#like obviously a) this is a children’s cartoon that aired on nickelodeon

[comradekatara]

most fandoms are prone to reducing characters to consumable archetypes for the purposes or comedy (or shipping). but what’s amazing to me is that the atla fandom somehow not only reduces characters into stock tropes, but somehow manages to whittle them down into their exact opposites. aang’s whole deal is that he is a wise and prodigious monk who very deliberately represses the depth of his grief so as not to be crushed under the weight of it, and so naturally he is reduced into an oblivious, blissfully happy child. katara’s whole deal is that she yearns for joy and adventure and often reacts to situations before she’s thought through the consequences, so naturally she’s reduced to the overly-serious, sensible voice of reason. sokka’s whole deal is that he’s a miserable hater who’s way too smart for his own good and thus overthinks himself into a hole at every turn, so naturally he’s reduced to a wacky goofy idiot with no tact and no brain. toph’s whole deal is that she’s uniquely thoughtful and perceptive and waits and listens before acting, so naturally she’s reduced to an impulsive chaotic gremlin with all the emotional maturity of a sea cucumber. zuko’s whole deal is that he can’t read a room, has no filter, and loves to monologue, so naturally he’s reduced to a brooding stoic. iroh’s whole deal is that he is tormented by the sins of his past at all times, so naturally he’s reduced to everybody’s favorite perfect and unimpeachable old man. azula’s whole deal is that her undying loyalty and obedience to an egomaniac shall be her undoing, so naturally she’s reduced to a selfish and hysterical woman who just does whatever the fuck she wants because she’s ontologically evil i guess. ty lee’s whole deal is that she is constantly performing, so naturally people always just take her at face value. i could go on. but i think you get my point.

#hot takes #like obviously a) this is a children’s cartoon that aired on nickelodeon #and b) when i say ‘[X]’s whole deal is’ i am obviously also being reductive for the sake of a hot take of my own #but like. how does this even happen. #this fandom amazes me tbh. just as like an anthropological case study…..

[volleypearlfan]

Where are the teenage/YA cartoons?

Recently, two cartoons that were slated to be on Cartoon Network, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and My Adventures With Superman, are now going to be on Adult Swim.

To me, this move makes no sense. These shows could have diversified Cartoon Network’s very barebones lineup, but they were shoved to Adult Swim. I sorta understand Unicorn, as it is dark (but definitely not on the same level as Primal, one of Genndy Tartakovsky’s other shows), but My Adventures with Superman? That show seems pretty innocuous. It has a bright color palette and doesn’t seem similar to Harley Quinn or the later seasons of Young Justice.

This reminds me of the desperate need there is for teen/YA-oriented western cartoons. In western animation, there are three primary audiences:

Preschoolers; anything rated TV-Y, shown on PBS Kids, Nick Jr, Disney Junior, or Cartoonito. Example: Doc McStuffins.

Big kids/elementary school crowd; anything rated TV-Y7, can be seen on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney Channel. Example: The Amazing World of Gumball.

Adult; anything rated TV-14 or TV-MA, seen on Adult Swim, Comedy Central, or the prime time Fox lineup. Example: Rick and Morty.

That’s it. Despite what the rating of TV-14 might lead you to believe, the stuff on Animation Domination or Adult Swim isn’t targeted to teenagers, obviously.

This leaves teenagers in a weird spot when it comes to watching cartoons (western ones, that is. They definitely watch anime). They tend to stick with big kids and/or adult cartoons, like Avatar. With all of the heavy subject matter it and Korra tackle, they definitely feel more like teenage cartoons, especially since they were inspired by anime.

I bring up anime because they have clearly defined demographics, including teenagers. They have manga/anime for teenage boys, shonen (Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z), and teenage girls, shojo (Fruits Basket, Kamisama Kiss, Yona of the Dawn).

Shojo anime (except Sailor Moon) pretty much never air on American TV, but when shonen anime are exported here, they end up on Adult Swim’s Toonami block. For example, Demon Slayer aired on Toonami (they had to stop airing it because it got too expensive), and in America, the Mugen Train movie was rated R. This despite Demon Slayer being aimed at teenagers, and also being enjoyed by small children in Japan. They even had a Japanese Happy Meal promotion that ran alongside Pretty Cure, a show that actually is aimed at small children (kodomomuke).

With America’s teenagers flocking to anime, I believe that the American animation industry should keep up with the times and try to capitalize on the teenage demographic instead of shoehorning shows to be for elementary schoolers or adults.

Here are some western cartoons I believe could be classified as YA/teenage shows:

Avatar and Korra, as mentioned above.

Most cartoons aired on MTV, such as Daria, Beavis and Butthead, and Clone High. It helps that MTV itself was aimed at teenagers. Aeon Flux is an exception however, as it is clearly for adults. They’re often shoehorned into the category of “adult animation,” but their subject matter is more appealing to teens.

6teen. It’s right there in the title! Canada knows what’s up.

Total Drama, another Canadian cartoon. I know that they made the younger-skewing DramaRama spin-off because teenagers weren’t watching cartoons anymore, but now that the main show is coming back, it will definitely be aimed at teenagers again.

Sym Bionic Titan, yet another Tartakovsky show, pretty much is a teen/YA show, minus swearing. If I remember correctly, it aired on Toonami for a little while.

Regular Show. The most obvious example of a YA cartoon disguised as a kids cartoon.

Infinity Train. Never forget that it was cancelled because “no child entry point.”

As Told By Ginger is essentially a teen drama in animated form.

Invader Zim - Nickelodeon asked Johnson Vasquez to make a show directed towards older audiences, got exactly what they wanted (most of the viewership was from teens and adults, especially of the shops-at-Hot Topic variety) and cancelled it anyway.

Arcane is technically an adult series, but League of Legends is rated T by the ESRB, so I’m putting it in the teen/YA category (there IS a distinction between ‘young adult’ and ‘adult’)

I highly doubt that the likes of Nickelodeon will add a teenage animation block to their lineup (and TeenNick is nothing but iCarly reruns), but I hope that streaming services will start capitalizing on the YA demographic for western animation. Bee and Puppycat is a good start, featuring relatable young adult situations while technically being watchable for all ages. At least Unicorn is gonna air on ACME Night, which isn’t too late in the evening (currently, the block starts at 5:30 EST). And with Clone High and the aforementioned Total Drama making a comeback, I’m holding out hope for more YA animation.

#long post #animation #western animation #cartoons #ya #my adventures with Superman #unicorn warriors eternal #adult swim #Toonami #6teen #daria #infinity train #as told by ginger #acme night #my animation essays

[natlacentral]

The Actress Who Waited a Lifetime to Become Katara

Kiawentiio talks joining the cast of Avatar: The Last Airbender and playing a character that means so much to so many

The 17-year-old actress Kiawentiio (pronounced gya-wuhn-dee-yo) can’t remember a time when Avatar: The Last Airbenderwasn’t part of her childhood in some way. Growing up on the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation in Ontario known as Kawehno:ke (or Cornwall Island), Kiawentiio—who was born in 2006, a full year after the beloved animated series debuted on Nickelodeon—recalls having older siblings who would have the cartoon regularly playing in the background of their house. Years later, when all three seasons began streaming on Netflix, she revisited the series and developed a newfound appreciation for its narrative ambition.

So, when Netflix first announced that it was developing a live-action adaptation of Avatar in 2018, Kiawentiio told her team to get her an audition for Katara, the 14-year-old girl who is trying to fulfill her potential as the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe after her mother was killed by the ruthless Fire Nation.

“By the time they actually did start casting, I got the call from my manager that was like, ‘Don't freak out, but we think we have the Avataraudition.’ And obviously, I freaked out,” Kiawentiio tells Harper’s Bazaarwith a laugh in a recent phone interview. Of all the roles she had auditioned for, this one was at the top of her bucket list, because she knew that it could have the same impact on the next generation of Indigenous children that it had on her. “Katara was one of the only people that I could really see myself in. With the role model that she is for young Indigenous women, it's hard not to be drawn to her, especially when the representation is so scarce.”

Kiawentiio got her wish in the spring of 2021. After undergoing an intensive audition process, complete with a seemingly never-ending number of Zooms and chemistry reads, she got the news that would change her life. “They sat me down for another Zoom call, and I was expecting them to tell me it might take a while, but [creator and showrunner] Albert Kim ended up telling me what the project was, who I was auditioning for, and then I landed the role, and I was crying,” she recalls.

Every diehard Avatar fan can recite the basic premise by heart: Long ago, the four nations—Water, Earth, Fire, Air—once lived in harmony, with the Avatar, the master of all four elements, keeping the peace between them. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked and wiped out the Air Nomads. A century later, Aang (Gordon Cormier), a 12-year-old Air Nomad who has been frozen and suspended in time in an iceberg, reawakens to take his place as the next Avatar. Feeling responsible for the destruction he was unable to prevent, Aang sets out on a quest with his newfound friends, Katara and her Water Tribe leader brother Sokka (Ian Ousley), to save the world from the onslaught of the power-hungry Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim), who is determined to place all the nations under his authoritarian rule.

Katara, as Kiawentiio puts it, is the heart of the Avatar crew tasked with using their bending powers to restore peace in the divided world. “I think the core factors that make Katara [who she is] are her hopefulness and her optimism, and she's the person in the group that can keep them moving forward in a positive direction, and I think without that, team Avatar wouldn't be able to see the light,” she says.

Below, Kiawentiio reflects on the defining moments of Katara’s arc in the first season (which was shot two years ago in Vancouver), how she has grown alongside her character, and why she feels a new day has come for Indigenous representation in Hollywood.

A lot of the dramatic tension of the first season boils down to Aang’s internal conflict: Does the Avatar need to act alone, or can they afford to have people who help them along the way? In Aang’s case, he doesn’t just want people in his life; he needsthem to help save the world. Why do you think Katara is immediately drawn to Aang and his mission? How do you think that relationship evolves over the course of the season?

I think the reason that she was drawn to him in the first place was this energy of bender to bender, honestly, and I feel like that type of energy [bonds them] not only physically, but just spiritually. It's really intertwined in who they are because Aang plays a huge part in Katara's growth physically with her bending, and I feel like it was just this calling of fate and where you're supposed to be. But in terms of how the relationship has grown, I think it really is just blossoming into a family. Team Avatar is a family in our show. They're not going to leave each other's side; they're always there for each other.

Midway through the season, Koh, the face stealer of the spirit world, temporarily imprisons Katara and her brother Sokka and traps them with some of their darkest memories, which allows us to see, rather than hear about, their backstories. In Katara’s case, she is forced to relive the day she lost her mother. How do you think that loss has affected her in the present day?

It's just painful and that is the point of Koh, right? It is to weaken his prey with their own pain and their own memories. The way I see it is she probably feels helpless. She can't do anything, and that's really what has held her back. What has stuck in her mind is the fact that she couldn't do anything [to save her mom], and to be stuck in that painful loop definitely puts a damper on her confidence that she's been working up this entire season.

That memory of the loss that she went through is a roadblock, and that's something that she has to try and overcome as we go through the series because it really is the main reason that she can't get to that next level [of waterbending]. In the episode with Jett, after he shifted her perspective on how she was thinking and how her memories were acting up, she really unlocks that good energy that her mom was trying to leave her with.

It's impressive how together Katara actually is, especially in our season, because the flashbacks and her memories are so brutal that it's like, "Wow, I can't believe you are still normal." [Laughs.] But that goes to show how resilient she is and how strong she is. I think that was one of the things I took away from her while playing her. I tried to implement her message in my life more to be more optimistic and to have that hope and strength.

When she arrives in the Northern Water Tribe, Katara realizes that the women of this tribe aren’t allowed to fight, which comes as a bit of a culture shock for her. But it’s moving to see how she is able to mobilize the women of all ages when the tribe is under siege by the Fire Nation. At the end of the day, they are the ones who helped defeat the enemy.

Arriving at the Northern Water Tribe was something that she was looking forward to all season, and I think in her mind she had this image of like, "I'm going to get there. I'm going to meet a master, and he's going to teach me everything I need to know, and I’ll finally be able to reach that next step [as a Waterbender]." And getting there and being told basically all your work is not going to be paid off [because you’re a woman] was, in my opinion, devastating. That devastation leads straight into anger, which I relate to. I feel like I get the same waves of emotions, and then that leads to wanting to prove them wrong, wanting to change things [like Katara does]. Honestly, that scene with the women [Waterbenders] is just so beautiful, and it was one of my favorites to film. But I think in her mind, she was just reality checking Master Paku: "We are literally in a war. We are not going to make it. Just use your resources." And not only was that the realistic thing that needed to happen, but the change that she's been fighting for [all season].

I read that you trained for six months ahead of production to commit Katara’s waterbending motions to muscle memory. You spent that time going over forms of tai chi and getting strong enough to handle the action sequences.

Boot camp was intense for me personally, just because I'd never really gone through that before and I don't have as much or any experience outside of the show with martial arts. But it was really helpful to be in the same boat as my character, training-wise. At the start of the show, she really doesn't know that much about bending. As we go along through the episodes, we could see her get more comfortable and more confident in her bending. As we watch Katara gain her confidence, I feel like off-screen I was also gaining confidence with those movements, getting stronger as we go and just getting more comfortable in general.

With the critical success of many Indigenous projects in recent years—Reservation Dogs, Rutherford Falls, Killers of the Flower Moon, The English, Dark Winds—it feels like we have reached an inflection point when it comes to accurate depictions of Native American communities. As someone who is part of this growing movement, what is your take on the state of diversity and inclusion for Indigenous communities? And what do you think is the next step that needs to be taken to move the needle even further?

I think we are making huge steps in the industry. I love being able to look around more and more and see more of our faces, and I do think that there's places that we could improve on for sure. But thinking of how far we've come, even from when I was younger, Katara was one of the only brown people that I saw on my TV, so it's really special to be a part of this generation that's being able to do these things.

I think the next step could be just normalizing things, like it doesn't always have to be an Indigenous story to have Indigenous actors, writers or directors. I think that's one of the things that can get touchy in this industry because we want to include everybody of course, but it doesn't have to be so specific. Why does the doctor have to be [only] the Indigenous doctor that came from [this tribe]? Why can't he just be a doctor that happens to be Indigenous?

Indigenous people or actors can be the main character. Obviously, our culture is always a part of who we are, but it doesn't have to be that the reason we are in this role is because we are Indigenous. We can tell our story as a person and still value and venerate our culture without that being the only reason that we're in the story to begin with.

With big blockbusters, I feel like it ends up being like, "Oh, the lead is white, the other lead is white, and then everybody else is a person of color." I feel like that's a theme that we end up seeing a lot. But another really good way to improve [on that] is supporting Indigenous storytellers. We have so many stories, and [telling them] is one of the things that is keeping our cultures alive, and there are so many stories that could be told from our perspective.

#natla #atla #kiawentiio #netflix avatar #avatar the last airbender #netflix atla #avatar netflix #atla netflix #interview #harper's bazaar

[life-in-the-monster-haus]

omg not u believing a quiz in a website made by a third party company solely for the purpose of a failed giveaway in australia that mixes up the movie and cartoon/doll continuities over an actual leaked bible from a huge 4chan (not reddit!) nickelodeon leak that matches up with stuff released after it that's firmly believed by all the trusted doll leak sources...

and what was that about twyla and venus?

Why is it y’all only have the guts to air your greviences to me on anon? I wont block you for disagreeing with me, I’m not sensitive or a wuss and I’m much more inclined to be polite to someone with a name and not a faceless nobody. Just an FYI.

An international branch of Mattel is a way more reliable source than Reddit & if you think it’s a flex telling me the “leaked show Bible” came from 4chan & NOT Reddit, BOY have I got some news for you about the legitimacy of 4chan.

Yes, the Live Action Movie & The Show have different canons… is there a point to that statement or are we just saying the obvious? Not everything is going to be quadruple confirmed in canon like Draculaura being Asian or Frankie being nonbinary (movie character, actor, TV character, voice actor) all things won’t be hammered in that hard so we gotta take what we can get and international monster high is fair game because Mattel has to approve everything they do.

That leaked show “Bible” is sketchy as hell & no Monster High enthusiast worth their salt has taken it seriously. If you know anything about children’s media there is a lot of language used in it that is not Nickelodeon appropriate and I’m not the only one who thinks so. We don’t know where it came from, who wrote it or who posted it. Y’all saw something that looks slightly official and ran with it and that my darlings is a fool’s errand.

Y’all need to be more critical of the information you consume and perpetuate. “You should believe in nothing that you hear and only half of what you see- Edgar Allen Poe.”

And we need to stop screaming theories as if they are canon. I PERSONALLY head canon Twyla & Venus as lesbians (not together, Twyla is obviously in love with Howleen) because UNLIKE Clawdeen who has shown an interest in boys in previous generations they have never shown an interest in actual boys as far as I know. (I also made a chart of Clawdeen being attracted to girls for equal measure) that is how I see them, I don’t go shooting off that, that is canon information.

I know a lot of you desperately want Clawdeen to be a lesbian, I am very, painfully aware of this head canon but it is just that! A head canon! Yes it’s a very popular & persistent head canon but it’s a head canon nonetheless. G3 Clawdeen appears to have a crush on Deuce, now we don’t have time to unpack that weird ass ship but it does rule out Clawdeen as a lesbian. It does NOT however mean she is straight! Clawdeen could very well be Bi or Pan or any other sapphic inclusive sexuality. I PERSONALLY see her as Bi (for the reasons stated above) but you don’t see me claiming it’s canon.

“But Jess! What about compulsory heterosexuality!” - Clawdeen was created by a gay man. Do y’all really think a member of the LGBTQA+ community would put her through something that was hell for so many of us!? I highly doubt it.

I do not make the canon, I just study and report the canon, if had my way everyone would be fatter, browner and gayer.

Please, for the love of your deity of choice: stop believing everything you read, always ask for a source and stop being so cool with people making fake leaks it’s not some fun new fad it’s intentionally misleading & a little cruel to those of us who aren’t so great at social cues.

Mattel makes the canon & if it’s not from Mattel it’s probably not real.

#monster high #clawdeen wolf #mattel #mh

[shield-and-sword]

My Fandom Journey: Anime

I thought I'd make a little series talking about my various fandoms and my journey in them. I'm starting with a broader topic of anime, getting into more specific titles at a later post. I'll do a manga one next but my initial introduction into Japanese media was anime so I'll start here. This is gonna be a long rambly post btw.

When I was in the Philippines at a young age (I wanna say around 5 or 6 years old), me and my siblings started watching Digimon Adventures first, we literally watched all the episodes up until Digimon Tamers. We did watch western cartoons as well, we were lucky enough to have Sky so we had Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. One of the reasons I think I liked anime was because it wasn't as overly stylized as cartoons, human designs and characterizations weren't overly exaggerated like in Hey Arnold or Rugrats for example, not to say I didn't enjoy those cartoons because I totally did up to a certain age. Also because anime tended to have overarching storylines and arcs for the most part, compared to the episodic nature of early western cartoons, I found myself focusing more on the story and wanting to watch every episode. Honestly I remember being glued to the screen while watching Digimon and always made sure I watched every episode and if I missed one then I'd catch the re-run that they aired on the weekend (I remembered the exact airing schedule of this damn series when I was a child). Whereas when I missed an episode of Spongebob Squarepants or Courage the Cowardly Dog I'd be fine about it.

Most animes that were aimed at kids were licensed and aired on local channels like GMA and ABS-CBN and were majority dubbed in tagalog but there were a few channels that aired anime in english dub so that's how I watched anime most of the time. I am glad though that they kept the original Japanese openings and ending songs for the Tagalog dub. (I loved Hunter X Hunter's Ohayou Opening, it was seriously the best)

Majority of the imported anime to the Philippines were mostly shonen (as far as I was aware anyway) so the other animes we watched after school were Slamdunk, Medabots, Yu-gi-oh, Beyblade, Hunter X Hunter, Yu Yu Hakusho, Flame of Recca and a few episodes of Rave Master and Case Closed/Detective Conan. Surprisingly we weren't that into Pokemon but we did watch majority of the early seasons (Can't remember which ones, but Brock and Misty were the entourage). I think we watched Zoids too but only a few epsiodes.

When we got a bit older but still children (I was around 9-11) we started watching animes that would be considered seinen such as Rurouni Kenshin, GetBackers, Saiyuki, Cowboy Bebop, Galaxy Angels, Ranma 1/2, and a mecha anime that for the life of me I cannot remember the title of (It might've been part of the Brave franchise??). I also occasionally watched You're Under Arrest and Lupin III. Anyway most of these were obviously more censored than the manga or original Japanese version but they were still definitely innapropriate for my age range. I still don't understand how we got away with watching Rurouni Kenshin as kids it was aired on a sky channel that wasn't aimed at kids so the violence wasn't that censored, I think it was the first subbed anime that I watched

There are also animes that I didn't really watch but I was aware of like Naruto, Dragon Ball (Sorry to the fans I never quite got into these two series), Outlaw Star, Ah My Goddess, Inuyasha, Baki the Grappler, Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura.

Side note there's also another anime that I can't remember the name of but I've been looking for it forever, It's an old sci-fi spaceship anime about a man going through a mid-life crisis and becomes isekai'd(?) into this spaceship where he plays the electric guitar to power the ship and fight. Does anyone know this anime???

After moving to New Zealand when I was 11 I got exposed to different genres outside the usual Shonen and Seinen I grew up on. My first shoujo anime was Ouran High School Host Club followed by Fruits Basket, which while they're not my favorites, they hold a special place in my heart. I do remember watching animes early morning on Sunday, I would wake up at like 6am to watch Megaman, Digimon Frontier and Tokyo Mew Mew (yeah... 4kids ver). After school they aired Yu-gi-oh GX, Shaman King,

How I watched Anime also changed from just seeing what was on TV, the internet was becoming more accessible in our family (we had dial-up at first) and there were also video rental stores as well as the usual ripped DVDs that we got from friends. There wasn't a lot of choices in rental stores but they always had a decent selection of anime films and that's how I got into Ghibli films, also I think I watched the Ghost in the Shell film and 10 Centimeters per Second. At this time I watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Ao Hana, Hell Girl, xxxHolic, Mushishi, Death Note (early episodes), and Bleach (only until the end of Soul Soiety arc). You can kind of see from my selection here that I had a phase of mystery, supernatural anime.

I can't quite remember at around what point I transitioned to being manga only but once I came across the original source material of my favorite anime I stopped watching anime for the most part. There are notable exceptions, such as anime-only series like Psycho-pass and K, music related series like K-On! (I really wanted to hear the songs). Nowadays I'll read a manga or light novel (if translated) first then decide if it's worth it to watch the anime. I did that with Kuroko no Basket and Haikyuu! but I haven't done it recently. Basically if the anime has a manga as it's original source I'll choose that but if it's an original anime or a game-based, light novel based anime then I'll watch it.

This has been a loooong post. I'll do another one on my manga journey maybe tomorrow. This series essentially is just so I can word vomit about my fandoms because a lot of my friends don't share as many fandoms with me. If you've read until here then thanks for listening to me ramble.

Bye-bee~

#My Fandom Journey #Anime #essay?

[guideaus]

I think a weird thing on tumblr is when ppl are like "you shouldn't make nsfw content of minors in cartoons" instead of "you shouldn't make nsfw content of children's media." I remember seeing someone seriously try and say u shouldn't be weird about spyro the dragon because he's a minor and its like... maybe... just maybe u shouldn't be weird because its a cartoon dragon in a children's game... that children will probably see...

#personal #idk abt aging up when stuff like lok exists and obviously zuko is a grandpa by then and is past 20 or whatever #but it still feels weird #like if lok didnt exist and someone drew some suggestive art of hakoda or smth thats still definitely weird imo #and then ppl will be like 'korra stopped being 16 AFTER lok!' like ok...but its still a cartoon even if some atla fans were older then #idk i see a lot of ppl that sound like the progessive side of tumblr but they say that and its like. ok what abt the kids #who the cartoon is literally intended for... #that should be the point lol... #ugh all i know is I'll still hate the adults on here who ruined that shit for me #like if i was watching anime thatd probably be different but lok is objectively a cartoon that aired on nickelodeon #stop being weird abt childrens media!!

[jippy-kandi]

Digimon Adventure: 2020 – Yamato “Matt” Ishida & Sora Takenouchi

Thoughts on the new Digimon reboot series, Yamato, Sora, and the potential for Sorato . . . before it airs on 5 April 2020.

Which . . . is actually today in Japan. Yeah, I’m cutting it really close! But I wanted to write a post about it before it airs. The new Digimon Adventure: series will broadcast several hours from now in Japan -- and then be released online via Crunchyroll “worldwide” (select countries) a few hours after that. Which is great!

I’m going to refer to the series as Digimon Adventure: 2020 just to make it more obvious I’m talking about the reboot. Toei, please fire the person who suggested simply adding a colon to the original title was OK. Thanks.

So, when I first heard about the reboot, I did sigh and think, CAN DIGIMON PLEASE JUST DIE ALREADY?

I was thinking primarily of my wallet, because I have this irresistible urge to purchase almost every single Digimon merchandise with Yamato’s face on it (and usually Sora’s face, too -- as well as Taichi’s, to a lesser extent). So the fact that Digimon was still going? Well . . . yes, my wallet has continued to bleed.

I also thought Toei Animation were being really tired and greedy to reboot Adventure. No new ideas? Really?

But that was when the last Digimon series I watched was Digimon Adventure tri. in 2018 -- which I wasn’t particularly impressed with (save for Chapter 3: Confession).

Now?

I’m actually pretty excited about the reboot -- thanks largely due to having seen Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna a month ago. It even fuelled me to rewatch tri.! Which is quite a feat, because it was such a slog for me to get through the first time (. . . and still a slog on a rewatch). But Kizuna made me hungry for more Digimon!

So Digimon Adventure: 2020 has turned out to be a godsend (so far . . . that could change after it airs). I haven’t thought so much about Digimon in well over a year -- and Kizuna has made me think about it quite a bit this month.

My first thought about the first Digimon Adventure: 2020 key image was that, from the little we can see of it, Yamato’s purple top looked awful (I focus on Yamato a lot, if you couldn’t tell). Thankfully, it does look a lot better now that we can see it properly! In fact, I quite like Yamato’s reboot outfit.

But it really feels like this conversation happened in the Toei Animation offices:

Staff A: “Let’s modernise Digimon Adventure for a 2020 audience.” Staff B: “How about, instead of Yamato wearing a green turtleneck . . . he wears a purple turtleneck?” Staff A: “BRILLIANT!”

I’m sure they came up with the title for the series in the same meeting. *cough*

So I guess “modernising” the kids means tweaking their outfits a bit. I think Taichi, Jou, Koushirou and Mimi look fine, because their new outfits most resemble their old outfits. I also like Yamato’s, as I said. Sora’s took me back a little at first, because there’s just too much pink, but I’ve since gotten used to it and thinks she looks cute. Takeru and Hikari’s outfits are the worst, I think.

But I like that Yamato’s purple turtleneck “matches” quite nicely with Sora’s pink everything. And that they’re both wearing wristbands on opposite wrists! Sora’s appears to be a normal red sports wristband, and Yamato’s is a green handkerchief (obviously a throwback to his green turtleneck). Cute!

I also like that Sora is being “motherly” over Takeru in the first key image . . . because that was part of the Sorato foreshadowing in the original continuity. ;)

We can assume that the reboot is targeting two different audiences: the primary audience being adolescent boys (and girls, to a lesser extent) in 2020, and the secondary audience being the generation of children who grew up with the first series -- and are now adults.

Us.

So they want to sell more Digimon toys to a new generation of kids, because kids buy (or force their parents to buy) the most merchandise and generate the most money. Simple.

But they’re also betting on the old generation to be interested in it as well, and generate even more money on merchandise sales (as has been the case for tri. and Kizuna). That’s why they’re using the original Adventure characters, instead of just creating an entirely new Digimon series from scratch.

So while they’re going to aim to introduce a new generation to Digimon with an updated world, I think they’ll be aiming to “please” us old fans, too -- so I don’t think they’ll stray too far with the characterisations.

From what little information we have so far, it looks like it’s pretty much the same characters, placed into a modern 2020 world. It’s an entirely new story (canon), and there are modern updates to their clothes and accessories (tablets, smartphones).

But Yamato and Takeru still live apart due to their parents being divorced, and Taichi and Sora are still childhood friends . . . so it looks like their character backgrounds are still the same in the reboot.

Even so, a different staff can reinterpret their characters completely differently to the original staff. So even if the aim is to keep the characters the same, I think they’re going to end up being at least a little bit different, just because different people are involved in their creation this time around.

Is it possible Yamato won’t even be my favourite character in the reboot?

Yes.

It’s highly unlikely, because of my sheer 20-year attachment to him (HOLY FUCK I’M OLD T_T), but the possibility exists.

This has actually happened to me once before. Yamato has been my favourite fictional character of all time since I was introduced to him in, I think, 2000? It might have been late 1999.

But before Digimon aired on Western shores, my favourite fictional character was Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ‘90s movies (and the cartoon series, to a lesser extent). As a kid, I was completely obsessed with the very first TMNT ‘90s movie.

However, in Nickelodeon’s 2012 reboot of the TMNT series, my favourite character was Leonardo (best fictional leader of all time, people). He’s my favourite in the most recent reboot movies, too. But Raphael is still my favourite in the ‘90s movies -- I wish they hadn’t changed his character to that of a super typical brute in the reboots (which is what tri. almost did with Yamato, too. SIGH. MY EMO BOYS ARE NOT BRUTES).

It’s such a fine line between someone who pretends to be brutish to hide their emotions, and someone who is an actual brute -- because just having deep emotions doesn’t cancel out a character being a brute, if they’re just being a complete brute with their actions . . . it’s a really fine line! The TMNT ‘90s movie and original Digimon Adventure series got it right, but the TMNT reboots this past decade and tri. got it wrong.

But I don’t “force” myself to like things. If Toei screws with Yamato’s characterisation too much, he might not be my favourite character in the reboot. Tri. Yamato came close to making me dislike him in a few scenes in the first two tri. movies -- but thank god he got a lot better as the series went on, otherwise I might’ve dropped him, lol.

Just going off the official Toei Animation profiles, the 2020 characters appear to be pretty much the same with the same backgrounds. But there is an entirely new cast of voice actors for all of the kids (the digimon cast are the same from the original series, except Tailmon’s VA).

I think the reason the original voice cast for the kids didn’t return is because Taichi and Sora’s original VAs, Toshiko Fujita and Yuuko Mizutani, have unfortunately passed away (RIP), so it was an “all or nothing” thing. It would’ve been nice to have Yuuto Kazama back as Yamato, though.

Reboot Yamato will be voiced by Daisuke Namikawa (Daigo in Digimon Adventure tri.), and reboot Sora will be voiced by Ryoko Shiraishi (Akari in Digimon Xros Wars). I haven’t seen Xros Wars, so I have no thoughts on Sora’s new voice, but . . . Daigo as Yamato? Really?

I rewatched a scene where Daigo and Yamato converse in tri., and Yamato definitely has a lower voice than Daigo (who has a low voice himself), so I guess it makes sense for Daigo to be younger 11-year-old Yamato. (Although . . . Yamato has always had a too-low voice for a kid, lol.) But I’m really looking forward to hearing the entire new cast!

But if it’s possible that I might not like reboot Yamato, is it also possible I won’t even ship Sorato in the reboot?

Yes.

I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but the very first time I watched tri. (Chapter 1: Reunion), I thought to myself: If Yamato is going to act this way, Sora should just ditch him for Taichi.

Yep.

And this was because Yamato and Taichi switched roles in tri. (especially in the first two movies). I just don’t see Sora being attracted to guys like Yamato in Reunion (who was acting like Taichi in Adventure), but I do see her being attracted to guys like Taichi in Reunion (. . . who was acting like Yamato in Adventure). Thankfully, Yamato and Taichi go back to their usual roles/characterisations by the end of tri., so I still shipped Sorato in tri. and all is well in the world. ^_^

But if the reboot characterises Yamato and/or Sora a bit too differently that I just don’t like them together . . . I’m out. Again, I’m not going to “force” myself to like Sorato if I don’t think their personalities are compatible, or if there is zero connection shown between them in the reboot. There’s no point to me, personally, to ship what’s not there. For example, I actually like Mimato -- but I don’t “ship” it simply because it’s completely non-existent in Adventure.

But I guess, if there really are zero connections shown between Yamato and Sora in the reboot, I might still “like” them together anyway (casually) just from the fact that I have an attachment to them from the original continuity. But I hope there’s an actual connection shown in the reboot so I can ship Sorato harder, lol.

Hiroyuki Kakudou, the original series director of Digimon Adventure, told Misato Mitsuka, the new series director of Digimon Adventure: 2020, to do whatever he likes because it’s an entirely different canon. So Kakudou doesn’t feel “protective” of his old series from the new series, because he knows it’s not touching his canon.

(FACT: Yamato and Sora got married and had two adorable babies together in Digimon Adventure. The reboot can’t change that.)

At the moment, I think it’s likely that Digimon Adventure: 2020 will just be one season -- but who knows how greedy Toei will get? Maybe there could actually be a 02 where the original cast are the main characters!? (I personally would have wanted that, instead of the 02 we got with the 02 cast. :P)

Can you imagine if this reboot got a new season 15 years later a la tri.? Poor reboot Yamato will be forced into purple tops for the next 20 years, lol.

The reboot isn’t being narrated by a man this time (at least, a woman was hired to do the narration . . .), so Takeru is definitely not telling the story this time. I also don’t think they’ll do an epilogue, simply because it was done last time -- and they wouldn’t want to “restrict” themselves to staying true to it, like the original continuity did. But . . . what if the reboot wants to follow and frame the series with a similar narrative, and there is a reboot epilogue?

If that’s the case, I think it’s highly unlikely they would go with “another” canon couple/s, because it would be odd and disrespectful to the old continuity.

Can you imagine if Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask never hooked up? But Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Mercury were canon instead?

Yeah, insane.

Let me be blunt: I don’t think Taiora has a chance in hell of becoming canon in the reboot.

Will Taichi and Sora be portrayed as close childhood friends? Yes.

Will they have shippable moments? Probably.

But will they date and end up together? Nope.

As I said, I think it would be really weird (and even disrespectful) for there to be an original canon where Sorato is official, and a reboot canon where Taiora is official instead of Sorato. I just really don’t see it happening.

But, having said that . . . I could end up shipping Taiora in the reboot, and hoping like all Taiora fans that it does become canon, lol. The irony would be amazing. XD;

I think the reboot was/is being worked on as a one season idea. So even if they choose to do a second season for it later, that shouldn’t affect their plans for this first season (until towards the end, anyway, when the possibility of a second season can come to fruition). So let’s accept that the staff have worked on it as a one season concept for now.

It won’t have “romance” because it’s a shounen anime aimed primarily at prepubescent boys and the characters are 8 to 12. I think we’re going to get exactly the same treatment as the first Adventure -- and people worldwide will just naturally ship all the friendships between the kids.

Since the reboot is not the brainchild of Kakudou, I doubt they’ll be foreshadowing anything. But they could?

But if they don’t foreshadow Sorato, it does open up the possibility that they might make Sorato more overt instead? Even with no romance, they could make them better friends . . . because, remember, they do have knowledge of the original continuity. And I just don’t see them swaying from it (or against it) -- but that doesn’t mean they need to make it “official”. Especially as they’re just 11-year-old kids and there’s probably no epilogue. (But it would still be really amazing if the reboot made this a reality.)

But Sorato or no Sorato: I hope Digimon Adventure: 2020 is a good children’s anime, even if I’m way too old to be watching it. I hope they don’t just rehash all the old growth of the kids shown in the original continuity . . . I can’t handle another tri..

I guess I’ll make another post with my first impressions of the first Digimon Adventure: 2020 episode a day later. Maybe. It’s only 20 minutes, right!? But I don’t think I’ll be writing about it every week . . . that’s too much Tumblr for me (especially after I ignored Tumblr for a year). ^^;

Or maybe I will write a weekly post . . . because the world has gone crazy with the coronavirus pandemic. Stay safe, everyone!

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure: #digimon adventure 2020 #sorato #chosen children #taichi yagami #yamato ishida #sora takenouchi #koushirou izumi #mimi tachikawa #jou kido #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami

[blazehedgehog]

On certain shows, such as Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, there is a sort of contempt with censorship reflected in its characters. This got me thinking that writers probably intensely dislike the regulation of their work. Therefore I guess they just want to have freedom from this regulation. Would it be better that the writers are allowed free reign and write whatever they want, no matter what they are working with?

I mean, they totally can do that now, thanks to the internet. Adult Swim shows a version of Venture Brothers where words get bleeped and nudity is blurred, but if you want there are fully uncensored versions of those episodes on different streaming services.

The implications of a question like this are not lost on me, and I’d like to think you aren’t simply JUST asking about Animaniacs and Tiny Toons either, but are coming from this from a perspective of censorship as a whole.

As such, and this may be a controversial statement to some, but I think TV censorship is fine. Usually, anyway. Obviously shows like Animaniacs and Tiny Toons were railing against censorship, and that’s because you occasionally hear horror stories over the years about bizarre, specific problems a censor will have over something genuinely harmless. Like, for example, censors having a problem with Nickelodeon’s Angry Beavers telling someone to “shut up” because it might inspire kids to be rude. Or the story going around about a single British TV censor that railed against nunchucks. Sometimes it is legitimately dumb and unnecessary.

But TV censorship does a lot of good, too. I mentioned just a week or two ago that I am (or was, it’s complicated) pretty squeamish when it comes to excessive gore in horror movies. 

One night in 2013, a local TV channel aired Return of the Living Dead. Now, normally, that’s an extremely violent movie with lots of hardcore language and even full frontal nudity. It’s a kind of a heavy metal movie. And, sight unseen, it’s a movie I’d normally never consider watching, because there are parts that are pretty gross. People could tell me, “oh it’s not so bad” and I probably still wouldn’t watch it, because I don’t like excessive gore, and I wouldn’t want to risk it on principal alone.

But they put it on TV. And not cable, this was over-the-air, network television, the stuff you get for free as long as you plug in an antenna. Even though it aired past midnight, they still had to do their best to cut out the worst, most gross parts.

And in that context, I was willing to watch the movie. It’s legendary zombie cinema and I’m a fan of seeing TV edits of “adult” movies (I saw part of a really great TV edit of Fargo once that replaced all the swearing, it was hilarious).

Through that, through this censored-for-TV edit of a very violent 1980′s horror classic, I could appreciate it. And I thought it was really good! I enjoyed watching it enough that I actually ended up seeking out the uncensored version.

None of that would have ever happened without the censored version existing.

That’s the thing a lot of people are losing sight of in the modern “omg censorship!!!” debate: there are actually acceptable forms of censorship. It can be totally okay to censor something! Not everything always has to be rude, nasty, and uncensored! Sometimes, you even get the rare case where censorship is better!

Take anime like Ghost Stories or Samurai Pizza Cats. In both of those cases, during the process of dubbing those anime, the original Japanese scripts were lost and the American production studios got to play it by ear and make up whatever they wanted. You could absolutely spin that as a case of them censoring the original shows, but it’s also transformative in a way that made those shows more fun to watch. A lot fewer people would remember Samurai Pizza Cats if it was a straight translation of “Kyatto Ninden Teyandee.”

What about Animaniacs and Tiny Toons? What do you imagine an unfettered version of those shows would actually be like? If they didn’t have to write around the censors, would those shows be automatically improved? We may never really know, but at the same time, that censorship was part of their sense of humor. If you took that away, isn’t that in itself also a form of censorship?

A good example of comparison here I think is Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, which is the show that more or less launched Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. The original run of Space Ghost ran just as part of Cartoon Network’s late night programming, when it didn’t have any kind of special name. Cartoon Network had just relaunched the “Space Ghost Brand” through something called Cartoon Planet, which was a block of classic cartoons hosted by Space Ghost, Moltar, Zorak, and Brak. In between cartoons they’d respond to reader mail or do skits. It was weird, a little random, but 100% kid friendly and clean.

Coast to Coast was originally just an extension of that, but through the lens of a late night talk show like The Tonight Show or whatever. Space Ghost would interview celebrities and ask them wacky questions. Early episodes of Coast to Coast were very close in tone to Cartoon Planet, but eventually Williams Street (then known as Ghost Planet Industries) started pushing the boundaries of the show, thanks to the late night slot. It got darker, and weirder, and creepier, but they were still kind of beholden to certain Cartoon Network censorship standards…

…Until the launch of Adult Swim. Here’s a block of programming that spent the first 3-5 years of its existence literally yelling through a megaphone that their late night content wasn’t for children. Williams Street was given a chance to write their own standards, for… well, adults. Space Ghost relaunched, and now unshackled from Cartoon Network’s kid-focused censors, got even darker and weirder. They can swear now! Zorak isn’t just Space Ghost’s foil anymore, now he worships SATAN! This isn’t kids stuff like Cartoon Planet! Isn’t that COOL?

And frankly? I don’t think the show was better for it. There is a point where Coast to Coast gets too edgy for its own good and it loses its charm. There’s a sweet spot to the series, around season 5, where they’re pushing the boundaries but haven’t tipped over the edge just yet. Making the show uncensored (relatively speaking) did not really improve its quality in my eyes.

What you call “censorship” was an ingrained part of what made these shows so good and taking that away does not guarantee any increase in quality. Limitations foster creative thinking. It’s not about the vulgarity they couldn’t do, it’s how they worked around that vulgarity that we remember.

Do not become so obsessed with what entertainment you think you’re “losing” that you forget what we’ve already gained by filling that void with something else.

There are obviously situations in which censorship can be very upsetting and even dangerous. Censorship can absolutely be used as a weapon against the people. But that is not universally applicable in all scenarios. The idea that nothing can ever be censored is, in itself, also a weapon. As always, everything must be considered in moderation.

#questions #censorship #tiny toons #animaniacs #space ghost #ghost stories #samurai pizza cats #adult swim #long #winstein-nin

[spiftynifty]

she-ra is being produced by dreamworks, aired on netflix and is a revamp of an already existing past animation. if a show with an identical skeleton to voltron has already confirmed lgbt+ rep before airing i don’t understand why it’s so /difficult/ for voltron to have rep?

First of all, it was and still is difficult for Voltron to have rep, but friendly reminder that the LGBT rep on this show is that the lead character, a buff, skilled, powerful, head-of-Voltron, head-of-a-mech-the-size-of-a-moon is GAY. This is HISTORICAL, this has NEVER BEEN DONE in mainstream American cartoons for children. I still can’t believe it honestly. 

Now that we’ve reaffirmed that Shiro is gay, and with or without a boif by the end he is still gay, let’s get to your question. It gets long so I’ve thrown it under a cut.

I haven’t been following much about She-Ra cuz I already know I’m gonna support it (mostly cuz I want to support the showrunner and stick it to all the manbabies who are upset that She-Ra ‘isn’t sexy’) and don’t need to be sold so I had to google the LGBT rep you mentioned and

cool!!! I’m really happy to see there’s going to be some rep on the show, and in the form of mlm which as I mentioned previously is a harder thing to get in cartoons than wlw. So why is this A-OK but Voltron’s rep is a battle, when both are produced by the same company and released on the same platform? There are a couple reasons. 

1. Dreamworks owns the rights to She-Ra and Voltron, but their percentage of ownership over the intellectual property varies. She-Ra was created in the 80s by an American company, that shut down and sold off its IPs (incl She-Ra) to a bunch of different companies and got tossed around for like 30 years until DW swooped in and bought the company that had pretty much the entire library of IPs. Now they own the rights to most of the IPs and from what I can tell, owns most, maybe ALL, of the rights to She-Ra as an Intellectual property. In other words they can do whatever the hell they want with it and only have to worry about their own company’s shareholders. 

But Voltron is a very different robeast. The “original” Voltron is 2 animes spliced together thanks to a big misunderstood agreement between an american company and a Japanese one, and has a long history of comics, DVDs, and TOYS. The rights to this IP are ALL OVER THE PLACE, including Japan… where LGBT in media is carefully curated, restricted to the yaoi/yuri genres, and kept out of children’s programming. Which is why when you listen to the Japanese version of the Shiro/Adam scene, they’re just “best friends”. So take into consideration all the conservative-minded shareholders DW has to wrestle with in their own company, in the companies that have shares in the toys, and throw Japan’s media rules into the mix, and you have a big hot mess of people you need to please.

2. Times, they are a-changing. Voltron production began over 4 years ago. 2014 was the year Korra made history as the first queer lead character in an American children’s cartoon. It was a BIG. DEAL, and Bryke had to fight with Nickelodeon for the Korrasami ending. Now in 2018 Nickelodeon is one of the two major studios with LGBT content in their children’s cartoons. 

Likewise, DW is obviously starting to evolve in their stance on LGBT in their media. Adam may have been a fight, but we don’t know just how long ago that fight was. His existence as Shiro’s boyfriend, and the internet reaction to his death, as LM and JDS said, led to “many conversations about the future going forward” in regards to LGBT. They don’t specify who those conversations were with or if those conversations shifted anything in Voltron, but it certainly leads to some optimism for Dreamworks in their future projects. Making their lead male character gay was an enormous leap forward for a company who had never had a queer character before. Two gay dads for a mainish character would have been a much easier first step for the company and its shareholders. For all we know though, those two tertiary characters existing at all was the INTERNAL baby step in the company. Getting used to them may have been one of the many things that helped get us canonically gay Shiro. 

3. I’m guessing what you’re ACTUALLY asking is, why is it so hard to get a mlm relationship on Voltron (namely, SHEITH), when She-Ra has one? Simply put, Keith is the problem. Shiro is a kind of franken-IP character. Sven was the original, in the original, and while Shiro obviously embodies his character, Sven was a kind of side character who got killed off a handful of episodes in. Keith, on the other hand, is the original’s main character, the hero, complete with the “hero gets the girl” trope at the end. He is, or was, supposed to be the archetype that young heterosexual boys put themselves onto. 

But this Keith is different than the others. His devotion and love for Shiro/Sven is new, and hasn’t existed in any other iteration of the property. The way it exists in Legendary Defender is… Extra, to put it mildly, and to put it bluntly, Keith is so obviously in love with Shiro that even the most casual viewers of the show assume this statement is fact regardless of much they like or dislike the pairing. The line that the EPs must be walking with this relationship must be an incredibly fine one. This is pure conjecture but I imagine they would have had the notion for Shiro/Keith in their mind since very early days but began by warming the execs to the idea of Shiro first, seeing if they could at least get ONE LGBT character, while carefully testing the limits of his relationship with Keith and seeing if the show itself could make the case for them. 

However, Keith and Shiro being together would mean the Hero Archetype of the original show and ostensibly the true main character of this one is LGBT himself. While in the Voltron world labels have evaporated and no one cares what kind of human (or alien, or robot!) you’re into, our world just isn’t there yet. Conservative-minded, homophobic people still exist en masse, some of them shareholders in Dreamworks and Voltron. Shiro being gay was a fight. Keith being mlm alongside him is a war. The hurdle for getting two tertiary male characters to be a couple is nothing more than a bump compared the mountain of fighting to make the two lead male characters of a robot show be romantically involved. It isn’t impossible, but the odds aren’t exactly great. 

Dreamworks’ track record of LGBT is virtually nonexistent before Shiro, but now that they’ve gotten over that “hurdle” the road ahead for LGBT is going to be smoother for their company. With Bow having two dads, with Ezor and Zethrid, it clearly already is. I’m really excited to see what other projects will be affected by Shiro, and I’m definitely hoping that Voltron itself is one of them.

#long post #lgbt in cartoons #voltron #meta #industry stuff #anonymous

[techouspeaks]

Toon VS Toon: The Dragon Prince VS She-Ra and the Princesses of Power 2018

Both shows have a lot of promising diversity but which one does it better? 

Alright, so you’re probably wondering why I compare these two shows together? A side from being both hosted on Netflix and showing a lot of diverse characters and story elements, along with taking place in a magical universe where war is raging on and the fate of good solely relies on our heroes saving the day. There’s not too much they have in common.

Well the thing is that’s what I’m going to discuss, how they handle diversity and which one does it better.

Now if you hadn’t read my She-Ra review, I basically think the show is okay. The concept and how the characters are drawn are nicely done and I like Adora, Mermista and Bow. Some of the concepts are very interesting. I just feel it lacks a little bit, especially in animation and character development. I feel like the story and character development is way rushed including the relationships between the characters including our leading female lead Adora and her rival villain Catra. 

The Dragon Prince I recently started watching and it didn’t take me too long to get invested. I liked the settings, the animation is gorgeous and the characters are very likable, despite the dufus wimpy lead that even Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon would call a dork. I kinda think that Callum was meant to be a copy of Hiccup a little bit. 

The one thing these two shows do have in common is diversity as I said. The characters are all diverse. You have lesbians or hints of lesbian relationship, you have people of different cultures and different skin tones all in this world and it’s not a huge thing, but which one does it better? Which show handles the diversity much better and respectfully.

Let’s look at She-Ra. We have a lot of female leads that have different body shapes and skin tones and all that. There’s even a hint that during a dance with Adora and Catra that there might be some closer feelings. However, this is barely hinted at. There’s no real actual gay relationships as of now. It could be because the series has yet to have a season 2 and Dragon Prince has two seasons already, but still it lacks a bit.

As stated before Bow and Sea Hawk are kinda gay stereotypes. They’re obviously not gay because Sea Hawk does flirt with Mermista and has this huge infatuation with her and Glimmer kinda has a thing for Bow so it’s undecided if Bow is actually gay or not, but it’s obvious they’re stereotypes. At least Sea Hawk is and Bow is sorta that but not as bad. He’s very competent as a character and besides liking pretty things and the whole “Best Friend Squad”, he does act like a natural person would, but yeah his overall is still pretty much a dated stereotype of “Let’s put this kind of character in it because social justice is in right now!” 

All the other characters I’ve said before in my review just feel like well archetypes. You have the lack of emotion, bored tough chick whom I do like and is my favorite character but lets face it, she’s an archetype. I’m not going to deny that even if I do like her. The sweet sensitive type, the geeky nerd that is totally into tech more than people so much so she’s extremely socially awkward. Aside from Glimmer, Adora, maybe Catra and sometimes Bow, most just feel like archetypes and with how the characters are design and how this show tries to be in your face with “We have diverse bodies and we have diverse this and that!”, it comes across almost deceitful with it’s premise. Especially any male character remotely masculine is one of the bad guys and that’s a bad thing. Feminism isn’t about hating or showing masculinity as a bad thing but something as equal to it or just as needed and that the role of masculine and feminine can be reversed around.

The Dragon Prince has it’s stereotypes too. Like I said, Callum is pretty much your wimpy hero that wants to find his place in the world. However, most of the characters are pretty much realistic. What I enjoy about this series is that it does show diversity but in the right way. Not only because there’s more diverse characters ranging from not only on the main list such as sexuality, breaking gender roles and races but also in other factors such as a character that is deaf and mute, a character that is blind and even at one point, Rayla was experiencing what it’s like to lose a limb, which that happens to people too. However, it’s how these characters are represented that makes this show stand out nicely.

All the diversity is treated naturally, like it’s been there for years and everyone accepts that people no matter what they are or who they are can do anything. They don’t feel like they’re just put there for the sake of pleasing the audience with “Hey we got this type of character in it! So you have to like the show!”. The characters just fit in the role. The king just happens to be black, the general just happens to be deaf, the pirate just happens to be blind, the queens are lesbian, which I don’t understand how they have a kid together in a world where technology isn’t established. I guess maybe some sort of  magic, maybe one of them is transgender but okay! It’s just well natural. It’s treated like a normal thing. 

The only bias thing here is just magic folk, more specifically the elves and creatures that are connected to magic vs humans.

Most of the characters in the Dragon Prince feel real, like they are people you will meet, including the villain somewhat. 

In fact, when you really think about it, the Dragon Prince does feel like an old 90s - early 00s show, because a lot of shows like Captain Planet, Avatar the Last Air Bender, Storm Hawks, among other kids action shows that did have diversity. The thing is we weren’t so into social justice stuff back then that maybe people just don’t realize it now. We had diversity in kids shows back then, with the exception of an open gay character, but I guess people just aren’t paying attention. 

What I say about this show being close to say Avatar or early shows is a good thing. It makes it feel less dated. Like you could watch this show years from now and not go “On this was from the mid to late 10s”. In fact, characters don’t even rely on slogans like some of the characters will say in She-Ra or talk like again “Best Friend Squad”. Okay, that’s not really a huge slogan but you get what you mean. 

Sometimes the Dragon Prince will get preachy like how Ezran will say all that is right about humans when Rayla does her human impression, but over all, it’s not in your face about the diversity. 

The only thing people may complain about is the lack of “diverse bodies” aka having a fat or “curvy” characters in it. I think there is only one character that I would say is on the chubby side and that’s one of the kings that Viren meets at the meeting, which I say, you’re talking about a show where most of the characters including the queens fight and know how to fight. Even if a fat or somewhat chubby or curvy character fights, they ‘re gonna lose most of that because that’s how your body burns calories. There’s a reason why if you want to lose pounds you exercise. It’s science and this show at least has some science to it’s lore! Well except, again I dunno how two queens make a baby but again, maybe one of them is trans and with no kind of surgery for that kind of thing, they still have all the male parts. Hey it’s still showing a lesbian relationship. The man becomes a woman so...that’s something! It’s showing a trans and lesbian relationship. Or maybe the girl is actually adopted, I dunno. It’s still treated as a normal thing and at least we actually do see the queens kiss so there’s something!

Another thing that kinda makes She-Ra 2018 a bit dated is the use of colors and animation. It uses the same kind of flash animation and colors that a lot of shows like Steven Universe and other cartoon network  and Disney channel shows tend to use. Not much of the animation makes it stand out or different from shows that use the same kind of style and pallets. That and there’s times where it’s clear the animation isn’t so good. The characters may not move as fluently as they need to move and some scenes look a bit incomplete.

Guys I know it’s hard to do animation but if a small team of animators making a youtube show, the Hazbin Hotel, can clean up on their animation and even without the clean up is still good, there’s no excuse. She-Ra’s animation crew work at Dreamworks, the same studio behind the How to Train Your Dragon series and Voltron! Shoot, the Dragon Prince isn’t even owned by a huge company and it still does better!

The Dragon Prince is set in a more mythological time period and the animation fits well into it. The use of lighting and colors as well as shading makes it feel like genuine. It still looks similar to shows say like Storm Hawks or other 3D action shows but it still has it’s own look and it’s a breath of fresh air to see a show have such beautiful colors and designs. The colors are can be light and pretty with shading to make it easier on your eyes as well as dark in grim when the scenes need to fit that tone.

So obviously, the Dragon Prince does win over She-Ra. If you disagree or think I’m a bit bias, okay. I grew up with wonderful animation such as Disney and Nickelodeon shows. I can’t help but like quality animated shows!

I also like to point out, though this isn’t a comparison, but since this is sort of my review of the show, I must say I really do like how smart the characters including the side characters are in the Dragon Prince. Most of the time in a story like this, the people will blindly follow the evil adviser, not realizing he did it, only to go against the villain at the end when the truth is found out. Here, that’s not the case. Even his own children start feeling odd about their father and most of the soldiers don’t like him nor want to do what he says. Many of the characters suspect Viren’s nature and even the kings and queens while at first want to go with Viren’s plan to group up for war, it’s only until the child queen (I sadly forgot her name) decides, even after the heartbreaking tale of how her parents died, feels that it’s pointless forcing her people to fight in a war where they are more likely to be killed, that the other royals follow beside her and go against the war. It’s done realistic. No one is just a plain idiot! People have their own thoughts and the series never fails to show how each individual feels.

In this day and age, we know that leaders are gonna have many followers and many enemies or people that don’t agree with them even under their reign. This makes sense and I like how this show handles that. Such a simple thing like that is what makes this show a breath of fresh air and why She-Ra doesn’t remotely hold a candle to it.

I may do a review of the show, a proper one and give it my full rating. So far, you I think highly of this show and as for She-Ra, I will continue to watch it as time goes on and when season 2 finally comes out, I’ll check it out. Maybe the later seasons will fix the problems I have or stay the same. It’s not a bad series but I’m gonna act like I don’t have problems with it. I’m not gonna pretend to like something more when the series that is obviously superior does better than it.

I will say this. How you relate to each one depends on you. Maybe you do find yourself relating to She-Ra’s characters and situations. If that’s true, more power to you. You may even say I’m wrong with how I explain things. I honestly, don’t care since most of the time I don’t read notes anyway but I’m not gonna tell you what to like or dislike. These are personal opinions. Nothing more, nothing less.

So that concludes that the Dragon Prince is the winner of Toon VS Toon Battle. Highly do recommend you check both series out as much as I think less of She-Ra, it’s good for at least one viewing so you can draw your own conclusions. Naturally, I highly recommend the Dragon Prince especially if you’re hugely into animated fantasy adventure series like Avatar the Last Air Bender, maybe Adventure Time, Storm Hawks and Legend of Korra.

I’m Tech! Seeya in the next review!

#She-Ra #she ra netflix #she-ra and the princesses of power #the dragon prince #legend of korra

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: The Legend of Korra

Avatar: The Last Airbender is, without a single doubt in my mind, one of, if not the, greatest cartoons of all time; it’s up there with Batman: The Animated Series, The Simpsons, and all those other time-tested classics. But even as it ended, there was always this feeling like the magnificent world created for the show could be explored ever further, expanded upon, and just in general be given a whole lot of new perspectives.

Enter The Legend of Korra.

The show is set several decades after Aang saved the world (as Katara always believed he could, according to the opening narration). Aang eventually died and a new avatar was born, the titular Korra; the show is all about how she comes into her own as the Avatar.

Now, just from that brief summary, it seems like this show would be an awesome thing right off the bat, right? Everything is there for this to be an epic continuation of an incredible animated work… and yet, it took this show two Books to truly find itself, and even then there were some truly questionable storytelling decisions that leave this show far behind Avatar in terms of quality. And look, I like this show. I really do. I enjoy it, I enjoy seeing the callbacks to the earlier series, I like most of the villains a great deal, I love the mythos they created about the Avatar as a concept by showing us its origin, there is a lot of genuinely great stuff that’s on par with the original series here. But while the original show had weak episodes here and there, Korra had entire weak Books; where the original show had some occasional bad writing, Korra had some truly bad plot points; and where the original show had a dragged-out romantic arc that, while a bit tedious, never really overstayed its welcome, Korra had one of the absolute worst romantic arcs in modern fiction with the most terrible, stupid, pandering, and nonsensical ending imaginable, one that insults me on so many levels.

But I’m getting far ahead of myself there. I’m going to briefly go over each Book and what works about each, and what doesn’t. The best place to start is from the beginning, so… let’s start there.

Book 1 has a sort of reputation as being a Book that was too rushed to really live up to its full potential. And you know what? I’ll agree to that. Nickelodeon really screwed this show over big time throughout its run, but the tiny amount of episodes they allowed the first Book was a big problem. The plot that doesn’t really get going until halfway through, the inane twists, the rushed conclusion… with more episodes things could have been fleshed out a lot better. Here’s the thing, though: even with more time, if they kept a lot of this Book the same… it would still suck a whole lot of ass.

Book 1 is pretty much a trainwreck, evident from the first scene, which shows a toddler Korra bursting through a wall, showing off every kind of bending save air, and saying “I’M THE AVATAR AND YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH IT!” This is our introduction to our main character. This is the first time we see her, our first impression. And they decide to introduce her in the least likable, most obnoxious, and dare I say most Mary Sue-ish way possible.

Now I have gone on record before saying I absolutely loathe the term Mary Sue; I find it to be a term that lacks any real substance to it and is really just shorthand for someone to dismiss a character. But the most common definition - a character who has so much going for them, rarely suffers any consequences, and is just well liked by everyone while getting the world handed to them - actually, sadly, fits Korra in the early episodes. She’s good at all forms of bending save air from when she’s a toddler, she almost instantly becomes a pro playing sports, she gets two cute boys fawning over her, she gets the greatest possible airbending teacher anyone could ask for… One could argue she gets built up so much like this to make her being torn down halfway through the Book more powerful, but it just really comes off as grating and obnoxious to watch.

It’s not like the other characters are written much better. Mako in particular is written to be one of the biggest morons on Earth, and Bolin, while charming, is something of a Diet Sokka. Tenzin is easily the best character of the Book, what with being voiced by J.K. Simmons and all, but his children… yuck. All of them are annoying and just feel superfluous, with Meelo in particular existing for seemingly no reason other than fart jokes. It’s not like Avatar was above using those kinds of jokes, but they didn’t have an entire character dedicated to them. Lin Beifong is pretty cool, a worthy successor to Toph, though be warned: she takes a lot of stupid pills between this Book and the next. Asami is pretty and badass, and she’s also one of the better characters of the Book, but sadly she gets tangled up in the worst aspect of the entire first Book: the love triangle.

The love triangle involves Korra, who is loved by Bolin and Mako, though Mako was in a relationship with Asami after they met, and Korra is with Bolin, but secretly likes Mako and… who cares? This is not what anyone wants out of a show based on Avatar. Just because they’re teenagers doesn’t mean they need to get up in all of this sub-par soap opera bullshit. This here honestly ruins the Book; while some would say Book 2 was the weaker Book due to its incredibly stupid plot and lackluster villain, at least Book 2 had Varrick and the Avatar Wan episodes. This Book really doesn’t have any big plus it can count in its favor. No, not even Amon.

Amon is the villain of Book 1, and early on he is just indescribably cool. His menacing voice provided by the always excellent Steve Blum, his creepy mask that evokes the titular V of V for Vendetta, his ability to remove bending, the fact he manages to scare Korra shitless… it’s all amazing. And then comes the reveal that he’s actually a bender. A waterbender, even. He has been using bloodbending this whole time to remove people’s bending. All of the shit from the big reveal really just leads to defang Amon from a nightmarish force to be reckoned with to a miserable bundle of angst. Noatak, who he is revealed to truly be, feels like an entirely different character. Still, even with his derailment, his final scene is one of the most effective in the entire series: as he and his brother escape on a flying ship, his brother, despite his brother’s words indicating that he wants to start over a new life with him and have things be good between them again, takes an electrical gauntlet and fires into the ship’s fuel tank, causing an explosion which kills them both. This is a murder-suicide that was shown on Nickelodeon. It is emotional, powerful, and truly shocking in a good way. It’s easily the standout scene of the Book, and almost makes it worth it.

Then comes the asspull.

You see, Korra had her bending taken by Amon. This could have led to so many incredible storylines as she worked to gain it back, utilizing only the airbending she was stuck with, the one kind of bending she wasn’t instantly good at. Sure, it may have ended up retreading a bit of Aang’s struggles, but that was good stuff! But instead… Aang’s spirit comes out of nowhere and the past Avatars all combine their powers and POOF! Korra gets her bending back. This is a dreadful resolution; I get they were unsure if they’d get to follow up on this or not, but leaving the door open with uncertainty is so much better than closing a bunch of doors. Why not have her just get a talk from Aang, telling her she can get her power back with enough training? End it on a dark but still hopeful note, with her having to work back up to how she was before. That would have been a hell of a lot better than this deus ex machina crap.

Overall, Book 1 is just a hot mess. It has isolated elements that are pretty good, but overall it’s kind of a complete mess story wise and character wise. It’s frankly amazing this show got a second Book… but it did. And oh lord is this Book something.

Book 2’s biggest crime is that it is utterly forgettable. I hardly remember anything from the first half of this Book because it is just so bland and uninteresting, and while it’s nowhere near as bad as Book 1’s love triangle, it doesn’t even stick in the mind. The shining gem of this first half - and the Book as a whole, mind you, if not the SERIES - is Varrick, the eccentric inventor, and his beleaguered assistant Zhu Li, who is frequently asked by Varrick to “do the thing.” These two make all the difference; without them this Book would easily be more unwatchable than the first, but with them… well, it still sucks but they manage to carry things.

Unalaq, the villain of the Book, is an utter bore. He’s obviously bad from the get-go and he is easily overshadowed later by the far more intriguing Vaatu, who ties deep into the mythos of the series by being one of the reasons the Avatar came to be at all. Unalaq also has two kids who are just as boring as he is and who spend the series not doing much anything noteworthy.

The real draws of this Book are basically everything to do with the spirits and their realm, as well as the origin story of the Avatar. Avatar Wan’s big two parter is the first part of the series to feel as fresh and epic as the original series, and it shows us just how the Avatar came to be in the first place. The other scenes in the spirit world are pretty great, featuring appearances from Uncle Iroh, Wan Shi Ton, and Admiral Zhao of all people. Then there’s the big shakeup at the end: Korra is now cut off from her past lives, and spirits and humans can now live together. These are some huge changes to the status quo of the series to the point where it feels like an apology for how bad and pointless Book 1 feels in the grand scheme of things. And you know what? Apology accepted. Book 2 is a mess, but it manages to find itself in the end and help steer the show into being the great work it ended up as.

Now on to Book 3.Book 3 is where the show really was able to show off how great it could be, to the point my only issues with the Book are minor. Most of my problems stem from the fact that Korra had very small Book, with about 12 or so episodes per book as opposed to Avatar’s 20. This is kind of a problem, because it gives some characters less of a time to develop, a fate that unfortunately befalls the members of the Red Lotus who aren’t Zaheer. Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore the Red Lotus and think they’re all fascinating villains, and Zaheer is one of the most interesting villains in the series as an evil airbender, but Ming-Hua, Ghazan, and P’Li sadly get very little in terms of backstory. You DO get something, but they end up feeling more like the Cobra Unit from Snake Eater than fully fleshed-out bad guys… which is to say, they’re fun and effective, just don’t expect them to show great complexity. I wholeheartedly believe that they could have been expanded on if Book 3 had those extra seven episodes in it, and it’s a real shame we didn’t get to truly explore these fascinating characters.

My other problems, again, are pretty minor. I didn’t much care for Bumi becoming an airbender, and felt like it sort of cheapened his and Tenzin’s character a bit. Kai, a pubescent airbender scamp, was not a very likable character here, and it was pretty annoying having to put up with him, not to mention his ship tease with Jinora. Zuko also shows up, but it’s in a very minor role and he’s not really focused on at all. There’s a few more nitpicks here and there but these things are really my main issues.

The story is a lot darker and more mature here, especially in its repercussions for the rest of the series. Korra’s near-death experience here leaves her broken and haunted by PTSD, which becomes a major focus in Book 4. This Book is also where they really stopped giving a shit, and there are several particularly shocking and gruesome deaths for the show. We have Zaheer answer that age-old fan question “Could an airbender suck the air out of somene’s lungs?” with a demonstration on the Earth Queen, P’Li’s laser eye backfires and blows her head up, Ming-Hua is painfully electrocuted to death, and Ghazan takes a page from Gollum’s book and dies immersed in lava (and rubble for good measure).

This Book truly delivers the experience this series promised us in the beginning; it truly feels like an evolution of the Avatar series in the best way possible. While there are a few bumps here and there, there’s nothing really brutally bad that could derail the overall quality of the season. It has a great villain, and that villain has a great villain posse; there’s a lot of great cameos and character appearances, including some surprising ones; we learn more about Lin’s past; we get a whole lot more airbenders and an interesting plot going on with them that even in the end makes Kai more likable; and most importantly we have a solid plot with real consequences on the characters.

Oh, and there’s that little Zelda Williams character who appears near the end… wonder what her significance is…

She’s Book 4’s bad guy.

Book 4 is the final season of Korra, and while I don’t think many would say it surpasses Book 3 (which is quite the task, considering), I definitely think it’s a really great final season that wraps up just about everything that needs to be wrapped up. It also does a really good job with character development, like, REALLY good.

This season is where Korra really becomes a character I love, because her struggles are very personal and interesting. She’s constantly haunted by what happened to her in Book 3, and is stalked by a shadowy version of herself wherever she goes. Long gone is the obnoxious borderline Mary Sue character that she felt like in the first season; here, Korra truly feels human and relatable. More impressive than even that may be the transformation of the character Prince Wu, who starts the season as one of the single most unlikable characters in the whole series but ends up as an amusing and even somewhat heroic figure. Frankly I find it hard to hate a character who utilizes his terrible singing to help evacuate a city.

As I mentioned before, Kuvira is the villain, and she’s very much a visionary sort who thinks ruling the world under her iron fist is what’s best for everyone. Zelda Williams really gives her a real air of importance and even a bit of sympathy; she’s definitely a great example of an anti-villain of the quality of Zaheer, though I wouldn’t go as far as to say she’s as good as him exactly. Still, one can’t help but appreciate a woman who creates a massive robot that fires death lasers made out of entirely unbendable platinum. I know a lot of people find this thing to be utterly ridiculous and stupid, with little foreshadowing of its existence and just in general how ludicrously impossible and impractical it could be… but come on, it’s a GIANT ROBOT. I guess it just appeals to my inner Metal Gear fan, even if I do realize and accept it’s the most ridiculous thing in any of the two series.

I think what’s really great about this book is how it really just makes things that shouldn’t work, work really well. Case in point: there was an annoying, executive mandated clip show that, if they didn’t do, would have caused a lot of staff to be laid off. So what does the team do? They use the episode to take the piss out of everything in the show that didn’t work, from the shitty romance subplots to a hilarious scene where Zaheer, Amon, and Vaatu are all on the phone and trying to keep not just Unalaq, but Varrick’s movie version of Unalaq, out of the loop. In fact, the entire thing basically being Varrick doing an abridged series of the show is golden, because everything Varrick does is golden. Speaking of Varrick, his “Do the thing” catchphrase is used interestingly three times: one time it is a legitimately heartbreaking tearjerker, and the other two are just the sweetest, most heartwarming things you will ever hear. This sounds absurd, but again: this Book is all about making the most implausible things end up pretty good.

There’s so much about this Book that really makes it stand out - from Hiroshi Sato managing to reconcile with his daughter and sacrifice himself to the return of so many characters to just about everyone getting a happy ending… it’s a shame that it all got overshadowed by the most shallow, stupid moment of the entire series. Hell, BOTH series. You know what I’m talking about, you know what it is, it’s the thing that made me want to write this review in the first place:

Asami and Korra end up an official couple.

Now, generally speaking I wouldn’t have a problem with this. I like both characters, I myself am bisexual so it’s nice to see characters represent me in media, and hey, I’ve always championed Dumbledore as a great LGBT character when he was never explicitly shown to be so, so why do I hate this so much? Well, in regards to the latter, here’s the thing: Dumbledore is not the main character of the series, and his homosexuality is foreshadowed. We are not privy to Dumbledore’s private thoughts, we are not even given an in-depth look at his character until he dies in the penultimate book, and romance was never really a focus of the character. In contrast, Korra is in fact the main character of the show and who we follow the most, romance has unfortunately been a major factor in her development since the first Book, and the biggest problem: her being bi for Asami comes right the fuck out of nowhere.

There is like one line earlier in the book where Korra, while wandering, only really wrote to Asami. That’s it. These two barely interact or show any signs of romantic interest in each other until that final moment when they walk into the portal together. It feels like the ultimate ass pull, just a really lame third option to resolve all the love triangle garbage while simultaneously winning brownie points for being such a bold, daring move for a cartoon… but it doesn’t even show them kiss. They stare longingly at each other. THAT’S IT. Contrast Steven Universe, which is wholly and unabashedly filled with LGBT romance, particularly Garnet, who is literally the physical embodiment of a lesbian relationship, or even Adventure Time, who built up PB and Marceline’s past romance before having them get together and even kiss onscreen in the finale of that show. Korra is ultimately nothing`special, and that final moment was not a big step forward for representation or an important moment in TV history. It was a poorly built up shocking swerve that ended a series that had finally risen to the quality of the series it spun off from with the same bullshit that hampered this show’s original seasons to begin with.

Despite this, Book 4 is definitely a good finale to a show that, while it didn’t start out as such, ended up great. Really, the fact the final book was good despite having a lot of stupid elements and bad romantic resolutions is sort of a microcosm of the show as a whole, and showed despite those things the show could still tell an interesting story and be as grand as the original show was.

I don’t think this is one of the greatest cartoons of all time, but as a sort of follow up to the original series, I think it’s pretty solid. It was at its best when it was trying to tell mature stories and deal with darker subject matter than one would expect from a modern cartoon, and fumbled when it tried to shoehorn in the sort of romantic gunk one expects from teenagers. It worked best with its characters when their flaws felt natural and their issues were personal, and its villains worked better when they had simple yet fully fleshed out goals rather than overly complicated backstories or evil for the sake of evil. Korra is most definitely a mixed bag, but it’s a mixed bag I definitely recommend opening up sometime. If you liked the original show or just like story-driven or action oriented shows in general, this is one of the best ones of recent years. You have to slog through some crummy stuff to get to the gems, but boy oh boy are those gems shiny.

Also, I should have mentioned this earlier, but I am just so happy Toph is just a cranky old bad bitch even after all that time. Even while the Avatar world changed so much, it’s nice to know that some things will never change,

#Michael After Midnight #Review #TV show review #legend of korra #The legend of Korra #Korra #avatar #Avatar: the last airbender

[lookbackmachine]

Disney Afternoon Part 2

The Disney Afternoon Pt 2

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https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-look-back-machine/id1257301677?mt=2

0:00:00 Speaker 1: The Disney Afternoon hit an unexpected hiccup a few years earlier that was finally starting to rear its ugly head. Eisner and Katzenberg would try to strong-arm their former boss Barry Diller, which would lead to unexpected new competition. In 1988, Eisner bought a television station in Los Angeles that eventually became KCAL. With his new station, he obviously wanted to air Disney product. There was a problem. They were already airing the Disney Afternoon on Fox affiliates, Barry Diller's network.

0:00:32 S1: According to DisneyWar, Eisner had Katzenberg call Diller. In Diller's recounting of the discussion, Katzenberg said, "We want to renegotiate the Disney Afternoon, and we're taking away the LA market." Diller was shocked. They had a contract. "That's not fair," he protested. "I know you bought an LA station, but give us two or three years to replace this. Let's be reasonable." Diller called Eisner, who refused. "We were there for you when you needed us," Diller reminded him, pointing out that he'd bought the original programming for Disney Afternoon. Eisner still refused. "Okay then, we're out of business," Diller said. Fox promptly dropped the Disney Afternoon from all of its wholly owned stations and encouraged its affiliates to do the same. Still, that wasn't what put Diller over the edge. Even though he felt Eisner had betrayed him, it was when Disney sued Fox on antitrust grounds claiming Fox was trying to monopolize children's programming and then complained to the FCC that Fox was a morally unfit broadcaster with programming like the Simpsons.

0:01:35 S1: When Disney lawyers approached Diller about a possible settlement, Diller said the only settlement he'd consider was an apology. Disney ended up dropping the suit in 1992, but Diller told David Geffen, "I'm never going to speak to him, Eisner, again." Fox would launch its own kids programming in 1990, which would eventually cut into Disney's ratings with the cultural phenomenon Power Rangers, not to mention Batman, the animated series, and Animaniacs. Power Rangers was a show that no one wanted. It was turned down by everyone, and then became the show everyone wanted and wanted to replicate. Premiering in August of 1993, by December it was the biggest kid show by far. According to the Baltimore Sun, it was averaging a 12.5 on weekends with kids two to 11. Fox's X-Men was doing a 10.0. And it was first on weekdays. It was doing a 7.5 rating. Second was Fox's Animaniacs with a 5.6, and the highest rated non-Fox show on weekdays was Bonkers with a 4.5. Also in 1994, Power Ranger toy sales would reach nearly a billion dollars. At their highest height, Ninja Turtles had done only $450 million in sales.

0:02:50 S1: The butterfly effect was now spreading its wings, and the Disney Afternoon would take a hit, as did the future of syndication as networks realized they should be promoting their own IPs instead of other companies. It would even happen to Fox when Warner Brothers would take its popular hits, Batman and Animaniacs, and put it on their own WB network. And it wasn't just network competitors anymore, cable had entered the market as well. Nickelodeon had popped into the world of animation and their first three cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, Doug, and Rugrats had all been big successes. The syndication window was closing in the not too distant future, but for now Disney Television Animation was about to change with the times.

[music]

0:03:43 S1: Greg Weisman, creator Gargoyles.

0:03:46 Greg Weisman: The pitch for Aladdin, that I pitched to Eisner, it was just one poster shot of Aladdin and the Genie and three words, "Aladdin the series". He's like, "Sold." That was it. And I knew that. In other words, going in, it was like I could have given this whole pitch on Aladdin, but I thought anything I say would only give him a reason to say no. Aladdin's this huge movie. Let him imagine what the show is.

0:04:11 S1: Tad Stones, creator of Darkwing Duck.

0:04:14 Tad Stones: At the end of Darkwing, I said, "Okay, now Darkwing worked much closer." I think I can get even closer with my next show, which was going to be a science fiction show. Again, a comedy. The staff loved it, but the boss did not. I never got to pitch it to Michael and Jeffrey. You know, had a meeting, I said, "Oh, I'm gonna get a chance to do it." And it was like, "No." They wanted me to do Aladdin. Now, Aladdin was done by Ron Clements, John Musker. I said, "I used to room with... In the same office as Ron Clements." I mean I was literally four feet away from him. "Let me talk to those guys." With Aladdin there was the other thing that I did the first direct to home video, Return of Jafar. And all I was trying to do was keep our budgets up. And I thought, if there's one more source of revenue that comes in from our shows, this would be the excuse to not cut budgets or give us the money we need to pull off some of this stuff. I called up Home Video and said, "Technically, when I do this four part episode pilot to set up the show, technically it's the sequel to Aladdin. Are you interested?" And the guy took it to the higher ups and they were not.

0:05:25 TS: Then they put out Aladdin on video. Again, it broke records. They made a huge amount of money, and I called the guy back and again restated what I was doing. And this time he took it to the top and they were very interested. And we had a story meeting with my boss where he gave all sorts of notes. And I said, "Well, we got... That's a lot to pull off. We have to do that by March 14th or whatever the date was." He said, "Why?" I said, "Well, Home Video was willing to put this out on literally video at that time." And he said, "That's gravy. Do these notes and if you get them done in time, that's fine." And I had to be told this later by people who were in the room 'cause I had forgotten that I had said, "Okay we have to take those notes, but it also has to be done by this date so I can get it to Home Video."

0:06:11 TS: We did. And Return of Jafar was made for $3.5 million and it made something between $180 and $200 million domestic out on video. This may be apocryphal, but I was told that it was the first quarter where the company wouldn't have grown. Well, I don't know what, ten percent or whatever the number was, and I guess a bunch of executives had bonuses tied into profit growth. Evidently that was the first quarter that there wouldn't be bonuses, and then suddenly everybody got a bonus, and it was because of Return of Jafar, that out of nowhere this thing came in and making all this money. And that started the whole direct to video thing.

0:06:53 TS: All I was trying to do was to keep our budgets up. The stories involving the bonuses, they tried to do things like Lucas had with Star Wars had given everybody involved points or some sort of bonus, so they had X amount of money and they divided it up so everybody got something. And what that led to is whoever was last in line, some of the lower level people, got a bonus, a check of $50 or $100, whatever. People who basically were in the department who didn't work on the show, and all that did was piss them off 'cause they knew how much the movie had made. I got $14,000 and I told that to Ron and John. Now I was not an idiot. I knew that the only reason why the movie made that much money is because they had done an incredible Aladdin, and I remember telling that to them and their reaction was, "You got ripped off." And I realized, yeah, in live action terms, if you do a crappy spinoff of something that made a lot of money and your crappy spinoff makes a ton of money, you get a five picture deal and a new car in your driveway as a present from the studio. In animation, I was happy to get the bonus. But get a pat on the back and then you move on, do something else for us.

0:08:09 S1: Jymn Magon, writer.

0:08:11 Jymn Magon: Disney's had a definite style there for a while, of... I think we cornered the market in the comedy adventure genre. When Disney execs felt like they needed to branch out, I felt like the formula fell by the wayside. And it's like, "Hey, look what John Kricfalusi is doing on Ren and Stimpy. Let's do something like that. Hey, look what Warner Brothers is doing with superheroes. Let's do something like that." And I felt like, "Oh, this is interesting." Obviously, we're branching out, trying new things. But it felt weird to me that where we had before had been sort of chopping our way through the jungle, creating our own path. Now we were sort of following other people's paths, copying them. And that always seemed odd to me. But anyway, department does what the department does over the years, and the changes, and the new policy, and it gets worse or it gets better. And is it Disney? Yes, because it's Disney TV Animation. They're Disney and this is the show they're doing. It becomes part of the canon, you know.

0:09:15 S1: In 1994, Variety reported that Disney was spending $50 million to boost its afternoon, which resulted in two new series, Shnookums and Meat, and Gargoyles. Gargoyles, Aladdin, and Shnookums helped cut into the lead of Fox, but there was a larger problem that television animation was about to encounter. Disney's syndication contract with networks ran only through 1997, meaning that other networks could produce their own shows and make more money. This would leave Disney Animation without a home because Disney didn't own a network. In fact, earlier in the year, they had tried to buy NBC but failed. Total viewership was also in decline during this period, which had to do with VCRs, computers, and video games offering alternatives to television. And to add to the uncertainty of 1994, Jeffrey Katzenberg left the company and he left because he was fired by Michael Eisner.

0:10:12 S1: In a walk in Aspen together, according to Katzenberg, Eisner promised him that if anything happened to Frank Wells, Katzenberg would take over Wells's role as president. Eisner would later say that Katzenberg misunderstood this conversation. Unfortunately, something did happen to Wells. He was killed in a tragic helicopter crash on April 3, 1994. But business stops for no man, and Eisner went back on his word and did not put Katzenberg in Wells's position as president, nor did he name him as his successor. To make matters worse, in a white glove slap to the face to Katzenberg, Eisner took on the role of president himself. This led to a further deterioration of their relationship and Eisner gave Katzenberg his walking papers. Eventually Eisner also refused Katzenberg part of his contract, which stated Katzenberg would get two percent of all profits from any of the projects he had worked on at Disney.

0:11:08 S1: So, like all great Hollywood love stories, they went to court. At one point it came out that Eisner had said he hated that midget, referring to Katzenberg. The case could have been settled for $90 million at one point, but instead it was eventually settled for $280 million in Katzenberg's favor. And then to further complicate matters, Katzenberg went on to form DreamWorks with Spielberg and David Geffen. In the midst of all that, Shnookums and Meat, a funny cartoon show, was being made. Bill Kopp, animator.

0:11:40 Bill Kopp: And then I got a call from Disney Television, which I had never heard of. I didn't even know they had it. And Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston made me an offer. They said, "Hey, we need some new funny stuff and we really think your eat show is funny, and can you come and do a funny show?" And I was like, "Well, like what?" And they were like, "Whatever you want." Seriously. I didn't have to pitch anything. They were just like, "Just come over and we'll do whatever comes out of your head." It was incredible. So I had a sketchbook full of stuff, and I just came in. And they said, "Well, how about a cat and a dog?" I said, "Okay." We started with that, and that must have been 1992 or 1993, something like that. I forget. Pitching at Disney now. I'm not saying [0:12:22] ____. I mean, it's legendarily hard. It's like running a gauntlet. There's all these people in these giant buildings and you just got to carve your way through. And then once you do get into development, you're gonna be there for a year or two just trying to get it through. My experience was, we had lunch and the next week I was there with a contract.

0:12:40 BK: There was no feeling of pressure or ever like, "Oh my God, the wheels are coming off." It never was like that. And we had a saying that Disney [0:12:49] ____. It's like, "Well, if something's... If something crashes, well, I'll just throw money at it." You know. Nobody bothered us. When they said, "You can do whatever you want," they never brought it up. I remember sitting in the editor room with Gary Krisel, who was a great guy, and he'd look at some of the rough animation coming back. He'd look at me and he'd go, "Is that funny?" And we're like, "Yeah, that's funny." He just trusted us, and it was awesome. Now, Jeffie came over one day, as he frequently did, while we were kicking it around. And I said, "The cat's kind of abrasive. So let's give him the opposite kind of name," you know, Shnookum, 'cause he was kind of a dick. And then we were just like, "What the fuck are we gonna call this dog?" We had no clue. Just nothing. And Jeffie came up with the name, and I think we were actually barbecuing something, which we also frequently did. And I think he just said, "Meat." And we had the design already. And I said, "Fuck, that's it."

0:13:40 BK: Shnookums and Meat. A little confusion came when they made the SpaghettiOs though. I had a can of them around here, they finally just deteriorated. I had to get rid of it, it was gonna explode. And it said, "Shnookums and Meat." It was like SpaghettiOs. The lawyers were like, "No, no, no, man. You gotta say that it's not meat. It's not a meat product."

0:13:58 Shnookums: Hey, what happened to your head?

0:14:00 Meat: Hey, what happened to your head?

[music]

0:14:07 Shnookums: Oh my gosh, my brain's gone.

0:14:10 Meat: Oh no, mine is to. What we gonna do Shnookums, what we gonna do? We don't have any brains.

0:14:21 Shnookums: Now, let's stay calm. I don't think you have too much to worry about, but I know I do. They couldn't have gone far.

0:14:27 BK: Right after the first two shorts went on to [0:14:29] ____ said, "Okay, let's make it a whole half hour. What else do you got?" And I just pulled out the Pith Possum, and the Tex Tinstar bit was gonna be a space serial called Guy Guy and the Space Vigilantes. We were all set to go, and then I got a call from John Kricfalusi, and I had Fontanelli there, you know, all of Kricfalusi's guys, [0:14:47] ____ was there. A couple... Eddie Fitzgerald. And John called me. He goes, "Hey man, I heard you're expanding your show, but can you maybe not do a space thing?" Actually, it was like getting a call from the Godfather. He was like, "Yeah, don't do a space thing." And I was like, I go, "Why?" And he goes, "Well, 'cause I'm working on one. I've been working on it for a while." Actually, Fontanelli brought that up to me too. So I just turned it into a western, which was easy because I was happy to accommodate. But I guess he never sold his space thing.

[music]

0:15:14 Speaker 8: Pith Possum. At one time an ordinary laboratory possum. He was changed forever by an experiment gone wrong, an experiment that endowed him with ultra possum-like abilities, turning him into Pith Possum, super dynamic possum of tomorrow. Maintaining his secret identity by cleverly disguising himself as Peter Possum, copy boy for a great metropolitan tabloid. He defends truth, justice, and the forest critter way for the good citizens of Possum City.

[music]

0:15:56 Speaker 9: Let me just grab what I have in store for you. The rope that holds you up Tinstar, will soon be burned through by that candle. When you fall, you'll land head first on this trampoline, which will send you flying into the pen full of rabid badgers. As you go down the ramp inside the pen, this torch will be knocked over, igniting the trail of gunpowder burning toward that cannon. Your barrel will roll toward that cannon and your head will become stuck. The gunpowder will burn the cannon's fuse and the cannon will fire. The blast will ignite the waterproof fuses on the dynamite surrounding your head. The cannon will shoot you through the roof of the barn, and then down into this giant tank full of man-eating sharks. The sharks will eat you. Then the dynamite will explode. The whole mess will be blown skyward and your remains will fall into this envelope, which I will place on a boat bound for Tunisia. So long, Tinstar.

0:16:48 BK: Anyway, and that was Shnookums and Meat, but again, that was so busy and I was the only writer. I wrote all 39 of those because I didn't know any better. After the show was on the air and we were done, Jeffie and I sat around. I went to Hawaii for six weeks to recuperate. I came back and they were just like, "Well, we don't know about the second season." And I mean, Shnookums and Meat was not... It was amazing that they let us do it 'cause it's not Disney, really. Well, it's not out of line, but it's weird. So we were just sitting there waiting to get the word, and I mean the writing was on the wall. I was like, "Yeah okay, there goes that. What are we gonna do next?" And I was there still getting paid. I developed other stuff. Jeffie and I were like, "This is gonna crack, man. What are we gonna fucking do now?"

0:17:34 BK: We didn't have a plan. And then, what happened was they said, "Oh, sorry boys. You're through." And we were like, "Ah fuck, okay well, at least we got that out." I mean that was three in one, dude. You got Pith and Tex, and Shnookum and Meat was actually our weakest link in the thing. And that was the only part that was foisted on us. But right after they canceled it, that was when Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston left to go to Dreamworks, and we were like, "Ah." And it was like a sad goodbye and stuff.

0:18:06 BK: A new executive moved in, and we just weren't part of their plan. Because... And rightfully... They didn't know what to do with us. We were like a weird thing that, they were like, "Huh? Now what with these guys?" But we had a good time. I think we sort of knew in the back of our heads, it was like, "Wow, this will never last here." It isn't Disney material. The real story of that time was they were trying to keep up with Margaret and Fox Kids, and they were right to try crazy things. To their credit, they really, they stuck right by it. And then they... And Gary and Bruce did the same for us at DreamWorks when we went to do Toonsylvania.

0:18:42 S1: Greg Weisman, creator Gargoyles.

0:18:44 GW: We had the Disney Afternoon, which we viewed as sort of like the dragon that you had to feed a virgin to every six months. So every six months, we'd go up in front of Michael Eisner. In those days, Michael personally chose the shows. And we would pitch him six or seven shows. And he knew he always had to pick one to put into production. He could pick more than one, but he had to always pick at least one.

0:19:10 S1: Jymn Magon.

0:19:11 JM: Yeah, what we would do is every week, we would have this writer's meeting that I think it was Wednesday mornings, and it was like any new writers out there, any new talent, any new ideas, it was always looking for what are we gonna pitch? What's the next big thing? And of course, like everything in Hollywood, it was basically, what was the most recent hit film? With Star Wars, Indiana Jones, whatever. But people would come in and they'd pitch all kinds of things. And the things that were noteworthy would get... I'm not sure we did artwork on all of it, but at least we had a list of shows that we would take to the meetings with Eisner and Katzenberg and say, "Okay, this is called Wonder Weenie. It's about a guy in a hot dog suit that gets kidnapped and taken to another planet, where they think he's a hero 'cause of his television commercials." And it was like, Gong. [chuckle] "No, next." And we would just do that. We would come up with these sort of one, two sentence pitches and they would go, "Nah, or yeah."

0:20:13 S1: Greg Weisman.

0:20:14 GW: We were all sort of keeping an eye on Batman, and sort of seeing was this going to be a success or not? It was a serious drama on cartoon, and would that work? Because the conventional wisdom is it always has to be comedy, and often it's a pendulum and that conventional wisdom swings back into the forefront all the time. But Batman was working, it was working so well they tried it in prime time, and then it didn't work in prime time. And so the desire for us to do something along those lines sort of waxed and waned, often with Batman's ratings. And we didn't have superheroes in our camp so to speak, so we didn't wanna do Batman, we didn't wanna copy that, but we wanted to try and do something different. But that's not how Gargoyles came about at all. Those are almost two separate discussions that dovetailed later.

0:21:08 GW: Gargoyles was initially developed as a comedy adventure, very much inspired by and along the lines of Gummi Bears, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which was a show we were really proud of, created by a guy named Jymn Magon. We thought was great. It had this very rich backstory and we thought it didn't get enough respect, and we thought that the main reason for that was because there was brand confusion with Care Bears. Care Bears was a sort of sacchariney sweet, kinda awful show, from my point of anyway. But the brand confusion was understandable because both shows featured cute, cuddly, multi-colored bears. Gummi Bears wasn't that. It was an adventure show. It was funny. It was exciting. It had a great comedic villain in Duke Igthorn and great sidekick in [0:21:54] ____, and great characters, and just a lot of fun. So we set out very consciously to create a show in that vein with the same sort of rich backstory, but that would get more respect. So everything in the 90s, the sort of buzz word was everything had to be edgy. Instead of doing cute, cuddly, multi-colored bears, we did cute, cuddly, multi-colored gargoyles. Gargoyles having been something that fascinated me since I was in high school.

0:22:23 GW: And we thought that's edgier. And instead of setting it in medieval times, we'd have this rich medieval backstory, but we'd set it in the present. We'd have gargoyles have a spell cast on them and they'd wake up in the 20th century, and that seemed edgier too. And so we thought, we can do this kind of show and have this fun comedy adventure with Gargoyles. So we put together a pitch, and we pitched it to Michael Eisner, and he passed. But we really liked the show and my bosses, Bruce and Gary, both really liked it. And they were like, "Well, take another pass at it." So I showed it to a number of people, just the original comedy pitch, to try and get some feedback and see what else I might do with it. One of the people I showed it to was Tad Stones.

0:23:06 TS: Gargoyles had a long history of things that are in a direct line that ended up with Gargoyles. And some of them didn't involve Gargoyles at all. They were gremlins, or whatever. The last thing I'd been playing with I think was a Three Musketeers version of these gargoyles. I had just seen the rough cut of Beauty and the Beast. So again, I'm instrumental. I'm not a genius, at least not in that meeting. Greg had asked me in just to talk about things and be in the discussion with his assistants basically. Again, he was an executive. And I said, "What if he was the last of the gargoyles? This could be your Beauty and the Beast 'cause you've already got the female there." He is one of the fastest thinkers I've ever seen. While he's watching a movie, he is analyzing, dissecting it. And walking out of a movie he'll have all sorts of comments, where I'm going, "Well, I thought the colors were nice." Anyway, he was on to something, he kind of said to his assistant, "Okay, you follow up on the Three Musketeers angle. I wanna work on this."

0:24:07 GW: And that really clicked for me. And so I created the character of Goliath with the artist Greg Guler, and we took the whole show, the whole comedy development and put it through the prism of Goliath and came out the other side fundamentally with the show that made it on the air. And we were so enthusiastic about it, we came up with all these concepts for villains and adventures and stories and put together this huge long pitch and pitched it to Eisner six months after we'd pitched it the first time. And he passed, killed it. And so I thought it was done. We tried. It wasn't the first time I'd pitched a show and it had gotten killed. And the next day we had what we called a postmortem meeting. In those days, Jeffrey Katzenberg was... And Michael ran the whole company, but Jeffrey Katzenberg was head of the studio. And so Jeffrey had been in the meeting with Gary and Bruce and I, and we were having this postmortem meeting where we were discussing actually the shows that Michael had said yes to and what the next steps would be. And so after having this discussion about the yes shows, we all got up to go. And as I'm about to go, Jeffrey said to me, "Oh, and you're gonna work on Gargoyles some more, right?"

0:25:20 GW: And Bruce and I sort of looked at each other, and I was like, "Well no, Michael killed it. He killed it as a comedy. He killed it as a drama. I don't know what else we'd do with it." And Jeffrey said, "Oh, Michael didn't kill it, he just thought it needed more work." Now I had been there the day before, and I knew that he had killed it. But what this was telling me was that Michael may not have liked it, but Jeffrey liked it. And in those days Jeffrey wasn't gonna contradict what Michael had said, but he still felt it was worth pursuing. I also found out later that Gary had talked to Jeffrey about the need to diversify the Disney Afternoon from the standpoint of all we had in those days were very similar, funny animal comedy adventure cartoons, and that if we just kept doing that over and over again, eventually the audience would get bored with those kind of cartoons. No matter how good they were, they'd just get bored with them. And we had to bring other types of things in, which led to shows like Goof Troop, which was really more sitcom than comedy adventure. Shows like Shnookums and Meat, which was more sort of Tex Avery short cartoons, and Gargoyles.

0:26:36 GW: And so we went back to the drawing board for a third time to try and figure out how we were gonna pitch Gargoyles for a third time. And we looked at the show that we had, and we thought, "Nope, this is the show. We don't wanna change the show at all." So the problem isn't the show, the problem is the pitch. And what you realize is that we had just put way too much into the pitch. It had diffused it all and gotten confusing and we hadn't been crisp and clear. So we just pulled things out, things that we eventually did use in the show, but we pulled all these elements out and really narrowed it down to the key idea, which frankly, was the Beauty and the Beast idea.

0:27:16 GW: It was this relationship between Goliath, the lead gargoyle, and Elisa, the cop, who befriends him in the 20th century after he wakes up. And we very much played it like Beauty and the Beast, which actually was a movie that had done very well for Disney recently. So six months later, we pitched it to Michael a third time, and this time they bought it. We had added nothing to this pitch, we just subtracted. I'd reordered a few things. We may have redrawn a card or two just to clarify an idea, but there was nothing new, it was just shorter. Jeffrey turned to me and said, "You added a lot to that pitch didn't you?" And I said, "Yes, I did." And that was history. We went on and made the show.

0:28:03 Speaker 10: One thousand years ago superstition in 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. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken and we live again. We are defenders of the night. We are Gargoyles!

0:29:01 GW: And so, yes, relative to Goof Troop it's dark, but I don't think of it as dark. There's tons of humor in that show. The color palette is rich, full of blues and purples and magentas and neon. It's not a dark show either visually or thematically. It's fundamentally a show about a guy, Goliath, who's an optimist, who believes that the world can be a better place, that bad things happen but they can be fixed, that the next generation can do better or that we can make it better. And so it's got a fundamentally optimistic tone to it. In terms of supervision, the advantage there was that I'd been the executive at Disney for five years when we went into production. I often compare it to a lunatic asylum, TV animation, in that there are inmates and then there are trustees, and the trustees are actually also inmates, but they're considered by management to be less crazy.

0:30:07 GW: So they give the trustee a stick, a baton to keep the other lunatics in line. And so that's how I sort of see my role on Gargoyles. I was the lunatic most trusted. So because of what was going on, both in the larger company and at TV Animation, there were a lot of shows in crisis for various reasons. And because of that and because I was in charge of Gargoyles, which I produced with Frank Paur, we were both producers, but from an executive standpoint it was still me. I was the lunatic most trusted at Disney TV Animation, so they kinda left us alone. And I remember at one point, Frank and I had lunch with Gary during season two and Gary said, "I wanna apologize to you guys. I have not been paying attention to Gargoyles at all. We've had other things going on. How is it going? What's going on? How's it going on the show?"

0:30:54 GW: And we said, "Well, it's going pretty good. Schedule's tough, but we're managing and we're happy with how things are turning out." He's like, "Great. What kind of stories are you doing?" So we started telling him about that and at one point we told him about Xanatos and Fox getting married and having a baby. And he goes, "Whoa, whoa. I wouldn't do that. You can't have the bad guy have a baby. You can't have the bad guy raising a kid. You gonna take the kid away from him? That'll be bad. And if you don't take the kid away from him then you got a villain raising a kid. Don't do that one."

0:31:23 GW: And we were like looking at each other and then I say to him, "Well, we already did it." So there was this long pause. And Frank and I are both sort of like what's gonna happen here? Is he gonna still reject it and force us to sort of tear the whole show apart and start over? And you could sort of tell he's thinking the same thing, like he doesn't like this idea at all. But on the other hand, this was the one show that was going smoothly, and if he rips it all apart, then he's gotta get another show in crisis. So after this long pause, he says to us, "Well, don't dwell on it." I said, "Okay, we won't dwell on it." Whatever the hell that meant, but so we didn't. I mean we didn't do it, we didn't change anything, but that was the kind of thing, we had very little supervision because of where I had come from. We pretty much made the show that Frank and I wanted to make and had almost no interference whatsoever.

0:32:25 GW: Gargoyles was sort of superheroes done without flagging that they're superheroes. No tights, no capes. For all intents and purposes that was the genre we were doing. A year or so later, I was in a meeting with Eisner where he announced his desire to buy Marvel, and I watched his corporate strategic guys talk him out of it and say, "Marvel's a disaster. They've got their rights sold all over the place. So you'd buy the company and then find out you can't make a movie about Spiderman because they've tripled sold the rights to three different companies. And Fantastic Four is being held by this company. And blah, blah, blah, blah."

0:33:05 GW: Now of course, years later Bob Iger just bought it anyway, and yeah, couldn't do X-Men, couldn't do Fantastic Four, couldn't do Spiderman, at least not at first, bought it anyway. Of course, it's been a huge success for Disney. But Eisner was talked out of it that day. So he turned to us, to Gary and Bruce and myself and says, "Can we use Gargoyles to start a Disney superhero universe?" And I said, "Yeah." And we began developing spinoffs, which we would do backdoor pilots for during season two of the show. But by the time those things got on the air, Jeffrey had left the company. Rich Frank had left the company. Frank Wells had died. Bruce had left the company. All the main supporters of Gargoyles had gone, and so that notion of using Gargoyles to launch Disney's own superhero universe sort of fell away.

0:34:01 GW: But for, I don't know, three or four months, it was like this is what we've got to do 'cause we can't buy Marvel, and Warner Brothers has DC. And on one level, and I don't think we even appreciated it at the time, but the great thing about Michael himself picking the shows was that everyone in every division got on board or got out of the way. In the years that followed, when Michael stopped picking the shows personally, those decisions began being made by committee. You found you had to get literally unanimous vote in order to sell a show. You needed not just one important person to say yes, or two or three, but literally you needed something like eight or nine people to say yes. And if even one said no, the others would jump off the show. And it became much harder to sell. So Michael was sort of the last of the moguls from my point of view, and we didn't appreciate it at the time 'cause there were so many shows he passed on that we thought were great, but what we didn't get was yeah, that may have been so but the shows he picked we got to just make. And that hasn't been the same in most places since then.

0:35:12 GW: I think what happened was, is that over time, there was this sort of sense within the corporation that Michael was micromanaging, not from us per se. I don't think it had anything to do with TV Animation, but just in general. And there was this sense that he had to start giving some things up. One of the things he gave up was choosing the animated series, but he didn't invest that power in another individual. Again, sort of became a decision by committee, a committee where any one person could derail something.

0:35:40 Speaker 11: Five-eights today to close at 42 and five-eights, one day after the company announced the resignation of Disney studio's chief Jeffrey Katzenberg. While rumors run rampant about where Katzenberg will end up, Disney chairman Michael Eisner said today, the company will likely produce fewer films.

0:35:57 GW: Jeffrey left. Rich Frank left. A lot of this was in the wake of Frank Wells's death, which was a tragedy in it's own right, but also destabilized the company. Roy Disney was not happy with Jeffrey. Ultimately, not happy with Michael either. So ultimately, both departed and Gary had at least a couple job offers that I know about, maybe more. I think Jeffrey wanted him at DreamWorks and had an offer out to him, and then when Bruce Cranston left to go to Dreamworks, Gary decided that DreamWorks would be a good place to sort of work with Bruce again and reform that team. So Gary also picked DreamWorks. So you had Jeffrey, Gary, and Bruce all at DreamWorks. Those were the three guys who I'd worked with. So at Disney, everyone sort of assumed that I'd be going to DreamWorks.

0:36:50 GW: When my deal was up at the end of the second season of Gargoyles, that I'd leave and go to DreamWorks. And I didn't actually want to. I wanted to stay and do a third season of Gargoyles. But it became this self-fulfilling prophesy. They were so sure I was gonna go to DreamWorks that they stopped inviting me to meetings, 'cause they thought of me as I was already spying for DreamWorks or something. It was kind of ridiculous. But they didn't make a job offer to me until a week before I was leaving, at which point, I did end up going to DreamWorks because I didn't have any other job offers. A week out they finally made an offer to me too late. So I went. And they really kind of made it clear that I wasn't welcome there anymore.

0:37:36 GW: In November of 1995, I wanna say, they came to me, and said they wanted me to do the third season of Gargoyles but they were offering me a demotion from producer to story editor. They said the show was going to be animated at Deak, but Deak had a very bad track record in those days in terms of the look of the thing, and that it would be pre-produced there as well. And they gave me a schedule in November of 1995, where the first script was due in October of 1995. And I looked at the schedule. I said, "Well, do you have a time machine? Because I don't know how I'm supposed to go back and deliver a script in October when it's already November and we haven't started." And they're like, "Well, we know that schedule's gotta be adjusted, but we wanted you to see where it had to end so you'd have to catch up. Not instantaneously, but by the end of the season you'd have to catch up." And so it felt to me like they were asking me to preside over the demise of the show. That they were reducing the budget, reducing the quality of the animation, reducing the quality of all the preproduction, giving us an impossible schedule, and then asking me on top of all that, to take it to motion.

0:38:57 GW: And we didn't even talk about money. That... We didn't even get to that. I just said, "Look, I need the weekend to think about this." And they said, "Great. Take the weekend." And then I came in Monday and they had hired my replacement already. And I said, "What the hell?" And they said, "Oh well, you can still say yes. You're a... We just figured we needed someone in case you said no." Which basically said they were trying to get me to say no. They were trying to make the deal so horrible that I'd say no. So I just said, "Fine, I'll walk away." And so I winded up going to DreamWorks, and they all sort of patted themselves on the back and said, "See, we knew he was gonna go to DreamWorks." But of course they're the reason I went to DreamWorks 'cause they basically kicked me out. Not literally, but basically.

0:39:44 GW: I ended up writing the first episode for them, which they gave to other people to add it into whatever. So the version that got on TV was, I thought, a mess, but still better than the other 12, which were done by good people, but good people who didn't know the show and didn't have time to familiarize themselves with the show. And so those last, that last season of Gargoyles, the fans and I just don't even count it as canon to the series. And we look at the comic book series that I did years later as the sort of true third season. I watched the third season. I watched every episode exactly once. That's not quite true, I watched the one that I wrote more than once, not a lot, but the other 12 I watched exactly once each and made myself do it. I don't know why, but I did. It was very painful for me on a lot of levels, not just again, not just because I didn't think they were very good, which I didn't, even though I know a lot of good people worked on them, but characters were just behaving out of character. And the stories just weren't up to our standards. And it was just a different show.

0:40:57 S1: The original Mighty Ducks movie was made because Eisner's kids liked hockey. So it got a green light. And based on the success of the movie, which the company termed market research, Eisner bought an expansion NHL team and promptly named them the Mighty Ducks. And with that purchase came an addition to the television line up. The Mighty Ducks, the Animated Series, premiered in September 1996, and Joe Barruso, and animation veteran, served as a director and supervising producer.

0:41:27 Joe Barruso: The reason I was able get a job at Disney, and went from Deak to Disney I think had more to do with the fact that the show that I had directed and produced, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, had won an Emmy in '95 as the best children's animated program. And it was one of the first shows that they called edutainment because it had this emphasis on providing real information, whether it was historical or science, in combination with an entertaining story. It was a detective-type story where a couple of younger kids were pursuing Carmen Sandiego. It was based on a computer game that was very popular at that time. They were looking for someone specifically for Mighty Ducks at the time. They needed a producer and director. And so yeah, I went and interviewed specifically for that project.

0:42:20 JB: In the initial meetings they showed me what they had done to that point and it wasn't a lot. It's funny, thinking back on it, it had started because Friends was very popular at that time, hugely successful at that time, so they wanted something like Friends. I remember them pitching it to me that way, and I thought, "Oh well, that's interesting." In the development that I'd seen to that point, when it was the Friend's concept, it was like we had in the show ultimately, it was human characters with duck heads, so it was sort of breaking with Disney tradition in terms of DuckTales and things that were clearly Donald Duck type characters. This was a new twist on the ducks for them. And that wasn't tremendously interesting to me, but then I can't recall at what point it shifted and became more sci-fi based, you know heroes in the image of sort of Ninja Turtles. And that's when David Wise, the editor, came on board.

0:43:22 JB: It was clear it was gonna go that direction. He had had a great deal of experience with Ninja Turtles, editing those shows, so he brought all that thinking and that expertise in terms of that particular genre, in going in that direction. He bought all that. That's when I was excited about... Sci-fi had always been a big interest for me and then anime was just getting really a lot of attention at that time. It really caught my interest, so that when we started talking that way, I was like, "Oh well, this will be great. We can use anime influences on this." But yeah, I think the old school that was there, because it was ducks, was a little uncomfortable. But our character designer, Greg Guler, he had had a longstanding relationship with Disney TV, and so he had done it all. He really knew it inside out. At the same time he had a great interest in superheroes. His background, he had originally come from comic books, so his first love was superheroes. So here he had a chance to combine Disney ducks with superheroes, so it was really a perfect opportunity for him. He was just a fantastic artist. So it all sort of came together.

0:44:32 JB: I was relieved that it was moving away from sort of a Friends sitcom to something more sci-fi and hero based. All our influences in terms of doing the art were harder edged. We never really got to go as far in that sci-fi direction as we would have liked to, but the way it's done is in terms of the development and art direction, it's sort of a consensus. So you have to put it in front of a whole bunch of people. And that included at the time, that included Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz. We had meetings where they reviewed the artwork, and so they would have their input. I was kind of reaching for one end of the spectrum, and them pulling us back to something that was a little more comfortable. I was pleased that we were able to go as far as we did, given what they had done with ducks to that point.

0:45:24 Speaker 13: Six hockey playing ducks appear out of nowhere and suddenly six vigilantes in comic book get-up start showing up whenever there's trouble. Spill it. Where are they from? Another planet?

0:45:36 Speaker 14: Not another planet babe. A whole 'nother universe.

0:45:40 S1: And in this universe, there's a planet inhabited entirely by ducks.

0:45:45 Speaker 15: They called it Puckworld in honor of their greatest hero, the legendary hockey player, Drake DuCaine. He was the ultimate team captain. He saved Puckworld from a horde of conquering aliens, called the Saurian Overlords, hundreds of years ago.

0:46:00 JB: Michael Eisner, he was excited about it because he was excited about the hockey team. So here was just an opportunity to promote it.

0:46:07 Speaker 16: Well, this is sad news indeed for Duck fans. It looks like the Mighty Ducks season long winning streak may be coming to an end. They're tied with the Maine Quahogs with forty seconds remaining at Quahog Center. John Luke [0:46:20] ____ is aiming to score again. Oh, a spectacular save by the Mighty Ducks goalie, Wildwing. You know, not only are these ducks mighty, they're really ducks.

0:46:36 JB: Interesting thing that we did, which was sort of unconventional, was after the shows would come back animated, we would of course assemble them. It was decided that they were not funny enough. I would spend large amounts of time each day sitting with two comedy writers who would rewrite the shows. And rewrite jokes into the shows. And we would sit and we would have to make sure, because the shows were already animated, we would have to make sure that the new lines would work with the mouths that we already had. So, it was a grueling exercise of... They're trying to be funny, trying to... Coming up with jokes, but we had to make sure that they could work in the animation, as it was already completed. That was different, yeah, maybe one in ten were actually worth all the time and energy.

0:47:29 S1: So these hockey playing ducks were attacked by a dinosaur named Dragaunus. Am I hearing you right?

0:47:36 S1: You're bright, you got it babe.

0:47:38 S1: Beautiful. I could have stayed home watching sci-fi chiller theater, but this is much funnier. All right, what happened next?

0:47:48 JB: It was kind of disappointing that it went away just after 26 episodes 'cause there really was a big push behind it. The Disney marketing machine and merchandising machine was behind it entirely. And Mattel was on board entirely for the toy line. And I guess it was the second largest toy line in Canada, second only to Star Wars at that time, which makes sense 'cause it was hockey. And I know for a fact that Mattel was disappointed that it went away 'cause they had planned years of it. It never did horribly, but some weeks it would be just average, but other weeks it would be doing really well, so it was a surprise when we didn't get more episodes. I had worked my whole life towards the point of having the opportunity to do the traditional look, and a big thrill for me was to finally be at Disney, which was a personal goal. And so I was happy that I was able to do Mighty Ducks and sort of kick it up a notch in terms of duck properties.

0:48:47 S1: Jymn Magon. The last show the Disney Afternoon would produce was Quack Pack, a descendant of DuckTales, but with the nephews as teenagers and Donald as the parental figure instead of Uncle Scrooge. It should have been a perfect ending to Disney's run, but some things are not meant to be.

0:49:04 JM: I did move after the Goofy Movie into development on Duck Days, which eventually became Quack Pack. By that time, the whole mindset of the studio was changing. People that were valuable before were being sort of pushed aside and people that weren't valuable were being elevated and there was a lot more what I call baby suits showing up, middle management who were making decisions, creative decisions about things, people who had never made a single frame of film were making decisions. And it just got very strained, and it got so strained that I eventually said I need more money or I'm gonna go somewhere else, which was very, very difficult for me because I loved Disney. I thought I would retire from Disney, and it just didn't happen.

0:49:58 JM: From then on it was just like, I can't even follow what they're doing anymore. Well, it was part of the deal breaker. We were trying something new. We said, "How are we gonna do a series with Donald Duck when nobody can really understand Donald?" He's fine in a short where he goes, "Oh brother," or, "What's the big idea?" That kind of stuff. But to do dialogue is crazy. To try and hang a show on someone that you can't understand was gonna be very difficult. And we had some radical ideas and management looked down their noses at us. And I remember at one point our producer on the show, Larry Latham, was listening to management spouting about something or another. He looked over at me and he just, he did the throat cut, like cut, I'm out here.

0:50:51 JM: And shortly after that Carl Gears and I, who were the executive producers on the show, we just said, "We're happy to continue working on this, but we can't be running the show because management doesn't believe in it." And management said, "Okay fine." They never even called us and said, "What's wrong?" Accepted our statement and, which was basically a big, you know, forget you. And it was like, "Well, they don't care about us anymore." Like I said, that was sort of a turning point, for me anyway. I think it was a turning point for the department as well. But anyway, and I left shortly after that. We had a terrific run, and then just things felt... Started to get weird, that's all.

0:51:36 JM: And again, I can't put my finger on it, but to me, it had a lot to do with we stopped doing what we were good at and started following other people's leads. Every show we did was like number one in its slot, and so it wasn't like, "Oh ratings are slipping, let's do something different." To me, that genre, that style of Disney comedy adventure could still be going as far as I know. But it was like, "No, let's do Shnookums and Meat, and let's do Gargoyles. Let's do things that look like other studios." It just felt wrong to me. But again, I'm not in charge, I don't make those calls, I just, I'm a stupid ass show developer and story editor. I don't get to make the big decisions.

0:52:18 S1: Dean Stefan, writer.

0:52:20 Dean Stefan: And then of course Quack Pack was originally called Duck Days. The way I hear it, and I don't know, 'cause you know. It could be not exactly true, but I think it's true. Jymn Magon and, I think, Carl Gears were set to develop it, and much like Tad Stones was locked in his office for about six months or so when I first started, coming up with Darkwing Duck and all the artwork or whatever. Jymn and Carl were figuring out the show for Duck Days or Quack Pack. And at the time, Home Improvement was a big hit for Disney ABC, and they got the idea that Donald would be like the Tim Allen character. And he would have Huey, Louie, and Dewey, much like Tim Allen was the harried dad of the three kids. And the conceit was gonna be 'cause Donald couldn't really, he didn't have that many phrases he could say that... Disney actually had a list from the 30s they would hand to us, say, "These are the phrases that are recognizable, that Donald said." Because there just weren't that many words that you could make out, the way he talked.

0:53:26 DS: So their conceit was that he would have been a tailgunner in some kind of war and nobody could understand his instructions, so the military sent him to allocution school. And he would learn to speak clearer so that now he could do the sit-comy stuff with the kids and they can interact and stuff like that. So they had this whole thing worked out based upon the harried dad interacting with... And the way I hear it, they went to pitch to Katzenberg and the whole table of Disney suits. And they said, "Okay so, in this Donald, he went to allocution school because nobody could understand him in the military. Now he can speak a lot clearer." And that's about as far as they got.

0:54:07 DS: And Katzenberg says, "Wait, you wanna change the duck? You're gonna change the way Donald Duck talks?" And that was pretty much the end of the pitch, so that was it. So six months of work down the drain, 'cause without that they didn't really have a show. So then it became just really harried and it became Daisy Duck would be a roving reporter, and the kids would be tagalongs and Donald would almost be comic relief. You'd cut to him in the hammock doing gags and stuff like that. And it was a weird time at Disney 'cause we were between shows. And I think I wrote the Bible for Quack Pack, but I guess the show was okay. I'm not sure how it did in relation to the other ones. I don't think of it as one of the great ones.

0:54:49 S1: Jim Peterson, writer.

0:54:51 Jim Peterson: The origin of it is kind of muddled a little bit 'cause it kinda went through a whole bunch of different creative hands. So there was, I think it was originally Jymn Magon's project, and then he ended up leaving Disney. And Carl Gears took over. And then Carl got taken off the project and it was turned over to Kevin Hopps, who was our original story editor on Darkwing. And on the artistic side, Toby Shelton was running it, and they had kind of very different views of just between the two of them, how they wanted the series to run. And Toby really loved classic Donald Duck cartoons, and he kinda wanted to take it that way. And Kevin was more, it seemed, more on the sit-comy kind of stuff. We came in. There had already been a couple scripts written, but we ended up rewriting on what would become essentially the first episode, which was where Donald Duck gets drafted back into the Navy, of course, for some bizarre reason.

[music]

0:56:14 JP: The one that came out, kind of was still watchable was an episode called "The really Mighty Ducks". In it Huey, Dewey, and Louie become superheroes and Donald becomes a super villain called the Duck of Doom. And the whole battle is just about Donald trying to get the boys to clean their room, and they're doing everything humanly possible to, or duckly possible I suppose, to avoid cleaning their room.

0:56:41 Donald Duck: Clean this room or else.

0:56:47 Speaker 20: Clean our room? The nerve of some people.

0:56:50 Speaker 21: We're much too busy.

0:56:52 Speaker 22: We got a million things to do.

0:56:55 S?: We got nothing to do.

0:56:57 JP: And when Duck Days was winding up, it was an era where Disney was letting go of all of their staff writers. During the Bonkers run, they were also doing a couple other series at the time. So there were like 51 staff writers at that point, at Disney TV Animation. And when we finally left at the end of Duck Days, there were less than ten. So part of the reason was that Disney lost their market when Fox acquired the rights to the NFL. And a lot of stations that were independent and carrying the Disney Afternoon, signed up with Fox and had to drop the Disney Afternoon for the Fox cartoons. But at the time, that was our perception on the executive explanations for why the affiliates were dropping the Disney Afternoon. So that and also, at the same time, Turner acquiring Hanna-Barbara. Then he let go of all of the staff writers and decided to go freelance, and Disney kind of followed suit on that 'cause there were a bunch of writers available on the freelance market that didn't used to be available.

0:58:01 S1: In 1997 Disney purchased ABC, which was the final nail in the coffin for what had been known as the Disney Afternoon. Not only was that over, syndication was basically over as well. With their new network, Disney went full Nickelodeon, even bringing in Geraldine Laybourne who headed the Nickelodeon network. And Disney Television Animation changed quickly in response.

0:58:24 S1: In an attempt that the press called The Nickelodeonization of Disney, they bought Doug out from under Viacom and brought in Joe Ansolabehere who helped develop Hey Arnold! And Paul Germain who co-created Rugrats, to launch Recess, which became the flagship show of Disney's One Saturday Morning. With One Saturday Morning, Disney would retake the title of the number one kids block. The shows were far different than what had been done in the past, and the familiar faces that had transformed television animation like Gary Krisel, Greg Weisman, Mark Zaslove, and Jymn Magon, no longer wandered the halls. But a few were still there. Tad Stones.

0:59:02 TS: They had a luncheon at the rotunda restaurant where they invited the key people in the department, key creative people in the department were all there for the executives to introduce themselves. And Jerry Laborne, [0:59:17] ____ that she's talking about her direction. And she says, and obviously they had worked this out before. Says, "Dean, I hate ducks." And then that was Dean Valentine, and he replied. "I hate ducks too." Which was basically crapping on 80 percent of the people in the room, to say nothing of you would not have been offered a job because there would be no job to be had if it wasn't for those shows that you're currently crapping on. I was luckily on vacation during that luncheon. I don't know how I would have reacted. I wouldn't have said anything, but I might have walked out, which would've had the same effect. But it was totally disrespectful.

1:00:00 TS: You can certainly say, "You guys have done a fantastic job. And now the market's changing, we want to do something entirely different and we're looking for new ideas, and here's the ideas we're starting with." It's like, "Why do you have to piss on something to move forward?" So that was, again, this... They had a pitch, they had a strategy. Upper upper managment had signed off on it. So it's just basically, here's our show runners and some of you are gonna be working on these shows and some of you are not. So it's just a management thing. It's not like a slow evolution. It is just, "Hey, this is what we're doing now." And it's like, "Okay, are we doing any more of that?" "No, we're not gonna do any more of that, but we're still gonna do those feature spin-offs 'cause they're still doing well."

1:00:45 TS: That's that, you know.

[music]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-look-back-machine/id1257301677?mt=2

#disneylandparis art disneypic spongebob disneyresort disneyaddict disneystore movies lgbt instagood disneymagic dc tvshows xboxone nintendos #disneyland disney disneygram disneyworld disneylife instadisney waltdisney disneyparks disneyphoto mickeymouse love waltdisneyworld disneypr

[heroesofcrash]

11/17/18 - Thanksgiving 2018

Happy Thanksgiving from TheHeroesOfCRASH.com!

If you know what this monster's from, you probably feel old right about now.  And if you don't... well, then I probably feel old right about now.

I'm a sucker for holiday specials, and I still watch them every year.  However, Thanksgiving seems to get overlooked, stuck between the two most marketable holidays for TV specials (But let's face it; Halloween and Christmas tend to play off children's greed, so of course they're easy to market).  This picture pays homage to two of my favorite Thanksgiving specials.  The dialogue, obviously, references A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, whose legendary meal I long to reproduce one day.  The picture itself, though, references a more obscure special: Nick's Thanksgiving Fest.  This special first aired on Nickelodeon in 1989, and was comprised of several shorts, plus two major cartoons: "Thanksgiving Nightmare" and "Thanksgiving Dreams".  This dough monster appeared in the latter cartoon, in which two children from a poor family dream about shrinking to six inches tall and partying with a living Thanksgiving meal in their kitchen.  When the kids accidentally knocked a boxfull of yeast into a bowl of dough, this bizarre monster was created.  If you saw Nick's Thanksgiving Fest, or saw my Daily Drawings in 2016, you probably remember this culinary creature quite well.

I decided to draw Enticia and Daisy for this picture; like the kids from the original special, I wanted to draw a pair of siblings, so it was between them and Cannon/Mackenzie.  I love drawing Daisy, and felt that there should be at least one child, so I drew her and Enticia.

If you didn't see my update earlier this week, I wrote a tribute to Stan Lee, which you can access through a link on the main page of my site.

Once again, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

#Thanksgiving #webcomic #comics #superhero #superheroine #webcomics #comic #superheroes #superheroines #funny #humor #comedy #Enticia #Daisy #Nickelodeon #Nick's Thanksgiving Fest #holiday #the heroes of crash #The Heroes Of C.R.A.S.H. #theheroesofcrash #heroesofcrash

[thecartoonarchivist]

Weekly Spotlight #4

Week number 4 of the Weekly Spotlight! I apologize for the wait; I’m still working out the kinks in my schedule.

Alrighty! So! Our weekly spotlight winner is:

*an even more vibrant drumroll!*

My Life as a Teenage Robot

I have a lot of fond memories of this show, as I’m sure many others do. Before sitting down and rewatching a couple episodes, from what I remembered about it, it was a little bit of an odd-ball. It always skirted this line of being accessible enough that the average viewer could relate to it while also being straight up bizarre enough to remember just how different this world is from our own. This show would mix the 1950′s aesthetic with science fiction concepts to cement itself, at least in my mind, alongside other animations such as Meet The Robinsons, George Shrinks! and, oddly enough, Samurai Jack. It was a slice of life, mixed with action and adventure, and some elements of horror? Which... ended up distinguishing itself from other similar “crime fighting teenagers” like Kim Possible, Teen Titans, or W.I.T.C.H. As a result, this show dealt with a lot of common problems and themes that teenagers faced in very odd ways, all under the guise of an action, sci-fi show.

So let’s have a little bit of a history lesson, shall we?

Back in the late 90′s, Nickelodeon began to host a show that was called Oh Yeah! Cartoons which has been called TV’s biggest animation development program ever. Dozens of filmmakers were contracted by Nickelodeon to create 7 minute cartoons that would be spliced together into a half-hour time-slot. This “show” would then air on television and depending on the approval ratings of the audience, these cartoon shorts would then be commissioned into a TV show for Nick. Producing nearly 100 of these cartoon shorts, this “animation laboratory” would jumpstart many individuals’ careers in the industry such as Seth MacFarlane, Vincent Waller, Dave Wasson, and Butch Hartman.

One such individual would be a man named, Rob Renzetti with a short titled, My Neighbor Was A Teenage Robot. Due to very high approval ratings, Nickelodeon commission for the show and would later on be titled, My Life As a Teenage Robot. It aired in 2003 and was eventually cancelled after 3 seasons (ironically) due to poor ratings.

So for our premise!

Jenny (or, XJ-9, as her mother calls her) is a crime-fighting, superhero robot who dreams of being a teenage girl just like other human beings. However, she has to juggle her duties as a superhero and her social life as a teenager, which leads wacky shenanigans, problems, and overall, grief  for Jenny as she attempts to fit in. She’s partnered with her friends Brad and Tuck as they tag along on her adventures, and she even has an admirer named, Sheldon, who tries to woo her in his own awkward way. She fights monsters, aliens, and a robot queen named, Vexus who is trying to recruit Jenny her robot world the planet Cluster Prime, while also dealing with the Crust Cousins who are out to destroy Jenny’s social reputation. Can a girl ever catch a break?

These episodes are broken up into 2 eleven minute segments with problems that are usually resolved by the end of the episode. There isn’t so much of a “continuity” per se, but there are episodes that reference earlier ones so while you can dive right in with any old episode you want, I’d keep in mind which one I’m choosing.

So on the whole how did this series hold up?

Well, the first several episodes are pretty shaky. Although the visuals were very unique to watch and the soundtrack was entertaining to listen to, I felt that some of the episodes weren’t all that entertaining. The problems felt fairly realistic, or at least believable for a “teenage robot,” however, it was easy to tell that the creators were still figuring out what they wanted to do with this series. What kind of character did they want to make Jenny? What kind of dynamic did they want the support cast to be like? What kind of bad guys did they want Jenny to go up against? And as a result, some of the early episodes suffered in quality. Overall, I felt like the first season, especially a lot of the first half, was simply establishing the status quo of the series. Yet, in spite of this, there were several episodes that I felt that the series really hit its stride and gave a solid balance of uniqueness and familiarity that left me both intrigued for more and very entertained with the product I’ve received.

There were some episodes that left me simply... disturbed. Two of them being Attack of 5 and 1/2 ft. Geek and The Return of the Raggedy Android. Some of you might remember the second one as the skin episode... (And if you don’t, consider yourself blessed...) With Attack of the 5 and 1/2 ft. Geek, Jenny has a screw loose in her arm and solicits the help of Sheldon to fix her problem. Having a large passion for robotics, Sheldon is not only happy to help but also becomes extremely infatuated with Jenny after she saves him. Extremely infatuated. To the point of stalking her. And showering her with unnecessary gifts. The others kids at school even laugh at her and bully her for her newfound “boyfriend.” Jenny is obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable and finds any excuse to get away from him. Eventually, she gets a call from her mother saying that there’s a gang downtown (the Lonely Heart’s Club, btw) which is causing havoc and requires her assistance. With Sheldon following her every move, the gang gets very jealous of Sheldon and Jenny’s “relationship” and kidnaps Sheldon. Jenny has to swoop in and save him, having also finally snapped at having Sheldon being called her boyfriend. She goes off, calling Sheldon creepy, a stalker, and a host of other things that are not only accurate, but legitimate concerns that any other teenage girl would have in such a situation. Sheldon is hurt and in a weird turn of events, he saves Jenny after she gets captured during her rant. The episode ends with Jenny apologizing about what she said and says that maybe they can hang out sometime... as friends. Just... friends. Sheldon goes on to be a recurring character of the series, causing a lot of shenanigans and other problems as a result of his infatuation.

Since the series ended with Jenny never establishing a relationship with either Brad nor Sheldon, many speculate as to which one she would have started dating. Although there aren’t any definitive answers from the team about who would have ended up with, the team appears to favor Sheldon as a candidate. Which... I find very problematic.

Sheldon stalked her, made her uncomfortable, and through the course of the series, lied to her, toyed with her emotions, and caused her much emotional grief. And yet, she’s supposed to apologize to Sheldon for being so “cruel” even though she was voicing some legitimate concerns about his conduct, and eventually end up with him as a boyfriend? Nuh-uh. No bueno. That’s not exactly something you should be teaching little girls. If she is uncomfortable being around him, she shouldn’t be obligated to hang out with him--- even if it hurts his feelings. And by remaining friends with him, she’s using him for upgrades her mother denies; stringing him along with the possibility of being “more than friends”; and overall, setting up an uncomfortable situation for both of them to be in. I don’t see how that’s okay to promote that kind of relationship to any kid. It’s just simple wish fulfillment and for a TV show that will be shown to children, that’s not okay. Keep it in your personal diary, or on your personal computer, because promoting this sort of relationship is extremely toxic and I don’t approve. At all.

Now... the infamous skin episode...

The basic problem of the episode is that Jenny wants to hang out at teenage hotspot called Mezmer’s. However, the owner of the shop won’t allow her in because she’s a robot. Remembering the freakish false skin that her mother designed her several episodes before, she attempts to reuse it after having received several upgrades to make it more believable. And it works! She becomes beautiful! More popular! She even gets to dance with Don Prima, the local heartthrob that Jenny has a crush on! Overall, she’s simply... normal. However, the second-skin seems to have a life of its own and puts itself on in Jenny’s sleep. It coaxes her to be more normal, to stop fighting crime, to focus on her beauty and her looks because that’s what a normal girl does. But once Brad becomes endangered by an intergalactic biker gang that threats destroy the shop, Jenny sheds her new skin and learns to accept herself for all her imperfections and unique personality traits. Because that’s what’s truly normal about her.

This episode was probably the most prominent that I remembered watching as a kid. And for a good reason too... This. Episode. Was. Horrifying! I’m not even kidding! Rewatching this as an adult, I kept thinking to myself “This is a children’s show?!?” One of the first interactions that we see with this new skin is that it claws its way up Jenny’s body while she shouts, “I can’t breathe!”

Later on, we see the exoskin crawl its way across Jenny’s floor and attack her like a snake while she sleeps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjJmGv6ztY

(The video is pretty poor quality, but it’s the only one I can find.)

What. The. Fuck.

Oh, but it’s alright because she sheds the skin in the end and everything returns to a relative normal.

Except for the fact that the ending implies that the skin takes another victim and survives. Yeah. IT’S A REAL THING.

The message that the episode taught was great. It’s a message that teenage girls really do need to hear: that you have your own normal and that trying to be others’ version of “normal” can end up changing who you really are and up taking away all of the cool, badass qualities that make you, well, you. The problem is that this episode is so terrifying how the hell do you show this to kids?!? The fact that I remembered this episode so vividly despite the fact that I haven’t seen this show since it aired is a testament to the fact that it I probably shouldn’t have watched it as a child. I just... I’m baffled on how this got made! It’s... just... *shivers.*

I mean, questionable episodes aside, the show itself was interesting. The visuals were certainly unique and interesting to watch. The character designs were so original and iconic that going back and watching the original cartoon short, it’s kind of crazy that they weren’t always like that. The soundtrack, sound effects, even some of the voice acting was enjoyable the listen to. As I said before, it has a very 50′s aesthetic with a futuristic twist, which gives it this odd balance between feeling dated but also surprisingly modern. The backgrounds appear to be hand-painted, which is probably the reason for its dated look; I think it was a rather nice touch. I honestly have to give it to the sound effects department for being so on top of the little noises and such for every little movement Jenny made. It really created a sense of life in the character and I really did appreciate it in the small moments. I will have to say though, going back and watching this series, it didn’t exactly age as well as I had hoped. There were some nice episodes that I enjoyed but many of the episodes I found were pretty mediocre at best. Maybe it’s simply because I’ve gotten older and many of the jokes/gags just weren’t funny anymore. Maybe it’s because the characters themselves were simply 2-dimensional at best and dealt with stereotypical teenage problems. I’m not sure but really, I just wasn’t amused. Now, maybe I just need to watch more of this series as it appears to be a bit of a slow burn but really I’m just not that hype to jump on rewatching it.

If I had to rate this show, I’d probably give it a 6.8 out of 10. 

I’ll probably sit down and rewatch all of this at some point; after all, it seems decent enough. But really, if I never watch it again, I wouldn’t be too upset. It’s pretty much what I’d call “bubble gum TV;” if I want to turn on something mindless for a little while, I’d probably watch it but I wouldn’t be too invested. It’s just pretty... bland.

I think a lot of people have a bit of rose-tinted goggles when looking at this show and as such, it becomes kind of hard to criticize it. Does it deserve to be forgotten? Not necessarily. But I don’t think that it’s really as great as a lot of people think of it to be.

As for me, I’m gonna put this back in the shelves of my vault to watch one day. But when that day will be? We’ll just have to wait around and see what happens.

[Edit 11/21/118: I’m testing out a new tagging system. Let’s see if this fixes the broken links issues.]

If there are any corrections you’d like to make in regards to this post, please feel free to send me a message with your corrections and I’ll get back to it as soon as I can!

Do you remember a cartoon your friends have never heard of? Got a scene from an animated film that you’re dying to know the name to? Send your questions to The Cartoon Archivist and I’ll see what I’ve got in the vault!

#my life as a teenage robot #nickelodeon #nicktoons #TEENick #SNICK #weekly spotlight #2005~2010 #cartoons #wow this one was popular with nick #I tagged it as 2005-2010 because it premiered during those years #but the thing is that it piloted in 1999 so... #It's just got a weird timeline I guess.

[consmcchill]

Avatar the Last Airbender movie FIXED

I did it. TLDR: I fixed the movie The Last Airbender. Feel free to skip this rambling intro and scroll down to the good stuff.

For the rest of you, my name is Conor McCahill, I’m an actor and wannabee screenwriter living in Chicago.

I wanted to post this on the internet for three reasons:

One: Avatar the Last Airbender means a lot to me. My high school friends would meet every week at my house to watch each premier live. Those memories are among my happiest. I was beyond excited for the movie, but, everything I found out about it pushed me further from it and when it finally came out I resolved never to see it. And I didn’t, until I was in a show with Francis Guinan, who played Master Pakku, and when he told me he was in it, I thought, “Hey, why not?” Watching this movie was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life. Fast forward to now and I’m reading Save The Cat, which is a book about screenwriting and one of the homework pieces is to fix a bad movie and make it a good movie. Obviously, the worst movie I can think of is The Last Airbender, so I chose it to fix it.

Two: Fans scare me. True deeply loving fans are like tiger mothers. You have high standards, and good for you! I can’t think of anyone who would enjoy this project more than a diehard fan and my goal is to impress you.

Three: Though I started this before the Netflix announcement of the Avatar the Last Airbender live action series, I’d still like to think that this could help get the movie remade. However, even if it doesn’t, maybe this can help you find closure that in some universe, a better movie exists.

I wrote this as if it was a wikipedia article describing the movie. I tried to avoid dialogue as much as possible, but sometimes, it’s just clearer. I used screenshots from the show to aid the reader though sometimes the pictures aren’t perfect, and other times I used real pictures or art. I linked to the websites where I did that.

The process:

I watched all of season one again, with an eye for character and story development. It was a real treat and I graphed each character’s development over the season, who was the main character of each episode, and how they grew in each episode. I painted a picture of tracking information about the characters, which characters know it, and when it is revealed to a character or the audience. I also tracked tokens, my word for props of importance like Aang’s staff and the water scroll. Adapting this cartoon to a movie was a huge challenge that I was not fully prepared for. The biggest challenge faced is reduction of the source material into roughly an hour and a half to two hours. Season one is very filler heavy, we get to meet our characters and watch them interact, and the first season takes its time and lets the characters be kids in a really nice way. Each episode is roughly twenty-two minutes long, making the season about seven and a half hours long which means inevitably something is going to be lost in translation because we’re losing six hours of content. Episodically is a great way to tell a story with lots of characters with multiple plot lines and over longer periods of time. Movies are better equipped to tell stories as an immediate chronological sequence of events with few characters. This just comes down to time and how much we have to tell the story and how the audience processes a story in “real time.” If you want the movie to be exactly the same story, well, that’s impossible and you should just watch the cartoon. It’s gonna change, there’s no way around it. After finishing the cartoon, I decided it would be a good idea to at least watch the movie again.

Overall and if you squint, Shyamalan got the story of the first season in the movie pretty accurately. His movie goes, southern water tribe, southern air temple, earth kingdom, northern air temple, and northern water tribe. The problem is that we don’t really get to enjoy any one thing for too long because we’re being whisked off to the next one. I didn’t want to make the same mistake, so I chose to limit my main settings to the number of my acts, for simplicity. I picked the southern water tribe, the southern air temple, and the northern water tribe capital.

Shyamalan decided to write each movie one at a time and I really think that doomed the project. I think he decided to do it that way, Nickelodeon went along with it, and by the time he realized his mistake, production has already started, and he couldn’t hold it up because it’s millions of dollars and our young actors are rapidly aging. Any kind of delay will hurt a project starring kids more than other movies. If you want to do it right, you need to be ready to pump out each movie so the kids can age naturally and not suddenly be adults, (see: Harry Potter.) Keeping his decision in mind, I decided to approach this project as if it were a trilogy. That helped me eliminate characters and plotlines for movie one, because they can appear later. I whittled my main characters down to seven, which is more than plenty; Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zhao, Zuko, Iroh, and Yue.

Let’s talk about Yue. Her sacrifice is the emotional apex of the first season of ATLA and is therefore the most important part of the movie. We need to care about Yue because the more we care, the more effective her sacrifice is and the more satisfying the emotional catharsis. In visual media, the way we make you care is we give you screen time. In the show, she gets three full episodes, but the development of her relationship with Sokka feels rushed. It still feels better than the Shyamalan movie, where she comes in at the last thirty minutes, and by all accounts gets half as much time as the cartoon. Considering her sacrifice, Yue needs to come into the movie early. Save the Cat talks about act two as the love act. Often in movies, it is when our protagonists meet a new character(s) who will nurture them through the end. It does not have to be true love or romantic love, it is often friend love. That seems like a perfect place for Yue.

I didn’t want to change the canon, but I had to get Yue into contact with Katara, Sokka, and Aang. I decided that the most important thing, at least in adapting, is not necessarily what happens to our characters, but that they grow in the same way. That freed me up to consider other, more exciting possibilities. Like, what if we bring Yue to the south, on a quest? Aside from Yue, the most necessary element of the north is the spirit oasis, so Zhao can kill the moon. So, I thought to place the spirit oasis in the ruins of the southern tribe capital, so we’re not suddenly robbed of a whole world crossing adventure where lots of stuff must happen. We can grow with our characters (Aang, Katara, and Sokka) in the illusion of real time, and not cut to weeks later at the northern tribe. That evolved into a portal to the northern water tribe, something heavily plot relevant, canon from The Legend of Korra, and it gives something new to longtime fans.

The Yue I came up with differs from the show Yue in very exciting ways. I develop her relationships with Aang and Katara and give Sokka a stronger interest, a love that could actually be returned and is hopeful. The best part is, I make her more active instead of passive. Since this will be her only movie, she should be there more, not to mention there are five main males and only one main female without her. All my own changes made me sympathetic to the way Shyamalan had to alter the plot and characters and it was the choice to boost Yue’s role that really lead to this entire piece.

Thanks to Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino for their work that continues to inspire me to this day. Thank you to all the long-time fans who run the Avatar the Last Airbender wiki. Your work was essential. I lifted some passages directly from the episode descriptions that match what I see as the movie, but where I did, I tried to mark with a *. Also, I used some art and photos and I provided a link to those artists. And, I dunno, thanks to Jim Henson who thought it was important and healthy for children to feel fear.

How I would open the movie:

Open on the fire nation palace: an imposing tower of red crowned with gold spires slices a sunny blue sky in two and looms over a vast courtyard. The front doors are open and we zoom into the darkness. Inside the palace, the air is thick and stuffy and ornate tapestries line every wall lit by braziers that fume and pop and crackle.

In a gallery filled with portraits of proud and angry men and women cloaked in red and holding fire in their bare hands, a teenage boy sits at a table, playing a tile game with an older man.

The boy squirms, agonizing over his next move. The older man is toying with him, but plants seeds of wisdom on how defeat a superior opponent. The boy tentatively places a tile, lingering his finger on the it before whipping it away. The old man examines the board.

With one decisive move, he places a lotus tile in the center of the field, winning the game leaving the young man in disbelief. The older man laughs as the younger man passionately demands a rematch, but they are interrupted by the sound of footsteps and they stiffen. A messenger comes. He bows low, and begs forgiveness from Prince Zuko for interrupting him, but he has come to escort General Iroh to a war meeting. The older man smirks and asks the younger man if he forgives the messenger. Zuko rolls his eyes and says he does but asks his uncle if he can join him in the war meeting. His uncle denies him, but the young prince pleads. He wants to be a good king someday, why not learn as soon as possible? Iroh relents and warns Zuko not to speak out of turn.

Iroh leads Zuko into the hall before the throne room. As the firebending generals go in, each makes a flame in their hand and adds it to a fiery bowl on a pedestal in the center of the hall. Iroh explains to Zuko, as he follows suit, that the ritual serves to show that no firebender will use fire bending in the throne room or face extreme consequences. Even the fire lord is honor bound to uphold his promise, he just never has to symbolically prove himself. Iroh puts his fire in the bowl. Zuko steps up after him and does the same, his face lit up by the flames.

The inside of the throne room is darker than the rest of the palace. Zuko is both frightened and exhilarated. As a particularly old and decrepit general drones on, Zuko admires the long war table, painted to display the entire world and littered with pieces that make war seem like a big game. This will all be his someday. His eyes draw him down past the far end of the table, to the wall of fire beyond which a dark figure, the fire lord, sits on an ornate throne obscured by the dancing smoke.

Zuko stares at the man beyond the flames and their crackle fills his ears. He feels the eyes of his father staring back. Zuko snaps to attention, just as the old infirm general outlines a plan to send fresh recruits into combat against a heavily garrisoned earth kingdom fort. The prince asks the general how he expects the recruits to survive, his interruption sending a wave of murmurs down the table. The general clarifies, he doesn’t. Their sacrifice will be enough to weaken the earth kingdom army, so they can be wiped out by a second wave of more seasoned elite fire nation soldiers. The mutters of agreement wash over the room. The prince is horrified. He cannot believe what he is hearing and stands and speaks, in defense of the new recruits and their lives. To send loyal soldiers to their doom is nothing short of treasonous. The color drains from Iroh’s face as the wall of flames flares up. He clutches Zuko’s robes and advises Zuko to apologize or be honor bound to settle the matter in an Agni Kai.

Zuko sizes up the old general. What could this old man, so near to death, possibly do to him? His uncle hisses at him to be quick, but Zuko is not afraid and accepts the fire duel. The wall of fire burns high beyond him.

High above the Agni Kai arena, the crowd that lines the stands chant ceremoniously. Zuko kneels, his back to his opponent and the chanting ends. He breathes deep, spins and rises, and throws off his cloak to face… his father, the fire lord.

Zuko doesn’t understand, the general he spoke against is in the audience, smirking, next to a teenage girl and his uncle.

The Firelord fumes at him, it was his plan Zuko spoke against and it was he, the fire lord, Zuko disrespected. His booming voice echoes in the vast chamber. Zuko falls to his knees, he won’t fight his father. The fire lord demands that he stand and fight, but Zuko refuses. The fire lord will give him one more chance but Zuko bows further, touching his forehead to the hard stone floor. The Firelord calls upon the crowd to witness his son’s cowardly refusal to fight. Only a permanent lesson is appropriate for such shameful weakness, he growls as he approaches his grovelling son.

Slowly, Zuko lifts his head and begs his father for mercy, but there is none.

In the reflection of his left eye, a fireball heads towards Zuko’s tear-stricken face. A girl’s voiceover begins. “Long ago the four nations lived together in harmony, then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked.” The fireball grows larger and larger in his eye until the whole frame is filled with fire.

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-yurt-vector-drawing-portable-round-tent-covered-skins-felt-isolated-white-backdrop-freehand-outline-black-ink-hand-image80545151

The fire in Zuko’s eyes becomes a campfire in a yurt. “Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.”

Reveal, a pretty and bright water tribe girl, Katara, telling the story of the Avatar to the young children she babysits.

The kids beg Katara to waterbend for them. She’s not supposed to, and they moan and whine. To appease them, she waterbends the soup in the pot in a swirl. They beg for more and, though it is difficult for her, she manages to suspend an undulating ball of steaming water in the air. It is a magical moment, even for Katara, and they all watch in awe until she lowers it back down. The kids go nuts and all take turns trying to waterbend the soup, but it soon becomes clear that she’s the only one who can. As she watches them all around her, there is a sense of how lonely and isolated she really is. 

The flaps fly open and a teenage boy on the brink of manhood barges in and asks what the ruckus is about. Katara blurts out Sokka’s name in surprise and passes the commotion off as just childish playing. She turns the conversation to his hunt. He pretends to be downcast, then reveals three small fish triumphantly. Katara squeals with joy and embraces him.

https://itadakimasuanime.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/seafood-shellfish-hitsugi-no-chaika-avenging-battle-06.png

Later, as the sun sets, the fish roast over the fire. Katara, Sokka, and an older woman, their grandmother, eat with appreciation as if a feast as meager as this is rare. Sokka finishes first and as he gets up, he rips his pants, again. He criticizes Katara, her stitching is still terrible, and since Grangran can’t do it anymore, it’s up to her. He reaches for his other pair of pants but stops when Katara admits that she hasn’t mended them yet. Sokka gets cross with her for not finishing her chores. Katara retorts that if he wasn’t so clumsy, he wouldn’t tear his pants. Sokka scolds Katara for just playing around and waterbending. Their grandmother drops her bowl. Quickly, Katara denies waterbending, but Sokka saw her. Grangran comes down on Katara: It is forbidden, but Katara can’t forbid who she is! Grangran snaps that waterbending will get them all killed. There is silence. Sokka brings the pants over to Katara. He puts food on the table, the least she could do is contribute. Defeated, Katara fetches her needle and thread but hesitates before she begins to work. She’s about to speak when Sokka pushes that his pants aren’t going to mend themselves.

Katara pops off that he can repair his own stupid pants and throws them in Sokka’s face and storms out into the night. Sokka sticks his head out and calls after her but Katara breaks into a sprint. She runs past her neighbors, out of the village and runs and runs and runs until she can run no more, collapsing at the top of a snow-white cliff, overlooking a frozen bay.

The cold light of the nearly full moon beams down upon her. She looks up, with tears in her eyes and screams out her frustration. She pounds her fists to the ground. The ice cracks inches from her fists and shatter the side of the icy cliff down down down into the middle of the bay. The ground shakes and Katara is avalanched over with the side of the cliff and is buried in the ice and snow.

She pushes a mound of snow off her with her waterbending. As she cleans herself off, she notices a soft glow emanating from the fissure in the ice. As she investigates, the light intensifies, rising, until the source, a glowing ice sphere, bursts through the floe before her.

Cracks splinter throughout the sphere causing the light inside to escape. The light is too much and Katara shields her eyes. The sphere goes dark for a second then a pillar of light erupts out the top.

Back in the village, Sokka mutters to himself as he struggles with a needle and thread. The light rips through the night sky and through the flap of the tent. His eyes widen. He whispers Katara’s name and grabs his spear.

A dazzling aurora fills the sky. The broken bay has frozen again by some mysterious power, leaving the landscape jagged and strange. A cloud of snow and swirling mists ebb and flow about the remains of the sphere. Katara approaches and sees in the remains a boy tattooed with arrows and a white six-legged bison, both fast asleep. She kneels beside the tattooed boy and touches his face. He dreamily opens his eyes and then closes them again as he mutters about how beautiful she is.

Katara is amused. The boy snaps awake, he’s not dreaming. He jumps out of Katara’s arms and admires his surroundings. With his hands on his hips, he announces that he has made it to the south pole as planned and immediately requests a snowball fight and before Katara can protest she’s pelted as he laughs. She pulls the snow off as the boy exclaims that she’s a waterbender, and that it is officially on! Katara puts on her game face and snowballs begin to fly back and forth. Katara hides behind a snowbank. She peeks out and sees the boy scooping snow into a ball, she turns back and uses her bending to mold her own. She peeks out again, but he has disappeared. Out of nowhere he lands behind her and unleashes an impossible number of snowballs. Katara screams as she’s hit. Sokka hears her scream and breaks into a sprint. He yells her name and runs towards the boy with his spear who dodges the thrust and the following swing. Katara, covered in snow, tries in vain to stop Sokka. Sokka thrusts again. The boy lands on the spearhead, faceplanting Sokka into the snow and bringing him to his knees. Katara, wipes the snow from her eyes and gets a full view of Sokka’s undercarriage. She shrieks, “Where are your pants!?” The boy helps him up. Sokka didn’t have time to put on pants, he thought she was in trouble. Katara is touched.

https://www.deviantart.com/akreon/art/Appa-132703919

A low grumble escapes the large, furry, six-legged creature lying motionless nearby. The boy climbs onto it and enthusiastically rouses it. Sokka asks, unsure, what the thing is, and the boy replies that it is Appa, his flying bison. Sokka expresses disbelief over the purported ability of the large bison to fly. The boy, looking around at his surroundings, asks if they live nearby, which triggers Sokka to tell Katara not to answer, as he is convinced that the mystery boy is a Fire Nation spy, a notion that Katara rejects sarcastically. The boy introduces himself as Aang, an airbender. Sokka tells him no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years. Aang laughs, they are very good at hiding. *

Aang offers to fly them back to their village if he can get shelter for the night. Katara happily agrees and climbs on with Aang, while Sokka refuses, convinced that Aang and Katara are crazy. Aang says, "Yip-yip!", and Appa leaps into the air, though immediately comes crashing down, while Sokka crows sarcastically about Appa's inability to fly, Aang decides Appa is still too tired to fly just yet. He looks over his shoulder and leans out to stare at Katara with a huge smile on his face, causing her, after a few long, awkward seconds, to ask, "Why are you smiling at me like that?" He replies, "Oh, I was smiling?" Sokka lifts his head back, groaning, while Katara, at first smiling at Aang's response, frowns back at Sokka. *

In the moonlight, they walk back to the village. A curious Katara asks Aang if he knows the fate of the Avatar; being an airbender, she knows that the Avatar was supposed to be an Air Nomad. Aang awkwardly states that he knew people that knew the Avatar but did not know the actual Avatar himself. A disappointed Katara drops the subject, leaving Aang looking guilty. *

Underneath the setting sun, a scout blows a horn atop a fire nation fort located at the foot of the southern air temple mount. The commander of the base, a fierce looking full-grown man, greets Iroh and Zuko in the courtyard, he makes sure to highlight Zuko’s scar to confirm that it’s him. Iroh shows his respect to Admiral Zhao, who asks what brings the exiled prince and his uncle before him.

Zuko demands access south, to the Antarctic seas, Zhao’s domain. This amuses Zhao and arouses his interest. Even if he had seen or heard any sign of the Avatar, he wouldn’t tell Zuko. Iroh reasons with him, then, that there would be no harm in letting them search. Zhao deflects and muses if Zuko’s quest to restore his honor will ever truly end. He continues that when he marries Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula, they will let him come live in the palace dungeon. Zuko retorts that Zhao is a fool if he thinks he can ask the fire lord for Azula’s hand in marriage. Zhao is confident, that when his mission is complete, the fire lord will offer his daughter’s hand. He denies Zuko’s request, his mission is too important, and sends Zuko back to his ship.

Later that night, Iroh finds Zuko glowering over the vast southern sea. He presses the prince to sleep, telling him that if he doesn't rest, he will, like his ancestors, fail to capture the Avatar even if they do find him. The prince refuses to his uncle’s wisdom, he will succeed because he seeks to regain his honor through the endeavor, a trait none of his ancestors shared with him. Iroh casts doubt on Zuko’s assumption that the avatar is in the southern water tribe. Zuko reveals his logic, that the old airbender has likely died, and a young waterbender would be next in line to be the avatar. If it was a northern child, the proud northerners would have announced it, like they did their runaway princess. Iroh still doubts, Zuko snaps at him if he has a better idea. The night sky lights up, the same pillar of light from when Aang was released, and the aurora casts a green glow all on the southern hemisphere. *

Zuko observes it through the end of his telescope, his eyes narrow.

From high above the fire nation fort, on a cliff side, a mysterious figure in leather armor watches Zuko’s ship leave and turn south in the dead of night. The figure stands, a beautiful young woman who’s white hair shimmers in the moonlight.

Back in the village, Katara leads Aang into a stable. They don’t have much room, so he’ll have to sleep in here with Appa. She gets him a blanket. As she hands it to him, there is a moment where they share eye contact. Katara breaks it off and leaves, but not before stealing one last glance at Aang.

That night, Aang has a dream that he and Appa fly through a terrible storm. They are buffeted by the full fury of the gale, struggle in vain to escape and eventually are forced under the waves. *

In his dream, Aang’s eyes and tattoos began to glow and he creates a giant bubble around himself and Appa. The bubble freezes over, encasing their figures in light which grows brighter and brighter.

In his sleep, Aang stirs and his tattoos dance luminously. The lights wax and wane in the slit of the stable door casting a strange light on the sleeping village.

The sun rises over an icy expanse the next morning. Aang throws open the flap to the yurt, but it is empty. Sokka and Katara and Grangran are already doing their duties. As he explores, the elderly villagers look upon him with suspicion. Aang bows to the villagers respectfully, eliciting a response of fear from them, and they hurriedly take a few steps away from the airbender. *

He hears Katara calling his name. Eager to impress her, he jumps high in the air and lands in front of her and her wards. The kids go nuts. They goad him into showing off, which he obliges.

Aang attracts quite a crowd, almost the entire village. He finishes his trick. Everyone is stunned. One villager erupts in applause, the others glare her into silence. The kids tackle Aang and climb all over him. His airbending is even cooler than Katara’s waterbending.

A stir in the crowd. Katara is a waterbender? Katara feels the eyes of the villagers on her. Grangran assures the other villagers that Katara is not a waterbender, as the crowd whisper amongst themselves and go about their business. She gives the younger children the evil eye and they scamper off screaming and grabs Katara and Aang to throw them both into the tent. She looks Aang square in the face and tells him that it would be uncustomary to kick him out without breakfast but that the airbender is no longer welcome here. She goes to find Sokka. There is quiet. Aang timidly asks Katara why she refuses to waterbend. She tells him it is forbidden. Aang doesn’t understand why. The waterbenders get taken away, by firebenders. There’s a war. Aang didn’t know of any war.

Just then, Grangran and Sokka return. Sokka has checked the morning traps and has brought oysters. He passes them out, they each pry them open and slurp theirs down, except Aang, who holds it awkwardly. Sokka apologizes and opens it for him. Aang makes a face, “Do you have anything vegetarian?” he asks. Sokka aghast, scoots away from him. Aang realizes he’s made a faux pas. He corrects himself. “Can I please have something vegetarian?” Grangran and Katara share a glance. Sokka doesn’t have any vegetarian options except for sea prunes for Grangran and they are nasty.

Grangran throws a shell at Sokka and thrusts a bowl of sea prunes into Aang’s hands. His stomach growls, and he eats one. He likes them!

Sokka does not get Aang. He and Katara share a look of disgust as Aang gorges himself. Katara leans over to Sokka and whispers in his ear that Aang doesn’t know about the war. Sokka asks how that is possible: the war has been going on for a hundred years.

Meanwhile, Zuko spies the village through a telescope. Everything is going according to plan. Just then, from around an iceberg, an armada of three of Zhao’s fastest destroyers cut Zuko’s Battleship off and he is forced to change course to avoid them.

Zhao boards Zuko’s ship. Zuko greets him, amazed he found the time to chase him and hopes his all-important mission wasn't jeopardized by this detour. Zhao admits it was easy to catch up with them, the battleship was built like a tank to hold a fully realized Avatar, which makes it slow, but necessary for his capture, which is why Zhao is commandeering Zuko’s ship. Zuko protests, the Avatar is his. Zhao reminds Zuko that he ignored a direct order and is trespassing in his domain. Zuko spits out that he doesn't take orders from anyone, especially a low born upstart rat like Zhao. Zhao's smile fades as he orders his men to take the prince into custody. Two guards grab Zuko arms, but he throws them off easily. He points at Zhao and challenges him to an Agni Kai, winner gets the ship. Zhao laughs, and asks how Zuko plans to survive stranded on an iceberg without a ship, doesn't he remember the last time he did an Agni Kai? Zuko will never forget.  

Outside their village, Grangran leads Appa with a rope as Aang, Katara, and Sokka head out with her. Aang tells them that it was very nice to meet them, and he’ll come visit the South Pole again soon. Sokka explains to Aang they aren’t actually in the south pole, they are much further north, less than a day to the southern air temple. Katara extrapolates: There’s nothing left at the south pole.

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https://www.masterfile.com/image/en/679-07608205/moon-rising-over-trees-and-buildings-at-night

The tribes used to be connected by the moon gate.

Under the light of the full moon, the portal would open and northerners and southerners could walk between the poles via the spirit world to mingle and trade and visit family and make the pilgrimage to the spirit oasis. The moon gate connected the north and south cultures. Until the fire nation destroyed everything in south and the portal was destroyed.

Flashback: Fiery projectiles rain down on the southern capital and reduce it to rubble.

Everybody who was trapped in the south had no choice but to move away from the ruins because there was no food. The north pole is floating ice, and the waterbenders can fish beneath the ice year-round, but south pole is above frozen ground and there you can’t grow food in frozen ground. Grangran interrupts and tells the airbender that it’s time for him to go. As he turns to leave, Aang asks if they are sure the south pole is really destroyed. Sokka assures him sarcastically, that yeah, they're sure, and glares at Aang. Aang posits that the monks at the southern air temple would have told him, they tell him a lot of things, after all, they told him that he was the- he doesn’t finish his sentence. He climbs on Appa and they trot off. Katara calls for him to wait. As she approaches, she tells him the only thing they have at the southern air temple anymore is a fire nation fort. Aang looks at her with a twinkle in his eye and assures her, there are air nomad monks.

He extends his hand to her. Grangran yells that she’s taking too long and though Katara takes a breath, she doesn’t look back as she takes Aang’s hand and climbs aboard. Grangran pushes Sokka to stop her. Katara wraps her arms around Aang as he tells her to hang on. “Appa, Yip yip!” Appa grumbles and begins to move just as Sokka reaches them. He grabs Appa’s fur and tries to pull them back but ends up getting pulled himself and has to run to keep up. Aang leads them straight towards the edge of the cliff and Sokka screams that they are all going to die! He shuts his eyes and holds tight as Appa leaps and they disappear over the edge. Grangran cries out for them and falls to her knees. Appa and the gang reappear, flying. Sokka freaks as he clutches Appa's fur. Aang tells Sokka that when he says let go, to let go. Sokka protests but Aang leads Appa into a barrel roll and yells at Sokka to let go which he does out of instinct. The momentum flips Sokka up and over and plomp, directly seated behind Katara on Appa’s back. The daring move has made Katara cling to Aang close and she blushes.

Aang cheers and Grangran watches as they fly towards the sun.

The sun is directly overhead as the Agni Kai begins.

Admiral Zhao and Prince Zuko crouch, back to back on the deck of the battleship. Shedding their capes, they turn to face each other. Iroh counsels Zuko to remember his basics, as they are his greatest assets, but Zuko seems not to heed his uncle's wisdom, instead stating, simply and forcefully, that he will not allow himself to lose. As he assumes his stance, Zhao, doing the same, taunts Zuko, saying: "This will be over quickly." *

The two opponents stare fiercely into each other's unblinking eyes for a brief moment, waiting for the other to strike; it is Zuko who begins the duel with a series of fire blasts from his hands and feet. *

Zhao seems more than a match for Zuko, effortlessly avoiding and nullifying all of his fire blasts. As the prince catches his breath, Iroh continues to advise Zuko to remember his basics. Zhao throws his own volley of fire blasts; Zuko is able to block each attack, but he is slowly forced back with every parry he makes. For the final blast, Zhao, using both fists, sends a ball of fire that connects solidly with Zuko, knocking him to the ground. Pressing his advantage, Zhao leaps into the air, covers the distance separating him and Zuko, and prepares a finishing blast aimed directly for the prince's exposed face. An instant before contact, Zuko rolls out of the way, rises with a kicking flourish, and knocks Zhao out of his stance. *

With new-found vigor, Zuko releases a series of low attacks that cause Zhao to retreat, finishing him with a jet of fire from a full body kick. Prone, Zhao tells Zuko to do it, to give him a scar like his own, but Zuko aims beside his face instead. As the victorious prince walks away, a beaten and furious Zhao sends a jet of fire at Zuko's back. Iroh intervenes, however, stopping the attack with his bare hand and throwing the admiral to the ground. As Iroh stands over Zhao, Zuko tries to attack Zhao once more, but his uncle tells him not to taint his victory by retaliating. Iroh lectures Zhao about the dishonor he has brought upon himself through his actions and states that his nephew, even in exile, has proven himself to be more honorable. ��*

From the crow's nest, a scout shouts. They all crane their necks to see a flying bison with a water tribe girl and boy and air nomad fly far above them.

Up on Appa, Sokka refuses to open his eyes as he clutches Katara's garments. Katara lets him know that he's missing the sights. Aang spies the fire navy ships below. The fear deep inside him grows. He’s never seen fire navy ships this far south.

Both Zhao and Zuko blink in their telescopes. Iroh suggests they try working together as the bison disappears into the clouds.

Aang and Sokka and Katara fly through clouds and above mists and fog. Sokka asks if they are they yet. Aang spots the temple at the top of a mountain and they fly closer. Katara remarks on how beautiful it is.

From a window, the white-haired girl watches them all land in a sky bison pen and jump off. She disappears into the shadows. Appa grazes happily.

Sokka wishes he could eat, that ride took longer than he thought. Katara shushes him. Aang calls out to his people, but nobody answers. The temple appears to be abandoned. They walk up the temple steps. Sokka asks Aang if the airbenders have any food and is berated by Katara for being one of the first outsiders to see an airbender temple and he can only think with his stomach. She apologizes for Sokka. Aang insists the airbenders are simply hiding. There are lots of hiding places. They walk through a large archway into a great hall beyond. In the rafters above, the white-haired girl shifts into position. As Aang, Katara, and Sokka pass beneath her, she drops a net down upon them. The girl lands and knocks them off their feet and they fall to the ground in a pile.

She brandishes a staff at the subdued trio. “Are you firebenders?” She barks. They tell her they are not.  “That’s just what a firebender would say!” They assure her they are not firebenders. They are water tribe, and Aang is an airbender. She releases them and introduces herself as Princess Yue of the northern water tribe. Sokka is impressed and bows, “your majesty,” Katara does a stiff movement she would call a curtsey. Aang recognizes the staff and grabs it but Yue holds fast. It’s a sacred air nomad staff, it’s not to be touched by outsiders. Yue is nonplussed. Sokka tells Aang that he can’t speak to a princess like that. Aang takes a deep breath and bellows, “LET IT GO!” His voice echoes in the halls. Yue lets go of the staff.  Aang apologizes for yelling and inspects the staff. Yue never got the names of the other two, Sokka and Katara. Yue is incredulous, “You are Sokka and Katara!? Your father saved my life! Hakoda’s ship arrived at our capital a year ago and he was granted audience before me and my father. My father refused to help, and, I had to make a choice. I ran away and boarded your father’s ship in secret with the moon scroll.”

“We’re going to reopen the moon portal!”

But where is their father now? “He was taken prisoner by the fire nation. The last thing he said was he’d be a boomerang, but, I never got to ask him what that means.” “Means he’ll be back,” Sokka explains. He shows her the boomerang his father gave him when he left. Aang asks her how she got here. Yue continues, “I was found by a fisherman and made my way south. I got marooned here about a month ago after my ship sank. Been looking for a way off ever since, but there’s so many fire nation... We could fly to the south pole on a sky bison, though.” Someone’s stomach growls. Katara admonishes Sokka. It wasn’t him, it was Aang! Yue calculates that there is enough time to eat.

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The air temple orchard is overgrown, though a thousand years of tending have given a sense of order to the older trees. Aang hopes they like mountain peaches as he hops high in the air and grabs one. He lands and hands a peach to Katara and jumps back into the air. Sokka, asks her for it, salivating, and Katara licks it all over, much to Sokka’s chagrin. Aang lands with an armful of peaches and one in his mouth. He hands them out. They sit and enjoy a moment of peace.

Yue asks how the boomerang works. Sokka hands it to her and instructs her how to throw it. She does her best, but it is a terrible throw. She puts her hands up to her mouth and yells “Come back!” Sokka offers to go get it, but she should, she threw it, and they both end up going together. When they find it, Sokka throws it to demonstrate. Yue commends him on the throw. Sokka smiles goofily and gets lost in her eyes. They smile at each other and the boomerang runs smack into the side of Sokka’s head and he yelps in pain. Aang and Katara come running. Though he’s bleeding and wincing, Yue laughs and says it’s nothing a waterbender couldn’t heal. Katara isn’t sure what she means. Yue furthers, waterbenders can heal, she thought everybody knew that, especially waterbenders.

Yue pours some water into Katara’s hands. Katara is unsure what to do so she waterbends the water onto Sokka’s cut. Nothing happens. She closes her eyes and concentrates. The water releases a soft glow. Katara gasps and her eyes pop open. The wound has closed and there is no scar. Yue tells Katara that she just did some high-level bending. Aang lights up, he knows where the airbenders are.

Aang leads them to an intricately carved door. If the airbenders are hiding, it will be here. They have storerooms and water reserves deep in the temple. It’s his last hope. Only high level airbending can open this door, he reveals, and he bends two focused currents of air into the large doors' ornate locking mechanism, and a strange hauntingly beautiful tone resonates. The locks disengage, and the doors open slowly. Aang walks into the darkened room as Katara, Sokka, and Yue follow him.

Aang calls out to the airbenders. The room is pitch black and his footsteps echo. Katap. Katap. Katap. Skrit. He steps on something. It is a wooden medallion. He picks it up and flashes back to a happy looking older airbender monk: Gyatso, wearing medallion on a necklace.

Monk Gyatso is Aang’s sensei. Aang in the flashback has no tattoos yet and runs up to him calling his name and they embrace. Gyatso leads Aang out of the wind lock doors and onto the terrace before it.

Flying bison of all sizes fill the sky above. Gyatso tells Aang to call to him. “Appa!” Aang yells. Appa roars and dives down to Aang leaving his siblings and his much larger mother behind. Appa nuzzles and licks Aang as he laughs and laughs and laughs.

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The memory fades as Aang’s eyes adjust to the shadows. He sees a sky bison skull among bones and piles of soot and ashes, all over the room. Firebenders were here. Katara gasps. “Oh no.”

Aang falls to his knees. He is not alright. His eyes and tattoos light up. Wind begins to circle around him. Sokka freaks, “Is he glowing? How is he glowing?!” Katara calls for Aang. The winds get faster and faster, lifting Aang into the air. Yue makes them take cover. The soot and bones in the room get caught up in the whirlwind, disintegrating into brown and black dust and debris. Aang’s eyes, emanating white light, widen. The swirling blackness closes in on him. He shuts his eyes and pushes the darkness away, forcing all the ashes out the temple. Aang stops glowing and he drifts to the ground.

Outside, the ash cloud drifts away.

Yue, Katara, and Sokka cough around the corner. Katara runs to Aang and takes him into her lap. He stirs. It really has been one hundred years. She cradles his head and opens up to him that she and Sokka lost their mother to the fire nation. Even though his people are gone, he has found a new family: herself and Sokka. He looks Katara in the eyes and tells her with conviction that he will never firebend. Never ever. He sits up and hugs Katara as she mulls his statement.

From their ships, the firebenders notice the ash cloud drifting down from the temple as they pull into the harbor of the fort. Something must be going on. They form a squad of male and female fire nation soldiers fresh from the base. Zhao tells Iroh that he is too old and slow for this mission and Zuko is free to stay behind as well, if he doesn’t think he can make the climb. Zuko is ready. Iroh warns Zuko that Zhao is not to be trusted. Zuko assures his uncle, he can handle Zhao. From the battlements, Iroh watches the troops begin the hike. He puts on a cloak and sneaks out after them.

Later, the sun sets over the mountain peaks. Aang and the others bring flowers to a stone alter. The medallion sits in the middle of it. They pile the flowers around it. Aang sets a peach down with the flowers and steps back. Peaches were Gyatso’s favorite, he tells them. He closes his eyes. They all do. Aang gives the airbender prayer of mourning. The sound of wings. They open their eyes and a winged lemur eats the peach on the altar.

Aang laughs, a long clear laugh as he takes the lemur, lazily eating the peach, into his hands and names him Momo. The wind blows through the flowers.

Night falls. In a clearing in the orchard, Aang strokes the sleeping lemur as Sokka builds a fire and Yue puts peaches on the ends of sticks. She pokes fun at his fire building technique. Sokka has been building fires his whole life. Yue retorts that she’s only been doing it for the last year and she’s already better then him. They race to light the fire and Yue wins, but just barely. “Best two out of three?” Yue asks Sokka with a cheeky smile.  Katara returns with a bucket filled with well water.

The peaches roast on the sticks as the fire casts an amber yellow on the kids’ faces. “So, are we going to talk about what happened?” Sokka asks. Yue and Katara avoid his line of questioning. Sokka extrapolates, “Aang was glowing. I haven’t heard of a glowing person before.” Aang is silent. Yue speaks up, “I have.”

“When I was born I was very sick and very weak. Most babies cry when they're born, but I was born as if I was asleep, my eyes closed. They told my mother and father I was going to die. That night, beneath the full moon, he brought me to the spirit oasis and placed me in the pond and pleaded with the spirits to save me. I began to glow and my hair turned white. I opened my eyes and began to cry, and they knew I would live. That's why my mother named me Yue. For the moon.”

Yue explains that Aang must be filled with immense spiritual power. Aang is silent. Sokka pipes up that it was the same light from when Aang came out of the iceberg. Still Aang is silent. Katara scoots closer to him and prods him why he told her he would never firebend. She asks him if he is the avatar. Aang stands, surprising the lemur and it scurries away. He never wanted to be the Avatar. He only ever wanted to be normal and play airball with the other kids. He didn't ask to be the avatar! They were going to send him away, to the eastern temple where he would be safer. Which means he was in danger.  Avatars aren't supposed to know they are the avatar until they are 16 because: what if they told you, you were supposed to save the world at twelve years old? That’s why he ran away. He was going to come back but ran into a storm and somehow he lost 100 years.

Sokka is confused, if he's the avatar, how come he can’t bend the other elements? Aang doesn't know how yet.

Yue smiles. Out of her pack she produces the moon scroll.

In it is more than just how to open the moon gate, but also advanced waterbender techniques as well. She gives it to Aang and suggests Katara give him his first lesson. Sheepishly, Katara unravels the scroll. There’s writing, but she doesn't know how to read. Aang and Yue are taken aback by this, but Sokka doesn’t know how to read either. They have chores all day, there wouldn't be any time for reading, even if they had books. Yue sadly remarks that everyone in the Northern tribe knows how to read and apologizes that life in the south has gotten so hard. Aang comes closer and reads the scroll to Katara. Water is the element of versatility. It is a liquid, a solid, a gas. Gifted waterbenders can even be healers. He smiles and Katara blushes and Sokka touches his head where the wound would have been. Water is Tui and La, Push and Pull, and the earliest waterbenders learned how to push and pull the ocean like the moon with its tides. The moon is the source of power for all waterbenders and they are strongest when the moon is full.

They look up at the moon above. Aang remarks that they will be really strong tonight. Yue informs Aang, it's almost full. It's waxing, it will be full tomorrow. Katara admits that from studying the drawings, she doesn't know any of these moves. Aang asks her what she does know. She smiles. She takes him by the hand down to the well. Katara thrusts her hand out over the edge of the well and instructs Aang to do the same. She moves her hand up and down. Aang isn't sure but she tells him to feel the water, even though it’s not attached to his body. Splashes echo out of the deep. Katara says “Ok, I'll pull it and you push it.” Splash. “Ok, now you pull it and I push it.” Splishy splash. He feels it!  Katara asks Aang to pull the water up with her. Aang is surprised on how it's almost like air, but heavy.

Together, they lift a large ball of water high into the air. Aang chuckles and starts pushing it over Katara's head, he lets go. Katara closes her eyes and shrieks but opens them when she realizes she's holding up the water by herself.

She celebrates and loses her concentration and drops the water and gets soaked. Aang laughs and she douses him with the puddle around her. Aang laughs again and dries himself off with a whirlwind. Katara, drenched, asks if he could dry her off too. He tries. Her hair is swept back and poofs out. They both laugh. They gaze into each other’s eyes. Between their faces, the light of the campfire sparkles in the distance.

The campfire suddenly flares up a pillar of fire 10 feet high. Sokka yelps. Aang and Katara turn to face the flames. A rustle behind them. Fire nation soldiers! They throw their spears. Aang whisks Katara down behind the well with him. Katara begins to panic. Aang tells her to use the water.

They lift a spout out of the well and repel the foot soldiers. They run towards the campsite. Yue and Sokka are held captive by elite firebenders while Zhao taunts her. He’s been looking for the princess’s hiding place. Zuko concludes she’s the reason he’s locked down the southern sea. Zhao nods.

Katara and Aang come running to a stop. Zhao is immediately taken by the air nomad boy. Where did he come from? Where are the other air nomads? Zuko wastes no time in taking Katara prisoner. He advises her not to struggle. Zhao stares at Aang while confirming with Zuko that the girl is indeed the Avatar. She's the one from the village, the one waterbender in all the south, therefore, she must be the avatar. Aang shouts that she's not the avatar. Zuko sizes up the air nomad boy. Then who is? Katara tries to stop him but Aang tells them that he is. Zuko retorts that he couldn't possibly be the avatar, he’s just a child! Zhao isn't so sure. The avatar would be over a hundred years old, Zuko reminds Zhao, they have the princess, they have the avatar, but if he wants to waste his time with an air nomad liar, he is welcome to. Zhao willing to be convinced, leaves Aang.

Soldiers take Katara, Yue and Sokka and form ranks.  

Aang drops out of the sky in front of the squadron. He declares himself the avatar and points his staff at the firebenders. They laugh at him. He calls for Appa. From above, Appa roars, then dives and the solders duck and cower. Aang makes an air scooter and zips through all the solders like a pinball. Appa lands where Aang was standing and charges the soldiers with his horns, they scramble to their feet to fend off Appa. Some run. The distraction gives Yue the chance to escape. She knocks her captor in the gut and off of her and throws him into Sokka's guard. Aang takes out the bender holding Katara, and they struggle to get the chains off.

Zhao calls for the men to form rank. Someone yells, “the prisoners are escaping!” Zuko and Zhao leap into the chaos. They arrive to hear Aang give up on getting the chains off of Katara and that they need get to Appa to escape. Zhao is a clever man, he turns and runs to Appa, manifesting a fiery whip in each hand. Zuko fire charges into the group and separates Katara from the rest. Aang spins in and spins Katara out into Yue and Sokka’s arms. Aang and Zuko duel. Katara won’t leave Aang so Sokka picks her up and puts her over his shoulder. Katara begs Sokka to stop, but then changes her mind and tells Sokka to take her to the well. Yue tells them she will get the key to the shackles and joins Aang against Zuko. Appa runs about the courtyard chasing a hapless soldier in circles until Zhao faces off against the beast.

Aang dodges Zuko’s fireball as Appa wails in fear from afar. In his distracted moment Zuko gets past Aang but runs right into Yue. Aang is torn, does he run to help Appa or Yue? Yue tells him that she’s got this, and he goes to rescue Appa from Zhao’s torment. Yue gets in close, Zuko is on the defensive. He dodges past her, and she doesn’t follow. She has pickpocketed the key.

Sokka and Katara are at the well and Katara is bringing up all the water she can with her hands behind her back. Zuko comes racing towards them. Sokka screams and Katara throws the water at Zuko, and completely misses him. Katara asks if she got him. Zuko didn’t even get wet. Sokka throws the boomerang and Zuko has to duck. Zuko rises to his feet and the boomerang comes back knocking Zuko’s helmet. The water pools by Zuko’s feet as he fixes his helmet and with menacing rage makes fire daggers in his hands. Katara closes her eyes. She spreads her fingers then clenches her fists with a quick breath out and the water freezes and Zuko feet are frozen to the ground. Yue slides by Zuko on the ice twirling the key on her finger.

Yue unlocks Katara’s shackles as, in the distance, a blast of fire. Appa roars and flees into the air. Aang screams his name as he runs after him, but Appa won’t come back.

Zhao turns to Aang with a sadistic look in his eyes and a fiery whip in each hand. Katara, Sokka, and Yue come running. They try to convince Aang he has no other choice, he has to run. If he’s captured, who will save them? Fire nation soldiers begin to compose themselves surrounding the group. Zuko, fuming melts his feet. Aang pops the wings out of the staff. It’s also is a glider. He runs and takes flight on the orchard path. Zhao barks a command and all the firebending infantry call out and punch the sky sending fireballs into the air above and beyond and all around Aang. The fireballs arc in the sky and land all over the temple. The peach trees left and right burn and Aang lands among them. The sight of temple burning sends him into a rage. Aang glows. The wind picks up and blows all the fires out. Zhao and Zuko see. He is the avatar. With the fires out, the avatar spirit leaves Aang and the light of his tattoos fade and he lands. Zhao and Zuko race towards him; the chase is on.

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Aang runs through a large archway and into a great stone rotunda with a corkscrew staircase in the center. He runs at the speed of wind up the staircase to the top. Zuko and Zhao are hot on his heels. At the top of the stairs there’s a hallway and at the end of the hallway Aang finds the door to the jump room locked. Zhao leisurely jogs, beast like, up the stairs. Zuko fire leaps up the sides to just beneath the top.  Zuko grabs the edge of the top with the tips of his fingers. He pulls himself up. Desperate, Aang hits the lock with the staff and it breaks open. The door swings off the hinges to a launch pad at the top of the mountain just above the tree line. With freedom before him, he turns around and faces Zuko as the prince rises to his feet.

Zuko promises Aang that if he comes with Zuko now, he and his friends will be unharmed. Aang asks how he can trust Zuko. The fire nation invaded and killed his people. Zuko retorts it was the airbenders’ aggression and illegal settlements on Fire nation land that brought this upon them. Aang claims the airbenders are pacifist. Zuko clarifies then, that Aang won’t just windblast him off and takes a step forward. Aang also takes a step forward. The people who lived here were mostly children. He accuses the fire nation of genocide. Zuko doesn’t want to believe it, but Aang’s conviction has awoken what he knows to be true, and he falters. Aang is still very vulnerable and emotional. His tattoos light up, his eyes glow, the wind rustles around his clothing: the avatar state emerges.

Zhao comes around the corner, not even out of breath. He sees Aang’s glow and smiles his crazy smile and charges Aang. Under the state of the Avatar, Aang is stiffer, more confident. He sends a blast of air with his staff down the hallway at Zhao, knocking him off the stairs. Zuko jumps after him and catches Zhao’s hand and saves him from falling. Zhao glares menacingly at Zuko as he pulls him up. The Avatar spirit fades as Aang realizes he just attempted murder. His actions horrify and confuse him. Tears stream down his face.

Zhao kneels, winded from the air blast. Aang turns to flee. Zuko takes off after him. Aang activates his glider and throws it out the window and leaps out after it, catching it and the wind. For a second, it seems like he’ll get away but then Zuko jumps after him at full speed and grabs hold of his legs, causing them to spiral and crash in the clearing below. Zhao approaches the edge and looks down. He jumps off. Aang and Zuko lie in a crumple before him. Aang tries to get up, but he can’t. Zuko is also injured. Zhao gags Aang and shackles his hands and feet. He goes to Zuko and helps him up. Zhao compliments him on his willingness to sacrifice everything, maybe they aren’t so different. Zhao throws Zuko towards the edge of the cliff and fireballs him off. 

Aang watches, in a daze, as Zuko disappears into the forest below. From afar, Iroh is lit up by the light of the fireball. Zhao lumbers back from the edge and picks Aang up and over his shoulder as Aang passes out. Darkness.

A knock on a heavy iron battleship door. Iroh opens it and stands in the doorway. A messenger tells Iroh to hurry, there’s been an accident with the Prince. Iroh pushes through the crowd to the deck of the boat where Zhao meets him. Zhao proclaims to Iroh that the avatar threw the prince off a cliff. A search party is to be sent immediately to find his body for proper burial. Iroh spits and claims he never liked the sullen prince who had no respect for his elders and they can leave the body on the mountain for all he cares. He asks if the Avatar is in custody. Aang, gagged and bound, is carried by two large soldiers. Iroh leads them into the bowels of the ship. The battleship is a marvel of engineering and the prison for the avatar is state of the art. Even so, Zhao expected more. Iroh states that it’s mobile, self-sufficient, heavily guarded, and the safest place for the avatar to be.  

In the avatar’s cell, Zhao has Aang’s arms chained up and his legs chained down. Iroh gets into Aang’s face, “So this is the great Avatar. Master of all the elements. I don't know how you've managed to elude the Fire Nation for a hundred years, but your little game of hide and seek is over.”

Zhao ungags Aang and asks him how it feels to be the only airbender left. “Do you miss your people? Don't worry, you won't be killed like they were.” Zhao turns to leave. Aang takes a deep inhale and breath blasts Zhao, knocking him to the floor. Zhao is triggered, and fiery. Iroh helps bring him under control. Zhao tells Aang, “Blow all the wind you want, but your situation is futile. See, if you die you will just be reborn and the Fire Nation would have to start searching all over again. So, I'll keep you alive, but just barely.” Zhao leaves in a huff. Uncle Iroh glares at the remaining guards and asks for a minute alone with the thing that killed his nephew. They oblige.

Iroh approaches Aang. Aang shies away, but Iroh lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and assures him he is not like the others. He reveals that he knows Aang didn't kill Zuko but that it doesn't matter because no one will believe Aang anyway. Aang asks what's going to happen to him. Iroh assures Aang that when the time comes, he will help Aang escape, but first, he needs Aang's help. He needs to know about the waterbending girl.

In the prison hold, Katara sits comforting Grangran. Grangran is babbling on about how the fire nation came not long after they left and rounded up the villagers onto their ships but Katara's eyes fix on Sokka. He’s worried about Yue. Katara thinks they should be worried about all of them. A guard rattles the door and tells them to shut up. Iroh enters, carrying a bucket of water. The guard tries to stop him from entering the cell but Iroh tells him the orders are from Zhao. The prisoners haven’t been watered all day. Besides, Iroh asks the guard if he thinks the dragon of the west can’t handle one young waterbending girl. The guard apologizes and opens the door. Iroh enters the cell, kneels, and takes out a ladle and invites the villagers to drink. They do not move. He drinks some water himself. Sokka takes the bucket and gently helps Katara quench their grandmother’s thirst. The bucket is passed around and Katara brings the empty bucket and the ladle to Iroh. He tells her, “Katara, I have spoken with Aang.  He needs you to come with me.”

Iroh takes Katara into his cabin. On the bed, Zuko lies suffering, his stomach wrapped in bandages from Zhao’s fireball. Iroh asks Katara to heal him. Katara doesn’t want to, Zuko put shackles on her and he is after Aang. Iroh understands why she wouldn’t want to. Zuko attacked her, he’s an angry young man, he’s fire nation, but he’s the only good thing in Iroh’s life. Maybe she can see past the anger and the pain and see that he has suffered at the hands of the fire nation, too. Katara eyes the scar on Zuko’s face.

Reluctantly, Katara dips her hand in a bucket by the bedside. Water clings to her hands and she brings them to Zuko’s bandages. The water glows for a few moments and Zuko is soothed. Katara asks to be taken back to the cell. Iroh sneaks Katara through the ship. He takes her back into the prison hold and in with the rest of the villagers. As he locks them in, Sokka asks him about Yue. Iroh tells him, she is with Zhao.

In Zuko’s former quarters, Zhao sits beneath a rack of twin swords, eating a feast alone. Yue is escorted in. She has been bathed and dressed in her gown from the night she left the north. She is seated in front of Zhao. He invites her to eat. He tells her about the captain who found the dress of the northern water tribe princess on a water tribe boat headed for the south pole. Yue asks what Zhao wants. Zhao wants peace, a permanent peace with the water nation. The southerners have wasted their land, like the earthbending savages and the airbenders before them. The north will be safe, it’s water, the fire nation doesn’t want water. The southerners can move to the north. Yue doesn’t understand. Zhao tells her, he’s going to help her open the moon gate. Isn’t that what she wants? Yue asks about the avatar. Zhao tells her she can either leave here and return home with her people or join him in prison. Yue wants to know where her people are. Zhao will take her there.

The prison hold door is flung open. Zhao leads Yue to the southern people. She sees them locked in a crowded cell. She announces that they will all be taken to the North Pole as her new subjects. Zhao will allow them to open the moon gate to let the water tribe members through to their sister tribe. However, the southerners will never return to the south. This news is upsetting, the south is their home. Yue assures them, this is their only option. Zhao tells the Princess its time for her to return, Yue asks to stay. Zhao locks her up in with the rest of the tribe. A soldier enters the hold and tells Zhao they have the beast.

On the deck of the ship, fire nation soldiers struggle to restrain Appa with ropes. Zhao appears. Appa wails and struggles harder. Zhao delights in his fear and what a fine present Appa will be for his bride to be. They take Appa below deck and set sail. Momo watches from the walls of the fort. He glides down and reaches the battleship and crawls through a vent in the side of the ship. He hears familiar voices, Sokka and Yue huddled close. Sokka asks her what the north is like. Yue tells him that it’s different. She has responsibilities, she’s betrothed. Sokka doesn’t understand she’s to be married.

Yue asks if she can do something she’s wanted to do since she first saw Sokka. He nods and she kisses him. She curls into his little spoon as he holds her. Momo gags and continues through the vents.

Momo passes by Iroh and Zuko in his cabin. Zuko is feeling much better after being healed. Iroh tells Zuko that Zhao captured the bison and maybe they can use him to gain the Avatar’s trust. Zuko bets that if the Avatar escapes under Zhao’s command, it will be a huge blow to his plans. There is a knock at the door. Zuko hides in the closet. Iroh answers, it is Zhao. Zhao wants Iroh to know that he grieves for the prince and they will want to get word to the fire lord, but first, Iroh is invited to the north pole, as Zhao’s advisor. Iroh asks if Zhao meant the south pole and Zhao smiles and leaves. Zuko peeks out of the closet as Iroh shuts the door.

Momo continues on through the vents. Finally, he finds Aang’s cell. Aang is delighted to see Momo. Momo gnaws at the shackles at Aang’s feet, to no avail. He curls up around Aang’s neck, giving him comfort deep in the bowels of the battleship.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a19228/ice-breakers-coast-guard-great-lakes/

Late day, over the icy seas, icebreaker ships take the battleship as far south as they can. The firebenders load sleds and snowmobiles with their prisoners for the south pole. Katara is lead out, the only prisoner in full shackles and even a muzzle. Iroh walks down the gangplank after the last of the prisoners. He passes a soldier, there is a familiar scar beneath the helm. The two nod to each other and Iroh joins Zhao on his sled. The fire nation troops take off, roaring into the distance.

On the ship, a soldier stands guard outside of Zuko’s former room. There is a clanging at the end of the hallway. The soldier investigates and is incapacitated by a masked man. The man enters Zuko’s old quarters and stares at the twin swords on the mantle. The door is left ajar and the swords above the mantle are gone.

Down in the prison hold, four guards play a game in front of Appa’s cell. One of them asks why they need so many men to guard this beast. Another guard tells him, that he’s a gift for Princess Azula from Zhao just as Aang will be a gift to the fire lord. There is a bang down the hall. The guards all jump at the noise.

The helmet of a Fire Nation soldier rolls down the hallway toward them. When one guard investigates alone, the other three suddenly see a flame erupt from the hallway and hear the muffled sounds of combat and of chains being strung up. When two more guards follow after him, they find their companion strung up with his hands to the ceiling. The masked man, clinging to the ceiling, wraps a chain around a hand of each guard and drops down, simultaneously pulling the guards up. The last guard standing in front of Appa’s cell, having heard the scuffle, takes his horn to sound the alarm, though before he could blow the instrument, it is knocked out of his hands by a well-aimed knife. Noticing a figure running toward him, he firebends, though the masked man extinguishes the fire by throwing water and proceeds to sweep the legs from underneath the guard with the bucket. *

Appa groans in interest as the masked man offers him some hay.

Inside his cell, Aang hears a commotion and eyes the door with apprehension. Momo hisses at the door as the lock is being turned. Aang gasps as a masked figure enters with dual broadswords. Momo attacks the figure and is easily subdued when the figure reveals Appa in the hallway. The man unlocks Aang’s chains and retreats to Appa without saying a word. Aang asks him who he is, what is going on, and wonders if the man is there to rescue him. The figure does not respond, and they are interrupted by the sound of the alarm. He signals for the Avatar to follow him. *

Aang, Momo, and the masked figure ride Appa through the halls of the ship. They burst through the door to the deck and are surrounded by soldiers. The masked man draws his swords but Aang yells, “yip-yip,” and they take to the sky. Firebenders all around them shoot projectiles the sky bison dodges or are deflected by the swords. The soldiers’ last hope is artillery that they point at the escapees. FIRE! A rocket heads directly towards the bison. The masked figure taps Aang on the shoulder, but Aang is concentrating. The figure shakes him. Aang sees the rocket but doesn’t know what it is. The figure unsheathes his swords and throws them at the rocket causing it to explode and sending the riders tumbling through the sky in the resulting shockwave. The firebenders below argue about who’s idea it was to shoot the rocket. Gaining his senses after the blast, Aang whirlwinds himself onto Appa’s back. They dive and catch the masked man in Aang’s arms. Momo lands on Aang’s shoulders as the mask falls off the man, revealing him to be an unconscious prince Zuko.

At the south pole, the ruins of the former southern capital are jagged and jut harshly from the surrounding icy waste. Zhao investigates the moon scroll as firebenders race to cut blocks of ice. They stack ice block onto ice block to rebuild the portal according to the scroll. When it is finished, it looks like a tunnel that leads into the side of a wall.

Aang lands Appa on the icy terrain. The tracks of snowmobiles run deep and are easy to follow, but that’s not his issue. Zuko lies motionless on the ground. Aang’s gaze follows the tracks into the distance, then returns to the unconscious Zuko. He can’t just leave him here.

At the south pole, Zhao watches the sun set. He orders Princess Yue to open the moon gate. She can’t. Only a waterbender can. All eyes turn towards Katara. They unshackle and unmuzzle her.

Katara approaches the rebuilt portal. It looks rough and raw in the twilight. She waves her hands over the ice. No change. She does again, but nothing happens. Zhao’s face darkens. He barks an order. The water tribe villagers are pushed to their knees as firebender soldiers brandish flames at them. She tries again and again to use her powers on the portal, but still, it does not respond.

Katara cowers. Zhao approaches her, his fury palpable. He suggests she try again. She doesn’t know if she can open the portal. He sneers that he hopes, for her family’s sake, that she is wrong. He snaps his fingers twice and Grangran is dragged forward. Zhao commands her to open the gate, and though Katara tries, she still can’t do it. Zhao scowls. He looks over at the villagers and spies Sokka. He orders Grangran returned to the others and Sokka to be dragged forward next. Katara begs Zhao. He orders her to open the gate. Sokka tells her that it’s okay, and that he loves her. Grangran yells that she believes in Katara. Yue joins them. The whole village shouts encouragements. The sun disappears over the horizon. The light of the moon is the only light in the sky. Katara closes her eyes and waves her hands once again. Nothing happens. Zhao makes a fireball in his fist and approaches Sokka.

A villager shouts and Zhao turns. A soft light creeps over each ice block until the entire arch is shining. The shining abruptly stops and the blocks have fused together. Zhao investigates.

In the darkness of the tunnel, one can see the moon, hanging in blackness, illuminating a path to a distant archway. Zhao laughs, an evil laugh. Yue stands and bids the southerners to follow her to the north, but Zhao stops them. Elite firebenders take hold of Yue, while others put Katara back into shackles and muzzle and lump her in with the villagers. Yue spits at Zhao for turning against his word. Zhao takes her personally into custody and leaves the rest of the water tribe with the elite guard as he and a small team, including Iroh, lead Yue through the portal.

As they walk the moon’s path, Admiral Zhao sinisterly tells General Iroh that they are in the process of writing history, as they will be destroying the last of the Water Tribe civilization. Yue is aghast at Zhao’s machinations, and Zhao has her gagged. Iroh warns Zhao that history is not always kind to its subjects, Zhao condescendingly assures him that this will not be like Iroh's legendary failure at Ba Sing Se; Iroh ominously tells Zhao he hopes not, for Zhao's sake. The firebenders and Yue reach the end of the path and find themselves in the throne room of the northern water tribe. *

Iroh confirms their location and inquires if it is wise to attack during the full moon, as waterbenders draw strength from the moon. Zhao states that he is aware of the problem, and that he is working on a solution. As he reveals a secret door behind the throne, Zhao explains that years earlier, while serving as a young officer in the Earth Kingdom, he stumbled on the secret of the Moon and Ocean Spirit's mortal forms in an underground library. When he declares it is his destiny to kill the moon spirit, Iroh angrily informs him that the spirits are not to be trifled with. Condescendingly, Zhao tells Iroh he has heard tales of his journey into the Spirit World and assures him that the Moon and Ocean Spirits, having made the decision to give up their immortality to be part of the human world, will face the consequences of that decision. *

They descend down the passageway behind the throne to the spirit oasis: a small bamboo forested pool in a glacial atrium. A low voice is heard up ahead. Zhao puts his fingers to his lips and the firebenders sneak in the shadows. Chief Arnook, Yue’s father, prays to the moon for his daughter and his people. The light of the full moon shines brightly above. When he finishes, he asks an older man, Master Pakku, to escort him back. Zhao reveals himself and his prisoner, Princess Yue. Pakku squares up but Arnook orders him to stand down.

Zhao commends the chief for his wisdom and releases Yue to him. Arnook ungags her and Yue tells him that Zhao means to destroy the water tribe by killing the moon spirit. Arnook and Pakku share a look.

Arnook is incredulous that Zhao could kill the moon, whose bed is the sky and the horizon, but Zhao assures him confidently, that the spirits are close, closer than he thinks. He gestures to the pool, two koi fish swim around each other. Yue is in disbelief that Zhao thinks the fish are the spirits, but Arnook and Pakku are silent with secret knowledge.

Meanwhile, at the south pole, Katara breaths through her muzzle, now hoary with frost. A firebender yelps and points at the sky, it’s Aang riding Appa. The firebenders form a defensive perimeter. Katara takes her chance, she ices the locks to the point that they break and she frees herself from her bonds. She begins taking out firebenders as Aang does the same. The firebenders run to their snowmobiles and sleds and retreat. Katara throws off the muzzle and hugs Aang as Sokka inspects the gate. He runs through it, after Yue. The rest of the southerners follow with trepidation. In the palace, Sokka begins to call out. He sees the door ajar behind the throne. Sokka finds it out of place and passes through it. Katara and Aang ensure all the remaining southerners go through the portal. Aang shows her Zuko on Appa and they decide to leave him in the south.

Suddenly, as if he had been conscious for a while, Zuko makes his move and attacks. Katara trounces him. She freezes him in a block of ice and she and Aang and Momo try to pull Appa through the moon portal. Appa resists; after being cooped up in the ship, he is not interested in going through a small door again.

Sokka sneaks down the path to the spirit oasis. Zhao arrogantly applauds his own efforts to fulfill his "destiny", speculating as to which names by which future generations will call him. From the shadows, Sokka makes eye contact with Yue. He retreats to get help.

A water tribe scout on an ice tower watches the fire navy ship’s blockade. It’s nothing unusual.

Katara and Aang desperately pull Appa with a rope onto the moon path. Zuko the ice block begins to steam.

Zhao takes a burlap sack and charges into the water. After a moment, he rises with the fish in the bag. As he hoists it over his head in triumph, the full moon above transforms, turning from white to blood-red. *

The scout sees the red moon. His waterbender comrade in arms reacts: he can no longer waterbend.

On the moon path, the moon and path are red in the blackness. Katara feels weak. She collapses. Aang releases Appa’s rope and helps her up. Appa pulls back into the open air on the south side. Aang hobbles Katara over to the north side and lays her down in the throne room. He tells Momo to watch over her, he has to go back for Appa. The path beneath him cracks and Katara tells him to hurry. Aang runs through the gate to the other side. Before he can make it to the south, a shadow appears in the doorway and fireblasts him back. Prince Zuko who corners Aang in the disintegrating moon path.

Yue begs Zhao to release the moon spirit. The chief holds her and comforts her. Iroh pleads with Zhao to consider his actions: they will bring harm to all, not just those in the Water Tribe. Reinforcing the point, Iroh promises Zhao, "Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you ten-fold." Zhao confirms what he knew all along, that Iroh is a traitor. To save the moon spirit, Arnook offers Zhao the unconditional surrender of the northern water tribe.

Water tribe warriors swarm into the throne room and surround the villagers coming through the portal. Sokka appears in the door behind the throne and bids them to follow him. The arch of the moon gate begins to crack and Katara yells for Aang. Zuko’s firebending keeps Aang on the pathway guarding the south door as it splinters here and there.

Zhao confirms with Arnook, that he has his unconditional surrender and releases the fish back into the water. The moon turns white. Everyone, the water tribe scouts, fire navy sailors, Sokka, Katara, Aang, Iroh, and even Zuko is relieved. The floor beneath Aang and Zuko solidifies again and Zuko takes a defensive stance.

Zhao watches the fish swim. Something dark and unsatisfied crosses his mind. Without a hesitation, he fire blasts the white fish.

Iroh watches the fire bolt hit the moon spirit in horror.

On the moon path, the full moon above Aang goes out like a light. The path beneath Aang and Zuko disappears and Aang falls into darkness. Zuko jumps to the southern portal and pulls himself through as the pathway vanishes behind him leaving an empty black tunnel.

Katara yells for Aang, and approaches the portal, but the portal in the north now ends in an icy wall.  Momo scratches desperately at the wall.

The scout blinks in the darkness. He is at a loss. One by one, on the horizon, the fire navy blockade lights their trebuchets. They fling fiery projectiles in waves. The scout blows his horn.

Appa huffs at the gate. Zuko tries again and again to jump through the threshold, but without the moon, the gate is shut. Zuko lights the sky up with his fire blasts.

Iroh bellows and lunges on Zhao. The elite squad do their best to protect Zhao but are subdued by Iroh’s fury. Zhao realizes he might be in trouble and flees up the ice wall, his fingers sinking like molten rods into the ice to climb his way out through the opening above. Iroh falls to his knees and mourns the spirit with the chief and Pakku and Yue. Sokka returns with warriors and villagers. The first round of trebuchet projectiles hit the palace and bits of icy debris fall from the ceiling. Grangran pulls Katara wailing for Aang to the safety of the path to the spirit oasis and down to join the others. The northern water tribe capital is in chaos. The dead white fish is prodded by the living black fish.

Aang floats in darkness thick as water. A giant black koi fish finds him and swallows him.

Katara clutches Momo as a ripple in the water breaks the stillness of the spirit oasis. Aang rises out of the water in the avatar state.

Katara is filled with joy, but Aang does not respond. He rises into the sky. Ice and snow from the land and sky begin to swirl around him and envelope him the form of a giant snow-white koi fish. The fish swims through the air out over the bay and dives into the water between fire navy ships. They are hit with a minor wave, but the sailors braced themselves. The snow fish becomes slush and the fish shape decompresses, filling the seas. Then the shape recollects and rises pulling all the water with it. The ships try to flee but are caught up in the gargantuan shape. The rocky bay beneath is revealed as some ships are beached on the seafloor. The water pillar takes a vaguely humanoid fish shape.

It collapses, and the navy ships are tsunamied away.

Back at the spirit oasis, Iroh notices, with astonishment, that Yue has been touched by the Moon Spirit, and that as a result, some of its life force is within her; Yue affirms the conjecture, then decides that she should try to restore the spirit to life by giving hers to it. Her father, upset by this idea, protests, but she is unmoved by him. Sokka takes her hands into his own and assures her there has to be another way. She calmly replies, "I have to try," and places her hands on the dead fish. *

The fish glows as Yue’s spirit leaves her body, she closes her eyes, exhales one last time, and collapses into Sokka's arms, dead. *

Moments later, Yue's body evaporates, and the fish, suddenly filled with life, swims into the oasis, looking for its partner. Floating, Yue appears above the water as a spirit, clothed in a flowing white dress. She tells Sokka that she will always be with him, kissing him one last time before disappearing; as she vanishes, the moon reappears in the sky, restoring the waterbenders' abilities. *

On the walls of the palace, Zhao sees the moon’s return and screams his frustration.

Aang fused with the Ocean spirit, in the meantime, has laid waste to the Fire Nation's navy but ceases as the moon reappears. The Ocean Spirit acknowledges the moon's restoration and, ending its violent vendetta, places Aang atop the outer wall of the city as it melts into the ocean water. *

Zhao finds a hole in the ceiling of the palace as jumps down. He has no choice but to escape through the moon portal. Except a figure blocks his way, Prince Zuko. They begin to fight. Iroh returns to the throne room and catches their duel. As Zhao and Zuko weave in and out of moonbeams let in by breaks in the ceiling. The beams seem to bend and sway as if attracted to Zhao. They wrap around him like a web of fine hair and he is stuck. Tentacles of light pull him into the air. Zuko, forgetting the duel, tries to help Zhao, reaching out a hand to him, but Zhao stubbornly refuses to take it, and he is pulled through the hole in the roof, where he vanishes in the light of the moon. Iroh puts his arm around Zuko and leads the teen back through the moon portal to the south.

Zuko is already planning, they will camp in the south and wait for the Avatar to return for his bison. Iroh looks at him sadly as Zuko begins to make camp with Appa tied up nearby. With a decisive move, Iroh unleashes a fireball that destroys the moon portal in the south. Zuko is speechless as Iroh retrieves Appa and mounts him and pulls Zuko aboard. Zuko says “uh… yip-yip” and the three lift off.

Back in the north, a drained Aang makes his way to the throne room as the rest return as well. Aang looks distraught at the closed portal’s dead end and whispers Appa’s name. The water tribe surrounds and embraces him as a group, with Katara, Sokka, Grangran, Arnook and Pakku in the center. The fire navy ships retreat out of the north and the moon glows high in the sky.

Post credit scene

In the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Ozai imparts the knowledge of Iroh's treasonous behavior and Zuko's failure to his daughter, Azula, and entrusts her with a special task as she looks up at him, a smile on her face. *

#movies #tv #atla #avatar the last airbender #fanfic #fandom #fix

[spookypastatoo]

Squidward’s Suicide

I just want to start off by saying if you want an answer at the end, prepare to be disappointed. There just isn’t one.

I was an intern at Nickelodeon Studios for a year in 2005 for my degree in animation. It wasn’t paid of course, most internships aren’t, but it did have some perks beyond education. To adults it might not seem like a big one, but most kids at the time would go crazy over it.

Now, since I worked directly with the editors and animators, I got to view the new episodes days before they aired. I’ll get right to it without giving too many unnecessary details. They had very recently made the SpongeBob movie and the entire staff was somewhat sapped of creativity so it took them longer to start up the season. But the delay lasted longer for more upsetting reasons. There was a problem with the series four premiere that set everyone and everything back for several months.

Me and two interns were in the editing room along with the lead animators and sound editors for the final cut. We received the copy that was supposed to be “Fear of a Krabby Patty” and gathered around the screen to watch. Now, given that it isn’t final yet, animators often put up a mock title card, sort of an inside joke for us, with phony, often times lewd titles, such as “How Sex Doesn’t Work” instead of “Rock-a-Bye Bivalve” when SpongeBob and Patrick adopt a sea scallop. Nothing particularly funny but work related chuckles. So when we saw the title card “Squidward’s Suicide” we didn’t think it more than a morbid joke.

One of the interns did a small throat laugh at it. The happy-go-lucky music played as is normal. The story began with Squidward practicing his clarinet, hitting a few sour notes like normal. We hear SpongeBob laughing outside and Squidward stops, yelling at him to keep it down as he has a concert that night and needs to practice. SpongeBob says okay and goes to see Sandy with Patrick. The bubbles splash screen comes up and we see the ending of Squidward’s concert. This is when things began to seem off.

While playing, a few frames repeated themselves, but the sound didn’t (at this point sound is synced up with animation, so yes, that’s not common) but when he stops playing, the sound finishes as if the skip never happened. There is a slight murmuring in the crowd before they begin to boo him. Not normal cartoon booing that is common in the show, but you could very clearly hear malice in it. Squidward was in full frame and looked visibly afraid. The shot goes to the crowd, with SpongeBob in center frame, and he too is booing, very much unlike him. That isn’t the oddest thing, though. What is odd is everyone had hyper realistic eyes. Very detailed. Clearly not shots of real people’s eyes, but something a bit more real than CGI. The pupils were red. Some of us looked at each other, obviously confused, but since we weren’t the writers, we didn’t question its appeal to children yet.

The shot goes to Squidward sitting on the edge of his bed, looking very forlorn. The view out of his porthole window is of a night sky so it isn’t very long after the concert. The unsettling part is at this point there was no sound. Literally no sound. Not even the feedback from the speakers in the room. It’s as if the speakers were turned off, though their status showed them working perfectly. He just sat there, blinking, in this silence for about thirty seconds, then he started to sob softly. He put his hands (tentacles) over his eyes and cried quietly for a full minute more, all the while a sound in the background very slowly growing from nothing to barely audible. It sounded like a slight breeze through a forest.

The screen slowly began to zoom in on his face. By slow I mean it’s only noticeable if you look at shots ten seconds apart side by side. His sobbing gets louder, more full of hurt and anger. The screen then twitched a bit, as if it twisted in on itself, for a split second then back to normal. The wind-through-the-trees sound got slowly louder and more severe, as if a storm was brewing somewhere. The eerie part was this sound, and Squidward’s sobbing, sounded real, as if the sound wasn’t coming from the speakers but as if the speakers were holes the sound was coming through from the other side. As good a sound as the studio likes to have, they don’t purchase the equipment to be that good to produce sound of that quality.

Below the sound of the wind and sobbing, very faint, something sounded like laughing. It came at odd intervals and never lasted more than a second so you had a hard time pinning it. We watched this show twice, so pardon me if things sound too specific but I’ve had time to think about them. After thirty seconds of this, the screen blurred and twitched violently and something flashed over the screen, as if a single frame was replaced.

The lead animation editor paused and rewound frame by frame. What we saw was horrible. It was a still photo of a dead child. He couldn’t have been more than six. The face was mangled and bloodied, one eye dangling over his upturned face, popped. He was naked down to his underwear, his stomach crudely cut open and his entrails lying beside him. He was lying on some pavement that was probably a road.

The most upsetting part was that there was a shadow of the photographer. There was no crime tape, no evidence tags or markers, and the angle was completely off for a shot designed to be evidence. It would seem the photographer was the person responsible for the child’s death. We were of course mortified, but pressed on, hoping that it was just a sick joke.

The screen flipped back to Squidward, still sobbing, louder than before, and half body in frame. There was now what appeared to be blood running down his face from his eyes. The blood was also done in a hyper realistic style, looking like if you touched it you’d get blood on your fingers. The wind sounded now as if it were that of a gale blowing through the forest; there were even snapping sounds of branches. The laughing, a deep baritone, lasted at longer intervals and came more frequently. After about twenty seconds, the screen again twisted and showed a single frame photo.

The editor was reluctant to go back, we all were, but he knew he had to. This time the photo was that of what appeared to be a little girl, no older than the first child. She was lying on her stomach, her barrettes in a pool of blood next to her. Her left eye too was popped out and popped, naked except for underpants. Her entrails were piled on top of her above another crude cut along her back. Again the body was on the street and the photographer’s shadow was visible, very similar in size and shape to the first. I had to choke back vomit and one intern, the only female in the room, ran out. The show resumed.

About five seconds after this second photo played, Squidward went silent, as did all sound, like it was when this scene started. He put his tentacles down and his eyes were now done in hyper realism like the others were in the beginning of this episode. They were bleeding, bloodshot, and pulsating. He just stared at the screen, as if watching the viewer. After about ten seconds, he started sobbing, this time not covering his eyes. The sound was piercing and loud, and most fear inducing of all was his sobbing was mixed with screams.

Tears and blood were dripping down his face at a heavy rate. The wind sound came back, and so did the deep voiced laughing, and this time the still photo lasted for a good five frames.

The animator was able to stop it on the 4th and backed up. This time the photo was of a boy, about the same age, but the scene was different. The entrails were just being pulled out from a stomach wound by a large hand, the right eye popped and dangling, blood trickling down it. The animator proceeded. It was hard to believe, but the next one was different but we couldn’t tell how. He went on to the next, same thing. He want back to the first and played them quicker and I lost it. I vomited on the floor, the animating and sound editors gasping at the screen. The five frames were not as if they were five different photos, they were played out as if they were frames from a video. We saw the hand slowly lift out the guts, we saw the kid’s eyes focus on it, we even saw two frames of the kid beginning to blink.

The lead sound editor told us to stop, he had to call in the creator to see this. Mr. Hillenburg arrived within about fifteen minutes. He was confused as to why he was called down there, so the editor just continued the episode. Once the few frames were shown, all screaming, all sound again stopped. Squidward was just staring at the viewer, full frame of the face, for about three seconds. The shot quickly panned out and that deep voice said “DO IT” and we see in Squidward’s hands a shotgun. He immediately put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Realistic blood and brain matter splattered the wall behind him, and his bed, and he flew back with the force. The last five seconds of this episode show his body on the bed, on his side, one eye dangling from what’s left of his head above the floor, staring blankly at it. Then the episode ends.

Mr. Hillenburg was obviously angry at this. He demanded to know what the heck was going on. Most people left the room at this point, so it was just a handful of us to watch it again. Viewing the episode twice only served to imprint the entirety of it in my mind and cause me horrible nightmares. I’m sorry I stayed.

The only theory we could think of was the file was edited by someone in the chain from the drawing studio to here. The CTO was called in to analyze when it happened. The analysis of the file did show it was edited over by new material. However, the timestamp of it was a mere 24 seconds before we began viewing it. All equipment involved was examined for foreign software and hardware as well as glitches, as if the time stamp may have glitched and showed the wrong time, but everything checked out fine. We didn’t know what happened and to this day nobody does.

There was an investigation due to the nature of the photos, but nothing came of it. No child seen was identified and no clues were gathered from the data involved nor physical clues in the photos. I never believed in unexplainable phenomena before, but now that I have seen something happen and can’t prove anything about it beyond anecdotal evidence, I think twice about things.

#creepypasta #creepy pasta #spookypasta #creepy picture