayla and Callum finally at the cusp of entering Xadia, while young Ezran returns home to take his place on the throne. Meanwhile, Lord Viren begins to realize the influence and power of his new ally – the mysterious Startouch elf, Aaravos. As several storylines unfold in big ways, this season will be massively epic." (Griffin, 2019) The story relies on the diversity and beliefs each character possesses, according to Ehsaz who also mentioned, “…it really is one of the fundamental goals of this story and this world is to portray a fantasy world that feels more diverse and representative than fantasy worlds and stories we’ve seen in the past” (Freeman, 2019). The animation style of the show is a hybrid of hand drawn backgrounds and computer generated characters. According to Inverse, the animation style does take away from the detail one would normally find in a completely hand drawn anime but it saves a lot of time and effort, and instead can be used on the intricately beautiful backgrounds. Season one’s framerate issues drew some criticism from fans on social media, who said it gave the series a stop motion feel. However, in season 2, this issue was resolved, with the head writers taking note of fan feedback to smooth out the framerate. According to The Dragon Prince’s head of community management Danika Harrod, “We just heard a ton of feedback on [the animation] and the guys take it really seriously” (Radulovic & Marshall, 2019). According to co-creator Justin Richmond, the animation style allows for “some dazzlingly impressive action sequences on par with anything you’ve seen in hand-drawn animation or live action[…]One of the things we really love about the style of the show is it’s something that allows us to replicate the look of anime without having to hand draw every frame”. (Kleinman, 2018) The Dragon Prince has received positive reviews from critics, earning a 100% approval rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes . Writing for the Verge, Samantha Nelson notes that “The first season…showed promise, but was underwhelming compared to Ehasz’s previous work. It’s clear now that season was burdened by the weight of an immense amount of setup, introducing the world, its magic systems, and its characters. Season 2 is nonstop payoff.” (Nelson, 2019) Critics have also appreciated the social inclusivity of the series, with the characters of King Harrow and Prince Ezran both being black and a deaf character being the general of the human forces of the kingdom, which Polygon’s Alex Barasch describes as “an unprecedented step forward for a genre that’s historically had very little representation of people with disabilities”. (Barasch, 2018)

Video game adaptation

Besides working on the TV show, Wonderstorm is also developing a video game adaptation of the series, also titled The Dragon Prince. The game will take place in the same fantasy world and involve the same characters. The video game had been in the original plans of the franchise and will not reiterate the main plot of the TV series. Wonderstorm has taken a transmedia approach by narrating a story beyond just television. The studio has hired in house game designers to work on the game side by side with the TV series. This team includes employees with experience in game design from companies such as Atari, Naughty Dog and Supercell. According to Ehasz, “…instead of bringing in "game people," and "having the TV people tell the games people how to move the narrative to another platform, we hired an amazing team of game designers and game producers who got the show, and just empowered them to do their job."

Although no official information has yet been released about the game’s platform or release date, a few details have been announced by the developers. The game will be set in the same world as The Dragon Prince with the same characters but will not be a retelling of the same narrative, instead serving as an expansion to the main plot. The game will be a combat based multiplayer, however it will not be an online RPG like League of Legends. Players will be able to choose their characters, each of which will have abilities that reflect their role in the series such as magic, agility or blocking. Some characters not seen in the series will also be introduced (Clark, 2019). According to Richmond, the game will not be extremely narrative driven like his previous work on the Uncharted series but will instead delve more into the world of The Dragon Prince. “The world is designed specifically where you can see a glimpse into it through the show,” Richmond says, “but the game will take you to places you haven’t seen.” (Kleinman, 2018). Furthermore, the game will allow us to venture places unseen in the show itself. “The world is designed specifically where you can see a glimpse into it through the show,” Richmond says, “but the game will take you to places you haven’t seen.” (Kleinman, 2018)

References

This article "Wonderstorm" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Wonderstorm. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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