Chuck does Gargoyles

[Zor]

Part 1
Part 2

Blip links posted because his sight is still wonky from the relaunch.

Zor

[FaxModem1]

I own the first season and the first half of season two on DVD. I rather wish Disney had kept on releasing the series on DVD, but oh well.

[Lord Revan]

I liked the way Chuck handled the review, I also found it funny that chuck muted or talked over all of Demona's lines until those 2 robo-gargoyles crashed so that we didn't hear her voice at all before that.

[phred]

'Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer'
I like that he looks into the writers and creators of the series too.

[spaceviking]

I am surprised at the low quality animation, I remember it much better.

[Bright]

You know, I actually think it would be a good idea to have one ongoing topic for Chuck, to be bumped whenever new discussion arises. Just saying.

Anyway, I'm surprised he's so (relatively) defensive about reviewing animation. Surely he doesn't have people giving him shit for it in the comments?

[Zixinus]

I don't think so, but considering that he has a massive repertoire of bashing bad Star Trek (and other), I think he's trying to clean the air a bit. Truth is, Gargoyles is a pretty good show and he wants to find a good spot to point at its flaws and absurdities while trying to highlight the good bits about it.

That, and perhaps he feels a bit more uncomfortable about doing animation when he mostly did stuff for sci-fi shows?

[Lord Revan]

well then there's still the ruling idea that animation is "kids stuff" in the western world, so judging it would be "wrong".

a really bad way of thinking IMHO, since while kids will not understand all that adults do(or at least should), just distracting them with shiny lighting and loud noises while shielding them from the harsh realities of the world is doing them a disservice.

[Zor]

I am surprised at the low quality animation, I remember it much better.

Well they did not have the same tools that we do now. Even for traditional animation.

Zor

[Stark]

I am surprised at the low quality animation, I remember it much better.

It's called 'nostalgia'. It distorts perspective pretty effectively.

[Ford Prefect]

It's called 'nostalgia'. It distorts perspective pretty effectively.

Man you should have seen the look on my face when I watch Macross again, after having not see it since I was a kid. It was a lot more cinematic and fluid in my memory lol

[Murazor]

I am surprised at the low quality animation, I remember it much better.

As a matter of fact, the Awakening five parter has far better animation than most of the rest of the series and, I think, it doesn't look too shabby even in comparison to some modern stuff. However:

1) The nostalgia filter is mighty as hell.
2) Avatar the Last Airbender and a number of more recent series with excellent animation have REALLY spoiled us.

I can barely bring myself to watch even a couple of minutes of He-Man, because it looks so damn bad in comparison to modern animation.

[Majin Gojira]

And I'm sitting here wondering if you all are crazy. The animation was fluid and detailed with minimal stretch-and-shift and it still holds up as good hand drawn cell animation.

Is there better? Sure. But I think people are mistaking the crispness of computer-colored/shaded animation with a universal stamp of "Good". It allows them to spend more time checking for other errors, certainly, but to say it aged badly is just outright wrong, not when there's Flash-based animation on TV at least

"Good" animation is fluid, detailed and consistent. That's about the main criteria there is. There's errors to look for in those areas, and Gargoyles suffers from them extremely rarely to non-existent. They do happen, but that's the price of TV animation in general. And from what I've seen (I re-watched the series recently), their use of non-amation/limited animation was minimal, compared to say . . . He-Man. And that animation wasn't so good to begin with due to its overall stiffness/rigidity. That was bad even at the time compared to something like Jonny Quest which, while it might LOOK stiff, worked around it and made it work.

That said, some modern stuff really does out class it: Korra is amazingly detailed to the point where it's High end OVA quality. The characters rarely stop moving and remain consistent!

Sorry, I practiced animation for several summers back in high school--even worked on some HBO kids shorts the teachers were commissioned (Yup, free student labor). So, yeah, I rather not knock old animation just for being 'old' and cell shaded rather than Computer shaded.

[spaceviking]

I guess I should clarify, I do not think it looks bad. Just that in my memory they were far and above normal animation.

[Patrick Degan]

I am surprised at the low quality animation, I remember it much better.

As a matter of fact, the Awakening five parter has far better animation than most of the rest of the series and, I think, it doesn't look too shabby even in comparison to some modern stuff. However:

1) The nostalgia filter is mighty as hell.
2) Avatar the Last Airbender and a number of more recent series with excellent animation have REALLY spoiled us.

I can barely bring myself to watch even a couple of minutes of He-Man, because it looks so damn bad in comparison to modern animation.

It depended upon which studios animated which episodes. Like Batman: TAS, Gargoyles' animation was farmed out to about four or five different outfits. Some were better than others. But that's why the quality through the series run varies as wildly as it does.

[Patrick Degan]

I own the first season and the first half of season two on DVD. I rather wish Disney had kept on releasing the series on DVD, but oh well.

They won't, in part, because there seems to be a certain element amongst the Disney executive leadership that want to see this series buried. Back in 1991, they wanted yet another, typical kiddie show involving gargoyles. Instead, Greg Weisman delivered a series that was mythic, engaging, multilayered, which touched upon history just a little, and appealed to intellects and tastes of viewers of all ages. And Disney never forgave Weisman for it. Ever since then, they've been very lacklustre about promoting the series, in syndicating it, and hardly promoted the DVD releases at all. And then they used the "poor sales" argument to not release the remainder of season two. If it ever shows up on the Disney XD channel, it's always late at night, one or maybe two nights in the week, airing in the most inconvenient of timeslots, and mixed with that truly awful Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles sequel series that ran on Saturday mornings in 1997. Other than that, Disney doesn't even seem to acknowledge that the series ever existed at all. But they'll air Phineas And Ferb until your eyes and ears bleed from it.

[Lord Revan]

And I'm sitting here wondering if you all are crazy. The animation was fluid and detailed with minimal stretch-and-shift and it still holds up as good hand drawn cell animation.

Is there better? Sure. But I think people are mistaking the crispness of computer-colored/shaded animation with a universal stamp of "Good". It allows them to spend more time checking for other errors, certainly, but to say it aged badly is just outright wrong, not when there's Flash-based animation on TV at least

"Good" animation is fluid, detailed and consistent. That's about the main criteria there is. There's errors to look for in those areas, and Gargoyles suffers from them extremely rarely to non-existent. They do happen, but that's the price of TV animation in general. And from what I've seen (I re-watched the series recently), their use of non-amation/limited animation was minimal, compared to say . . . He-Man. And that animation wasn't so good to begin with due to its overall stiffness/rigidity. That was bad even at the time compared to something like Jonny Quest which, while it might LOOK stiff, worked around it and made it work.

That said, some modern stuff really does out class it: Korra is amazingly detailed to the point where it's High end OVA quality. The characters rarely stop moving and remain consistent!

Sorry, I practiced animation for several summers back in high school--even worked on some HBO kids shorts the teachers were commissioned (Yup, free student labor). So, yeah, I rather not knock old animation just for being 'old' and cell shaded rather than Computer shaded.

Nostalgia is a funny thing, when I rewatch some old Batman:TAS clips the animations seems "bad" compared to what I remember as back when I was watching it as a kid my mind "filled in the blanks" so to speak, so that it seems alot better in my memories then it actually was.

that's not to say that gargoyles wasn't generally fairly good in terms of animations quality (there were some episodes that weren't as good and others that were better then the averge).

I used batman:TAS as an example as I never saw Gargoyles when it first aired (it either never aired here or I just missed it back then), so I don't have nostalgia for gargoyles (having seen it first as an adult).

hell it doesn't even that to be animated to have that effect, alot of the early TNG effects seems really poor now, as you compared to modern effects (even models effects not just CGI), but they're pretty decent, especially for the time, when viewed objectivly.

[Majin Gojira]

Sorry, but I'm flashing back to a college animation course where, after giving a presentation on stop motion for the class "history of animation" project where, after displaying some clips from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms I got "asked the question" at the end of it of:

"It looks like clay."

This was so ignorant that it left me flabbergasted for a moment.

We get used to improved animation and special effects, no question, but to call them bad for lack of improvements made with later technology is outside context as far as I'm concerned. Nostalgia filters can fill in a lot, but still, the amount of people commenting on this is disconcerting.

[JME2]

hell it doesn't even that to be animated to have that effect, alot of the early TNG effects seems really poor now, as you compared to modern effects (even models effects not just CGI), but they're pretty decent, especially for the time, when viewed objectivly.

Yeah; the original Star Wars films are no different, even if most of the effects still hold up pretty well.

I think Majin is right, that we've spoiled by recent animated shows. Digital inking and timing, CGI enhancement, and other advances have allowed so much more to be done with traditional animation. A show like Avatar or the new ThunderCats wouldn't have been possible in the 1990's. Even I have a hard time watching/comparing the early, cel-animation of BTAS to the ambitious set pieces of late JLU.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Majin, I just realized when seeing his name on the end credits for the Burke and Hare movie with Serkis and Peggi, that Harryhousen is still alive, I looked stuff up and found out that he's producing remakes of his Sinbad series. My Tomb Kings are literially DEADicated to his work...

[Bakustra]

I own the first season and the first half of season two on DVD. I rather wish Disney had kept on releasing the series on DVD, but oh well.

They won't, in part, because there seems to be a certain element amongst the Disney executive leadership that want to see this series buried. Back in 1991, they wanted yet another, typical kiddie show involving gargoyles. Instead, Greg Weisman delivered a series that was mythic, engaging, multilayered, which touched upon history just a little, and appealed to intellects and tastes of viewers of all ages. And Disney never forgave Weisman for it. Ever since then, they've been very lacklustre about promoting the series, in syndicating it, and hardly promoted the DVD releases at all. And then they used the "poor sales" argument to not release the remainder of season two. If it ever shows up on the Disney XD channel, it's always late at night, one or maybe two nights in the week, airing in the most inconvenient of timeslots, and mixed with that truly awful Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles sequel series that ran on Saturday mornings in 1997. Other than that, Disney doesn't even seem to acknowledge that the series ever existed at all. But they'll air Phineas And Ferb until your eyes and ears bleed from it.

I think, if anything, the issue is that Disney has developed a successful formula with comedies, and Gargoyles, being a drama, doesn't fit with the rest of what Disney is showing. Phineas and Ferb shows that they're willing to market shows with crossmarket levels of appeal, but all their afternoon and evening shows are comedies. It's a shame, but I don't think that there's any sort of malice here so much as a belief that Disney can't market dramas successfully that becomes self-fulfilling.

[Lord Revan]

hell it doesn't even that to be animated to have that effect, alot of the early TNG effects seems really poor now, as you compared to modern effects (even models effects not just CGI), but they're pretty decent, especially for the time, when viewed objectivly.

Yeah; the original Star Wars films are no different, even if most of the effects still hold up pretty well.

yeah I know, I used TNG since as a TV series it was closer to the subject at hand (Star Wars(aka ANH) went over budget and needed more time to be finished something that's just not possible with TV series in general.)

[Majin Gojira]

Unless your name is James Cameron, you can't do that.

He did it for the season 2/series finale for Dark Angel.

Sorry, I just had to mention possibly the only time that has ever happened.

[Ahriman238]

Chuck has since done reviews for Long Way to Morning and the Mirror. And is intending to do just one more Gargoyles review.

I caught a few episodes of the show way back when, I actually recognized the mirror belatedly as one where all the humans in the city turn into Gargoyles and the Gargoyles all turn into humans.

[JME2]

I actually recognized the mirror belatedly as one where all the humans in the city turn into Gargoyles and the Gargoyles all turn into humans.

"Do you say, that human or that human? Oh, never mind, I'll figure it out. This just might be fun after all."

One of my favorites and a key episode in the overall mythology.