The Wingfeather Saga

I've only read the first book of this series with my daughter and we both loved it. It's an excellent story, well told with wonderful characters, and a placed in a charming world.

The first episode of the TV show attempts to bring us into the world Peterson so wonderfully wrote, and it ends up (by the end of the first episode) feeling rushed and uneven.

It deviates pretty strongly from the book in some key areas-notably the character introductions-and makes me worry a bit for how it will handle the narrative going forward. Already, the discovery of the dangers of Glipwood Forest has been subverted by an intro that was far different in the book and better done in the short film.

There are also audio mixing issues where the voices don't always clear the mix and come out muddled and incomprehensible. The music is also mixed poorly and feels too rote in places and ill fitting in others.

Perhaps I expected too much from the animation after the short film, but I felt a little let down initially. Thankfully, it's done well enough that I was drawn in and enjoyed it after readjusting my expectations. The character designs are excellent and the voice actors do a great job with their characters.

Criticisms aside, there is so much potential in this show already and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of this season and reading the other books with my daughter soon.

I don't have words to describe how I feel! Everything was beautiful! The characters. The background paintings. The props. The Fangs!!!

Andrew Peterson, Chris Wall, Keith Lango, Ron Smith, The Arcadian Wild, Kurt Heinecke, and everyone else involved have done the impossible. They took the best book series ever and translated it wonderfully to the screen.

All the creatures look phenomenal. Bumpy Digtoad, Fazzle Dove, Thwaps, Toothy Cow, and Sea Dragons!! Just amazing!

Every character was perfectly cast. They all sound just as I imagined them to.

I do not have words. I just don't.

And can we just give a round of applause to Kurt and The Arcadian Wild for the beautiful, amazing score?! 👏 👏👏

Just watched the first episode, and fell in live all over again! Great introduction to the characters and the artwork is so great! It really brings you into the town of Glipwood. The introduction of the different creatures right at the start gets you so excited to see more of this incredible world. The voice acting is very well done and is exactly in the tone of the expected feeling from the books. The singing in the books has always been interesting and we were not disappointed with the performances in the first episode! There is so much more in store in this epic story, and my family is incredibly excited to follow along.

My son and I love the Wingfeather Saga books and were very excited to see the animated take on the series. Introducing characters and settings for the first time is always challenging and these books have a lot of vibrant imagery in the descriptions to portray. It took a minute or two for me to adjust my mental pictures to what was being portrayed by the artists, but I found myself quickly swept into the story and the animation style grew on me as we met more characters - especially the dragons!

I am definitely looking forward to seeing the next episode and watching the story unfold - perhaps even more now than initially.

Though I will always recommend the books first, this animated representation is engaging, unique, elegant, and intriguing - much like the books!

Once, in a great while a show comes along where young and old look forward to watching together. Wingfeather is such a show.

The story immediately draws the family in and the animation is completely different than anything we've seen before. It seems like every frame is a piece of art.

Our 11 year old, who read the books, ended up buying wingfeather shirts for himself because he is deeply into the story. I think he has read the books twice. He is so excited for the show and he's struggling to avoid spoilers. "I want to be able to talk to the rest of the family about it!" He said.

So, tonight we all watched the livestream of episode one together. We will be there in two weeks for episode two!