Time travel, magic, and an Oscar-winning director. What's not to like?

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Netflix Releases Trailer for Final 'Tales of Arcadia' Series 'Wizards'

by Cameron LeBlanc
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The final installment of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy is coming to Netflix next month, and a new trailer reveals a lot about how Guillermo del Toro’s CGI fantasy science fiction saga is going to end.

It shows a rag-tag group of fighters, he falls through some kind of hole in the space-time continuum to medieval Camelot. Now lost in time, they battle the bad guys — including plenty many-eyed creatures, a Del Toro signature — trying to figure out how to get back to the present without screwing up the timeline, a classic Back to the Future-style conundrum.

The first two installments in the series, Trollhunters and 3Below, introduced the suburban town of Arcadia Oaks, home to a slew of fantastic creatures and humans who fight the evil ones, as the name “Trollhunters” suggests. It’s definitely a children’s show — the trailer has plenty of comic relief despite the large odds — but because it’s the brainchild of an Oscar-winning director, it’s more interesting for parents than most children’s TV shows.

Anyone who has seen Pan’s Labyrinth or The Shape of Water knows that Del Toro can put together a compelling story with supernatural elements. And anyone whose seen his Hellboy films knows he can make a crowd-pleasing, plot-driven piece of popular art.

Del Toro’s varied career has also seen him produce a slew of children’s animated movies for Dreamworks, including Puss in Boots and the Kung Fu Panda sequels. And in true Renaissance man fashion, he also wrote the novel and two comic books that inspired the series.

As a parent, watching children’s TV shows is part of your job. And given the choice, we’d much rather watch something from a guy with the visual style, creative storytelling, and auteurish ambition of Del Toro.

Wizards: Tales of Arcadia premieres on Netflix on August 7, but you and your kids can catch up on the first two installments now.

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