In 2019, a Kickstarter campaign launched by the popular Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role became one of the most funded Kickstarter projects in history, amassing a total of $11.4 million in a little over a month.
The original goal, which sought $750,000 for a single 22-minute animated special about Vox Machina, Critical Roles first adventuring party, grew into four episodes as contributions continued to rise. By its end in mid-April 2019, the Kickstarter reached its last stretch goal for 10 animated episodes.
Two years later, The Legend of Vox Machina began its release exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on Tuesday, Jan. 25. The first season focuses on the Briarwood arc from Critical Roles first campaign, which originally livestreamed on Twitch from March 2015 to Oct. 2017.
Main cast members Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam OBrien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel and Travis Willingham returned to voice their characters from the first campaign while dungeon master Matthew Mercer makes voices several character throughout the show, including villain Lord Sylas Briarwood.
Other notable cast members include Grey Griffin as Lady Delilah Briarwood, Khary Payton as Sovereign Uriel TalDorei and David Tennant as General Krieg.
Although D&D does not have a great precedent for adapting well to the screen (the Dungeon & Dragons movie from 2000 has a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes), The Legend of Vox Machina successfully translates the many intricacies of D&D combat to animation. The fight scenes are far more captivating than watching seven adults stress over dice rolls for hours on end which is the case for those who view Critical Roles Twitch stream.
Despite managing to create intrigue and excitement in this more tedious aspect of watching the Critical Role livestream, the animated shows sweeping scenery falls a little flat. While it is clear that talented artists developed the imagery of the show, it is beautiful in an almost unrelatable fantasy way.
The first few episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina also suffer from a need to define the series as an animated series for adults. Episode one is full of random, gory bar fights and unnecessary curses. This comes as a surprise to both old and new fans, since the original live stream contained nowhere near the same degree of vulgarity.
A few episodes later, the show settles into its shoes. As the characters are given more opportunities to grow, it becomes easier to understand why audience members found them lovable enough to donate millions of dollars to the Kickstarter campaign. However, the characters occasionally suffer from a lack of development and come off as one-note for most of the series in comparison to their livestream counterparts.
While some key moments of growth for the characters are missing, the show makes up for those flaws with the casting for The Legend of Vox Machina, which is spot-on. Jaffes performance as Percival de Rolo stands out among the adventuring party, while Griffins charismatic portrayal of villainous sorceress Delilah Briarwood brings the darker side of the show to life.
For people who are put off by the idea of sitting down to watch voice actors roll dice together, the show provides the perfect chance to dive into the world of fantasy animation and Critical Role. For original fans, it stays true to its source material while not shying away from adding and changing plot points to develop the story even further.
Ultimately, the shows flaws are easy to forget in the midst of its colorful battle sequences and rousing musical interludes. Clearly, a lot of passion went into The Legend of Vox Machina, and it is hard to dislike something that has been given so much love from its creators and Kickstarter contributors.
