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GATHERING 2001 DIARY: CHAPTER FOUR

Well, again, I've completely mixed things up. I'm too lazy to start over so I'll just keep correcting myself after the fact.

Saturday night, after the dinner at CityWalk and a little con suite fun, we all headed up to check out the Rooftop Garden Ballroom. This is the room where the "Better than Barney" story actually took place all those years ago. But I'd never been up there at night before. It was gorgeous. I pointed out all sorts of random stuff. Where 3x3 Eyes was recorded. Where Disney TV Animation used to be housed. Where we used to sneak into the Texaco Commissary. Where Gargoyles was On-Lined. Etc. Then we just hung out for awhile. Talking quietly. It was calm and nice. This kind of stuff is actually my favorite part of the con.

SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 2001
Kathy knocked on my door to see if I was coming to breakfast. I said no, though I managed to get down there for the tail end and grab a glass of juice.

Then it was time for my mug-a-guest. Got some interesting questions. Hope I gave interesting answers.

It ended in time for me to participate in the tail end of the Design and Direction panel with Bob Kline, Doug Murphy, Frank Paur, Dennis Woodyard and Bob Schaefer. Frank (or someone) had brought a ton of development and pre-production and production art and spread it out on the long table. My sister Robyn arrived. And then my folks. And then my wife and kids. It was kinda cool.

That panel segued right into the massive Series Production panel. All of the above were there, plus Bob Birchard, Denise Byrne, Craig Kemplin, Brynne Chandler, Ray Leonard, Marc Perlman, Laurel Whitcomb, Paca Thomas, Jamie Thomason, Mark Von der Heide and Thom Adcox (and again I apologize if here or anywhere I've left someone out). It was great to see such a big turn out both on the panel and in the audience. Jay Fukuto, one of my old bosses on Gargoyles and currently Vice President of Creative Affairs at Disney TV Animation, came in just a bit late. I think Jay was really impressed with the con. He's currently talking to people around the company about exploiting the property a bit. Specifically, he's asking about DVD production, so the Convention's Job One was a success.

My family took off. And the actors began to arrive. Thom Adcox and Crispin Freeman, of course. But we also had Jeff Bennett, Neil Dickson, Elisa Gabrielli, Gregg Rainwater, Cree Summer and Keith David. Cree came despite the fact that she had a sinus infection. Keith brought his son Owen, who was also feeling under the weather. It was really gratifying that they all came.

The Q&A was terrific. I tried to moderate and otherwise keep my mouth shut as much as possible so that you guys could here them talk. Then there was the cast autograph session... the line was literally out the door. Way out the door. Cree was feeling awful and had to take off. And Keith too eventually. I'm sorry if anyone missed them, but it was great that they came at all.

The auction started, while the crew guests signed stuff. I think I signed fewer autographs this year than at any previous con. Finally, you guys are getting your fill of me.

My shrinky-dink Brooklyn necklace sold to Aaron for $65. Beth and I were arguing what it would go for. I guessed twenty. She guessed forty. Greg Bishansky bought the signed copy of "The Journey." Though I'm not sure what he paid. I don't know what the Roswell script went for or who it went to. But I gather the auction was a success. Major kudos to Kathy, Patrick, Myhrr and Draconis.

We had some time off before the Banquet up in the Rooftop Garden. Beth came back to join me for dinner. We wound up sitting with Todd Jensen, Tigris, Kelly and her fiance, and a couple more people that I'm blanking on, unfortunately (sorry). Beth did most of the talking. It may come as a surprise, since I seem to be such a big mouth, but in our house, Beth is the talker.

After dinner came the Masquerade. We had about a million judges, which was unwieldy but fun. There were, as usual, some great costumes and some fun Cosplay. Slash came out and played his guitar. It was fun, but at the end of the night it started to go on a touch too long. People wanted to get to the awards and Dreamie and Demona May came out to hook him. We gave a joke award to the ladies for that, and I'm afraid that Slash might have misinterpreted that. Slash, it was great of you to get up there. Sorry if there were any hurt feelings.

As usual, we gave out the Gorebash Memorial Award. Of course, Gorebash isn't actually dead. He's just been seemingly M.I.A. for a bit. He's firmly back now. Just check out his comment room. Anyway, that award went to Mara and Aaron for their cross-dressing Xanatoses. Thom got to drop his pants. Thom and Crisping made out repeatedly. Myhr was his usual amazing self. It was a blast.

The hotel shut down the DJ a touch early. But frankly that worked for me fine. Again, I got to spend time in the dark and quiet rooftop garden with a bunch of you guys. Including people who have become good friends. Jennifer, Steph, Seth, Patrick, Kathy, etc. I'd have probably stayed there all night, but I started on a coughing jag -- left over from my pneumonia, and I just couldn't stop it. So I called it a night, went downstairs and took some cough medicine.

One day left...

Stay tuned.


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GATHERING 2001 DIARY: PART THREE

First, standard disclaimer. I apologize in advance if I leave people out. Sorry.

Second, an invitation. I'd love to hear others' responses to the Gathering. Feel free to post them here.

Third, a correction. I got confused writing Part Two of my Gathering Diary. That dinner I described at the Japanese Restaurant at CityWalk actually took place on Saturday, June 23rd. Here's what we did Friday night...

After opening ceremonies, we had a staff meeting over dinner at the restaurant in the Hotel. Jordan, Carol, Patrick, Jennifer, Kathy, Cindy, Kenna, Meredith and Thom Adcox and myself. (Am I leaving anyone out?)

When that dinner was over, I strolled over to the next table where Frank Paur, Dennis Woodyard, Bob Birchard and Loren McLaughlin were eating. Joined them and we talked and bitched and told stories for a while longer.

Then I wandered back to our main rooms, where the MST session was in progress. I stayed for all of "The Gathering, Part One". It was fun, but so many people were talking, it was a little hard to hear each individual joke. I left after that. Later, I was told that people were afraid I was offended. I absolutely WAS NOT. Just tired.

Anyway...

SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2001
I got up in time for the Staff Breakfast in Performers. A nice calm before the storm. After, I took a quick peak into the art room again. Then my brother showed up. He and I went upstairs to get the stuff I needed for my various panels.

Then I had my first Q&A. Series Develoment. I was on a panel with:
Greg Guler - Development Artist and Character Designer
Bob Kline - Development Art Director and Producer/Director
Dave Schwartz - Development Art Director
Tad Stones - Producer of multiple other animated tv series.

Tad was the star of this panel. He told the story of how he basically gave me the idea of Goliath, but his story took him off on a bunch of fascinating tangents. He also talked quite a bit about Team Atlantis. This sort of surprised me. I had been under the impression that he wanted to keep mum on that subject. But it was nice of him to reveal what he did.

After that, I had a Voice Acting Technique Seminar. Originally, I had been scheduled to be in the "Writing for TV Animation Seminar" that was going on at the same time. But I switched over for a couple reasons.

1. I did that seminar last year in Florida. Don't have much new to say.

2. I've been doing much more voice directing these days then writing. It seemed more honest in a way.

So the voice seminar was a blast. Morgan Sheppard was on the panel. And Crispin Freeman and Jonathan Klein and Taliesin Jaffe. They had all just finished a Voice Acting Technique Q&A minutes before, so we made ours into more of a workshop.

I had brought some sides. Morgan read Petros Xanatos with a couple of different attendees trying their mouths as David Xanatos. Then Crispin took on the roll of Griff with two casts of Leos, Unas and Goliaths.

We auditioned people for various rolls from Gargoyles, just to give them an understanding of the audition process.

Then Crispin set up his computer and monitor so that people could try their hands at dubbing some anime. By this time, my wife Beth and our kids Erin and Ben had arrived. (Their first day at the con.) Erin wanted to try her hand at ADRing. She did pretty good, but I think she realized that it's harder than it looks.

Taliesin then set up his own little anime dubbing exercise. It was all fun and I gave away the sides at the end.

From there, I headed over to the "Writing for Gargoyles" Q&A. This panel consisted of myself and...
Brynne Chandler - Writer/Story Editor
Gary Sperling - Writer/Story Editor
Lydia Marano - Writer
Tuppence Macintyre - Researcher (and a Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney)
Monique Beatty - Currently a producer in her own right, but on Gargoyles she was my assistant.

This was another fun panel with a lot of good questions asked and some fun stories. Todd Jensen, I believe, was in the audience, though I didn't yet know who he was. He and I had a little bit of time to talk later, though less than I would have liked. (I was too crazed, and I think he was too respectful to be pushy.)

My various family members took off, as I headed into the Radio Play rehearsal. (I listed the cast in the last part. I won't repeat it here.) The rehearsal went fast and easy, and because this year's radio play was shorter than previous, we had time to run things twice. And we still finished with time to spare.

Again, I ran around a bit. Checking out the dealer's room and art show. Then I joined Jordan Mann and Morgan Sheppard for an extremely late lunch. Morgan told us some great stories. It was fun. (Everything was fun.)

We gathered in the main room to set up for the Radio Play. Minor crisis involved the little stage the hotel had put up for us. Not big enough for everyone. But too big to move. I had to quickly rethink where everyone sat. (This is only a problem because I'm so anal.) Anyway, there were a few nervous moments as neither Nicole or Rebecca had gotten the message to show up early. I thought for a second we'd be subbing in two more of our understudies. But they both showed just before the show.

We put the cast in our "Green Room". Actually out a door that led outside. Brought in the fans. I intro'd the cast one by one, ending with our ringers, ending with Thom who was playing Lexington of course.

We then performed the thing. It has some sequences you never saw on tv, including a nice little chase through the Paris catacombs and a sweet scene between Jason and Elisa at the ruined clock tower. But I think the single line that got the best response was Charles Canmore saying, "We can no more stop hunting the Demons than breathing the air." Or something like this.

This year, I had/took the time to cut the narration way down before hand. WAY DOWN. But during the performance, I kept noticing other things I should have cut. Hopefully next year I'll do better.

Still, people seemed to enjoy it. And I had a blast. Jen was a very fun Demona. Zehra's Elisa was terrific. The audience went nuts for Brooklyn and Bronx and all the minor rolls. And especially for Thom as Lex and Crispin as a very Faggerbakke-esque Broadway.

When that was over, we went to dinner up at CityWalk. But I accidentally wrote about that in the last entry, so that's it for now.

Stay tuned for PART FOUR: Sunday.


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GATHERING 2001 DIARY: PART TWO

Friday, June 22nd, 2001

[Assume the usual caveats. I'm bound to forget someone or many. I apologize in advance. Also, I'd love to see other peoples Gathering diaries. Feel free to post them here.]

Well, I got up Friday morning at home. Packed a small duffle and my box of Gathering crap and headed to Universal City.

I checked in, but my room wasn't ready. An obvious question is why was I staying at the hotel when I live about twenty minutes away.

The answer begins with the Gathering Staff's generosity. But I hope they got their money's worth. By staying at the hotel, it allowed me to be at the con both earlier in the morning and later (much, much later) at night. My kids missed me. But my family's very understanding, thankfully.

Anyway, after checking in, I dropped my Gathering box off at the con suite and then went back downstairs to look around and see if I could help in any way. All day Friday and Saturday I wore the Shrinky-Dink Brooklyn necklace that I made with my kids. It seemed like wearing it around the con might just up its price at the auction. You'll have to ask Aaron if that ploy worked.

I gave Cindy and Jules the two pieces of artwork that my daughter Erin drew. One was "Gargoyle Babe", which she did herself. The other was "Daddy and Daughter's Night Out". A picture of Goliath and Angela disco dancing which she and I drew together. Erin eventually decided to put both pictures up for sale for charity. I think Dreamie bought "Babe". And Jules bought "Night Out". In turn, Erin wound up buying a piece from Dreamie and a bunch of stuff from David Wong. My son Ben bought a piece from Kelly and a Goliath yoyo. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I gave Kenna some Roughneck video tapes that Sony had donated. Over the last couple months, I had already loaned Jen all my Gargoyles episode tapes for her to copy. (She still has all of season two and "The Journey".) So we had plenty to keep the video room busy.

I put some things in for the auction. Some more Sony donations. A signed copy of my original script for "The Journey". And a signed copy of my original pilot script for "Roswell Conspiracies". (You know, the one we did as a Radio Play in Dallas.)

And speaking of Radio Plays, it was time for auditions. I met up with Thom Adcox and Jordan Mann and we began the process. As usual it was a lot of fun. Because I knew we were going to be doing "Hunter's Moon, Part Three", but the auditioners didn't, I got to here a lot of Scottish accents, and I got to ask everyone to bark like a dog (for Bronx).

We got a fairly good turnout. Better than last year in Orlando, when we had to beg people to participate. Still not as good as in Dallas or New York, when we were so overwhelmed by the numbers of those auditioning that the whole rest of the day ran late. It helped, I think to hold auditions Friday when the show was Saturday.

We powered through the auditions, taking a few breaks. Seth, who's easily distracted, was in line to audition. Took off while we were on break, and came back too late to audition. He tried to wheedle his way into the show later. And it was tempting, since he's been a member in good standing of the Gathering Players (he was our male lead in New York and Orlando). But the show was cast. Too late, Seth. Sorry. ;P

Most everyone who auditioned was pretty good. Casting was difficult, because we hated to leave anyone out. But I think we came up with a good mix of the old guard, new blood and RINGERS.

We had Lanny back. As usual, in the auditions, I offer people a choice of reading whichever original Gargoyle "side" they feel like reading. Lanny chose Goliath, and I told him I was hoping he'd pick that. He didn't know what I meant until that night when he found out he'd actually be playing Goliath. And we had Jen and Jordan and Alex and Sara and Heather back in the show again. It's great to have some continuity.

Plus we had Thom playing Lex of course. With Morgan Sheppard (the voice of Petros Xanatos) playing Hudson and Crispin Freeman doing his dead-on Broadway imitation. (It SO cracked us up in our auditions, Jordan, Thom and I KNEW we had to cast him as Broadway.) Elisa Gabrielli was supposed to play Maria Chavez (as she had in "Revelations"). But there was a miscommunication and she didn't make it Saturday. (Fortunately, she came Sunday, which is when we really needed her.) The good news is we had three understudies this year. Last year, we lost a cast member at the last minute. Jesse was forced to play two rolls. This year we were ready, and Jennifer Mallon jumped in to take Elisa's place.

And we had some great new finds. Zehra just blew us away with her Elisa audition. She was great. And Nicole was a fine Scottish Canmore. Actually, everyone did great.

Here's the full cast:

ELISA MAZA... Zehra Q. Fazal
GOLIATH... Lanny Fields
LEXINGTON... Thom Adcox
BROADWAY... Crispin Freeman
BROOKLYN... Sara Hutchinson
ANGELA... Batya Wittenberg
HUDSON... W. Morgan Sheppard
BRONX... Rebecca Gold
JASON CANMORE... Jordan Mann
JON CANMORE... T.J. Ferraro
ROBYN CANMORE... Nicole Dubuc
CHARLES CANMORE... Chris Rogers
DEMONA... Jennifer Anderson
DAVID XANATOS... Johnney Muije
FOX... Kelly Creighton
OWEN BURNETT... Kevin de Caccia
MATT BLUESTONE... Joshua Poole
MARIA CHAVEZ... Jennifer Mallon
MORGAN... Loren G. McLaughlin
PILOT... Alisa Christopher
MARGOT YALE... Heather E. Rice
BRENDAN... Rahsaan Footman
VINNIE... Alex Wittenberg
TRAVIS MARSHALL... Kristen de Caccia

UNDERSTUDIES... Sean Camanyag and Gabriel Guerrero

I'd like to give a special thank you to both Thom and Jordan for being my partners in crime on the auditions.

Anyway, casting done, we got back downstairs just as various guests began to arrive. I saw Michael Reaves for about a second before he took off. But I got to spend a bit of time with Dennis Woodyard, Bob Birchard, Frank Paur, Tuppence Macintyre, Brynne Chandler, etc.

I'd like to extend another special thank you, this time to Carol Wagner, who did such an amazing job at guest wrangling both in the weeks before the con and during. Also to Patrick for making registration for the guests such a smooth and generally painless process.

I checked into my room. Just down the hall from the Con Suite and the staff room. I saw a bunch of familiar faces. Leva. Greg Bishansky. Aaron and Mara. Hudson. Kythera (who also helped out at Auditions with Johnney). Saw Vash in here somewhere. Demona May. Noel. Ah, I know I'm forgetting people. Sorry. Or mentioning them on the wrong day. I ran into Ashley at one point. It was great to see her again.

Bill Faggerbakke arrived, and folks almost literally lined up around the block for his autograph. It delayed opening ceremonies a bit. But not too badly -- not relative to the Gathering's track record, anyway. Jamie Murray got things rolling, introducing the staff, etc. I won't repeat the con virgin joke. Other people have mentioned it, and the truth is I didn't hear it at the time. I was antsy. Getting up and sitting down and getting up again.

As you all may have gathered, I rather like speaking in public. (I'm lousy at small talk and shy in social situations with people I don't know VERY well, but I'm a decent public speaker. Go figure.) But I generally get pretty wired just before I'm about to go "on".

Anyway, Jamie intro'd me. I intro'd our guests. Ending with Thom. (I just want to say that Thom and I always got along well during production of the show. But it's during the last few years since he came to the Dallas Gathering that he and I have really become close friends. He's such a great guy. I'm not sure how we made it through the first two NYC Gatherings without him.) Thom intro'd Lexy and gave her her FAN GUEST OF HONOR AWARD. This was a complete surprise to her. Something the staff agreed on secretly to thank Lexy for her amazing recruitment work. She seemed genuinely touched. It was pretty cool.

Then I began my schpiel. Considering you have heard and I have told ALL these stories about a THOUSAND times, I thought that this time I was amazingly scatter-brained. You'd think I'd have them down to memory. But I kept forgetting things. Remembering them later. Telling things out of order, etc. I belatedly remembered that I had a letter from Ed Asner to read to all attending, and then couldn't find the letter. It must have taken me forever to realize I was holding the letter in my hand. I had folded it up and had written a note to myself on it. D'Oh.

Anyway, it was fun to tell the "Better than Barney" story in the Hotel where it originally took place, with Bill F. there. I'm not sure whether he remembers saying that. Perhaps I made the whole thing up. (And my garage band will be playing at the Whiskey this week-end.)

I showed the pitch, the promo. The New Olympian and Dark Ages development. The Bad Guys reel. It was terrific to have that video projector. Finally people could get a decent look at what I was showing them.

I rambled forever. Then finally relinquished the floor.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went up to CityWalk for Sushi and a staff dinner. Crzy's husband Alan Anderson was there (with Kathy Pogge as his date). My date was Jen. *Yes we're a strange bunch, and I'm happy to include myself in that assessment.*

Meredith was there. Patrick. Crispin and Izobel. Cindy? Kenna? The Morgans? Carol? I can't remember, I'm sorry. Dinner was the typical "Hey, it's CityWalk, expect to wait forever!" marathon. But the food was good. And so was the company.

We headed back to the con suite, where Aimee and Steph (Hi, Pickles!) began decorating me with post-it notes depicting various characters from the show. I've kept them all. Except for that nasty one of me. [Wait, did this happen Friday night or Saturday? My memory is just a blur.]

I called it a night relatively early (for me). I was still a bit nervous about a pneumonia relapse. Walked down the hall to my hotel room. Watched some TV and then crashed.

Stay tuned for Part Three...


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Punchinello writes...

Hello Mr. Weisman.

I don't come here often, but occasionally I'm struck by the urge to quiz you on something. I was browsing the questions you're fielding, and I was struck again by something I notice every time I visit this page. There seems to be some preoccupation here with "the mind of the other." I noticed another poster make reference to your interest in it (although I cannot find any record of your having initiated the discussion).

While the series was still active I saw you invoke this theme frequently whenever you emphasized the cultural shock that the gargoyles experienced in modern America, and I appreciated the fact that you treated our linguistic tendencies to "name everything" as a curious human social construction. It helped to push the idea that these creatures were _not_ human and that we could not understand their natures or their motivations from within the context of human sensibilities. I see there is some similar talk here of the fay, and the notion that their essential nature might be something that is sufficiently far removed from humans so as to be outside our understanding. All of this puts me in mind of the anthropomorphic problem that the SETI administration outlined for dealing with the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence's. Human beings have a tendency to ascribe human values to non human species, and beyond that have considerable difficulty in contextualizing "the mind of the other" without unconsciously resorting to the context of human sensibilities.

Which brings me to the reason for this post; because being a student of the sciences (and probably less attached to my humanity than most people), I have found reason to be extremely critical of some of the aspects of the way the anthropomorphic problem is treated within the natural sciences as it applies to non-human animals. Generally speaking, my problem is that some of the more archaic ethical distinctions that are made between humans and other animals have their foundation in the premise that the ascription of certain mental capacities ( reflection, emotion, etc.) are the ascription of _uniquely human_ qualities. The fact that this premise, itself, is socially constructed rather than informed by data, seems to be lost on at least most _social_ scientists. What is troubling me is that I have begun to observe this kind of thinking migrate into the popular domain through science fiction. I don't really follow sci fi, but I've seen star trek, and I have had occasion to see the half-dozen or so other popular sci fi programs that one can find on television. I see a trend wherein the heroes casual disintegration of a planet is commonly justified with the hazily defined and indistinct ethics of "It did not harbor any sentient life."

This trend is scaring the hell out of me; because the expression "sentient" is not really used within the scientific community, so it does not have any agreed upon definition attached to it and there is no objective data informing the idea of it. The word seems to have infiltrated popular culture, however, where it finds frequent expression. That's what's bothering me. I see a lot of the same hazy ethical reasoning on this board. A number of messages expressing the confusion that humans in your story were subject to when they "mistook the gargoyles for animals rather than sentient beings" and in doing so, justified a campaign to exterminate them.

I would hope that a reasonable group of people would be given pause by the almost casual disregard for life that is being demonstrated with the prioritization of one life over another based upon the presence or non-presence of this seemingly magical endowment. Because if I am reading the intentions of the contributors to this board accurately, then it would appear their position is that if the occupants of that clock tower had been a group of stray dogs or a family of polar bears, then annihilating them with a wire guided missile would have been perfectly reasonable. "It's all right. It didn't harbor any sentient life." I would encourage the fans that come to this site to give some thought to what it is they mean by "sentience." What is the content of this sentience? If it entails that a creature can react to it's environment, anticipate, reflect and emote, then it should be pointed out that what available data exists indicates that this capacity is only about as exclusive a domain as most land based vertebrates.

I guess they shouldn't have disintegrated that planet after all. I hope to encourage others to give this issue the thought that it requires. I am also hoping to elicit some commentary from you, on the matter of how you perceive "the mind of the other." What mental distinctions do you draw between humans and gargates or faeries. I would be interested in hearing you address the notion.

Punchinello

Greg responds...

Thank you for writing. It certainly gets me thinking.

I'm probably as guilty as anyone of overusing, or rather overbilling the issue of "sentience". I think the concept has its uses. But it's probably used as a crutch too often.

Certainly, I don't want to see a family of polar bears, anthropomorphic or otherwise, blown up by a guided missile.

I don't much like the idea of destroying planets. In science fiction or otherwise.

As to this "mind of the other" concept...

Well for starters, I don't believe I did initiate the discussion of it -- unless you're including my constant admonishments to posters here that they are thinking like a human.

The previous post by Demoness and my response are a perfect example. She thinks Oberon is out of line. But she's thinking like a human, and a biased one at that. (I don't mean to pick on you, Demoness.) Oberon has a valid point of view. We may not like it, but it seems justifiable to me.

But the question of the mind of the other, was posted here initially by someone else. ( I can't remember who it was at this moment. ) I only just answered it in the last few days. Since you posted YOUR question, hopefully you've seen my response to that one.

And to reiterate, my response was that I'm still (in our universe) interested in the mind of US. Not the OTHER. But one way to explore that is to put ourselves in the shoes of the OTHER. Finding and describing and bringing the OTHER to life, whether as a Gargoyle or as a Child of Oberon, is for me an exercise in EXTRAPOLATION.

For example: If I was me, BUT I turned to stone every day AND I aged at half the rate I currently do PLUS most of my species had been exterminated 1000 years ago, ETC. -- then WHAT WOULD I BE LIKE?

For me, it's less about investing in species then in individual characters. Each with his or her own UNIQUE LIST of "extrapalatory parameters" (I just made that phrase up.)

It's really no different with a character like Elisa. After all, I'm a white Jewish male from California who has spent his entire adult life working in fiction. Elisa is an African-American/Native-American female from New York who's spent her adult life fighting crime. To understand her, I need to extrapolate.

However, in order to understand individuals of another species, I need to know more about that species. I need to envision the parameters that I will use to fully create their characters. So I've done that. In many ways, to me, gargoyle culture represent a kind of ideal. Not perfection, which doesn't personally interest me. But an ideal. Purpose. Loyalty. Oneness with the world they live in. Etc. I've borrowed things that I admired from multiple cultures and from my imagination, and I've tried to weave it into a coherent whole that fits the biology that I assigned them. These biological limits also create parameters for extrapolating character. Yes, the turning to stone thing. But also the group egg laying on a twenty year cycle. This naturally leads into the group child rearing thing. One is biological. One is cultural. But they are linked by extrapolation.

[Or... and I know this sounds silly but... perhaps they are linked by truth. By the fact that they exist in the Gargoyle Universe. As I've said many times before, sometimes this show flowed so well and easily, that it just seemed like I was tapping into something that existed. (But that's got nothing to do with this discussion, so let's ignore it.)]

And yet, from my point of view, all this is used to further illustrate the human condition. I don't think Oberon does or should think like us. But don't we all know a couple people with a little Oberon in them.

Keith David has said, as recently as seven days ago, that when he grows up he hopes to be like Goliath. And I personally think, that flawed as he is, Goliath is a wonderful role model. So we, as humans, can learn from Gargoyles. And we, as humans, can learn from Margot Yale as well. Maybe as a negative example. Maybe as something more down the road.

Ending Hunter's Moon with Jon Canmore becoming the human equivalent of Demona, was not an accident. They arrived at that point in two very different ways -- each, I hope, well informed by his or her species. (Or well extrapolated.) Nevertheless, the similarities between them are obvious and represent a "lesson" for us all.

All that stuff interests me MUCH, MUCH more than the exercise of creating something fully OTHER, just for the sake of achieving that.

Someday that may not be true. Aliens could land in Washington D.C. tomorrow and then comprehending the OTHER for the sake of understanding the OTHER will become a BIG priority fast. But for the time being, the human race is effectively alone in the universe. And before the aliens land, I'd like us all to get to know ourselves MUCH, MUCH better. In that sense, an Oberon, a Goliath, a Nokkar, are all just tools to that end.

The concept of sentience, comes in again, as I said, as a crutch. A convenient distinction between Bronx and Goliath, for example. Let's say you're from Russia. You don't speak English, and Goliath doesn't speak Russian. Still you have a hope that one or both of you may learn to speak the other's language. Dialogue is possible.

Bronx isn't ever going to speak Russian or English. That's the distinction. For what it's worth. In a moral sense, I'd say it's not worth MUCH at all. In a PRAGMATIC sense, we're not being honest if we don't admit it MEANS a lot.

Now. I don't think sentience is a WALL. Koko the gorilla can communicate in sign language. And I've got to say, I'm not sure that whales and dolphins aren't squealing complex philosophical discussions every day of the week. (Which is confusing because Dolphins have an eight day week, and whales have a thirty-seven day week. But what are you going to do?)

But even including a Bronx or a Cagney has value in the show. How do we respond to them. How do they respond to us? It's fun to do "The Hound of Ulster" and try to understand how an "animal" responds to various stimuli. It's still extrapolation. Now, with Bronx, I can cheat. I can keep him a beast and anthropomorphize him to my heart's content, because that species doesn't truly exist. I can make him as intelligent as I want. My goal there is to simply be consistent. Bronx can't start responding like Scooby Doo one day. You get the idea.

It's still about us understanding us and our place in the world. If in my own small way, I'm helping to open minds, helping to pave a bit of a way for when the aliens DO LAND, then great. But first and foremost, I'm asking us to KNOW OURSELVES.

Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to get repetitive. But this whole thread intrigues me. Feel free to post again with a follow-up. And everyone's welcome to join in.

Response recorded on July 02, 2001

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I'm only one month behind!!

That's all I wanted to say.


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Laura 'ad astra' Ackerman writes...

Another try at sending this out-

I just typed up a particularly long question that didn't post and got lost, and I was foolish not to copy it somewhere before hitting submit. I apologize if it turns up later and this becomes a double post, and also if I can't get rid of the autoformating in Word and it looks a little screwy. After losing that long a question I am not taking a chance working directly into the web page.

It has been a long time since I posted a question... of course it has been a long time since I have been caught up with your answers. After reading all of the new responses, particularly those dealing with Oberon and Titania, a question has come to mind. [Actually two, but how many new ways can you ask, "What did Titania whisper to Fox?"? That question should almost have its own section.] The short form of the question is this: Just how different are Oberon's hildren from humans? I am not referring to physical or magical characteristics, but rather do they think in a quantifiably different way than do humans?

The long version of the questions comes after the long digression:

A while back a friend practically shoved an anthology into my hands and insisted I read a particular article. I believe it was called, "Hamlet in the Bush". The gist of it was that a young anthropologist found herself with an indigenous culture for a long boring stretch. [She had thought the off season would be a wonderful time to get to observe their culture. Had she asked them they would have told her the off season is the off season because the weather is so miserable that they cannot even visit the next village. They spend the time drink the local equivalent to bear waiting for it to pass.]

Before leaving she had had an argument with a friend. She argued that at base all humans are the same and once you do some explaining to take care of cultural differences, a great work of literature would be recognized as such by all people. The example that was bandied about was Hamlet, so he gave her a copy as a going away present.

With nothing else to do she sat in her tent and read it over and over until the locals asked her what on Earth she was doing. They were a non-literate culture and to them reading papers meant reading boring legal documents. Even a white person could not be so daft as to spend weeks doing so. She seized upon it an opportunity to test her theory and they, being a story telling culture, were happy to oblige.

She immediately ran into two problems:
-1-They didn't have a concept of "ghost". Zombie, yes. Evil spirit in false guise, yes. But the idea of a dead person's spirit hanging around this world was simply ludicrous to them.
-2-They thought Claudius was a great guy. He acted as an exemplary uncle and brother-in-law, although he waited a bit long in taking care of his brother's household. [Three whole months! And with only one wife to tend the fields!]

In the end they loved the story (with their corrections) and thought she was on her way being a great storyteller, (being female aside). They also told her to be sure to tell her elders that they had been good hosts and had corrected her misremembering lest she continue in error.

I think her premise held, but she hadn't realized how far cultural difference went. The more complex the story, the more it was tied to its own cultural assumptions and the harder it is to explain to another culture.

Back to Gargoyles-

In Gargoyles the basic emotions seem pretty much universal. Gargoyles, humans, New Olympians, and even Nokar and Matrix as far as we have seen them, display them. Love, hate, curiosity and fear, as well as slightly more complex emotions of protection and loneliness are clearly expressed and are more easily understood than some lost cultures of our own ancestors. Are Oberon's Children fundamentally different, or if we can imagine long enough the effects of great power and incredibly long lives we can empathize without too much brain-sprain?

There are great works of speculative fiction that try to understand the mind of The Other. Zelazny had a whole series of stories of robots worshiping and trying to understand the long last human race. I recently read a great book called "Exogesis" (a post-modern Prometheius) by Astro Teller dealing with how a newly emerged AI might think and how humanity might respond. If I would list every book I could think of on the topic I will never stop typing and will eventually have feel the urge to start listing plays and movies as well, (and probably have to deal with Frankenstein, and I am not fond of the book. It is hard to like a book when you hate the main character. Perhaps the movies were right to make the monster the lead character. :).

It all boils down to this: Are the Children of Oberon "the Other", or something very much like ourselves?

Boy this is long! sorry.

Greg responds...

Don't apologize. It's fascinating.

Boiling it down...

YOU WROTE:

Are Oberon's Children fundamentally different, or if we can imagine long enough the effects of great power and incredibly long lives we can empathize without too much brain-sprain?

I'd have to say the latter. Great power. Little or no responsibility. Long lives. Being able to look however you feel at a given moment. You add these things up and they may seem other for awhile. But fundamentally, it's about extrapolation on our human emotions.

Because fundamentally, as a writer, what else can I do? Maybe someone else has the talent, ability, INTEREST in truly creating the OTHER. But not me. I'm interested in US. Gargoyles, humans, Oberon's Children. Toss in the New Olympians, Nokkar, the Space-Spawn, the Lost Race, etc. I'm fundamentally interested in figuring out what makes us real world humans tick. Or boil it down further, and I'm fundamentally interested in figuring out what the hell makes ME tick. All the characters in the Gargverse are just there as an alternative to me being in therapy, I guess.

Does that make sense?

Response recorded on June 29, 2001

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GREG'S GATHERING REPORT: PART ONE

[Disclaimer: It is the nature of these things to forget more than one remembers. The feelings remain. The details are fuzzy. I apologize in advance if I get something wrong or leave something out.]

Thursday, June 21st, 2001

Yeah, I know, the Gathering 2001 didn't start until Friday, but for me it started last August in Orlando. I'd been working pretty closely with this year's staff to help them gather special guests. At G2000, I rashly promised over twenty guests would attend. By June 14th, 2001 we had over 50. And then I got pneumonia and it looked like I'd be the one guest who wasn't going to make it.

Fortunately, my doctor got me on antibiotics immediately. Within 48 hours I was feeling about 90% better. I was even able to go to a Team Atlantis recording session on Wednesday the 20th. Good thing to, because that was the day I secured Cree "Hyena/Kida" Summer to attend our little party.

Anyway, by Thursday the 21st, I was feeling world's better, and I attended the pre-con dinner at Camacho's at CityWalk. Carol Wagner, a former student of mine and our phenomenal guest liaison (who absolutely picked up tons of last minute slack in handling detail work on most of the guests), was the first to join me at the restaurant. But soon, Jennifer Anderson arrived with most of the gang, including Patrick, Kathy, Meredith, Kenna, (Cindy were you there?) and the Morgans. Tim had to take off with Becca, but Christine stuck around. Jen introduced me to Crispin Freeman and his girlfriend, the lovely and talented Izobel. Dinner was fine -- though the service was SLOW!

Then we hiked down to the hotel to get a tour of where everything was going to be. Thursday night it all seemed TOO spread out to me. But by Friday, I realized it was all close enough together. We elevated up to the con suite and sat around a bit. But I didn't want to stay up to late Thursday, so I took off at a semi-reasonable hour. Carol and I hiked back up to CityWalk. I drove home. Very excited. Like a kid, it was hard to sleep.


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GARGOYLES 2198 CONTEST RESULTS

FINALLY! It's over!

Matt got the last correct answer (though it was the only answer he got), and we're all very grateful. He gets a prize.

The other prize goes to the individual who got the most answers correct first. Here are the results...

TIED FOR EIGHTEENTH PLACE:
Dracolich - 1
Faieq - 1
Fireball - 1
Matt - 1
Melissa - 1
The Guppi - 1
The Mighty Thor - 1
Vashkoda - 1

TIED FOR FIFTEENTH PLACE:
CZ - 2
Graymonk - 2
Slow - 2

IN FOURTEENTH PLACE: Bud-Clare - 4

IN THIRTEENTH PLACE: Coyote the Bando - 5

IN TWELFTH PLACE: Shari B. - 6

IN ELEVENTH PLACE: Leva - 7

IN TENTH PLACE: Todd Jensen - 8

TIED FOR EIGHT PLACE:
Aris Katsaris - 12
Demonskyre - 12

IN SEVENTH PLACE: Kalafarski - 31

IN SIXTH PLACE: DragonWolf - 32

IN FIFTH PLACE: Ray Kremer - 33

IN FOURTH PLACE: Galvatron - 35

IN THIRD PLACE: Kelly L. Creighton/Kya White Sapphire - 42

In SECOND PLACE: Adam - 101

AND IN FIRST PLACE: Phil - 183

Phil got nearly 35% of the answers single-handedly.

So the winners are matt and Phil. But I'd like to thank everyone who participated.

As for the prizes, I'm first wondering if either matt or Phil are coming to the Gathering, so that I can hand-deliver their prizes. If not, I'll mail them out after the Gathering. (Too swamped to deal with it now.)

AND NOW THE COMPLETED BLANK-FILLED CONTEST:

GARGOYLES 2198
(Fill-in-the-Blank Contest / 9-21-00)

Written by

Greg Weisman

One thousand years ago…
Superstition and the sword ruled.
It was a time of darkness.
It was a world of fear.
It was the age... of gargoyles!
Stone by day, warriors by night,
We were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect,
Frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years.
Finally... the spell was broken, and we lived again!

But our struggle was far from over...
For the last two hundred years we have faced the future,
Navigating an uneasy truce with the human race.
But now the planet Earth itself is under attack!
Humanity is helpless!
And we may be your last hope for freedom…

We are defenders of the night!
We are protectors of this world!
The year is 2198.

And we… are GARGOYLES!

In 1996, humanity and the world at large discovered there were gargoyles living among them. Fortunately for the human race, Gargoyles are by nature a protective species. Unfortunately for the gargoyle race, humanity is by nature an intolerant species. Humans did not welcome having to share their world with other sentient creatures. Many were quick to label the gargoyles as beasts, monsters, demons or worse. Gargoyles were denied basic "human" rights. They were discriminated against. Experimented upon. Attacked. Caged. And sometimes destroyed.

Despite this, GOLIATH, the leader of the gargoyles, maintained hope that one day humans and gargoyles would live in peace. Eventually, that day came. The "GARGOYLE MINORITY PROTECTION ACT" was adopted by the UNITED NATIONS. Gargoyles were granted full "sentient rights". Though Gargoyle clans were scattered across the globe, they were collectively granted special status as an indigenous nation. Hunting Gargoyles became a crime.

True acceptance, however, is not so easily legislated. At best, Gargoyles were still barely tolerated by their human neighbors. Real peace would have to wait.

But the gargoyles would take what they could get. The species, once on the verge of extinction, began to make a comeback. Clans that were thriving helped to repopulate those that were not. By 2188, TWELVE CLANS comprised the GARGOYLE NATION. Each was strong in number and tradition. Now it was time to expand again. As a potent act of symbolism, every clan brought its GARGOYLE EGGS to QUEEN FLORENCE ISLAND, off the West Coast of Canada. The eggs would hatch together to demonstrate gargoyle unity. Some of the hatchlings would eventually return to the other Twelve Clans. But many would stay to form the basis of a new clan. A thirteenth clan.

Someone should have told the gargoyles that thirteen is NOT a lucky number.

March 21st, 2198. Queen Florence Island. From around the globe, human Heads of State and all Twelve Gargoyle Clan Leaders have come to this small island for the HATCHING. They wait within the caldera of the Island's dormant volcano to witness the new generation of gargoyles bursting out of their shells. Meanwhile, Samson, a young gargoyle warrior is stuck on ceremonial guard duty at the base of the mountain. Out of nowhere, an immense SPACESHIP materializes above the volcano. It emits a blinding beam of light that stabs down into the caldera. Samson races up the slope, but it's too late. The caldera is empty. No eggs. No gargoyles. No humans. No World Leaders!

Simultaneously, another giant spacecraft hovers over Antarctica. Another beam stabs downward. And Earth's MASTER MATRIX Computer -- the operating system for nearly everything on the planet -- vanishes.

It all happens so fast, there's no time to react. Earth is paralyzed and leaderless when the alien SPACE-SPAWN invades. In less than twenty-four hours, the planet is occupied, absorbed into the SPACE-SPAWN EMPIRE. There is very little loss of life. Very little damage done. Unless freedom matters to you.

It matters to Samson, the new leader of the RESISTENCE. One by one, he gathers his team…

SAMSON - Samson of the Manhattan Clan hatched in 2158. Though his coloring is different, it's obvious to anyone who'd care to look that he is descended from Goliath. Still no one knows how many biological generations removed from Goliath he is. He might be the biological grandson of either Artus or Gwenyvere, Angela and Broadway's first two biological children, or he might be the biological son of Lancelot, their third born. Frankly, it doesn't really matter. There were many eggs in that rookery. All raised collectively by the Manhattan Clan.

By 2198, Samson is forty years old, but only twenty biologically. He has been trained as a Gargoyle Warrior both in Manhattan and in Ishimura. He demonstrated enough promise to have recently been named Second-In-Command of the Manhattan Clan. Now, a reluctant Samson must become leader not just of his clan, but of the entire Resistance.

DELILAH - Delilah of the Labyrinth Clan is a half-breed. Mostly Gargoyle… but part Human as well. Her ancestors include her namesake, the Delilah that Anton Sevarius cloned by combining the DNA of ELISA MAZA with that of DEMONA. Being genetically part of both races has left Delilah feeling like she's not truly a part of either. Upon learning of her "heritage", humans seem to react with fear and even disgust. And Delilah has never been confident that the gargoyles she was raised with don't feel the same way. All this has made her tough on the outside, but desperately insecure on the inside. Nevertheless, she's a fierce young Gargoyle Warrior (the same age as Samson), and Samson makes her his Second in the Resistance.

ZAFIRO - Zafiro of the Mayan Clan hails from the rain forests of Guatemala. He's a descendent of Obsidiana and the Zafiro from "The Green". He has feathered wings, reptilian features and skin the color of sapphires. From the waist down, he looks like a giant snake. He's Samson's contemporary and close friend. Samson, Delilah and Zafiro all trained together as Gargoyle Warriors, studying bushido in Ishimura; they have a Three Musketeers kind of rapport. Zafiro isn't quite the fighter that the other two are, but he has other strengths. He's more spiritual, more intellectual, more book-smart. He has also been entrusted with his clan's ancient and sacred Sapphire Amulet; this magical Mayan talisman prevents him from turning to stone during the day.

GUARDIAN - Seventeen year old Nicholas Natsilane Maza is a scion of both the Natsilane and Maza families (which technically makes him a distant relative of Delilah's). Nick was raised among gargoyles and has taken the family tradition to heart. He too has traveled to Ishimura to join the ORDER OF THE GUARDIAN. He has trained as a Gargoyle Warrior, embracing the Gargoyle Way of Protection & Service. He's as much a gargoyle as a guy can be and not have wings. He's eager, perhaps a little too eager, for a chance to prove that he can hold his own with any other gargoyle. Only he's not a gargoyle. He's one hundred percent human, with a human being's unique strengths and weaknesses.

SENTINEL - NOKKAR (the original model for the mysterious moai statues of Easter Island) landed on Earth centuries ago to stand sentinel and protect our world from the Space-Spawn. But by the time the Space-Spawn actually arrived, their technology so far surpassed his, he was completely caught off guard. Now, there's nothing he can do but join Samson's Resistance cell and try to pitch in. Nokkar is deeply shamed by his failure to protect his adoptive world. He would gladly sacrifice his life to redeem himself.

OWEN BURNETT - OWEN BURNETT was Chief of Staff of the United Nations. An indispensable aide to Secretary General ALEXANDER FOX XANATOS IV. In fact Owen has been an indispensable aide to the Xanatos family since before Alexander was born. But now the Secretary General is gone. Taken by the Space-Spawn and put in stasis with the rest of the world's leaders. The new acting Secretary has surrendered the planet to the enemy. He has no use for Owen's quiet efficiency and intensity. And Owen has no use for a man who won't fight. So Owen has left public service to rejoin the private sector. Secretly, he has placed all the resources of the Lexington-Xanatos Corporation at Samson's disposal. Of course, we all know that Owen is really the Puck. But since he already failed to protect his charge, and certainly has no opportunity to teach him anything at the moment, he's stuck as Owen, stone hand and all.

LXM - LXM (a product of the Lexington-Xanatos Corporation) stands for Lexington-Xanatos-Matrix, a line of robotic personal assistants that were all but ubiquitous in 2198. Almost everyone who was anyone had one of the cute little, five-foot tall, Lexington-shaped chrome robots. Each robot was directly connected via satellite to the Master Matrix in Antarctica, giving each one the ability to instantaneously summon any or all of mankind's collective knowledge. But when the Space-Spawn attacked, one of their first acts was to steal the Master Matrix. Now each LXM is on its own. Each one still has a powerful computer brain with crude artificial intelligence and long-term adaptive programming. But now, knowledge is finite, and experience is becoming the best teacher. Actually, two of these robots, LXM-994 and LXM-1057 will play a role in our series. When we open, these robots will be all but indistinguishable from each other. Automatons, merely. But as the series progresses, each will slowly develop its own personality.

DEMONA - For over a thousand years, Demona has plotted against humanity, blaming them for crimes against the gargoyle race. Now that a greater threat, the Space-Spawn, has reared it's many ugly heads, Demona has reluctantly joined Samson's Resistance cell. But no one, including Demona herself, is fully confident that she'll continue to fight on the side of the angels. This may be her last chance at redemption... or her final opportunity to annihilate the human race. Still, Samson felt it necessary to actively recruit her. It's hard to pass up the help of a warrior who's survived a millennium's worth of battles, a sorceress who knows how to combine ancient magic with modern technology. And then there's that bit about her turning into a human during the day. The only question is how she will use her talents. For now, she's siding with the Resistance. But can that last?

BROOKLYN - Brooklyn is a young gargoyle warrior from our own present day. In our second episode, he'll timedance forward to 2198. The future is as new and strange to him as it is to our audience, and often Brooklyn will be the point of view character to introduce us all to this brave new world. Brooklyn does hope to return to his own time someday, and so makes a special effort not to learn too much about his own "future". But he has no intention of abandoning Samson or Earth in their time of need. Someday, however, he may have to make a choice.

FU-DOG - FU-DOG is a Gargoyle Beast bred by the Xanadu Clan in China, who arrives in 2198 with Brooklyn. Fu-Dog is fiercely loyal (especially to Brooklyn). The ultimate watchdog.

[NOTE: Eventually, the large cast will be split in half. Nokkar will take Demona, Zafiro, Guardian and LXM-1057 into space to hit the Space-Spawn where they live. Samson, Delilah, Brooklyn, Fu-Dog, Owen and LXM-994 will remain on Earth, thwarting the aliens at every turn and engaging in many non-Space-Spawn stories.]

Anyway, those are our heroes. (Other characters will be added over time.) Here's who they're up against…

THE SPACE-SPAWN - Our main antagonists. This alien race was literally "spawned in space", born amidst the fury of an exploding star. For thousands of years, they have expanded their Empire in all directions, and nothing has been able to stand in their way. Their technology is far superior to anything we had on Earth. They possess faster-than-light space travel, cloaking devices, powerful force shields and molecular transporters. They also have weapons capable of destroying the entire planet in a matter of minutes. This creates a dilemma for Samson's Resistance. If Earth becomes more trouble than it's worth, the invaders will simply evacuate the globe and annihilate it.

THE QUARRYMEN - Decades ago, the Quarrymen organization fell out of favor. They were no longer "politically correct". But the events of March 21st, 2198 changed all that. Because most of the world's leaders were abducted while attending the Gargoyle Hatching, many humans became convinced -- at least in part due to Quarrymen propaganda -- that the Gargoyles had conspired and collaborated with the aliens. Now the Quarrymen are making a comeback. They don't much care for the Space-Spawn, but their scapegoat of choice is still the Gargoyles.

THE ILLUMINATI - Of course, the Gargoyles are not collaborators. But THE ILLUMINATI SOCIETY is. The Society is an ancient fraternal organization made up of almost all the true movers and shakers on planet Earth. Many of the world leaders abducted by the Space-Spawn were secretly members of the Illuminati -- proof that the Society definitely did NOT have advanced warning of the invasion. But once the occupation was complete, the Illuminati wasted no time capitalizing on it. They negotiated a secret treaty with the aliens, promising to infiltrate, sabotage and expose any sign of resistance. In exchange, the Space-Spawn promised to release those world leaders that the Society was prepared to vouch for. This devil's agreement was the beginning of a profitable arrangement for all concerned -- and the onset of a major headache for the Resistance.

COYOTE-X - COYOTE-X is a super-advanced robot with a highly evolved and Machiavellian artificial intelligence. He has multiple robot and cyborg operatives, and any number of android bodies that can accommodate his software. Once upon a time, Coyote-X had designs on taking over the world. But that was before the Space-Spawn showed up and rebooted his operating parameters. Now anything less than total control of the entire galaxy would strike him as under-achieving.

And that's the series in a nutshell.

GARGOYLES 2198. The future is now!


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Apologia (June, '01)

Sorry, I've been so derelict in "Answering Greg" recently.

It's true that voice directing Team Atlantis has filled a bit of my time, but the fact is that what's really keeping me busy is preparations for the GATHERING (June 22-25 at the Universal Sheridan in Los Angeles).

We've been confirming guests for the last few weeks, and though unfortunately we've lost four of what might be described as "our heavy hitters", the fact remains that we have confirmed OVER FORTY special guests for the convention. Since the most we've EVER had was FOUR, I think you'll agree that this is likely to be the biggest and best Gathering to date.

Anyway, I have about twenty minutes now to answer some questions... and right before the Gathering, I'm going to my in-laws for a few days. If they've got their Web-TV set up, I should have some free time to answer a bunch of questions while I'm there. So keep your fingers crossed.

And I'll see you at the Sheridan.


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Seeker of Knowledge writes...

In an earlier post, you said you wanted the God of the gargoyle universe to be bigger than the God of Abraham. How is that possible? The very nature of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim teachings makes this impossible. And He is in no way limited to these three religions. If you examine other faiths, it is easy to see that even religions as distant from these three as American Indians have some similarities.

Greg responds...

I see similarities all over. ALL OVER.

These things aren't mutually exclusive, which I believe was my point.

But I've studied the bible, and I see CLEAR signs in it of a non-monotheistic god. He seems to be a geotheistic god, particularly in chapters of Genesis and Exodus. Not the only. Just "THE BEST" (or at least the toughest).

Personally, I'm a Jew who believes in God. But I can't limit my perception of him to the Torah. It just doesn't work for me. Having said that -- and before I get slammed for saying it -- let me state clearly that the above opinions are first and foremost, merely that -- OPINIONS. They are my highly personal opinions. I have no interest or desire in trying to get anyone (ANYONE) to see things my way -- anymore than I have any interest or desire for someone to attempt to convert me.

So take everything I say with a grain of salt. Or a pillar of it.

Response recorded on May 02, 2001

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Chapter XXVIII: "Revelations"

Time to Ramble...

Fueled by (what I perceived in my own mind to be) the success of "City of Stone", I began to get more daring in my story structure. In Revelations, Cary and I utilized the time-honored tradition of "in medias res", where a story starts in the middle and catches the viewer up along the way. (Thanks, Homer.)

We also used voice over narration for the first time. It's interesting because Matt just seemed like a perfect character to do that kind of Philip Marlowe naration. But at the same time, it was daring, because of course, Matt is not a regular. The audience didn't know him that well. I think it showed the strength of our supporting cast that Matt could carry a show like this. Of course, having the massively talented Tom Wilson playing Matt helped. I knew he could handle it. And he did. Tom is terrific and VERY funny in the booth. I hope someday he gets his own tv show. (I also loved him as Coach Fredericks on Freaks & Geeks.)

The basic springboard for this episode came from four sources.

1. The notion that eventually Matt would have to find out about the Gargoyles. We didn't want to just throw it away or constantly come up with new excuses why he had "just missed them" or whatever.

2. Matt's pursuit of the Illuminati. What began as a Michael Reaves throwaway line in "The Edge" had evolved into its own subplot. Cary's "Silver Falcon" had taken us to the next level of hearsay. It was time to finally bring the Society into the series.

3. Disney's desire to do a cross-over event with their new "TOWER OF TERROR" ride down in Orlando. Unfortunately, they had wanted this much earlier -- in 1994. We had piggy-backed our World Premiere Screening of Gargoyles down in Florida in September of 1994 with the press event for the Tower's Grand Opening. (That's how Keith David, Marina Sirtis, Salli Richardson, Gary Krisel and I wound up riding the Tower of Terror together on the night before it opened to the general public.) But this was the soonest we could fit the notion into our continuity. You'll see in the memo that I just posted previous to this ramble, that when we were at the outline stage, I was still trying to more firmly tie the two properties together. Partway through the script process, someone at Disney changed their mind. They didn't want the tie-in anymore. I shrugged, I think. And the HOLLYWOOD TOWER became the HOTEL CABAL.

4. An episode of the British TV series, THE AVENGERS, called something like "The House That Jack Built". This was a classic that we ripped off shamelessly. (Wait, wait, I mean we paid it homage shamelessly.) It was about this nutty house designed, I believe, to trap spies inside and drive them bonkers and break them. Sound familiar? John Steed and Emma Peel redone as Goliath and Matt. Didn't you notice the resemblance?

(Gee, so far I've credited Raymond Chandler, Homer and THE AVENGERS as influences. What a fun episode.)

We reintroduced Hacker, mostly so that we could bookend him at the end as Matt's new Illuminati contact. This was something that Cary and I planned as far back as Silver Falcon. We always had to keep Hacker's agenda straight. Make sure any info he gave Matt was a wild goose chase, at least as far as Hacker knew.

In this episode, and only in this episode, Maria Chavez is played by the talented Elisa Gabrielli (also known as Obsidiana). Rachel Ticotin, our usual Chavez, was just unavailable. So Elisa filled in. She has a lighter sound. But I think it works. Did anyone notice? Both Elisa and Rachel are great. I used Elisa as the Doll Demon in 3x3 Eyes (now available on VHS and DVD).

My 3 year old son Ben, who at this point is used to me writing down what he and his older sister says during these viewings told me to write down the following: "When it's night, Demona's a gargoyle. When it's day, she's a human. He likes it when Demona's a human." This had absolutely nothing to do with this episode, but hey, who cares?

I really loved what Ed Asner did with the throwaway character of Jack Dane. "Tell him he's a bum." Dane was so much fun, I brought him back for TURF later.

CONTINUITY

Matt climbs into the clock tower and finds the TV he helped Elisa with on the day they met. That was fun. This whole episode ties back to Matt's Illuminati musings in "The Edge". It was nice to find another connection. Also, Elisa's been lying to him as long as they've known each other. Nice to remind the audience of that as well.

I like the "family of gorillas" line.

"The Dental Plan" line is vintage Cary Bates.

Elisa: "Matt, you haven't said three words all night..."
Matt: "Let me drive." HEY! THREE WORDS! :) This is fun because, I always thought of Elisa as someone who was such a control freak, she never let her partner drive her car. A big part of this episode, though it could easily sneak past you what with everything else going on, is revealing more facets of Elisa's personality. We learn much more about her and she grows here too.

It's fun to establish Xanatos as "a lower eschelon member". Immediately makes the Illuminati impressive, if Xanatos barely registers on their scale. Also sets up eventual conflicts with him.

First act cliffhanger: Here the threat is Matt. Again, how well did you all think you knew Matt? Here we're inside his point of view -- his narration. But we still try to play him edgy enough that we don't know if he'll kill them both. It helps that we opened with the shocker that he betrayed Goliath to Mace. How many people bought that? Thought Matt was the Judas that Mace said he was?

Anyway, I really like this scene. Elisa yelling at Matt. Matt getting out of the car and yelling at... no one. And Elisa's quiet revelation that Matt isn't crazy... "They don't follow me everywhere." Again, this line was as important for Elisa as for Matt. Sure she can count on the Gargoyles for help. But I never wanted it to seem like Lois and Superman. Like he was always around or would here her with super-senses everytime she screamed. Most of the time, Elisa's on her own.

"This time I'll drive."

Fun to see the gargoyles reactions when Matt is introduced. Goliath's not upset. He appreciates that Elisa has a loyal partner and probably gave her permission to bring Matt in from the cold long before. The truth is they know Matt already.

Elisa: "better late than never".

And then immediately Goliath is suspicious. "Trust is not... to be bartered."

As creators, we were playing both ends here. Omitting pieces of conversation. Trying to get the audience to believe that Matt might in fact be betraying G. But also making it believable that in hindsight, he wasn't. Not cheating, in other words.

At this point, my six year old daughter Erin said: "I don't like Bluestone in this one. He's usually very nice. But in this one he's mean." That's how she saw him. Not righteously angry with Elisa for the lies. Just mean.

It took remarkably more effort than I'd have expected to get things to hook up with our Teaser from the beginning of the act. To help, I reused a couple of Mace's line as prompts to the audience.

It's fun to hear Tom Wilson playing Matt playing at being a bad guy.

I like all the hotel references. "Check out time" etc.

Mace falls down the shaft and grabs the cables with his bare hands. One hundred years old or not, that's gotta hoit.

I like Matt using his coat as a parachute. That wouldn't be necessary except for that darn Gallileo. If it weren't for him, Goliath, being heavier, could have fallen faster than Matt to catch up to him. :)

And of course, I enjoy the irony of Mace being trapped in a Hell of his own making. And i like the notion that the Illuminati just left him there to rot. He had outlived his usefulness. A non-member had found him thanks to his annoying sentimental habit of visiting Pine Lawn. AND he had failed to hold the Gargoyle in the Cabal. Breaking a perfect record. Woops.

Goliath refers to Bluestone as his friend. That's to make sure the audience is clear that Goliath was in on the plan from the beginning. Later, I gathered, some people still didn't get that.

We have a great Turning to Stone sequence here. Every once in a while it's nice to remind the audience that this is unique and special. Seeing it through a new characrer's eyes is a great way to do that.

I love Elisa and Matt's conversation. Elisa reveals that she's subconsciously been keeping the gargs to herself because it made her feel special. Explains a lot about "Her Brother's Keeper", doesn't it? And Matt admits to something similar. I think we all do little things to help ourselves stand out, even if no one notices them but us.

Maria then helps us see that Matt and Elisa are going to be okay.

And finally, our Hacker tag. (This episode had like six tags.) Matt gets his pin. I thought that was kinda cool...

What say all of you....


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Revelations Story Memo

In Prep for my coming RAMBLE on REVELATIONS, here's the memo I wrote to Story Editor Cary Bates in response to his outline...

WEISMAN 1-15-95

Notes on "Revelations" Outline...

GENERAL
NEW STRUCTURE
I was very concerned that the first act and much of the second act came across as prologue to our adventure. And yet most of it is necessary stuff. So I think we should open the story with GOLIATH trapped in the "house that Jack built" (HTJB) and flashback from there. Probably with MATT narrating the whole story in Voice Over.

I've suggested act breaks, but you don't have to feel married to them, if the timing or page count seems wrong.

Also, I didn't suggest any specific revisits to the HTJB (after the prologue) until our story brings us back there chronologically. If you want to revisit the present in the HTJB a few times to remind the audience of the current situation and to up the action with Goliath facing another death trap, go for it. Totally up to you.

I also moved the Hacker scene up, so that he can bookend the show a little more. In his first scene, he'll still be telling Matt that the Society is a myth. In his last scene, he'll be inviting Matt to join.

HTJB/MOUNTAIN RETREAT/TOWER OF TERROR/SEEDY HOTEL
It's a bit of a stretch to believe that Goliath would go to this "Mountain Retreat" with Matt. What do they hope to accomplish there, besides illegal search and seizure? Matt's "informant" is fishy beyond belief. So is the gizmo that gets them past the security perimeter. The point of which is lost on me, since they are immediately spotted by security forces. How does defeating these forces help? THEY'VE BEEN SPOTTED. What can they hope to accomplish now? These security guards can't radio inside to hide or destroy whatever data there might be? It's all adding up to a big old fishy mess. And yes, I realize that the Illuminati want Goliath inside and that Goliath wants to get "trapped" in order for Matt's plan to work out, but it's too convenient to say everyone is intentionally acting like idiots. The audience won't be in on it. They'll just be getting frustrated. By the time we reveal the truth, they'll just generally feel the whole story was contrived.

So let's start by ditching the mountain retreat. I like the Seedy Hotel better. Someplace that from the outside seems like a totally non-descript Manhattan building. Maybe it's boarded up and condemned. Getting in is not a problem. They land on the roof and sneak inside. But getting out is impossible.

The hotel is really the "House That Jack Built". Yes, steel shutters slam shut, trapping Goliath, but more importantly, we should really lose our bearings inside. Goliath rips open a window that he thinks leads outside, only to find it's a false facade that leads into another room. At another point, he thinks he has gotten back onto the roof. But this turns out to be another interior room, with a domed ceiling painted with stars. Another room has all the furniture on the ceiling and the razor sharp ceiling fan on the floor. Maybe another room rotates. Think about optical illusions, Escher paintings, etc. The death traps are fun, but we've done them before, so it's the mind-bending surreal stuff that will make this place special.

Also since the powers-that-be have asked, and since it fits our story, please refer to this place at least once as the "TOWER OF TERROR" and do at least one death trap with a rapidly falling elevator. This is "Synergy" with the Disney/MGM theme park's TOWER OF TERROR ride in Florida. I wouldn't suggest it if it didn't fit, but it fits just fine and that kind of goodwill never hurts. The name of the hotel should be the Hollywood Tower, cause that's the name in the ride. Now I know that seems like a weird name for a manhattan hotel, but if you figure it was built in the thirties or forties, during Hollywood's heyday, you can RATIONALIZE that even a New York Hotel would want to associate itself with the glamour of Hollywood. O.K. It's a stretch, but go for it.

MATT AND SECRECY
THE THEME OF OUR STORY IS TRUST. Hit it as much as possible. However, I don't want to replay Matt's emotional arc from Silver Falcon. He learned his lesson in that story. He no longer runs off without telling Elisa where he's going or what he's doing. Matt's honesty at the beginning of the story will contrast nicely with Elisa's deception about the gargoyles and with Matt's later bitter, furtive behavior. He can't feel too betrayed by Elisa's lies if he opened the story lying to her as well.

GOLIATH
In your beat #9, Goliath is behaving completely out of character. He may never have been introduced to Matt, but he's seen him from a distance and knows who he is. He must know from Elisa that Matt is a good guy. His long-term goal in Manhattan is to find acceptance with a growing number of humans. Elisa was the first (and is still the foremost), but Renard is a friend of Goliath's now. Jeffrey Robbins the novelist is a friend of Hudson's. Goliath tried to convince Elisa to tell the truth to her brother, etc. And in any case, he's not likely to physically assault someone for doing nothing else but looking at them. I know you want to set up a tense dynamic, but the one in beat 9 is totally artificial. So drop it.

BOTHERSOME QUESTIONS THAT MUST BE DEALT WITH IN THE SCRIPT
1. Why was it necessary for Mace to vanish in the twenties? (Perhaps he was recruited by the Illuminati, but was about to get busted for his criminal operations with Dracon. So he vanished with the money, and the Illuminati set him up with a new life. But why did they want him? Why would they bother?)
2. Why would Mace give up his glamorous gangster life to live in a seedy hotel for the Illuminati? (He obviously wouldn't. So let's not imply that he did.)
3. How did Matt make the connection between Mace and the Illuminati in the first place? (This question must get answered in this episode. In "Silver Falcon", the old photo of Mace and Dominic will depict Mace wearing the Illuminati pyramid/eye emblem. But don't count on the audience noticing or remembering that. And don't forget that Matt thought Mace was involved with the Society long before he saw that photo in Benton's office.)
4. Did Matt just get phenomenally lucky that he happened to go to Flo's grave at the same time as Mace? Was he planning on setting up 24 hour surveillance? Did he have some way of knowing that Mace visits and when?
5. How does Mace being alive prove the existence of the Illuminati? (Hint: it doesn't, by itself. See question #3.)

MALONE
Mace was a prominent gangster when he disappeared in 1924. If you figure he was about thirty, he'd be 100 now give or take five years. I think we should make a point of this. He looks great, thanks to the Illuminati's rejuvenation techniques. Like a man of 75 or 80. But he proudly tells Matt that today's his 100th birthday, or something like that.

BEAT OUTLINE
ACT ONE
1. Establishing shot of the Seedy Hotel. It's Friday night. Inside, Goliath is already alone. The steel shutters slam shut, trapping him inside, a mysterious voice (Mace) welcomes him to the "Tower of Terror". Maybe activate a death trap or two. Maybe Goliath finds an open window, but it leads back inside. Maybe the ceiling comes down on him or something.

2. Cut to the control room, where we see Goliath on a monitor. Mace is at the controls. (We don't yet know who he is.) And then pull back to see Matt looking over Mace's shoulder. We can't believe Matt is helping to trap and kill Goliath!! Push in on Matt. In his voice over, we find out he can hardly believe it either, it all began last Tuesday....

3. First flashback begins. Last Tuesday. It's the FBI target range and the scene with MARTIN HACKER. (Don't take for granted that the audience knows Hacker. Reintroduce all the necessary, pertinent info about him, Malone and the Illuminati -- pretend they've never been mentioned before this episode.) Hacker can't believe Matt is still chasing Mace Malone and the Illuminati. It's a wild goose chase that got him fired from the Bureau. When will he learn his lesson? But Matt is determined. He's going to prove the existence of the Illuminati, prove that he's not a nutcase. So Hacker gives him the info that he asked for: the location of Malone's step-son, a mobster who's part of the Federal Witness Relocation Program. (Hacker gives him this location because he knows that Malone's step-son has no idea where Malone is.)

4. Tuesday Night. Later at the precinct house, Matt sees Captain Chavez coming out of the Ladies room. He asks her if Elisa is in there. She says no. Matt doesn't get it. Her car is here, but he can't find her.

He finally finds Elisa exiting the broom closet. Has she been sitting in a closet for the last twenty minutes? Of course, not. She was just, uh... returning a mop. One of the sinks in the ladies' room overflowed. That's where she's been (yeah, that's the ticket) cleaning up a flood in the Ladies' Room. Matt is so stunned by her obvious and clumsy lie, that he doesn't immediately confront her with it. Unaware that she's been caught in a lie, Elisa quickly changes the subject. Why was Matt looking for her? He's got a lead on the Illuminati. After the Silver Falcon debacle, he's learned his lesson about keeping his partner in the dark. (He says pointedly.) He just wanted to let her know where he's going to be tomorrow. (As with Hacker, Elisa likes Matt but seems to only tolerate his obsessions. There's the tiniest bit of a patronizing attitude toward them. Perhaps Matt invites her along on his investigation, but she thinks it's a waste of time. She's nice about it, but Matt's V.O. narration lets us know that he knows she thinks he's a kook. Same with Hacker in the scene above.)

5. Wednesday. Matt confronts Malone's step-son, JACKSON DANE (or whatever) at the gym (or wherever). (Jackson's 80 if he's a day, but he can have Ferrigno-sized goons. Though you need to be careful that Matt doesn't come across as a dirty or rogue cop. I don't want him to break any laws.) Matt asks Jackson about Mace. Dane hasn't seen Mace since he was a little kid. Matt pulls out a photo that was taken at the memorial service for Jackson's mother (Mace's ex-wife), actress Flo Dane, when she died fifteen years ago. It was a big deal thing. We see a picture of Jackson in the front row. Did Jackson see Mace at the funeral. No. Matt takes out a second picture. A blow up of people in the back row. He points to one. Jackson looks carefully, and whaddaya know? It's Mace. Now Matt wants to know where Flo Dane is buried. Jackson says that his mom didn't want her grave to become a tourist attraction, so she was buried under her real name, FLORA DREEDLE. Did Mace know that name? Yes, he did.

6. Wednesday, just before sundown. Back at the precinct, Elisa asks Chavez if Matt's checked in yet. No. Elisa goes up to see the gargoyles. We follow her into the broom closet. The pull-down ladder is already down. She nervously pulls her gun and goes upstairs. Only to find Matt there. She's under time pressure to get him out of there, since it's nearly sunset. He points to the t.v. set. He remembers helping her bring that into the precinct the day they met. She had said it was for a friend. She pretends that this is her little getaway spot when police life gets too intense. Some getaway spot. An old lounge chair. A hot plate. Video game equipment. Books. Enough food for a family of gorillas. She says she may be bending a few regulations, but she's not breaking any laws. Don't tell Chavez, o.k.? (She has got to get him downstairs.) So how'd it go with Mace's step-son? He's still highly suspicious, but enthusiastic enough about filling her in on Mace that he allows her to guide him back downstairs. Matt has checked with the funeral home. Some old man shows up there every Thursday and leaves a rose for Flora Dreedle. It's a long shot but Matt is going to be there tomorrow to find Mace Malone.

7. Thursday. Matt finds Mace Malone, who goes into a bit of denial, but we'll give him an Illuminati tattoo on the palm of his hand (or something). Mace relents, impressed. The Illuminati has been aware of Matt's quest. They've thrown multiple roadblocks in his way, and still Matt found Mace. The Society has clearly underestimated the boy. Mace offers Matt membership based on a loyalty test. Matt: You want me to prove my loyalty? How do I know I can trust you? Mace: Fair question. What if I prove good faith by revealing a bit of information donated by one of our lower echelon members, David Xanatos. Matt's listening.

8. Very late Thursday night. Elisa and Matt are driving in her car. She's driving. She asks him if everything's all right. The shift's almost over and he hasn't said three words all night. "Let me drive," he says [exactly three words]. No way -- it's my car, she replies, only half-kidding. He INSISTS. She relents, realizing he's pretty upset about something. It's a very awkward moment. She has to stop the car, get out and switch sides with him. He's silent the whole time. He drives. Where are they headed? He ignores the question, but tells her that today he found Mace Malone. That's great, she says, but you're driving awfully fast. He ignores that too, saying he feels like he's on a streak. Now that he's proven the Illuminati exists, he's about to prove the existence of another urban myth that he's been taunted for believing in. Matt, she yells, you're driving us right into the path of some kind of danger!! That's right he says, and the only way we can be saved is if your gargoyles save us.

ACT TWO
9. Elisa manages to wrest the wheel from him and turn the car into a very uncontrolled 360° skid. Thank god for seat belts. They barely survive. Elisa is furious at Matt! What the heck does he think he's doing?! He's trying to get his partner to tell him the truth. He gets out of the car and yells to the sky. "I know you're out there! Show yourself!" Nothing happens. No gargoyles appear. Elisa gets out of the car. Matt's expecting another lie. But all she says is, "They don't follow me everywhere I go." They look at each other. C'mon, she says. I'll drive. (NOTE: I don't think we need to bring up informants. Elisa can believe that Matt has put two and two together from all the lies she's had to tell in the first act.)

10. But by the time they get back to the precinct it's dawn, early Friday morning. Too late, she says. He doesn't buy it. He knows that set-up in the clock tower must be for them. She's still reluctant to tell him the whole truth. Look, she says, you have to be patient for a little while longer. (Note: she has not actually apologized yet.) Meet me back here this evening. Ten minutes before sunrise.

11. Friday. Mace and Matt meet again. Has Matt seen the gargoyles yet? Tonight. But the information was correct? Yes, she friends with them. The Society has demonstrated good faith. Does Matt still want to join? Yes. Then you're willing to take the loyalty test? Yes, what do I have to do? Bring us a gargoyle.

12. Friday at twilight. Matt and Elisa head out the clock face's door (at roman numeral VI) Matt sees the statues of the gargoyles and gets pissed again. No stone statues are going to fool him. He knows they're flesh and blood. He's seen them (in previous episodes). She says hold on and stand back. The sun goes down. The gargoyles explode from stone. Milk this for all the awe and majesty, etc., that it's worth. Seeing it from Matt's point of view, we should all feel like we're seeing it again for the first time. The gargoyles approach. They all know Matt, even if he doesn't know them. Even Bronx is friendly. Matt is awestruck. Speechless. Elisa tells Matt that the Gargoyles have adopted the city and protect it as they once protected their castle in Scotland long ago. She asks him to keep the gargoyles' secret. He says he will, but he wants something in return. Goliath doesn't love the idea of being blackmailed into anything. Matt says he's tracked Mace to a seedy condemned hotel. He's sure he can get proof of the Illuminati's existence if he could just get into the hotel, but it's locked and boarded up on the ground floor. He needs Goliath's help to enter via the roof. The other gargoyles offer to help, but Matt isn't trying to lay siege to the place, he just wants to sneak in and sneak out. All he needs is Goliath. Elisa wants to go, but Matt specifically doesn't want her to. Why? Because I want to find out once and for all whether you trust me. So Goliath takes off with Matt. (AND I think we can assume that Matt filled Goliath in on his plan on the flight over to the seedy hotel.)

13. Friday night. They land on the roof of the hotel. With Goliath's help, they break into the stairway and go inside. Almost immediately, Matt is forcibly separated from Goliath and spirited away to join Mace in the control room. Mace is very pleased with Matt. He presses a button and steel shutters slam home in a repeat of scene 1. Which brings us up to date, end on a cliff hanger and go to commercial.

ACT THREE
14. Play Goliath in the HTJB. Have fun with it. You've got most of the act. Meanwhile, Matt asks Mace how long they plan to keep Goliath here. Why, we can keep him here forever. He'd never find his way out without help. So Matt has to secretly help Goliath. But you can't have that signal device. Where would Matt get it from? He's not Batman. So think of something else. Ultimately, they escape leaving Mace hopelessly lost inside the surreal world of his own making. (That's the Illuminati's punishment for him. He can die of dehydration there, some time in the future and we don't have to portray it or worry about S&P.) All this is done in such a way that the Illuminati would later blame Mace not Matt. If you need help to choreograph this, give me a call.

15. Pre-Dawn Saturday morning, Goliath and Matt return to the clock tower where Elisa and the others are waiting. We find out definitively that Matt tipped Goliath off to his plan on the way to the seedy hotel. He was hoping to join the Illuminati -- so he could bust them from the inside, but in order to escape, they had to trap Mace, his only Illuminati connection, in the HTJB, so it was all for nothing. Matt watches with Elisa as the Gargoyle's turn to stone. (Again, milk this. Through Matt's eyes it should feel like the first time.) Elisa and Matt have their little scene. She finally apologizes. He asks why she kept it a secret from him. And etc.

16. Matt walks outside and there's Hacker, who reveals that he's a member of the Illuminati who had been assigned to Matt to keep him away from the Illuminati. Matt can't believe it: Hacker helped him with info. Only info that Hacker thought led down a dead end. Matt just figured a way to do an end run around the dead ends. No hard feelings. Anyway, he always liked Matt, so he's proud to give him his official Illuminati membership pin. Matt doesn't get it. The society lost the gargoyle. Mace's fault, not Matt's. Hacker promises to keep in touch. He hops in an unmarked car and drives off. After he's gone, Matt says something determined about keeping in touch too. This isn't over.


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Todd Jensen writes...

Wow! A new episode ramble! Well, here's my thoughts on "City of Stone Part Three".

I get a chuckle out of the "I never watch television" scene - although I've occasionally thought that the lady must have been reading the script to know that watching Demona's broadcast was what turned everyone to stone :) (Then again, maybe it isn't such a hard connection to make).

Yes, I'd noted that Lulach's name got spelled wrong (I was aware of the original Lulach of history before "City of Stone" came out); thanks for explaining about how that happened.

I mentioned in my ramble on Part Two that the Duncan of "City of Stone" felt a lot closer to the Shakespearean Macbeth than the Macbeth of "City of Stone" did, and the Weird Sisters scene brings it home all the more. They do their "toil and trouble" scene, as per the play (which delighted me from the very first time that I saw the episode) - but note here the twist from Shakespeare. In Shakespeare, the Weird Sisters' words inspire Macbeth to move against Duncan. In "City of Stone", they inspire Duncan to move against Macbeth, instead. (And it says a lot about Duncan that he should completely forget that Macbeth just saved his life a few minutes before, simply because of the words of three old crones).

The scene where the Sisters transfer Demona and Macbeth's ages is a very effective one (although I don't know if I'd gotten the full story there until Part Four came along). So also is the battle scene, including Duncan's fiery end. (Again, I wasn't too surprised by the basic manner in which Macbeth overthrew Duncan; I'd already read that he did overthrow Duncan in actual history - and that it was in 1040, so I was expecting that incident the moment that the "1040" caption appeared on the screen. I'd also read that Shakespeare seems to have borrowed the more familiar murder story from Holinshed's account of the murder of a certain King Duff - apparently the same Duff who appeared in your "Once Upon a Time There Were Three Brothers" story as Kenneth II and Prince Malcolm's older brother. Although that Duff's final days reminded me more of Uther Pendragon's, in his going into his final battle in a litter - but I digress).

A couple of thoughts about Demona at the coronation that really stand out to me. First off, when Demona comments that she'd rather that humans feared gargoyles than respected them, I can't help but think that it shows how Demona doesn't always reason things out. For humans do fear gargoyles - and that's what causes the problem. Humans hunt and destroy gargoyles because they're afraid of them. So I don't think that it's clear thinking on Demona's part to desire that her race be feared.

The other part is the astonished, then delighted look upon Demona's face when the humans in the great hall actually cheer her. Another one of those almost sad moments, in that she's given an opportunity to see what it can be like to be loved by humans instead of feared - and seventeen years later, she'll reject it. A moment equal to her brief "What have I done?" moment in 994, before she changed it to "What have they done?"

I very much liked the Weird Sisters' little lurkings in the background throughout (and caught their policewoman role at once).

Oh, and I like the title "City of Stone". True, it indeed does ignore the flashbacks that are so crucial, but it sounds good. I didn't even notice that trait when I watched the multi-parter.

But perhaps the most intriguing part of "City of Stone" remains this: how many animated adventure series would dare air a story that spends so much of its time in medieval Scotland, as opposed to a more high-tech setting (whether modern-day or futuristic), exploring actual events in early Scottish history? "Gargoyles" was definitely unique in that regard.

I'm looking forward to the "Part Four" ramble.

Greg responds...

And I'm looking forward to your response to that ramble.

City of Stone was obviously a momentous undertaking for us. In more ways then one. I was glad they let us do it at all. Impressed that they let us do it. And of course, I think it really is THE set of episodes that brings an EPIC flavor to the rest of the series. Sure the Pilot is big. But then we seemed to settle down. Now our scope has expanded in multiple directions at once. Avalon and the World Tour will do the same thing. But by then it's almost expected. I think City is more of a revelation. (When watched in order and for the first time.)

Response recorded on March 07, 2001

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Chapter XXVII: "Outfoxed"

Time to Ramble...

My three year old son Ben watched the opening titles for about the five hundredth time. On the one hand, he made the point that it was getting dull seeing this same opening. He wanted me to fast-forward to the actual story.

On the other hand, he spent the time reviewing "the rules". How the gargs turn to stone during the day. How Goliath is the leader. Etc.

One thing we always cheated on was how Fortress-2 landed. There it is on the ground awaiting it's maiden voyage, and I just don't see any landing gear.

Vogel is introduced. This is another thing where I had to carefully explain my long-term intent behind the screen in order to get a model for the character that really looked like Owen but wasn't his twin. I remember a lot of people on the Disney Afternoon mailing list reacting negatively to Preston in this episode. Like he was a feeble imitation of Owen. Like we didn't know how to do any other kind of executive assistant. I was simultaneously amused and annoyed by those kind of comments. So now I'm curious. What was your initial reaction to Vogel? And what do you think of him now?

As usual, Travis has old-school attitude when interviewing his subjects. I like that. Makes him more of a character and not just a reporter place-holder.

Fox in casual clothes. With a very casual, yet strangely intense attitude. "I know what happens next," Fox says to David.

My six year old daughter Erin asked, "Why is she watching [Travis' report] like that?" She could tell something was up there.

And in fact, like UPGRADE, this was another episode where we were intentionally trying to show that Fox was David's equal. We show it physically in their martial arts work out. And we show it by giving her a ruthless and complex plot to take Cyberbiotics. In fact, in this episode, when you add in the fact that David is clearly in the dark about her pregnancy test, she seems to be a little equaler than he is.

Fortress-2 takes off. And Goliath sends us into flashback. This is flat-out padding. For some reason, though the script is the same basic length as any of our scripts, this one timed out short after story-boarding was done. (Most of my stories time out too long.) So we added this flashback. I think it was a mistake. It kills the stories momentum, and we already had the sequence later where Renard shows all the important scenelets to Goliath. Those become incredibly redundant. When you add in the "Previously on Gargoyles" opening, it was just too much.

Elisa reveals the show's Hill Street Blues influence by telling Goliath to "be careful out there."

Goliath gets attacked by cybots. As noted, any individual cybot is no match for him. But they have strength in numbers. I wanted to show that Goliath can still kick some ass when motivated. So the cybots shoot at him. And his only response is "That. Stings." Very intense. Unfortunately, I think sound-wise the line gets buried.

And that's a general problem with the episode. On a technical level this just wasn't one of our best. The animation isn't awful, but it's mediocre. Goliath's size relationship gets screwed up here and there. (Particularly in the brig sequences.) The story's padded by flashbacks. Our normally great sound team, didn't do the most inspiring job on this one either. It just generally feels like one that got away from us.

I still think there's some great stuff in it. And the revelation of Fox's pregnancy actually makes it something of a landmark (both for our series and for animated series in general), but the execution never quite lived up to its potential. Oh, well.

CONTINUITY & INTRIGUE

Did anyone remember Cyberbiotics before this ep? Had you ever wondered who Xanatos was stealing from in the pilot? We knew that Cyberbiotics abandoned their underground base, which became the home of the Mutates. Now we were rebuilding the air fortress and revealing that the CYberbiotics Tower is still in business.

Also, Renard mentions Gen-U-Tech. And the revelation that Sevarius and Burnett used to work for Cyberbiotics. Of course, Renard thinks that Xanatos stole Sevarius and Owen away. We know better. We knew even then that Sevarius is much better suited to work for a man like Xanatos than Renard. And of course, now we know why Owen was Xanatos-bound as well. But what did you guys think of that minor revelation at the time?

Renard's opinion of Xanatos is probably colored by his relationship to his daughter: "And that's the least that viper has stolen from me." Did you stop at that moment to consider what that meant and what he meant by the "My Anastasia. My Janine." line? Did anyone (from Renard's name, if nothing else) guess that Fox was his daughter, before the tag? Who did you think Anastasia and Janine were at that time? Or did Goliath's follow up line, "My angel of the night." distract you from considering these questions?

At this point, just before the Janine line, Erin (who has seen these before, but not recently) remembered: "That's Fox's daddy!"

Goliath has some cool lines here too. "I belong to no one." "I serve no master."

And Renard (voiced by Robert Culp to perfection) has some great lines too: "Not my fault, not my fault. You sound like every human employee I've ever FIRED." and "Take some responsibility."

What was fun for me, although maybe for no one else, was (a) to get some hard thoughts about both the need and the difficulty of maintaining personal integrity up onto the screen and (b) doing that by lecturing to Goliath, arguably one of the most "integrous" characters I've ever written. (b) served (a), by showing that even Goliath can be prone to slipping.

The thing is that integrity really matters to me. And yet, I don't know how much of it I exercise in my own life. I really do try. But it's so hard. And not because I'm a dishonest person, but more because I'm lazy. It's easier to shift blame, to tell white lies, etc. The alternative takes effort and vigilance. I think the rewards are immense, even if the costs are too. But I ain't kidding myself about the difficulty.

The martial arts scene. Reminiscent of the scene from the Edge where Owen toppled David. Here we hinted even more strongly that Fox is Renard's daughter. David is basically giving her permission to back out of the plan, to save face and exit, BEFORE she destroys her father. It's not that David really cares about Halcyon. I think he's thinking about his relationship to his own father. David likes to believe (at this stage in the series) that he's evolved beyond the need for a parental relationship. But "Vows" sort of demonstrates that his relationship with Petros is much more complex than that. David still needs parental approval and is somewhat amazed (at least subconsciously) that Fox does not. Again, in this episode, Fox is more than his equal.

And now the doctor calls with test results. David shows legitimate fear here for a moment. He's not thinking pregnancy. He's worried maybe she's sick or something. She enjoys toying with him. Maybe she's just in a mood. But her armor is on in force in this ep. We won't really get INSIDE Fox until "The Gathering" two-parter.

Finally, Goliath acknowledges his crime: "I was wrong." Cary had this great line for Renard: "I'm glad you're gargoyle enough to admit it."

Robert Culp and Peter Scolari were an interesting pair as Renard and Vogel. Culp was tough in the booth. Very precise. Very clear ideas about how he wanted to play the character. Tougher on his performance than Jamie and I were. And the results show.

Peter was a dream to work with. We spent an hour talking after the recording (about Busom Buddies, mostly). He's an incredibly nice guy. And he picked up the character right away. Despite the fact that we didn't have Jeff Bennett there to do a little Owen for him. He just got it.

Until the end, Vogel really plays Renard in this. He knows how much Renard hates whining blame-shifters, so he's constantly saying things like "You can place the blame on me if you like." in order to defuse any of Renard's suspicions.

But in a more subtle way, Renard is unwittingly playing upon Vogel as well. He doesn't intrude on Vogel's phone calls. He treats him with respect and gives him credit ("You and I built this ship together"). Insists that Vogel save the people in the tower, even if it means Renard's own life. We can see that Vogel was willing to take Fox's money for a bit of corporate espionage. But Vogel is not a killer. (It's important to see that he views Goliath as a creature.) This partially explains his turnaround at the end. (Which some people complained about.) All along he's been trying to get Renard to GET OFF THE SHIP. But Renard forces his hand. And when push comes to shove, Vogel likes Renard too much to see him die. "Mr. Vogel, I knew you wouldn't let me down." "You have that effect on people." And then Goliath basically bluffs him at the end there into confessing, screwing up their relationship.

But Goliath fixes it again. His last discussion with Renard sets up the reconciliation between them that must have taken place before "Golem".

At any rate, it's also nice to see Goliath make a NEW friend. This was important, because that has always been Goliath's goals. To make friends with humans on his own terms. Every once in a while, we had to show it working. Couldn't just be ONLY Elisa forever.

Ben weighed in at this point and said, "Daddy, I love Xanatos. And I love Fox." Of course, Ben and Erin dressed up as David and Fox at the last Gathering. In fact they dressed up in the martial arts outfits from this episode. Thus the affinity. I once played Theseus in the play THE WARRIOR'S HUSBAND. And Edmund in KING LEAR. It gave me an on-going affinity for both characters and awakened my interest in "The Bastard" archetype.

Now the tag. I'm usually pretty proud of our tags. They often advance the overall story as much as the entire episode. But this is one of my favorites. "Hello, Janine." "Hello, daddy." Was anyone ready for that? And her attitude: "Almost got you that time, didn't I?" The whole sense that Fox is in all this just for kicks. She's not as acquisitive as her husband. He'd always take the path of LEAST resistance to a goal. If Renard would give Janine the company, X would suggest she ask for it. But she doesn't care about the company. ONLY the game. X likes the game. But he's about RESULTS. All established in one little scene.

And of course that slick little pregnancy revelation. I think that was one of the most revolutionary and flat-out subversive things we did on the whole show. Was anyone ready for that? We had hinted at it with the "genetically compatible" line in "Eye of the Beholder" and obvioulsy with "It's your doctor... with test results." But I think it was quite the shocker.

And Fox is so tough. Pregnant and back on the hang-glider. I love it.

Okay, I'm done. You're turn. Ramble away...


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Memo on "Outfoxed"...

In anticipation of watching "Outfoxed" anyday now, I'm going to go ahead and post the memo I wrote to Cary Bates, after he turned in his outline for that episode, originally titled, "After the Fox".

WEISMAN 11-27-94

Notes on "After the Fox" Outline...

GENERAL
Well, one of the advantages of having you as one of my story editors is that I can be brutally honest. We got some problems here. The main one being that the story doesn't get going in earnest until the last scene of Act Two. We're horribly padded here. Normally, I would give this back to you for a second draft outline, but -- my fault -- I didn't read it in time. So I'll beat it out here.

FOX vs. RENARD
First off, let's make Renard the last name. I know I said it was o.k. to make Renard the first name, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want Fox's only connection to the Renard/Fox name to be that it was her father's first name. I don't think she could admit to herself that she was borrowing anything from him. So let's make her given name Janine Renard. He still calls her Janine. She rejects that and has her name legally changed to her nom de guerre: Fox. (Like Cher or Madonna, it's just the one word. Remember, she was a performer.) The "Fox" is the part of herself that she believes in. The irony, of course, is that the name did come from her father.

I don't think Fox consciously hates her father. I don't think she consciously admits to having feelings that could cloud her judgment. There's no vengeance kick here. No line of dialogue where she says she wants to see him suffer or that she only saved his life so she can continue to torture him. That all may be subconsciously true, but if so, she doesn't realize it. Remember, she's Xanatos' perfect mate. Neither her nor her husband get that emotional. They enjoy the game for its own sake. Playing it against her father may give it a special tang, but from her point of view, there's only one reason to do this: Cyberbiotics. She wants it, so she decides to take it. If it wasn't worth having, she wouldn't have bothered.

CYBERBIOTICS
The investor scenario doesn't work. Just because the investors aren't killed, doesn't mean these five terrorized guys are now gonna invest. The damage is done. The stock price will still fall and Cyberbiotics will still belong to Fox by close of business tomorrow.

The solution, I believe, is to change the location. Renard has just rebuilt the CYBERBIOTICS AIR FORTRESS. He's determined to prove that it's safe and effective. It's a corporate icon, like the Good Year Blimp -- and the public does think it's really cool -- but it's still not the smartest investment. It's hybris. Worse... it's Euro-Disney. Renard's had to invest way too much to rebuild it. If it's destroyed so soon after it's reconstruction, Cyberbiotics will be bankrupt and easy prey for Fox. This'll tie in nicely with Goliath's growing sense that he owes Renard a debt. Goliath helped destroy the first Air Fortress. Now, he must save the second one. And if you save the ship, you save the company from Fox.

INTEGRITY: GARGOYLE vs. HUMAN
For once, this should not be an issue. Renard accuses Goliath of not having as much integrity as humans do. But Renard doesn't believe humans have very much integrity -- that's why he's automated his operations -- so we're arguing the wrong premise. Integrity is not the province of either race. Deep down, Goliath may have a vague prejudice that gargoyles are generally more honest than humans, but in his head he knows that his race does not have a monopoly on integrity. Thanks to the events of our pilot, Renard may have a general mistrust of gargoyles, but that's not the point he should be making. Renard firmly believes that integrity is an absolute. You have it. Or you don't. Cut and Dry. Black and White. He's got it. Most humans don't, including Xanatos and his daughter. Machines can be programmed with absolutes. People can't. So he's populating his world with machines. His assumption is that Goliath is no better than Xanatos and that all of the creature's protestations about being duped are nothing more than whining excuses. Will Goliath take responsibility for his actions or won't he? Let's not distract this important theme, with issues of race.

Though I loved the line: "You're gargoyle enough to admit it."

VOGEL
Who is this guy exactly? Security man? Computer programmer? Born-again? Was he hired on a project basis to complete the automation? Is he helping Fox because he knew Renard was going to fire him? Has Vogel automated all of Renard's operations or just the security? If it's just the security, than what are they securing? Why does he repent? Basically, the character is coming across as very vague and contradictory. We have to clean this up.

Let's also make sure we fit Vogel into our theme. He is corrupted by Fox. Ultimately, Renard will use Vogel as another example of why humans cannot be trusted. But Goliath will point out that the cybots were just as corruptible, while incapable of experiencing a change of heart, as Goliath has had.

THE TITLE
"After the Fox"... I don't get it. Am I missing something?

BEAT OUTLINE
ACT ONE
1. Open quietly with FOX at the EYRIE BUILDING. She turns on the evening news. TRAVIS MARSHALL is on the air, reporting from JFK or LaGuardia or wherever. It is the Maiden Voyage of FORTRESS-2, the CYBERBIOTICS airship. Marshall had hoped to get an interview with the reclusive head of Cyberbiotics, HALCYON RENARD, but has to settle for Renard's right-hand man VOGEL. Fox watches all this with some interest.

2. Out at the airfield, Marshall, a tough journalist, questions the wisdom and expense of Fortress-2, particularly since FORTRESS-ONE crashed into the river last year. Vogel counters that the cause of that crash was an act of corporate espionage that was only successful thanks to human error on the part of Fortress-One's crew. Fortress-2 is fully automated, run by patented CYBOTS. Human error is not possible. No humans aboard at all? After this test flight, human scientists will occupy it's laboratories to research new wonders, but there is no human crew, except for Vogel and Mr. Renard, himself. Marshall asks if it's true that Renard has invested all of his personal fortune into Fortress-2, and that if it doesn't perform both he and Cyberbiotics will be ruined. Vogel has no comment on that, and heads inside the ship.

3. We follow Vogel, as he heads for the command center. Everything is automated, and there are little Cybots everywhere. All with very specific functions. No waste. At the command center, Vogel contacts Renard in his private office, elsewhere on board. Cut briefly to a shadowed Renard hovering in his ultra-chair, watching Vogel on a vid-screen. Renard gives permission to launch.

4. Fortress-2 launches. Huge turbines and compressors roar. And GOLIATH and ELISA watch from a nearby roof or hilltop. Goliath claims to be here because he is concerned that XANATOS might attempt to attack this ship, just as he tricked Goliath into attacking the first one. But Elisa probably knows that the air fortress is a symbol of Goliath's own guilt -- a guilt that Goliath has yet to come to terms with. Goliath decides to follow the airship, just to be safe.

5. In the air above Manhattan, a cybot alerts Vogel to their pursuer [Goliath]. Vogel informs Renard. Renard says Vogel knows what to do. (It doesn't hurt if we briefly misdirect the audience into thinking that Renard is a villain.)

6. Goliath glides a short distance behind the airship. Suddenly, flying cybots swarm out of a Fortress-2 hold. There're not very big, and they have very simple attack programming. They fire medium strength stun bolts and they miss more often than they hit. Goliath can swat them away easily. Clearly, these cybots don't seem to be on a par with Xanatos' STEEL CLAN. But if results are what counts, they turn out to be superior. There are just too many of the little things. No matter how many Goliath trashes, there are more coming at him. They hover, which Goliath can't do. And eventually, the stun beams add up. Finally, he gets hit with a barrage of them and passes out. Two larger cybots are waiting to catch him and bring him into the airship. (Let's consistently depict the cybots as mono-functional. Each model capable of doing only one thing.)

7. Inside the airship, Goliath regains consciousness in the brig. The bars on the cell might be bendable for Goliath, but he is forced back by Cybot guards with built-in cattle prods. Vogel is there, and a large metal pneumatic door slides open to finally reveal Halcyon Renard. He floats in on his hover chair. He has silver hair and a very sharp mind -- but he is definitely not "robust and vital".
Renard hovers around Goliath, sizing him up. "So this is what the boys at Gen-U-Tech have been up to. Xanatos must be very proud." Goliath responds that he is neither Gen-U-Tech's creation nor Xanatos'. Renard laughs. Goliath demands to know why he is being held prisoner. "Because if you're my prisoner, than I know you can't destroy Fortress-2 for your master." Goliath: "I have no master." "No? Then why did you do this?" Renard flicks a remote button on his chair, and the walls slide back to reveal a large screen. Another button, and video clips from "Awakening, Parts IV and V" show Goliath's participation in the destruction of Fortress-One. Chastened, Goliath tries to explain that he had been duped by Xanatos: "It wasn't my fault." But Renard doesn't let up: "It's not my fault. It's not my fault. You sound like all my human employees. My former human employees. Crush them all together and you couldn't squeeze an ounce of personal integrity from the lot of them. Don't make excuses, creature! Take responsibility for your actions! Stop whining!"
"I DO NOT WHINE," says Goliath, as he rips the bars off his cell and uses them to smash his cybot guards. But Renard doesn't even flinch. "You don't whine, but you also don't hesitate to destroy more of my personal property." He presses another button, and two stun cannons on his chair blast at Goliath until he is knocked out again.
Vogel apologizes. "All my fault, sir. I'll make sure he can't get out of the next cell." We see that Renard respects Vogel for taking the blame. A cybot informs Vogel that he has an incoming personal call. Renard exits, not wanting to impose on Vogel's privacy.
As Cybots drag the unconscious Goliath away, Vogel turns to a vid-screen and activates it. Reveal Fox on the other end. Is it safe to talk? Mr. Renard always respects my privacy. Is Vogel ready to sabotage Fortress-2? He is if the money's been deposited in his Swiss Bank Account. All taken care of. Vogel: "Then we're ready. And the good news is..." He looks at Goliath. "We've got a perfect candidate to take the blame."

ACT TWO
8. A short time later, Goliath awakens shackled to a wall in a new cell, with MUCH thicker bars, and even more cybot guards. Renard is there in his hover chair, brooding. If only Goliath could make him understand that Xanatos is to blame. But Renard: "Oh, I have no doubt of that. You aren't the first poor soul Xanatos has corrupted. Owen Burnett. Anton Sevarius. They both were Cyberbiotics employees... and they're the least of what that viper has stolen from me. I've no doubt he was behind the attack and no reason to doubt that he tricked you into participating." But if that's so, than why does Renard hold Goliath responsible? "Someone has to. And you obviously don't." It doesn't matter to Renard whose idea it was. It doesn't matter whether Goliath believed he was doing the right thing. Now he knows the truth. What's he going to do about it? Goliath grimly rattles his chains, then says, "I think a better question might be, what are you going to do about it."

9. Xanatos and Fox are working on their Kung Fu at the Eyrie Building. Make a point of showing that they are evenly matched. While they fight, they talk casually. Xanatos: "Weren't you mounting a hostile take-over of Cyberbiotics today? Your not having second thoughts about taking it from old man Renard?" Before she can answer, OWEN enters to alert Fox of a phone call from her physician. When Xanatos looks concern, she misinterprets and tells him not to worry: Cyberbiotics will be hers before morning. And as she says hello into the phone, we cut...

10. In the command center, Vogel instructs a random cybot to shut down for repairs. When it does, he opens it up and installs a chip into it's programming matrix. Then he reactivates the cybot, but when it turns on, an arc of electricity flashes around it, briefly. Vogel taps it on the head. Off you go.

11. Goliath and Renard are still talking practical philosophy. Renard has been brooding over the question of what to do with Goliath. He's trying to decide what the honorable thing would be. He'll probably just turn him over to the authorities. Goliath is aghast. "Look at me, human. Is that an equitable punishment? Was my crime against you heinous enough to justify turning me into a laboratory specimen?" Renard smiles. "Well, we're making progress. You've finally acknowledged that you committed a crime."

12. Elsewhere on the ship, the first cybot that Vogel infected passes another cybot. The same arc of electricity shoots out of the second 'bot. Then both 'bots move off and infect two more...and so on... and so on... and so on...
On Vogel's read-out screen, the percentage of cybots infected keeps rising. 13%... 27%... 32%...

13. Goliath eyes Renard. Almost despite himself, Goliath is beginning to regard the man with a grudging respect. "All right. I've admitted I was wrong. No more excuses. Now what?" But Renard doesn't have any easy answers for him. "Integrity is not easy. It is a daily struggle. A costly struggle. If you only knew what it cost me. My Anastasia. My Janine." Goliath lowers his head, "...my angel..." Renard looks at him closely. "So you do know." Goliath speaks slowly: "I know I owe you a great debt for what I did a year ago. And a greater debt for the education I received tonight. If the text was not new to me, it was at least... worth revisiting."
Now during this entire conversation, a cybot enters and approaches a guard cybot by the door. The guard cybot is infected, and approaches the other cybot by the door and infects it. Neither Goliath nor Renard notice until the cybots flanking Goliath's cell are infected and the arcing electricity catches the attention of both.

14. On Vogel's screen the percentage goes up from 99% to 100%, and "Right on cue" he gets a vid-call from Renard. He affects panic. Somehow that creature in the brig has infected every cybot on board with a computer virus. Renard says, "Nonsense. I've been sitting here talking with him the whole time." Vogel doesn't know how Goliath did it. But the Cybots are not responding to commands. They've set Fortress-2 on a collision course with the CYBERBIOTICS TOWER. They must abandon ship and activate the emergency self-destruct mechanism or both installations will be destroyed, and Cyberbiotics will be history. Renard is beside himself: If Fortress-2 is destroyed than Cyberbiotics is ruined anyway. Vogel shakes his head, flips a switch and a 10 minute time counter appears on the vid-screen. "I'm sorry, sir. You can place the blame on me if you must, but now we have no choice. At our present rate of speed we will hit the tower in ten minutes. You have nine minutes to meet me at the escape pod. After that I will jettison, and use my access code to destroy Fortress-2."

ACT THREE
15. Goliath offers to help Renard try to save the ship. Renard is so furious, he's half ready to believe that Goliath was responsible. But Goliath knows that Renard doesn't really believe that. Goliath helped destroy Fortress-One. "Let me help to save Fortress-2." Renard agrees and presses a button on his chair which releases Goliath. The Cybot guards interpret this as an escape attempt. Renard cannot override them. But between Goliath and Renard's hover-chair, they manage to destroy the cybot guards. They leave the brig. The seconds tick away.

16. Vogel monitors them from the comfortable escape pod. He can't believe the old fool is going to try to save the ship. Why doesn't he just admit defeat and head for the escape pod? Vogel's made sure that route is clear of cybots. He'll just have to discourage anymore heroics. He orders all the cybots to kill the creature and drive Renard toward the pod. (Note: he does NOT want to kill Renard.)

17. Now every cybot on the ship is against Goliath and Renard. The little flying ones that knocked Goliath out in the first place. The big ones that carried him inside. More cattle-prod guard 'bots. Zippy little messenger 'bots. Maintenance 'bots. All of them. The good news is that in the airship's small corridors, there are only so many that can go at our heroes at once. But the situation is intolerable. They can't destroy the 'bots one at a time. They need to cut off power to all the cybots at once. And it's possible. There's a power station at the center of the ship that transmits power to all the cybots. But if they destroy that then they destroy the cybots that pilot the ship. There won't be time to get to the power station, shut it off and then go to the bridge. They have to split up. And time is ticking away. And the Tower gets closer and closer.

18. Intercut between Goliath fighting his way to the power station; Renard fighting his way to the bridge, and Vogel getting very nervous in the escape pod. [Turns out that even Vogel didn't know how much the old guy had grown on him. Destroying his empire is one thing. But Vogel is no killer. He doesn't want Renard's death on his conscience. And/or he had explicit instructions from Fox that Renard not be killed.] And time is ticking away. And the Tower gets closer and closer.

19. Goliath gets to the power station and destroys it. All the 'bots shut down. But time is ticking away. And the Tower gets closer and closer.

20. With the cybots down, Renard is able to zoom the rest of the way to the bridge quickly. He puts Fortress-2 on manual override, but time has passed the nine minute mark. The tower looms right in front of him and navigation and the helm are located on two different consoles. At the last second, Vogel appears and between the two of them, they are able to turn the ship away from the tower and save it.

21. Aftermath between Renard and Goliath. At first, Renard is bitter. Vogel has confessed his betrayal. Further proof that the human species is devoid of integrity. But Goliath disagrees. Vogel's example hardly proves the wisdom of putting one's trust in single-minded automatons. Automatons are tools. They know nothing of honor or betrayal. They do what they are programmed to do. But a living being knows nothing of programming. A living being must choose. And, ultimately, Vogel chose honor.
Renard lets all that sink in. He's got a lot to think about, but one thing he knows is that Goliath has paid his debt. A ship for a ship. Renard: "We are even." But Goliath: "No... We are friends."

22. Goliath soars off into the night. And he doesn't notice a small hang-glider land on the now defenseless airship behind him. The newcomer abandons the glider and tosses a cloudy ball against the metal hull. The ball shatters and a corrosive substance is released that quickly burns a hole in the hull. The stranger enters the airship, and as she does, we finally get a look at her. It is Fox.

23. Back in Renard's office. He sits in his chair. Quietly. Fox enters behind him, and for a moment we think she's there as an assassin. But he seems to be expecting her. "Hello, Janine," he says. "Hello, Daddy," she replies. "I almost got you that time." "Yes, but why? I built this company for you. I'd have given it to you by now if you hadn't married that villain Xanatos. I'd still probably give it to you if you just stood up and asked me for it honestly." "Oh, Daddy. You and your integrity. Asking for it wouldn't be any fun at all." Renard: "And fun is more important to you than honor. I can't understand that." Fox: "Well, maybe you'll have better luck with the next generation." Renard: "What?" Fox: "That's right, Daddy. You're going to be a grandfather."
FADE OUT.


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"High Noon" story memo.

Late 1994. Writer Lydia Marano and Story Editor Brynne Chandler Reaves had turned in an outline entitled "Thieves in the Night". This memo and beat outline was my response to their work.

And before you ask... I have no memory of "the Zompanos". Perhaps a pre-cursor to the Sopranos? :)

WEISMAN 11-16-94

Notes on "Thieves in the Night" Outline...

GENERAL
The main problem for me here is the first act. From a plotting standpoint, everything with the Zompanos is largely immaterial to what follows. As with the outline for "The Mirror", the action of this story only begins at the end of Act One, when Mac and Demona stage their first attempt to steal stuff. We have to move that event up to the beginning of the act.

FOCUS ON COLDSTONE
Let's fool the audience into thinking he is the focus of the whole thing. It's a Coldstone story that turns out to be the set-up for something more dangerous. (Avalon.) To accomplish this, let's misdirect even more than we are.

MATT
I've basically cut Matt out of this story. I didn't like doing it, because I thought you gave him and Elisa a lot of nice character stuff. I even added some stuff to what you had done -- stuff that I also wound up cutting. The story was just too crowded and unwieldy with him there. (And thematically, the Elisa/Matt arc was just slightly off point.) Every time I worked on a scene, Matt got in the way. I wouldn't mind revealing just a little to him here, but there didn't seem to be any way to reveal "just a little". (Matt's not the type to just let things go or to settle for a partial explanation. And he's certainly shown a willingness to stick close to Elisa even when she's made it clear he's not welcome.)

I also would not be opposed to revealing the whole truth to Matt, but this story seemed to be too complicated to reveal just the simple truth about Goliath and company. We'd also have to tell him about Macbeth, Coldstone and maybe even Demona. It was just too much. But don't lose track of these ideas for Matt. We'll get to them all eventually.

THEME: HIGH NOON
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing." Or put another way, "You can't crawl into a hole, no matter how nice the hole is, while others suffer." Obviously, this is Othello's arc to a tee.

I'm also giving it to Elisa. And since this is a lesson that Elisa really has already internalized 100%, I'm putting her through the wringer, so that in her exhaustion, she can have a moment of weakness, a crisis point where she can consciously reaffirm her belief. It's high noon, she tells herself. Is she gonna fight the good fight or not?

To a lesser extent, Goliath and the gargoyles reaffirm this belief every time they knowingly walk into a trap. Because the only alternative -- to do nothing -- is unacceptable to them.

CLOCK TOWER
We can't destroy the clock tower or even "all but destroy" it without attracting considerable attention from the precinct full of cops downstairs. A thunderstorm can cover a lot of noise, I suppose, but not extensive damage or explosions that might shake the building.

BACKSTORY
I don't want to count on the fact that our audience will have seen either "City of Stone, Part Four", "Legion" or "The Mirror". I don't want to be ham-fisted in our exposition, but I do want to make sure that we find a way to reveal that when we last saw Demona and Macbeth, they were in the custody of the Weird Sisters. Also that Coldstone has three personalities due to the fact that he was created from pieces of three separate gargoyles. And finally, that thanks to Puck's spell, Demona is now human during the day -- a situation which pissed her off at first, until she discovered the benefits of it.

COLDSTONE'S HEAD
The "tentacle vines" and the "vortex" were all the result of the computer virus. I think we can assume by this time that the virus has wiped out all programming, including itself. All that is left inside is the personality of the three gargoyles and whatever fantasy they create inside their mutual mind.

SHARED PAIN
Don't forget that Macbeth and Demona feel each other's pain. And also, as you had it in the outline, that they each share the opinion that the other is a royal pain.

BEAT OUTLINE
ACT ONE
1. Prologue: Coldstone's Mind. Othello and Desdemona enjoy an idyllic life in a virtual reality fantasy world that they've created. Electricity water-falls. A circuit-shaped moon. Whatever. They know it's not real, but it's close enough. They are together.
They are also aware of Iago's presence hovering darkly on the outskirts of their paradise, but he no longer has the power to come between them. They are content to let him hover.

2. Clock Tower -- Shortly before Dawn. Elisa has just ended a long night's shift and is stopping upstairs (via the broom closet) to see Goliath & co. before she heads home for some much needed sleep. Brooklyn is helping Hudson and Broadway with their reading lessons. Lexington is off in a corner working on Coldstone. Lex has opened up a metal plate on Coldstone, to get access to the circuits inside. He's hooked his laptop up to it and is checking things out. Goliath asks: is there any real hope of bringing him (her, them) back? As far as Lex can figure, the computer virus that attacked Coldstone has wiped its programming clean. Nothing's functioning, but nothing's broken. It's a blank slate. Even the virus is gone. After it finished attacking Coldstone's programming, it devoured itself. But none of that should have affected the souls of the three gargoyles that were used to create Coldstone. They were put there by magic, not programming. They've got to be in there somewhere. If Lex could devise a simple operating program, they might wake up. Well, he'll work on it some more tomorrow night. The gargoyles take their places. Sun rises. They get stoned.

3. Police Precinct -- Minutes later. Elisa's heading out the door, saying good-bye to Officer Morgan, who's also heading home. Coming in, is a uniformed female cop with red hair, pushing a felon who's got his cap pulled low over his eyes and his hands handcuffed in front of him. [Obviously, this is the human Demona and Macbeth.] Elisa pauses, and watches them head into the building and out of view. They both looked vaguely familiar, but she can't place either of them. Does Morgan know them? No, but the cop is obviously a rookie. Why else would she have cuffed the guy with his hands in front of him? Especially a guy that big.
Yeah, someone should tell her. Elisa heads back in. She spots them heading up the stairs. Sees them going around a corner. Always a step behind. Finally she sees them head into the broom closet. Horrified by what that might mean, she draws her gun, and follows them up into the clock tower.

4. Despite her precautions, she is ultimately jumped by the "felon" and the "cop". There's a struggle. And Elisa recognizes Macbeth, just before she is stunned into unconsciousness by Macbeth's lightning gun. Sweet dreams, he says. And the screen goes black.

5. Inside Macbeth's Airship - Twenty minutes later. Macbeth and the "cop" are flying along. The "cop" is angry that Macbeth wouldn't let her kill the gargoyles and especially Elisa, once and for all. Macbeth won't apologize for having a code of honor. But he's in a good mood. Their stolen cargo is safely stowed away in back, plus they got away without anybody else spotting them. "So lighten up... Demona!"

6. Clock Tower - Several hours later. Elisa comes to. She feels lousy, but she's basically all right. How long was she out? She checks her watch. Wow, most of the day. She looks around. Coldstone is gone!! Obviously taken by Macbeth and that woman. But how did they get him out of here in broad daylight? They couldn't just walk him out the door or even fly Macbeth's airship in to pick them all up without somebody noticing. Still, how they succeeded in doing it isn't as important as the fact that they did. She slumps into Hudson's recliner. "Might as well stop talking to myself and wait. It'll be sunset soon."

7. Macbeth's Mansion - Just before sundown. Human Demona is waiting for the sun to go down. Macbeth's a bit impatient. He thinks that despite her appearance, Demona's still thinking like a gargoyle. Why wait for night? Put the disk in now. She refuses. Coldstone doesn't know Macbeth, and wouldn't recognize her in her present form.
The sun goes down. Demona changes from a human into a gargoyle. The process is not without some pain. As she catches her breath, she wryly observes that despite an initial distaste for the human form, she's come to appreciate Puck's gift, although the fact that he made the transformation painful was probably his way of keeping her from appreciating it too much.
But, to work. They insert the operating program disk into Coldstone. And we push in hard and fast on Coldstone's eyes!!

8. Inside Coldstone's mind -- Same time. A tunnel of electric light appears before Othello and Desdemona. Des wonders if they should investigate, but before Othello can answer, Iago pushes them aside and glides down the tunnel out of sight. Now Desdemona is convinced they should stop or at least follow him. But Othello talks her out of it. Let him go. We are here and happy and together. What else matters?

9. Macbeth's Mansion -- Right then. Coldstone awakens and Iago is in control. He recognizes his rookery sister. (It doesn't really matter if Demona knows about Coldstone's multiple personality disorder.) She asks him how he feels. He quietly responds: vengeful. Demona and Macbeth smile at each other. They've found a friend.

ACT TWO
10. Clock Tower -- About the same time. The gargoyles woke up and got the gist of Elisa's story while we were at commercial. But everyone has questions. Goliath left Macbeth with the Weird Sisters, how did he escape them? And how did Macbeth know about the clock tower? And who was the human woman with him? Did Elisa recognize her? She seemed really familiar, but Elisa can't quite place her. Well, there's one thing they do know: Macbeth stole Coldstone. They have to get him back. So it's off to Macbeth's mansion. Elisa'd like to go with, but she's supposed to report to work in thirty minutes. Goliath assures her the six of them can handle it. She has an entire city to protect. She's not happy about being left out, but she can see his logic. She heads downstairs, talking to herself again. (Good thing I got that long enforced nap.)

11. Macbeth's Mansion -- A short while later. The place is very quiet. The gargoyles split up to search for Coldstone. Lex with Goliath. Brooklyn and Bronx. Broadway and Hudson.

12. Macbeth's Control Room. -- A bit later. Lex and Goliath break in, prepared to battle Macbeth. He's not there. Lex hits the control panel and soon he's found Coldstone on one of the screens. And what's more, he's found the creature awake and straining against chains that bind him to the floor of the dungeon. It must be a trap, but Lex can't figure out what the trap is. Goliath's all for heading straight down to the dungeon to free Coldstone, but first Lex reminds Goliath of some hard truths. Somehow, Macbeth got Coldstone operational again. That's the good news. But there'll be no way of knowing which of Coldstone's three personalities will be in control. One of the three hates Goliath's guts. Goliath has to be careful.

13. Another area in the mansion -- about the same time. Demona attacks Brooklyn and Bronx. They weren't expecting her at all, and it looks like she's got the upper hand.

14. Another area in the mansion -- about the same time. Broadway and Hudson find Macbeth. This is exactly who they expected to find and they're ready. It's a tough battle, but the good guys win.

15. Same as Scene 13. -- exactly the same time. When Macbeth is taken out by Broadway and Hudson, Demona doubles over in pain. She recovers quickly, but she's lost the upper hand, and Brooklyn is not about to let her get it back. He and Bronx defeat Demona.

16. Dungeon -- a few minutes later. Goliath and Lex approach Coldstone. Coldstone yells a warning: It's a trap!! But from another door, Broadway's voice calls out: "Not anymore!" He and Hudson enter, toting an unconscious Macbeth. But Coldstone still warns them away. Demona is still out there. And from a third door come Brooklyn and Bronx with the unconscious Demona as well. Goliath is surprised. Demona and Macbeth obviously escaped the Weird Sisters together, but who could have predicted they'd team up? They hate each other. But he can't worry about that now. He turns to Lex. Coldstone's warnings would seem to indicate that the right rookery brother is in control. Lex: "It's probably o.k. Just stay on your guard." So Goliath and Broadway help Coldstone break his chains. He greets them all warmly. Then approaches the fallen Macbeth and Demona. He effortlessly lifts them up by their shirt fronts, in a very threatening manner. But then his rocket jets turn on and he hovers a foot above the floor. Before the gargoyles have time to react, he says, "Now." Macbeth, who, like Demona, was only faking, has a small one-button remote control hidden in the palm of his hand. He presses it. The entire floor of the dungeon electrifies and all six gargoyles are knocked out.

17. Coldstone's Brain -- right then. Othello and Desdemona hear the deafening sound of Coldstone's laughter.

ACT THREE
18. Coldstone's Brain, in front of the electric tunnel -- a few seconds later. Obviously, Iago's up to no good. But Othello's being stubborn. Let someone else take up the cause. We have earned this peace.

19. Clock Tower -- Several hours later, just before sunrise. An exhausted Elisa is there (wearing at the very least, a different colored t-shirt, one would hope). She anxiously awaits the return of the Gargoyles. She tells herself that if they're not back by sunrise, she doesn't know what she's going to do. But before she can figure it out, she sees a winged silhouette approaching. She's initially relieved, until seconds later when Demona comes in for a landing. Elisa isn't exactly terrified. After all, the sun's coming up right now: Demona's about to turn to stone. But Demona merely laughs. And then transforms into the human woman that Elisa had seen 24 hours ago. As Demona grimaces from the pain of transformation, Elisa, despite her shock, draws her gun. If Demona's human, then she's subject to human law and under arrest.
But even unarmed, Demona has the upper hand. She, Macbeth and Coldstone have the gargoyles. If Demona doesn't return, the gargoyles won't either. She tells Elisa why she came. Before she kills Goliath, she wants to prove to him once and for all what humans are really like. So she's inviting Elisa to a high noon rendezvous at Belvedere Castle in Central Park. She warns Elisa that her only chance of surviving the encounter is to avoid it. Either Elisa dies or Goliath sees what human loyalty is really worth: either way, it works out fine for Demona, who then calmly takes her leave via the trapdoor. After a defeated beat, Elisa follows.

20. Ext. Precinct house. Elisa gets outside in time to see the Human Demona hail and get into a yellow cab. The cab pulls away, and for a second Elisa starts to follow, but then she says to herself, what's the point. I know where she's going. Officer Morgan exits the building, again on his way home. "We gotta stop meeting like this, Detective," he jokes. She's a bit dazed and just says, "I'm sorry, what?" He looks at her with concern. "You're looking a bit frayed around the edges."
Elisa: "Maybe that's because I haven't gotten any real sleep in the last 40 hours. I'm tired, hungry and, yes, afraid. I could just go home now and go to bed. When I woke up, it would be over for me. The world would suddenly be normal again. No more monsters -- good or bad. Just normal life."
Morgan: "Normal life would be nice."
Elisa: "But it isn't nice enough, Morgan. My life could never be nice enough or normal enough to make up for letting them down now. I can't crawl into a hole by myself and pretend that no one else matters."
Morgan, thinking he's finally getting it: "That's why you put on the badge."
Elisa: "Yeah, that's exactly why. Thanks, Morgan. You've been a big help." And she takes off.
Morgan, still a bit confused: "Sure, detective, anytime."

21. Belvedere Castle -- a few minutes before noon. The gargoyles are there in stone and in chains. Coldstone/Iago, Human Demona and Macbeth are there as well. Coldstone can't get over seeing the sun. He doesn't understand why he didn't turn to stone. Demona explains that he is no longer a gargoyle: day or night, he is Coldstone. Fine. But that doesn't explain how come no one in the park seems to notice their presence. Macbeth answers: "It's enough that they don't. Don't concern yourself with it." The answer satisfies Coldstone for the time being. He's in too good a mood to argue.

22. Inside Coldstone's Brain -- same time. Desdemona isn't sure that she and Othello are doing the right thing. Is this the gargoyle way? Othello tells her they are no longer really gargoyles. But he turns away, when he says it. He can't look her in the eye, cause he knows he's doing the wrong thing. But when he looks at her again, instead of seeing one Desdemona, he sees three. One with Blonde hair, one with Silver hair and one with Black hair. The Weird Sisters doing their thing.

23. Belvedere Castle -- Noon. Elisa arrives. Demona is surprised, but not upset. She lifts her plasma cannon. But Elisa says she's unarmed. Demona doesn't care, but Macbeth gets the message. This doesn't sit well, with his own strange code of honor. What's wrong, Demona? Afraid to face her on an even playing field? Thus Human Demona is goaded into a hand-to-hand match against Elisa. Demona's had a thousand years of warrior training. But not as a human. So it's pretty evenly matched.

24. Coldstone's mind -- Same time. The three Desdemona Weird Sisters confront Othello. Would he really be happy here in this false paradise knowing that he could have stopped all the damage that Iago is doing in the real world. Othello finally admits that he couldn't. The three Desdemona's merge together, leaving the real one there, a bit woozy, but still determined to help Othello fight Iago. They head down the electric tunnel together.

25. Belvedere - Right then. Coldstone/Iago suddenly cries out that he's under attack, then freezes up.

26. Inside Electric Tunnel - Right then. Iago blocks Othello and Desdemona's path. They fight. Desdemona will hold Iago at bay so that Othello can take control of Coldstone and try to repair the damage that Iago has done in the real world. With a last look back, Othello heads toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

27. Belvedere - That second. Coldstone/Othello awakens. Macbeth asks if he is all right. Coldstone simply asks for a moment to access his memory banks. He does. And then he attacks Macbeth. This catches both Macbeth and Demona off-guard and helps give Elisa the upper hand in her battle against Demona. Ultimately, Macbeth is forced to grab Demona and flee. (Maybe he summons his airship?) Coldstone starts to pursue, but Elisa needs him to help her get the chains off the guys, besides there's been enough fighting for one day. Coldstone uses his wrist cannon to snap the hold on all six. When they wake up at sunset, they should be able to shrug the chains off. Elisa asks him to stay. She knows that's what Goliath wants too. But Coldstone knows that Desdemona and Iago are still at war inside of him. The other gargoyles aren't safe from "Coldstone" until that battle is decided. He promises, that if he can, he will return someday. Then he rockets off into the sky. A few seconds later, a jogger jogs by. "Hey, where did those statues come from." Elisa heaves a big sigh. She sits down and leans back against Goliath. "Don't ask me. I'm just taking a nap."

28. Macbeth's Mansion - That night. Macbeth and Gargoyle/Demona are summing up. Demona's pissed that they failed to kill Elisa and the gargoyles, but that wasn't the primary objective. Plus they lost Coldstone, but that was always just a blind anyway. They've got the Grimorum, the Eye and the Portal-to-Avalon-Talisman. They stole all three when they took Coldstone. (They even used a spell from the Grimorum to hide their escape from the clock tower and to keep their fight in the park private.) If they had left Coldstone in the tower and only stolen the magic items, Goliath wouldn't have rested until he got them back. This way, it will be weeks before he notices that they're even gone.
But then they start to question they're own motivations: why did they want these items so badly? How did they know their secret location in the clock tower? For that matter, how did they know that the gargoyles lived at the clock tower at all? And why the heck are they working together when they hate each other's guts?
Just when they're about to murdilize each other, the Weird Sisters step in and put them both into a trance. They just made it under the wire. The "geas" spell on Demona and Macbeth was about to wear off. And of course they had no spell on Coldstone, which was why they wanted him separated from the other two. Besides they don't need Coldstone. Each of the three Sisters picks up one of the magical items. These will do quite nicely in the coming battle.

ONE LAST QUESTION: Given the above changes, does the title still work for you? I'm kind of mixed on it now.


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Chapter XXVI: "High Noon"

Following fast on the heels of City of Stone, here's my ramble on High Noon...

The recap is interesting here. It's all Coldstone oriented. Demona, Macbeth and the Weird Sisters aren't mentioned. Nothing from City of Stone, despite this being a direct sequel to those events. The reason is that the recaps got early criticism on a Disney Afternoon mailing list for giving too much away. We'd show a villain who didn't appear until the end of Act One, thus cueing our audience to expect that villain all along. A valid criticism. So we tried to adjust here. Coldstone's participation wasn't a secret. The episode opens in his "internal cyber-world" and he's shown dormant in the Clock Tower in the very next scene. But when Demona and Macbeth first walk past Elisa and Morgan, we're not supposed to know who they are. So I intentionally kept them out of the recap to preserve that reveal.

The heather Othello gathers has no scent. Why not? Everything in that world, except for the souls of the three gargs was simply a mental construct. Sight, sound, touch. So why not smell? No chemical senses, you might argue. But why no chemical senses? Why touch and not taste? I think that the lack of smell was an unconscious or subconscious boundary that Desdemona did not want to cross. Something to remind her that this world is not real. For all we know, Othello and Iago could smell whatever they imagined they could smell.

I like seeing Hudson and Broadway learning to read. We cheated a bit. I'm not sure they could have progressed as fast as they did in the short time since "Lighthouse". But we took that liberty to show that they had been working assiduously at it.

I have mixed feelings about Hudson's "Why would she want to 'hit a sack'?" line. On the one hand, I'm not sure we ever did enough of this. Playing with the contrasts in language and expression between their world and ours. On the other hand, it just seemed a bit late in the game for Hudson not to have heard this one already. (And for that matter, I have no idea when that particular phrase originated. For all I know they've been hitting the sack since the Middle Ages.)

Elisa makes a point of saying that she's "no hero". Just a gal doing a job. But of course, we know that's not true. It's simply how she'd prefer to view herself -- particularly when she's so tired. I tried to use this episode to emphasize that Elisa works the night shift. That she gets off work just before sunrise. Starts work just after sunset. (I actually imagine that she works a four day ten hour shift, plus mucho overtime.) Sometimes it seemed like the fans had forgotten that. I got a lot of questions back then like: "She works during the day and hangs with the gargoyles at night. When does she sleep?"

Morgan has a real nice role in this one. Keith is great as Morgan. So distinctive from Goliath in a part that was a mere throwaway in Awakening, Part One. Morgan and Elisa's easy rapor in this episode and Avalon One is what gave me the idea that he might someday ask her out (on that 2nd Halloween episode I've mentioned a few times). And the notion of a Keith-Salli-Keith triangle tickled me a bit.

Enter Macbeth as a perp with a human Demona dressed as a cop. (Always nice to show our characters in different costumes on occasion.) I'm curious how many people IMMEDIATELY recognized Demona as herself? After all, you'd only gotten a BRIEF glimpse of her human form in "The Mirror". And we hadn't shown it at all in "Vows" or "City of Stone". In fact, City of Stone began what we then called our Third Tier of stories. (Tier One was the first season. Tier Two was the first eight episodes of the second season: Leader, Legion, Metamorphosis, Lighthouse, Silver Falcon, Mirror, Eye of the Beholder, Vows.) And of course, City of Stone was transitional, so one could argue that Tier Three was beginning here with High Noon. Anyway, Demona's in atypical dress and species. Who knew it was her?

And once you did know, what were you thinking? The gargoyles have the same questions, I'd imagine. Last they (and you) saw, Mac and Demona hated each other, and had been taken away by the seemingly benevolent Weird Sisters. What was going through your heads about all this? Did you wonder at the seeming inconsistencies, like their knowledge of the Clock Tower? Their ability to get Coldstone out of the tower in daylight, unseen?

When my son Ben saw Demona, he thought it was one of the "triplets", which is what he calls the Weird Sisters. (They've fast become his favorite characters.) When I pointed out that she had red hair and not white, yellow or black, he was resistent to giving up on the idea that they weren't going to appear. (I was glad they eventually did. And now I wonder what he's going to think about the next seven episodes in which they do NOT appear.)

Throughout this, we cheat a bit on Elisa's exhaustion. We knock her out, but keep her tired. The subtle differences between various means of being unconscious and their effects on how tired one is confuse me.

I love Mac and D's exchange...
Mac: "You're still thinking like a gargoyle."
D: "I am a gargoyle." And don't you forget it.

Again, back in those days I just thought the audience would get revved up merely because we were teaming up THREE of our major villains. Macbeth, Demona and the villainous side of Coldstone. In Batman or Superman that would be a BIG EVENT. A huge threat to the hero. Did it have that effect on you guys? I feel vaguely that in a strange way, it did not. That our villains were so complex, that for once they backfired on us. That it wasn't viewed as, "Wow, our heroes have barely survived an encounter with one of those guys, how will they handle three?" Rather, the conflict was less interesting than the machinations and personalities. Am I being clear? Your thoughts?

This episode had some truly gorgeous animation in it. And the transformation scenes are both very cool. The Pain Link plays well here, though occasionally seems more geared to comedy than drama for some reason. The theme of gifts coming with a price... particularly the gifts of tricksters is emphasized in this scene.

Meanwhile Othello is desperately trying to remain an ostrich with his head in the sand. A position that on at least one level, Elisa 'believes' she'd like to take as well. With Othello, I think it's a real possibility that he will never act. With Elisa, I don't think we believe it for a moment. That's part of the reason they're both in there. To make sure that the theme of "Standing Up" is emphasized. Which brings us to the title, "HIGH NOON". That was one of mine, I believe. And I stole it right from the Gary Cooper movie. Sure we'd have a battle at High Noon. Because this was Elisa's story, not the gargoyles. Because the gargoyles would be asleep and vulnerable. But also because it was that kind of archetypal the-hero-stands-alone western battle.

You may notice that Xander Berkeley (the voice of Iago) does not appear in this episode. Because Iago has no lines when he's not in control of the Coldstone body. Again, I'm always so impressed with what a great job Michael Dorn does contrasting the Othello and Iago personalities without actually changing his voice.

I like Elisa's line when Brooklyn asks her if she recognized the woman with Macbeth. "She seemed familiar." Think about this for a second. If this was real life and not a cartoon, do you think you'd recognize Demona in Dominique? And yet I completely buy that Elisa recognized something in there. There's a strange nega-intimacy between Elisa and Demona. (Which is one of the sick reasons why I created Delilah, later.)

Goliath and Elisa engage in a little dueling patronizing here. Elisa has to go back on shift, so can't accompany the 'goyles to Mac's place. Goliath is pretty smug when he says the six of them can handle it. (The smugness, I hope, is undercut when he follows it up by saying, "You have a whole city to protect." Which is how he views it.) Then Elisa talks to them like they're little kids. She wants a full report when they get back. (Who says these two weren't made for each other?)

Lex, who has been and will continue to be very adept at breaking alarm systems, etc., for once admits that it's all too easy.

I like the moment when Goliath taps the camera with his wing. A nice little touch. And very well animated.

Lex is always the voice of warning in regards to Coldstone. This is important. Goliath listens to Lex this time. And Lex is fooled when Coldstone reveals Demona's involvement, seemingly before they know Demona is involved. I thought that was very clever on the villains' part.

Bronx smells Demona behind the closet, just as he did behind the tapestry.

I like how the marble bust flies and crashes. Another nice touch in the boarding and animation. Nice weight to the whole Brooklyn-Demona-Bronx fight scene.

I liked staging the Macbeth, Husdon, Broadway fight in a library. Felt like a thematic rematch from "Lighthouse".

The pain link here is a BIT of a cheat. Usually with them in different rooms on different floors, it wouldn't be quite this intense. Maybe the library is directly above whatever room Demona was in.

Lex is sure Coldstone's wrong about Demona. Brooklyn's "Uh, guess again." line is fun.

The entire battle at Macbeth's place is part of a technique I enjoy using on occasion called "Suspended Structure". This is really an Elisa and Othello Story. But we let the gargs carry the action for a period of time, while the true protagonists can't or won't take action. This keeps the story moving, without compromising the inaction of our "leads".

Demona confronts Elisa at the clock tower. The animators get a little carried away here with some of Demona's body language. God knows, it's fun to watch. But would she really do all those sexpot poses? Is that in character?

It is fun to see her hail a taxi though.

Morgan's back. Elisa now looks VERY tired. Again, great work from the animators. It's all in the eyes. Morgan helps Elisa though he thinks she's just talking about normal copwork. It only proves there's really no such thing as a "Normal Life". Morgan certainly doesn't think he has one.

Meanwhile Desdemona's gettin antsy. It's the "in" that the Weird Sisters need. They take over. Unfortunately, here, the animators screwed up. The three Desdemona's were supposed to have silver, gold and raven hair. Instead, in most shots, they just look like three Dessies. Then when they finally do get the hair right, it's just before they merge back into one Desdemona. At which point, the hair color should have been Des'. Instead, I think it's Luna's -- briefly. Oh, well. Anyway, I could have just done this with Desdemona herself. But I wanted to give the audience a hint that the Weird Sisters were still involved. Ben was thrown by the hair. He almost didn't believe these were the triplets.

I like the line: "Even shadows must be true to their shade."

High Noon at Belvedere Castle. Coldstone wonders that he can see the sun. Again, that's me making sure people are clear that Coldstone is RE-ANIMATED STONE, not flesh. I don't think it's visually clear. (Part of the problem being that Othello's coloring is too similar.)

Then Elisa arrives -- counting on Macbeth's honor to keep Demona from shooting her. For that reason, she intentionally doesn't bring her service revolver to the party. Quite the gambit. Elisa also counts on Demona's temper -- and on the fact that Demona is unaccustomed to fighting with reduced human strength. She goads Demona: "I'm here to save him." and "You fight like a rookie." I love, positively LOVE, the former of those two lines. Elisa is a hero in her own right. Though Goliath has rescued her on occasion, I felt we did a pretty good job of always evening the score. She's no damsel in distress.

Mac & Coldstone: "This is diverting." "You have no idea." (Quotations approximate.) I like that. A tip of the hat to my being a guy, if you will.

We cheat a bit here on the pain link too. One could argue that Mac IS feeling the pain. But he's ready for it and covering. He does seem to be grimacing a bit when he says, "You have no idea." But still, I think we cheated.

I love the animation on the Othello, Desdemona, Iago fight.

Battle over, Coldstone leaves. Sends himself into exile. This is the gargoyle way.

And hey, our jogger is back. Again wondering where all these statues are coming from. That's just fun continuity for me. And Elisa: "Don't ask me. I'm just taking a nap."

And then the whole final scene between Mac and D and the sisters is so much fun. I love the sense of the fog lifting from their eyes. "What Primary Objective?" "Why are we working together?"

And I'm also proud of the trick. A very Xanatosian tag here. Steal Coldstone to distract the gargs from noticing the thefts of the gate, book and eye.

And how about that reference to "The coming battle..." that the Sisters end the episode on? What did you all think of that at the time?

I'll try to post the High Noon writer's memo tomorrow. (Meant to do it yesterday, but I forgot.) Anyway, Done rambling. You're turn. (Again, I'm interested in both your original and current responses to the episode.)


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Pathetic...

You know once upon a time -- particularly when Cary Bates and I lived in NYC and had no real life outside DC Comics and spent every free moment going to movies -- I used to see over two hundred movies a year. I'm not kidding.

But no longer.

The oscar nominations were announced. And I went down the entire list and realized I've only seen EIGHT of the nominated films. That's 8 out of ALL the films nominated in ANY category.

Gladiator
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Cast Away
Almost Famous
The Grinch
102 Dalmations
Meet the Parents
The Emperor's New Groove

Not that anyone asked, but here's my assesment of the eight. (Obviously, I can't speak to any of the others.)

Gladiator - I was really enjoying this film most of the way through. I never thought it was Oscar callibre, but I liked it --right up until the end. I thought the ending however was so preposterous and awful, it spoiled my enjoyment of the whole film. Blech.

Cast Away - I just thought this was plain awful all the way through. The only section I was interested in was what happened (SPOILERS) after he got off the island. But that was given preposterously short shrift. Double Blech.

Meet the Parents - I disliked this so intensely, I walked out of it partway through. Went to a bookstore while my wife and friend Tuppence finished watching the movie. This is only the second film I've walked out on in my entire life. (Not counting movies I had to leave because of baby-sitting emergencies or bomb threats.) Triple Blech.

102 Dalmations - Oh, how I wish I could have walked out on this. But I was there with my kids. They enjoyed it well enough at the time, but have already forgotten about it. Double Blech.

Now the good news.

Almost Famous - I really enjoyed this one. Very well-acted, well-written. Funny. I didn't LOVE it the way some of the critics did. But I was really surprised it didn't do better at the box office. Smile.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - I really enjoyed this. Structurally, it's a bit odd. But I liked it a lot. Definitely one of the best films I saw this year... but as you can see, that's not saying much. Double Smile.

The Grinch - Another film I took my kids too. I enjoyed this one though. No, it's no classic the way the old Christmas special was. But there's a lot to recommend. And I had fun. Smile.

The Emperor's New Groove - A third film I took my kids too. This was a very pleasant surprise. A straight-forward simple story played for laughs. From the previews, I didn't think I'd like it. But, hey, I liked it a lot. Smile.

Now as for the nominations...

Picture - I have only two to choose from Gladiator and Dragon. Obviously I'd pick Dragon.

Actor - Russell Crowe over Tom Hanks. I liked Crowe's performance. (I just find it hard to believe it was the best performance this year.)

Actress - I saw none of the nominated performances.

Director - Again, I'll pick Ang Lee for Crouching over Ridley Scott for Gladiator.

Supporting Actor - Joaquin Phoenix by default. The only one of the performances I saw. But I thought he was much better in THE YARDS.

Supporting Actress - This is tough. I think I'd pick Frances McDormand over Kate Hudson (both from Almost Famous). But it's close.

Original Screenplay - Cameron Crowe's for Almost Famous over the three guys from Gladiator in a second.

Adapted Screenplay - The three guys from Crouching by default. (I don't think the screenplay was this movie's strong suit.) Does anyone remember if High Fidelity was a 2000 release? I loved that movie and can't believe it wasn't nominated.

Foreign Film - Crouching by default.

Art Direction - I think I will pick Grinch over Gladiator and Crouching.

Cinematography - Crouching over Gladiator.

Costume Design - Crouching over Gladiator, Grinch and 102 Dalmations.

Documentary Feature - I've seen none of these.

Documentary Short - I've seen none of these either.

Film Editing - Almost Famous over Crouching and Gladiator.

Make-up - Grinch by default.

Original Score - Gladiator over Crouching.

Original Song - "My Funny Friend and Me" by Sting and David Hartley from Emperor's Groove over "A Fool in Love" by Randy Newman from Parents and "A Love Before Time" from Crouching.

Animated Short Film - I've seen none of these. Which is odd.

Live Action Short Film - I've seen none of these. Which isn't odd.

Sound - Gladiator over Cast Away.

Sound Editing - I've seen neither of the nominees.

Visual FX - Gladiator by default.

Of course, there's a slim possibility that I'll see a couple more of the nominated films before the award show itself. I'll let you know if my opinions change.

But mostly I reiterate the word I started with. Pathetic.


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CONCEPTION

A random bit of information that I thought I'd post while I'm thinking of it. Based on my current research, Alexander Fox Xanatos was conceived sometime between September 6th, 1995 and November 16th, 1995.

This may change, or I may eventually be able to pin it down more. But right now, that's my most current info.


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Chapter XXV: "City of Stone, Part Four"

Time to ramble...

Picking up right where Part Three leaves off, Demona is forced to back off on killing Elisa right away because of Bronx. I really like that scene, mostly for how it illustrates Bronx's level of sophistication. It's not like he understands English, beyond a few simple names and commands. But he understands tone of voice. Something that Demona uses. She talks him down by saying nasty things in a nice tone of voice. He's still suspicious. But as long as her actions and tone don't get hostile, he's content to back off. At one point though, she can't restrain her venom, and he starts to growl again. And she has to regain her composure.

FLASHBACK

Great Choral music during the battle. Carl Johnson and music editor Marc Perlman (both of whom will be attending the Gathering this June in Los Angeles) did a magnificent job with this.

And there's some great fog as well.

It's also nice to see a legitimately joyful Demona, hoisting Macbeth into the air. He laughs, but his mind's on other things, wondering why Bodhe wanted to talk to him without Demona present. Perhaps he's feeling guilty. Perhaps she picks up on that, which is why she eavesdrops.

A tragedy of bad timing: My sense is that Macbeth is about to read Bodhe the riot act, when Luach interrupts. Mac essentially agrees with Luach, but not with his manner. He takes JUST the wrong moment to teach him a lesson about being a good king. Luach reacts badly and storms out. And it is Luach's behavior that Macbeth is considering when Demona leaves. Two seconds later, I'm quite sure the conversation went like this:

Bodhe: "Well, sire?"

Macbeth: "Well, what?"

Bodhe: "The Gargoyles, sire. You must disavow them!"

Macbeth: "Don't be a fool." etc.

The siege is pretty cool too. (Though you'd think boulders dropped from the battlements would be a touch more effective.)

Mac rescues Gruoch. Even at this age, I still think they're a sexy couple.

I like the scene where Canmore removes his Hunter's Mask. Like Gille before him with Demona, he's truly annoyed when Mac doesn't immediately recognize him.

"Never would I have done so! We have been allies for thirty-seven years!!" Demona ain't a great judge of character.

Luach and Bodhe show up. I like this scene too. (O.K., I'm partial. What can I tell you?) Bodhe has an interesting moment. One of two things happens here. Either he's pleased to finally have one of his own blood (i.e. his grandson) installed as King or the death of Macbeth has finally awakened the hero inside him. Or both. For once, I tend to give Bodhe the benefit of the doubt. I think, at this late date, he's finally come into his own. I like to think he died a good warrior's death at Luach's side.

Demona wakes up. She claims not to believe Gruoch's admonishment, but NOTE, she does not kill Gruoch. Underneath it all, she knows that Gruoch is right and feels chastened.

Macbeth wakes up. Here we have our final scene on Lunfanan Hill. It parallels the previous break-up of Mac and Gru. That time Mac sent her away, but he loved her still. This time she sends him away. She loves him too. But this parting is permanent. Very moving to me. "I will always love you." And because of that, he must leave her. But we know he hasn't forgotten her even into the present. Her loss informs what follows.

Back to the present. Over episodes two and three, things in the present have been progressing very slowly. Now the present takes center stage.

Demona echoes what I'm sure by this time we were all thinking: "Take off that mask. You aren't fooling anyone... Macbeth." And he explains that he wears it as a symbol of her betrayal. (And for a psychological edge, no doubt.)

Meanwhile, we have that semi-feeble exchange between Goliath and Xanatos in the air. Feeble (a) because in one little scenelet, the mouth on Xanatos' armor is moving like it had lips; and (b) because the whole tapestry thing was a fairly forced way to get X and Goliath back to the castle.

I like Demona's line: "Let's not start that again. You blame me. I blame you..." etc. It's a very rational Xanatosian moment for her. But that rationality is born from the knowledge that she can't kill Macbeth without killing herself. Her usual vengeful attitude is useless. What she doesn't know is how suicidal he is. "Revenge is a dish best served cold. And I have waited 900 years for mine." Hey, leave a dish out for 900 years and it will get pretty cold.

There's always a bit of comedy in the pain-sharing battles of D&M.

When the floor starts to give way, it reminds me of a scene that was WAY better animated in the DuckTales pilot. Where the bricks of gold fall away in a simlilar vein. It's nice here, but it was awesome there.

I also like when Demona has Mac's E-M gun, tosses it and catches it to fire at X and G. Nice little touch.

And Xanatos' truly frightened yet underplayed: "This is bad." when he sees the computer screen.

I like the multiple falls that get us down to the Atrium -- a wonderful setting for the final confrontations.

And Goliath's speech: "...Death never does."

Again we get multiple images of the Sisters throughout this scene. And again, I had to fight for that.

Each Sister gets to take a mental punch to weaken first Macbeth and then Demona. Are they being hypocrites here? One aspect of their persona is, certainly. But there's more going on, some of which I still haven't revealed.

But the key thing in terms of this scene (and the events of AVALON) is that both Mac and Demona need to be mentally weakened for the spells of control that the Sisters are going to use on them in HIGH NOON and AVALON. And M&D need to borderline volunteer to relinquish control over themselves. Macbeth, who has been suicidal, is tired and willing. Demona's tougher. But even she doesn't put up much of a fight. "You tricked me." she says. And certainly they have, but she can't break the grip of three children, and though of course they are not ordinary children, one must wonder if she really wanted to.

Goliath: You have learned nothing.

The sisters (as children) say their cool (and ironic) line: "We have written their stories. They are our responsibility. They are our children." My three year old son Ben says: "I love the triplets."

But theirs is a story for another day.

Xanatos really has to sweat in this one. Unusual for him. I love his line to Bronx: "What are you looking at?"

But once the skies burn, he's back to his old self: "Magnificent." Believe it or not, it took some effort to really get the skies burning. The animation came back with only a few contrails of gas burning. We used video tricks to get that whole sky-burning effect that was SO important to the story.

When the gargs rush back inside they were supposed to lift Elisa up into the air in their joy at seeing her unstoned again. Thus you have contrast to explain Xanatos' line to Owen, "You'll forgive me, if I just shake your hand." (But you also have to wonder how he'd respond to Fox when next he saw her.)

And Xanatos gives a line I'd been waiting to use for a year. "I always wondered why I allowed you gargoyles to live. You come in handy now and then." I had always worried that an audience raised on certain villain cliches would just assume that the reason Xanatos never killed the gargs on one of the myriad occasions when he had the chance, was because we were bad writers. This X/G exchange was here to demonstrate that X wasn't that kind of villain. That he was never wasteful. Maybe at this point in the series, it wasn't necessary to spell it out. But it was still nice to get the sentiment across.

Of course, this ends the Xanatos/Demona partnership. Uneasy though it had been. It's why VOWS had to come first.

And that's my ramble...

Where's yours?


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Chapter XXIV: "City of Stone, Part Three"

Time to ramble...

So the sun rises on the next day. Elisa IMMEDIATELY starts talking, even though she's facing the wrong way, putting to the lie all those nice fans who tried to make excuses for why she was animated facing that direction.

It's also kind of cool to watch Goliath and Brooklyn turn to stone and then see Owen turn from stone to flesh. He's got that URGENT-Owen tone going there for a sec, then quickly regains his usual Owen composure. It's fun.

There's a line in here about mixing magics, which was supposed to be a vague, vague cover for later revelations that Owen is Puck. Owen suggests getting the Grimorum from Goliath. X responds it wouldn't do any of them any good since none of them are sorcerors and MIXING MAGICS is supposed to be dangerous. That last phrase is REALLY a reference to a notion in X's head, that Puck might be able to help. X than rejects the notion himself. He's right about mixing magics, but that isn't the main reason that Puck won't help. Puck won't help because that's not the deal that Owen made with Xanatos.

I like Xanatos' casual confidence though: "We'll just have to set the sky ablaze."

Travis scene is fun for me too. Gives me one of those oblique opportunities to semi-break the fourth wall. A woman comes up, tells Travis the truth. He discounts her story, nominally because she doesn't watch television. Anyone who doesn't watch television must be a kook. Now a report on Mass Hypnosis... (That last bit is in there to explain in passing what the world response to the City of Stone events is likely to be.)

FLASHBACK TIME: Duncan has a beard. "Some cousins are not that close." I love how Neil Dickson read that line. And I love Duncan's genuine surprise when Mac saves his life.

Mac saves Demona again. Proving what a good, loyal guy he is.

And then we bring in the Weird Sisters, in the most SHAKESPEAREAN scene in City of Stone.

But first let's talk about the title. I LOVE that title. "CITY OF STONE". I think it was one of mine. But I have to admit it's flawed. Though it's spooky and evocative it really only covers the present day story. The present day story is certainly important, but I think we'd all agree that the real juice in this four-parter is in the tenth and eleventh centuries. And the title doesn't really cover that stuff at all. I didn't notice it at the time, because the importance of the flashbacks snuck up on me. At first I thought they would simply inform the action in the present. But it wound up being more of the reverse. Still I like the title. It sounds like a Movie title to me. What do you guys think?

Anyway, we bubble, bubble, toil and trouble it a bit. I love the nasty expressions that Canmore and Luach shoot each other. [I also love J.D. Daniels work as Canmore. He's such a little nasty. Great contrast to his work as the goody-good kid Tom.]

I'm fairly certain that we screwed up on Luach's name. The name should have been Lulach. But a typo got us stuck on Luach. At first I thought maybe either name would be accurate, like Malcolm and Maol Chalvim. But now I think we just blew it.

I love Luna's line: "You would lecture US on fate."

Erin, my six year old daughter, began to get very annoyed with Duncan here. "Why doesn't he give Macbeth one chance? He just saved his life! Duncan is a fraidy-cat. And stupid." I love a good judge of character. When Bodhe ("Be reasonable, Macbeth") tells Mac that Duncan's after him, and Mac can't believe it, Erin felt quite vindicated, "See, [Mac] just asked the same question that I did."

I like Mac's sad line to Gruoch: "The Journey will be brief."

And I like D and Mac's exchange:

Mac: "You are the answer."
D: "I'm uninterested in the question."

Ben, my three year old son, was having a little trouble with how fast everyone was aging. He didn't always get that the flashbacks weren't taking place right after each other. He got the difference between past and present. But not that we kept leaping forward from say 1032 to 1044 etc. "That's a different Demona," he would say, before I explained that she was just getting older. It then occured to me that I'm not even sure if he knows that white hair specifically signifies old age in a cartoon. After all, Brooklyn's hair is white. So's Luna's, in all her forms. (It's supposed to be silver, but it looks white most of the time.)

Mac is surprised, and not a little freaked out, to hear that there's still a Hunter out there. With Gill dead, he has no clue who it could be.

He offers an alliance, and Demona -- clearly thinking of the Captain of the Guard -- says, "You sing an old song." That, for me, helped tie in our Wyvern flashbacks to the whole Mac/Demona story. I was always afraid they weren't really related enough.

The whole thing with the Sisters looking different depending on the point of view, was another idea of mine that most people thought I was nuts about. (Like having characters unaware of the change in themselves in "The Mirror".) It worked just fine, and in many ways is clearer than any alternative I can think of. But man, I had to WORK to convince people.

The sisters are pretty tricky here, they use the barest excuse of an offered trade to more or less enforce their will on Mac and D. Bending Oberon's law without breaking it. That's not too important here, but will obviously be important in later episodes.

The clues of course are planted in the spell. "Forever and eternal bound and each the other's pain resound." How many people got the implication here as opposed to figuring it all out when the sisters explained it near the end of part four?

Seline handing Mac that magic ball was another instance of us cheating a bit. We were sick of using the fall to the death shtick. But we couldn't just have Duncan skewered. So this was an S&P compromise. The good news was it looked pretty cool. Brief but scary. It even seems to scare Mac.

When Gruouch says that she's afraid Mac's made "a bad bargain," she was supposed to touch his hair to give a visual reminder that he had given up his youth to protect his clan -- and that it scared and saddened her more than a little. I gave that note over and over, but somehow it never got in there. It still works, but I really wish she had run her fingers through his hair there.

D likes Mac and Gruoch here. Look at her face. Maybe she sees a bit of herself and Goliath in them. (With Gruoch as Goliath, of course.)

I like the battle too. It's very economical staged, yet it feels kinda epic to me. Very smartly story-boarded. I really like Demona's clean sweep of Duncan's cavalry off their horses.

Mac says: "You fight like a demon." Laying the groundwork for Demona to get named. This was a bit of an argument with S&P. "Demon" was supposed to be an off-limit word for us. I convinced Adrienne Bello it was important to justify Demona's name. And my bosses backed me up. (That never happens anymore, by the way.)

There's a character in here that we never name except in the credits. He's Duncan's right hand man and Demona appears to brain him by flying him head first into a big rock. He's called MacDuff in the credits. Obviously, another name from Shakespeare. I think maybe he didn't die, but became an ally of Canmore's in part four. But I'm not sure. I know that in part Three, Charlie "Travis Marshall" Hallahan did his voice. In part Four, the character I'm thinking of (both of whom have red hair at least) is voiced by Jeff Bennett.

M&D find the mask with Duncan, and Mac says, "so the battle is truly over for us both." Which is majorly ironic, since we know the battle will continue for at least 900 years.

Bodhe comes out from the background only after "THE NIGHT IS WON!"

Bodhe, though contemptuous, is a very fun character to write. I love his little aside about Canmore: "He'll be trouble; slay him now." We like Mac better that he won't kill a child. But you'll notice that Demona won't kill the kid either.

The coronation is fun. That whole naming sequence is fun.

M: "They will learn to respect you."
D: "I'd rather they feared me."
M: "They'll do that too... 'Demona'"

A nice bow tied on that "Know her?!! I named her!!" line from way back in "Enter Macbeth".

Now as we prepare to segue back to the present, Erin recognizes the three sisters as serving wenches "Because of their hair". To which Ben says, "Me too". But when we get to the present, neither realize that the sisters are also posing as cops. Mostly, because they're police hats largely cover their hair.

Now finally, back to Elisa. Confused as hell, but beginning to catch on at the mention of PackMedia Studios. She heads for the Eyrie. X's response: "Ah, the charming Detective Maza." Love that guy.

Owen and Elisa do their little dance and we get to play a gargoyle recurring bit with them as they freeze into stone mid-argument. At this point my kids catch on to the basic rules. (All of which might have been clearer if we hadn't had such a big gap between watching part two and part three). Erin: "So the humans are the opposite of the Gargoyles. When they turn to stone, the others wake up."

Xanatos starts explaining the plan, and my son turns to me and says, "Daddy, I have to tell you something." [Which is how he starts most conversations these days.] "I had a lot of dreams about fire in the sky." I'm not sure if I believe him, but it was a nice conversation piece.

I like the way Goliath looks at Elisa when he says, "This has to work." Feelings showing.

Then everyone leaves to go pass gas. :) [I know. I'm really mature.]

Bronx goes after the tapestry. We wanted to keep that subtle so that we weren't tipping our hand. Did anyone wonder about that or did it just slide by? Did anyone remember at the cliffhanger that Bronx had been left behind to save Elisa?

Anyway, there's my ramble. Where's yours?


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I'm losing my touch...

I'm feeling like my smart-ass responses just haven't been very sharp lately.

So appropos of nothing, I'm taking a poll.

If you've got a few minutes, go through the smart-ass response archive and copy and paste your favorite one.

Maybe if you guys point out the "classics" to me, it'll help me redefine my mission on this score.


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I'M TRYING!

Hey guys,

For the last couple hours, I've been trying a new system wherein in addition to my responses/answers/rambles/rants being placed in there appropriate subject-based archives, I'm also supposed to automatically add them to a chronological archive. In this case "RESPONSES 2001 - 2 (Feb)"

Unfortunately, I didn't start this first thing this morning. It was a good idea that came later in the day from one of your fellow fans. So some early-in-the-day responses won't make it into this new archive.

And, unfortunately again, I'm trying to learn a new habit here. It isn't literally automatic. I have to remember to do it. And I've forgotten to click that button on a couple of messages. Sorry.

I'll try to do better.


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Chapter XXIII: "City of Stone, Part Two"

Time to ramble...

Xanatos again does equally well as hero and villain, as he opens the episode saving his and Fox's lives.

He's got some nice lines here too:

Another reprise of Launchpad McQuack's old: "Any landing you can walk away from..."

"At least she's not chipped."

"Demona and I need to have a little talk."

"No sense hailing a cab." Or stealing one. I'm not sure if it's clear, but we wanted to give the impression that traffic was hopelessly stalled by all the stone people behind the wheels of their cars. And that Xanatos would have to hoof it.

And then it's back to the clock tower where my favorite line is Brooklyn's as he's looking at what he thinks is a statue of Elisa:

"The nose is all wrong." Gotta love a critic.

Goliath doesn't objectively know that the statue is really Elisa, but his instincts are clearly firing up early warning signs.

Meanwhile, my daughter Erin is busy advising all of us: "They should make sure... cuz that's really her!" and "I bet they're going to Elisa's house." Which they weren't.

CONTINUITY
Originally, we had planned to (as usual) leave Hudson behind with Bronx. But we switched it to Broadway, so that Hudson could come with and reestablish his fine relationship with Robbins. I should point out that we BEGAN work on City of Stone before Lighthouse. We knew we needed a blind man for City. That blind man was then developed for Lighthouse, making for a great scene in City. Sometimes, things just seemed to work.

Brooklyn still hates Demona intensely. Forcing Goliath to compensate.

My son Ben was all nervous that "They're gonna turn to stone again." He was vague on who the "THEY" were.

Demona's reign of terror on the statues presented us with interesting S&P problems -- and some bizarre but VERY FUN solutions. Adrienne understood the necessity of having Demona blow up and/or smash a few of the stone humans. Even though the implication was death for those people. She was okay with it on the condition that we didn't spell it out, because, at worst, the death's were so fanciful, they certainly weren't imitatible. But she did want us to limit the number of deaths. So at one point she nixed the idea of blowing up yet another statue, but allowed us to blow up the shopping bags (and hand and arm) of one. This seemed less harsh to her. Of course, bloodthirsty lot that we were, we loved it. Because if you think about it, it was certainly more horrific come sunrise.

I finally saw the two statues that people thought were Brendan & Margot. Certainly, they looks like them a bit. But trust me. Two different people got destroyed. That woman was a brunette. And the guy was wearing a toupee.

At this point, Benny became as concerned as Goliath that Demona would shoot Elisa.

Then we segued into our flashback and Benny was still trying to figure out why Demona scratched Gillecomgain in the previous episode. Erin, meanwhile, wanted to know why Gille was wearing a mask.

Me, I'm still fascinated with Bodhe for some reason. I love how he talks big at first, until Mac makes it clear that he's not going to obey. Then he goes into pleading mode.

I also love the scene with Gruoch on Lunfanan Hill. Very heartbreaking and romantic. Did kinda make me wonder what would have happened if Macbeth had just said "Screw it!" and spirited Gruoch away with him. What would there lives have been like then?

The Weird Sisters are fun at the wedding. I like the line: "Certainly not our hero." It's one of those self-aware-tv-moments-that-ride-the-edge of which I'm so fond.

I also really like Duncan's scene with Macbeth after the wedding. He's such a manipulative bastard.

And now we begin to parallel similar scenes in City One. The Weird Sisters again go to Demona to get her to ally with Mac.

Demona: "Ally with a human. Never Again." Well, obviously Demona should never say never again, but in this context she's thinking about her alliance with the Captain and the tragedy that led to.

There's a nice little beat with Gruoch's rose. Gruoch seems cold to her new husband Gillecomgain. We wonder if we should feel some sympathy for a man who has married a woman who loves another. We wonder if he has feelings for her as he gently takes up the rose she was sniffing. But then he crushes it underfoot, so basically we feel okay about hating him again.

Erin asked: "Why'd he step on it?"

And I didn't want to answer, because the writers are trying to manipulate you.

Ben answererd for me: "Because he's a bad hunter." A much cleaner explanation, don't you agree?

Notice here that Mac is not yet the fighter that he someday will be.

Notice also if you watch all four parts of City of Stone together that Emma Samms who voiced Gruoch -- but had never done voice work before -- gets progressively better with every episode. She's somewhat stiff in City One. As with many live-action actors, she's unused to using her voice alone to project subtleties. She's a bit better here. But by City Four, she's rockin' the joint with some really powerful work. I can't remember when I've ever seen any performer push the learning curve that quickly. Most either get it or don't. A few of those who don't, slowly improve with practice. Emma just revved UP.

Did anyone else feel that we went to the well with that long drop from the Terrace at Castle Moray once or twice too often? Again, we were trying for parallelism, but I hope it didn't get boring.

Erin: "I like Macbeth when he was a little boy. I don't like him when he's a grown up." (I think she meant she liked the younger red-headed heroic Macbeth in general in these City flashbacks. Didn't like him as a present day villain in Enter Macbeth, etc. This actually pleases me a great deal. It's the ability to create sympathy in villains that separates Gargoyles from many of its rivals.)

I love that moment when Demona rips the mask off. Gille indicates his scars, "'Tis you're handiwork, remember?" And Demona honestly and simply answers "No." And he goes BERSERK! Bad enough she scratched him and altered the entire course of his life. But that the event was so insignificant to her that she doesn't even remember it...! Now THAT pisses him off.

Gillecomgain should have known: "Live by the drop, die by the drop." As he follows Findlaech's course to doom.

I also like the little moment o' connection between Mac, Gruoch and Demona. Demona actually says Thank You to a human.

And another wedding. Two in one episode. Bodhe introduces: "Lord and Lady Macbeth!" I wanted to get the designation 'Lady Macbeth' in here somewhere. Just to provide more obvious contrast between our version of Gruoch and Shakespeare's.

I also get a kick out of the chilling little scene back in the present with Brooklyn & Goliath. Brooklyn bringing up the "Massacre at Castle Wyvern". Fearing that Elisa could wind up a victim too. This sets Goliath off to the point where he is CLEARLY thinking that he needs to KILL Demona now. "Once and for all." And then those creepy little stone Weird Sisters. Yikes.

Then Xanatos has finally made it across town and is back in hero mode. He saves Owen. And shuts off the broadcast, clearly thinking that that will break the spell. At least, I hope that was clear. Honestly, I'm not sure if it was. I wanted the audience to think that would work. Then be surprised when it doesn't. Did that work for anyone?

The "Hunter" shows up. Demona at first recognizes only the mask. How many times must I destroy you?! she says. A hint to events in the past of both City and Hunter's Moon. But than when she sees him feeling her pain, she knows exactly who's behind that mask. I'm curious how many people picked up on that. This was the first time we showed them feeling each other's pain. The first time we had them in real proximity to each other.

Their fight is kinda cool. There's a neat moment when Macbeth is flying Demona like a kite. And he's very gutsy throughout, leaping after her. Of course, he's semi-suicidal, so it's no surprise he's fearless. But we don't know that yet.

And finally, our cliffhanger. X is so sanguine. "You want vengeance or a solution?" And we end on a surprising image: Goliath and Xanatos shaking hands. Now, it's like no big deal. They ended up teaming upfrequently. But I thought that then, it would be startling.

WHAT DID YOU ALL THINK?


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City of Stone Outline Notes

Since I just did my ramble on City of Stone, Part One, I thought I'd reprint the "memo" on that episode. Actually, it's a memo on all four episodes. My "NOTES ON OUTLINE" to Michael Reaves. Michael's story was a three-parter and we were still hoping to turn City of Stone into a home video, so I expanded it to a four parter.

Greg Weisman 7-12-94

NOTES ON OUTLINE for "City of Stone"
O.K. O.K. I changed a lot. (Less than you probably think, but a lot.) You gave me great raw material, but I wanted to focus it more. Also since you wrote the three-part outline, this movie thing came up. Gary's informed me that they can sell it better if it's more in the 75 - 80 minute range. That freed me up to add a little more material for clarity. If we don't use it as a video, we'll make it a 4-parter instead of three. If it turns out short, we can add the bit about "Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane", which I've left out for now. We discussed some of the other changes at our lunch with Frank. But I'll reiterate them, and the reasons why, below.

General Notes...

Weird Sisters - The more I thought about this story, the more I came to believe that the Sisters were the key to cracking it open. Currently their role is limited, and yet they are the only characters who could see the whole picture. I definitely wanted to expand their role, particularly in the 20th century segments. But as I worked on achieving that goal, I realized that I wasn't clear on their motivation. I'd be happy to take you through all my thinking (there are probably two or three good story ideas in the stuff I rejected for the Sisters), so if you're ever curious, let me know. But cutting to the chase, here is what I wound up with...

Presentation: The three sisters (Phoebe, Seline and Luna) will always be depicted as triplets and female. The only physical distinction will be their hair color. Phoebe has golden hair, Seline has black hair, Luna has silver hair. (The same voice actress will play all three parts.) The three will rarely be seen apart. These will be the consistent visual (and aural) elements that will allow us to recognize them, because otherwise their appearance will vary from scene to scene, and sometimes within scenes. In the eleventh century, Macbeth sees them as old human crones, but Demona would see them as three old female gargoyles, even if they're both looking at them simultaneously. In the twentieth century, they might appear as three fashion model types in modern clothes. In our opening sequence Goliath will see them as three strange little nine year old girls. When speaking to others they present a united front. But personality-wise, particularly for conversations between themselves, I'd like to give them subtle differences. Phoebe is optimistic and cheerful. Seline is a cold realist. Luna is spiritual and distant.

Motivation: The sisters work hard to put Demona and Macbeth together in the eleventh century: to save them both, to hook them up and then to secretly add in the immortality thing. WHY? Obviously, they need these two for something. Something that isn't going to happen for centuries, or else why make them immortal. The obvious answer seemed to me to be the attack on Avalon. The sisters need powerful foot soldiers to attack Avalon for their master (probably a reworked Archmage [David Warner]). For a reason to be figured out later, the master won't be ready to attack until 1996. So the Sisters have time to plan ahead. They've decided that Macbeth and Demona would make the perfect foot soldiers. So they create immortal warriors who they then let walk around for a millennium. D & M become embittered and borderline nuts. Vulnerable to the Sisters machinations. Demona's "City of Stone" thing falls right into their hands. We have to assume that the Master is almost ready to attack Avalon. Time for the Sisters to take direct control of D & M. But over the millennium, D & M have become pretty savvy magically. It makes them more useful to the sisters but harder to control. The sisters help Goliath and Xanatos defeat Demona and Macbeth in this story so that they will be weak, defeated and vulnerable to the Sister's control.

Revelation: The cool thing is we don't have to reveal hardly any of the above in this story. In fact, we can almost present the exact opposite face. In the eleventh century sequences the Sisters will seem to really help the sympathetic Macbeth and largely sympathetic Demona defeat the nasty Gillecomgain and Duncan. In the 20th century sequences, they will help Goliath defeat Demona and Macbeth, and will again seem like three really useful ladies. There's no need to mention the master, the plan or Avalon. Our audience will think these three are great. Then if/when we get to do the Avalon story, we'll reveal the truth. The audience will hate them more cuz they'll feel as used and manipulated as Demona and Macbeth and Goliath, etc. were. The most we'll do is leave D & M under the Sisters' power at the end. We won't even hint at their malevolence.

Macbeth - Mac was great in the eleventh century stuff, but he and Xanatos seemed redundant in the present. I think we need to get clearer on his present motivation as well. Xanatos wants to save his city. I don't think Mac cares. Think of him as a nihilist. Past caring about anything. He wants Demona for the reasons we've already discussed. He's not interested in helping Manhattan. He's not part of the solution. He's a wild card who should in effect be part of the problem. We should see that immortality has done about the same to his disposition as it did to Demona's. He's honorable, but only up to a point. Reference his first appearance... he wouldn't attack the gargoyles as stone statues, but he had no compunction against kidnapping them to lure Demona to him. That's a fairly skewed definition of honor. Frankly, this yarn is more Macbeth's story than anyone's. We take him from youth to immortality. Through and beyond his entire natural lifespan. He's the one who learns something: Life is precious; vengeance and death accomplish nothing. Demona never learns this lesson. And Goliath really already new it. So we should emphasize the theme with Macbeth as much as possible. In many ways, he's carrying the emotional and thematic weight of our story.

Macbeth & Demona's Link - From 1040 on, neither can die unless both do simultaneously. If one kills the other, then both die. But if a third party tries to kill one without the other, then they both live. But there must be a penalty. I think they both feel each other's pain. (At least each other's physical pain.) We don't have to worry about cuts and scrapes, but any major blow that one feels, the other feels as well.

Reversing Demona's Spell - Since Mac won't be helping with a magical cure, I think we need another solution. (Kat Fair also pointed out that almost everyone would have their t.v.'s off and thus miss the counterspell.) I keep returning to the notion of a time limit to the spell that equates to "until Judgment Day". For our first spell, we had "until the castle rises above the clouds". From the Grimorum's point of view, that meant "until hell freezes over" or some equivalent. We can do the same thing here. Remember, Demona is getting this spell from a book that was written with no knowledge of modern science (let alone cartoon extrapalatory science). Heck it's in Latin. For example, "You will turn to stone at night until the seas boil and the skies burn." The solution to this is for Xanatos and Goliath to team up and find a way to make the seas boil and the skies burn, while simultaneously stopping Demona, saving the "statues" and dealing with Mac. That will focus their quest. It will also help give Xanatos something real to do. Only he has the technology to make the sky burn and the sea boil. I know you're concerned that this will be perceived by our audience as a cheat. We did the clever cheat once when we brought Goliath out of Demona's trance. But I see this as different. This equates with our original spell. The one that put our gargoyles to sleep for a thousand years. The solution was not a cheat. It took Xanatos' Herculean resources to match the spell's condition for reversal. The same can be true here. At first let's give the false impression that just by turning off Demona's broadcast, the spell will be reversed. Then when that fails, I'm gonna use the burning skies in what follows, but if you've got another idea for the spell's limit or reversal, that's cool. It's just a 'for instance'.

All them Scotsmen - A lot to keep track of. Let's simplify by focusing our villainy on Duncan & Gillecomgain. We won't ever see King Malcolm II. The nasty machiavellian thug Gillecomgain will work for the nasty machiavellian Prince Duncan, who later becomes the nasty machiavellian King Duncan. We will also introduce his young son Malcolm III, but we'll let him go by his alternate name Canmore so as not to confuse the audience. Canmore won't be evil, just misguided and righteous; he believes that Macbeth and Demona are evil. There are still a lot of characters, but subtracting Malcolm II will clean things up, I promise.

The Hunter - I've also added an element. The Mask of the Hunter. It belongs to Gillecomgain. After his death, Duncan takes it. After him, Canmore. In modern times, Macbeth will wear a modernized version of it. The identity of the Modern wearer will be a mystery to some of our audience until the end. Of course, anyone who saw "Enter Macbeth" will guess soon enough, but the Mask itself will carry frightening meaning -- the equivalent of a KKK hood -- and for those who guess it's Macbeth, the mystery will be why this Macbeth, who is so sympathetic in the past, would wear this horrible mask in the present. As we go through the eleventh century flashbacks chronologically, the conceit of the Hunter's mask will, I believe, help to focus our audience to differentiate between all the Scots, and even keep a few of them guessing as to the identity of the Modern Hunter.

Matt Bluestone - I definitely don't want Matt to have found out about the gargoyles in between the first and second seasons. He should be right where we left him. He knows they exist. He's seen them twice. But he doesn't know anything about them. And he certainly doesn't know that Elisa knows them. That's a great episode in and of itself. We don't want to toss it away in an off-hand line.

Flashbacks - I definitely want to intercut between the 10th/11th century sequences and the 20th century sequences. Without that intercutting, I'm afraid the two stories will seem largely unrelated. As often as possible, flashbacks should have a point of view: Demona's, Macbeth's or maybe the Weird Sisters', but they don't have to be presented to our other characters as stories unless that works in a given instance. Basically, we're using the same format that we used in "Long Way To Morning". Often the appearance of Demona, the Weird Sisters or the Mask of the Hunter will work as a convenient visual bridge between past and present.

Timeline - You may notice a few slight discrepancies here from the "Gargoyles Timeline" that you have. Here are the changes I made:
1. I placed Gillecomgain's birth at year @ 978 so that he would be @ 16 years old in 994 when he first meets Demona; @ 42 in 1020 when he kills Findlaech; and @ 54 in 1032 when he buys the farm.
2. I moved the wedding of Gillecomgain and Gruoch from 1030 (which was an approximate date anyway) to @ 1032, in order to compress events of that period into a more cohesive flashback.
3. Since I moved the wedding two years forward, I moved Luach's birth two years forward as well, from 1031 (another approximate date) to @ 1033. This makes Luach @ 7 years old in 1040 when his father becomes king; @ 24 in 1057 when he becomes king; @ 25 in 1058 when he is murdered.
You may want to note these changes on your timeline for future reference.

Demona - This yarn tells Demona's story. But she doesn't learn from it. We have to make sure that the audience is getting more than just a simple chronological depiction of her history. Since she doesn't learn the lessons of the past, we have to make doubly sure the audience does: Life is precious; vengeance and death accomplish nothing.

Goliath - Although this story belongs to our villains more than anyone, I think we need to thematically make it one of our leads as well. Goliath, obviously, gets the nod. Again, the theme is: Life is precious; vengeance and death accomplish nothing. If he forgets that, he will become like the villains he battles. "Every life is precious" applies to how he feels about all those human statues (particularly Elisa), but also -- and this is the key -- to how he feels about Demona, as well. Goliath has to work very hard to stop Demona, and then very, very hard to save her life. (Deep down, it may have something to do with her being the last female gargoyle that he knows about and/or their past relationship, but we can generalize to the notion of life's "preciousness".) The Weird Sisters can help reinforce this. (Of course, they're lying. They want Demona alive for their own personal use. But the message will sound right here.)

BEAT SHEET
1995
I. Hostage situation - Manhattan - Night.
A. ELISA & MATT outside.
B. LEAD TERRORIST inside says the cause means everything to her.
C. Our six Gargoyles take out terrorists.
1. GOLIATH approaches terrified Lead Terrorist.
a. Leader is willing to sacrifice her men to save herself.
b. Goliath is disgusted.
c. Leader flees and nearly gets herself killed.
d. Goliath saves her, almost despite himself.
D. Hostages are clearly more frightened of Gargoyles than terrorists.
1. Trio's frustration with ungrateful humans.
E. But three hostages approach Goliath.
1. We don't yet reveal that they are WEIRD SISTERS.
a. 3 nine-year old girls named PHOEBE, SELINE & LUNA.
b. Identical triplets except for hair color.
2. They are strangely unafraid of Goliath.
a. They comment on Lead Terrorist. Something like:
i. Seline: "The cause is everything until her own life
is threatened. But it's good you saved her."
ii. Phoebe: "If you forget what she has forgotten:
that every life is precious, you'll be no different
than she. "
iii. Goliath: "I'll never be like that terrorist."
iv. Luna: "We weren't talking about this terrorist."
3. Goliath looks at lead terrorist.
a. When he looks back, the Sisters have vanished.
b. This is strange. Who could they have been talking about?

II. DEMONA... wings through Manhattan skies - Night.
A. She clutches a torn piece of parchment.
B. Push in on her for flashback.

994
III. Wyvern Castle before the Massacre - Scotland - Night.
A. Repeat pp. 23-24 of 4319-001.
1. CAPTAIN & Demona try to convince Goliath to take all the
gargoyles to harry the Vikings away.
2. Instead Goliath assigns Demona to guard the castle with most of
the gargoyles.
3. Goliath leaves.
B. Demona & Captain discuss situation.
1. Original plan is blown.
a. HAKON would've attacked while gargoyles were away.
b. Gargoyles would have returned to human-free castle.
2. Captain reassures her that plan can still work.
a. He'll have Hakon attack during day.
b. Humans will still be dragged away.
3. Demona worries Gargoyles will be vulnerable.
a. Captain promises to protect them.
4. Demona agrees.

IV. Just before Sunrise - Wyvern. Demona is clearly antsy.
A. For a second she may consider revealing truth to PRE-COLDSTONE.
1. But she wimps out.
B. She takes off and hides in nearby woods or somewhere.
1. She turns to stone as the sun rises.

V. Smash Cut to sunset, she explodes out of her shell .
A. She rushes toward Castle which has clearly been sacked.
B. She sees dead gargoyle rubble.
C. She sees Goliath and HUDSON approach.
1. She can't face them and flees.
2. She's losing it. talking to herself.
a. She'll return later with some excuse.
b. He'll be so glad she's alive.

VI. She returns to castle and watches from a distance - Night.
A. Just in time to see Goliath in stone at night being placed on the castle.
1. Near the stone forms of Hudson, BROOKLYN, LEXINGTON,
BROADWAY & BRONX.
B. She watches KATHARINE, MAGUS, TOM and others leave.
1. They take wagon loads of Gargoyle eggs with them.
C. She takes off in opposite direction.

VII. Weeks later at a Scottish farmhouse, a starving Demona scavenges for food.
A. A sixteen year old boy [Gillecomgain] investigates the noise.
1. He holds a pitchfork, defensively.
B. Like a trapped animal, Demona slashes at him with her claws.
1. His face is hurt, but he falls back into the shadows, so we can't
see.
2. In the shadows, the boy's eyes glower at Demona accusatorily.
C. Demona flees, saying that'll teach those humans to betray us.

1995
VIII. Return to Present as Demona lands at Packmedia studio- Night.
A. XANATOS & OWEN are there.
1. All is ready. X had necessary equipment brought in & set up.
a. It can over-ride every broadcast channel in Manhattan.
i. Cable too.
B. She has the last stolen page from the Grimorum.
1. With it, she claims, she can steal time from other people.
a. This, she claims, is how she has remained immortal.
i. Stealing a little time at a time on a small scale.
C. By combining spell with broadcast technology...
1. They can steal one minute from the lives of everyone who watches broadcast.
2. She & X will share stolen time.
3. Given the number of people they'll reach, this'll keep them
young for a long while.
4. Spell will broadcast through the day
a. Culminate after sunset tomorrow.
i. Xanatos should return then.
D. Xan likes idea, but he's not without his suspicions.
1. Tells Owen to keep an eye on her.
2. Warns him not to simultaneously look AND listen to spellcast.
a. Xanatos leaves.
E. Demona videotapes spell.
1. Incantations; gestures; magical light show.
2. Owen listens but does not look.
a. He knows Latin and knows spell isn't what she claimed.
i. Don't tell audience what it is yet.
3. Owen puts up a good fight, but she takes him out.
a. She ties him up. Tapes his eyes open in front of monitor.
4. Puts tape in machine. Sets broadcast override. And leaves.

IX. Elisa's Apartment - Afternoon.
A. Elisa gets out of the shower and turns on t.v.
1. Remember, Elisa works the Nightwatch
a. She has slept thru the day's broadcast.
b. CAGNEY's present but ignores t.v.
2. Demona's tape plays spell over and over on t.v.
a. Elisa watches it, switching channels. But it's everywhere.
3. She plans on telling Gargoyles as soon as they wake up.
B. She heads for precinct.

X. Manhattan sidewalk - Afternoon.
A. Weird sisters watch Demona's broadcast in store window.
1. They appear to be three attractive NY fashion models.
2. A crowd of confused New Yorkers are also watching sets.
B. They discuss situation calmly.
1. Phoebe: "This is exciting. It's begins again."
2. Seline: "Concentrate, sister. Or it will all end here."
3. Luna: "There are no beginnings or endings."
a. "Remember -- it was only 975 years ago."
4. Or some such rot as they calmly walk away.
a. Tight on Demona's face on t.v. screen.

1020
XI. Dissolve to Demona's face, older, lined by time & hardship - Dunsinane,
Scotland - Night.
A. (She's biologically in her early 40's.)
B. Demona leads a small band of gargoyles in smash and grab.
1. She uses medieval human weapons.
C. Human soldiers curse gargoyles.
1. It won't be long before the "HUNTER" wipes them out.

XII. Demona & Co. return to their Cave on Lunfanan Hill - Night.
A. She makes sure that even the gargoyles who were too weak to
participate in the raid get food.
B. Establish that she's gathered last surviving gargoyles etc.
1. The Gargoyle-Hunter has hunted them to near extinction.
2. Demona keeps them alive by sheer force of will.
C. When another gargoyle suggests making peace with humans...
1. She takes him down brutally. (As she did with Owen above.)
2. She brooks no challenge to her authority.
D. Three old, female gargoyles (Weird Sisters) arrive.
1. Demona doesn't know them, but she has no reason to fear them.
2. Sisters have spotted the Hunter near Castle Moray.
3. Now's Demona's chance to get him.

XIII. FINDLAECH, High Steward of Moray, entertains at his castle - Night.
A. Also present is his fifteen year old son MACBETH.
1. There is a strong resemblance between father and son.
B. The guests are the beautiful young GRUOCH and BODHE, her Father .
1. Clear attraction between Gruoch & Macbeth.
C. Adults discuss Macbeth's cousin, PRINCE DUNCAN.
1. A flawed young man.
2. They have their doubts about his ability to someday rule.
3. But he is to be king someday. They are loyal.
D. Gruoch and her Father go up to bed.
1. Findlaech calls for servants to clean up dinner.
a. None answer his call.
E. The Hunter steps out of the shadows.
1. He wears a distinctive mask that completely covers his face.
a. Black with red claw marks painted across it.
b. Obviously, there are eye-holes, so he can see.
2. He attacks Findlaech. No explanation or reason.
a. There is a fight, but Findlaech is killed.
[Note: Adrienne is o.k. with this death. But not with the method depicted in the outline. It would be best if we could come up with some unique (and semi-fanciful) method of killing that we can use consistently throughout movie. Talk to me and/or her about this.]
F Upstairs, Gruoch hears the fighting and rushes to help.
1. Against her cowardly father's wishes.
G. Hunter goes to kill Macbeth when Demona arrives.
1. Fierce battle between Hunter and Demona.
2. At a crucial moment, Demona must choose between saving Mac and preventing the Hunter's escape.
3. Without thinking, she saves Mac, allowing Hunter to escape.
a. Perhaps Gruoch's concern for Mac touched some long buried feelings?
H. Mac & Gruoch are grateful, but Demona leaves, disgusted with herself.

XIV. 19 year old Prince Duncan paces the floors of Edinburgh Castle near dawn.
A. The Hunter enters by a secret door and is welcomed by Duncan.
1. Hunter removes mask.
2. His face has scars matching the painted claw marks of his mask.
a. We realize that this is the boy that Demona attacked in the
farmhouse, above.
3. He is identified as GILLECOMGAIN (age 42).
B. Gillecomgain reports that Findlaech is dead as ordered.
1. Though Mac lives.
C. Duncan is largely pleased.
1. Findlaech was popular.
2. With his support, Mac might have become King.
3. Without his father, Mac is just another poor relation.
D. As a reward, Duncan makes Gillecomgain the High Steward of Moray.
E. Duncan calls for a celebration.
1. Three serving wenches (the weird sisters) approach with a feast.
2. Tight in on Gillecomgain's discarded hunter's mask.

1995
XV. An unseen man watches Demona's broadcast, muted - late afternoon.
A. He puts on a modern version of the Hunter's mask.
1. (It has no visible eye-holes. It must use special one-way lenses).
B. This new HUNTER clicks off the t.v.
1. Note: This is MACBETH in his mansion, rebuilt since 4319-008.
a. He can be dressed in his modern battle armor and duster.
b. It's o.k. if many of our viewers realize it's him, we still
won't reveal it yet.

XVI. Elisa arrives at precinct house - just before sunset.
A. Precinct phones are ringing off the hook cuz of Demona.
1. Matt & MARIA CHAVEZ dealing with calls and complaints.
B. Elisa slips upstairs to be there when Gargoyles awaken.

XVII. Xanatos' castle near sunset.
A. He gets in his helicopter heading for Studio, with Derek at pilot.
1. Derek asks if Xanatos saw Gargoyle broadcast. (Derek saw it.) a. Xanatos made a point of skipping it.
B. Phone rings. It's Owen calling from Packmedia Studios at sunset. 1. Owen has just freed himself from his bonds.
2. Owen turns to stone before he can say anything too revealing.
C. Suddenly, the copter starts to drop.
1. Derek has turned to stone next to Xanatos.
2. Chopper's going down.

XVIII. At clock tower, the Gargoyles explode out of their shells and come to life.
A. They move inside, ignorant of the day's events.
B. Elisa's "statue" stands just inside of the clock face.

[If and/or when we divide into multiple parts, I think this is where part one ends.]

1. They don't realize the statue is Elisa.
2. They assume it's a statue of her.
a. Keep in mind that gargoyles (except Goliath) haven't seen
each other as stone, because they are always stone at the same time.
3. But how did statue get here?
4. Who else but Elisa would leave it?
5. Why would Elisa give them a statue of herself?
6. And why wouldn't she wait to see their reaction?
7. And if it wasn't her, who left this here and how and why? Etc.
C. Only Goliath has seen his friends as stone.
1. He doesn't necessarily state his fear. But he's uneasy.
2. He assigns Hudson and Bronx to guard the statue.
3. He and the trio will patrol the city, as usual.

XIX. Xanatos fights to save his life.
A. Pulls chopper out of dive and brings it in for rough landing.
1. Any landing you can walk away from, hmm, Derek?
2. Derek doesn't answer. At least he's unchipped.
B. Xanatos looks around him. Everywhere people are "stoned".
1. Obviously, Demona and he need to have a little talk.
2. Pulls a mega-weapon out of the first aid kit or whatever.
3. Heads off to PackMedia Studio on foot.

XX. Goliath & Trio patrol the night skies.
A. From a height, everything seems peaceful at first.
B. But eventually they discover the "stone" populace.
1. Maybe a single blind man & his seeing-eye dog are unaffected.
a. Brooklyn talks to blind man over the barking of dog.
i. Dog is freaked out by gargoyles, not "statuary".
ii. Man doesn't realize he's talking to gargoyles.
b. Gargoyles learn about broadcast from blind guy.
i. He heard it and was told about it, but didn't see it.
ii. Gargoyles figure out the truth (including Elisa).
iii. Brooklyn is furious at Demona as usual.
c. They tell the blind man he'd better stick close to home.
C. Goliath says they'll have to split up to find Demona.
1. Brooklyn will stay with him.
a. Goliath's afraid Brooklyn's a loose cannon.
2. As for Broadway and Lex...
a. He tells them to stop by clock tower.
i. Fill Hudson in.
ii. Send him and Bronx off as a third team.
b. Broadway worries about leaving Elisa unattended.
i. G: "She's as safe in the tower as anywhere."
c. The priority now is finding Demona.
i. Lex: "But How?"
ii. Goliath is afraid that, unfortunately, finding her
will be all too easy.

XXI. On Manhattan streets we follow a highly visible trail of rubble and destruction...
A. To Demona, who is having a grand old time with the "stoners".
1. Here she blasts one with a laser-cannon.
2. There she smashes one with a medieval mace.
3. She's practically giddy, talking to herself and the "stoners".
B. She remembers her appointment with Xanatos at the studio.
1. Can't let him turn off the broadcast.
2. She heads off with impunity in that direction, continuing the
destruction as she goes.

XXII. The New Hunter [Macbeth] is flying his hover-jet through NY's night
skies.
A. Demona's broadcast silently plays over and over on a small monitor.
B. A computer voice tells us that it is tracking the t.v. override signal.
C. Soon. He says. Soon. Fade into flashback.

1032
XXIII. Dunsinane, Near Moray -- The Original Hunter [Gillecomgain -- age 54,
but still as fit as any warrior] battles Demona (age 47).
A. It could go either way, but the sun is rising and she must flee.
B . Both swear to finish it later.

XXIV. At Castle Moray, Macbeth (age 27) and Gruoch's Father converse.
A. Mac can't believe that Bodhe is marrying his daughter off to
Gillecomgain.
1. He threatens to run away with Gruoch.
B. Bodhe protests.
1. Prince Duncan has ordered the marriage.
2. If they defy the Prince, it's equivalent to capital treason.
a. There'll be no safe place for them to run.
i. Which is fine for Macbeth, but think of my
daughter.

XXV. Mac & Gruoch rendezvous on Lunfanan hill as planned to run away.
A. But Mac is distant, unfeeling, unloving.
1. Tells Gruoch to marry Gillecomgain but won't give real reason.
a. Because he knows she would risk anything for him.
B. She's clearly devastated by his cold dismissiveness. (So's he.)

XXVI. The Wedding of Gillecomgain & Gruoch at Castle Moray.
A. Macbeth lurks in the back.
B. Prince Duncan (age 31) is there.
1. He's showing off his one year old son PRINCE CANMORE.
C. Maybe Gruoch's bridesmaids are the Weird Sisters.
D. After the ceremony, Duncan & Gillecomgain confab.
1. Duncan wants Gillecomgain to tie up the last loose end.
a. Kill my cousin Macbeth.
2. But Macbeth is Gille's insurance.
a. Mac's an heir to the crown and popular.
b. If Duncan gets out of line, Gill will reveal that Duncan
ordered Findlaech's death.
i. Which cousin will wind up King then?
3. Duncan is major league steamed.

XXVII. Macbeth is summoned to Prince Duncan at Edinburgh.
A. Baby Canmore plays nearby.
B. Duncan plays Mac like a lute.
1. He's just discovered something truly shocking and horrible.
2. He knows who the mysterious Hunter is...
a. The man who killed your father...
b. It's Gillecomgain.
3. Duncan laments that Gil fooled him completely.
4. Oh, if only Gillecom were gone, Duncan would:
a. Give Macbeth his rightful title: High Steward of Moray.
b. Give him Gruoch's hand in marriage.
5. But Duncan doesn't dare attack Gille openly.
a. It could start a civil war between Moray and rest of
Scotland. All would suffer.
6. Duncan shakes his head. What can be done?

XXVIII. At Moray, in a scene parallel to the death of Findlaech:
A. Macbeth steps out of the shadows to battle Gille.
B. Gruoch hears fight and comes downstairs.
C. Gill is ready to kill Gruoch to save himself.
1. He taunts paralyzed Mac.
2. He slips on the Hunter mask as final insult.
D. But Demona is here watching.
1. She had been tipped off by Weird Sisters again.
2. She didn't know which of them was the Hunter.
E. Tables turn. Mac rescues Gruoch while Dem fights Hunter.
1. Maybe in here, Gil reveals to her that he was the boy she scarred
for life.
F. Mac rescues Demona in some way.
G. Gille/Hunter buys the farm in some way.
1. Preferably by whatever method Gill used on Findlaech.
H. There is a brief moment of respect between Mac & Demona.
1. Then off she goes.

XXIX. Outside Castle Moray just after the wedding of Macbeth and Gruoch.
A. Prince Duncan puts on the Hunter's mask himself.
1. There will always be a Hunter, he says to his baby son.
a. The boy is attended by the Weird Sisters.
2. And there will always be the Hunted.

1995
XXX. Manhattan/Night. Goliath and Brooklyn come across Demona's trail of
human rubble.
A. Goliath and Brooklyn are devastated.
1. This reminds them of the massacre at Wyvern.
2. Goliath: "Every life is precious."
3. Brooklyn hates Demona. "This could be Elisa."
4. Goliath erupts. NEVER!!
5. Goliath swears to put an end to Demona's evil once and for all.
B. Suddenly, three stone figures begin to speak to Goliath without
transforming back from stone -- very spooky.
1. The Weird Sisters as speaking stone versions of the nine-year old
girls that Goliath met earlier.
2. They agree that Demona must be stopped.
3. But they remind him of his own words -- every life is precious.
a. Stop her, but don't become like her.
b. Vengeance begets nothing but a vicious cycle of further
vengeance.
4. They advise him to follow the trail of rubble.
5. Then they crumble into rubble themselves.
C. Goliath and Brooklyn follow trail of rubble.

XXXI. Xanatos & Demona arrive at PackMedia almost simultaneously.
A. Xanatos is determined to turn off broadcast.
B. Demona is determined to stop him.
C. Big fight. (Stone Owen at risk.)
D. The New Hunter [Macbeth arrives].
1. Just seeing that mask drives Demona to fury.
2. But she's not nuts, she flees.
3. Hunter fires off a cable attachment that wraps around her ankle.
4. As she flies off, he holds on by cable -- determined.
E. All this allows Xan to shut down broadcast.
1. He expects Owen to turn back to flesh.
2. Owen does not.

XXXII. In the skies above Manhattan, the Hunter tries to hold on and nail
Demona.
A. Big aerial sequence.
B. Ultimately, Demona shakes him (roughly) and flees.
1. Let's subtly indicate somewhere in here that when one is hurt
both feel pain.
C. He summons his hover-thing. He hasn't given up.

XXXIII. Goliath and Brooklyn arrive at PackMedia Studio.
A. They find Xanatos (and stone Owen) and evidence of battle.
B. Goliath is accusatory, but Xan disarms him by copping to his mistake.
1. "Do you want vengeance...or a solution?"
C. They declare a temporary truce and form an uneasy alliance.
1. They shake on it.

[And this is where Part II would end if and/or when it becomes a Multi-Parter.]

XXXIV. Morning at clock Tower. Elisa transforms back to flesh and blood.
A. Note: she does not explode out of stone shell. She transforms back.
1. Difference between Gargoyles organic process and her magical
one.
B. She has no idea what happened to her.
1. But "two seconds ago" it was sunset.
2. Now it's sunrise and the gargoyles have vanished.
3. Did she lose the entire night?
4. She exits clock tower.

XXXV. Back at the Studio, Owen has transformed to Flesh in front of Xanatos.
A. Xan starts to explain what happened to Owen.
1. But Owen's figured it out.
2. So Xan tells Owen about Gargoyle alliance.
a. Good. Owen suggests searching Grimorum for
counterspell.
b. No good. Even if there's one in there none of us "good
guys" knows how to use magic.
3. Xanatos asks Owen for the exact terms of spell.
a. Owen translates from Latin:
i. "You will turn to stone each night until the sky
catches fire."
4. Xanatos: "Then we'll just have to set the sky ablaze."
a. "Hurry. We've only got 12 hours."

XXXVI. TRAVIS MARSHALL reports.
A. People are panicked.
B. The mysterious broadcast has ceased.
C. But most everyone in the city, including this reporter, has no memory
of the past night.
D. He interviews hysterical woman who claims everyone turned to stone.
2. Incidentally, she missed the broadcast. Doesn't watch t.v.
a. Therefore, she must be crazy.
E. Experts theorize mass hypnosis?

XXXVII. New Hunter [Macbeth] watches report.
A. He can't believe Demona slipped through his grasp again.
B. Fade into flashback.

1040
XXXVIII. The royals hike leisurely up Lunfanan Hill on a gloomy, foggy
morning.
A. Duncan (age 39) is there. He is now High KING of Scotland.
1. With him is his son Prince Canmore (age 9).
B. Macbeth (age 35) is also there with his son LUACH (age 7).
C. All are trying to make nice.
D. Duncan nearly falls to his death. Macbeth saves him.
E. Duncan is more stunned at Mac's loyalty than grateful.
1. He tells Mac he had his doubts, but now he's convinced Mac's a
loyal subject.
F. Suddenly, they come upon cave of stone gargoyles including Demona.
G. Duncan goes to destroy them starting with Demona.
H. Macbeth intervenes; pleads for them.
1. Duncan reluctantly acquiesces.
a. Doesn't like it, but the guy did just save his life.
I. They start down the mountain.
J. They meet the Weird Sisters in their Old Crone Shakespearean guise.
1. "Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn; and cauldron
bubble."
2. The Weird Sisters hail all four of them as Kings of Scotland.
3. Macbeth protests. Duncan is king.
a. Sisters: King now. But each of you shall be king in turn.
b. Mac: Certainly Prince Canmore, but not him & Luach...
c. Sisters: We have spoken.
K. The sisters vanish.
1. The two boys look at each other suspiciously.
2. Macbeth tries to write it off as nonsense.
3. Duncan (who's been quiet) agrees.
a. But we can see he's already plotting. Dissolve...

XXXIX Lunfanan again, later that day, with Duncan and some men.
A. Suspicious of Macbeth's relationship to the gargoyles.
B. He plans on attacking Macbeth with his army.
1. Doesn't want gargoyles to help Macbeth.
C. Hates to attack so near to sunset, but tomorrow he might not be able to
find them.
D. He puts on the Hunter's mask.
E. He gets up mountain in time to destroy maybe one or two gargoyles.
F. But the sun sets and Demona (age 51) and the others explode to life.
1. Still, all Demona can do is flee with her band.
2. She's getting old, weak.
a. Who will lead after she's gone?
b. If only there were some way to regain her strength and
youth.
i. She must seek the Weird Sisters.

XL. Castle Moray. Old Bodhe warns Macbeth that Duncan's bringing an
army.
A. Macbeth has his loyal retainers, but they can't defeat Duncan.
B. He can't protect his family.
C. Old Bodhe (cowardly as ever) suggests Mac surrender.
1. If he does, Duncan might spare Luach and the rest.
D. Macbeth agrees.
1. He says a cryptic "I love you" to wife and child and rides away.

XLI. Night in the misty wilderness. Lost, Macbeth and Demona stumble upon
each other.
A. Mac begs Demona to help him defend his family.
1. He promises to help her keep the gargoyles safe.
2. She's heard that before. What guarantee does she have?
B. Suddenly, the Weird Sisters appear from the mist.
1. We see that Mac sees them as Old Human Crones.
2. While Demona simultaneously sees them as Gargoyle crones.
C. Sisters suggest an act of good faith. Is there anything Demona wants?
1. Demona wants youth.
2. Would Mac be willing to trade?
3. Anything to save his family.
D. Sisters arrange trade. Magic light show, incantations and morphing.
1. Demona becomes the young Demona we are familiar with.
a. A permanent change from this point on.
2. Mac becomes the older Macbeth we are familiar with.
a. From this point on, he's permanently in his early fifties.
3. Any of our audience that speaks Latin will learn about the
immortality link.
E. Sisters send the new allies off with one last tidbit:
1. "Duncan gave Gillecomgain all his orders."

XLII. Bothgoanan, Scotland. Night. Mac's forces and Duncan's are ready to
battle.
A. Calm before storm. Gruoch and Luach are there.
1. She touches Mac's grey hair gently.
2. She's afraid he made a bad deal.
B. Demona enters tent. It is time.
C. Old Bodhe takes Gruoch and the boy behind the lines to safety.
D. Mac and Demona go to join there forces and face the enemy.

XLIII. The Battle of Bothgoanan. Night.
A. With the gargoyles help, Mac's forces are winning.
1. Mac calls admiringly to Demona: "You fight like a demon!"
B. Duncan is killed in some way. (Preferably the same way Find & Gil
bought it.)
1. Hunter's mask is found as evidence he was responsible for
Findlaech's death.
2. Macbeth is hailed as new High King of Scotland.
C. Prince Canmore is brought forward.
1. Old Bodhe urges the young boy's death.
2. Macbeth refuses. He will banish the boy.
a. Send him to stay with relatives in England.
b. No one notices that Canmore steals the Hunter's mask.

XLIV. The coronation of Macbeth at Scone. Night.
A. Demona, Luach, Gruoch and Old Bodhe are all there and happy.
B. Macbeth makes Demona his primary advisor.
1. He promises a golden age in human/gargoyle relations.
2. He promises that the humans will learn to respect her.
a. She'd rather be feared.
b. Mac: "They'll do that too... 'Demona'"
i. She likes her new name.
3. The happy golden age begins.
a. Everyone cheers. Humans and gargoyles alike.
b. The Weird Sisters, disguised as serving women, smile.

1995
XLV. Precinct, late afternoon. The Weird Sisters, disguised as cops, help out cheerfully amid the panic.
A. Elisa confers with Matt and Maria.
1. FCC has tracked down source of Broadcast.
a. Packmedia Studios show signs of conflict, but no hard
leads.
b. But Elisa knows who owns Packmedia.
i. But she's not saying anything 'til she knows the
extent of gargoyles involvement.

XLVI. In the Great Hall of Xanatos' Castle before sunrise, Owen and Xanatos (in
his armor sans helmet for the time being) are hard at work.
A. They are outfitting all of the Steel Clan robots with special packs.
1. Including Xanatos' own armor.
2. They have extra packs for the gargoyles who should arrive just
after sunset.
3. The audience doesn't yet know what the packs are for.
4. There's a lot of other temporary equipment set up, as well.
B. Elisa arrives ready to blame Xanatos for everything.
1. Owen: "Mr. Xanatos is trying to fix things. What are you
doing to help?!"
C. Before she can answer, the sun goes down.
1. Owen and Elisa turn to stone.
2. X: "That's one way to settle an argument."
D. All six of our gargoyles arrive.
1. Hudson & Broadway carry Bronx between them.
E. Xanatos explains plan.
1. Steel Clan Robots, Gargoyles and Xan will fly in pre-arranged pattern over the island of Manhattan.
2. They will carry packs that will distribute a harmless gas.
3. At a pre-set time, the packs will explode, igniting gas.
a. A time-counter on the computer screen indicates the time
before detonation.
b. Obviously, by that time, Xanatos & gargoyles must be out
of the upper atmosphere and clear of their packs.
c. Xanatos' robots will be sacrificed to ignite gas.
4. For ten seconds the entire sky will appear to be on fire.
5. Hopefully that will break the spell.
F. Sometime during all this, Bronx starts clawing at a tapestry.
1. Xanatos tells Brooklyn it's worth a hundred grand.
2. Brooklyn shoos Bronx away.
3. A distracted Goliath sees none of this.
4. Make sure this isn't too obvious a foreshadowing.
5. Let's loose track of Bronx after this for awhile.
G. Everything's ready. Xanatos puts on his helmet.
1. Goliath approaches Elisa. This has to work.
H. Steel Clan, Xanatos, Hudson, Trio and Goliath take off with packs.
1. Keep Bronx out of sight and out of mind for now.

XLVII. Steel Clan, Xanatos and gargoyles criss-cross the night sky distributing
the gas.

XLVIII. Back in Great Hall, a panel slides open behind Tapestry.
A. Demona steps out.
1. There are secrets about castle that even Xanatos doesn't know.
2. She can use computer set up to spoil Xanatos' plans.
3. But first she's gonna have some fun.
a. She approaches Elisa's stone form with her mace.
b. Didn't know this meddling human was still alive.
i. That can be rectified.

[And this ends part 3, if and/or when we go to four parts.]

B. Bronx intervenes between Demona and stone Elisa.
C. Demona temporarily backs off. She talks in a soothing voice, but:
1. She approaches computer terminal.
2. She reprograms gas-packs to explode early.
a. The computer screen time counter skips ahead quickly.
b. Xanatos & Gargoyles will die in explosion.
i. Intercut to Xan, gargs and robots in sky.
c. Not enough gas will be released to ignite the sky.
d. Then she'll use her laser-cannon to blow away Bronx,
Owen and especially Elisa.
e. Then there'll be no one left to stop her.
D. "What about me?", The Modern Hunter [Macbeth] steps out of the
shadows.
1. In a frozen city, it wasn't hard to spot all those robots and
gargoyles taking off from the world's tallest building.
2. He decided to investigate and found exactly who he was looking
for.
E. But Demona has already reprogrammed the computer access code.
1. It's too late to save the gargoyles and the city.
a. She presses a last button, locking out access to the
computer.
b. The time counter returns to a normal pace.
c. But a lot of time has been shaved off the countdown
before the pre-mature explosion of the gas-packs.
2. The Hunter doesn't care about any of that.
3. He just wants it over between them.

1057
XLIX. At Dunsinane, the Hunter [Canmore -- age 26] leads English soldiers.
A. He is met by Demona leading a combined platoon of gargoyles and
human Scottish soldiers.
B. It's maybe a minor victory for the Hunter; more of a stalemate, really.
C. Demona leaves to inform Macbeth.
1. Demona's still confident that together, she and Mac can put
these English down & destroy the accursed Hunter for good.
a. We get sense that Mac's golden age has been working.
b. We've never seen Demona so happy and at peace with
herself.

L. Castle Moray. Macbeth confers with Old Bodhe and Luach (now age 24).
A. Macbeth wants to know why Bodhe wanted to meet without Demona.
B. Bodhe explains that the Hunter has convinced the English that Mac is
evil because Mac associates with gargoyles.
1. English got rid of their gargoyles long ago.
C. If Mac gets rid of the gargoyles, the Hunter will lose his English
support.
D. Luach can't believe his father is listening to this crap.
1. Luach's about to leave to fetch reinforcements.
2. They haven't lost. There's no need to betray their gargoyle
friends.
E. But Macbeth says a wise king must consider all his options and then
make the correct choice.
1. He doesn't let us in on his choice.
F. And he doesn't realize that Demona has heard the whole thing.
1. She's sure Mac is going to betray the gargoyles.

LI. Demona approaches the Hunter in his camp.
A. She promises to keep her gargoyles out of his battle against Mac if the
Hunter will promise them protection.
B. He agrees.

LII. At Castle Moray, the Hunter launches his attack.
A. Macbeth is suddenly informed that the gargoyles are missing.
1. He's based his defense strategy on their aid.
a. The gargoyles were supposed to help hold off the English.
b. Long enough for Luach to launch a surprise counter-
attack with reinforcements from behind.
B. The battle is lost before Luach can arrive.
C. Gruoch begs Mac to flee with her, and he reluctantly does.
1. They take a pre-arranged escape route.

LIII. But on Lunfanan Hill, The Hunter is waiting for Mac & Gru with Demona.
A. Hunter takes off his mask, revealing himself as Canmore.
1. He is here to avenge his father Duncan and take back what he
considers to be his rightful crown.
B. Macbeth is stunned at Demona's betrayal.
1. But she knows Mac was planning to betray her first.
2. He furiously denies it, and while they fight...
C. Canmore kills Macbeth.
1. Demona doubles over with pain and seems to die as well.
2. As Gruoch cries over her husband...
3. Canmore confirms his belief that Demona & Mac were linked by
sorcery.
a. If one dies, both die.
b. Well, Canmore says, she betrayed Macbeth.
c. She ultimately would have betrayed me as well.
d. So it's a good thing I had all her gargoyles secretly
destroyed.
e. Hers was an unholy race and didn't deserve to live.
D. An Englishman alerts Canmore that Luach has arrived with Scottish
reinforcements.
1. He performs the better part of valor and retreats for now.
E. Luach and Old Bodhe arrive and find Gruoch crying over Macbeth.
1. The horrible sight makes Luach more determined than ever to
stop the English.
2. Even Bodhe's courage finally seems to awaken inside him.
a. He takes Macbeth's crown and gives it to Luach.
b. Luach is the new High King of Scotland.
c. Together, they will fight the English to the last man.
3. Gruoch asks for some time alone. Her father and son depart.
F. Weird Sisters appear in their Old Crone guise.
1. They approach Demona.
a. "The pain is great, child."
b. "But you are unharmed."
c. "Waken to the fate you've made for yourself."
2. Demona stirs.
a. Gruoch, still furious at Demona's betrayal.
i. She tells Demona that Canmore betrayed her.
ii. "Your people are gone, monster."
iii. "You are the last of your duplicitous race."
iv. Or something like that.
3. Demona flies off alone.
G. Weird Sisters now approach Macbeth.
1. For Canmore got it wrong.
a. He said when one dies, both die.
b. "But when one lives, both live."
c. And they vanish into the mist.
2. And then Macbeth stirs.
3. Far from being pleased, Gruoch is frightened.
a. Is it him or his ghost?
4. Macbeth assures her that he is alive.
a. Macbeth wants to join Luach in battle.
b. But Gruoch says no.
i. If he returns now, he undermines Luach.
ii. The English already accuse Mac of sorcery.
iii. This will be the final proof.
iv. It would divide even the most loyal of Scotsmen.
v. Luach & Scotland's only hope is for Mac to remain
dead.
c. Macbeth: But I'm not dead.
d. Gruoch: Then you must disappear.
i. Leave Scotland forever. It is the only way.
5. They share one last kiss, and she departs out of his life forever.

1995
LIV. Back in Great Hall, Demona & Hunter [Macbeth] in stand-off.
A. A confused Bronx looks on. All he knows to do is guard Elisa.
B. Hunter has sought Demona across the centuries for his vengeance.
C. She is unimpressed.
1. Take off that stupid mask. She knows he's Macbeth.
a. He takes it off.
D. Nearby, the counter continues to count off the time until the pre-
mature explosions of the gas-packs.

LV. In the skies above Manhattan, Xanatos & Goliath fly abreast for a moment
as they "pass gas".
A. Xanatos says it's working. Now if that dog of yours leaves my tapestry
alone.
B. Goliath quickly figures out the truth.
C. He and Xanatos head back for the castle.

LVI. Back at the Great Hall, Macbeth holds up the Hunter's Mask.
A. He only wore it as a reminder of her betrayal.
1. She says, "Let's not start that old argument. It's pointless."
2. Besides, what's he gonna do. To kill her, he must die as well.
B. Macbeth has lived so long he no longer fears death.
1. And, indicating "stoners", he has no desire to live in the kind of
world her evil is creating.
2. He'll do what he has to do to get his revenge.
C. They fight.
D. Xanatos & Goliath arrive just as a stray laser cannon blast takes out a
huge piece of the floor.
1. Goliath is just in time to catch Elisa and keep her from falling
down the hole to smash on the lower floors.
E. Macbeth & Demona largely ignore the new-comers.
1. They tumble down to the floor below.
F. Xanatos checks the computer.
1. She's locked him out by changing access code.
2. And pack's are set to go off pre-maturely.
3. We need to save her to save the others and the city.
G. Goliath orders Bronx to guard Elisa.
1. He and Xanatos follow the fight down.

LVII. On a lower dungeon-esque floor of the castle, Xanatos & Goliath catch up
with Demona & Macbeth.
A. Demona & Macbeth are in a berserker rage.
B. Xanatos & Goliath try to just separate them -- no luck.
C. So they wade in to incapacitate them.
D. The battle takes them down again onto a lower floor.

LVIII. The quartet of combatants fall down from the lowest floor of the castle
into the Arboretum beneath it.
A. Goliath & Xanatos use teamwork to come through the drop all right. 1. Demona and Mac hit harder, down through trees, etc.
2. G&X take advantage of this to take them out.
3. Demona is knocked out.
4. Macbeth nearly so, by her injury.
B. But the injured Mac grabs Demona and prepares to do away with her...
1. (And thus himself.)
C. Goliath: "Killing her won't solve anything."
D. "He's right, Macbeth." This from the Weird Sisters.
1. They step out from among trees as NY fashion model types.
a. Though we see that Macbeth sees them as the Crones.
2. They question Macbeth:
a. Duncan was afraid that your father would make you king.
Did your father's death stop you from becoming
king?
i. Mac: "No!"
b. You wanted revenge for your father. Did Gillecomgain's death settle that score?
i. Mac: "No."
c. Did your own "death" save Luach from Canmore?
i. Mac: "...no..."
ii. And the last 'no' breaks his heart.
3. Goliath pipes in. "Death is never the answer."
a. "Life is. Precious, precious life."
4. Macbeth: "I'm just so tired."
5. Sisters: "Then sleep."
6. Macbeth drifts off.
E. Xanatos doesn't know what the hell is going on.
1. He just knows he needs the access code.
2. Intercut timer and trio flying around at risk.
F. Seline wakens Demona, who is groggy, as if in a trance.
1. Phoebe asks Demona for the code.
2. Demona answers like she's talking in her sleep.
a. But she still refuses.
i. She will have vengeance for the betrayal of her
people. Vengeance for her pain.
3. Sisters: "But who betrayed her people? Who caused this pain?"
a. The Vikings destroyed her clan.
i. Who betrayed castle Wyvern to the Vikings?
b. The Hunter exterminated every gargoyle he found.
i. Who created the Hunter?
c. Canmore killed the last of her race.
i. Who betrayed Macbeth to Canmore?
4. Goliath: Your thirst for vengeance created nothing but more
sorrow.
a. End the cycle. Give us the code.
5. She does.
6. Armed with it, Xanatos shoots up through the hole in the roof.

LIX. Xanatos enters through the hole in the floor of the Great Hall.
A. He enters the access code into computer and stops clock with seconds
to spare. Whew.
B. Bronx looks on without a clue.

LX. Back in Arboretum, Demona begins to shake off her trance.
A. Her denial's kicked in. It was the humans' fault, not hers.
1. She wants her revenge.
2. She's learned nothing.
B. Sadly, the Weird Sisters (nine year old girl version) tell her she's tired.
1. She falls back into a trance beside Macbeth.
C. Goliath wonders what to do with Demona & Macbeth.
1. Sisters feel responsible for them.
2. They will take Demona and Macbeth and try to help them.
3. Goliath asks who or what the sisters are?
a. But that's a story for another day.
D. The three sisters vanish along with Macbeth and Demona.

LXI. Hudson & Trio fly over the river and drop their empty gas packs.
A. They head back for the castle.

LXII. Goliath joins Xanatos in Great Hall. It's time.

LXIII. In the skies over Manhattan, the Steel Clan Robots and their packs
explode.
A. The sky is ignited and for ten seconds is aflame for as far as the eye can
see.

LXIV. In the outer courtyard, Xanatos and Goliath watch the flaming sky.
A. Hudson and the trio land beside them.
B. A moment of true awe for everyone.
C. Bronx howls from back inside the Great Hall.
1. They rush inside.

LXV. Xanatos and the gargoyles arrive back in the Great Hall, in time to see the
stone melt away from Elisa and Owen.
A. Goliath is so happy he lifts Elisa up into the air.
1. She laughs. She doesn't have a clue what's going on.
B. Owen and Xanatos shake hands calmly.
1. Owen knows exactly what's going on and is pleased it worked.
C. Xanatos approaches Goliath just before the good guys are about to
leave.
1. They made a pretty good team.
2. All this time Xanatos has been wondering why he allowed the
gargoyles to live.
3. Now, he knows.
4. Occasionally, they come in handy.
D. Goliath starts to get angry, but then admits that occasionally...
1. Xanatos comes in handy, as well.

LXVI. The Gargoyles fly away from the castle.
A. Goliath carries Elisa. Broadway carries Bronx.
B. Everywhere below them are the signs and sounds that Manhattan is
waking up from it's stone sleep.
1. Safe once more, thanks to the gargoyles.

THE END.

That's it. Finally. As ususal, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Sorry it took so long to get this to you. A few last reminders: just write the script as one piece; ignore the part designations for now. Also, do not be afraid to over-explain things. Be as clear as possible. We do not yet know for sure where this is being story-boarded. With all the time shifts and differing ages in different scenes it could confuse anyone. Also don't assume familiarity with previous episodes. Don't hesitate to cite specific references to page or episode numbers of past scripts. Good luck.



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