When it comes to the silver screen, big or small, the world of D&D hasn’t exactly had an easy time. The eponymous and laughable 2000 movie which Jeremy Irons had the gall to put his name to was critically panned, and the earlier animated TV series was similarly derided by the faithful.
Both failed to capture the basic essence of D&D adventuring, more concerned as they were with cashing-in on a popular hobby rather than paying heed and tribute to what made it popular in the first place.
So why should The Legend of Vox Machina, the proposed animated special from the Critical Role team, be any different?
For a start you only have to look at the team itself. Made up of committed, enthusiastic D&D die-hards, they already have over 50 episodes of a hugely successful internet streaming series under their belt.
They’re all well-respected actors, having voiced Teen Titans Go!, Ben 10, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Attack on Titan, Dragon Ball Z, Sofia the First, Avengers Assemble, DuckTales, Transformers, and many, many more.
This means they don’t have to source talent for the project. They are the talent, and they’ve been doing this for years already. All they need is a talented writer and world-class animation team…
Well, they have that covered too.
The story for the upcoming feature was scripted by good friend to the team Jennifer Muro (Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, Spider-Man, Justice League: Action), and will be brought to life by Titmouse, the Emmy award-winning animation production company behind the hits Big Mouth, The Venture Bros., Metalocalypse, Niko and the Sword of Light and Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures.
All this industry clout and the popularity of Critical Role itself accounts for the ease with which the crowdfunding project not only reached its $750K funding goal within an hour, but smashed right through it, continuing to sprint into what looks to be a rosy sunset.
This means not only should we be seeing the animated feature hit screens in the latter part of 2020, but at the rate they’re going, the team looks set to obtain the funding required to create an entire animated series which should finally do D&D the justice it deserves.
At the time of writing there’s still another 44 days of the campaign left to run, so if you want to help make an entire animated D&D series a reality, then head over to the Kickstarter page and pledge your support.
