- “Destiny is a gift. Our loved ones gave their lives, but we are here in this very moment of quiet desperation. We've learned that what feels like a burden pushing down on our shoulders... Is actually a sense of purpose that lifts us to greater heights. Never forget that fear is but the precursor to valor. That to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what makes us heroes. Don't think. Become.”
―The Hero Speech by Guardians of Arcadia
Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (or simply Rise of the Titans) is a Netflix original film created by Guillermo Del Toro, produced by DreamWorks Animation and Double Dare You Productions. It serves as the grand finale to the Tales of Arcadia franchise.
The film was released on July 21st, 2021.[1]
Premise
Arcadia Oaks may look like an ordinary town, but it lies at the center of magical and extraterrestrial lines that makes it a nexus for many battles among otherworldly creatures including trolls, aliens, and wizards. Now, the heroes from the hit series Trollhunters, 3Below, and Wizards team-up in their most epic adventure yet where they must fight the Arcane Order for control over the magic that binds them all together.[2]
Plot
Following a year after the events of Wizards, Douxie Casperan, Nari & Archie are ambushed by the arrival of the Arcane Order in a subway train (located in Metro City). Jim Lake Jr (equiped with Krel's serrator) & Claire Nunez accompanied the three and Toby Domzaski accidentally breaks the train’s brakes, causing the train to go fast and never slow down, as the other heroes (Stuart, Steve Palchuk & Krel Tarron) plans to use the anti-magic generator to stop the Arcane Order from using their magic. While Jim is wounded in battle against one of the Arcane Order’s members, Bellroc, the train begins to go off-track and Douxie uses his charm bracelet to create magical train tracks. Afterwards, Douxie switches bodies with Nari, and she is now in Douxie’s body.
In the newly rebuilt Camelot, Jim recovers his wounds and both Aja Tarron & Eli Pepperjack arrive from Akiridion-5, with Steve kissing Aja for the seventh time and Aja reveals that the seventh kiss can make babies, and Steve is the one who will be pregnant. All of the heroes gather around in the round table to discuss about the Arcane Order (In Merlin's Grimoire), who have sought to reawaken the Titans and combine the beings in the center of the universe, which will make Earth reborn and back to it’s first creation. Elsewhere, the Arcane Order finds Douxie switching places with Nari, and the order uses their magic to revert the two back into their normal bodies. Before being reverted back to her body, Nari informs JIm that the trollhunter must make the ninth configuration and the krohnisfere will make it right. The heroes then enter a roundhouse and discover that the Arcane Order is already preparing the ritual. While the heroes try their best effort to destroy the Genesis Seals, Jim tries to unlock his new and improved amulet but fails, and the ritual is completed. Each member of the Arcane Order controls one titan from Greenland, Brazil and the South China Sea.
The heroes then makes a plan; Jim needs the stone from Excalibur’s hilt for his new amulet and sends Krel, Stuart, Steve & Eli to get Excalibur (which is still struck on the stone), Claire leads a team (consisting of Blinky Galadrigal, Claire, Archie & Charlemagne) to Hong Kong in search for the krohnisfere (which is in the hands of Zong-Shi, the leader of the TrollDragons in a new trollmarket) & the rest of the heroes tries their best to defeat the Titans. Stricklander & Nomura both are killed in a battle against the titans, and Jim’s team (consisting of Toby & Aja) travels to Hong Kong after receiving no contact from Claire’s team. While on their way to the new trollmarket, Jim’s team discovers that Bellroc’s titan is approaching a bridge until Varvatos Vex arrives in a mech suit designed by Eli (inspired by Gun Robot, a fictional character from the same universe). Bellroc manages to destroy the mech suit but Varvatoes manages to flee to safety. Jim & Toby manage to rescue Claire’s team to escape the new trollmarket, burning his right hand in the process. However, both Charlemagne & Archie stay behind to fend off an entire army of trolls dragons. The heroes reunite and Douxie manages to get inside Nari’s head, unlocking her freewill. Nari, on the side of the heroes, battles with Skrael’s titan and none of the two emerge victorious.
Afterwards, the heroes discover that Bellroc’s titan is not responding to Skrael & Nari’s defeat and is still marching to Arcadia Oaks. The heroes then realises that Blinky missed a page where if one succeeds, that one can unite with a heartstone which will be an element of making earth reborn. The heroes meet up in Arcadia Oaks, and Jim fails once again to lift Excalibur off of the stone, until he realises that the ninth configuration is meant to represent him and his friends. As his friends place their hands on the stone and surrounding him, Jim ultimately pulls Excalibur off of the stone, and sends Stuart off to replace the new amulet’s stone with Excalibur’s stone. All of the heroes struggle to defeat Bellroc in an epic battle, Jim accepts that the amulet never made him a hero, he already was one, and the new amulet manages to come towards him, and in new armor, Jim faces off against Bellroc in an epic battle. Meanwhile, Toby rushes the truck, carrying the anti-magic ray, and he uses it stop Bellroc from using their magic, with gives Jim the opportunity to kill Bellroc with Excalibur, causing their titan to fall to the ground. As the heroes celebrate their victory and Steve’s pregnancy of giving birth to seven babies, Toby is nowhere in sight, and Jim rushes to search for him and finds that Toby has been crushed by the debris. A dying Toby gives his last breath, leaving all of the heroes in sorrow.
Afterwards, Jim realises that the krohnisfere was meant to prevent all of the events they've been through from ever happening, and he gives his last goodbye to everyone before traveling to the first episode of Trollhunters (the morning where he found the amulet). Jim decides to give up his duty and allow Toby to take over the mantle, and after Toby finds the amulet in the remains of the Kanjigar, Toby yells his catchphrase; “AWESOMESAUCE!”
Voice Cast
- Emile Hirsch as Jim Lake Jr.[2]
- Lexi Medrano as Claire Nuñez[2]
- Charlie Saxton as Toby Domzalski[2]
- Kelsey Grammer as Blinky Galadrigal[2]
- Fred Tatasciore as AAARRRGGHH!!!
- Tatiana Maslany as Aja Tarron[2]
- Diego Luna as Krel Tarron[2]
- Nick Offerman as Varvatos Vex[2]
- Colin O'Donoghue as Douxie Casperan[2]
- Alfred Molina as Archie[2]
- Steven Yeun as Steve Palchuk[2]
- Cole Sand as Eli Pepperjack[2]
- Brian Blessed as Charlemagne[2]
- Kay Bess as Bellroc[2]
- Piotr Michael as Bellroc, Skrael[2]
- James Hong as Zong Shi[2]
- Nick Frost as Stuart[2]
- Tom Kenny as Dadblank[2]
- Cheryl Hines as Momblank[2]
- Frank Welker as Luug
- Angel Lin as Nari[2]
- Amy Landecker as Barbara Lake[2]
- Jonathan Hyde as Walter Strickler[2]
- Lauren Tom as Nomura
- Laraine Newman as Nancy Domzalski, Lenora Janeth[2]
- Thomas F. Wilson as Coach Lawrence
- Bebe Wood as Shannon Longhannon[2]
- Grey Griffin as Metro City Police Chief[2]
See full cast at IMDB here
Character Debuts
Reception
The movie currently has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the ending was poorly received, as the audiences thought that it ruined the whole development of the characters. Steve’s pregnancy arc was noted as another negative aspect of the film.
Trivia
- Rise of the Titans is the first (and only) film of the franchise, and the only installment to not premiere on a Friday.
- It's also the first DreamWorks Animation feature film to be exclusively distributed by Netflix.
- Additionally, Rise of the Titans currently has the longest runtime in DreamWorks Animation's filmography (about a minute longer than How to Train Your Dragon 3).
- The movie takes place approximately a year after the events of the Wizards series finale, as confirmed by Aaron Waltke.
- According to Guillermo Del Toro on the Netflix Summer Movie Preview, the movie is about "escaping to somewhere new".
- According to Marc Guggenheim in an interview with Animation Magazine, the film starts with an exposition prologue (narrated by Kelsey Grammer as Blinky and Emile Hirsch as Jim) so viewers who have not seen the whole trilogy won't be confused.
- It is also mentioned in the interview that the original plan was to involve all three shows into a climax, but the team didn’t know if it would take the form of a feature film or an extended season of Wizards. Ultimately, they decided to make it a feature film as "a way to tell this story on the scope that [the writers] wanted and have the story be as big as [they] aspired it to be".
- When Toby exclaims "We're gonna need a bigger castle", this is a parody of the famed line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" from the blockbuster 1975 film Jaws.
- According to Marc Guggenheim in an interview with Collider, when deciding on the ending, they didn’t want an anticlimactic ending with the main characters going to college, but they decided on the timeline reset idea because it could avoid the anticlimactic ending and allow them to reset the universe although they didn’t want the audience to feel cheated so they decided to make sure all of the events in the original timeline still happened and Jim remembered them to ensure the ending wasn’t a cop-out.
- Be reference to a Infinity stone (Time Stone) from Doctor Strange, Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame.
- Continuity Error:
- In "Becoming: Part 1" Jim wakes up to his alarm clock at 6 AM. At the beginning of the alternate timeline, Jim wakes up to his alarm at 8 AM.
- In "Becoming: Part 2" Jim tries out for the school play (the day or a couple of days after he finds the amulet). But in the new timeline the auditions happen on the day he comes back (Aka "Becoming: Part 1")
- Plausibility: These "continuity errors" were presumably intentional to show the audience proof that this is a new alternate timeline. Toby doesn't show up once Jim picks up the trash and he was shown climbing a rope with little issue, which he originally failed to do so in "Becoming: Part 1".
- In 3Below, Krel says that the center of the universe is trillions of light-years away from the Earth. Here, Blinky says that Arcadia Oaks is the center of the universe.
- In Wizards, the Arcane Order are described as primordial demigods, which are either half-human half-god or simply lower-tier gods. Here, they're described as the creators of the universe itself.
Trailers & Videos
Soundtrack
Transcript
- Main article: Rise of the Titans/Transcript
Franchise Index
| Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||
| Trollhunters (Part One) |
Trollhunters (Part Two) |
Trollhunters (Part Three) |
3Below (Part One) |
3Below (Part Two) |
Wizards | Rise of the Titans |
| Defenders of Arcadia | ||||||
Gallery
References
- ↑ https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/1371564786194915328
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans’ Movie Scheduled for 2021. Variety (August 7th, 2020). Retrieved August 7th, 2020.