Ahoy Mateys… co-creators Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond, and EP Villads Spangsberg, talk about a mad pirate lord, a foggy pirate village, a famed captain’s return, and the thrifty repurposing of old sets into new locations, on the latest season of their Emmy Award-winning animated series, now streaming on Netflix.
When pirates (in pretend dress-up) descended upon The Dragon Prince San Diego Comic-Con 2023 panel demanding an early release of the newest season, fans certainly did not disagree. But nor did they have any idea the adventure that awaited them that binge-worthy weekend.
The Dragon Prince Season 5 trailer teased plenty of sea adventures, but there was no mention of captain Villads’ return, nor of the foggy pirate village Scumport, and certainly not an introduction to the wildly mad pirate lord Finnegrin who dapples in dark magic and spearheads one of the biggest arcs of the whole season.
And in a bow to fans, the new season of the Emmy Award-winning fantasy adventure debuted July 23, four days earlier than the previously scheduled July 27 release. Here’s a glimpse of what’s in store in the all-new episodes:
“We wanted to make sure that encounter [between Callum and Finnegrin] was not just a showdown of power versus power, but that it was thematically grounded and shows how Callum is growing, what he’s struggling with, and how he reflects and differs from these villain characters and their set of motivations and flaws and distortions within their deeper trauma,” explains Aaron Ehasz, who served as head writer on Avatar: The Last Airbender prior to co-creating The Dragon Prince with Justin Richmond. “It ended up coming out beautifully. I think it's one of our best episodes.”
Director and executive producer Villads Spangsberg, from who Captain Villads earned his name, agrees, noting, “Season 5, in my opinion, is a new high for the show. The swashbuckling adventure part of it is exciting, but there’s still plenty of emotional stuff happening at the same time.”
Moonshadow elf Rayla with Katollis princes Callum and Ezran (now king in his father’s place), as well as dragon prince Zym and warrior Soren, hunt together for the hidden prison of evil star-touch elf Aravos while fallen mage Claudia is also in a desperate search for Aravos in hopes that he can make her father Viren’s resurrection permanent. Meanwhile, Viren isn’t so sure he wants to continue to live. Deep into the adventure, it’s revealed to King Ezran by sea dragon Domina Profundis that Aravos’ prison is within a pearl, inside a clam shell, in the middle of the ocean.
“A fun fact about Domina is we went slightly off the previous dragon styles, where she’s more sea-snake-like and more Asian-inspired,” says Spangsberg.
After getting this intel from Domina, Ezran, Callum, and the gang head to Scumport in search of a ship, and that’s where things get really hairy.
“The place was based on Tortuga, the town in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney that’s the famous hive of scum and villainy back in the age of sail,” notes Richmond. “I spent time in Nantucket growing up and all the streets downtown are made of the ballast stones from the boats. This was, and still is, a place where nothing goes to waste, and they used to load the boats up with these stones to stabilize the empty ships for whaling. Eventually, they used them to cobble the streets. There are also fishermen's chapels all over the place where they're reusing the wood from the boats for the arches and all that kind of stuff. So that's all awesome. And then we went fantasy nuts with it in the show.”
But, as much fun as the animation team had building their own Xadian Tortuga, viewers might find, if they look closely enough through all the fog and ocean mist, that Scumport looks a bit familiar.
“A lot of that set is repurposed from a set in Season 2, specifically the shore town in the episode ‘Voyage of the Ruthless,’ which is also where they meet Captain Villads for the first time and now, technically speaking, where they are meeting him again in Season 5 to use his boat,” shares Spangsberg.
He continues, “These last seasons have been pretty hard because there's been a bit of an inflation in animation. So, it's become harder to hire talented people in the studio. A lot of people wanted to work on the show, but they were either doing something else for Disney or Netflix, which was ramping up productions at the same time. So, everybody wanted a lot more money, which is completely fair. But it also meant that I had to design some sets from reused elements because the studio in Vancouver was like ‘You guys are asking for too much. We can't do this.’ And I was like, ‘Hold my extremely strong coffee.’ So, the only thing we really needed to do that was new for that set was the tower. That’s the trick of the trade itself, to take what you have and repurpose it.”
Spangsberg reveals that most of the budget for that episode centered around the town’s center focal point: Finnegrin’s tower.
“I had an idea of having a kind of landmark for the town, which ended up being the tower,” he shares. “We wanted to draw a lot of attention to it and the traditional way to do that is having diagonal lines pointing to where you need to look. So, we added a ton of ropes coming out of the tower, almost like they are holding it in place. But it's also like nerve lines, or Finnegrin’s lines of communication. And it gives a really cool way for Ezran to escape the tower. So, we got to have a little bit of Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible in this scene, as well.”
The Dragon Prince crew also incorporated some Twin Peaks nods into the new season during Viren’s fever dreams.
“We leaned pretty heavily into it,” admits Spangsberg. “I came up with the idea of having Opeli be the Log Lady. If you want to make and homage, you have to go all in, so it doesn’t look like you're just ripping it off. We made sure that the pattern on the floor was there, that the red curtains were there, the backward talk was there, and that the dance Homunculus Sir Sparklepuff is doing accurately imitated that scene in the show. And it really mirrored Viren’s arc as well as served the story. It wasn’t just a gimmick.”
Another good portion of the design budget was spent on Finnegrin himself who, while no Aravos, is one of the more psychologically tormenting (and maybe a bit tormented) antagonists in the series.
“When Finnegan’s first introduced, I wanted to push him to be slightly Han Solo-ish, where you can’t tell if he’s good or bad,” explains Spangsberg. “Where maybe, if you get him on your side, he can be more friend than a foe. And then in the next episode, he's a bit more on your tail. Eventually, you see the true evil underneath the charm. Viewers who haven’t gotten to Episode 8 yet are in for a bit of a treat. We’ve got his right-hand, Deadwood, whose arc is partly about breaking the cycle of violence.”
Richmond adds, “Since the very beginning with The Dragon Prince, we've always been trying to say something about empathy and what it takes to get over challenges.”
This is evident not just in new characters like Finnegrin, but in the relationships of long-time characters like Claudia and her boyfriend Terry.
“I see a little bit of Iroh and Zuko in those two,” Ehasz says. “Sometimes you fall in love with people who are flawed, or bad for you in some way. Maybe they're bad for themselves or make choices that are self-destructive. Terry, like Iroh for Zuko, wants to support Claudia and, at times, say, ‘Maybe this isn't the right idea,’ and exert influence that Claudia may grow from. I do think Terry has moments where he's lying awake at night wondering if Claudia will change. But, at the end of the day, Claudia is delightful, and it's fair to be in love with her. It’s amazing to have that kind of dialogue in this show. It deepens the characters and makes their decisions nuanced and realistic, unexpected while believable, and absolutely relatable.”
The release date for The Dragon Prince’s long-awaited Season 6 has yet to be announced, but both creators, as well as Spangsberg say fans should enjoy the breather before being emotionally wrecked by the next book.
“Scumport set up a bunch of stuff for the upcoming season, including some more piratey things,” says Richmond. “And we’re going to be going more hog wild on some of the deeper emotional stuff.”
Ehasz adds, “The location of the ending of Season 5, on several levels, is something we've been planning for many years. Actually, we can point to things in Season 2, that maybe aren't quite clues, but that make you say, ‘Now that makes sense.’ And there will be things in Season 6 that make that location make even more sense.”
In other words, now is the time to go back, rewatch some older seasons, and prepare for what’s to come.
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
