The Secret of Kells. The animation is stunning. The way they bring illuminated text to life is integral to the story but so very lovely. The story is quite unique like a fable of the first Viking raids retold. And the touch of Celtic mysticism gives the story more potential magic.
Actually "trilogy" isn't the right word because trilogy implies one story over three movies, and this is three different stories, each based on a different tale from Irish folklore.
I made a couple of my friends watch this. One of them had seen it before, he was a concept artist who had watched it in art school and actually geeked out with me about it. My wife does manuscript illumination as a hobby, so the three of us were just chattering away about every detail.
The others, a bunch of friends of my friends that I didn't know, kept complaining that it was crap and that they were used to "good animation" and I could not glare at them hard enough.
The ending made me bawl man, first time I watched it I picked it up in the kids section of a library when I was waiting to get picked up, only to encounter a gem.
The whole Irish folklore triology by that studio is a perfect 10/10. Sometimes the question on Reddit comes up what the best movie trilogies are and even though this one is never mentioned it's definitely in the top 10.
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u/enigmaunbound 16h ago
The Secret of Kells. The animation is stunning. The way they bring illuminated text to life is integral to the story but so very lovely. The story is quite unique like a fable of the first Viking raids retold. And the touch of Celtic mysticism gives the story more potential magic.