Knights of Guinevere: A Triumph for Indie Animation

Recently, independently-produced animation (indie animation for short) has been on a huge roll. Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, for example, have gone from being indie shows on Youtube to both being on Amazon Prime. Lackadaisy’s pilot blew up on Youtube and is now getting a full season on there. There are also tons of animated shows that are independently produced by independent studios. One such studio, Glitch Productions, is one of the biggest and most well known. They’ve made 3D animated shows such as Murder Drones and The Amazing Digital Circus. Now, they’ve adventured into 2D with their recently released pilot. Knights of Guinevere is about two women who work in a toxic environment underneath a floating sky park. The two of them discover a broken princess android from the park above and decide to repair her. The show is co-created by Dana Terrace (the creator of The Owl House), Zach Marcus, and John Bailey Owen. Knights of Guinevere is a triumph for indie animation. 

Spoilers below. 

To start off, the animation is absolutely stellar. Every shot looks gorgeous, between the lighting and the colors. The animation is smooth and satisfying to look at. Considering this is Glitch’s first 2D animated show, this is a huge accomplishment. The world is immersive and all the settings are so interesting to look at. I felt like I was a part of this world just by watching the pilot. It really captures the feeling of this toxic wasteland world that the characters are living in. 

As for the characters, I found them all endearing in some way. Frankie (voiced by Michaela Laws) is a young woman who sells scraps for money for a man named Sparky (Kayleigh McKee). Frankie is a dreamer who wants to work for the park one day. Her roommate, Andi (Zelda Khan Black) is a high strung engineer for the park. The two of them make a great dynamic together, especially because of their differences in attitude. Together they set off to repair an android named Guinevere (Eden Riegel). The pilot also included two characters in a flashback–a young girl named Olivia (Lauren Kong) and her father/park owner, Orville (SungWon Cho). Olivia and Orville abuse Guinevere in the beginning, which causes her to jump off the park to the toxic wasteland below. I’m interested to learn the backstories of all these characters, especially Guinevere. I also loved the moment Guinevere protected Frankie and Andi from the giant robot because they helped her in the past. Then, she took down the robot effortlessly. It just raises more questions that I can’t wait to see answered in the future. 

I also find it interesting that this show is a commentary on Disney and its tendency to produce waste and overwork their employees. A lot of this was likely inspired by Dana Terrace working for Disney creating The Owl House. This show was cut short for arbitrary reasons and never got a fully fleshed out third season. Instead, they got three specials and had to speedrun the rest of the show. I wonder if this new pilot is a way to condemn Disney for their corporate mindset and their performativeness. In Knights of Guinevere, the park itself resembles Disney World and Orville resembles Walt Disney. Hidden below the park is a toxic wasteland where its employees live, being underpaid and getting sick left and right. A lot of the people down there also resent the park, for good reason. Many of them are sick, coughing up the same blue gunk that the park droids are made of. I’m interested to see how this all progresses in the series. 

I also find it interesting that Frankie, despite working a mind-numbing job making merchandise for the park, still dreams to become an engineer for it. She still has the mindset that the park is “magical” despite living in a toxic wasteland hell because of the park. I wonder if this is commentary on how nostalgia can make us disillusioned with reality. Meanwhile, Andi, who actually works as an engineer for the park, hates her job. The pilot shows just how overworked and stressed she is, and how she gets fired for a single mistake. The two women have a really great dynamic and contrast between each other. 

Overall, the pilot set up a really promising series. Knights of Guinevere is a huge triumph for indie animation. It’s the first 2D animated pilot by Glitch Productions with extremely talented people on the team. I can’t wait to see what this show brings to the table.