"Derek Janssen" <djanss@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:4143d295$0$6921$61fed72c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ...GrrrrrrrrANTED.
> Point was, it was grabbing for WAY too much, and playing it to WAY the
> wrong crowd.
"Wrong crowd" I'll grant you... why do you think the fans of the series
despaired when it was moved to Saturday Morning? It was really a more
mature series than either the Mouse or the Networks wanted to admit.
>
> (Or, as stated, "I'll watch King Arthur, OR I'll watch Marvel-wannabe
> superheroes, but put them in the same room, and I'll have this
> overwhelming urge not to watch"...
You're giving Marvel too much credit.:> Remember, Stan Lee has been at
this
for a long time... and even HE can't avoid looking plagiaristic when he
makes new superheroes. Besides, the gargs were hardly "superhero"
material.
They got hurt, shot, burned, betrayed, enchanted... and sometimes, evil
won.
But the gargs tried to live their lives the best way they knew how, the
same
as anybody else would.
> And that's even giving the writers credit that they had some actual
> artistic/storytelling vision in showing off Every Joseph Campbell
> Reference They Knew, and *weren't* just acting like self-indulgent
> jack***** throwing a single coherent canon out the window.)
<smirk> No such bad luck. Greg Weisman himself created the series bible,
and it had all the things in it you saw later. King Arthur, MacBeth, time
travel, aliens, and more. If "Goliath Chronicles" hadn't happened, you'd
have seen resolutions to the arc involving aliens. Some story arcs were
actually spinoff attempts... King Arthur would have spun off into
"Pendragon", while the New Olympians would have spun off into, surprise,
"New Olympians". Even Fang, Dingo, Yama, Robin Canmore, and the Matrix
were
going to be spun off into "Bad Guys". What you're seeing *is* a single
coherent canon... cut off before it finished.
>
> And even those curious enough to tune in would have to tune in from the
> first episode to make the faintest heads or tails of what was going on,
> or miss the entire express train--
I take it you never tuned in for the start, so missed the "Previously, on
Gargoyles" section? Like you could have a series this complicated without
recaps?
> Which, in its midnight "ToonDisney Swim" spot, works out for those who
> want to pursue such activities, but put it in a syndicated spot for ten
> and eleven-yo.'s just home from school, and you can understand why
> "Aladdin" didn't go for elaborate story arcs.
>
I don't think you're giving kids enough credit, here. True, the
"Gargoyles"
series was a bit more mature than any of the "higher-ups" wanted to admit.
But back in the '80's (when I was one of the "ten and eleven-yo.'s"),
Transformers had a plot spread over three weeks' worth of episodes. Trust
me, the Avalon arc was shorter than the Unicron arc by at least half! And
yet Transformers became a winning toy enterprise. Likewise, Japan has
anime
for this market, and anime is infamous for having enough subplots to keep
a
soap in scripts for a month!
Gargoyles' only big problem was its marketing. Disney tried to kiddify it
with "Chronicles", and killed the concept.
Yours with a long memory,
The well-read,
Wanderer
wanderer@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter *where* people go?
Down to the woods where the bluebells grow!
Anywhere! Anywhere! *I* don't know!"
-- a. a. milne
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