Magic: The Television Show
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on June 3, 2019, 11:57 a.m. by Caerwyn
Netflix announced a new Magic: The Gathering animated television show will be coming to its platform. We have little information on the show's contents currently, other than it will revolve around Planeswalkers.
Anthony and Joe Russo (Infinity War and Endgame) are tagged as the directors. The Russo brothers said in a statement they are very happy to be working on the project, based on their own enjoyment of Magic.
Henry Gilroy, (the fantastic Clone Wars TV show) and Jose Molina (Agent Carter and a couple episodes of Firefly) are signed on to be the show's lead writers.
Animation will be done by Bardel Entertainment (The Dragon Prince, Teen Titans Go, and Rick and Morty).
That's a pretty good resume, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the show will turn out. I am also interested in how they will be marketing the show, and what, if any, physical products related to the show will be produced.
As of right now, there is no release date announced.
Funkydiscogod - That's reading a whole lot into a few lines of released information. Particularly since none of the information presented provides any real indication of what you're hypothesizing.
Personally, I am hoping the show will look a lot like Clone Wars, which I think is one of the best shows ever created--animated or not. Clone Wars did a great job creating a diverse cast of characters, ranging from extremely well developed grunts literally bred for war to the ultra-elite members of the Jedi Order. Each character was fleshed out extremely well. The development of characters from the film was intelligent and shored up a number of weaknesses in the films (for example, the show clarifies Obi-Wan knows of Anakin and Padme's relationship, and provides a reason for him to ignore it). The new characters, particularly the aforementioned clones, were complex and interesting, and provided a new perspective on a story we previously only saw through Jedi eyes.
The show also attacked extremely complicated issues, such as slavery, the human cost of war, international relations and trade (in a much more interesting way than the prequel trilogy), duty and honor versus your personal beliefs, why people fight, race relations, etc.
What made Clone Wars great was its ability to look at both the micro and macro effects of various actions and events. If half this level of attention to world-building and character development is brought to the Magic show, I'll be pleased.
June 3, 2019 12:50 p.m.
mymanpotsandpans says... #4
I think Bardel Entertainment will do a pretty alright job but where is Axis Animation the team behind the War of the Spark trailers? The attention to detail was pretty amazing at bringing out everything we could see in the cards, such as Bolas for example. It be a disservice to the show not to capitalize on all the amazing art the game has to offer. Nothing against Bardel Entertainment but The Dragon Prince, Teen Titans Go, and Rick and Morty don’t nessesarily scream I bring First-Sphere Gargantua , Secluded Glen , Nyxathid and so on to life. Sorta feel that as I write this it’s a way of keeping my expectations low. Story and Game play in MTG’s past have always had their ups and down but the art has always been amazing (for the most part Circle of Protection: Art ). Just hope they capitalize on a pillar of what makes Magic what it is.
June 3, 2019 1:13 p.m.
Funkydiscogod What would be feminist messaging? I mean, I expect Chandra Nalaar, Liliana Vess, and Nissa Revane to be significant characters. But they're characters, not propaganda. As long as they're developed, interesting, and true to canon, I don't anticipate any problems.
On another note, is there any word on the cast yet? Or is it still too early? Any speculation, wishes, or random guesses?
June 3, 2019 1:39 p.m.
legendofa: The only info we really have is the banner image which shows Chandra. Nothing on the cast, further characters, or the time period for the show.
Personally, I am hoping Felicia Day will be the voice Chandra, since she's fantastic--The Guild is one of my go-to "put-something-mindless-on" shows--who is also a Magic superfan (also, she cosplays as Chandra).
June 3, 2019 1:45 p.m. Edited.
I just really hope the animation won't be rushed to air on Netflix ASAP like The Dragon Prince. That show is great, but the season 1 animation is hard to watch! And with the other two shows, R&M and TTG, it seems like this will be more like a cartoon than a Pixar film (or like the WAR trailer).
Agree with cdkime, if it can be like The Clone Wars - cartoony without being overly "lite," and focusing on a wide variety of characters rather than the Gatewatch - it'll be so fun to see my favorite characters come to life!
June 3, 2019 3:24 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #8
I'm with cdkime on this one.
Clone Wars was an amazing show and I'd definitely prefer that sort of animation style and willingness to touch on very mature subjects. Regardless of how they handle the animation though, I really hope they handle the story in a similar fashion that balances fleshed out characters and worlds with the 'makes you think' moral dilemmas that make these characters' choices have real feeling ramifications. I have high Hope's to say the least... granted the pedigree of the names already attached to this project help a lot.
June 3, 2019 4:08 p.m.
Honestly this looks... Really good. Like Netflix has been doing pretty well in ensuring quality of its new shows, especially it's animated shows (The Dragon Prince, Hilda and the Netflix original animes have been all superb). Like especially because they try to aim it to be not just edgy adult humor but target all audiences at once, which means kids shows with great humor and deep writing or adult animation that isn't just bad sex joke after bad sex joke, instead focusing on deep themes.
My one concern is that they would try really really REALLY hard to jam a ton of lore into a few episodes (it's such a huge storyline after all) or have issues with giving some characters the story they deserve.
For example, if they start on Ravnica, I could see them really messing up Lavinia or Vraska.
June 4, 2019 1:48 a.m.
Here is the teaser image released by Netflix:
I am guessing the teaser serves both to generate hype and provide some image of the animation style. From this, it looks like they will be doing some sort of computer-generated 3D animation, a la Clone Wars, as opposed to 2D animation such as The Dragon Prince.
The image also got me thinking--I think the hardest time the animators are going to have is making Chandra's hair look good. The still image, if this is indeed an image indicating what the animation will look like, seems to do a good job, but the difficulties with fire comes with its animation, so I will be remaining skeptical until the final product was released.
As a semi-aside, if I use Clone Wars as my standard for what great animation should be, I would use the Dragon Prince as an example of how not to make cross-generational animated television.
My biggest problem with the Dragon Prince was not the lackluster animation, or Rayla's atrocious and inconsistent accent, but rather the volume of pop culture references the show made in what seems like a lazy attempt to connect with an older audience. It felt every episode there would be several references to Beyonce Songs, or film-based memes, etc., to an extent it broke the immersion of the very rich traditional high fantasy world it was trying to create.
I mention this specifically as a concern because a lot of animated shows geared toward cross-generational audiences tend to make similar references, to varying degrees of success. It works great when the show doesn't take itself seriously, such as My Little Pony or Star vs. The Forces of Evil; less great when the show is trying to world-build like the Dragon Prince.
I'm not too concerned with this being an issue with the Magic show--I have a lot of faith in the team Wizards and Netflix have put together, and Wizards has traditionally been very good at avoiding pop culture references. There are some exceptions, of course, such as Time Warp , but these are rare and the reference is generally modified such that it does not feel too jarring.
June 4, 2019 9:31 a.m. Edited.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
This does look exciting, but I do not have an account with Netflix, and I have no desire to make such an account, so I shall not watch this series.
I am very disappointed that it is not an adaptation of the early story of the game, since the saga of Urza and his war against Phyrexia is amazingly epic and a great example of fantasy storytelling, but I suppose that the early story is not as well-known as is the current story, unfortunately. Hopefully, this series shall do well, and help to bring this game to a greater audience.
June 8, 2019 11:16 p.m.
Anybody here ever see the old Ewoks cartoon? I think it would be cool if they made a "The Boggarts" cartoon inspired from that, but with the Lorwyn Goblins! They could even do season 1 Lorwyn and season 2 Shadowmoor. If I'm not mistaken, out of all the legendary creatures in those sets, Wort is the only one that's not in the lore story! That's unacceptable! However, while the focus of the show would have us following all the daily boggart's shenanigans, there could be some notable moments from the actual lore story playing out in the background. Just watch out for those evil elves.
greyninja says... #2
"We have been huge fans and players of Magic: The Gathering for as long as it has been around, so being able to help bring these stories to life through animation is a true passion project for us," the Russos said in the announcement.
June 3, 2019 11:59 a.m.