By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
The title card for Netflix‘s upcoming continuation of the How to Train Your Dragon world was announced and the third season will be titled Dragons: Race to the Edge. The images released today confirms it. Most of the information about this series was announced during WonderCon in Anaheim yesterday, and the good news is that the first 13 of 26 episodes will premiere in June. This frequency of releases, by a weekly schedule or not, will be better than what Netflix has previously done with only five episodes per block.
Also revealed is that this season will cover more of the five-year gap between the two How to Train Your Dragon movies. The issue some fans will have here is if the previous two seasons build up exists at all? Will characters like Trader Johan or Heather return? Or has Netflix cornered themselves into a problematical hole? Hopefully DreamWorks Animation is in control of the narrative elements instead of Netflix. With this type of news, Valka (Kate Winslet) will not be part of this continuing series of adventures of Hiccup and gang. The question of whether Dagur the Deranged (David Faustino) is still a problem may need to be answered though. At least for Alvin the Treacherous (Mark Hamill), that plot line has been resolved.
Viewers will see Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) being groomed to be king by the fact that Stoick (Nolan North) is alive and well. That will help lead up to the events in the start of the second film far better than how the previous seasons built up to it. But to see how he will handle his royal duties will be left to Dean DeBlois to figure out when pre production for the third film amps up and gets realized for its 2018 release. That’s only three years away.
Of course, there will always be new dragons to feature, and Spin Master will have now toys to spin out for collectors. The Dragon Eye will be a deux et machina to drive much of the season, and to not have a toy will be remiss. There will be a huge zoo of creations for the merchandise creators to have fun with too, but will this Netflix exclusivity destroy all that’s fun about this franchise? When considering the quality of The Adventures of Puss in Boots and All Hail King Julien, most likely not.
All fans have to know for this series is that this particular world is self-contained so the movies can stand alone than requiring hints of its smaller television broadcasting predecessor to get a sense of what Hiccup’s destiny will ultimately become as the King of the Archipelago who will unite all of human and dragon kind together.
