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sdoh writes...

hello,

i`am a big fan of gargoyles and star trek. so my question is how many star trek actors played on gargoyles? can you tell me the actors names and the roles they played please? ty for you time

Greg responds...

I know this is in the archives... <sigh>

I won't pretend this is a complete list, but off the top of my head...

Classic Star Trek
Nichelle Nichols - Diane Maza

Next Generation
Jonathan Frakes - David Xanatos, Coyote (robot)
Marina Sirtis - Demona/Dominque Destine, Margot Yale
Brent Spiner - Puck
Michael Dorn - Coldstone, Taurus
LeVar Burton - Anansi

Deep Space Nine
Avery Brooks - Nokkar
Colm Meeney - Rory's father

Voyager
Kate Mulgrew - Anastasia/Titania

Plus there are all sorts of actors who had guest rolls on the various Trek series, for example both Morgan Shepard (Odin, King Kenneth, etc.) and Salli Richardson (Elisa/Delilah) have guested on Trek. I don't know and couldn't possibly list them all.

But this is a start, right?

Response recorded on February 17, 2000

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Tara Ann Kokesch writes...

Greg, I have loved the show gargoyles for about 4 years now. I am a big DeMona fan, I think she is beautiful, and perfect in almost everyway. My question is, have you ever thought abotu DeMona and Goliath getting back together? Elisa Maza and Goliath is just not good... but DeMona and Goliath are made for each other, I remember city of stone perfectly, and It was clear then that they were perfect for each other, so why should it not continue now? Did you ever consider it? If so, how would you go about getting goliath and her back together? thanks... A HUGE FAN!!!

Greg responds...

Demona? Perfect? Maybe she's a perfect fictional character. (I'd like to think so anyway.) But I'd hardly say she's perfect.

And it's Demona. Not DeMona, by the way.

As to her and Goliath getting back together. No. I put that to bed with Vows. Elisa is the true love of Goliath's life. Demona has a couple of true loves coming. But Goliath and her... when it was real, it wasn't that real. It was love, but it was also youth. And no small amount of her hiding her true nature from him. You can't base a GREAT LOVE on deception. Not that the emotions weren't sincere, but Demona and Goliath never truly understood each other. Not the way Goliath and Elisa do. And not the way Demona and xxx will.

Response recorded on February 17, 2000

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AWAKENING, PART THREE

Watched this with the family half an hour ago...

More random observations...

RE: Our supporting cast...

Who knew that Brendan & Margot would wind up being so important? Credit Marina Sirtis, for making Margot so gloriously bitchy.

And then there's Vinnie's first appearance on that motorcycle. Of course, no one knew Vinnie existed back then, which is thoroughly appropriate to his character.

And credit Keith David with breathing real life into Morgan the cop. Morgan didn't even have a name then. He was just a place holder, someone for Elisa to respond to. But Keith made me interested in him.

Little things still bug me. Xanatos' floating ponytail in the scene where he and Elisa first meet.

In the Kitchen, the Freezer door was supposed to have one of those easy to open latches on the inside. The irony being that Broadway could easily extricate himself, if he just knew how to operate the latch (or even what it was). Something a kid could do, assuming the kid was born in the 20th century. But BW has to bust down the door.

In the original script and the recording of that script, it's Brooklyn who says "So many wonders..." and it's Broadway who says "Goliath said not to let anybody see us." But in those early days, lots of people in L.A. and in Tokyo kept confusing their names (and Bronx's) so the animation came back as you see it. And it was easier to re-record the voices then to reanimate. (Or am I getting all this totally backwards? I just saw the show again half an hour ago, and already, I'm confused.)

(CAVEAT: In all these little things, I'll probably be pointing out animation errors here and there. But please understand, I think most of the animation we got, particularly from Walt Disney TV Animation - Japan, was brilliant. I think those guys did a great job and don't get enough credit. But anecdotes generally come out of when things go wrong, not when they go right, so it may seem like I'm talking about mistakes more often than not. Sorry, in advance to Roy Sato or anyone else who might take offense.)

When Elisa is first being checked out by the Trio, there was a scene in the original animation where Brooklyn seems inordinantly interested in her behind. We had to call a retake, cuz the guy was practically drooling. I wonder if that's where I got the idea that Brooklyn would fall for anyone in a skirt (or with a tail).

Also, after Goliath saves Elisa from falling off the building we have a point of view shot from her. It begins at Goliath's feet and pans up to his face, as she takes him in. In the original animation, the pan started at his head and panned down. That seemed less effective, so we had our editors reverse the pan, without calling for a retake.

At the end of Act Two, the door slides open revealing Demona in silhouette, clearly plotting something with Xanatos. That always really bugged me. I didn't want to give away that she was alive in this episode. I didn't want to know who Xanatos was talking to. How did you guys react to this? Did that spill everything? Did any of you not know that Demona was alive? Did any of you, by this point, not know that she and Xanatos were the bad guys?

Elisa says something like "This is where Dracula shows up." when she's walking through the corridors of the castle. If you take that literally (and you might as well), then you gotta figure that someday, Dracula will be roaming that very hallway.

Elisa loses the first in her series of guns, when Goliath crushes it near the end of Act One.

Goliath tells a joke: "And please, don't fall off the building this time." Goliath tells a joke. Can you believe it? It wasn't bad either. We should have let him tell jokes more often.

Elisa's surprise that Goliath can talk is indicative of what I thought a 20th (or 21st) century initial response to the gargs would be. That's why Goliath Chronicles' trial episode bugged me so much. I don't think humans would take for granted sentience. And I think most humans, those less open than Elisa, wouldn't even buy talking as enough evidence that the gargs weren't just beasts. (Cf. Margot Yale.)

Goliath is a pretty begruding hero. That's somewhat unique for cartoons. Elisa asks if there are more gargs, and Goliath responds: "Barely." He cuts her very little slack. But already you can see their relationship developing. I still think Hudson's expression after Goliath sweeps Elisa up into his arms is just priceless.

In that same scene, Hudson gets named for the river. I love that scene, as I loved the scene where Tom, Brook and Lex are talking about names. Of course, the desire not to name most of the gargoyles until we got to NYC '94, was mostly pragmatic. It allowed us to use those fun, cool NY names for most of the characters. But once we came up with the rationale for it, and once I managed to explain it to everyone, I really fell in love with the concept. Hudson's lament, here, that humans don't think something is real until they've put there stamp on it, is, to me at least, so damn true. And Elisa's response is so feeble and circular. "Things need names." Pathetic. But I'm no different. <SIGH> I'm such a human. But I aspire to gargoylosity. Anyway, after Hudson points to the river, and Elisa basically tricks him into taking that name, she used to have a line, as I may have mentioned before, where she said (under her breath) "Good thing we weren't facing Queens" -- implication being that Hudson nearly ended up being called Queen, I guess. It was always funny, but S&P didn't care for it, and I couldn't really defend it. So out it went. We tried another version, where she just says, "Good thing we weren't facing East." But it didn't play. So out it went too.

The thing that struck me most, however, was the almost thorough lack of action in this episode. After all that Viking stuff in Part One, and Vikings and a full act of commandos in Part Two, Part Three is a mood and character piece. Sure Elisa falls off a building, but that was a problem easily solved. Until the commandos' Central Park attack in the last seconds of Act Three, nothing else happens that could genuinely qualify as action. That was mostly a result of what was once a four-parter being turned into a five-parter. The reason we made that change is because Michael Reaves wrote a brillaint four-part script. It was amazing. But it was WAY too long. I was faced with either having to make drastic cuts (as I would later have to do in Avalon and Hunter's Moon) or expand it. Fortunately, Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston saw the wisdom of expansion. For one thing, it would save us money. But also, it made sense because we could run the five parts across a whole week of the Disney Afternoon like a mini-series special event. It wouldn't require us to re-program one day of that first week. So we were all agreed, the four parter would become a five parter.

But that meant adding act breaks, and redividing everything. The episode that most benefited was Part One. In the orignal version, Part One covered all of what is currently part one, plus the first act of what's currently part two, i.e. ALL the Scotland stuff. The episode ended with Goliath's "suicide". A great ending, but we would have obviously had to cut a TON out of the flashback. This way we were able to expand into part two and preserve almost all of the story.

So Part Three winds up being nearly action-free. And by the way, I love that. I still think the episode works great, and it proved to me that the charcters themselves could really hold the audience's attention. (I'm such a proud papa. Unashamedly so. It must be pretty obnoxious.) I wish we had always had the luxury to be so... well, luxurious. To expand and play character. But generally a half-hour format makes it tough. I'm very sick of writing half hours, actually. But the powers that be in Animation believe that kids can't or won't sit through an hour long show.

As usual, I welcome posts here responding to this episode. Both your original reaction to seeing it for the first time, and your current reaction if you've seen it again recently.


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NZ Fan of Gargoyles writes...

Hi Mr Weisman.
First off, thanks for such a great show. I'm writing fan fiction at the moment, and am writing an Elisa and Goliath one. If I recall correctly you had something about them having children, or having to adopt one. I have a question about it, I hope you can answer for me.

1. If it were possible for them to have a child, either naturally, by magic or science. How long would Elisa be pregnant?

2. Anything else about the whole pregnancy thing you'd care to add.

Thanx for your time.

Greg responds...

1. This is hypothetical on top of hypothetical, but I'd tend to think that Elisa would be pregnant nine months unless there was some scientific or magical explanation why not.

2. No.

Response recorded on February 09, 2000

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Joe writes...

what happened in the end with Goliath and Elisa? I missed most of the Goliath C. episodes. Thanks!

Greg responds...

There is no end.

And I had nothing to do with any of the Goliath Chronicle episodes after "The Journey". So I don't attempt to answer questions about those episodes.

Response recorded on February 03, 2000

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Tiffiny Whitney writes...

Okay...I have two questions, but being as they are not on the same topic...you'll get the other question separately. First...it's about the Goliath/Elisa relationship. Throughout the entire series (which I was completely obsessed with before it was cancelled), you could pretty much tell they had something going on (especially when Elisa became a gargoyle). Had the series not been cancelled, would they have acknowledged their feelings for each other and maybe have done something about it? I don't think that violates any of your rules, especially since it wouldn't have any point to suggest an idea because the show is cancelled, but if it does, don't think it does because it isn't. I hope you can answer it! Thanks! :)

Greg responds...

You're last sentence gave me a headache.

And I do want to note that the fact that the series curently isn't in production, doesn't preclude my need for protection from "original ideas" about the show. Because someday, in some form or another, I hope to bring the thing back.

Anyway, on to your question. I feel that Elisa's kiss in HUNTER'S MOON, PART THREE was an acknowledgement of her feelings for Goliath. And I feel Goliath has, on a few occasions, attempted to acknowledge his feelings for her, but that she always stopped him. So I don't think this is a secret anymore.

As for future stories, yes, of course the relationship would have progressed at the same SLOW steady pace.

Response recorded on February 03, 2000

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Andrea "Elisa Maza" Ivanovs writes...

Hi Greg,
Here's another one. Please don't laugh, but this has been bothering me! Is Elisa's jacket supposed to be made of leather or another fabric?? Maybe you never cared - but could you make a pick then? ;)
Thanks!!

Greg responds...

I don't know. In the original development, it was clearly supposed to be a leather jacket. But the style and color changed, and frankly it doesn't look leather to me. I'm not shy about picking, but I don't know that much about fabric. What do you all think?

Response recorded on February 01, 2000

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Dan writes...

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

Greg responds...

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

What good is Elisa as a mutate?

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

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

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

Response recorded on February 01, 2000

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Todd Jensen writes...

Just out of curiosity - have you ever worked out what religion the major (or minor, for that matter) human characters in "Gargoyles" are, if on a purely "for personal amusement" basis? (I doubt that you were seriously planning to bring it up directly in the series, given how tricky handling religion in television can be). We know from Diane's "We can pray, Peter" line in "Deadly Force" that the Mazas have some sort of religious belief, and obviously Max Loew, his Rabbi ancestor, and Janus in "Golem" are/were Jewish, but that's as far as I can guess.

Greg responds...

Matt Bluestone is Jewish.

Maria Chavez is Catholic.

Halcyon Renard is a Calvinist.

Petros Xanatos is Greek Orthodox.

I think that Diane Maza is a member of some Protestant Christian sect, but I'd have to do some research to figure out which one.

Peter Maza spent most of his adult life as a dedicated Agnostic. But since "Cloud Fathers" it would be interesting to see how that's changed.

I think Elisa probably has a background in Christianity from her mother, but probably styled her beliefs after her father. Still, I'm quite certain that all the stories her mother told about African myths and legends helped her maintain an open mind.

I think Derek Maza has a more Christian bent. Maggie Reed too.

Beth Maza's more likely to at least attempt to connect back with Carlos Maza's Native American beliefs.

David Xanatos believes... in himself.

Fox believes in David.

Have I left anyone out?

Response recorded on January 07, 2000

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Gary S. writes...

Dear Mr. Wiseman:

What became of the new hunters right after the end of Gargoyles' 2nd Season? I mean did Jason and her sister went to jail for destroying the police station? Was their other brother responsible for creation the Quarrymen? Did the Quarrymen forced Jason to use his technology on the Gargoyles? Did Jason became a civil rights activist or what?
I hope I'm not asking to much. I'm just curious.

Greg responds...

Jason went to a halfway house where he could rehab and serve out his sentence under some semblance of restriction.

Robyn was coerced into leading the Redemption Squad (aka Bad Guys).

Jon changed his name to John Castaway and became the founder of the Quarrymen.

Jason would be the subject of Jon, Robyn and Elisa's on-going interest -- as he personally struggled to redirect his life.

Response recorded on December 30, 1999


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