The Amazon animated series The Legend of Vox Machina is back with a second season.
The uncensored trailer for The Legend of Vox Machina. Warning: …wow…
The first season started in January last year, to great applause from both critics and the public – but for those who don’t know the series, or its origin in the Twitch channel Critical Role, we can give a brief summary of the background for the series.
Critical Role is a so-called “Actual Play” broadcast – a genre where a group plays tabletop role-playing games for the audience. The members are all established voice actors, and deliver the game with a rare quality and empathy that has drawn a huge audience to the channel.
Who is Vox Machina
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- Matthew Mercer — The Creator, misc. voices, Silas Briarwood
- Ashley Johnson — Girl Trickfoot
- Travis Willingham — Grog Strongjaw
- Laura Bailey — “Vex” Vex’ahlia Vessar
- Liam O’Brien — “Vax” Vax’ildan Vessar
- Taliesin Jaffe — “Percy” Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III
- Marisha Ray — Keyleth of the Air Ashari
- Sam Riegel — Scanlan Shorthalt
Guests (Season 1)
- David Tennant — General Krieg
- Dominic Monaghan — Archie
- Gray Griffin — Delilah Briarwood
- Darin De Paul — Kerrion Stonefell
- Stephen Root — Professor Anders
- Rory McCann — Duke Vedmire
- Gina Torres — Keeper Yennen
- Kelly Hu — Dr. Anna Ripley
The frame of the narrative is designed by game leader Matt Mercer, but the actual expression is improvised in front of the camera when the rest of the group encounter the situation for the first time.
The narrative in The Legend of Vox Machina is adapted from the Twitch broadcasts, with the Critical Role members voicing their respective characters, and many high-profile voices as supporting characters.
The series has been praised both for its excellent animation – provided by the well-known studio Titmouse – and its surprisingly adult tone, with brutal violence from the first scene, and good humor mixed with mature drama.
The Kickstarter of all time
The series was originally supposed to only deal with the events from the earliest beginnings of the story – events that took place before the game was broadcast on Twitch, and of which there is no video.
Critical Role/Critter Hunter Bonyun (@deerlordhunter)
It was launched in the form of a Kickstarter project, as a gift to the fanbase. The goal was to collect 750,000 US dollars (approx. NOK 7.5 million), and the project was to result in a 20-minute retelling of the lost beginning. The people behind it had spoken to the studio Titmouse about the animation job, and hoped to get as many of the channel’s former guests involved as possible.
Kickstarter goal was reached in one hour.
By the time they were able to close the collection, the Kickstarter had received over 11.4 million dollars (just over NOK 112 million). The gang’s next broadcast was characterized by how stunned and touched everyone was by the generosity – and how hard they had to work to deserve what they had already received.
The result was The Legend of Vox Machina – twelve episodes, proper production, many famous actors, and distributed through Amazon’s streaming service.
And before the series started, Amazon had offered to finance season 2.
The story in the first season
Critical Role/Amazon
The first season deals with exactly what the kickstarter promised, with all stretch goals. The first three episodes introduce the group calling themselves Vox Machina – a small collection of mercenaries and adventurers struggling to find success in the city of Emon.
Tasked with dealing with a mysterious threat plaguing the kingdom of Tal’Dorei, they quickly find themselves face to face with an enormous dragon.
Against all odds, they emerge victorious – in the end – and it establishes them as heroes of the kingdom and Protectors of the city of Emon.
If you create an entire world but can only give voice to one person in it… Well, Mercer made the right choice.
Critical Role/Amazon
The series then jumps straight to the Briarwood plot, one of the big audience favorites in Critical Role, and follows this story almost point by point until the end of the season.
The series skips over the first stories that were broadcast on the channel, the Kraghammer and Vasselheim stories. It also does not include Tiberius Stormwind, the player character played by Orion Acaba, who participated in the stories mentioned in the series, but left Critical Role early on.
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