Trollhunters

Synopsis

Beneath the fictional town of Arcadia lives a secret civilization of trolls, which humans are oblivious to. The trolls' common enemy are the Gumm-Gumms, evil trolls from the Darklands, whom the trolls' chosen warrior, known as the 'Trollhunter', is supposed to protect them from, among other dark miscreants.

Fifteen year-old James 'Jim' Lake Jr and his friend Toby find a mystical amulet which grants him the Trollhunter mantle. He is shortly approached by his new troll mentors, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!!. Despite his initial reluctance of leading two difficult lives, he eventually accepts his role after discovering that neglecting the amulet will nevertheless lead to its return. During his visits to Heartstone Trollmarket, the presence of the first human Trollhunter stirs resentment, but he quickly gains their honor. Throughout his training and missions, he befriends a gnome (which Toby dubs 'Gnome Chompsky') and discovers that goblins and Changelings (human-morphing trolls that replace humans to spy) are gathering for the completion of Killahead Bridge, which will be a portal for the Gumm-Gumms from the Darklands - the project is being lead by Bular, the son of the Gumm-Gumm's leader Gunmar, and the Changeling replacing Jim's high school teacher Mr. Strickler.

While discovering more mysteries, he is forced to reveal the truth about his life to Claire Nuñez when she becomes a target of the goblins. After he, Toby, Blinky, AAARRRGGHH!!! and Draal infiltrate the gathering and destroy the bridge, Jim is forced to battle Bular and eventually kills him. He returns to Trollmarket, where the citizens celebrate Bular's defeat.

Shortly afterwards, Claire proposes a quest into the Darklands to rescue her baby brother Enrique, who has been replaced with a Changeling who they dub NotEnrique. Blinky informs them that the only way out of the Darklands is to kill Gunmar - the only way to destroy him is with the three Triumbic Stones. After finding the first two, their enemy Strickler frees ancient troll assassin Angor Rot from his bonds - using Angor's ring, he forces him under his control. After Jim indirectly causes his ring to break, Angor goes on a rampage, attempting to kill Strickler and Jim - in the process, Strickler and Jim's mother are injured. Trollmarket's leader, Vendel, informs Jim that the only way to cure it is to break the binding spell that ties his mother's and Strickler's fates together - however, his mother's memories of the troll world are erased. Strickler hands Jim the last Triumbic Stone.

Angor Rot begins to invade Trollmarket after stealing the key from Toby and Claire. They defeat him. During his rampage, however, AAARRRGGHH!!! is killed, much to the grief of the group, especially Toby. Thinking that he was responsible for the death and the endangerment of his friends, Jim sets off to the Darklands alone, not wanting to lose any more of them.

Cast

Production

Initially, del Toro envisioned the idea as a live action television series; however this was deemed impractical due to budgetary concerns, and as a result he instead turned the idea into a book. DreamWorks then planned to turn the book into an animated feature film, but eventually decided to instead turn it into a series.

Del Toro modeled the show's sensibilities after shows he grew up with such as Johnny Quest, identifying them as "really earnest and emotionally beautiful". To this end, he sought to make the main character of Jim "in that ’70s mold," and "really a very good boy" with del Toro noting that this was a constant struggle for him to express to both writers and actors. Eventually he came across Anton Yelchin, who embodied those qualities although by del Toro's estimate it still took him a few sessions to fully understand the character.

When creating the show's narrative, del Toro noted that he wanted a "bittersweet journey" for the main character dealing with issues that most such "power fantasies" failed to address, telling indiewire" I wanted to say, 'Look, you can be in high school and you can have your problems. Then you get all these powers and then you have a different set of problems. There is not such a thing as a final, great outcome.'"

The show serves as one of Yelchin's final projects as he died shortly after recording most of his character's dialogue. Producer Del Toro refused to replace his recordings, which del Toro noted was a challenge for the show's recording engineers. Of his decision del Toro stated that the actor "was proud of what he did, and we were so proud of how he did it." adding that his experience as a father and Yelchin's young age were also factors that led to the decision.

Critical reception

Trollhunters has received acclaim from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 93% approval rating with an average rating of 7.81/10 based on 15 reviews for the first season. The website's consensus reads, "Trollhunters manages to capture del Toro's enthusiasm for telling monster stories, in a youthful and more colorful fashion that may well earn him a new generation of fans." On Metacritic, the season has a normalized score of 69 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

On January 30, 2017, Trollhunters writers Kevin & Dan Hageman stated that it is the most successful Netflix original show to date that is targeted at a younger audience.