The Dreamstone's original premise seemed to take a great deal of inspiration from Tolkien and was about a Hobbit-like creature called Rufus who travelled and faced adversaries in order to confront a Sauron-like villain (Zordrak/Nasta Shelfim/Satan Himself) over a One Ring-like trinket (The Dreamstone) for the benefit of a Gandalf-like character (the Dream-Maker). The original two-part pilot stuck fairly closely to this idea, with beautifully designed and imaginative worlds and characters. It had the benefit of sympathetic and more developed villains than most cartoons of this era. As the series went on, the villains were more like antiheroes in contrast to the characters who were supposed to be the goodies, and as others have noticed the goodies are unsympathetic and unlikeable just by virtue of being pitted against these characters, which for reasons that never make sense are treated as total pariahs even though the heroes seem to be fully aware that they are slaves belonging to an evil overlord who kills them at the drop of a hat.
The protagonists I suppose are perfectly acceptable as stock fantasy heroes and in anything lesser with comparable stock villains this would have been an unremarkable and forgettable children's cartoon. Some of the less frequently seen protagonists, in particular Wildit (wonderfully voice acted) and Spildit and the gardener are a lot of fun. The Noops who are the main characters are just irritating goody-goodies who run to the Dream-maker, and in a lot of episodes Pildit, who are depicted with deus ex machina powers that really do nothing to avert the antagonists' underdog status or make the protagonists in any way sympathetic.
I recall when it originally aired, The Dreamstone replaced another science-fantasy cartoon, which from what I remember and what I've been able to trace was a Spanish cartoon called La Corona Magica (The Magic Crown) dubbed into English. I've been unable to find the English dub, but what made both these cartoons stick in my memory was the development of the villains. Corona Magica had a villain character called Zohak and the series was pretty much about his fall from grace. Despite the excellence of the antagonists in The Dreamstone, no character arc develops throughout four series. Every episode is pretty much the same plot and the Urpneys are being sent to the Land of Dreams to try to cause the goodies (whom we don't care about anyway) to have bad dreams, and failing through bad luck when we really want them to succeed and the goodies are laughing at their misfortune or beating them up, and then they go home and get beaten up again. Sergeant Blob is bossy and arrogant and speaks in malapropisms, but is loyal to his subordinates (and inexplicably to Zordrak), Frizz is neurotic, and Nug is this sort of sweet, philosophical, slightly hippieish sort of guy. Urpgor is insane, power- mad, and totally conceited and self- obsessed, and he does sort of toy a few times with the idea of going rogue, which is as close as it ever gets. It's kind of depressing that they never try to get out of this miserable and abusive situation and make something better for themselves. All four of them have amazing voice actors well, Urpgor's original voice actor is amazing, but he gets replaced with someone rather less talented.
In some of the episodes, the villains carry swords, but are never seen to use them. More absurdly, each of them has what appears to be two spikes on the tail. They never use these for self defence and their tails are often shown to be inadvertently jammed in objects or bitten by adversaries, or used as a grappling point for enemies larger than them. They also wear metal breastplates, shoulderguards and helmets which doesn't seem to be very effective at protecting them (and although they have hair in the initial episodes, they're later depicted as having shaved heads exactly the same shape as their helmets). This is more wasted potential, as at least showing the antagonists to be intimidating would have gone some way to addressing the underdog syndrome.
Likewise the protagonists remain stuck in a rut and they don't become any more likable and their situation and their desperation to have nice dreams does not become any more sympathetic, and their overpowered elders never become powerless and leave them to suffer real peril. It's not really the best message for children -- that you can be a good person in some ways, but if you're an Urpney life will treat you badly regardless and you're not entitled to anything, and that if you're a Noop, you're entitled to treat people badly just because they're Urpneys, and can insist on petty things like not having bad dreams.
Another thing that bothered me even as a child was the Urpneys getting squashed flat, inflated, etc. in pretty much all the episodes other than the pilot. It was a sophisticated animation with great designs and music. This sort of stupidity is beneath it and really doesn't fit, and isn't funny. Considering in the pilot someone was killed for real by being dumped in a pit full of carnivorous beasts and someone else was assumed dead because rocks fell on them, it just doesn't make sense at all for normal rules of biology not to apply.
This has come out as a bit of a moany review. While we tend to forget and have little to say about television offerings that are genuinely poor in every respect, the ones that are memorable and have many great aspects we tend to notice the faults with. There really is a lot to love about The Dreamstone. As it is, it's superlative for it's time and gets off to a strong start in the pilot episodes, but it's hard not to see the wasted potential and how it could have been something epic.
The protagonists I suppose are perfectly acceptable as stock fantasy heroes and in anything lesser with comparable stock villains this would have been an unremarkable and forgettable children's cartoon. Some of the less frequently seen protagonists, in particular Wildit (wonderfully voice acted) and Spildit and the gardener are a lot of fun. The Noops who are the main characters are just irritating goody-goodies who run to the Dream-maker, and in a lot of episodes Pildit, who are depicted with deus ex machina powers that really do nothing to avert the antagonists' underdog status or make the protagonists in any way sympathetic.
I recall when it originally aired, The Dreamstone replaced another science-fantasy cartoon, which from what I remember and what I've been able to trace was a Spanish cartoon called La Corona Magica (The Magic Crown) dubbed into English. I've been unable to find the English dub, but what made both these cartoons stick in my memory was the development of the villains. Corona Magica had a villain character called Zohak and the series was pretty much about his fall from grace. Despite the excellence of the antagonists in The Dreamstone, no character arc develops throughout four series. Every episode is pretty much the same plot and the Urpneys are being sent to the Land of Dreams to try to cause the goodies (whom we don't care about anyway) to have bad dreams, and failing through bad luck when we really want them to succeed and the goodies are laughing at their misfortune or beating them up, and then they go home and get beaten up again. Sergeant Blob is bossy and arrogant and speaks in malapropisms, but is loyal to his subordinates (and inexplicably to Zordrak), Frizz is neurotic, and Nug is this sort of sweet, philosophical, slightly hippieish sort of guy. Urpgor is insane, power- mad, and totally conceited and self- obsessed, and he does sort of toy a few times with the idea of going rogue, which is as close as it ever gets. It's kind of depressing that they never try to get out of this miserable and abusive situation and make something better for themselves. All four of them have amazing voice actors well, Urpgor's original voice actor is amazing, but he gets replaced with someone rather less talented.
In some of the episodes, the villains carry swords, but are never seen to use them. More absurdly, each of them has what appears to be two spikes on the tail. They never use these for self defence and their tails are often shown to be inadvertently jammed in objects or bitten by adversaries, or used as a grappling point for enemies larger than them. They also wear metal breastplates, shoulderguards and helmets which doesn't seem to be very effective at protecting them (and although they have hair in the initial episodes, they're later depicted as having shaved heads exactly the same shape as their helmets). This is more wasted potential, as at least showing the antagonists to be intimidating would have gone some way to addressing the underdog syndrome.
Likewise the protagonists remain stuck in a rut and they don't become any more likable and their situation and their desperation to have nice dreams does not become any more sympathetic, and their overpowered elders never become powerless and leave them to suffer real peril. It's not really the best message for children -- that you can be a good person in some ways, but if you're an Urpney life will treat you badly regardless and you're not entitled to anything, and that if you're a Noop, you're entitled to treat people badly just because they're Urpneys, and can insist on petty things like not having bad dreams.
Another thing that bothered me even as a child was the Urpneys getting squashed flat, inflated, etc. in pretty much all the episodes other than the pilot. It was a sophisticated animation with great designs and music. This sort of stupidity is beneath it and really doesn't fit, and isn't funny. Considering in the pilot someone was killed for real by being dumped in a pit full of carnivorous beasts and someone else was assumed dead because rocks fell on them, it just doesn't make sense at all for normal rules of biology not to apply.
This has come out as a bit of a moany review. While we tend to forget and have little to say about television offerings that are genuinely poor in every respect, the ones that are memorable and have many great aspects we tend to notice the faults with. There really is a lot to love about The Dreamstone. As it is, it's superlative for it's time and gets off to a strong start in the pilot episodes, but it's hard not to see the wasted potential and how it could have been something epic.
