Hunter's Moon Document #1

In anticipation of my Ramble on "Hunter's Moon, Part One," here's the first relavent memo I have. One thing to keep in mind is that I don't have everything from those days. And I certainly don't have electronic copies of everything. So the record I'll present in this and following posts is WAY less than complete. This is just stuff off my computer that I sent to Michael Reaves, but doesn't reflect all the hard work that HE put into things.

Anyway, note the date. This memo was produced in July of 94 (TWELVE YEARS AGO, YIKES!) before the series had even premiered. At the time we thought it was going to be a direct-to-video movie. My boss, Gary Krisel, had rejected CITY OF STONE as a direct to Video because he felt it focused too much on the villains and not enough on the heroes, i.e. Goliath and the Gargoyles. (He was fine with us doing City of Stone as episodes though, so we knew we'd be building off THAT.)

Greg Weisman 7-25-94

NOTES ON HUNTER STORY

Open in @1980.

Father and his three teen-age children: Boy, girl, boy.

He's after "The demon" that his ancestors have been hunting for a thousand years.

His own grandfather died fighting the demon.

His own father spent his whole life searching for the demon.

Now he's found her: Demona.

Oldest son is very gung-ho.
Middle Daughter is more neutral.
Youngest son doesn't like the idea.

Father puts on Hunter's mask and battles Demona. He gets Killed.

All three children now swear vengeance. Oldest son is still the leader.

In present, these three hunters still pursue Demona.

When they stumble upon Goliath and Co. they make no distinction between good and bad gargoyles.

One (or more) of gargoyles is very badly injured. (Though healed during daytime hibernation.)

Goliath swears revenge.

We need to involve Elisa in someway.

Oldest boy is eventually paralized from waist down by Demona.

He and his sister eventually come around to theme that the Price of Revenge is too high. Goliath also gets this message.

Demona and youngest son don't learn.

Probably want to show the original Hunter (Gillecomgain) in a brief flashback or two. Don't contradict anything that's in City of Stone, but don't reveal any details about his fate or who the second or third Hunter's were.

And that's all I've got....

Chapter  LXII : "Possession"

Time to ramble...

[Disclaimer: I watched this episode back in January of 2006. So it's been half a year since I've seen it. At the time, I did take a few notes of things I wanted to include in the ramble. So this is what you're getting now. A somewhat abbreviated ramble, as the ep isn't as fresh in my mind as I might like. As with "The Reckoning" ramble, most of what I took down were fun dialogue lines that leapt out at me... (All quotations approximate.)]

Chapter  LXII : "Possession"
Story Editor: Cary Bates
Writer: Cary Bates
Director: Dennis Woodyard

Another one word title, i.e. another one of mine.

FAMILY XANATOS
Xanatos' appearance in this one is brief, but he's still got some great lines...
"Someday you'll thank me for that."
"Wiggle your nose or something." [A BEWITCHED reference.]
"Chin up." (This spoken to Coldstone's detached head.)

Fox has recovered nicely after her pregnancy. She looks great. Have fun, she's told.
Fox: "We always do."

As always I watched the episode with my kids. Erin liked Alex's plush teddy-gargoyle.

GOLIATH THE MAGE
Obviously, Goliath's acting a bit out of character. Did he even sound like himself? And what's with that powder he nails Bronx and Lex with? Plus another clue is that the spell he uses is a rhyming spell rather than Latin. Mortal sorcerers use ancient languages. Only the Children of Oberon use rhymes.

But the key idea is one of volunteering for "Soul Transference 101". Puck-as-Goliath needs Broadway, Angela AND Brooklyn to volunteer -- even if Brooklyn thinks his offer is rejected. Puck is of course teaching Alex-as-Hudson a lesson here. Later, Alex-in-Lex needs Othello, Desdemona and Iago to likewise volunteer. Can't do the soul transference without it.

There's a lot of body-hopping. Illusions. Transference. Possession. Spells. But I think we played pretty fair with the audience. All the clues were there. But kudos to our voice actors, who had to play all sorts of different characters within the framework of their usual voices. It seemed to me if they could keep it straight, then it would help the audience do the same.

COLDSTEEL & ... GOLDFIRE?
As you saw in the memo I posted yesterday, Coldfire's original name was Goldfire. That name and Coldsteel were both mine. Goldfire because she was gold I guess. Cary's first draft of the script kept the Goldfire name too. But at some point it occured to me that Coldfire was much, MUCH cooler.

But WHO designed those robot bodies, huh?! They're dead ringers for Desdemona and Iago. How did Xanatos manage that? There are of course a number of possible explanations. After all, Puck is in the House, right? But perhaps it's no more complicated than the fact that Xanatos saw them both with Othello back in "Vows".

Note that throughout the series, Desdemona is always more honorable than Othello. He seems more compromised in general.

I should acknowledge the debt we owe to Star Trek here. Not "Next Generation", which provided us with voice actors Dorn and Spiner and Frakes. But rather to a specific episode of the Original Series. The Broadway/Angela/Brooklyn possession dynamic was a direct homage to the Kirk/Diana Muldar/Spock dynamic of an episode who's title I'm afraid escapes me at the moment.

Gave us an excuse to give Broadway and Angela a bit of a head start relationship wise too. A kiss...

ALEX
Alex learns his lesson plan. But it was fun watching him-in-Lex dump the real Goliath and Hudson on their heads.

And I liked how Puck/Owen cannot fulfill Xanatos' wishes. But after teaching Alex how, he maneuvers things so that the son gives the father exactly what he wants.

MORE FUN LINES
"Slow but astute."
"My date is coming to."
"By the Dragon, you're me."
"It is a handsome automaton."
"Is that the choice you were leaning toward?"
"Try not to miss me too much."
"I thought you would never grow a conscience"
"I live for subterfuge."

FINALLY...
We wanted that giant pocket watch (or whatever) that Puck pulls out at the end to be a MICKEY MOUSE WATCH... but Disney would just not allow it. They were afraid it would come off as product placement in a kid's show or something. <SIGH>

Anyway, that's my ramble...

Where's yours?

GOOD NEWS!

As many of you already know, the first issue of the new GARGOYLES comic book sold out its print run. There WILL be a second printing... and all the fans who bought copies and/or SPREAD THE WORD deserve a round of applause...

<CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP>

But please, let's not use this as an excuse to be complacent. We now need to sell out this second printing and encourage pre-orders on issue #2. Not to mention the two DVD sets.

This is NOT me asking people who've already bought the book to buy additional copies. This IS me asking people to continue to spread the word. (I can't tell you how many garg fans I just met in Minnesota, who had no idea that the comic was even out.) Contact the ELFQUEST fandom, the STAR TREK fandom the FILL-IN-THE-BLANK fandom. Contact local comic shops. Contact local conventions. Contact any community that might be interested.

Keep the good news rolling in...

SPREAD THE WORD!!!!

CONvergence

Just got back from CONvergence in Minnesota. I had a great time at the convention. Met a bunch of new Gargoyles fans, signed comic books, dvds and posters and read "BLATHER" as the secret ingredient for their Iron Artist competition. FYI, "Blather" can be found at...

http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?rid=469

Of course, I did a panel on Gargoyles, but I also had fun doing panels on writing characters, on writing subtext, on DC Comics characters in animation, on creating cartoons that aren't just for kids, on how fans can revive dead properties and even on Veronica Mars.

It's a great con. So check out their website at:

http://www.convergence-con.org/

I'd like to give particular thanks to Chris Jones, who brought me into the Convergence fold. Chris was the penciller on the Captain Atom/JLE/Gargoyles parody story ("The Flashback of Notre Dame") that I did for DC Comics all those years ago. It was great to finally meet him in person.

Special thanks also to Perrin Klumpp, their guest guru and to guest liason Mark Tempel, for putting up with me all weekend and to guest liason Lex Larson, who picked me up at the airport and hung out with Mark and I when she could.

I also had a great time with fellow guests Bridget Landry and Ken Hite and the rest.

Thanks also to Windy, Tim, Pat, Ishmael, Jeremy, Melissa, Melissa, Mandy, Anton, Jenni, Amanda, Eryn and everyone else who made it such a great experience.

WOW! Two great cons in a row. I'll be at the San Diego ComicCon in a couple weeks, but there's almost no way that monstrosity could ever be as much fun as the Gathering and Convergence combined.

Finally, I'm now in love with Jucy Lucy. And Soylent Theater is People.