Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, DreamWorks Animation joined in on the full-on geekery that is this year’s WonderCon and held a panel discussing its upcoming TV projects for Netflix.
Hosted by Eric Bauza (The Adventures of Puss in Boots and Turbo FAST) and Kelly Kulchak (Head of Programming for DreamWorks TV), it became quite clear that one of the most anticipated highlights of the panel was the premiere of new footage and a wave of new details for the third season of DreamWorks Dragons (now titled Dragons: Race to the Edge).
After premiering the footage to a round of cheers and applause from a packed room, executive producers/showrunners Art Brown and Douglas Sloan appeared on the panel to talk about what surprises await us in Race to the Edge (information courtesy of Berk’s Grapevine and the official DreamWorks Animation Twitter page):
–The first 13 of the 26 episodes that comprise Race to the Edge will premiere in June. This is quite a difference from the periodic five-episode blocks that are typical of DreamWorks’ other shows.
–Like Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk, Race to the Edge will cover the five-year gap between How to Train Your Dragon 1 and 2. The main difference here is that Race to the Edge is further down the timeline and will take place one year before the events of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (the characters will be 18/19 years old when Race to the Edge begins).
–Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, T.J. Miller, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse will reprise their roles as Hiccup, Astrid, Tuffnut, and Fishlegs respectively. It’s possible that Zack Pearlman (Snotlout), Andree Vermeulen (Ruffnut), Nolan North (Stoick), and Chris Edgerly (Gobber) will reprise the TV roles for their characters as well.
–For this season, Brown and Sloan teased a new epic adventure that “promises more dragons than anyone has ever imagined.”
–Speaking of new dragons, a new species that will appear in the show was revealed at the panel: the menacingly-named Deathsong.
–Race to the Edge will also introduce a new element to the Dragons mythology: a mysterious artifact known only as the ‘Dragon Eye’. This object, according to Art Brown, “is a game-changer, both for Hiccup and for all of the Dragon Riders.”
And that was about it for the Dragons portion of the panel. Luckily, fans who weren’t able to attend WonderCon were treated to a few new images from the upcoming season.
First, we have our ‘team’ picture featuring Hiccup, the Dragon Riders, and their dragons:
The next image features Hiccup and Toothless, with a much better look at the Dragon Eye:
The third and final image released from WonderCon features our first look at Deathsong:
There are still plenty of other questions about Race to the Edge left unanswered (for now). What will the villains be this season (human and/or dragon)? Will the psychotic, berserker warrior known as Dagur the Deranged (who appeared in Riders of Berk and was featured frequently throughout Defenders of Berk) return? How does the ‘Dragon Eye’ fit into the wider framework of the Dragons universe?
We will definitely find out the answer to these questions and more when Dragons: Race to the Edge premieres on Netflix in June.
What do you think? Are you excited for ‘Dragons: Race to the Edge’?
Edited by: Hannah Wilkes