I'd vaguely remembered watching it sporadically as a kid, and digging it for its Shakespeare references and stuff - things I didn't even get at the time, but felt cultured just having the potential to get...or something. Watching the series now that I'm older and actually do understand things makes me appreciate it so much more, as does the fact that it's not a particularly popular or remembered show, at least not among my contemporaries.
There's just so much character, so much acting, so much story and world-building put into something as potentially generic as a Saturday morning cartoon from the '90s, and I just appreciate that level of creativity I guess. One of my favorite animated shows, if not shows period.
"A king has no friends. Only subjects and enemies."Somehow, most of the Disney toons escaped my grasp growing up. I think I almost never watched anything other than Nick until the early 2000s. And I tended to reject Disney because my sister liked a lot of what was on it, so I figured that by proxy, I would hate it if she liked it.
Ironically, when I actually did buy a Gargoyles DVD completely blind (loved it, BTW), my sister rolled her eyes and said "why did you buy that? Gargoyles is stupid!"
Gargoyles is one of those shows you can only appreciate fully if you reach a certain age...I once made an article about the "top Disney shows which are watchable for adults" and Gargoyles came out on top. Not that the list was very long. Most of those shows you either watch as a child and then you might like it later on for the nostalgia, but you would have a really hard time to get into it if you encountered them as adults.
It had such an awesome tone for action and dramatic moments along with the first X-men cartoon for a child of that era. Shows nowadays believe kids can't handle such depths of writing which is a sad but true statement.
Dakota's blog An odd agent of justiceJust started watching this series as well. Really good, surprisingly. It reminds me a lot of Batman The Animated Series, particularly with its dramatic storytelling, angular animation design, the fact that its set in a large city metropolis, that all of the action takes place at night, the fact that the characters themselves resemble bats, the music is composed by Carl Johnson......
In fact, now that I mention this, why hasn't this show been listed on Dueling Shows with Batman? Its like the what Street Sharks is to Turtles, Gargoyles is to Batman.
You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.I guess because the two shows are still dissimilar enough to stand both on their own feet. They are similar in style and tone, but that's more or less normal on TV. There was a time when every show had stand-alone episodes so that everyone could watch every episode without missing something, and than suddenly the story-arcs became common. For a while lawyer shows were popular, then mystery shows were produced en masse, then it was shows about forensic science.
Hollywood Reporter is saying that James Wan is making a live action Gargoyles series: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/gargoyles-live-action-tv-show-reboot-1235342849/
Though, if Variety is to be believed the plot will see Goliath as the last of his kind: https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/gargoyles-live-action-series-reboot-disney-plus-gary-dauberman-james-wans-1235758161/
Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Oct 16th 2023 at 8:01:33 AM
You’re Gonna Carry That Weight.This is a duplicate thread of this
Please close it
Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Dec 17th 2023 at 12:44:29 AM
I'd go so far as to say Gargoyles, on a premise level, is Ninja Turtles crossed with Batman. The tone, the night setting, and the animation style are all aimed at competing with BTAS; the five inhuman heroes living in secret with their one human woman friend is pretty thoroughly the same paradigm that Turtles spawned. A lot of things about the show seem downright pedestrian when placed in the context of the Turtles' success.
I actually wonder if that led to some disconnects in the writing, where the show was conceived more as Goliath's story with everyone else playing support (a la Batman), while the title and the set-up suggested that being the leader didn't make him the sole main character (a la Leo from Turtles).
That said, I think the show stood out because its worldbuilding choices were so different from most Turtles-alikes. A lot of those shows, like Turtles, used pollution, genetic engineering, and aliens to explain away their weirdness. In addition to the excellent writing and continuity, Gargoyles' choice to go all in on urban fantasy, especially on the fair folk, makes it feel original instead of a trend-riding fad show in the vein of Street Sharks, Bucky O'Hare, Toxic Crusaders, or Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys.
Sending people to this thread
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With many of us well aware of Greg Weisman's involvement in "Spectacular Spider-Man", "Young Justice" and the upcoming Star Wars series "Rebels", let's not forget his first original show; Gargoyles.
I have to admit, when i was a kid and watching this show, i only saw it as another action show to watch for its...well, action, right up there with "Darkwing Duck", "Aladdin" and "The Mighty Ducks". But now that i'm older, i'm able to appreciate the Shakespearean references, the drama, the sheer complexity of this show's ever arcing story-lines. Unfortunately, the serious tone can, at times, cause my mind to have a field day with them, to the point where i imagine the characters doing and saying silly and stupid things, or just wrong things, which definitely undermines the show's more serious and mature tone.
To be honest, when i found out that "The Goliath Chronicles" was not canon and learned what really happened after the second season in Greg's mind (the comics), i was at a loss. The bit about Goliath and Elisa's falling out seemed a bit sad, especially since "The Goliath Chronicles" implied that Goliath and Elisa loved each other and that's all there was to it. I was already having some issue with the whole Angela and Broadway thing for some reason, though i will admit, the reveal about Brooklyn gaining a family during a time traveling journey did make that easier to deal with.
What about all of you? What impact has this great shows had on you? Because, let's face it, it's one of Disney's best.