Although we have no idea what year 24 takes place in (some people surmise that it’s 2012 by this point), I’m just glad that it doesn’t take place in 1994, like this “Pilot” video shows. (My apologies because I know the width of this video is going to hate my blog design):
Geez, did technology really suck that much back then? I was in 8th grade back then, and while I never had a Prodigy or AOL, I was on the BBS’s. Man those were the good old days!
Matt pointed me to a crazy story today, from Entertainment Weekly:
[Creator Tom] Kring himself is keenly aware that Heroes is broken. Here’s his candid critique:
THE PACE IS TOO SLOW We assumed the audience wanted season 1 – a buildup of intrigue about these characters and the discovery of their powers. We taught [them] to expect a certain kind of storytelling. They wanted adrenaline. We made a mistake.
THE WORLD-SAVING STAKES SHOULD HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED SOONER The premonition of nuclear apocalypse created a larger context that unified every story line last season. Kring now sees that Volume 2 would have been better served if Peter’s vision of viral Armageddon had appeared in the season premiere rather than episode 7. “We took too long to get to the big-picture story,” he says.
THE ROOKIES DIDN’T GREET THEMSELVES PROPERLY New Heroes … shouldn’t have been introduced in separate story lines that felt unattached to the show. The way we introduced Elle … by weaving her in via Peter’s story line – is a more logical way to bring new characters into the show…
HIRO WAS IN JAPAN WAY TOO LONG Hiro’s … time-bending adventure in 17th-century Japan – where he mentored samurai hero Takezo Kensei — – finally came to an end on Nov. 5. But Kring says it should have [lasted] three episodes. We didn’t give the audience enough story to justify the time we allotted it.
YOUNG LOVE STINKS Kring regrets sticking Claire … with a super-dud boyfriend and forcing Hiro to moon over a cutesy princess. I’ve seen more convincing romances on TV, he admits. In retrospect, I don’t think romance is a natural fit for us.
Wow, that’s candor! I’ll admit that while Heroes hasn’t seemed as good as it was last year, I didn’t expect the creator to apologize to fans.60; That said, I’m glad he did – talk about “stand up”! I think Heroes has been a bit of a victim of it’s own success. Last year, there were no expectations for this show. I was just excited that comic geeks had something to watch on network TV. The quality story-telling of Heroes blew everyone away, and single handedly converted our Monday 24 Nights to Heroes Night (with 24 afterwards).
November 5th’s episode was a dramatic improvement, and it was really cool to watch that show come together the way it did. It’s a bummer that everything may be back on hiatus with the WGA strike.
With Tom Kring doing what he did, a part of me wishes we’d see a similar statement from the 24 creators about last season…
In regards to my recent entry on the problems with the 24′s sixth season, I stumbled across a great article that better articulates what the makers of 24 need to do to fix the show. I thought this guy was dead on, also includes a lot of great classic 24 videos – check it out!
I’m was working on some Greenfoot promotional stuff when I came across one of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a long time. The quality is decent for someone taping this, but the video is just classic!
Alright, bedtime – big day of drumming Saturday.
I ran across the following story on Digg this afternoon:
Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has announced that there will be a Shrek 4 (2010) and Shrek 5.
read more | digg story
My first thought came to mind, “Crap”. Last weekend I went to go see Shrek 3 and while I did enjoy it, it did end up feeling like a big cash grab, and that they were scraping the bottom of the barrels as far as characters and storyline goes. The first Shrek movie was a classic, and the second was a great, funny follow-up – but I didn’t laugh that much the third time around.
Some of the commenters on Digg brought up the point that it’s probably easier for the animation studios to keep pumping money into sequels, as they don’t need to develop new computer models for new characters. At the same time, that’s the necessary cost of being innovative. Dreamworks has a great animation studio, but this would really be a big black eye for them.
I feel bad for kids today and think about when I have my kids. There just don’t seem to be any of the great, classic kids’ movies anymore. I know there isn’t an abundant amount of fairy tales and we have probably exhausted a lot of the classic Western stories, but there is a world full of culture that could provide new fairy tales and great stories to tell.
