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Entity writes...

Hi,

I'd just like to back Mary Mack's summary/review of The Phantom Menace. It was everything she described it as.

I'd also like to voice my pleasure at the sight of Wrath of Khan in your list of favorite movies. It's in mine, too, but most of the time that film seems to get jipped. Either the person's someone who has an inexplicable (and I venture to say shallow) distaste for Star Trek, or they'd rather claim First Contact as the hands-down best film, ignoring the originals.

Incidentally, I thought First Contact was a travesty. Maybe think "First Knight" for Arthurian Legend, to get an idea.

Greg responds...

I think First Contact was a MUCH better Star Trek film than First Knight was an Arthurian Film. First Knight with Connery as Arthur was a movie I was very looking forward to and wound up being a HUGE disappointment to me. Though perhaps not for the reasons you might think. I was going with it for awhile. But ultimately, I couldn't bear it.

First Contact on the other hand seemed like a great, exciting movie to me. I've heard people bitching about the fact that Cochrane was supposed to be born on Alpha Centauri and not Earth, but a look at any (even pre-First Contact Trek Timeline) reveals that to be impossible. And the original Cochrane Trek episode never said he was BORN on A.C. The time travel, to my tastes, is messy, but I'm used to that vis-a-vis Star Trek. Etc., Etc., I'm not saying the movie is flawless. But Star Trek was never flawless. Wrath of Khan wasn't. (Though it's still my favorite.) And I've been watching Trek for a VERY long time.

So I definitely do NOT get the comparison at all. But all of the above is just my opinion. Nothing more.

Response recorded on September 05, 2000

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Kelly L Creighton / Kya White Sapphire writes...

*reads your post about needing a tape recording of her voice* well, i work at an 800 number. ill send it to gorebash, and you can feel free to call me any time. ^_^ im the receptionist, so unless im at lunch (generally between 11:45 and 12:45 eastern) ill be the one to answer the phone!

Greg responds...

Thanks. I'm mostly teasing you. I do think you have a great voice, but I'll try not to bug you at work. :)

Response recorded on September 05, 2000

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Matthew Smith writes...

hey Greg, what's up? Well, this isn't really a Gargoyle related question, it's more about one of the movies you mention being one of your favorites: Ghostbusters. That is one of my all time favorite movies. I see you didn't seem to like the sequel. I rather enjoyed GB2, heck I bought both movies last weekend, but I guess i can see why you didn't like it. I mean walking Statue of Liberty, "Mood Slime" that responded to good/bad vibes...ect...
My passion for Ghostbusters goes back to my when I was 5. Oh I remember religiously watching "The Real Ghostbusters" every day before kindergarten. Me and my brother used to dress up in old pyjammas, which our mother altered to have the Ghostbuster logo on the shoulders, and would run around the neighbourhood pretending to "bust" ghosts.
Anyway, back to the movie. My mother must have hated that movie with a passion, simply because it was the only thing we'd rent whenever we'd go to our grand-parents house (who had a VCR when we didn't) must have seen the movie like 60 times back then, and that was before I could appreaciate the witty humor, let alone understand the plot.
Last year, I watched the movie for the first time in about 10 years. I never realized excactly how clever of a movie it was. It was hillarious, yet not off the wall not to be taken seriously. Even the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man provided a serious enough threat.
Come to think of it, this actually is a Gargoyles question. Gozer's Terror Dogs, the one's who possessed Dana and Louis reminded me an awful lot of Bronx. Did this in anyway inspire you to create the Gargoyle Beasts? Also, the Terror Dogs came to life by breaking out out of it's stone shell, much like the way Gargoyles do. Is this simply a coincidence? I remember you stating that your inspirations for Gargoyles were Gummi Bears, actual stone gargoyles, Hill Street Blues. But is it possible that Ghostbusters is among one of the inspirations for Gargoyles? Or am I just making wild speculations in hoping that one of my favorite movies helped inspire one of my favorite animated shows?

Greg responds...

The terror dogs might have influenced Frank Paur, who redesigned Bronx to the shape we currently know and love. But I wouldn't want to speak for Frank. You'd have to ask him.

But I did like the movie a lot.

Response recorded on September 05, 2000

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Todd Jensen writes...

This is a sort of response to your comments on doing or not doing a Gargoyles/super-hero crossover of any sort. You mentioned that you didn't see it happening, short of a crossing between parallel universes, because the Gargoyles Universe and the super-hero universes of DC and Marvel Comics are very different in style. From what I know of mainstream super-heroes (which, I will confess, isn't all that much), I can certainly agree with you.

Take Batman, for example. The Batman Universe is clearly different enough from the Gargoyles Universe. In the Batman Universe, the "super-villains" are more out in the open, with the public all too aware of them. In the Gargoyles Universe, the "super-villains" are more low-profile; the general public don't know that Demona, Thailog, Oberon's Children, and the Illuminati actually exist. They know about Xanatos and Macbeth, but only in terms of their public personas; they know about the Pack, but only as "TV actors who went bad" - I haven't seen any indications that the general public know as yet about Jackal and Hyena being cyborgs now or Wolf being a mutant wolf-man. They don't even know for certain about the gargoyles until the end of "Hunter's Moon Part Three" - and even then all that they know is that the gargoyles exist, and nothing more than that.

In conventional super-hero universes, the weird and paranormal is very public and high-profile, known to the public. In the Gargoyles Universe, the weirdness exists just as surely, but is far more "covered up". For this reason, I can't seriously imagine Batman or Superman or Spiderman or the X-Men existing in the same universe as the gargoyles.

Greg responds...

They clearly don't exist in the Gargoyles Universe. I suppose it's possible that parallel versions of the Gargoyles exist in THEIR universes. But for a variety of reasons, I don't see it happening any time soon.

Response recorded on September 05, 2000

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Todd Jensen writes...

This is a comment inspired by your recent answers to the "Tempest" question. While you never did manage to get "The Tempest" into Gargoyles outright (and I found that a pity, for my own part), I've sometimes thought that Angela does resemble Miranda a little (in the same way that, to me, Thailog resembles Edmund in "King Lear" and Demona Shylock) - there's the same general concept there of a sweet, innocent girl being brought up on a mysterious magical island and filled with wonder at the outside world (Miranda's "brave new world" lines strike me as being just as suitable for Angela as they were for the original speaker). I just thought that you might be interested.

Greg responds...

Yeah. Angela/Miranda. That's there. But I won't pretend I was conscious of it. But like with Thailog/Edmund, the play is such an intrinsic part of my consciousness and education, I'm sure I was influenced by it.

Response recorded on September 05, 2000

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Mary Mack writes...

So, you didn't see The Phantom Menace.

SPOILERS

Lucky guy. That movie got me all bent out of shape for lots of reasons, and I think some of them stem from being a Gargoyles addict. I respect nonhumans. In Phantom Menace, the nonhumans were either villains (the inept flunkie-type, at that) or stupid as dirt and present only for comic relief. Anybody who could possibly save the day had to be human and under twenty-one, and somebody thought that having a nine-year-old boy destroy a battleship full of sentient beings was a GOOD idea. (Okay, so the kid grew up to be Darth Vader, but really, they practically threw him a party for mass murder!) Qui-Gon Jinn, our first real look at a Jedi Knight in his prime, cheated at dice. How very, very honorable of him. Darth Maul, who had the potential to be scary and evil and really, really neat, talked a little, did some impressive acrobatics (played by Toad from X-Men, now there's a good movie), and died. Seven minutes of screen time, tops. Folks mention racial stereotypes in the film; they're right. I wondered why those trade federation guys didn't just say "Ah, so!" and get it over with. Or why Jar-Jar didn't offer Obi-Wan a hit of whatever he was smoking. The direction was minimal, the dialog weak, and most of the actors seem too scared of Mr. Lucas to improvise. The special effects were eye-popping, but hardly ever seemed to have anything to do with the plot. One character is introduced solely as comic relief (Jar-Jar), and he has no witty repartee, just slapstick that occurs beacuse he's the stupid nonhuman.

Basically, you missed a gaping wad of nothing by missing Phantom Menace, and you're luckier than I am. That movie managed to sour me on Star Wars as a whole-- pre-Phantom, I'd read every book, bought action figures, comics, expensive expandable lightsabres... post-Phantom, zip. Gargoyles, Star Wars fiction, Star Trek, Sci-Fi and Fantasy books all gave me an appreciation for good stories where the villains were interesting, the plots thick, and the heroes not neccesarily caucasian humans. The Phantom Menace was bad. It was, to Star Wars, what the Goliath Chronicles was to Gargoyles. Only shorter.

Greg responds...

Yikes.

Response recorded on September 02, 2000

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Man Mountain writes...

Greg, You seemed confused on LSZ's use of "Zeroth." I first read it as ZEH-roth but then realized he meant
ZEE-rothe as in 0th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Is that what confused you as well or am I just... um, dumb?

Greg responds...

Well, your transliterations didn't help at all. But, yes, I now get that Zeroth was his zero equivalent for first, second, third. Which didn't occur to me at all until his most recent post.

Response recorded on September 02, 2000

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LSZ writes...

As to the Zeroth thing; I'm not sure if you used it or not, but it seemed a logical thing to call the pre-First Race; thought of this while reading Asimov on his Three and then Four Laws of Robotics..

Greg responds...

You have a knack for writing questions that I just don't get.

I think part of the problem may be that you assume I have a better memory than I do. I'll post something. You'll respond with a new post. But it'll be weeks before I see you're new post and respond to it. By which time, I've forgotten what we were discussing.

Help me out!!

Response recorded on September 02, 2000

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Todd Jensen writes...

I just read the latest "early development" memo. I found it another fun "behind the scenes" peek at the early history of "Gargoyles".

The two bits that particularly stood out to me were:

1. The gargoyles fondness for partying (which was also mentioned in the earlier memos). That obviously pre-dated Goliath's introduction into the project, given that I have a very hard time imagine Goliath partying. The trio (whose proto-versions WERE in the original comedy development, I recall), yes, but Goliath - I don't even want to make the attempt.

2. Xanatos's original as the several-times-great-nephew to the evil wizard (the original of the Archmage, the Magus, or both?). The thing that stood out to me here was that the nephew character struck me from the description as sounding like a conventional cartoon villain rather than the very memorable and convention-flouting David Xanatos. It makes it amazing when you think over what this character would eventually become.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the memos, to see what other treasures they might contain.

Greg responds...

Yeah, it's kinda fun for me to revisit this stuff too.

I won't comment on your comments, since by now, I'm sure you've read my comments on more recently posted memos, which, I believe, cover most of those points. (And if they don't, don't hesitate to bring them up again.)

Response recorded on September 02, 2000

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Ambrosia writes...

Okay, this is a response to that S.T. Coleridge reference and suspending disbelief.
I've been blessed with a really great English teacher who I loved so much in Freshman Comp 101, that I took him again for Literature and again in Survey of Shakespeare. Last spring semester, he lectured a bit about how to read fiction effectively. In my notes I have written down:
"be imaginatively involved in the work" That's Mr. Farrell and not Coleridge. He then quoted Coleridge saying reading fiction should be "a willing suspension of disbelief." In other words, while reading about a giant dragon, you're not supposed to think to yourself, "there's no such thing as a giant dragon." In a work of fiction, you put yourself into that world... like a certain universe we all know and love.
Just thought I'd clarify.
On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with suspending belief either...

Greg responds...

If that's the accurate Coleridge quotation, and it sounds like it is, than it certainly works. We suspend our disbelief, that is we put our dibelief on hold.

The reason, I'm guessing, why the quote is often misquoted the other way is because "suspend" has other denotations as well. We could "suspend our belief", that is hold it up over the not-so-believable parts. Keep our belief aloft.

So either "work". But since we're all paraphrasing Coleridge, something I didn't realize until you told me, it's nice to get it right.

Response recorded on September 02, 2000


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