A new episode, "Broken Bonds," will finally be airing in the US on 9/17 on the ABC Family channel with a re-run on 9/18. It's not in a very good time slot: 8am if you're on cable or 8am Eastern time if you're on satellite (which makes it 5am on the west coast). It also airs on Toon Disney on 9/19 at 12:30am (yikes!). They're going to have trouble building the audience if they're going to air the show at those times.

<img src="www.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=28911548/t_=32685509">

please disregard that last post...it was a failed test.

It's OK. You can use the "Edit" button next to your own postings to correct things after they're posted.

This board doesn't allow html tags like <img> in postings. To get an image into your posting use [IMG] instead. The basic syntax to use in your posting is the full URL to the image (including the "http://" part) inbetween the tags so it looks something like this:

You can use the "Preview Post" button to see if it worked before posting. Send me an email or PM if you need more help.

You call that new I say that one in May or so THE LEAP OF LORIUS, THE WRAITH BOOSTER AND ARTHA THE DRAC are new and if you want to know what happens I taped them

did you tape them in VHS or ind DVD?

I only got vhs but I want them on dvd but I'm not getting a dvd burner at this time

I got 'em as well! :D Yeah, Cain's quote on the cookies was funny. But the episodes Broken Bonds, Faster Than Fear, Leap of Lorius, The Wraith Booster and Artha the Drac never showed yet on Jetix or ABC or anywhere else besides CBC. Good thing now it's caught up. Hopefully Season 2 will get even newer episodes. I sure hope so.

You have artha the Drac? HOLY MAGNA DRACONIS! What's it about anyway. is artha finally drac, instead of loser?

If you want to know I will tell you it is a good ep and the end is the best

Which one???

Arta the Drac?

Artha the drac

I¡'m dying to watch thos chapters

I've seen the episode twice over the weekend. I was hoping that Furox would be the first one to post a new thread about this, but it's been a while now. I guess I'm a bit eager and impatient about dissecting the latest episode in US. :)

So any comments about "Broken Bonds"?

I found it oddly amusing when Mortis did that magic trick with Lance.

Booyah! At last, I get to discuss this episode! :lol:

Overall, it's okay. Not too great; though.

1: "All Is Not Lost" probably should've been the appropriate title for this. In the real "All Is Not Lost" episode, I don't really see the meaning of this. "All Is Not Lost" would make a much better title for "Broken Bonds", with the whole Lance grieving over losing his dad, his best friend and Artha thing.

2: How the heck does a kid like Spratt end up with the Dragon Eyes? I mean, everybody's gotta know how evul they are and stuff like that. And if Lance was Spratt's best friend, wouldn't the guy try convincing his best friend to get away from the Dragon Eyes because they are so evul and all that? I mean, Spratt might just listen, knowing that already he's stealing something!

3: Height problem, this is minor, but it still kinda annoys me. Look, already we know that Moordryd is not as tall as his father, yet you look at the DB Central webbie and realize that Moordryd's supposed to be taller than his father. Fix the heights, please? I think Artha isn't as tall as Parmon either!

4. Plot holes. For example, how did Lance know that he saw Beau with the original Hydro-pakk when he was captured? When, as Sarah puts it, EvilPsychoBeau was captured? Where was Lance? Does Parm also have monitors that can strangely and mysteriously see all of Dragon City as well?

There are other problems I had with this, but all in all, it's better than nothing. The purple things on Mortis' helmet kept disappearing again (like in "Opposing Force"), Moordryd's getting annoyed with his father is interesting, though only a small snippet, Beau mastering the black draconium-ness confuses me, Artha getting wing gliders just gives him more superpowers (though this is kinda cool; I always wanted to hanglide), Lance could do more than just moan and groan about himself, Spratt was pretty okay, except for the whole "I'm not your best friend anymore because you're hanging out with your cooler friends so I'm going the opposition!" thing, and Word...well, the only part of Word I liked in here was him actually starting to panic, and then doing that martial arts flip. It made me go "...oh my God. How does someone like HIM do THAT?! AWESOME! :lol:"

One thing I like was when Arhta told Moordryd to eat his greens!
And as for Word, Skylii's right. He's over 40, how did he do that? And would have been funnier if the real Liquid Gold Draconium was put in the soda can, since the soda was in the tube.

I would have, but this was a busy weekend for me. Saturday was the quarterly meeting of the local chapter of the National Fantasy Fan Club, which is a nation-wide Disney fan club. Our guest speaker was the author of a new book on the history of the Disneyland Hotel, so I couldn't miss that. That probably seems an unlikely topic someone could be interested in, but it actually has an interesting history and there are a huge number of people in this country that are interested in the history of the parks and the Disney company and how things came to be.

Then today there was a Dragon Booster TCG tournament at the local game store that I had to play in. I took first place again. :D So far, I'm undefeated locally (though that's not saying much since not many people play this game).

But anyway, let's talk about "Broken Bonds" ...

I was a bit mixed on this episode overall. On the plus side, it's one of the more serious stories which is more to my liking, but it had a few weaknesses.

One big thing though that I didn't see anyone mention yet (though I may have missed it since I've been avoiding spoilers): in act 3, when Word intercepts what he thinks is the liquid gold draconium antidote for Beau, he casually says, "So, my old friend Mortis has been busy."

Old friend Mortis? OLD FRIEND MORTIS?!

Since when does Word know of the existence of Mortis? That seems like a rather important piece of information to have kept from the audience all this time. Also, Moordryd, Cain and Artha (as Dragon Booster) are all present when Word says this and they show no reaction, like they knew Word knew it all along. Surprises in the story are one thing, but it seems a little unfair to the audience to have hidden something like until episode 16, especially since the characters in the show seem to have known it. The audience should be in on something like this that's common knowledge to the characters. Anyway...

So the next obvious question is: how long has Word known of the existence of Mortis? They've never met as far we've seen in any of the prior 15 episodes and Mortis doesn't appear to ever leave the dragon temple. Does that mean that Mortis was around prior to episode 1? Artha knew nothing of Mortis until episode 2. Was Connor secretly putting on the Mortis outfit prior to episode 1 and using it as a disguise to disrupt Word's plans in the earlier days so Word wouldn't know it was Connor doing it? Or is Mortis a separate individual that both Connor and Word knew when they were being raised in the priesthood? Beau's reaction to Mortis in episode 2 always seemed a little vague to me as to whether or not he already knew Mortis. So maybe Mortis was around prior to his formal introduction in episode 2. Most intriguing.

I've got a few more comments on this episode I'll post later, but that's the big one (plus it's all I have time for tonight).

Remember What I said some writers likes to play with thier readers, and same could be applied to screenwriters.

Other situation could be that Mortis was a dragon priest that lived when Connor and Word where with the secret society, but now he's dead. And Connor is posing as Mortis in order to keep covered his kids from Word incase that he suspects that DB have a hand with old legends. Word sonner or later could know that.

It says on the official site, if I recall correctly, that Mortis was around in Connor's and Word's dragon-racing days, so it seems that if Connor is Mortis he must have maintained that dual identity for a long time. It's fair enough that over that period of time and if the Dragon Priests are anything like an organised religion (we at least know they take in orphans) Mortis would have become at least somewhat known. But why, if Connor was once Word's friend, would he have hidden this identity from him, then? Or was the Mortis-persona developed after Word revealed his intentions of enslaving dragons under the guise of revenge in order to (possibly) fight that goal as an influential Dragon Priest rather than a mere racer/breeder?

This site?

dragonbooster.com?

Or A mortis was afriend of Word and Connor and he become a Priest and after Word-Connor end their friendship he dies and noew Connor is posing as Mortis

Yes! YES! That is one of the big reasons why I wanted to dissect this episode!

There's a possibility that Mortis and Connor could have been two different people from this quote and I suspect that Word may have gotten the idea of making liquid black draconium from Mortis' liquid gold draconium.

(Speaking of which, where did he get the gold draconium from? The only things of gold draconium are the amulet, armband, armor and Mortis' staff. Or maybe it was from a long time ago. I'm suprised its effectiveness hasn't been compromised in age, if that was the case and that could explain Mortis' initial doubt. Healing injured dragons? When was the last time have we ever seen seriously hurt dragons? And how did Artha know it was liquid gold draconium that Mortis gave him? Possibly Mortis has been teaching him a lot of things in the temple? Training couldn't be the only thing Artha and Beau do in the temple. And how did Artha get another vial for the Dragon-ade? So many plot holes, so little info...)

But then Word said it took him half a lifetime to make said liquid black draconium, and if that was true for Mortis, then maybe he was already an advanced apprentice of the Dragon Priests around Connor's age (perhaps he's a son of one of the said priests). Either that or liquid gold draconium was a secret technique handed down through generations - this is assuming Connor and Mortis have their own identities. :)

On another note, this episode expanded upon the fauna, food and phrases:
-puppy
-worm
-shrimp
-greens
-"key under mat"
-"party - invitation-only"
-"doofus"

Also, has anyone noticed how Cain was eyeing DB's armor while Word was explaining about it? <_< And how the Dragon Eyes were stealing items that were on sale? Come to think of it, did they even bother to bring them home? :lol:

There's still so much to comment about this episode, but I'll save it for the next post. :)

Could any one told me a full sumary of "Broken bonds" in order to know for sure wha're we chating?

and I suggest that every time that we comment a chapter write a brief sumary of it

what's Dragon-ade?

I'm going to try and get better about posting episode summaries to dragon-city.org. I hope to have a summary of this episode with some selected frames up on the site within the next week or so.

It's a drink for dragons (and possibly humans as well; it's only mentioned in passing). The name Dragon-ade is clearly a play on the brand name sports drink called Gatorade. Is Gatorade sold where you are? I'm afraid I have no idea if it's sold outside North America.

but in this episode, Beau was sick or poisoned?

Neither. Though I think you could say he was infected.
Gotta admit this sounded really weird to me with all the commentary of things that we'd only guessed at before. (Or Word doing acrobatics, THAT really gets attention!!)

I think Artha got another vial for the dragonaide (Gatorade or koolaide? I dunno...)
'Cause I got the impression vials like that were fairly common.
Though I don't have much explaination for any other plot holes. The hydro pack? How? I dunno. 'Cept maybe that Beau uses it a lot.

Stealing the stuff that was on sale though, THAT I can explain. they were snatching things Just to get the dragonboosters attention, So I don't think they'd be really picky about what or where they they stole from at that point.

Old freind Mortis though? With how often Mortis says Word WAS an old friend of his it makes some sense that Artha and co didn't really react.. Though it doesn't say if Word knows Mortis is Connor or if he knows Mortis and Connor as two different people. Thats where it gets weird I think.


Hang glider though? When did that happen? :blink:

Infected????

Infected is the only word I can think of, Cause beau wasn't really sick or poisoned.
Those imply being hurt somehow and he wasn't, just changed.

Yeah, and I think Word called it "infected" as well. For those who haven't seen this episode, the liquid black draconium Beau drinks essentially mutates him from gold to black. For reasons that are not made clear (i.e., poorly constructed plot device), this makes Beau evil and a slave to Word. For yet more unexplained reasons, Word is also able to control Beau with one of his standard wraith dragon hand-held joystick controllers, even though no gear has been placed on Beau. None of this really makes that much sense and it hurts the story in my opinion.

I think they're getting a bit carried away with the general story premise of Word attempting to control either Beau or other humans by some artificial device. Bone marks, control gear, liquid black draconium; it's getting kind of repetitious. A few of these is OK. "Fanning the Flames," "Pride of the Hero," "Chromatic Dragon," and "Rules of Power" were all good episodes, but I'd like to see more along the lines of "Horn of Libris" and "Track of Doom" myself where there's some other type of challenge for a change.

I'm dying to read the plot sumary and watch the episode guide...

Hey furox... Skillii is the specialist in plot guides, well it's an idea that I've have, why don't you two work together with plost sumaries?

Artha said afterwards, "Whew! Glad I went for the fully loaded model." or something like that. That could be mean that there's more than one version of the DB armor, though I don't see how that's possible.

Also, this is another case where Artha was literally before Word, screaming "Beau!" at the end of the scene. <_<

I don't think so either. I think that was just a joke.

The fact that the suit can suddenly function as a glider is borderline deus ex machina. Not very satisfying at all.

I caught that as well. How many dragons named Beau can there possibly be in Dragon City? :) And Moordryd was there, too. He races against Artha all the time. Certainly he should know the name of Artha's red and blue dragon and be able to put two and two together.

Oh, my, God. How these people don't realize that Artha is Dragon Booster is just probably villain stupidity, or whatever you guys call it. There are a LOT of obvious things that lead to Artha/Dragon Booster:

- Moordryd clearly saw Artha on Beau in "The Choosing: Part 1", and he probably remembers the star mark, though I'm not sure if he understands the star mark or not.
- The Dragon Booster, Artha and the Penn Racing crew have the same insignia on them! Doesn't this seem suspicious to anybody?
- Voices. Before you can start, Artha tried disguising his voice in "The Choosing: Part 2" when he rescued Kitt Wonn. Can't anybody recognize the voices?
- Beau. He is practically the same size and design of the dragon of legend, with a few differences. And the name thing as well.
- Mag energy. I haven't seen a yellow dragon yet (that taxi dragon has got to be an Earth-class or Turquoise-class, and yes, there WAS a yellow dragon on that chart of Word and Mortis' in "The Chromatic Dragon", but I couldn't really make out the class of that yellow dragon), so yellow has got to be gold. If this is the case, hasn't Moordryd realized that Artha's dragon's mag-energy is NOT blue or red or white or whatever, and that it's gold?
- The Kitt/Parm/Lance thing and how well they're associated with the Dragon Booster. Doesn't THAT seem suspicious?

And yes, the whole "old friend Mortis"...what was with THAT? (Oh yes, I think that on the official website, I don't think it's supposed to be "Connor and Mortis sparred", it's probably supposed to be "Connor and Word sparred" (read mythology section here), while the writer apparently made a plot hole with this typo.) I mean, how does this happen? Connor's mentor was named Tannis (surprise, surprise), not Mortis. Unless, of course, Connor was also Mortis back then. Alter ego or something.

Too many plot holes. It kinda left me going "WTH?", just like everybody else.

Who knows? Maybe, if Furox wants to.

hummm
I wonder it those holes are on purpose... maybe screenwriters are reserving a bunch of revelations before the end and then is when all take sence

It's possible. I'm not sure what I want to think at the moment. I'm still leaning towards Connor is Mortis and that Connor was disguising himself as Mortis prior to episode 1 to throw Word off the trail. Or that maybe Mortis was a dragon priest both Connor and Word knew long ago who's perhaps dead or gone now and Connor is now impersonating him for one reason or another (amnesia cliche, etc.). Interesting little twist anyway. I just hope that quote from Word wasn't a mistake in the script. This episode does have a new writer: Alan Gregg. And there enough other little plot holes that it makes me wonder if this line of dialogue wasn't a mistake (though I tend to think someone would have caught it if it was).

Yes, I was wondering that as well. Did he have some other artifact he was able to melt down and process? Did he extract it from Beau somehow? Like taking a bone marrow sample?

It also bothered me that Mortis just happens to have liquid gold draconium exactly when Word had finally come up with liquid black draconium. Another borderline use of deus ex machina which I really dislike. That's twice in one episode.
:angry:

Also, Parmon reading a map upside down and getting them lost? Give me a break. Tech-heads never read maps upside down. (Does anyone, really?)

And now there's suddenly a secret tunnel entrance into Moordryd's compound? Why didn't they use that in "Horn of Libris" or "Three Times a Hero" then? :angry:

And Artha's suit can suddenly fly now.

And why did Moordryd recruit Spratt in the first place? That hurts Lance more than anyone else, but Moordryd has no reason to want to hurt Lance other than that he's Artha's brother. It's not necessary for the story to have Spratt break into the store. Anyone could have done it to attract the attention of the Dragon Booster, which is all they wanted. Similarly, it wasn't necessary for Spratt to be the one to switch the hydropacks, anyone could have done it. I can't think of any real reason for Moordryd to have brought Spratt into this scheme. Clearly, the writer wanted to play up the "bond of friendship" thing and wanted the Lance/Spratt thing to parallel the Artha/Beau bond. But without a real reason for Spratt to be there, it kind of falls flat.

And Spratt's turn around comes to suddenly. Cain calls Spratt "shrimp" once or twice and that's enough for Spratt to want to switch sides and help the Dragon Booster? Too contrived.

And Lance was close enough to the action to see that Beau had the hydropack on after Moordryd and Spratt had switched them but he didn't see them switch it? I can't buy that either.

And in the end after Beau recovers, Word is essentially captured at that point. Why don't they call Dragon City Security and have him arrested? Surely, infecting the dragon of legend, stealing him and attempting to incite a dragon-human war would be enough of a crime to have him arrested. (Or Beau could just bite his head off and be done with the problem.)

Too much deus ex machina and too many plot holes for me.

And of course it was obvious from the start that Beau would incorporate the strength of the black draconium as his new super power by the end of the episode.

By now it probably sounds like I hate this episode more than I actually do. On the plus side I'll say that the animation, direction and cinematography were all very good. But story-wise, this won't be one of my favorites.

On another topic, it looks like Beau's ability to command other dragons has increased in power since we last saw it. At least that's to be expected since the basic premise is that Artha and Beau learn and improve over time. The thing I'm not quite sure of is if Beau has some sort of mystical power or control over other dragons or they simply recognize him as a type of pack leader and obey him for the same reason my dog obeys me. The latter would seem to make more sense, but it's hardly clear in what they show us.

One thing that struck me funny: Parmon and Lance are out for a walk at the beginning of the episode. A walk? People actually walk on their own two legs in Dragon City instead of riding their dragons? That's something you don't see very often in this show. :D

*blinks* I'm not sure if Moordryd was able to see both Artha and Beau in that episode, counting times that said two separated before Beau took care of the situation with Moordryd both times.

Maybe it didn't have a compass. How Kitt got it right got me.

It's possible that the security increased exponentially in the compound after said heroes managed to break in two times, which isn't really all too strange considering how frightened Moordryd and his crew were at DB's "teleportation" and "flying hands" after the second time.

Maybe he's that desperate for new members. And I was kind of expecting Spratt to break something, judging from the description of him on both website and trading card. Instead he turns out to be an extremely accurate and skilled thrower of vials that contain the real liquid gold draconium. <_< And where was his dragon Bumpyr at that time, if he did have him at that time? Maybe they couldn't handle extra characters.

And on a sidenote, I like how they incorporated Rancydd into the Dragon Eye crew again, just like in the first episode. And to really see how useful he was, imagine the scenes he was in without him. (I get a kick out of imagining Cain playing the dice game all by his lonesome self. :lol: )

Not necessarily. Perhaps for a long while he's been deluding himself into thinking that he was better off with the Dragon Eyes due to Lance's ignorance, and it's only just now that he found someone else who could be his friend. Children are sensitive like that.

For once I agree with that. But something about what Parm said before Beau turned all dark confuses me: if the Dragon Eyes were really escaping, how did they know when to come back to capture the Dragon Booster? And to think that they would have left Rancydd hanging around to be possibly interrogated. :lol:

Dragons aren't that animalistic, are they? <_< Besides, maybe Artha doesn't see Word as much of a threat without the liquid black draconium at that point. Kind of like what stereotypical bad guys do when they almost totally defeat the good guys and let them recuperate for next time. :lol:

At his rate, Beau would absorb all the bone marks and master all 13 draconium powers and thus, become the ultimate gold dragon of legends. :lol:

You know what's even funnier? They were walking out late at night (Artha asked Parm about the late night shoppers), which seemed like a good time for Moordryd to pull off the heist, and considering how the whole episode seemed to take place so late at night, I'm surprised all the characters and miscellaneous people were out and wide awake. :lol:

must be the coffee ;)

Ah yes, the coffee. Definitely the coffee, but a little kid? :huh: I never tried coffee yet, and I don't intend to.

Magna Draconis help us all if that happens. *headdesks repeatedly*

Yeah, you thought you had problems with this one? Wait until you see "Faster Than Fear".

Me, I'm still connecting head with desk. *takes sword and slices TV in half* Oh yes, "The Lost Track of Doom" was really slow animation, and it irritated me.

Yessir Bob, CBC got DB reruns. AGAIN. :angry:

Thanks to my sick mind I had to go through 2 hours before forgetting the scene; don't make me remember it. *continues to headdesk*

Perhaps, but Spratt doesn't seem to have any skills or abilities that Moordryd needs. If Moordryd just needed a body, surely he could find someone besides a 10 year old. The choice of Spratt is contrived so the audience can watch Lance react. It makes for an unsatisfying element to the story. It would have worked better if there was a good reason for Moordryd to pick Spratt.

I don't think they were really trying to escape at all. It was just a diversion while the black draconium took effect.

Probably not. I was being somewhat tongue in cheek. Though Beau did appear to try to take a bite out of Moordryd in episode 1, unless it was just a bluff. And Artha had to use his staff to stop Beau from biting him in this episode while Word was controlling him.

Plus the series would come to a rather abrupt end if they were to use a little street justice and kill Word. :) But given that they can't do this in a kids show, I'd be happier if Word had some clever way to escape (even though that is a cliche).

Even though this scheme didn't work, Word still is a threat because he's still got his wraith dragons and who knows what else. When the good guys have a perfect opportunity to have the bad guy arrested, the story would play better if there was a reason why they don't. Having the good guys just walk away doesn't seem to make sense.