Laura 'ad astra' Ackerman writes...

Not a question- just a comment:

I saw a notice on SciFi.com that the latest Starship Troopers DVD was coming out (February). I took a look at it and the other three on Amazon.com. They are a fangirl's ideal! Episodes + lots of comentary (from recognizable names :) + behind the scenes. Now if I could only afford them... oh well, next career.

Still, somebody must be in a profitable profession. If "Amazon.com sale rank" means what I think it does two of the DVDs are among the ~50 and ~60 most common ordered things today. (or were in February)

Between that and noticing Disney has put a little link next to some of the Gargoyles tapes to say "I'd love to see this in DVD form" I think things bode well for a DVD release here too.

Samantha writes...

Dexter writes...
Hey Greg,
Call me stupid, but I've seen the pilot "Awakening" several times and I still do not follow the plot! I'm such an idiot. Ok, why did Xanatos got through all that trouble to wake up the Gargoyles just to have them steal disks? Then he used to information on them to makes the Steel Clan, what's the point of that? So now instead of real gargoyles, he had robotic ones. Doesn't make sense. Also, when Goliath and Elisa were attacked in central park, Elisa said she traced the logo back to Cyberbiotics, which Mr. X owned. So does that mean his own people stole disks from him and then he went and restole them back from his own people? Ah! It confuses me. Please clear me up, I've been meaning to ask you about this plot, and now I finally had time to. Thanks!

I can answer part of that! Xanatos did not steal back his own disks. They were from another company, the company that Fox's father owned. Xanatos faked a robbery to make the gargoyles think that when he told them about the disks they were his, when nothing had ever really been stolen from him.
He used the gargoyles to steal these disks to upload his steel clan. By using the Gargoyles, no one would ever suspect him. No one even knew what Gargoyles were I think.
Once he got the stolen disks, he was able to load up his
steel clan, which meant he no longer had a name for the clan.
Since they would be too hard to control, he decided to test his new clan on them. And I'm sure you know the rest. I hope this helps.

Todd Jensen writes...

This is something of a musing that I've been pondering for some time about your hinted-at plans to bring Prospero (and other characters from "The Tempest") into "Gargoyles" (it's more a ramble than a genuine question, actually). I was not the least bit surprised by your mention, when you first started up "Ask Greg", to include Prospero in "Gargoyles" somewhere; after all, a series that had already made use of "Macbeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in its framework would obviously have to bring "The Tempest" in somewhere as well. What I do find myself wondering, from time to time, is the role that Prospero (and Ariel and Caliban as well, if they were to show up - and it's obvious that they would also) would have played in the series, in relation to the other characters.

Because I noticed that the other major Shakespearean characters (Macbeth, Puck, the Weird Sisters, Oberon, and Titania) were actually made an important part of the framework of "Gargoyles", linked up strongly to the central and near-central characters. Macbeth and the Weird Sisters were part of Demona's story (explaining, in particular, how she survived from 994 down to the present day). Oberon, Titania, and Puck were part of Xanatos's story (or Titania at least as Fox's mother and Puck as Owen's true identity, not to mention that Oberon and Titania's attempt to kidnap Alex was what led to the end of the feud between Xanatos and the gargoyles). From this, I believe that we can safely presume that, when Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban would have shown up somewhere in the series (if it had only lasted that long), they would have likewise had strong links with the major characters in the series as part of the framework.

I won't ask what those links were, of course (I know that you don't want to reveal that yet, at least, not in this forum), but that's one reason why a part of me still hopes that you can find some way of continuing "Gargoyles" some day; I'd certainly enjoy finding out when/if that happens just where Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban fit into the Gargoyles Universe, and which major figures in the series they are linked to, at least initially (of course, everybody tends to wind up getting linked to everybody else anyway - Puck with Demona in "The Mirror", the Weird Sisters,Oberon and Titania with the Avalon clan, Macbeth with King Arthur, etc.)

Jimmy_Q writes...

I recently skimmed through you smart-ass responses and I ran in to this question from matt: ok, a beast generally lays more than three eggs in a lifetime. and you are being difficult (as always) and not being very specific... ok, we know that beast mature and can mate a generation before other gargs, and we know that beast live about the same length of time that other gargs do, but can beast continue having children after other gargs stop? if not then garg beast can have about 4 eggs, if so, they could have alot of eggs, i think.
so, how many eggs can a female garg beast generally lay?
you responded: The world may never know.
(That smart-ass response was a reference to an old tootsie-pop commercial. Anyone old enough to remember it has my sympathy.)
I'm quite familiar with that commercial and I'm only 20, so I guess that makes me old, huh? And to think I used to feel so young and virile, too...

Jess writes...

Hey...where did you go???? Holiday?
Have a good time? Happy new year.

Upset fan writes...

Hi Greg,
First of all let me just say, i have been a huge fan of gargoyles since it came out in the UK. I waited all week for it to come on on saturday mornings and collected all the gargoyles toys i could with my pocket money :D Unfortunatley it was taken off air some years ago after "City of Stone part 4". I have now got toon disney and have managed to watch the series as much as possible.But there is a REALLY annoying problem, and im not sure you will be able to answer my question, but if so...here goes!

WHY ON EARTH do they stop gargoyles after the avalon episodes and go right on to the goliath chronicles?! Its maddening!! I have looked all over the web and seen all the episodes i have missed out on :(((
I have also watched clips from some of the episodes and they look soooo cool!!!

Diego writes...

Why don't you throw a brick through Eisner's window, then when he looks at the brick, he sees it's not a brick, but a small statue of Goliath. Then he'll have no choice but to bring back the show.

Vanity writes...

Punchinello and yourself discussed "sententiousness" in quite lenghty detail. If I remember right the main buckling of the topic of one's being sentient was ultimately his ability to communicate ideas. I don't seem to remember any talk about awareness of thought and decision.
If a Russian speaker was adopted into your household, and could not understand nor speak a single word of English, you cannot communicate with him on any level of aphroristic expression (if you infact cannot speak Russian). In fact the communication would very much be like that between man and an animal. When he wants a drink and says (whatever in Russian means 'I want to drink your water'); you will overtime perhaps reckognize what he wants through mere repitition. Never though be able to ask him if he liked the water, describe the compositional qualities that make up the glass, or how the purification system(s) in your water plant makes that water safe for you and your family to drink. You can say it he won't know it.
Yet he can still make the moral judgement on his own princibles that he understands in his own language as to if he will leave the toilet seat up or not. His sentience is still very much intact as is yours, but in communication most of what we consider humanesque intelligible relay of thought is lost.

He can learn but he may not learn English just as you can but may not learn Russian. Words are words, but diction, structural differences, and phonetic discrepencies between the two languages make changing your thinking process from thinking as an Englishmen(English speaking man not man born on England) to thinking as a Russian quite likely impossible. Even if you learn Russian as to be able to go to Moscow and fool everyone into thinking that you are indeed a native Russian. Your nueral networking will still under most serious probability process thought in English just, as it does; it will translate that process to Russian in a fashion quite like my thoughts now are magically appearing in this post box thingy by mere change of production from thought to text by fingur relay in the procession from mind to hand to finger to keyboard to computer to eventually cyber-wherever. I do not think like a keyboard or a computer yet I can communicate using one but only in the language I am prepared to use it with.

Gargoyles as well can type on keyboards and relay thought. Lexington with very little experience in terms of years and could only practice at night, was able to punch a keyboard judging by the "clicking" sound of the keyboard at nearly 129 words per minute, without looking and locate Coldstone in MacBeth's mansion. Quite impressive really. Yet his thoughts were in English. (note if you were in Madrid when you first seen Gargoyles and they spoke in Spanish and of course you did too you might argue they thought in Spanish and you would most likely be right mi amigo). But not as an English Man but and English Gargoyle again not as a nationality but as a tongue. Still Lex's moral judgements can be made too stand on thier own and can communicate with anything Man or Gargoyle or Oberon's Child that also speaks English, whether they think "English" or not.

Language is not merely a tool for communication it is a way of thinking Eskimos have something like seven words that really just mean "snow". Yet an Eskimo thinks like an Eskimo and can judge the minor differences in the type of snow they see and to them one kind of snow is not "a" snow but a "d" snow and ect..

Luckily for us I suppose that as humans we all relatively think alike even with our differing way of thinking. The means of production are different but the product is still the same. This allows for learning multiple languages each human no matter his language that language has the ability to "learn" or adapt to the use of another language and that is quite a remarkable thing. Almost too remarkable to be chance.

I don't have the full answer, just what I feel like that (and as arrogantly as I can feel it) that I know what perhaps I know or don't know and go with that by fusing it with things that I learn or that are revealed to me by you and others who post and participate. I very much enjoy this site and the people who participate it is so cool, this is the greates fandom in the world.

Vanity writes...

Hi Greg:

I was just watching "City of Stone". It is a beutiful piece of work. I am very fond of it.

I espicially like the one scene where that woman runs up to Travis Marshall to relate what had happened and he just totally blows her off as "crazy". That got me thinking we ALL do that (as humans) completely discount the minority view as absurd and stupid. Classic example "The Flat Earth Society", oh, we just love to make fun of them. I have decided to be more open minded to even the most seemingly crazy ideas or beliefs. I have watched "CoS" many times but that scene never really hit me like it did just today. Was that intentional on your part? To show the err in human ways. You've said all things are true and what she said was true, just because no one believed her doesn't make it no less right. It reminded me of a Greek Philosopher I think his name was Isocrates I am not sure and his quote went
"If all mankind, minus one; were of a common opinion except the one of a differing opinion. All of mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one, than he, if he had the power; would be justified in silencing all of mankind..."

More things I loved about this episode.
King Duncan's death, in my mind one of the top 10 animated deaths ever.
Demona, saves Gruoch and Macbeth when she could have had her vengence, she chose the nobler of the two courses, made me feel all happy inside. I must admit though killing Gilcoumgain then would have saved her a lot of trouble and heart break later on.
Her plan was very sinister, and her killing of the statued humans was a very dark contrast to her more kind-hearted younger self we had just seen earlier in eps like "Vows". I also liked this too, she's not soft and weak as she is commited to her cause and for that I commend her. I agree with her goals, her means are brutal and me being human will make me possibly feel the urge to resist being smited, but I hope she sees her dream out and accomplishes it, power to her.
One thing very much dissapointed me, relating to Demona when she gave the access code to Goliath and Xanatos the code was "ALONE", not one you'd imagine she'd pick, totally took me by suprise when I first saw it; but Goliath was apparently unaffected by her choice of a password and the huge water works under her eyes. Does he have a heart of stone? She's not even real (I think), and I feel a lump in my throat, every time I see that; yet he knows she's real and didn't even care, creep.

MacBeth, what can I say I think he is great. I think his story is one of the more tragic on the show. Considering all that happens, he always loved and still loves Gruoch. The one time that we see him actually take interest in life and love again he is set up by Dominique and Thailog. His plight is very dramatic. Living but having to as Gruoch said "Remain dead", dead to his country, his home, and his family.

Gruoch: Even though she gets very little air time on the series I think she is great. My second favorite female character. She is strong, smart, wise, intuitive, loving, radiant, and very honest in commiting to her duty. I espicially like how she stood up to Demona at the end, what courage. She even scorned the Hunter as "Oh mighty" with her sarcasm, 'your not mighty your a coward'. I cannot see how you could not love her.

"COS" has its share of humorous wit to it as well. I absoulutely love this:
Elisa: "..the signal came from Pak-Media studios you own it so as usual this is your fault!"
Owen: "Mr. Xanatos is trying to fix things. What are you doing to help?"
I love Elisa's expression, that's good stuff.

-Since I do not want to go into great lenghty deatail about every detail of the show..-

King Duncan- Very paranoid.
Hudson+Trio- not much to say
Boudie(SP)- Probably has his heart in the right place but man what a --well cowardly guy--
Demona's Betrayl of MacBeth- this shocked me, leave him to die at the castle but she actually contacted Kenmore?
Wierd Sisters- I HATE them. I think they are corrupt, vile, and wicked, they should burn in a fiery lake in the seventh circle of Hell somewhere. For a very, very long time. (I make this judgement with my Knowledge of the "Avalon" eps)
Vengence begats nothing more than a vicious cycle of further vengence- true perhaps, but highly over exaggerated.
The betrayl of the Cast Wyvern- I want to know who slept at Demona's roost. When the Vikings sacked it.
Bronx and Demona's encounter- I loved it. Good job.
Demona and Macbeth- It's amazing how it goes, I like when Demona came back from the fight all happy and swirled Macbeth high off the ground. Her joyous attitude was refreshing, yet all to short in length.

That's all for this post. Thanks for listening.

Vanity~