A Station Eight Fan Web Site

Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Ask Greg Archives

Family Xanatos

Archive Index


: « First : « 100 : « 10 : Displaying #201 - #210 of 243 records. : 10 » : Last » :


Posts Per Page: 1 : 10 : 25 : 50 : 100 : All :


Bookmark Link

Greg "Xanatos" Bishansky writes...

Did Fox wear the Eye of Odin in public after Xanatos gave it to her? I'd imagine it would raise questions since it was stolen.

Greg responds...

She could always say it was a copy. But really, when did she have the chance?

Response recorded on February 14, 2000

Bookmark Link

AWAKENING, PART TWO

Watched the episode again last night.

Little things....

My two year old son is fascinated with Tom. And misses him in the second act after he's gone. Misses him in other episodes too. Kinda puts the lie to the strongly held belief I've always had that contrary to Network Executive Dogma, kids don't need animated shows to be about kids. Of course, my son is just two. My five year old has no problem with their being no "little girl" in the show.

Goliath says "What sorcery is this?" for the first time. We wound up using it over and over in the series, til it became something of an in-joke. But the truth is, we could never come up with a better line that said the same thing.

Goliath's "suicide" at the end of Act One, is still one of the most startling things I've ever seen in a cartoon. That was Gary Krisel's idea (my boss Bruce Cranston's boss). And I've always admired him for it. It's also the reminder I use to keep me humble when I'm listening to notes from the higher ups. Michael Reaves and I were just going to have the Magus offer to cast his spell on Goliath as something of a consolation prize. "Best I can do" kinda thing.

Love that Chernabog moment where Goliath says "I've been denied everything, even my revenge!" Man, Keith David is great.

The way it's edited you'd never know the problem the last fight in the Viking's camp caused me vis-a-vis Broadway. As you may recall from Part One, during the Viking's initial attack, Broadway stopped for a snack, and then opportunistically used the turkey leg to bonk a Viking. A nice little comedic beat. Well, in Part Two, we wanted to contrast that by having Broadway land in front of the roasting spit by the fire -- so that the audience again thinks he's just thinking about his stomach. But that after the massacre, the much more serious Broadway immediatlely starts using it as a weapon. That's pretty much what you see. But that's not what we received in Animation. What we got was a virtual replay of the scene from Part One. Broadway lands with a big grin and starts to eat. Then he gets attacked and uses the spit as a weapon. It took judicious editing to keep Broadway from feeling too one-dimensional. And even then as the series progressed, we started to downplay Broadway's appetite (another good Gary Krisel suggestion). We brought it up again in Hunter's Moon, Part Three to show how far the character had come. Yeah, great kitchen, but an even better library. That kind of thing.

We had a similar problem with Hudson's sword. We were supposed to make a big deal of him using it for the first time in the battle at the Viking camp. But some of the animation in both Parts One and Part Two showed him using the sword and/or having it by his side before that. That's what retakes are for, I guess.

Xanatos' first appearance... I'm really curious to know how many people, seeing this for the first time knew that Xanatos was the bad guy. I thought it was a little too obvious myself. There's a look he gives Goliath when he's taking the gargs' questions in the Great Hall that I thought absolutely tipped his hand to the audience. But we did try to create a guy who looked like he should be the hero of the show. Handsome athletic Bruce Wayne type up against scary monsters. And Jonathan Frakes is terrific.

(There was a while when Gary Krisel thought maybe we should have Xanatos -- or another rich guy, a pre-Renard if you will -- actually be the gargoyles modern benefactor. I'm glad that's one bit of advice I didn't take from Gary.)

We also get the first look at Owen. Jeff Bennett. Man. What a great cast we had. Wasn't Owen just fascinating from moment one? I didn't know he was Puck way back then, but I sure did know there was a story behind him.

Love that moment when they all Shatter out of stone near the top of Act Two. The sky spinning behind Goliath. The rotating camera for the others. Bronx leaning into the foreground. Still gives me a little thrill. Don't disappoint me Xanatos said. Well, it worked for me.

The first time we got the animation back on that sequence, their stone skins didn't really EXPLODE off them. In fact the first version of the footage had no stone at all. Those of you who have been to the GATHERING have seen that footage. We really had to push to make that concept of them exploding to life every night play visually.

There's an intentional this-ain't-Batman moment during the fight with the Commandos. Goliath gets tossed off the building. He's falling and he grabs for a flagpole, just like Batman would. But Goliath is so heavy, he rips the flagpole right off the building, and he has to use his claws to save himself. Back in those days, everyone was terrified that GARGOYLES was going to be perceived as a BATMAN rip-off. I actually had to write up a memo for the Marketing Department, listing all the significant ways the shows were different. This flagpole bit was our (me, Frank, Michael's) conscious reaction to the constant comparisons.

There's a moment during the fight where Goliath is facing a Commando, and from off-stage Xanatos rescues Goliath by firing his laser at the wall and dumping the masonry on the commando. But that scene gave us nightmares, because it looked like the laser beam was coming from Goliath's eyes. Like he was Cyclops of the X-Men. This made us nervous, because the concept was so new, we were afraid that the audience would think that maybe Gargoyles have all sorts of "cool" super-powers like that.

One line got cut from Part One that would have helped a bit in understanding Lex's character. In Part One, during the initial battle with the Vikings, we had Lex investigating a catapult, fascinated with how it works. That little scenelet got cut from the script for time. But I still miss it.

Anyway, please feel free to post your own responses here on the episode. Both how you felt when you first saw it, and what strikes you now looking at it again.


Bookmark Link

Todd Jensen writes...

Something that I've been wondering for some time about that secret passageway that Demona used to sneak into the great hall of Castle Wyvern in "City of Stone Part Three". How did she manage to conceal it from everyone else when the castle was being moved from Scotland to New York? I'd think that it would be extremely difficult to have hidden it while the castle was being transported stone by stone.

Greg responds...

I think so too. Maybe the transport wasn't quite as stone by stone as it looked to be. Or maybe in the replacing of stones the supervisors of the reconstruction didn't put two and two together and realize that by attaching stone A to stone B they were creating a secret passsage, and so neglected to alert Xanatos or Owen.

Response recorded on February 09, 2000

Bookmark Link

lisa writes...

you said that xanatos would be dead by 2158 how would he have died?

Greg responds...

Oh, come on. You didn't really think I'd reveal that?!!

Response recorded on February 09, 2000

Bookmark Link

lisa writes...

what did titania whisper to fox?{one day we'll find out}

Greg responds...

From whom? Titania or Fox?

Response recorded on February 09, 2000

Bookmark Link

Aris Katsaris writes...

In the gargoyles bible for the first season you had made mention of the existence of a 'very wise man' who first made an alliance with gargoyles building his castle of a gargoyle rookery and who ushered in the golden age of gargoyle-human relations...

Is this still how you picture it happening? The existence of a specific 'very wise man' was intriguing to me - is he just a generic figure, or someone whose name we would recognize? (I have my own idea on the subject ofcourse but I refrain from suggesting it in case it's considered a story-idea)

Greg responds...

I was being generic in the bible on purpose to simplify things. Honestly, I don't think I ever really thought there was just one person who did that. The world was too big a place and there wasn't any internet back then to facilitate communication. So that "wise man" was a place holder in my mind for a number of intelligent humans and gargoyles who made multiple alliances over multiple centuries in multiple places.

One such alliance of "wise men" was the alliance formed between Hudson and Malcolm, which was brokered by Robbie.

Another alliance was that formed between Xanatos and Demona, brokered by Owen, with a little help from Brooklyn, Mary and Finella behind the scenes.

Response recorded on February 09, 2000

Bookmark Link

Excelsior writes...

In "The Price," after Hudson escapes Xanatos's dungeon, Xanatos bitterly comments that he now has no one to test the Cauldron of Life's magic on. Ever the good servant, Owen volunteers and sticks his hand into the cauldron without a second thought.

Now, I know Xanatos isn't the most practical being on Earth, but couldn't he have just dipped one of his little lab animals into the brew, or even one of his lower-level lackeys?

Greg responds...

Owen didn't give him the chance. I think Owen was feeling a little jealous of Xanatos' praise of the Macbeth robot. He dived right in, so to speak.

Of course, both men knew that "Owen" really had nothing to lose by dipping his hand. That's why both had such mild reactions to Owen's hand turning into stone.

Response recorded on February 02, 2000

Bookmark Link

Dan writes...

I think I asked this earlier, so if you don't want to answer this, it's okay by me, but I'm still curious as to why David Xanatos did not decide to turn Elisa into a mutant panther instead of her brother in the "Metamorphosis" episode. Elisa as a mutant instead of her brother seems a better bargain to me, as Elisa as a human posed a ongoing danger to Xantos, and had more to offer in the way of skills, (Not to mention a certain revenge factor in turning Elisa into a mutant kitty on Xantos part). Even if the transformation was only on a short term basis, having a crack detective who was already your enemy transformed instead into a mutant powerless,ex-cop living in the sewers, who was dependent on your good will and had to follow your "requests" if she ever wanted a cure,would have been a great way for Xanatos to split Elisa from the gargoyles, get her off the force, if not actually working for him, and out of his hair at least for awhile.

Greg responds...

I feel like I've answered this already, but...

What good is Elisa as a mutate?

She'd only have become a more dangerous enemy. Maybe her effectiveness as a cop would be neutralized, but Xanatos had already managed that fairly effectiely, and his plan to turn her brother into a mutate further hampered her there. But meanwhile he would have a dangerous mutate, who knew he was a villain, knew he couldn't be trusted. It would hardly get her out of his hair, as you put it. She'd have nothing to lose, wouldn't trust him for a second to find a cure.

Derek, on the other hand, could be manipulated. In the long run, using him didn't accomplish all that Xanatos hoped, but for awhile it looked like he had what he set out to create, his own personal set of gargoyles. That could never have happenned with Elisa. Not even briefly. And I don't see how this would have split her off from the Gargoyles. She wouldn't have gone to live in a sewer. She'd have moved in with them. Arguably it could have made them even tighter.

As for revenge, we've seen over and over that Xanatos doesn't have a revengeful bone in his body. That kind of petty stuff doesn't interest him.

Response recorded on February 01, 2000

Bookmark Link

Biggest Fan Amanda writes...

Me and some buds have been haveing a contest and it was this What is Owen's Middle Name?

Greg responds...

Probably Alan.

Response recorded on February 01, 2000

Bookmark Link

Aaron writes...

Probably irrelevent, but... In Reawakening, when Xanatos says "It's alive! Aliiiive! I've always wanted to say that." does Demona know what he's talking about, or does she just think he's being goofy. In other words, does she get the reference?

Greg responds...

It's probably funnier if she doesn't.

Response recorded on February 01, 2000


: « First : « 100 : « 10 : Displaying #201 - #210 of 243 records. : 10 » : Last » :