Posted by hype
on 1/16/2009, 7:45 pm, in reply to "Re: Wouldnt it be nice"
Well, I took a stab at it, so most of you should be able to get a pretty good grasp on how I feel about it.
I thought it should definitely be taken out of the cartoon realm, where no one REALLY gets hurt. That's why the opening shot was of a dead body - I wanted fans to know right from the get-go that it wasn't going to be cheesy, everyone-wins-in-the-end typical fare. I also wanted to stay true to the characters, but just sort of amplify it a bit. In the short, I chose to focus on Hank's struggle to just keep on doing what is "right", no matter how long they have to continue trudging on. He was always like that on the cartoon, but I just really pushed it up to extremes by introducing an accidental death he was going to have to morally come to terms with.
Actually, it's not all that different from what he did in Dragon's Graveyard, with Venger tied up against the rocks.
That's how I'd like to see it done - almost like Lord of the Rings, but not so desaturated of a look to it. I would want to see only unknown actors in it. That way, they have a chance to "own" the characters. The way Mark Hamill will never be anyone but Luke to me. But I liked the very realistic treatment LOTR got, and would like to see the same for our favorite cartoon. But I would keep very saturated color to the look of it.
Also, Venger and Shadow Demon should be WAY more evil. I had already created the Venger make-up I was going to use. It was very human, because I wanted to keep him very realistically based. But it was also a little bit... reptilian, in a way. A little like the Voldemort make-up from Harry Potter. And his wings were going to be fleshy wings. Like bat wings, but not dark brown like bat wings, more like a pale, dark bluish-flesh colored, to keep it human-based. They weren't going to be the slick black wings he has in the cartoon. And the horns on his helmet were going to be real horn, not slick red horns. They were sort of based on a ram's horns, but not curved like that, they actually were forked. It was very important to me that it not just be a blue man in a shiny costume. I wanted him to be almost like a bluish evil angel. And in my version, he wasn't going to hesitate to kill people, sort of like Vader in Empire Strikes Back. Vader killed good guys and bad, anyone who ticked him off. That's what I wanted Venger to be.
And Shadow Demon was going to be exactly that - a demon. he was going to look the same, but he was going to be unbelievably evil. Venger would have to sort of reel him in, keep him under control, or else he'd just kill the kids outright. That's what I wanted him to be. And I wanted him to be alot more than just a spy. I envisioned him more like the highest general in Venger's armies, except that he didn't always work with the army, he was more of a loner. Like a one-demon special forces unit.
I wouldn't want it to be corny and silly, like Xena and Hercules. Certainly there would be silly things occasionally, but Xena was REALLY corny. In my short, I actually thought the action stuff came out really cheesy, and I'm not happy with it. We didn't plan anything, and were rushing, so under those circumstances, I was ok with it, but if I had a multi-day shoot, I would have made it much slicker.
Ah well... When I was going to do the full Treasure of Tardos episode, I rewrote the whole thing, making it more reality based, trying to take out some of the cornyness. And I storyboarded alot of it. Someday I should post that stuff. Maybe you guys would find it interesting.
But damn, I sure do wish the show could continue on like that, as live action. And I love that alot of the comments on the youtube page are things like "would love to see this as a tv show" and "make more!". 
if it's not fun, what's the point?
http://www.mackdadd.com
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