Tomb Raider: The Legend of Vox Machina - Renegade Animation #163
In this episode, Captain Kaye and the Animation Guru discuss the inaugural season of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, as well as Season 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina!
What’s going on, everyone? This is your Captain speaking, alongside my co-host, The Animation Guru! We are excited to share this episode, especially because we are in a much better mood compared to last week’s post-Halloween special. While this isn’t being branded as “The State of Adult Animation,” the two shows we’re discussing this week do represent some of the best that the action/adventure genre has to offer. So without further ado, please tune into the podcast to hear the full discussion!
Tomb Raider: The Legend of Vox Machina
Set within the same continuity as Crystal Dynamics’ rebooted Tomb Raider video game trilogy, The Legend of Lara Croft is another excellent action/adventure series from Powerhouse Animation. It has a terrific voice cast, led by Haley Atwell as the titular protagonist, and Earl Baylon reprising his role as Jonah from the games. As fas as adaptations go, long form storytelling seems to be the best approach for this material, while animation is perfectly suited to bring more of the supernatural elements from the games to life.
“Powerhouse Animation and Tasha Huo's adaptation of the iconic video game franchise offers a deeply complicated Lara having to deal with the trauma of the past while also saving the world with grand adventures and of course, shooting at a giant dinosaur at one point. With a great performance from its cast, including Hayley Atwell as Lara herself, this is one of the best action shows of the year.“ -The Animation Guru
The Legend of Vox Machina: Season 3
Between this, and Rings of Power Season 2, I’d argue that Prime Video kept fantasy nerds well fed in the Fall. From what Cameron and other Critical Role fans have told me, this is the point in the series where the story begins to deviate in certain places from the original campaign. You can only fit so much into 12 episodes of television, and yet I still found each of the prominent character arcs compelling. My favorite would have to be Keyleth coming into her own as an Ashari.
“While maybe a bit stuffed to the brim with wrapping up the Chroma Conclave arc, it still results in a fantastic return of our underdog heroes as they attempt to save the land of Exandria once and for all from Thordak.” -The Animation Guru
That’ll do it for this episode! Thank you all for joining us! We have provided resources for those who wish to support the victims of the Israel-Hamas war: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/, https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/, https://itch.io/b/2120/games-for-gaza, https://www.instagram.com/palestineredcrescent/, https://buildpalestine.com/2021/05/15/trusted-organizations-to-donate-to-palestine/, https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1205235922/help-israel-gaza-humanitarian-organizations.
