Don’t scoff at Amazon’s upcoming dragon TV show just yet; it still has the potential to be even better than Game of Thrones. As far as fantasy shows featuring dragons, Game of Thrones and its spinoff, House of the Dragon, are obviously the forerunners. It’s also natural that production companies would do everything they can to capitalize on these series’ success. Though nothing has come close just yet, Amazon’s Wings of Fire is off to an intriguing start.
This new fantasy TV show will be based on the widely popular Wings of Fire book series by Tui T. Sutherland. A long-running New York Times bestseller, this series currently comprises 15 central novels, with more on the way. It’s a project aimed at young audiences, which, naturally, makes it significantly different from Game of Thrones.
The upcoming TV adaptation of Wings of Fire will be animated. This detail has, understandably, led many adult prospective viewers to write the series off as a non-competitor to Game of Thrones. However, it’s important that you hold off on your judgment. The upcoming Prime Video TV show has nothing but potential, especially if its animation is approached in the right way.
Prime Video’s Upcoming Dragon Show’s Weakness Will Actually Be Its Strength
The world of animation has gone through several evolutions over the past couple of decades. This is no longer a medium divided into strictly children’s programming or anime. Several mainstream animated projects, both family and adult-aimed, have achieved masterpiece status. In recent years, this has been especially true for movies and TV shows that utilize the truly breathtaking hybrid style of 2D and 3D animation.
This hybrid art style has come to be called 2.5D stylized animation, since it lies somewhere between traditional 2D cell animation and CGI 3D animation. Some prime examples include Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and the TV series Arcane.
The 2.5D stylized Spider-Man and Puss in Boots movies were aimed predominantly at young audiences, but the meticulous, breathtaking art style also made them appealing to adults. Arcane is another matter. It’s a strictly adult series, but it went beyond the typical anime/animation crowd. The hybrid animation made action sequences appear truly exquisite, and Arcane became an absolute hit.
This fairly new approach has changed the game for animation. It means that a project like Wings of Fire shouldn’t be counted out just because of its medium. The series could really be something spectacular—a fair rival to Game of Thrones.
If Done Right, Wings of Fire Can Beat Out Game Of Thrones’ Masterpiece Status
Ever since the success of Game of Thrones, it seems as if live-action high fantasy TV shows have been popping up just about everywhere. Almost every major production company has made its own attempt to duplicate HBO’s success, to no avail. It ultimately must be concluded that any show that takes the same sort of approach to high fantasy as Game of Thrones will never overcome that masterpiece status.
The only way a high fantasy TV show can achieve a similar sort of status as Game of Thrones is if it takes another route entirely. Prime Video isn’t making an overt attempt to compete with HBO’s golden child with Wings of Fire, and this is precisely why the series actually stands a chance. With the right art style, the book adaptation can appeal to a broader audience, blow viewers away with something fresh and new, and solidify itself in history as an unparalleled fantasy masterpiece.
- Release Date
-
2011 – 2019-00-00
- Showrunner
-
David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
- Directors
-
David Nutter, Alan Taylor, D.B. Weiss, David Benioff
