Template:Episode updated V.2"The Kingdoms and the Wonder of the Weapon" is the twenty-fifth episode of the fifth season of the animated television series Lovely World and the 214th overall episode. The episode first aired in the United States on the children's programming network Children's Avast Television on April 25, 2015. It was directed by Matthew Anderson, Jake Nicholson and Benjamin Lawrence and written by Jake Nicholson, Caitlin Grimes and Justus Woodard. The series centers on the main character, Edward, and his friends Michael, Leo and Kamila, who embark on new adventures in search of sources to extend their "worlds", discover new species, and strive to achieve their own objectives.
In the episode, the group chose to visit one of the world's largest and most popular kingdoms. However, when they arrive, Kamila is perplexed by a series of events that caused Edward and the gang to become interested in the king and queen. Meanwhile, "Z" intends to assault the kingdom, where the gang is located.
The episode is the first of a three-part story that begins with "The Crown — Part One" and concludes with "The Day The Kingdom Was Destroyed — Part Two". Caitlin Grimes initially devised the concept of a three-part series centered on the gang and "Z," the series' then-primary villain. After the episode was green-lit, Nicholson and Woodard joined the production crew, with Benjamin Lawrence acting as the main director. The screenplay, like the most of the episodes in the fifth season, underwent significant modifications, and this episode was the second plot arc that concentrated on the gang and the "Z," serving as a prelude to the three-part episode "The Conflict". To create the kingdom, the production crew traveled to kingdoms to conduct information on prominent kingdoms like as the Vinays Kingdom and the then-new Swartz Kingdom.
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the script, animation and humor. It was watched by a total of 1,863,882 households and over 2,527,765 million viewers.
Plot
Following the earthquake, the gang decided to book a trip to one of the greatest and largest kingdoms in the world. The gang becomes increasingly eager as the days pass and the final countdown to the commencement of their journey approaches. When vacation time approached, the group headed to the kingdom. They were surprised at the immensity of the kingdom and wished they could have remained longer, since they only had around five days there. After being given a tour of the kingdom, the party is surprised that they were given the opportunity to see the king, as seeing the head of state is not something that happens very often, which confuses Kamila.
Leo questioned the monarch about their invitation, to which he replied that they had rescued the world, which they were referring to the dragon. Meanwhile, at an underground building near the kingdom, "Z" locates the group via his tracker and discloses that they were at the kingdom, before ordering his soldiers to go there to get them. He then decided to start developing a new dragon, claiming that he was the one who created it, in order to destroy the kingdom first, and then the Lovely World.
Following the encounter with the "monarch," which left Kamila even more perplexed and concerned, the group decided to examine the armament, where they were astounded by its immense power. However, one of the kingdom's guards warns them that those are not the proper weapons, and that they may have been stolen and replaced with a counterfeit version. He also asks where the other guards are, which leads Kamila to question how the guard knows this knowledge.
A flashback from the night before the group arrived reveals that a pair of "Z" guards had been placed, allowing the robot guns to connect to the machine created by "Z" and allowing him to obtain any armament and turn it into something new. The gang is falling slumber, with Edward beaming out the window and hoping for many more wonderful days ahead. However, Kamila is concerned and has decided to take notes on the king, the weaponry, and other sights they have witnessed. During the night, Kamila decides to go outside and inside the castle, where she notices guards who become invisible and discovers that "Z" guards are kidnapping all of the guards via teleportation to brainwash them and turn them into "Z" guards, revealing that everything she was worried about was true. She also noticed the guard from earlier, who turned out to be one of "Z"'s guards, and is terrified that he would expose the information to the gang. The episode ends with Kamila running to the hotel in panic.
Production
Conception and early development
"The Kingdoms and the Wonder of the Weapon" featured one of the largest production crews for a fifth-season episode and at the time, the second-largest crew for a Lovely World episode, with three directors and three writers, plus over 100 extra crew members, half of them being animators; an average episode had more than 50 persons on the production team. The episode, along with the next two, was among the first episodes produced for the fifth season, with full development beginning in June 2014, more than 10 months before the intended air date. Caitlin Grimes initially conceived of the episode while working on one of the episodes, when he came up with an idea for a plot involving the gang and "Z".
Around that time, numerous episodes focused on Edward and "Z," and Grimes believed he could build on their character development. After writing the initial draft of the episode, he came up with the thought of setting the plot in a kingdom. Originally as a single episode, his concept for the plot grew so large that he decided to split it into two parts, but it was subsequently enlarged to three. As production on "The Snow Region" began, he created a second script and proposed his notion to the executives; despite fears that the proposal would be rejected, the executives chose to green-light the episode, and full development was allegedly underway by the following week. He opted to employ writer Jake Nicholson to assist him with the writing and later add Justus Woodard to the production crew.
Writing and scrapped ideas
The screenplay went through major changes during the episode's production. The initial couple of versions that they generated were characterized as "far different" from the final form; the original concept was for the party to go to the kingdom and meet a villager who was a member of "Z"'s guards and had been assigned to meet the group to get a sense of them. However, the concept was dropped from development, and the screenplay, like the most of the fifth season's episodes, underwent extensive revisions. One of the numerous ideas they had was that the king and queen were abducted and replaced with a fake version. To gain a feel of how the concept would work, they opted to first create the king and queen, who were influenced by medieval figures and "had a sense of beauty and prestige"; the first form of the king was inspired by King Dayak.
After multiple concepts and rewrites, they determined that the greatest idea was to construct the false version of the king and queen identical to the real ones, using "Z"'s cloning machine, which was initially included but excised for the following episode to disclose it. According to writer Jake Nicholson, an abandoned concept was to replace the king and queen with a fictitious couple that had "no idea what they were doing." To build the concept that the phony king and queen were "as close to the real ones as possible," the writers included notes for the audience to read and were designed for "die-hard fans" to point out, which would lead up to the events of the story's conclusion. One of those notes was the idea of the group being instantly sent to visit the king and queen, which had been planned for a long time owing to its confused nature and was intended to be recorded.
Originally, the group would have sent to see the king immediately away, but to make "Z"'s crew appear wise, they chose to have them first given a tour by a villager who was a member of "Z"'s guards. However, the plan was abandoned, and the concept of the villager giving the party a tour was replaced by "a typical villager." One of the lines from the villager's initial version that was deleted from complete development was for him to mention "Z," which would confuse the group and make Edward agitated and threaten him. It was discarded because the writers realized it may have rendered the "remain of the story useless." The episode's ending was not proposed until full production began, and an initial version of the screenplay would have centered on the "Z" subplot, in which the villain is shown to be plotting another attack.
Benjamin Lawrence produced the concept for the final version of the conclusion, which aimed to make Kamila "worried" and demonstrate her want to learn more about the king and queen. However, after multiple discussions over the idea, it was determined that the subplot would take place in the second act of the show, after Leo questioned the King. The writers opted to make Kamila experience anticipatory anxiety, which is the worry of something unpleasant happening. Caitlin Grimes, who was working on "To The Woods," decided to write notes on her future fears and worries in order to further develop her character. He also investigates the issue of anticipatory anxiety, fear of the future, among others. Jake Nicholson, who also directed it, set the tone of the episode, which was "bright and joyful" in the middle but "began to grow more darker and scarier near the conclusion." Benjamin Lawrence proposed the use of flashbacks, stating that the flashbacks would occur as soon as any person in the background left and from the same camera viewpoint as the previous scene, but the illumination (time) would be altered to midnight.
The episode was originally scheduled to be roughly 22 minutes, but due to the production crew's desire to expand on the kingdom's worldbuilding, the length was extended by ten minutes, totaling 32 minutes. The following two were executed with the same runtime.
Casting
At the 2014 New Blockers Comic Con in October, episode directors Matthew Anderson, Jake Nicholson, and Benjamin Lawrence confirmed that George Timothy Smith, a reporter for Bloxburg News who has been a meme since 2010, and Augustin Ford, co-founder of the Pearl Electronics Company, would make cameo appearances in the episode. George Timothy Smith played the villager who gave the company a tour, while Augustin Ford voiced the monarch.
Setting and design
Caleb Atkinson, Joel Taylor, Brandon Scott, Frederick Hunter, Jack Lawson, Maximiliano O'neill, Franklin Kim, Zachary Carey, Aydan Kelley, and Judah Price all contributed to the design of the kingdom for this and the next two episodes. To obtain a sense of the kingdom they were constructing, Avast Television sent over 100 individuals to conduct study on the Vinays Kingdom and the then-new Swartz Kingdom, which was established three years previous to the development. The trip, which lasted more than seven days, was one of Avast's longest research trips to date, as well as one of the largest for any animated series created by the studio. Among of the notes that were written down was the idea of making the kingdom designed in wood. One of the ideas jotted down was to create the kingdom in wood. During that period, conceptual art was made that depicted wooden buildings, farmers, and other subjects. However, the plan was partially ditched in order to incorporate modern characteristics, and further study led to the artists opting to create the kingdom as "it was in the medieval days around the 1400s" and vast.
An early design for the kingdom had the island moving via a giant machine underwater, but that idea was abandoned owing to being "strange and off-putting." The guards' designs were likewise inspired by medieval styles, with a mark indicating which "level" they were on. For example, one of the villagers serves as a "level one" guard, farming the crops and giving tours to new arrivals. To design the style of the hotel where the party was staying, they visited motels and hotels with a "1950s flair" and traveled to New Blockers City to visit the Empire State Building. Avast organized a trip in November 2014, sending ten animators to the world's oldest hotel.
Broadcast and reception
Ratings
"The Kingdoms and the Wonder of the Weapon" first aired in the United States on the children's programming network Children's Avast Television on April 25, 2015. On the day of its premiere, the episode was watched by an approximate total of 1,863,882 households and over 2,527,765 million viewers, a major increase from the previous episode "Through the Earthquake", which had 2.1 million viewers.
Reviews
"The Kingdoms and the Wonder of the Weapon" received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the script, animation and humor. Most reviewers and mainly, audiences and "die-hard fans" complimented the episode, citing it as the season's first official plot arc, having previously disliked the fact that the other 24 episodes (except for the "Travel to the Far Past" storyline) had a lack of story, despite on how good they were. Brandon Jackson awarded the episode a 9 out of 10 rating, praising the animation and plot, and stating that "this episode was one of the finest" he had seen. Lucy Johnston gave the episode an 8 out of 10 rating, praising it for its comedy, worldbuilding, and animation style, and said that the episode was "at its height, brilliant, and at its worst, terrific." He also appreciated the episode's general tone, thanking Jake Nicholson with "making things work."
Jack George gave the episode a 9 out of 10 and stated that "The Kingdoms" was one of his favorite episodes in the Lovely World series. He also commended the script, calling certain portions amusing and terrifying at the same time. Declan James described the episode as "perfect" for the beginning of the story arc, stating that "by adding small notes, audiences can set up the events for the next two episodes, without spoilering the episode" and praising Kamila's development with anticipatory anxiety. James also mentioned that the "whole tone of the episode meshes with Kamila's worry" and that he loved how the flashbacks were handled.