(A third campaign recently launched, plus there've been a huge number of one-shots and standalone miniseries, so: Yeah.) If you're scoring at home, we're talking several weeks' worth of content, here, as individual Critical Role episodes tend to run three to four hours in length, and the two previous storylines (or campaigns) have run to 115 episodes and 141 episodes respectively.
#Vox machina dice series#
It's one of several series out there that simply consist of groups of players sitting around a table playing Dungeons & Dragons together. No, what distinguishes it is the unique nature of the source material, and the fact that a gorgeous, discursive, shambling mound of a web series has been turned into a show so efficiently, cleanly effective at the comparatively narrow goal it sets out to accomplish.įull disclosure: I've spent the pandemic stumbling upon, delighting in, and proceeding to devour hundreds and hundreds of episodes of the web series Critical Role. If anything, that only helps it bring the source material to life, as the special effects budget of animation is effectively unlimited - no iffy CGI dragons, rubber costumes or one-dimensional greenscreen vistas here. It's not that fact that The Legend of Vox Machina is an animated series that sets it apart from the other fantasy shows listed above. But the nature of what's been tossed over the side is wholly different in nature as a result, anyone unfamiliar with the source material won't notice what they're missing. (The characters on Game of Thrones, for example, crossed vast oceans and endless deserts like they were hopping in a cab from the East Village to Hell's Kitchen.) Which is unfortunate, because of course it's exactly those layers of historical detail that fundamentally shape the world in question, and its inhabitants.Īmazon's funny, violent and well-realized The Legend of Vox Machina, based on the popular web series Critical Role, is no different - a lot of things gets lost in translation. But they've got a point: Television adaptations must prioritize plot over established, painstakingly wrought characterization, interiority and even geography.
The implacable schedule of television production is a cruel, unforgiving master, and it jettisons everything it thinks it can get away with.įans of the source material inevitably grouse about the elements that get lost in the shuffle, because that's what fans do. Beloved subplots vanish in puffs of network notes. Established, intricately overlapping chronologies get cruelly bent to the will of clear, easy-to-follow story arcs. Characters whom fans adore get roughly combined or disappear completely. The process of adapting works so rich with detail and backstory into compelling episodic television is, of necessity, an exercise in winnowing, distilling and, in some cases, mercilessly hacking and slashing. It's getting so you can't swing a dead elf without hitting an orc, or a Darkling, or a Trolloc.Īll of these series are adaptations from other forms of media thick with lore, dense with history and heavy with elaborate worldbuilding. Fantasy television series have grown thick on the ground - Game of Thrones, The Witcher, His Dark Materials, Shadow and Bone - and there's more on the way: the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon later this year, and the Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power, this September.
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