"To Introduce our Guest Star, that's What I'm Here to Do..." The Hensonverse Fan Contribution Thread
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
Just been catching up on these.
The Kids Are Alright sounds interesting, and it's nice that Days Like These continues the trend of TTL's British remakes of American sitcoms actually being good (strange as this concept may seem to someone from OTL.)
(Although "Greensboro" strikes me as a very American surname; maybe they're just called "Green" in the UK version? And there don't seem to be counterparts to Laurie and Marcey.)
TTL me would definitely see Watchmen, and probably come away thinking "I liked it, but I'm not sure I understood it", which was my initial reaction to the comic IOTL. Weird Al as Dan Dreider makes a surprising amount of sense.
I'm kind of amused by Dawn French having a minor role in Titanic, since I have fond memories of the French & Saunders spoof version. I'm sure they still do it ITTL, and just add a bit more meta. Maybe something like this.
(SCENE: A railing on the deck. Dawn and Jennifer are leaning on it, dressed as Jack and Rose, but not in character.)
DAWN: Sorry, Jen, I'm still not sure we should be doing this. I mean [looks very serious] I was actually in Titanic, you know.
JENNIFER: [irritated] Yes, you've mentioned that. One scene as a daft old bat, wasn't it?
DAWN: [ignoring this] When James -- that's James Cameron -- offered me my role, he told me he had a vision. And that vision was...
JENNIFER: Dawn, you can shut up, or I can push you over the side. It's up to you.
Oof on the Sabotage 35; while it's understandable that people have issues with Katzenberg, that's not the way to deal with it.
Both Conan and Transmission 13 sound fascinating. (TTL me would very much not be a Conan purist -- in fact, in the late 90s, he'd probably be surprised to learn that the reason Red Sonja isn't in it is because she was mostly made up by Roy Thomas.) I don't know if I'd actually watch Transmission 13 -- like X-Files, it'd be a balance between my love of science fiction and my aversion to horror -- but I'd definitely think it was a great idea.
The Kids Are Alright sounds interesting, and it's nice that Days Like These continues the trend of TTL's British remakes of American sitcoms actually being good (strange as this concept may seem to someone from OTL.)
(Although "Greensboro" strikes me as a very American surname; maybe they're just called "Green" in the UK version? And there don't seem to be counterparts to Laurie and Marcey.)
TTL me would definitely see Watchmen, and probably come away thinking "I liked it, but I'm not sure I understood it", which was my initial reaction to the comic IOTL. Weird Al as Dan Dreider makes a surprising amount of sense.
I'm kind of amused by Dawn French having a minor role in Titanic, since I have fond memories of the French & Saunders spoof version. I'm sure they still do it ITTL, and just add a bit more meta. Maybe something like this.
(SCENE: A railing on the deck. Dawn and Jennifer are leaning on it, dressed as Jack and Rose, but not in character.)
DAWN: Sorry, Jen, I'm still not sure we should be doing this. I mean [looks very serious] I was actually in Titanic, you know.
JENNIFER: [irritated] Yes, you've mentioned that. One scene as a daft old bat, wasn't it?
DAWN: [ignoring this] When James -- that's James Cameron -- offered me my role, he told me he had a vision. And that vision was...
JENNIFER: Dawn, you can shut up, or I can push you over the side. It's up to you.
Oof on the Sabotage 35; while it's understandable that people have issues with Katzenberg, that's not the way to deal with it.
Both Conan and Transmission 13 sound fascinating. (TTL me would very much not be a Conan purist -- in fact, in the late 90s, he'd probably be surprised to learn that the reason Red Sonja isn't in it is because she was mostly made up by Roy Thomas.) I don't know if I'd actually watch Transmission 13 -- like X-Files, it'd be a balance between my love of science fiction and my aversion to horror -- but I'd definitely think it was a great idea.
I know, right? And what's worse, the article writer in-universe seems to be taking their side!
Hi. Very quickly, does anybody know what the major sports leagues look like in the Hensonverse as far as divisional alignment and stuff?
Ogrebear
Banned
Reminder of the Questions and Speculation Thread folks! Use it as requested by our Author. P
Hensonverse Speculation and Commentary
Since @Geekhis Khan’s A Hippie in the House of Mouse and Book II, When You wish upon a Frog, plus the Guest Post thread came out us fans have speculated and commented on the Hensonverse story to the point where it slightly details the thread(s), thus encouraged by the author themselves to...
www.alternatehistory.com
The modern Star Fox puppets are so much cuter than the originals
They’re back for a Star Fox Zero spot The Jim Henson Company’s puppets were an honest-to-god highlight of Nintendo’s E3...
www.destructoid.com
Wild stuff... Jim Henson puppets and Star Fox doing a crossover.
"Oh, Give me a Home, where the Dinosaurs Roam..."
Where Dinosaurs Roam and The Saga of Life: A Lookback
Danny Thor-Diggs for I Picture Pachycephalosaurs netlog, November 27, 2018
Mostly this
What hasn’t been said about the British Broadcasting Corporation's Saga of Life? From 1999 to 2007, this documentary series used innovative CG and practical FX once reserved for film use to tell the story of life on earth, from trilobites in the cambrian to dodos in our time, and naturally dinosaurs across three series and several specials. It captivated all kinds of audiences, from science lovers and nascent paleontalkers[1] (including myself), to even those that normally wouldn’t even watch such shows. No doubt was how it presented itself and committed to being a nature documentary proper rather then a mere dinosaur one. In a sea of dino-docs that were simple talking head interviews and B-rolls of field and lab work, with the occasional short reconstruction bit that rarely rose above “decent” effects-wise, the Saga of Life felt as revolutionary as the first terrestrial lifeforms.
Although all that said, the nature documentary format of WDR was not necessarily novel: it had some forerunners. In 1987 and 1995, Disney had produced separate three-part series respectively called Dino Safari and Ice Age Safari, which featured two hosts interacting with prehistoric animals in their time, while a 1994 Italian documentary used a similar format for a four-part series hosted by writer and personality Piero Angela. However, what the Saga of Life did differently was, rather than have a human “host”, it did something similar to an Attenborough documentary, in which the lives of animals were documented with a camera accompanied by narration.
Naturally, everything started with Where Dinosaurs Roam[2] in 1999. It was born three years earlier in 1996 with a request by then higher-up Jana Bennett. She wanted to make the Beeb’s science programs more ambitious, increasing both the science output of the BBC and the bar of science programming - she had mainly asked for suggestions on geology, world history, medicine, and natural history. Tim Haines, then a producer for Horizon, was one of those who was first to respond, and prehistory seemed like a good topic.
Tim Haines’ original idea was much closer to the standard talking head-centric model, and revolved around the history of palaeontology, using a mixture of CG, practical FX, and 2D animation to render brief sequences depending on the time period discussed. However, the Beeb deemed the initial pitch not ambitious enough to go forward with, so it was back to the drawing board. Overseeing another nature documentary led to Haines to the realisation: if the whole programme was one long reconstruction then he could make it look and feel like a proper nature documentary. Haines’ original plan for the series was to go chronologically backwards in time Cenozoic, but the producers above him felt that outside of the Ice Age, the era didn’t have the mass appeal needed. Instead, Haines pitched a Mesozoic-based series principally because in the 90’s, dinosaurs were certainly in, with films like Carnosaur, the Jurassic Park films, and Dinotopia leading the hype.
Haines and James would be the writers and directors for the entire series. First to be filmed was a short pilot under six minutes in Cyprus, with species from the Oxford Clay. It wasn’t much, just five species featured, but it was enough to convince the higher-ups to greenlight it. Where Dinosaurs Roam would thus gain a budget for seven episodes, (they negotiated up from six) - whilst it was The two would recall going through all sorts of ideas for these episodes.
They agreed to go chronologically, from the earliest dinosaurs in the Late Triassic to the mass extinction at the end of the Late Cretaceous, and would feature a mix of well-known and obscure creatures - from the famous dinosaurs, to ones that only even slightly casual paleontalkers and those in palaeontological circles would know about. Let's face it: seeing the usual array of Rex-Trike-Raptors-Apato-Steg + Ptero can get boring after a while, and it's always fun to see new things; indeed, if widespread enough a work can even elevate them to stock status. Just look at how The Land Before Time really brought raptors into mainstream back in 1987 or Cearadactylus after Jurassic Park in 1993.
For production, the series’ effects would be handled by two London-based groups: the CG animation was by FX company Framestore[3]; this was not going to be the case however, as none other than the American VFX giant Industrial Light and Magic was approached, given their successes on two dinosaur films, but they were turned down after revealing the exuberant costs of rendering just one scene. Physical effects on the other hand, like puppet heads and animatronics were done by Thunderbird; the latter’s creator Gerry Anderson himself became an executive producer for the series. They would subsequently film in various locations across four continents, from New Zealand to Botswana to Chile - wherever there were no grasses growing, there they were, bringing to life over 45 prehistoric creatures.
That number is quite for a TV miniseries lot to ask for, with a high amount that could go wrong and overbudget, so Framestore did quite a few things to help save on budget: they would recycle models for several animals at a time rather then make new ones wholesale, typically of related ones, and they shot on TV rather then film, which due to lower resolution total would mean less to render. A couple video game animators were even hired out to fast track the process. It paid off: the effects would win many Animation and VFX awards the next year and would be widely praised by just about everyone. Also, longtime Natural History Unit collaborator George Fenton was commissioned for the score, while cinematography was similarly handled primarily by Hugh Maynard in his first big role.
While Attenborough himself was initially asked to narrate Where Dinosaurs Roam as part of the authentic nature doc angle, he, whilst being fascinated by the premise, apologetically turned it down. Many actors were thus then considered for the series’ narrator, from thespians Kenneth Branagh to dames Judi Dench and Julie Andrews, to even musicians like Ringo Starr. It was ultimately decided however to cast Jurassic Park star Pierce Brosnan as narrator. Whilst this may have seemed like stunt-casting, it was nothing of the sort - in fact, it was Brosnan who had approached the BBC, not the other way around. Brosnan (whose other paleo-forays include narrating the Dinosaur Isle short film for the institute of the same name on the Isle of Wight and campaigning against the private sale of Tyrannosaurus specimen Sue) commented, “In the aftermath of Jurassic Park, I gained quite an appreciation for the science of palaeontology and became friends with a number of palaeontologists. When I heard of the project from a palaeontologist friend, I immediately offered my services to the BBC - this was revolutionary.”
Most importantly for a documentary however would be the scientific advisors, who would be vital to keeping things as accurate as possible. A panel of experts was hired, consisting of an assortment of palaeontologists from around the world, each specialising in a different field, totalling up to 100[?], including such luminaries as Phil Currie, Paul Sereno, Kent Stevens, David Norman, Jørn Hurum, Michael Benton, with Angela Milner of the British Natural History Museum[4] as principal advisor for the series.
Finally, other channels from around the world would also pitch in as co-producers and financiers: on the continental side, France’s France 3 and Germany’s ProSeiben were in association but not much is known, Japan’s TV Asashi and Canada’s CBC were major contributors, but the biggest one was Discovery Network of the US, already having distribution rights for many of the BBC’s shows stateside.
With all that said, I know loyal readers came for the episodes, so without further ado, lemme list ‘em and my thoughts!
The series began at the very start of the age of the dinosaurs with “Dry Eden”, set in Argentina in the Late Triassic. It follows a female Eoraptor struggling to eke out a living in its floodplain home during the dry season and in the shadow of other animals, most prominently the giant crocodilian relative Saurosuchus. The episode notably withholds most of the appearances of other dinosaurs for most of its runtime save for Eoraptor. Only in the last eight minutes of the episode do other dinosaurs appear: first comes the mule-sized early theropod Herrerasaurus , specifically a mated pair who finish off the old male Saurosuchus as he dies from an infected wound and the “prosauropod” Riojasaurus migrate into the floodplain once the rains come, showing the age of the dinosaurs has truly begun.
I admit the plot's a bit haphazard in places, and the CG isn't the best, but it’s a good start to the series. I like how since the focal species are on the small side we see things from their perspective often, resulting in making the other species look bigger and imposing, selling the idea of dinosaurs in the episode not as creatures whose rise was inevitable, but simply lucky underdogs who were in the right place at the right time - which arguably makes it all the more fascinating.
According to Jasper James, the plan for the second episode was to be on Early Jurassic North America, but the episode was sadly negated due to budget constraints (basically, it came down to a Cretaceous Mongolia episode or an Early Jurassic episode - they picked the former). So the Late Jurassic was moved up from the third. “Land of the Earthshakers” took place in the western United States’ famous Morrison Formation, which contains such iconic giants like Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus, but also a few of the smaller and less-represented denizens like the theropod Ornitholestes and the ornithopod Camptosaurus.
Diplodocus itself is the focal species for the episode, with the episode following a clutch from birth to adulthood, constantly having to dodge hungry predators and the elements if they want to grow to their colossal adult size. Yes, this means a whole lot of babies die - sorry, everyone, the Mesozoic was really like this! (And, besides, others have done it gorier).
Nevertheless, I definitely consider it the best of the seven episodes in the series, for in my opinion embodying everything great about the series: an epic scale, yet subdued and realistic in many ways, knowing when to pull its punches, and also has aged the most gracefully. It also sets the template for the rest of the series, the way the environment is just as much an obstacle for the subjects to survive as the predators and other aggressive species.
Staying in the Late Jurassic, the fourth episode would be based around England, specifically marine reptiles of the Kimmeridge Clay, 146 million years ago, with the ichthyosaur Grendeluis as the focal species and the token dinosaur being the megalosaur Eustreptospondylus, there depicted as beachcombing and semiaquatic. Whilst it was originally meant to be based around the Oxford Clay Formation, but this was changed a third through, as the Oxford Clay was from before the last episode’s time (152 mya): plesiosaur Cryptoclidus was now Kimmerosaurus, icthyosaur Ophthalmosaurus was now Grendelius. As for Eustreptospondylus, well…The swimming theropod in the final episode was called a “stokesosaur” at the time, was based on a skeleton found in Kimmeridge Clay in 1984 that, whilst then undescribed, we now know as Juratyrant.
However, the most notable creature of the lineup was the giant Pliosaurus, here restored as a sperm whale-sized leviathan that is the apex predator of the Jurassic seas, hunting and frightening off most of the other animals seen in the episode (albeit in a realistic way), even ambushing the stokesosaur in the intro in the manner orcas in Patagonia are known to do, only to tragically get beached at the end. While the science regarding the creature hasn’t aged well, it's still a stellar episode.
The episode would also gain infamy for the same CG models of its marine creatures being reused in DC’s Aquaman (also being done at Framestore) a year later as a budget-saving measure. Mike Milne, CGI director at Framestore, recalled in an interview, “Aquaman was being rendered down the hall, and the team who were working on that asked permission to use the marine reptile models for Where Dinosaurs Roam, only reskinned - partly to save money and partly because Antony Hicox really wanted the marine reptiles to look accurate - and Where Dinosaurs Roam already had those effects. Of course, Aquaman - and the Oscar we won for it - was our big break.” Milne would dryly go on to note that many DC fan sites get it the wrong way round - the models weren’t created for Aquaman (of course, I like both, personally).
A scene like this happens (done by WDGHK)
Moving onto the Cretaceous period, the episode “Odyssey by Sky” chronicled the Brazilian pterosaur Tropeognathus, which thanks to one advisor’s theories[5] is a species of the related Anhanguera. We follow one old male as he migrates across the nascent Atlantic 125 million years ago to reach its mating grounds, but must deal with everything that could impede it, from bad storms, other pterosaurs, parasites, to predators, like Britain’s giant-clawed Baryonyx (which would, a mere two years later, ascend to further infamy as the main antagonist of the third Jurassic Park movie), who memorably, after narrowly failing to catch the Anhanguera in a very tense, memorable sequence, ambushes a baby Iguanodon[6] to eat. Sadly, by the time the old male reaches the mating grounds he’s too late to get the best females, and dies from heatstroke, malnutrition and an infected wound inflicted from his escape from the Baryonyx. that sets off the waterworks.
This episode has the largest scale of any episode in the series (or the whole damn franchise) as the Anhanguera traverses the continents and showing the changes in thee Early Cretaceous, caused by the splitting of the continents and the formation of the oceans: we see the storms the ocean produces rains that create lush floodplains and how this changing world has led to the evolution of new groups of plants, such as flowers, and animals, such as spinosaurs, iguanodonts and ankylosaurs, in easily my favourite episode of the series.
The southern reaches of Gondwana (now southern Australia), 107 million years ago would be the next location featured, titled “Ghosts of the Silent Forest”, which featured a mixed group of both Leaellynasaura and Minmi in a symbiotic relationship preparing for the polar winter. Given the lacklustre nature of Australia’s Meozoic record in the 90’s the lineup is based on several fossil formations across a 15 million-year span all mashed together: that means we get taxa like Leaellynasaura itself and the amphibian Koolasuchus appearing after they went extinct, or Muttaburrasaurus before it even evolved. Hell, the Polar Allosaur was based off a fragmentary astralagus that still isn’t named (and is now thought to be a megaraptoran, but that’s a divergence). While on the negative note, there is something about the episode that makes it for me the least good of the series. Maybe it’s the fact that a lot of the cast was hodgepodged the comparatively dull storyline. Nevertheless, the rather small scale and intimate nature of the episode makes it work as an interesting breather. In addition, it’s a nice change for small ornithopods to be the focus of an episode, rather than ‘raptor chow’ or background characters.
The penultimate episode, “Desert Winds Blowing”, would be the last to be filmed, and tackled the concept of feathered dinosaurs living in Mongolia, inspired by key discoveries from both Mongolia and nearby China. There were just three feathered dinosaurs, focal species Gallimimus, Oviraptor, Velociraptor, inspired by the then-recently discovered Sinosauropteryx, with their feathering mostly being limited to a protofeather covering on the body, with pennaceous feathers on the arms, feathery crests on the Gallimimus’ heads and plumes along the back and tail of the Velociraptors - Milne commented that just rendering them cost more than most of the other creatures put together.
Back to the episode, the feathers inform much of the plot and presentation via how they were used by the three: we see Oviraptors use their downy feathers to incubate their eggs and insulate themselves at night, the flock of Gallimimus we follow use vibrant feathers in courtship displays, and Velociraptors use theirs for camouflage when hunting, and all of them use the feathers for keeping cool in the hot conditions. It’s a fascinating use, as is the wide-lens cinematography that shows off the hot, wide, desert environment - showing that these feathered dinosaurs are dwarfed by the land they live in. While there is a feeling of sameness in the story, this is generally a solid episode.
The series concludes with “End of the Line”, set in New Mexico at the very end of the Mesozoic right as the asteroid was approaching, and presenting the world as one where environmental factors have conspired to put dinosaurs in a tight spot. Naturally, Tyrannosaurus rex is the focal species, specifically a father[7] raising its chicks in a world where it seems where even the herbivores pose a threat, like the armoured Ankylosaurus; sadly all of them perish when the Chicxulub asteroid crashes and sends literal shockwaves across Earth and wiping out everything in easily one of the saddest moments in the franchise.
Fortunately, the series ultimately ends on a high note with a montage of birds in our time intercut with the theropods of the series, as Pierce explains that the dinosaurs live on, in the form of their descendants, the birds. It’s a great finale that does a good job of showing both the tragedy of the extinction and the continuing success of dinosaurs.
As you can tell, the series had one of the largest rosters for any palaeo-doc ever, but there could have been even more, as several species were deleted from the scripts (although retained in tie-in books). For one example, the then newly-discovered allosaur Neovenator was to appear in “Odyssey by Sky” where it was frightened off from a kill by the Baryonyx (showcasing allosauroid-type theropods as ‘yesterday’s news’) but was cut due to lack of space. Others were cut because of advisors’ advice; Pisanosaurus for example was going to appear in “Dry Eden” as an ornithopod, but Paul Sereno argued that the original specimen was actually chimaeric and was, therefore, invalid - it was then removed from the script. While on it, the cutting of Pisanosaurus led to Camptosaurus being added to “Land of the Earthshakers” as a way of introducing both ornithopods and their unique chewing jaws amongst dinosaurs.
And no, there are no pachycephalosaurs in the last two episodes (I am contractually obligated to answer this at this point), nor were they even considered for the series.
With so many species for a nonfiction work, it’s quite the miracle Where Dinosaurs Roam isn’t disjointed in any way. Quite the opposite: I love how each episode subtly builds upon one another in showing the evolution of dinosaurs and other life without being obvious or forced, such as feathered creatures growing more prominent as shifting continents create colder weather conditions. The common reuse of models for closely related taxa also helps in many regards.
Where Dinosaurs Roam proved a tremendous success when it premiered on October 4, 1999, episodes would score on average 15 million views, a record for any science program in the UK. Certainly helping the success was an advertising blitz and all kinds of merchandise for it: books, toys, and even an open world video game; later in the 2000’s came both touring exhibits, a live show that utilised huge puppetry, and even a few films[8]. Over the further course of the decade, other channels would follow suit in creating docs on prehistory and particularly those where the dinosaurs came first, from Discovery Network, to SmithsonianTV, to National Geographic; even the BBC tried to recapture WDR’s lightning in a bottle. You know which ones I’m talking about that I’ve covered before. They range from pretty good, to forgettable, to really bad.
However, WDR’s greatest legacy would be how many creatures would be elevated. Even today, many of their once obscure creatures, whenever depicted, owe something to Where Dinosaurs Roam. Just some examples are:
That said, the show wasn’t spared of criticism at the time - many science pundits viewed the nature doc-style presentation as presenting speculation as fact - now, the making of special, acknowledged a lot of this, in my view, but, hey, they’re welcome to their opinion…
My main personal criticisms with the series is that it often seems overstuffed and superfluous, with some species appearing as “one-scene wonders” and others in the background; I think it could have benefited from a few more cuts. Indeed, after the series was done and into the mid-2000’s, the show had a bit of a backlash, with many paleontalkers viewing it as overhyped and pretentious.
Meanwhile, even I felt that at the time that the Beeb had overhyped and merchandised the hell out of the show too much - you couldn’t go anywhere in 2000 without seeing “Where Dinosaurs Roamed: Big Prehistoric Safari” or whatever in book stores or libraries or on bus ads or in reruns. It really wanted to milk the cash cow as long as it lasted, but anyone who works in advertising knows that overhyping kills a work all the quicker.
But in the end the Saga of Life overall was a long-term success, an influential documentary that was arguably the crown jewel of intermillennial Dinomania and elevated a previously unremarkable and nondescript genre of documentary to new heights that would continue to influence up into the the following decades, and undoubtedly will continue to in the years to come.
All the while, Tim Haines was already thinking about the next project for him, like speculative documentaries that went further into outright meta-biology[11]. However particular, he looked at Where Dinosaurs Roam, and thought about using the same CG effects to bring prehistory into the present in a more literal way. This new project that would in time be named Primeval[/URL][12].
[1] ATL slang for fan of dinosaurs andotherprehistoriclife and media of them, equivalent to OTL’s Palaeonerd.
[2] The Walking with Dinosaurs title IOTL was actually a placeholder, based on Tim Haines misremembering the name of Dances with Wolves. Here, he rereads the title, and changes his mind to something different.
[3] In OTL, eight twin-processor NT boxes, at times augmented with the SGI workstations, were used. Here, different computers and hardware are used by Framestore, that allow for more powerful rendering software.
[4] IOTL Dave Martill was the lead advisor instead, who would promote some of the… odder things presented, like oversized pliosaurs and pterosaurs. He is merely one of the many secondary advisors here among the 100.
[5] - Now, this has never been theorised OTL, but due to random butterflies, a study argues that all ornithocheirid material from that time period should be classified as Anhuagera (because taxonomy for ornithocheirids is one big clusterf*ck). Now, many will argue that this is just kicking the can down the road (rather than trying to lump them all into Ornithocheirus… which the study said was a nomen dubium)
[6] Baryonyx was planned for OTL, but seems to have been replaced by some very misplaced Utahraptors. By any rate, the raptor quota will be filled by “Desert Winds Blowing”
[7] As opposed to a female, here in reference to the parental care behaviour ratite birds do, where it’s mostly the males raise the chicks.
[8] One will simply just be a compilation film, the other two will be original films in the vein of Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure.
[9] IOTL the subsequent series were treated as spinoffs of WWD rather then proper series due to the out of order, but this doesn’t happen ITTL.
[10] As opposed to OTL Impossible Pictures. Fantasticalia’s name is meant to invoke both psychedelia and saying “Fantastical? Yeah!” in a thick Northern accent.
[11] ATL term for speculative evolution ITTL.
[12] There was a similar inception for that series in OTL. Stay turned for how that one will go courtesy of @Nathanoraptor.
Danny Thor-Diggs for I Picture Pachycephalosaurs netlog, November 27, 2018
Mostly this
What hasn’t been said about the British Broadcasting Corporation's Saga of Life? From 1999 to 2007, this documentary series used innovative CG and practical FX once reserved for film use to tell the story of life on earth, from trilobites in the cambrian to dodos in our time, and naturally dinosaurs across three series and several specials. It captivated all kinds of audiences, from science lovers and nascent paleontalkers[1] (including myself), to even those that normally wouldn’t even watch such shows. No doubt was how it presented itself and committed to being a nature documentary proper rather then a mere dinosaur one. In a sea of dino-docs that were simple talking head interviews and B-rolls of field and lab work, with the occasional short reconstruction bit that rarely rose above “decent” effects-wise, the Saga of Life felt as revolutionary as the first terrestrial lifeforms.
Although all that said, the nature documentary format of WDR was not necessarily novel: it had some forerunners. In 1987 and 1995, Disney had produced separate three-part series respectively called Dino Safari and Ice Age Safari, which featured two hosts interacting with prehistoric animals in their time, while a 1994 Italian documentary used a similar format for a four-part series hosted by writer and personality Piero Angela. However, what the Saga of Life did differently was, rather than have a human “host”, it did something similar to an Attenborough documentary, in which the lives of animals were documented with a camera accompanied by narration.
Naturally, everything started with Where Dinosaurs Roam[2] in 1999. It was born three years earlier in 1996 with a request by then higher-up Jana Bennett. She wanted to make the Beeb’s science programs more ambitious, increasing both the science output of the BBC and the bar of science programming - she had mainly asked for suggestions on geology, world history, medicine, and natural history. Tim Haines, then a producer for Horizon, was one of those who was first to respond, and prehistory seemed like a good topic.
Tim Haines’ original idea was much closer to the standard talking head-centric model, and revolved around the history of palaeontology, using a mixture of CG, practical FX, and 2D animation to render brief sequences depending on the time period discussed. However, the Beeb deemed the initial pitch not ambitious enough to go forward with, so it was back to the drawing board. Overseeing another nature documentary led to Haines to the realisation: if the whole programme was one long reconstruction then he could make it look and feel like a proper nature documentary. Haines’ original plan for the series was to go chronologically backwards in time Cenozoic, but the producers above him felt that outside of the Ice Age, the era didn’t have the mass appeal needed. Instead, Haines pitched a Mesozoic-based series principally because in the 90’s, dinosaurs were certainly in, with films like Carnosaur, the Jurassic Park films, and Dinotopia leading the hype.
Haines and James would be the writers and directors for the entire series. First to be filmed was a short pilot under six minutes in Cyprus, with species from the Oxford Clay. It wasn’t much, just five species featured, but it was enough to convince the higher-ups to greenlight it. Where Dinosaurs Roam would thus gain a budget for seven episodes, (they negotiated up from six) - whilst it was The two would recall going through all sorts of ideas for these episodes.
They agreed to go chronologically, from the earliest dinosaurs in the Late Triassic to the mass extinction at the end of the Late Cretaceous, and would feature a mix of well-known and obscure creatures - from the famous dinosaurs, to ones that only even slightly casual paleontalkers and those in palaeontological circles would know about. Let's face it: seeing the usual array of Rex-Trike-Raptors-Apato-Steg + Ptero can get boring after a while, and it's always fun to see new things; indeed, if widespread enough a work can even elevate them to stock status. Just look at how The Land Before Time really brought raptors into mainstream back in 1987 or Cearadactylus after Jurassic Park in 1993.
For production, the series’ effects would be handled by two London-based groups: the CG animation was by FX company Framestore[3]; this was not going to be the case however, as none other than the American VFX giant Industrial Light and Magic was approached, given their successes on two dinosaur films, but they were turned down after revealing the exuberant costs of rendering just one scene. Physical effects on the other hand, like puppet heads and animatronics were done by Thunderbird; the latter’s creator Gerry Anderson himself became an executive producer for the series. They would subsequently film in various locations across four continents, from New Zealand to Botswana to Chile - wherever there were no grasses growing, there they were, bringing to life over 45 prehistoric creatures.
That number is quite for a TV miniseries lot to ask for, with a high amount that could go wrong and overbudget, so Framestore did quite a few things to help save on budget: they would recycle models for several animals at a time rather then make new ones wholesale, typically of related ones, and they shot on TV rather then film, which due to lower resolution total would mean less to render. A couple video game animators were even hired out to fast track the process. It paid off: the effects would win many Animation and VFX awards the next year and would be widely praised by just about everyone. Also, longtime Natural History Unit collaborator George Fenton was commissioned for the score, while cinematography was similarly handled primarily by Hugh Maynard in his first big role.
While Attenborough himself was initially asked to narrate Where Dinosaurs Roam as part of the authentic nature doc angle, he, whilst being fascinated by the premise, apologetically turned it down. Many actors were thus then considered for the series’ narrator, from thespians Kenneth Branagh to dames Judi Dench and Julie Andrews, to even musicians like Ringo Starr. It was ultimately decided however to cast Jurassic Park star Pierce Brosnan as narrator. Whilst this may have seemed like stunt-casting, it was nothing of the sort - in fact, it was Brosnan who had approached the BBC, not the other way around. Brosnan (whose other paleo-forays include narrating the Dinosaur Isle short film for the institute of the same name on the Isle of Wight and campaigning against the private sale of Tyrannosaurus specimen Sue) commented, “In the aftermath of Jurassic Park, I gained quite an appreciation for the science of palaeontology and became friends with a number of palaeontologists. When I heard of the project from a palaeontologist friend, I immediately offered my services to the BBC - this was revolutionary.”
Most importantly for a documentary however would be the scientific advisors, who would be vital to keeping things as accurate as possible. A panel of experts was hired, consisting of an assortment of palaeontologists from around the world, each specialising in a different field, totalling up to 100[?], including such luminaries as Phil Currie, Paul Sereno, Kent Stevens, David Norman, Jørn Hurum, Michael Benton, with Angela Milner of the British Natural History Museum[4] as principal advisor for the series.
Finally, other channels from around the world would also pitch in as co-producers and financiers: on the continental side, France’s France 3 and Germany’s ProSeiben were in association but not much is known, Japan’s TV Asashi and Canada’s CBC were major contributors, but the biggest one was Discovery Network of the US, already having distribution rights for many of the BBC’s shows stateside.
With all that said, I know loyal readers came for the episodes, so without further ado, lemme list ‘em and my thoughts!
The series began at the very start of the age of the dinosaurs with “Dry Eden”, set in Argentina in the Late Triassic. It follows a female Eoraptor struggling to eke out a living in its floodplain home during the dry season and in the shadow of other animals, most prominently the giant crocodilian relative Saurosuchus. The episode notably withholds most of the appearances of other dinosaurs for most of its runtime save for Eoraptor. Only in the last eight minutes of the episode do other dinosaurs appear: first comes the mule-sized early theropod Herrerasaurus , specifically a mated pair who finish off the old male Saurosuchus as he dies from an infected wound and the “prosauropod” Riojasaurus migrate into the floodplain once the rains come, showing the age of the dinosaurs has truly begun.
I admit the plot's a bit haphazard in places, and the CG isn't the best, but it’s a good start to the series. I like how since the focal species are on the small side we see things from their perspective often, resulting in making the other species look bigger and imposing, selling the idea of dinosaurs in the episode not as creatures whose rise was inevitable, but simply lucky underdogs who were in the right place at the right time - which arguably makes it all the more fascinating.
According to Jasper James, the plan for the second episode was to be on Early Jurassic North America, but the episode was sadly negated due to budget constraints (basically, it came down to a Cretaceous Mongolia episode or an Early Jurassic episode - they picked the former). So the Late Jurassic was moved up from the third. “Land of the Earthshakers” took place in the western United States’ famous Morrison Formation, which contains such iconic giants like Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus, but also a few of the smaller and less-represented denizens like the theropod Ornitholestes and the ornithopod Camptosaurus.
Diplodocus itself is the focal species for the episode, with the episode following a clutch from birth to adulthood, constantly having to dodge hungry predators and the elements if they want to grow to their colossal adult size. Yes, this means a whole lot of babies die - sorry, everyone, the Mesozoic was really like this! (And, besides, others have done it gorier).
Nevertheless, I definitely consider it the best of the seven episodes in the series, for in my opinion embodying everything great about the series: an epic scale, yet subdued and realistic in many ways, knowing when to pull its punches, and also has aged the most gracefully. It also sets the template for the rest of the series, the way the environment is just as much an obstacle for the subjects to survive as the predators and other aggressive species.
Staying in the Late Jurassic, the fourth episode would be based around England, specifically marine reptiles of the Kimmeridge Clay, 146 million years ago, with the ichthyosaur Grendeluis as the focal species and the token dinosaur being the megalosaur Eustreptospondylus, there depicted as beachcombing and semiaquatic. Whilst it was originally meant to be based around the Oxford Clay Formation, but this was changed a third through, as the Oxford Clay was from before the last episode’s time (152 mya): plesiosaur Cryptoclidus was now Kimmerosaurus, icthyosaur Ophthalmosaurus was now Grendelius. As for Eustreptospondylus, well…The swimming theropod in the final episode was called a “stokesosaur” at the time, was based on a skeleton found in Kimmeridge Clay in 1984 that, whilst then undescribed, we now know as Juratyrant.
However, the most notable creature of the lineup was the giant Pliosaurus, here restored as a sperm whale-sized leviathan that is the apex predator of the Jurassic seas, hunting and frightening off most of the other animals seen in the episode (albeit in a realistic way), even ambushing the stokesosaur in the intro in the manner orcas in Patagonia are known to do, only to tragically get beached at the end. While the science regarding the creature hasn’t aged well, it's still a stellar episode.
The episode would also gain infamy for the same CG models of its marine creatures being reused in DC’s Aquaman (also being done at Framestore) a year later as a budget-saving measure. Mike Milne, CGI director at Framestore, recalled in an interview, “Aquaman was being rendered down the hall, and the team who were working on that asked permission to use the marine reptile models for Where Dinosaurs Roam, only reskinned - partly to save money and partly because Antony Hicox really wanted the marine reptiles to look accurate - and Where Dinosaurs Roam already had those effects. Of course, Aquaman - and the Oscar we won for it - was our big break.” Milne would dryly go on to note that many DC fan sites get it the wrong way round - the models weren’t created for Aquaman (of course, I like both, personally).
A scene like this happens (done by WDGHK)
Moving onto the Cretaceous period, the episode “Odyssey by Sky” chronicled the Brazilian pterosaur Tropeognathus, which thanks to one advisor’s theories[5] is a species of the related Anhanguera. We follow one old male as he migrates across the nascent Atlantic 125 million years ago to reach its mating grounds, but must deal with everything that could impede it, from bad storms, other pterosaurs, parasites, to predators, like Britain’s giant-clawed Baryonyx (which would, a mere two years later, ascend to further infamy as the main antagonist of the third Jurassic Park movie), who memorably, after narrowly failing to catch the Anhanguera in a very tense, memorable sequence, ambushes a baby Iguanodon[6] to eat. Sadly, by the time the old male reaches the mating grounds he’s too late to get the best females, and dies from heatstroke, malnutrition and an infected wound inflicted from his escape from the Baryonyx. that sets off the waterworks.
This episode has the largest scale of any episode in the series (or the whole damn franchise) as the Anhanguera traverses the continents and showing the changes in thee Early Cretaceous, caused by the splitting of the continents and the formation of the oceans: we see the storms the ocean produces rains that create lush floodplains and how this changing world has led to the evolution of new groups of plants, such as flowers, and animals, such as spinosaurs, iguanodonts and ankylosaurs, in easily my favourite episode of the series.
The southern reaches of Gondwana (now southern Australia), 107 million years ago would be the next location featured, titled “Ghosts of the Silent Forest”, which featured a mixed group of both Leaellynasaura and Minmi in a symbiotic relationship preparing for the polar winter. Given the lacklustre nature of Australia’s Meozoic record in the 90’s the lineup is based on several fossil formations across a 15 million-year span all mashed together: that means we get taxa like Leaellynasaura itself and the amphibian Koolasuchus appearing after they went extinct, or Muttaburrasaurus before it even evolved. Hell, the Polar Allosaur was based off a fragmentary astralagus that still isn’t named (and is now thought to be a megaraptoran, but that’s a divergence). While on the negative note, there is something about the episode that makes it for me the least good of the series. Maybe it’s the fact that a lot of the cast was hodgepodged the comparatively dull storyline. Nevertheless, the rather small scale and intimate nature of the episode makes it work as an interesting breather. In addition, it’s a nice change for small ornithopods to be the focus of an episode, rather than ‘raptor chow’ or background characters.
The penultimate episode, “Desert Winds Blowing”, would be the last to be filmed, and tackled the concept of feathered dinosaurs living in Mongolia, inspired by key discoveries from both Mongolia and nearby China. There were just three feathered dinosaurs, focal species Gallimimus, Oviraptor, Velociraptor, inspired by the then-recently discovered Sinosauropteryx, with their feathering mostly being limited to a protofeather covering on the body, with pennaceous feathers on the arms, feathery crests on the Gallimimus’ heads and plumes along the back and tail of the Velociraptors - Milne commented that just rendering them cost more than most of the other creatures put together.
Back to the episode, the feathers inform much of the plot and presentation via how they were used by the three: we see Oviraptors use their downy feathers to incubate their eggs and insulate themselves at night, the flock of Gallimimus we follow use vibrant feathers in courtship displays, and Velociraptors use theirs for camouflage when hunting, and all of them use the feathers for keeping cool in the hot conditions. It’s a fascinating use, as is the wide-lens cinematography that shows off the hot, wide, desert environment - showing that these feathered dinosaurs are dwarfed by the land they live in. While there is a feeling of sameness in the story, this is generally a solid episode.
The series concludes with “End of the Line”, set in New Mexico at the very end of the Mesozoic right as the asteroid was approaching, and presenting the world as one where environmental factors have conspired to put dinosaurs in a tight spot. Naturally, Tyrannosaurus rex is the focal species, specifically a father[7] raising its chicks in a world where it seems where even the herbivores pose a threat, like the armoured Ankylosaurus; sadly all of them perish when the Chicxulub asteroid crashes and sends literal shockwaves across Earth and wiping out everything in easily one of the saddest moments in the franchise.
Fortunately, the series ultimately ends on a high note with a montage of birds in our time intercut with the theropods of the series, as Pierce explains that the dinosaurs live on, in the form of their descendants, the birds. It’s a great finale that does a good job of showing both the tragedy of the extinction and the continuing success of dinosaurs.
As you can tell, the series had one of the largest rosters for any palaeo-doc ever, but there could have been even more, as several species were deleted from the scripts (although retained in tie-in books). For one example, the then newly-discovered allosaur Neovenator was to appear in “Odyssey by Sky” where it was frightened off from a kill by the Baryonyx (showcasing allosauroid-type theropods as ‘yesterday’s news’) but was cut due to lack of space. Others were cut because of advisors’ advice; Pisanosaurus for example was going to appear in “Dry Eden” as an ornithopod, but Paul Sereno argued that the original specimen was actually chimaeric and was, therefore, invalid - it was then removed from the script. While on it, the cutting of Pisanosaurus led to Camptosaurus being added to “Land of the Earthshakers” as a way of introducing both ornithopods and their unique chewing jaws amongst dinosaurs.
And no, there are no pachycephalosaurs in the last two episodes (I am contractually obligated to answer this at this point), nor were they even considered for the series.
With so many species for a nonfiction work, it’s quite the miracle Where Dinosaurs Roam isn’t disjointed in any way. Quite the opposite: I love how each episode subtly builds upon one another in showing the evolution of dinosaurs and other life without being obvious or forced, such as feathered creatures growing more prominent as shifting continents create colder weather conditions. The common reuse of models for closely related taxa also helps in many regards.
Where Dinosaurs Roam proved a tremendous success when it premiered on October 4, 1999, episodes would score on average 15 million views, a record for any science program in the UK. Certainly helping the success was an advertising blitz and all kinds of merchandise for it: books, toys, and even an open world video game; later in the 2000’s came both touring exhibits, a live show that utilised huge puppetry, and even a few films[8]. Over the further course of the decade, other channels would follow suit in creating docs on prehistory and particularly those where the dinosaurs came first, from Discovery Network, to SmithsonianTV, to National Geographic; even the BBC tried to recapture WDR’s lightning in a bottle. You know which ones I’m talking about that I’ve covered before. They range from pretty good, to forgettable, to really bad.
However, WDR’s greatest legacy would be how many creatures would be elevated. Even today, many of their once obscure creatures, whenever depicted, owe something to Where Dinosaurs Roam. Just some examples are:
- Quetzalocatlus, appeared in “End of the Line” as a heron-like spear-fisher. This informed many artistic depictions throughout the 2000s - and proved remarkably accurate, in hindsight, given a study just a few years later that Quetzalcoatlus was a stork-like feeder, albeit on land.
- Baryonyx had blue colouration, notably on the sides and on its head (a behind the scenes book gave the rationale of both display and breaking up its silhouette from the fish it hunted), and I swear that every Baryonyx since has been patterned after either it or the one from Jurassic Park 3. The alliterative catchiness of the phrase “Blue Baryonyx” likely helps.
- Pliosaurus (and many of its relatives - most notably Kronosaurus and Liopleurodon) was infamously portrayed as a 50ft giant coloured like an orca that lead its to appear in all sorts of cheap B-movies, shlock works and toys; Blame that on the influence of secondary advisor Dave Martill, who had some pretty gonzo theories regarding both marine reptiles and pterosaurs that even at the time were quite suspect, and cited some misidentified sauropod vertebrae from the Peterborough Museum as proof.
- Since the series was their first notable appearance in any form of paleomedia, pretty much all of Dry Eden’s Ischigualasto lineup saw increased appearances in books, docs, and even fiction.
That said, the show wasn’t spared of criticism at the time - many science pundits viewed the nature doc-style presentation as presenting speculation as fact - now, the making of special, acknowledged a lot of this, in my view, but, hey, they’re welcome to their opinion…
My main personal criticisms with the series is that it often seems overstuffed and superfluous, with some species appearing as “one-scene wonders” and others in the background; I think it could have benefited from a few more cuts. Indeed, after the series was done and into the mid-2000’s, the show had a bit of a backlash, with many paleontalkers viewing it as overhyped and pretentious.
Meanwhile, even I felt that at the time that the Beeb had overhyped and merchandised the hell out of the show too much - you couldn’t go anywhere in 2000 without seeing “Where Dinosaurs Roamed: Big Prehistoric Safari” or whatever in book stores or libraries or on bus ads or in reruns. It really wanted to milk the cash cow as long as it lasted, but anyone who works in advertising knows that overhyping kills a work all the quicker.
But in the end the Saga of Life overall was a long-term success, an influential documentary that was arguably the crown jewel of intermillennial Dinomania and elevated a previously unremarkable and nondescript genre of documentary to new heights that would continue to influence up into the the following decades, and undoubtedly will continue to in the years to come.
All the while, Tim Haines was already thinking about the next project for him, like speculative documentaries that went further into outright meta-biology[11]. However particular, he looked at Where Dinosaurs Roam, and thought about using the same CG effects to bring prehistory into the present in a more literal way. This new project that would in time be named Primeval[/URL][12].
[1] ATL slang for fan of dinosaurs andotherprehistoriclife and media of them, equivalent to OTL’s Palaeonerd.
[2] The Walking with Dinosaurs title IOTL was actually a placeholder, based on Tim Haines misremembering the name of Dances with Wolves. Here, he rereads the title, and changes his mind to something different.
[3] In OTL, eight twin-processor NT boxes, at times augmented with the SGI workstations, were used. Here, different computers and hardware are used by Framestore, that allow for more powerful rendering software.
[4] IOTL Dave Martill was the lead advisor instead, who would promote some of the… odder things presented, like oversized pliosaurs and pterosaurs. He is merely one of the many secondary advisors here among the 100.
[5] - Now, this has never been theorised OTL, but due to random butterflies, a study argues that all ornithocheirid material from that time period should be classified as Anhuagera (because taxonomy for ornithocheirids is one big clusterf*ck). Now, many will argue that this is just kicking the can down the road (rather than trying to lump them all into Ornithocheirus… which the study said was a nomen dubium)
[6] Baryonyx was planned for OTL, but seems to have been replaced by some very misplaced Utahraptors. By any rate, the raptor quota will be filled by “Desert Winds Blowing”
[7] As opposed to a female, here in reference to the parental care behaviour ratite birds do, where it’s mostly the males raise the chicks.
[8] One will simply just be a compilation film, the other two will be original films in the vein of Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure.
[9] IOTL the subsequent series were treated as spinoffs of WWD rather then proper series due to the out of order, but this doesn’t happen ITTL.
[10] As opposed to OTL Impossible Pictures. Fantasticalia’s name is meant to invoke both psychedelia and saying “Fantastical? Yeah!” in a thick Northern accent.
[11] ATL term for speculative evolution ITTL.
[12] There was a similar inception for that series in OTL. Stay turned for how that one will go courtesy of @Nathanoraptor.
Hale the Taxi
Syed asked for this to be submitted. Here it goes everyone.
Storytellers: Robert De Niro On The Making of Taxi Story (1999)
From Harry Osmondson and Zak Mullerstein of National Public Radio, September 2006
Guest post by Mr. Harris Syed with assistance from @Plateosaurus
Robert De Niro, the director of Taxi Story circa 1999 (Image source: IMDB)
Harry: New York City, the Big Apple, the City of Dreams, the City That Never Sleeps and the Empire City, it is the largest metropolis in all of the United States known among many things for its landmarks, pizza, subways, vibrant entertainment scene, it's reputation as a melting pot of different ethnicities and last but definitely not least the medallion taxi known simply as the taxi, these iconic yellow cars that dot every corner of the city. Since the turn of the century, the medallion taxis have brought millions of New York residents from place to place no matter their borough though not without their fair share of trouble but nonetheless have cemented their place as an iconic staple of the Big Apple’s culture as much as the pizza, the subways and Broadway with the taxi making multiple appearances in film and television over the years most notably the psychological thriller Taxi Driver and the sitcom Taxi. Though taxis are commonplace in many American cities, the New York taxi is the most famous and iconic. And though New York will evolve, the taxi will continue to be a part of the fabric of the city for a very long time.
Zak: New York has also been the birthplace of many famous actors and directors that made their mark on the filmmaking industry from Ving Rhames and Scarlett Johansson to Martin Scorsese and the subject of today’s episode, Oscar winner Robert De Niro, who decided to direct and star in a feature-length ode to New York taxi drivers with a comedic twist.
Harry: I’m Harry Osmondson, writer and occasional co-host of the Storytellers vidcast.
Zak: And I’m Zak Mullerstein, the man behind Storytellers.
Harry: Today, we will discuss 1999’s Taxi Story with it’s director De Niro himself. Hello, Mr. De Niro.
Robert: Hello, Harry and Zak. I’m glad to be your guest for the show.
Harry: Thank you, De Niro. We wanted to discuss Taxi Story which was your third directorial effort after A Bronx’s Tale and Holy Rollers! all of which are part of the “New York Tales” trilogy.
Zak: It’s not the first time the vidcast has covered thematic trilogies. Two years ago, I did an interview with Steven Spielberg on 1997’s The Diary of Anne Frank and it’s place in the films collectively known as the “Holocaust Trilogy” that Spielberg produced or directed which include 1990’s Maus and 1992’s Schindler’s List. You are not the first filmmaker to do a thematic trilogy centering around the same subject matter.
Robert: Well I don’t like to brag because Steven’s Holocaust Trilogy is something to behold just like mine. You know, I’ve always had a strong connection to New York City as I was born and raised there. Hell, I appeared in Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Taxi Driver which as you know took place when the Big Apple was in a state of decay. I played mobster Charlie Cappa and the eponymous taxi driver Travis Bickle in those movies respectively though Travis ended up as my breakout performance as an actor and I am very much glad I starred in Taxi Driver.
Harry: That’s all fine and dandy, Mr. De Niro. But we (especially younger generations) want to know why you made Taxi Story your next movie in a long and illustrious career on the silver screen[1].
Robert: It’s funny you say that because New York’s taxis are some of the best in the nation and I can say that almost no resident in the city including myself can simply resist taking a ride in these charming yellow vehicles. I had this vague idea for a comedy-drama about a taxi driver in New York going on all sorts of crazy hijinks throughout the Five Boroughs while I was doing Holy Rollers!. It wasn't until I watched my friend Joe Pesci in Penny Marshall's Kandi did the story and characters come to fruition in my mind and I brought in Chazz Palminteri from A Bronx Tale to pen the script for what became Taxi Story. In fact, Pesci’s performance as the stern yet kindly Joseph LaRocca was what inspired the film’s main character, Jake Sabatini of the Lucky Medallion Taxi Company.
Joe Pesci + New York Taxi + Robert De Niro = Comedy gold (Images sources: IMDB and New York Times)
Zak: Speaking of Pesci, were there any challenges that could have prevented him from signing onto the film?
Robert: No, not at all. Pesci was extremely enthusiastic about working with me again after Holy Rollers! since he enjoyed shooting the film so much with me as soon as I handed him the script.
Harry: When you finished the script for Taxi Story, you pitched it to a couple of studios including Disney's Hyperion, Columbia, and Tri-Star but they turned down your movie before it ended up with Universal's Hollywood Pictures. What were the reasons for these studios rejecting the movie?
Robert: Well, Columbia was my and Chazz's first choice since they worked on A Bronx Tale and Holy Rollers! but they were more interested in the disaster movie Hammer of God. Then we went to the higher-ups at Hyperion and asked if they were interested but we got a call from them and learned that they passed on the script in favor of Sam Mendes' American Beauty. As for Tri-Star, we negotiated with the studio and they came close to making the movie. But then a representative of Hollywood contacted us and asked if they could negotiate the rights to the script. We said yes and started another set of negotiations with Hollywood and Universal. As it turned out, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Thomas Murphy liked our idea and they really wanted to work with me as well as Pesci. Three weeks after the negotiations with Universal began, Taxi Story would be greenlit at Hollywood with me as director.
Now that I had a script, a studio and my friends on board, the next task was finding the right actors to bring the story to life.
Zak: For the rest of the cast, it’s a well-known fact that you largely wanted New York actors to play the New York characters and some suspect personal bias on your part for the big roles. Do you see it that way?
Robert: I wouldn’t say personal bias. Think of it as the actors lending authenticity to the film and representing New York as a whole. I don’t have anything against non-New York actors in the film as a whole but Taxi Story is a story about the Big Apple so I sought to find as many actors from the area as possible though I did make some exceptions.
Besides Pesci as Jake, I played his most frequent passenger and former Vietnam War veteran turned grocery store owner Richard “Rick” Giuliano. We had an odd couple relationship with each other as the Brooklyn-born Jake was a resentful, cynical taxi driver stuck in a lowly position in life after flunking out in school and failing to become a Yankeed pitcher whereas I was a Manhattan-born store owner content with his life and had a family which caused quite a bit of conflict between our characters but we nonetheless got together and bonded over the things we had in common, especially near the end. Joining us in Taxi Story was Sigourney Weaver as my wife Jean, Aleksa Palladino as my daughter Rachael, Chad Michael Murray as my son Michael, Danny Aiello as Long Island pianist John Rocco, Eddie Murphy as Queens stand-up comedian Cedric Ryder, Rosario Dawson as Rachael’s best friend Jennifer “Jenny” Vasquez and Chazz Palminteri as Jake's boss Gerald Savino. For the other supporting characters, I had some of my friends from Holy Rollers! appear in the film in supporting roles such as Rosie Perez as Brooklyn dance instructor Felicia Lopez, Frank Vincent as retired New York City Police Department (NYPD) sergeant Andrew Rinaldi, Harvey Keitel as Bronx community counselor George Aaronvich, and Lucy Liu as next door neighbor Wendy Wong. We also had bit part actors and extras from the Five Boroughs of New York most notably Paul Dano as the nerdy Jacob and Debra Messing as hospital nurse Alice. I even got Marty to make a brief but memorable cameo appearance as I did with Holy Rollers!.
The actors I chose for the cast reflected New York’s reputation as a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities as you mentioned before and wanted to reflect this fact onscreen. That said, there were some casting choices that didn't make the cut: For instance, I approached Maggie Gyllenhaal for the part but said no as she didn't want to do another New York film after Five Boroughs. We also had Al Pacino and Sandra Oh interested in the parts of Andrew and Wendy respectively but as much as I like these actors, I chose not to cast them as Frank and Lucy were natural fits for the roles.
Zak: There have been many films and television shows set and (in some cases) shot in New York City most notably King Kong, It Happened One Night, North by Northwest, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Annie Hall, Planet of the Apes, The Godfather trilogy, The Warriors, Escape from New York, Spider-Man and Victor: The Professional among many others including the aforementioned Taxi Driver. Taxi Story as with your other movies in the New York Tales trilogy drew much attention from the locals because of your reputation and there were many that wanted to be in the movie even if they were extras with no lines. On set, you were New York’s king.
Robert: (laughs) Absolutely.
Harry: As a film set in New York, you were adamant that Taxi Story should be shot on location and wouldn’t shoot it anywhere outside of the city to Hollywood executives. It all worked out in the end as you got your wish and you were able to shoot the film in each of New York’s Five Boroughs. Being a native of the Big Apple, you were pretty lucky.
Robert: Yeah, I had plenty of luck in stipulating that Taxi Story would be shot in New York City and the execs knew not to get into a feud with me.
Zak: When it came to shooting the film in New York, you wanted to depict every landmark in the city including but not limited to the Empire State Building, the State of Liberty, the Twin Towers, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Broadway, Yankee Stadium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central Terminal, Chrysler Building, Shea Stadium, Radio City Music Hall, Ellis Island and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Some people have joked that Taxi Story should be called New York Landmark Story because of the characters interacting with New York’s most famous landmarks. That being said, not every New York landmark made it into the film as some were left out most notably St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Madison Square Garden and Washington Square Park. It’s rather inaccurate to say that the film depicts every New York landmark contrary to popular belief.
Robert: (laughs) I tried as best I could to showcase the best of New York through these wonderful and amazing landmarks but I did want to keep the focus on Jake and Richard.
Harry: Besides the landmarks, you had a steady shooting schedule of four months between May and August 1998 in all of the Five Boroughs. How was the experience on set directing the actors and yourself compared to A Bronx Tale and Holy Rollers!?
Robert: Not that different from those films since I had a great time with the cast and crew though the biggest difference is that Taxi Story was not set in a specific neighborhood or borough like say Little Italy in Holy Rollers! or the Bronx in A Bronx Tale. This was a film meant to represent New York as a whole and I along with Chazz crafted the story as such.
Zak: The film has been compared to (in some aspects) Taxi Driver as both involve playing a taxi driver who develops a special bond with someone, have “Taxi” in their name, depict a specific time period in New York history, are character studies about a man with deep-seated problems, involve you in a significant role and an appearance from Martin Scorsese. However, the two films couldn’t be more different in tone and identity as Taxi Story is a lighthearted comedy-drama about two men forging a friendship while Taxi Driver is a grim thriller about an increasingly insane vigilante. How do you feel about these comparisons?
Robert: I wouldn’t say they’re entirely unfair since they have similarities though Taxi Story and Taxi Driver diverge significantly from each other in many ways as you mentioned before. I mean, Jake Sabatini is a more well-adjusted individual than Travis Bickle ever will be. I also made Taxi Story as a T-rated movie that older kids and teenagers can enjoy including my own to see New York at its best whereas I wouldn’t recommend Taxi Driver to these kinds of audiences as it’s meant to focus on New York’s darker side.
Harry: In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Pesci’s Jake is having a conversation with your character Richard on your favorite New York baseball teams with the conversation itself turns into a heated argument resulting in Richard being thrown out and your relationship is left strained at least (spoilers!) you reconcile later with Jake learning the importance of reaching out to others even the passengers inside his taxi. However, it’s become a well-known fact that it was improvised and not in the original script. How did Pesci come up with the scene?
Robert: While we were shooting the scene with Jake and Richard in the taxi, Pesci happened to come across an extra holding baseball cards with the MLB’s New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. You all know that the Dodgers and Giants leaving for California left a gap in New York baseball before the Mets arrived and Pesci just thought that it would make sense for his character to be a fan of the Dodgers and the Mets to stick to the Yankees which caused a ruckus within the taxi. It was unexpected but hilarious and fit perfectly with the difficult journey for Jake and Richard to become friends[2].
Harry: Another memorable scene is the end where Pesci’s Jake is having Christmas dinner with Richard at his home with Jean, Rachael, Michael, John, Cedric, Jenny, Gerald and the other passengers present grateful for his service. Since the film was not shot around or near Christmas, you had to create fake snow on set to make it look as such[3].
Robert: Well, the technical crew went the extra mile to create a holiday atmosphere for the last scene.
Zak: Pesci was undeniably the star of Taxi Story and delivered a wonderfully funny performance of a jerk with a heart of gold who slowly becomes less cynical over time and befriends a man from a different background including his family. While it won’t ever surpass his tour-de-force role as Vinny LaGuardini in My Cousin Vinny or some of the other roles Pesci has done over the years, Jake is one of his best. Do you think Pesci was the best actor in the film?
Robert: While I don’t deny that Pesci is a great performer in Taxi Story, I don’t think it’s the only good one. You’ve got me as the kindly father Jake and Eddie as the ever so-funny Cedric and we both brought some laugh-out moments in the film. It’s just that Pesci is naturally skilled in comedy and most people will watch him for that beyond his tough guy exterior.
Harry: Speaking of tough guys, you and Pesci are known for tough guys and criminals but Taxi Story and some of your films have shown you can play nice guys even those who are well-intentioned but flawed.
Robert: You know, many of us have children and we can’t show some of our films to them because they’re inappropriate so we make films that older kids can enjoy along with the younger ones to an extent.
Zak: Pesci’s character is the owner of a medallion taxi throughout the entire film. When it came to teaching him how to act like a taxi driver, what was it like for him to act like one?
Robert: Pesci would research the job by meeting with real life taxi drivers and reading a training handbook to get an understanding of what it was like for the average joe to drive a yellow cabbie. He even went undercover as a taxi driver by changing his appearance a bit and earned a license to drive a real taxi with most people not recognizing who he was until he told the passengers when they reached their destination.
Harry: That’s some real dedication for a role by an actor.
Robert: (laughs) It sure is.
Zak: Also, despite Joe’s character being a Brooklyn native, he kept his native New Jersey accent intact. Why did you allow him to use his natural accent?
Robert: Honestly, Pesci had a great performance and his voice is too iconic to change so we had a line where he joked that he was from Jersey and not Brooklyn.
Harry: Yeah, Pesci is simply a great comedic and dramatic actor with a rambunctious yet oddly compelling voice.
Robert: Definitely.
Zak: Besides you and Pesci, the other actors were glad to be in your movie especially an Oscar-winning director like yourself.
Robert: Yeah, the rest of the cast were very excited to act alongside me as some such as Aleksa and Eddie wanted to work with an illustrious actor while others wanted to reunite with me on a simple yet hilarious project like Taxi Story
Harry: This film alongside Kandi encouraged Pesci to act in more movies to this day and he certainly hasn’t forgotten that film ever since. It was also a resume booster for teenage actors since they had the opportunity to appear with you and nab more roles over the years[4].
Robert: You know, Pesci has been so grateful for appearing in this film that he still talks about it as one of his best to this day alongside Raging Bull, Wiseguys, My Cousin Vinny, Casino and JFK. So do Aleksa, Chad and Rosario when I ask them about it.
Zak: When Hollywood and Universal were ready to release Taxi Story, they were cautiously optimistic of it’s chances of success at the box office as while they had confidence in you, the cast and the crew they didn’t know if a low-profile story of an unlikely friendship between a taxi driver and a store owner could succeed against a crowded market of tentpole blockbusters but they didn’t want to put in the dump months of January and February so they would give a release date of March 17, 1999, for the film. Nonetheless, they would launch a modest marketing campaign that brought some attention to audiences interested in seeing your next team up with Joe Pesci and Chazz Palminteri on a slice-of-life comedy drama and putting in March would help the film in the long run.
Robert: Well, I’ll say that the Hollywood and Universal execs believed in our movie and they didn’t want to leave it to die in the winter and the Super Bowl so I’m glad that they gave us a chance to market the film in a decent release window to spread the word to people who had an interest in watching Taxi Story or similar such films.
Harry: Little did many know that Taxi Story would be a surprise comedy hit for both studios grossing $165.7 million on a budget of $30.5 million and receiving favorable reviews for the performances of you and especially Pesci, the story, the cinematography and your direction. While the film didn’t win any Oscars, it still made it’s mark in theatres as a worthy follow-up of sorts to Holy Rollers! with the same hilarious brand of comedy from you and Pesci.
Robert: Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Taxi Story to be as much of a hit in theatres as we thought it would do moderately well but through word of mouth more and more people were watching my movie and laughing with not just me but Joe as well. When I read the news coverage for the film, I was so happy that many people came out to support it and I even made a statement thanking them for keeping the movie afloat.
Zak: 10 years later, Taxi Story has gone far beyond it’s status as an unexpected hit and became a De Niro comedy classic watched by millions on television. You feel so proud to make this film, do you?
Robert: You’re damn right. I am absolutely proud of making Taxi Story for not just New York but the entire world and I can find people on the streets who told me that they like this film!
Harry: Over the last six years, you’ve made your mark in the world of directing with an emphasis on urban settings which include nun heist comedy Crusaders, sister-led thriller The Safe House and more recently a biopic of Al Capone titled King of Chicago to critical and commercial success[5]. With a storied career as an actor and a thriving career as a director, there is no doubt you will remain a big player in the world of Hollywood (not the studio) for years to come.
Robert: You bet. I’ve been in the acting business for four decades now and when I die, I will be remembered by future generations for films like Raging Bull or Taxi Story.
Harry: Thank you for being on Storytellers, Mr. De Niro.
Robert: You’re absolutely welcome.
Zak: This is NPR’s Storytellers signing off.
Footnotes
[1] The success of A Bronx Tale under Columbia ITTL encouraged De Niro to direct more movies including Holy Rollers! and Taxi Story.
[2] The scene itself will become a copypasta meme online because of the chemistry between De Niro and Pesci.
[3] Long story short, Jake and Richard have multiple meetings with these people enough to make them friends at the end of the movie.
[4] With Pesci getting a Best Supporting Actor nomination and his appearance in Holy Rollers! he will not quit acting full-time as he is encouraged to star in more movies because of them along with Taxi Story’s success.
[5] And what are these De Niro movies you may ask? Stay tuned! (Hint: Heather O’Rourke is involved in one of them).
Storytellers: Robert De Niro On The Making of Taxi Story (1999)
From Harry Osmondson and Zak Mullerstein of National Public Radio, September 2006
Guest post by Mr. Harris Syed with assistance from @Plateosaurus
Robert De Niro, the director of Taxi Story circa 1999 (Image source: IMDB)
Harry: New York City, the Big Apple, the City of Dreams, the City That Never Sleeps and the Empire City, it is the largest metropolis in all of the United States known among many things for its landmarks, pizza, subways, vibrant entertainment scene, it's reputation as a melting pot of different ethnicities and last but definitely not least the medallion taxi known simply as the taxi, these iconic yellow cars that dot every corner of the city. Since the turn of the century, the medallion taxis have brought millions of New York residents from place to place no matter their borough though not without their fair share of trouble but nonetheless have cemented their place as an iconic staple of the Big Apple’s culture as much as the pizza, the subways and Broadway with the taxi making multiple appearances in film and television over the years most notably the psychological thriller Taxi Driver and the sitcom Taxi. Though taxis are commonplace in many American cities, the New York taxi is the most famous and iconic. And though New York will evolve, the taxi will continue to be a part of the fabric of the city for a very long time.
Zak: New York has also been the birthplace of many famous actors and directors that made their mark on the filmmaking industry from Ving Rhames and Scarlett Johansson to Martin Scorsese and the subject of today’s episode, Oscar winner Robert De Niro, who decided to direct and star in a feature-length ode to New York taxi drivers with a comedic twist.
Harry: I’m Harry Osmondson, writer and occasional co-host of the Storytellers vidcast.
Zak: And I’m Zak Mullerstein, the man behind Storytellers.
Harry: Today, we will discuss 1999’s Taxi Story with it’s director De Niro himself. Hello, Mr. De Niro.
Robert: Hello, Harry and Zak. I’m glad to be your guest for the show.
Harry: Thank you, De Niro. We wanted to discuss Taxi Story which was your third directorial effort after A Bronx’s Tale and Holy Rollers! all of which are part of the “New York Tales” trilogy.
Zak: It’s not the first time the vidcast has covered thematic trilogies. Two years ago, I did an interview with Steven Spielberg on 1997’s The Diary of Anne Frank and it’s place in the films collectively known as the “Holocaust Trilogy” that Spielberg produced or directed which include 1990’s Maus and 1992’s Schindler’s List. You are not the first filmmaker to do a thematic trilogy centering around the same subject matter.
Robert: Well I don’t like to brag because Steven’s Holocaust Trilogy is something to behold just like mine. You know, I’ve always had a strong connection to New York City as I was born and raised there. Hell, I appeared in Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Taxi Driver which as you know took place when the Big Apple was in a state of decay. I played mobster Charlie Cappa and the eponymous taxi driver Travis Bickle in those movies respectively though Travis ended up as my breakout performance as an actor and I am very much glad I starred in Taxi Driver.
Harry: That’s all fine and dandy, Mr. De Niro. But we (especially younger generations) want to know why you made Taxi Story your next movie in a long and illustrious career on the silver screen[1].
Robert: It’s funny you say that because New York’s taxis are some of the best in the nation and I can say that almost no resident in the city including myself can simply resist taking a ride in these charming yellow vehicles. I had this vague idea for a comedy-drama about a taxi driver in New York going on all sorts of crazy hijinks throughout the Five Boroughs while I was doing Holy Rollers!. It wasn't until I watched my friend Joe Pesci in Penny Marshall's Kandi did the story and characters come to fruition in my mind and I brought in Chazz Palminteri from A Bronx Tale to pen the script for what became Taxi Story. In fact, Pesci’s performance as the stern yet kindly Joseph LaRocca was what inspired the film’s main character, Jake Sabatini of the Lucky Medallion Taxi Company.
Joe Pesci + New York Taxi + Robert De Niro = Comedy gold (Images sources: IMDB and New York Times)
Zak: Speaking of Pesci, were there any challenges that could have prevented him from signing onto the film?
Robert: No, not at all. Pesci was extremely enthusiastic about working with me again after Holy Rollers! since he enjoyed shooting the film so much with me as soon as I handed him the script.
Harry: When you finished the script for Taxi Story, you pitched it to a couple of studios including Disney's Hyperion, Columbia, and Tri-Star but they turned down your movie before it ended up with Universal's Hollywood Pictures. What were the reasons for these studios rejecting the movie?
Robert: Well, Columbia was my and Chazz's first choice since they worked on A Bronx Tale and Holy Rollers! but they were more interested in the disaster movie Hammer of God. Then we went to the higher-ups at Hyperion and asked if they were interested but we got a call from them and learned that they passed on the script in favor of Sam Mendes' American Beauty. As for Tri-Star, we negotiated with the studio and they came close to making the movie. But then a representative of Hollywood contacted us and asked if they could negotiate the rights to the script. We said yes and started another set of negotiations with Hollywood and Universal. As it turned out, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Thomas Murphy liked our idea and they really wanted to work with me as well as Pesci. Three weeks after the negotiations with Universal began, Taxi Story would be greenlit at Hollywood with me as director.
Now that I had a script, a studio and my friends on board, the next task was finding the right actors to bring the story to life.
Zak: For the rest of the cast, it’s a well-known fact that you largely wanted New York actors to play the New York characters and some suspect personal bias on your part for the big roles. Do you see it that way?
Robert: I wouldn’t say personal bias. Think of it as the actors lending authenticity to the film and representing New York as a whole. I don’t have anything against non-New York actors in the film as a whole but Taxi Story is a story about the Big Apple so I sought to find as many actors from the area as possible though I did make some exceptions.
Besides Pesci as Jake, I played his most frequent passenger and former Vietnam War veteran turned grocery store owner Richard “Rick” Giuliano. We had an odd couple relationship with each other as the Brooklyn-born Jake was a resentful, cynical taxi driver stuck in a lowly position in life after flunking out in school and failing to become a Yankeed pitcher whereas I was a Manhattan-born store owner content with his life and had a family which caused quite a bit of conflict between our characters but we nonetheless got together and bonded over the things we had in common, especially near the end. Joining us in Taxi Story was Sigourney Weaver as my wife Jean, Aleksa Palladino as my daughter Rachael, Chad Michael Murray as my son Michael, Danny Aiello as Long Island pianist John Rocco, Eddie Murphy as Queens stand-up comedian Cedric Ryder, Rosario Dawson as Rachael’s best friend Jennifer “Jenny” Vasquez and Chazz Palminteri as Jake's boss Gerald Savino. For the other supporting characters, I had some of my friends from Holy Rollers! appear in the film in supporting roles such as Rosie Perez as Brooklyn dance instructor Felicia Lopez, Frank Vincent as retired New York City Police Department (NYPD) sergeant Andrew Rinaldi, Harvey Keitel as Bronx community counselor George Aaronvich, and Lucy Liu as next door neighbor Wendy Wong. We also had bit part actors and extras from the Five Boroughs of New York most notably Paul Dano as the nerdy Jacob and Debra Messing as hospital nurse Alice. I even got Marty to make a brief but memorable cameo appearance as I did with Holy Rollers!.
The actors I chose for the cast reflected New York’s reputation as a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities as you mentioned before and wanted to reflect this fact onscreen. That said, there were some casting choices that didn't make the cut: For instance, I approached Maggie Gyllenhaal for the part but said no as she didn't want to do another New York film after Five Boroughs. We also had Al Pacino and Sandra Oh interested in the parts of Andrew and Wendy respectively but as much as I like these actors, I chose not to cast them as Frank and Lucy were natural fits for the roles.
Zak: There have been many films and television shows set and (in some cases) shot in New York City most notably King Kong, It Happened One Night, North by Northwest, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Annie Hall, Planet of the Apes, The Godfather trilogy, The Warriors, Escape from New York, Spider-Man and Victor: The Professional among many others including the aforementioned Taxi Driver. Taxi Story as with your other movies in the New York Tales trilogy drew much attention from the locals because of your reputation and there were many that wanted to be in the movie even if they were extras with no lines. On set, you were New York’s king.
Robert: (laughs) Absolutely.
Harry: As a film set in New York, you were adamant that Taxi Story should be shot on location and wouldn’t shoot it anywhere outside of the city to Hollywood executives. It all worked out in the end as you got your wish and you were able to shoot the film in each of New York’s Five Boroughs. Being a native of the Big Apple, you were pretty lucky.
Robert: Yeah, I had plenty of luck in stipulating that Taxi Story would be shot in New York City and the execs knew not to get into a feud with me.
Zak: When it came to shooting the film in New York, you wanted to depict every landmark in the city including but not limited to the Empire State Building, the State of Liberty, the Twin Towers, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Broadway, Yankee Stadium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central Terminal, Chrysler Building, Shea Stadium, Radio City Music Hall, Ellis Island and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Some people have joked that Taxi Story should be called New York Landmark Story because of the characters interacting with New York’s most famous landmarks. That being said, not every New York landmark made it into the film as some were left out most notably St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Madison Square Garden and Washington Square Park. It’s rather inaccurate to say that the film depicts every New York landmark contrary to popular belief.
Robert: (laughs) I tried as best I could to showcase the best of New York through these wonderful and amazing landmarks but I did want to keep the focus on Jake and Richard.
Harry: Besides the landmarks, you had a steady shooting schedule of four months between May and August 1998 in all of the Five Boroughs. How was the experience on set directing the actors and yourself compared to A Bronx Tale and Holy Rollers!?
Robert: Not that different from those films since I had a great time with the cast and crew though the biggest difference is that Taxi Story was not set in a specific neighborhood or borough like say Little Italy in Holy Rollers! or the Bronx in A Bronx Tale. This was a film meant to represent New York as a whole and I along with Chazz crafted the story as such.
Zak: The film has been compared to (in some aspects) Taxi Driver as both involve playing a taxi driver who develops a special bond with someone, have “Taxi” in their name, depict a specific time period in New York history, are character studies about a man with deep-seated problems, involve you in a significant role and an appearance from Martin Scorsese. However, the two films couldn’t be more different in tone and identity as Taxi Story is a lighthearted comedy-drama about two men forging a friendship while Taxi Driver is a grim thriller about an increasingly insane vigilante. How do you feel about these comparisons?
Robert: I wouldn’t say they’re entirely unfair since they have similarities though Taxi Story and Taxi Driver diverge significantly from each other in many ways as you mentioned before. I mean, Jake Sabatini is a more well-adjusted individual than Travis Bickle ever will be. I also made Taxi Story as a T-rated movie that older kids and teenagers can enjoy including my own to see New York at its best whereas I wouldn’t recommend Taxi Driver to these kinds of audiences as it’s meant to focus on New York’s darker side.
Harry: In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Pesci’s Jake is having a conversation with your character Richard on your favorite New York baseball teams with the conversation itself turns into a heated argument resulting in Richard being thrown out and your relationship is left strained at least (spoilers!) you reconcile later with Jake learning the importance of reaching out to others even the passengers inside his taxi. However, it’s become a well-known fact that it was improvised and not in the original script. How did Pesci come up with the scene?
Robert: While we were shooting the scene with Jake and Richard in the taxi, Pesci happened to come across an extra holding baseball cards with the MLB’s New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. You all know that the Dodgers and Giants leaving for California left a gap in New York baseball before the Mets arrived and Pesci just thought that it would make sense for his character to be a fan of the Dodgers and the Mets to stick to the Yankees which caused a ruckus within the taxi. It was unexpected but hilarious and fit perfectly with the difficult journey for Jake and Richard to become friends[2].
Harry: Another memorable scene is the end where Pesci’s Jake is having Christmas dinner with Richard at his home with Jean, Rachael, Michael, John, Cedric, Jenny, Gerald and the other passengers present grateful for his service. Since the film was not shot around or near Christmas, you had to create fake snow on set to make it look as such[3].
Robert: Well, the technical crew went the extra mile to create a holiday atmosphere for the last scene.
Zak: Pesci was undeniably the star of Taxi Story and delivered a wonderfully funny performance of a jerk with a heart of gold who slowly becomes less cynical over time and befriends a man from a different background including his family. While it won’t ever surpass his tour-de-force role as Vinny LaGuardini in My Cousin Vinny or some of the other roles Pesci has done over the years, Jake is one of his best. Do you think Pesci was the best actor in the film?
Robert: While I don’t deny that Pesci is a great performer in Taxi Story, I don’t think it’s the only good one. You’ve got me as the kindly father Jake and Eddie as the ever so-funny Cedric and we both brought some laugh-out moments in the film. It’s just that Pesci is naturally skilled in comedy and most people will watch him for that beyond his tough guy exterior.
Harry: Speaking of tough guys, you and Pesci are known for tough guys and criminals but Taxi Story and some of your films have shown you can play nice guys even those who are well-intentioned but flawed.
Robert: You know, many of us have children and we can’t show some of our films to them because they’re inappropriate so we make films that older kids can enjoy along with the younger ones to an extent.
Zak: Pesci’s character is the owner of a medallion taxi throughout the entire film. When it came to teaching him how to act like a taxi driver, what was it like for him to act like one?
Robert: Pesci would research the job by meeting with real life taxi drivers and reading a training handbook to get an understanding of what it was like for the average joe to drive a yellow cabbie. He even went undercover as a taxi driver by changing his appearance a bit and earned a license to drive a real taxi with most people not recognizing who he was until he told the passengers when they reached their destination.
Harry: That’s some real dedication for a role by an actor.
Robert: (laughs) It sure is.
Zak: Also, despite Joe’s character being a Brooklyn native, he kept his native New Jersey accent intact. Why did you allow him to use his natural accent?
Robert: Honestly, Pesci had a great performance and his voice is too iconic to change so we had a line where he joked that he was from Jersey and not Brooklyn.
Harry: Yeah, Pesci is simply a great comedic and dramatic actor with a rambunctious yet oddly compelling voice.
Robert: Definitely.
Zak: Besides you and Pesci, the other actors were glad to be in your movie especially an Oscar-winning director like yourself.
Robert: Yeah, the rest of the cast were very excited to act alongside me as some such as Aleksa and Eddie wanted to work with an illustrious actor while others wanted to reunite with me on a simple yet hilarious project like Taxi Story
Harry: This film alongside Kandi encouraged Pesci to act in more movies to this day and he certainly hasn’t forgotten that film ever since. It was also a resume booster for teenage actors since they had the opportunity to appear with you and nab more roles over the years[4].
Robert: You know, Pesci has been so grateful for appearing in this film that he still talks about it as one of his best to this day alongside Raging Bull, Wiseguys, My Cousin Vinny, Casino and JFK. So do Aleksa, Chad and Rosario when I ask them about it.
Zak: When Hollywood and Universal were ready to release Taxi Story, they were cautiously optimistic of it’s chances of success at the box office as while they had confidence in you, the cast and the crew they didn’t know if a low-profile story of an unlikely friendship between a taxi driver and a store owner could succeed against a crowded market of tentpole blockbusters but they didn’t want to put in the dump months of January and February so they would give a release date of March 17, 1999, for the film. Nonetheless, they would launch a modest marketing campaign that brought some attention to audiences interested in seeing your next team up with Joe Pesci and Chazz Palminteri on a slice-of-life comedy drama and putting in March would help the film in the long run.
Robert: Well, I’ll say that the Hollywood and Universal execs believed in our movie and they didn’t want to leave it to die in the winter and the Super Bowl so I’m glad that they gave us a chance to market the film in a decent release window to spread the word to people who had an interest in watching Taxi Story or similar such films.
Harry: Little did many know that Taxi Story would be a surprise comedy hit for both studios grossing $165.7 million on a budget of $30.5 million and receiving favorable reviews for the performances of you and especially Pesci, the story, the cinematography and your direction. While the film didn’t win any Oscars, it still made it’s mark in theatres as a worthy follow-up of sorts to Holy Rollers! with the same hilarious brand of comedy from you and Pesci.
Robert: Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Taxi Story to be as much of a hit in theatres as we thought it would do moderately well but through word of mouth more and more people were watching my movie and laughing with not just me but Joe as well. When I read the news coverage for the film, I was so happy that many people came out to support it and I even made a statement thanking them for keeping the movie afloat.
Zak: 10 years later, Taxi Story has gone far beyond it’s status as an unexpected hit and became a De Niro comedy classic watched by millions on television. You feel so proud to make this film, do you?
Robert: You’re damn right. I am absolutely proud of making Taxi Story for not just New York but the entire world and I can find people on the streets who told me that they like this film!
Harry: Over the last six years, you’ve made your mark in the world of directing with an emphasis on urban settings which include nun heist comedy Crusaders, sister-led thriller The Safe House and more recently a biopic of Al Capone titled King of Chicago to critical and commercial success[5]. With a storied career as an actor and a thriving career as a director, there is no doubt you will remain a big player in the world of Hollywood (not the studio) for years to come.
Robert: You bet. I’ve been in the acting business for four decades now and when I die, I will be remembered by future generations for films like Raging Bull or Taxi Story.
Harry: Thank you for being on Storytellers, Mr. De Niro.
Robert: You’re absolutely welcome.
Zak: This is NPR’s Storytellers signing off.
Footnotes
[1] The success of A Bronx Tale under Columbia ITTL encouraged De Niro to direct more movies including Holy Rollers! and Taxi Story.
[2] The scene itself will become a copypasta meme online because of the chemistry between De Niro and Pesci.
[3] Long story short, Jake and Richard have multiple meetings with these people enough to make them friends at the end of the movie.
[4] With Pesci getting a Best Supporting Actor nomination and his appearance in Holy Rollers! he will not quit acting full-time as he is encouraged to star in more movies because of them along with Taxi Story’s success.
[5] And what are these De Niro movies you may ask? Stay tuned! (Hint: Heather O’Rourke is involved in one of them).
The Future of EPCOT
EPCOT New Millennium
“The 21st century has arrived at EPCOT…” - EPCOT NM Tagline
What is EPCOT New Millennium?
EPCOT New Millennium (codenamed Project Infinity) is a 5-year long renewal project done by Disney Imagineering celebrating the 21st century and the emerging hope for the future. The overall goal of the project is to update EPCOT from its outdated aesthetic into something more modern and possibly more timeless while adding desperately needed attractions and events to the theme park (which started to wane in popularity in comparison to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom).
In short, this is a far more ambitious version of OTL Project Gemini that will preserve the spirit of EPCOT as new features and attractions are added to keep guests entertained.
New Aesthetic
What EPCOT NM should look like aesthetically (Image Source: Disney Parks)
Inspired by the wild success of Tomorrowland 2055 and Disneytown Berlin, Disney decided to import the same Green Futurism aesthetic into EPCOT’s Future World, replacing the old 80’s style pathways, and some buildings (though most were never converted due to the cost of demolishing and later rebuilding them). There was also significant effort in adding greenery at the center of CommuniCore and the surrounding pavilions in an effort to make them seem more alive. While most guests had a positive reception to the new look of EPCOT, there was a distinct minority that missed the old 80s aesthetic of the whole park, calling it a time capsule, though that opinion never really caught on with the general public or most of the Disney Parks fandom.
New Pavilions
Future World
Play Pavilion (1999)
The Play Pavilion, sponsored by Nintendo, is an entirely new Pavilion centered around all forms of play, though it is mostly centered around video games. With Waldo C. Graphic and Bit/Byte as the hosts of the Pavilion, it is a massively beefed-up version of the ImaginationLands commonly seen in Disneytowns, as it contained the latest arcade machines, consoles, and VR equipment that are continuously experimented on by Nintendo and other companies. As such, it served as a blank canvas for many Disney-commissioned games over the years with their own IPs, though properties by Nintendo, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and others would occasionally appear. However, the star attraction (and one that has endured to this day) is Cyberspace Mountain, where guests can create their own roller coaster tracks and ride them inside a simulator, with each iteration of the game proving the potential that VR would have over future audiences.
Mind Pavilion (1997 - 1999)
Built near the old Horizons site, the Mind Pavilion, sponsored by Eli Lilly, was a step up from the previous Dream Pavilion that was demolished for the New Horizons Pavilion. While there was already The Living Body Pavilion that dealt with human anatomy and bodily interactions, the Mind Pavilion took exceptional notice of the nature of the human brain, the effects of stress and depression, drug use, mental disorders, trauma, and other issues in order to teach people about the importance of mental health. Jim Henson was particularly interested in the creative development of this pavilion over the others due to his personal experiences of losing many friends over substance abuse and poor mental health, seeing it as an opportunity to make a positive change in the world, something that would fall completely in line with EPCOT’s message.
New Horizons (2001)
The newly built New Horizons Pavilion, sponsored by General Electric, was highly anticipated by many Disney fans, as its demolition in the early 90s was met with great sadness and even some outrage over the possibility that it would disappear forever, but those fears were quelled when Disney would announce a new version during EPCOT New Millennium. While the show building was much larger than its original counterpart, the ride itself has remained largely the same, though just like the building, has also greatly expanded. Instead of three endings, there are four, reflecting the deep sea (underwater city + aquaculture), the deserts (land reclamation and renewable energy), the air (weather manipulation and efficient air travel), and outer space (interplanetary/interstellar exploration and colonization).
The New Horizons Pavilion
The Living Earth (2003)
The Living Earth Pavilion, sponsored by the Bass Brothers, is a counterpart to the Living Seas Pavilion, one that deals with geology and the surprisingly dynamic nature of the Earth itself. While Jim and the others in Imagineering were concerned with the Bass Brothers pushing for oil extraction as the Pavilion's central focus, they were shocked by their statement to push for renewables instead as their focus shifted towards green energy. As such, the Pavilion featured attractions that dealt with natural phenomena like earthquakes, gemology, the layers of the Earth (in a Journey to the Center of the Earth kind of ride), tectonic plates, volcanos, and even geothermal energy. While Imagineering was not expecting it to be a massive success right out of the gate, the unique rides and overall theme resonated with many guests who were awed at the chaotic yet beautiful processes of the Earth, making it an instant classic among EPCOT fans.
Outer Space (2005)
The Outer Space Pavilion, sponsored by Virgin, is an entirely new Pavilion for Disney, as it deals with simulating space travel and how humans will be living in Outer Space. As such, Imagineering took great care in recreating that experience, from the space launch simulator (much like OTL Mission Space) to the exploration of different planets in a different simulator experience. Due to the need to implement bleeding-edge technologies into the Pavilion’s construction and the size needed for the building, the Outer Space Pavilion was easily the most expensive Pavilion ever built by Disney. Still, it paid off massively due to the vastly increased guest numbers in EPCOT. It is considered by many Disney fans to be the inspiration for DisneySpace, the fifth gate at Walt Disney World, and as such did not last long when it was constructed around the late 2010s, being replaced by the Construction Pavilion, a Pavilion based on architecture, material engineering, and the history of human construction itself.
The Outer Space Pavilion (before its conversion to the Construction Pavilion)
Construction Pavilion (2021)
Built shortly after the opening of DisneySpace in 2019, the Construction Pavilion replaces the Outer Space Pavilion which was considered to be outdated by Disney Recreation. Sponsored by Caterpillar, it focuses on both the intricate engineering and the artistic expression that is used for architecture and construction. Many of the attractions and offerings are either demonstrations of different engineering principles such as the Stress Test Demos, or dark rides like A Single Brick which takes guests back to the days of old EPCOT as it is much more focused on edutainment than their recent offerings in EPCOT and in other parks, showing the history of architecture from the Ancient Egyptians and the Romans to modern architecture. While not as popular as the Outer Space Pavilion, it was a worthy replacement by the Parks fandom and future architects and engineers have cited this pavilion as one of their influences in joining their profession.
World Showcase
Millennium Village Pavilion (1999)
A temporary Pavilion made for EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration, it was a space dedicated to sharing the cultures of the world that were not part of the World Showcase, as funding and sponsoring a Pavilion at EPCOT is still considered to be prohibitively expensive for most countries. Countries like Scotland, Greece, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Korea, Ethiopia, Brazil, Sweden, and more sent representatives, and some even built interactive exhibits to show off certain traditions in their respective countries. It also included an artisanal workshop where some artists showed off their wares (like furniture, souvenirs, pottery, etc.) and a UN quiz game. While it didn’t last long, closing around 2003, it left an indelible mark on EPCOT’s history and spurred some like South Korea to even agree to build Pavilions of their own in EPCOT.
USR Pavilion (2000)
After much deliberation, the USR was able to reach an agreement with Disney over the construction of the much-awaited USR Pavilion. While it was previously conceived during the late 80s and early 90s as a new Pavilion for the Soviet Union, the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the Sovereign Union meant that it was put on hold due to the government being unstable and the USR’s economy being on a severe downturn. However, with the USR finally stabilizing, it was given a go-ahead as a way to foster political goodwill between the USR and the US into the new millennium. Featuring a smaller-scale replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Hermitage, and the Kremlin, it showcased elements of Russian culture, Ukrainian culture, Kazakh culture, and other cultures of the USR, including indigenous ones like the Nenets, Tuva, or the Nivkhs. A dark ride that detailed both the formation of the Slavs and the history of Russia was also exhibited. While it proved to be quite a success for Disney, it was not the smash hit that Imagineering had initially envisioned as other pavilions like Japan, Denmark, Australia/NZ, and eventually, South Korea was more popular.
The USR Pavilion’s concept art during the Early 90s (Image Source: Disney and More)
Denmark Pavilion (2001)
Considered to be a “companion” to the Norway Pavilion, the Denmark Pavilion represented another aspect of Scandinavian culture, though the Imagineers were careful to distinguish it from its Norwegian counterpart. Featuring a facade resembling a Danish town akin to Copenhagen or Roskilde, the centerpiece of the entire Pavilion is a replica of the Frederiksborg Castle from the Renaissance (as opposed to the Viking-like Stave Church) which hosted a ride based on Disney’s Heart of Ice as a dark ride based on Nordic history already existed as Maelstrom. To make up for that, another dark ride was built (inside a Nordic Bronze Age tomb) which depicted several Nordic legends, ending in the apocalypse known as Ragnarok (albeit shown in a far less bloody manner). Eventually, it ends with the resurrection of Baldr as he led the two remaining humans alongside the surviving gods into the new world. Aside from that, the other draw for the Denmark Pavilion was its food, offering Danish pancakes, rice puddings, pastries, and some savory meals. It even had a LEGO garden at the behest of its theme park partner Pearsons who owned Legoland.
Early concept model of the Denmark Pavilion (Image source: Disney Wiki)
Australia and New Zealand Pavilion (2003)
The result of a lucrative partnership between Australia and the Walt Disney Company over the development of Disneytown Sydney (later Sydney DisneySea), which later included New Zealand in the following years, this Pavilion proved to be exceptionally popular with guests once it was opened. With a miniature model of the Sydney Opera House as the background, it hosted all sorts of theatre, musical, and singing productions, highlighting the cultures that inhabit both countries from the Aboriginals to Maori to Aussie/Kiwi stories and legends. It also included a small kiddie park area that highlighted the Gold Coast’s many theme parks and other attractions (and scratched the itch of many families who wanted to take their kids on a thrill ride without needing to ride something like Test Track or the Mt. Fuji attraction). Lastly, there were restaurants that served authentic Australian barbecue or shops that sold Aussie/Kiwi fast food like the Chiko Roll, Meat Pies, or candies like Tim Tams. However, the overall favorite from Disney guests was the iconic ANZAC Biscuit.
The Sydney Opera House at EPCOT (Image Source: Parkz)
Future WS Pavilions
South Korea Pavilion (2008)
With the opening of Disneytown Seoul, Disney and South Korea naturally agreed on an EPCOT Pavilion, especially as South Korea started to become more relevant as a cultural juggernaut on the global stage as an Asian Tiger and therefore saw this deal as a way to extend its soft power. The Imagineers went all-out on the South Korea Pavilion with it considered the most intricate and detailed Pavilion ever since EPCOT first opened its doors. Featuring a replica of Gyeongbokgung, the Joseon Palace in Seoul, the complex provided several attractions and restaurants, with one dark ride detailing the legendary story of Yi Sun Sin and his exploits during the Imjin War as well as another explaining the life of famous Korean figures like Jumong of Goguryeo and Sejong of Joseon. Even the restaurants were top-class, featuring options like Korean BBQ and Fried Chicken as well as more traditional Korean fare (with the most expensive offering royal court cuisine). All in all, the South Korea Pavilion was a massive success for all parties involved and some even partially attributed it to the rise of South Korea’s prominence in Western culture during the early to mid-2010s, though others dispute this, citing K-Pop and K-Dramas as a more important element with South Korea’s rise to fame.
Gyeongbokgung Palace (Image Source: U.S. News Travel)
Egypt Pavilion (2019)
Partially driven by South Korea’s success with its own pavilion and to showcase its historic culture to the world, Egypt partnered with Disney to build a Pavilion of its own at EPCOT, making it the second African country to actually get a Pavilion after the Morocco Pavilion. Much of their motivation was due to a rise in Egyptian nationalism as well as the growing realization that partnering with Disney meant an overall expansion in a nation’s soft power and tourism, something they were well aware of after the United Arab Emirates received a Disneytown in Dubai. The Egypt Pavilion was of course expertly crafted by Imagineers which combined its Ancient Egyptian and Islamic heritage together neatly into a single space. The centerpiece of the Pavilion was a replica of the Cairo Citadel which stood behind an Ancient Egyptian gate based on the Luxor Temple. Of course, there was a replica of the Pyramid of Giza which hosted a ride based on Ra’s voyage across the night, as he is protected by many of his fellow spirits against monsters like Apophis before being reborn as Khepri to carry the sun barge across the world. There was also a Sphinx that hosted a gift shop that sold local Egyptian souvenirs. Lastly, there were restaurants and stalls that offered Egyptian cuisine to guests, which later became popular among vegans and vegetarians due to its diverse and tasty plant-based options like Ful Medames or Koshari. While it proved to be very popular among Westerners, there were many critics that either chastised the Egyptian government for using it as a red herring for their local people’s poverty and suffering while others (especially fundamentalist Muslims like the Muslim Brotherhood or other Salafist organizations) disliked it for emphasizing its pagan history and culture which they saw as idolatrous. Despite its many controversies, Disney saw it as an overall success and a shining example of what EPCOT can provide to many of its guests at Walt Disney World.
New Attractions
Future World
Test Track (1999)
The replacement of the World of Motion dark ride, this new thrill ride, sponsored by General Motors, centers on car manufacturing and testing, as guests go through a testing facility and figure out what cars are being tested on before full production and release to the public. While there were many great moments in the ride and inside jokes about the automobile industry, the best part of the ride was the speed testing where the ride vehicles ride on a high-speed track, sending the guests whirling through a long road. The use of the iconic and patented vehicle track technology was originally used for this attraction before being used for future ones in Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Disneyland San Antonio.
Test Track during the 2000s (Image Source: Theme Park Tourist)
Journey into the Imagination (2000)
After Apple took over Kodak as the sponsor for the ride, Apple agreed to maintain the spirit of the attraction, though they also wanted to input their own ideas as well, being the new sponsor. For the refurb, Imagineers sought to expand the track space, enhancing the ride vehicles and visuals with techniques they've learned from DisneySea and subsequent projects, while also bringing more characters from the loosely-defined but growing universe of Figment and Professor Dreamfinder like Wizard Gellz and his assistant Gellzya. In this iteration, guests wander through “The Dreamscape” a magical realm where Prof. Dreamfinder resides. Through the power of his own imagination, he creates a friend of himself with Figment and they head to his home, the Dreamport in order to find new ideas to make all sorts of contraptions. The main difference with this iteration compared to the old one is the introduction of an engineering room where Figment tinkers with punch cards, computer parts, and wires in order to create a new machine friend (signifying that even engineering and mathematics require a bit of imagination), something that Apple requested to encourage young people to go into STEM. Another difference was the introduction of Wizard Gellz and his female assistant Gellzya who would escort Figment and the Dreamfinder to their own home, where they do magic tricks with the power of their own imaginations (as a way to indicate that imagination can bring in new friends). All four of them would fly together along with the guests in the final scene as they sing the iconic “One Little Spark” through an ethereal and warm sky.
The new iteration proved widely popular among guests and was one of the highlight attractions at EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration. It even spawned a comics adaptation by Marvel where Professor Dreamfinder and Figment would go on wacky adventures through the Dreamscape, encountering new friends like Wizard Gellz and his assistant while also fighting back threats along the way, though they can always rely on their imagination and each other to back them up. Eventually, the entire universe where Dreamfinder and Figment reside would be brought to life in Disney’s Imaginarium, the second gate at Disneyland Valencia, a whimsical theme park full of creativity and imagination.
World Showcase
Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday (2001)
This ride was considered to be a passion project of Tony Baxter’s and there were many stories from Imagineering about his initial response to this ride being greenlit and how he put even more energy into this whole attraction than even Tomorrowland 2055 and Nextworld, despite his old age. Using his old notes and artwork as his guidelines, he drastically improved upon the concept using the experience he had gained over the decades he worked as an Imagineer. The end result was considered to be nothing short of magical. Set in an expanded space in the United Kingdom Pavilion called Cherry Tree Lane, the ride was an immaculate dark ride that took guests through a colorful and animated experience watching the Banks family and Mary Poppins go on a wacky adventure together.
Cherry Tree Lane (Image Source: Disney Wiki)
Mt. Fuji Rollercoaster (2004)
With Kodak out as the sponsor of the Imagination Pavilion in favor of Apple, this meant that Disney could ask Fujifilm, their competitor, to sponsor an attraction. Although hesitant, when they received word of what the Imagineers were planning, they immediately accepted. EPCOT was well known within Imagineering and by Parks fans to be a park “without a Mountain”, as it lacked a thrilling E-Ticket attraction by the likes of the Matterhorn or Space Mountain. However, the new Mt. Fuji Rollercoaster changed that, as not only it was massive, but also extremely exhilarating due to the track design and special effects the Imagineers used like falling snow or the sounds of a dragon to make it even more thrilling. While the attraction was very popular, it became even more popular once Fujifilm started a campaign during the mid-2000s to advertise photos on the Internet as a way to get people to buy their products. During the 2010s and 2020s, it received a resurgence as people shared their selfies on social media, trying to present themselves as being in Japan when in fact they were in Florida.
The Japan Pavilion with Mt. Fuji
New/Recurring Events
Flower and Garden Festival (1994)
One of the first festivals that opened under George Kalogridis’s direction as President of Walt Disney World, the event was designed to increase EPCOT’s attendance numbers when it waned during the opening of Hollywoodland. It was a minor success and became a core part of EPCOT’s Spring Season when yearly attendance would usually wane after the holidays. Featuring elegant floral displays and miniature topiary/model sculptures, the festival mainly centers around agriculture and gardening, offering unique souvenirs, lectures, and exhibits about the wonders of gardening and flower displays. One of the highlights of the Flower and Garden Festival was the Hanami viewing event as the Japan Pavilion has a wide open space that contains a large array of Sakura trees. Disney cast members often set up picnic grounds where families and guests can relax under the flowering trees, which is made even more cinematic by the massive Mt. Fuji attraction below them.
Food & Wine Festival (1995)
Inspired by George Kalogridis's trip to Aspen during the early 90s, he immediately thought of bringing this to EPCOT as allowing different countries to showcase their cuisines besides the Pavilions was considered to be a big positive for the concept. Opening during the fall of every year, it proved to be even more popular than the Flower and Garden Festival. Focusing on highlighting new cuisines from all across the world from Argentina, India, Brazil South Africa, Nigeria, etc., EPCOT opens up a number of booths that offer dishes that are not part of the usual line-up in World Showcase. In contrast, the Pavilions themselves offer an expanded list of offerings across all of their restaurants and stores. There are also cooking tutorials and shows performed by either Disney’s culinary staff or celebrity chefs that are popular throughout the festival. With the larger amount of Pavilions during EPCOT NM and the bigger budget pool, the Festival became even more audacious and extravagant by the 21st century.
EPCOT Millennium Celebration (1999)
Tapestry of Nations (1999)
A festival dedicated to the unique and diverse nations of the Earth, it differs from its OTL counterpart by utilizing performers and puppeteers from all around the world, taking advantage of Jim Henson’s personal connections and the Aye-Ayes, which is Imagineering’s international division. The parade involves a massive array of puppets from multiple nations from American Muppets to Taiwanese Glove Puppets to Japanese Bunraku and many others.
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth (1999)
Same as its OTL counterpart, this night-time fireworks show was located in the middle of the World Showcase Lake and replaced its original counterpart. Focusing on the story of the Earth, it divided the show into three parts, based on “Chaos”, “Order”, and “Meaning”, which emphasized humanity as a single group and the importance of unity with everyone across the world.
Projectorama (1999)
A projection-based light show in Future World, it displays a brilliant show of colors and effects on Spaceship Earth, which was temporarily modified to have Mickey Mouse Ears for the Millennium Celebration. This continued to be a popular nighttime attraction until the mid-2010s as Disney replaced it with an upgraded attraction called Points of Light where Spaceship Earth was studded with multiple LED lights that allowed them to do complex displays of light.
Leave a Legacy (1999)
A promotional program done by Disney for the EPCOT Millennium Celebration event, it consists of a set of stone monoliths that have images of parkgoers on metal plates. The submission period happened in 1998 during preparations for EPCOT New Millennium and continued for years after the renewal project ended, only ending in 2008. Meanwhile, the stone monoliths continued to be at EPCOT’s entrance in front of Spaceship Earth until the late 2010s when they were moved from the place close to Spaceship Earth towards further in the front to provide more space for topiaries and other flower arrangements. Regardless, they are an everlasting testament to the hopes of the parkgoers going into the new millennium and a mosaic of humanity's diversity.
The Leave a Legacy Monoliths (Image Source: Yesterland)
“The 21st century has arrived at EPCOT…” - EPCOT NM Tagline
What is EPCOT New Millennium?
EPCOT New Millennium (codenamed Project Infinity) is a 5-year long renewal project done by Disney Imagineering celebrating the 21st century and the emerging hope for the future. The overall goal of the project is to update EPCOT from its outdated aesthetic into something more modern and possibly more timeless while adding desperately needed attractions and events to the theme park (which started to wane in popularity in comparison to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom).
In short, this is a far more ambitious version of OTL Project Gemini that will preserve the spirit of EPCOT as new features and attractions are added to keep guests entertained.
New Aesthetic
What EPCOT NM should look like aesthetically (Image Source: Disney Parks)
Inspired by the wild success of Tomorrowland 2055 and Disneytown Berlin, Disney decided to import the same Green Futurism aesthetic into EPCOT’s Future World, replacing the old 80’s style pathways, and some buildings (though most were never converted due to the cost of demolishing and later rebuilding them). There was also significant effort in adding greenery at the center of CommuniCore and the surrounding pavilions in an effort to make them seem more alive. While most guests had a positive reception to the new look of EPCOT, there was a distinct minority that missed the old 80s aesthetic of the whole park, calling it a time capsule, though that opinion never really caught on with the general public or most of the Disney Parks fandom.
New Pavilions
Future World
Play Pavilion (1999)
The Play Pavilion, sponsored by Nintendo, is an entirely new Pavilion centered around all forms of play, though it is mostly centered around video games. With Waldo C. Graphic and Bit/Byte as the hosts of the Pavilion, it is a massively beefed-up version of the ImaginationLands commonly seen in Disneytowns, as it contained the latest arcade machines, consoles, and VR equipment that are continuously experimented on by Nintendo and other companies. As such, it served as a blank canvas for many Disney-commissioned games over the years with their own IPs, though properties by Nintendo, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and others would occasionally appear. However, the star attraction (and one that has endured to this day) is Cyberspace Mountain, where guests can create their own roller coaster tracks and ride them inside a simulator, with each iteration of the game proving the potential that VR would have over future audiences.
Mind Pavilion (1997 - 1999)
Built near the old Horizons site, the Mind Pavilion, sponsored by Eli Lilly, was a step up from the previous Dream Pavilion that was demolished for the New Horizons Pavilion. While there was already The Living Body Pavilion that dealt with human anatomy and bodily interactions, the Mind Pavilion took exceptional notice of the nature of the human brain, the effects of stress and depression, drug use, mental disorders, trauma, and other issues in order to teach people about the importance of mental health. Jim Henson was particularly interested in the creative development of this pavilion over the others due to his personal experiences of losing many friends over substance abuse and poor mental health, seeing it as an opportunity to make a positive change in the world, something that would fall completely in line with EPCOT’s message.
New Horizons (2001)
The newly built New Horizons Pavilion, sponsored by General Electric, was highly anticipated by many Disney fans, as its demolition in the early 90s was met with great sadness and even some outrage over the possibility that it would disappear forever, but those fears were quelled when Disney would announce a new version during EPCOT New Millennium. While the show building was much larger than its original counterpart, the ride itself has remained largely the same, though just like the building, has also greatly expanded. Instead of three endings, there are four, reflecting the deep sea (underwater city + aquaculture), the deserts (land reclamation and renewable energy), the air (weather manipulation and efficient air travel), and outer space (interplanetary/interstellar exploration and colonization).
The New Horizons Pavilion
The Living Earth (2003)
The Living Earth Pavilion, sponsored by the Bass Brothers, is a counterpart to the Living Seas Pavilion, one that deals with geology and the surprisingly dynamic nature of the Earth itself. While Jim and the others in Imagineering were concerned with the Bass Brothers pushing for oil extraction as the Pavilion's central focus, they were shocked by their statement to push for renewables instead as their focus shifted towards green energy. As such, the Pavilion featured attractions that dealt with natural phenomena like earthquakes, gemology, the layers of the Earth (in a Journey to the Center of the Earth kind of ride), tectonic plates, volcanos, and even geothermal energy. While Imagineering was not expecting it to be a massive success right out of the gate, the unique rides and overall theme resonated with many guests who were awed at the chaotic yet beautiful processes of the Earth, making it an instant classic among EPCOT fans.
Outer Space (2005)
The Outer Space Pavilion, sponsored by Virgin, is an entirely new Pavilion for Disney, as it deals with simulating space travel and how humans will be living in Outer Space. As such, Imagineering took great care in recreating that experience, from the space launch simulator (much like OTL Mission Space) to the exploration of different planets in a different simulator experience. Due to the need to implement bleeding-edge technologies into the Pavilion’s construction and the size needed for the building, the Outer Space Pavilion was easily the most expensive Pavilion ever built by Disney. Still, it paid off massively due to the vastly increased guest numbers in EPCOT. It is considered by many Disney fans to be the inspiration for DisneySpace, the fifth gate at Walt Disney World, and as such did not last long when it was constructed around the late 2010s, being replaced by the Construction Pavilion, a Pavilion based on architecture, material engineering, and the history of human construction itself.
The Outer Space Pavilion (before its conversion to the Construction Pavilion)
Construction Pavilion (2021)
Built shortly after the opening of DisneySpace in 2019, the Construction Pavilion replaces the Outer Space Pavilion which was considered to be outdated by Disney Recreation. Sponsored by Caterpillar, it focuses on both the intricate engineering and the artistic expression that is used for architecture and construction. Many of the attractions and offerings are either demonstrations of different engineering principles such as the Stress Test Demos, or dark rides like A Single Brick which takes guests back to the days of old EPCOT as it is much more focused on edutainment than their recent offerings in EPCOT and in other parks, showing the history of architecture from the Ancient Egyptians and the Romans to modern architecture. While not as popular as the Outer Space Pavilion, it was a worthy replacement by the Parks fandom and future architects and engineers have cited this pavilion as one of their influences in joining their profession.
World Showcase
Millennium Village Pavilion (1999)
A temporary Pavilion made for EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration, it was a space dedicated to sharing the cultures of the world that were not part of the World Showcase, as funding and sponsoring a Pavilion at EPCOT is still considered to be prohibitively expensive for most countries. Countries like Scotland, Greece, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Korea, Ethiopia, Brazil, Sweden, and more sent representatives, and some even built interactive exhibits to show off certain traditions in their respective countries. It also included an artisanal workshop where some artists showed off their wares (like furniture, souvenirs, pottery, etc.) and a UN quiz game. While it didn’t last long, closing around 2003, it left an indelible mark on EPCOT’s history and spurred some like South Korea to even agree to build Pavilions of their own in EPCOT.
USR Pavilion (2000)
After much deliberation, the USR was able to reach an agreement with Disney over the construction of the much-awaited USR Pavilion. While it was previously conceived during the late 80s and early 90s as a new Pavilion for the Soviet Union, the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the Sovereign Union meant that it was put on hold due to the government being unstable and the USR’s economy being on a severe downturn. However, with the USR finally stabilizing, it was given a go-ahead as a way to foster political goodwill between the USR and the US into the new millennium. Featuring a smaller-scale replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Hermitage, and the Kremlin, it showcased elements of Russian culture, Ukrainian culture, Kazakh culture, and other cultures of the USR, including indigenous ones like the Nenets, Tuva, or the Nivkhs. A dark ride that detailed both the formation of the Slavs and the history of Russia was also exhibited. While it proved to be quite a success for Disney, it was not the smash hit that Imagineering had initially envisioned as other pavilions like Japan, Denmark, Australia/NZ, and eventually, South Korea was more popular.
The USR Pavilion’s concept art during the Early 90s (Image Source: Disney and More)
Denmark Pavilion (2001)
Considered to be a “companion” to the Norway Pavilion, the Denmark Pavilion represented another aspect of Scandinavian culture, though the Imagineers were careful to distinguish it from its Norwegian counterpart. Featuring a facade resembling a Danish town akin to Copenhagen or Roskilde, the centerpiece of the entire Pavilion is a replica of the Frederiksborg Castle from the Renaissance (as opposed to the Viking-like Stave Church) which hosted a ride based on Disney’s Heart of Ice as a dark ride based on Nordic history already existed as Maelstrom. To make up for that, another dark ride was built (inside a Nordic Bronze Age tomb) which depicted several Nordic legends, ending in the apocalypse known as Ragnarok (albeit shown in a far less bloody manner). Eventually, it ends with the resurrection of Baldr as he led the two remaining humans alongside the surviving gods into the new world. Aside from that, the other draw for the Denmark Pavilion was its food, offering Danish pancakes, rice puddings, pastries, and some savory meals. It even had a LEGO garden at the behest of its theme park partner Pearsons who owned Legoland.
Early concept model of the Denmark Pavilion (Image source: Disney Wiki)
Australia and New Zealand Pavilion (2003)
The result of a lucrative partnership between Australia and the Walt Disney Company over the development of Disneytown Sydney (later Sydney DisneySea), which later included New Zealand in the following years, this Pavilion proved to be exceptionally popular with guests once it was opened. With a miniature model of the Sydney Opera House as the background, it hosted all sorts of theatre, musical, and singing productions, highlighting the cultures that inhabit both countries from the Aboriginals to Maori to Aussie/Kiwi stories and legends. It also included a small kiddie park area that highlighted the Gold Coast’s many theme parks and other attractions (and scratched the itch of many families who wanted to take their kids on a thrill ride without needing to ride something like Test Track or the Mt. Fuji attraction). Lastly, there were restaurants that served authentic Australian barbecue or shops that sold Aussie/Kiwi fast food like the Chiko Roll, Meat Pies, or candies like Tim Tams. However, the overall favorite from Disney guests was the iconic ANZAC Biscuit.
The Sydney Opera House at EPCOT (Image Source: Parkz)
Future WS Pavilions
South Korea Pavilion (2008)
With the opening of Disneytown Seoul, Disney and South Korea naturally agreed on an EPCOT Pavilion, especially as South Korea started to become more relevant as a cultural juggernaut on the global stage as an Asian Tiger and therefore saw this deal as a way to extend its soft power. The Imagineers went all-out on the South Korea Pavilion with it considered the most intricate and detailed Pavilion ever since EPCOT first opened its doors. Featuring a replica of Gyeongbokgung, the Joseon Palace in Seoul, the complex provided several attractions and restaurants, with one dark ride detailing the legendary story of Yi Sun Sin and his exploits during the Imjin War as well as another explaining the life of famous Korean figures like Jumong of Goguryeo and Sejong of Joseon. Even the restaurants were top-class, featuring options like Korean BBQ and Fried Chicken as well as more traditional Korean fare (with the most expensive offering royal court cuisine). All in all, the South Korea Pavilion was a massive success for all parties involved and some even partially attributed it to the rise of South Korea’s prominence in Western culture during the early to mid-2010s, though others dispute this, citing K-Pop and K-Dramas as a more important element with South Korea’s rise to fame.
Gyeongbokgung Palace (Image Source: U.S. News Travel)
Egypt Pavilion (2019)
Partially driven by South Korea’s success with its own pavilion and to showcase its historic culture to the world, Egypt partnered with Disney to build a Pavilion of its own at EPCOT, making it the second African country to actually get a Pavilion after the Morocco Pavilion. Much of their motivation was due to a rise in Egyptian nationalism as well as the growing realization that partnering with Disney meant an overall expansion in a nation’s soft power and tourism, something they were well aware of after the United Arab Emirates received a Disneytown in Dubai. The Egypt Pavilion was of course expertly crafted by Imagineers which combined its Ancient Egyptian and Islamic heritage together neatly into a single space. The centerpiece of the Pavilion was a replica of the Cairo Citadel which stood behind an Ancient Egyptian gate based on the Luxor Temple. Of course, there was a replica of the Pyramid of Giza which hosted a ride based on Ra’s voyage across the night, as he is protected by many of his fellow spirits against monsters like Apophis before being reborn as Khepri to carry the sun barge across the world. There was also a Sphinx that hosted a gift shop that sold local Egyptian souvenirs. Lastly, there were restaurants and stalls that offered Egyptian cuisine to guests, which later became popular among vegans and vegetarians due to its diverse and tasty plant-based options like Ful Medames or Koshari. While it proved to be very popular among Westerners, there were many critics that either chastised the Egyptian government for using it as a red herring for their local people’s poverty and suffering while others (especially fundamentalist Muslims like the Muslim Brotherhood or other Salafist organizations) disliked it for emphasizing its pagan history and culture which they saw as idolatrous. Despite its many controversies, Disney saw it as an overall success and a shining example of what EPCOT can provide to many of its guests at Walt Disney World.
New Attractions
Future World
Test Track (1999)
The replacement of the World of Motion dark ride, this new thrill ride, sponsored by General Motors, centers on car manufacturing and testing, as guests go through a testing facility and figure out what cars are being tested on before full production and release to the public. While there were many great moments in the ride and inside jokes about the automobile industry, the best part of the ride was the speed testing where the ride vehicles ride on a high-speed track, sending the guests whirling through a long road. The use of the iconic and patented vehicle track technology was originally used for this attraction before being used for future ones in Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Disneyland San Antonio.
Test Track during the 2000s (Image Source: Theme Park Tourist)
Journey into the Imagination (2000)
After Apple took over Kodak as the sponsor for the ride, Apple agreed to maintain the spirit of the attraction, though they also wanted to input their own ideas as well, being the new sponsor. For the refurb, Imagineers sought to expand the track space, enhancing the ride vehicles and visuals with techniques they've learned from DisneySea and subsequent projects, while also bringing more characters from the loosely-defined but growing universe of Figment and Professor Dreamfinder like Wizard Gellz and his assistant Gellzya. In this iteration, guests wander through “The Dreamscape” a magical realm where Prof. Dreamfinder resides. Through the power of his own imagination, he creates a friend of himself with Figment and they head to his home, the Dreamport in order to find new ideas to make all sorts of contraptions. The main difference with this iteration compared to the old one is the introduction of an engineering room where Figment tinkers with punch cards, computer parts, and wires in order to create a new machine friend (signifying that even engineering and mathematics require a bit of imagination), something that Apple requested to encourage young people to go into STEM. Another difference was the introduction of Wizard Gellz and his female assistant Gellzya who would escort Figment and the Dreamfinder to their own home, where they do magic tricks with the power of their own imaginations (as a way to indicate that imagination can bring in new friends). All four of them would fly together along with the guests in the final scene as they sing the iconic “One Little Spark” through an ethereal and warm sky.
The new iteration proved widely popular among guests and was one of the highlight attractions at EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration. It even spawned a comics adaptation by Marvel where Professor Dreamfinder and Figment would go on wacky adventures through the Dreamscape, encountering new friends like Wizard Gellz and his assistant while also fighting back threats along the way, though they can always rely on their imagination and each other to back them up. Eventually, the entire universe where Dreamfinder and Figment reside would be brought to life in Disney’s Imaginarium, the second gate at Disneyland Valencia, a whimsical theme park full of creativity and imagination.
World Showcase
Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday (2001)
This ride was considered to be a passion project of Tony Baxter’s and there were many stories from Imagineering about his initial response to this ride being greenlit and how he put even more energy into this whole attraction than even Tomorrowland 2055 and Nextworld, despite his old age. Using his old notes and artwork as his guidelines, he drastically improved upon the concept using the experience he had gained over the decades he worked as an Imagineer. The end result was considered to be nothing short of magical. Set in an expanded space in the United Kingdom Pavilion called Cherry Tree Lane, the ride was an immaculate dark ride that took guests through a colorful and animated experience watching the Banks family and Mary Poppins go on a wacky adventure together.
Cherry Tree Lane (Image Source: Disney Wiki)
Mt. Fuji Rollercoaster (2004)
With Kodak out as the sponsor of the Imagination Pavilion in favor of Apple, this meant that Disney could ask Fujifilm, their competitor, to sponsor an attraction. Although hesitant, when they received word of what the Imagineers were planning, they immediately accepted. EPCOT was well known within Imagineering and by Parks fans to be a park “without a Mountain”, as it lacked a thrilling E-Ticket attraction by the likes of the Matterhorn or Space Mountain. However, the new Mt. Fuji Rollercoaster changed that, as not only it was massive, but also extremely exhilarating due to the track design and special effects the Imagineers used like falling snow or the sounds of a dragon to make it even more thrilling. While the attraction was very popular, it became even more popular once Fujifilm started a campaign during the mid-2000s to advertise photos on the Internet as a way to get people to buy their products. During the 2010s and 2020s, it received a resurgence as people shared their selfies on social media, trying to present themselves as being in Japan when in fact they were in Florida.
The Japan Pavilion with Mt. Fuji
New/Recurring Events
Flower and Garden Festival (1994)
One of the first festivals that opened under George Kalogridis’s direction as President of Walt Disney World, the event was designed to increase EPCOT’s attendance numbers when it waned during the opening of Hollywoodland. It was a minor success and became a core part of EPCOT’s Spring Season when yearly attendance would usually wane after the holidays. Featuring elegant floral displays and miniature topiary/model sculptures, the festival mainly centers around agriculture and gardening, offering unique souvenirs, lectures, and exhibits about the wonders of gardening and flower displays. One of the highlights of the Flower and Garden Festival was the Hanami viewing event as the Japan Pavilion has a wide open space that contains a large array of Sakura trees. Disney cast members often set up picnic grounds where families and guests can relax under the flowering trees, which is made even more cinematic by the massive Mt. Fuji attraction below them.
Food & Wine Festival (1995)
Inspired by George Kalogridis's trip to Aspen during the early 90s, he immediately thought of bringing this to EPCOT as allowing different countries to showcase their cuisines besides the Pavilions was considered to be a big positive for the concept. Opening during the fall of every year, it proved to be even more popular than the Flower and Garden Festival. Focusing on highlighting new cuisines from all across the world from Argentina, India, Brazil South Africa, Nigeria, etc., EPCOT opens up a number of booths that offer dishes that are not part of the usual line-up in World Showcase. In contrast, the Pavilions themselves offer an expanded list of offerings across all of their restaurants and stores. There are also cooking tutorials and shows performed by either Disney’s culinary staff or celebrity chefs that are popular throughout the festival. With the larger amount of Pavilions during EPCOT NM and the bigger budget pool, the Festival became even more audacious and extravagant by the 21st century.
EPCOT Millennium Celebration (1999)
Tapestry of Nations (1999)
A festival dedicated to the unique and diverse nations of the Earth, it differs from its OTL counterpart by utilizing performers and puppeteers from all around the world, taking advantage of Jim Henson’s personal connections and the Aye-Ayes, which is Imagineering’s international division. The parade involves a massive array of puppets from multiple nations from American Muppets to Taiwanese Glove Puppets to Japanese Bunraku and many others.
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth (1999)
Same as its OTL counterpart, this night-time fireworks show was located in the middle of the World Showcase Lake and replaced its original counterpart. Focusing on the story of the Earth, it divided the show into three parts, based on “Chaos”, “Order”, and “Meaning”, which emphasized humanity as a single group and the importance of unity with everyone across the world.
Projectorama (1999)
A projection-based light show in Future World, it displays a brilliant show of colors and effects on Spaceship Earth, which was temporarily modified to have Mickey Mouse Ears for the Millennium Celebration. This continued to be a popular nighttime attraction until the mid-2010s as Disney replaced it with an upgraded attraction called Points of Light where Spaceship Earth was studded with multiple LED lights that allowed them to do complex displays of light.
Leave a Legacy (1999)
A promotional program done by Disney for the EPCOT Millennium Celebration event, it consists of a set of stone monoliths that have images of parkgoers on metal plates. The submission period happened in 1998 during preparations for EPCOT New Millennium and continued for years after the renewal project ended, only ending in 2008. Meanwhile, the stone monoliths continued to be at EPCOT’s entrance in front of Spaceship Earth until the late 2010s when they were moved from the place close to Spaceship Earth towards further in the front to provide more space for topiaries and other flower arrangements. Regardless, they are an everlasting testament to the hopes of the parkgoers going into the new millennium and a mosaic of humanity's diversity.
The Leave a Legacy Monoliths (Image Source: Yesterland)
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Glad to read that EPCOT Center gets some much-needed upgrades, and two of its best attractions survive without falling victim to Eisner!Disney’s penny-pinching. It really sounds like the new EPCOT will live up to Walt and Jim’s respective visions, especially with all that bleeding-edge technology on display. Exciting stuff.
Love the little hints of Disney’s future park projects too. ¿Dreamfinder y Figment en España?
Love the little hints of Disney’s future park projects too. ¿Dreamfinder y Figment en España?
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AWESOME!!!!!!!EPCOT New Millennium
“The 21st century has arrived at EPCOT…” - EPCOT NM Tagline
What is EPCOT New Millennium?
EPCOT New Millennium (codenamed Project Infinity) is a 5-year long renewal project done by Disney Imagineering celebrating the 21st century and the emerging hope for the future. The overall goal of the project is to update EPCOT from its outdated aesthetic into something more modern and possibly more timeless while adding desperately needed attractions and events to the theme park (which started to wane in popularity in comparison to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom).
In short, this is a far more ambitious version of OTL Project Gemini that will preserve the spirit of EPCOT as new features and attractions are added to keep guests entertained.
New Aesthetic
What EPCOT NM should look like aesthetically (Image Source: Disney Parks)
Inspired by the wild success of Tomorrowland 2055 and Disneytown Berlin, Disney decided to import the same Green Futurism aesthetic into EPCOT’s Future World, replacing the old 80’s style pathways, and some buildings (though most were never converted due to the cost of demolishing and later rebuilding them). There was also significant effort in adding greenery at the center of CommuniCore and the surrounding pavilions in an effort to make them seem more alive. While most guests had a positive reception to the new look of EPCOT, there was a distinct minority that missed the old 80s aesthetic of the whole park, calling it a time capsule, though that opinion never really caught on with the general public or most of the Disney Parks fandom.
New Pavilions
Future World
Play Pavilion (1999)
The Play Pavilion, sponsored by Nintendo, is an entirely new Pavilion centered around all forms of play, though it is mostly centered around video games. With Waldo C. Graphic and Bit/Byte as the hosts of the Pavilion, it is a massively beefed-up version of the ImaginationLands commonly seen in Disneytowns, as it contained the latest arcade machines, consoles, and VR equipment that are continuously experimented on by Nintendo and other companies. As such, it served as a blank canvas for many Disney-commissioned games over the years with their own IPs, though properties by Nintendo, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and others would occasionally appear. However, the star attraction (and one that has endured to this day) is Cyberspace Mountain, where guests can create their own roller coaster tracks and ride them inside a simulator, with each iteration of the game proving the potential that VR would have over future audiences.
Mind Pavilion (1997 - 1999)
Built near the old Horizons site, the Mind Pavilion, sponsored by Eli Lilly, was a step up from the previous Dream Pavilion that was demolished for the New Horizons Pavilion. While there was already The Living Body Pavilion that dealt with human anatomy and bodily interactions, the Mind Pavilion took exceptional notice of the nature of the human brain, the effects of stress and depression, drug use, mental disorders, trauma, and other issues in order to teach people about the importance of mental health. Jim Henson was particularly interested in the creative development of this pavilion over the others due to his personal experiences of losing many friends over substance abuse and poor mental health, seeing it as an opportunity to make a positive change in the world, something that would fall completely in line with EPCOT’s message.
New Horizons (2001)
The newly built New Horizons Pavilion, sponsored by General Electric, was highly anticipated by many Disney fans, as its demolition in the early 90s was met with great sadness and even some outrage over the possibility that it would disappear forever, but those fears were quelled when Disney would announce a new version during EPCOT New Millennium. While the show building was much larger than its original counterpart, the ride itself has remained largely the same, though just like the building, has also greatly expanded. Instead of three endings, there are four, reflecting the deep sea (underwater city + aquaculture), the deserts (land reclamation and renewable energy), the air (weather manipulation and efficient air travel), and outer space (interplanetary/interstellar exploration and colonization).
The New Horizons Pavilion
The Living Earth (2003)
The Living Earth Pavilion, sponsored by the Bass Brothers, is a counterpart to the Living Seas Pavilion, one that deals with geology and the surprisingly dynamic nature of the Earth itself. While Jim and the others in Imagineering were concerned with the Bass Brothers pushing for oil extraction as the Pavilion's central focus, they were shocked by their statement to push for renewables instead as their focus shifted towards green energy. As such, the Pavilion featured attractions that dealt with natural phenomena like earthquakes, gemology, the layers of the Earth (in a Journey to the Center of the Earth kind of ride), tectonic plates, volcanos, and even geothermal energy. While Imagineering was not expecting it to be a massive success right out of the gate, the unique rides and overall theme resonated with many guests who were awed at the chaotic yet beautiful processes of the Earth, making it an instant classic among EPCOT fans.
Outer Space (2005)
The Outer Space Pavilion, sponsored by Virgin, is an entirely new Pavilion for Disney, as it deals with simulating space travel and how humans will be living in Outer Space. As such, Imagineering took great care in recreating that experience, from the space launch simulator (much like OTL Mission Space) to the exploration of different planets in a different simulator experience. Due to the need to implement bleeding-edge technologies into the Pavilion’s construction and the size needed for the building, the Outer Space Pavilion was easily the most expensive Pavilion ever built by Disney. Still, it paid off massively due to the vastly increased guest numbers in EPCOT. It is considered by many Disney fans to be the inspiration for DisneySpace, the fifth gate at Walt Disney World, and as such did not last long when it was constructed around the late 2010s, being replaced by the Construction Pavilion, a Pavilion based on architecture, material engineering, and the history of human construction itself.
The Outer Space Pavilion (before its conversion to the Construction Pavilion)
Construction Pavilion (2021)
Built shortly after the opening of DisneySpace in 2019, the Construction Pavilion replaces the Outer Space Pavilion which was considered to be outdated by Disney Recreation. Sponsored by Caterpillar, it focuses on both the intricate engineering and the artistic expression that is used for architecture and construction. Many of the attractions and offerings are either demonstrations of different engineering principles such as the Stress Test Demos, or dark rides like A Single Brick which takes guests back to the days of old EPCOT as it is much more focused on edutainment than their recent offerings in EPCOT and in other parks, showing the history of architecture from the Ancient Egyptians and the Romans to modern architecture. While not as popular as the Outer Space Pavilion, it was a worthy replacement by the Parks fandom and future architects and engineers have cited this pavilion as one of their influences in joining their profession.
World Showcase
Millennium Village Pavilion (1999)
A temporary Pavilion made for EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration, it was a space dedicated to sharing the cultures of the world that were not part of the World Showcase, as funding and sponsoring a Pavilion at EPCOT is still considered to be prohibitively expensive for most countries. Countries like Scotland, Greece, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Korea, Ethiopia, Brazil, Sweden, and more sent representatives, and some even built interactive exhibits to show off certain traditions in their respective countries. It also included an artisanal workshop where some artists showed off their wares (like furniture, souvenirs, pottery, etc.) and a UN quiz game. While it didn’t last long, closing around 2003, it left an indelible mark on EPCOT’s history and spurred some like South Korea to even agree to build Pavilions of their own in EPCOT.
USR Pavilion (2000)
After much deliberation, the USR was able to reach an agreement with Disney over the construction of the much-awaited USR Pavilion. While it was previously conceived during the late 80s and early 90s as a new Pavilion for the Soviet Union, the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the Sovereign Union meant that it was put on hold due to the government being unstable and the USR’s economy being on a severe downturn. However, with the USR finally stabilizing, it was given a go-ahead as a way to foster political goodwill between the USR and the US into the new millennium. Featuring a smaller-scale replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Hermitage, and the Kremlin, it showcased elements of Russian culture, Ukrainian culture, Kazakh culture, and other cultures of the USR, including indigenous ones like the Nenets, Tuva, or the Nivkhs. A dark ride that detailed both the formation of the Slavs and the history of Russia was also exhibited. While it proved to be quite a success for Disney, it was not the smash hit that Imagineering had initially envisioned as other pavilions like Japan, Denmark, Australia/NZ, and eventually, South Korea was more popular.
The USR Pavilion’s concept art during the Early 90s (Image Source: Disney and More)
Denmark Pavilion (2001)
Considered to be a “companion” to the Norway Pavilion, the Denmark Pavilion represented another aspect of Scandinavian culture, though the Imagineers were careful to distinguish it from its Norwegian counterpart. Featuring a facade resembling a Danish town akin to Copenhagen or Roskilde, the centerpiece of the entire Pavilion is a replica of the Frederiksborg Castle from the Renaissance (as opposed to the Viking-like Stave Church) which hosted a ride based on Disney’s Heart of Ice as a dark ride based on Nordic history already existed as Maelstrom. To make up for that, another dark ride was built (inside a Nordic Bronze Age tomb) which depicted several Nordic legends, ending in the apocalypse known as Ragnarok (albeit shown in a far less bloody manner). Eventually, it ends with the resurrection of Baldr as he led the two remaining humans alongside the surviving gods into the new world. Aside from that, the other draw for the Denmark Pavilion was its food, offering Danish pancakes, rice puddings, pastries, and some savory meals. It even had a LEGO garden at the behest of its theme park partner Pearsons who owned Legoland.
Early concept model of the Denmark Pavilion (Image source: Disney Wiki)
Australia and New Zealand Pavilion (2003)
The result of a lucrative partnership between Australia and the Walt Disney Company over the development of Disneytown Sydney (later Sydney DisneySea), which later included New Zealand in the following years, this Pavilion proved to be exceptionally popular with guests once it was opened. With a miniature model of the Sydney Opera House as the background, it hosted all sorts of theatre, musical, and singing productions, highlighting the cultures that inhabit both countries from the Aboriginals to Maori to Aussie/Kiwi stories and legends. It also included a small kiddie park area that highlighted the Gold Coast’s many theme parks and other attractions (and scratched the itch of many families who wanted to take their kids on a thrill ride without needing to ride something like Test Track or the Mt. Fuji attraction). Lastly, there were restaurants that served authentic Australian barbecue or shops that sold Aussie/Kiwi fast food like the Chiko Roll, Meat Pies, or candies like Tim Tams. However, the overall favorite from Disney guests was the iconic ANZAC Biscuit.
The Sydney Opera House at EPCOT (Image Source: Parkz)
Future WS Pavilions
South Korea Pavilion (2008)
With the opening of Disneytown Seoul, Disney and South Korea naturally agreed on an EPCOT Pavilion, especially as South Korea started to become more relevant as a cultural juggernaut on the global stage as an Asian Tiger and therefore saw this deal as a way to extend its soft power. The Imagineers went all-out on the South Korea Pavilion with it considered the most intricate and detailed Pavilion ever since EPCOT first opened its doors. Featuring a replica of Gyeongbokgung, the Joseon Palace in Seoul, the complex provided several attractions and restaurants, with one dark ride detailing the legendary story of Yi Sun Sin and his exploits during the Imjin War as well as another explaining the life of famous Korean figures like Jumong of Goguryeo and Sejong of Joseon. Even the restaurants were top-class, featuring options like Korean BBQ and Fried Chicken as well as more traditional Korean fare (with the most expensive offering royal court cuisine). All in all, the South Korea Pavilion was a massive success for all parties involved and some even partially attributed it to the rise of South Korea’s prominence in Western culture during the early to mid-2010s, though others dispute this, citing K-Pop and K-Dramas as a more important element with South Korea’s rise to fame.
Gyeongbokgung Palace (Image Source: U.S. News Travel)
Egypt Pavilion (2019)
Partially driven by South Korea’s success with its own pavilion and to showcase its historic culture to the world, Egypt partnered with Disney to build a Pavilion of its own at EPCOT, making it the second African country to actually get a Pavilion after the Morocco Pavilion. Much of their motivation was due to a rise in Egyptian nationalism as well as the growing realization that partnering with Disney meant an overall expansion in a nation’s soft power and tourism, something they were well aware of after the United Arab Emirates received a Disneytown in Dubai. The Egypt Pavilion was of course expertly crafted by Imagineers which combined its Ancient Egyptian and Islamic heritage together neatly into a single space. The centerpiece of the Pavilion was a replica of the Cairo Citadel which stood behind an Ancient Egyptian gate based on the Luxor Temple. Of course, there was a replica of the Pyramid of Giza which hosted a ride based on Ra’s voyage across the night, as he is protected by many of his fellow spirits against monsters like Apophis before being reborn as Khepri to carry the sun barge across the world. There was also a Sphinx that hosted a gift shop that sold local Egyptian souvenirs. Lastly, there were restaurants and stalls that offered Egyptian cuisine to guests, which later became popular among vegans and vegetarians due to its diverse and tasty plant-based options like Ful Medames or Koshari. While it proved to be very popular among Westerners, there were many critics that either chastised the Egyptian government for using it as a red herring for their local people’s poverty and suffering while others (especially fundamentalist Muslims like the Muslim Brotherhood or other Salafist organizations) disliked it for emphasizing its pagan history and culture which they saw as idolatrous. Despite its many controversies, Disney saw it as an overall success and a shining example of what EPCOT can provide to many of its guests at Walt Disney World.
New Attractions
Future World
Test Track (1999)
The replacement of the World of Motion dark ride, this new thrill ride, sponsored by General Motors, centers on car manufacturing and testing, as guests go through a testing facility and figure out what cars are being tested on before full production and release to the public. While there were many great moments in the ride and inside jokes about the automobile industry, the best part of the ride was the speed testing where the ride vehicles ride on a high-speed track, sending the guests whirling through a long road. The use of the iconic and patented vehicle track technology was originally used for this attraction before being used for future ones in Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Disneyland San Antonio.
Test Track during the 2000s (Image Source: Theme Park Tourist)
Journey into the Imagination (2000)
After Apple took over Kodak as the sponsor for the ride, Apple agreed to maintain the spirit of the attraction, though they also wanted to input their own ideas as well, being the new sponsor. For the refurb, Imagineers sought to expand the track space, enhancing the ride vehicles and visuals with techniques they've learned from DisneySea and subsequent projects, while also bringing more characters from the loosely-defined but growing universe of Figment and Professor Dreamfinder like Wizard Gellz and his assistant Gellzya. In this iteration, guests wander through “The Dreamscape” a magical realm where Prof. Dreamfinder resides. Through the power of his own imagination, he creates a friend of himself with Figment and they head to his home, the Dreamport in order to find new ideas to make all sorts of contraptions. The main difference with this iteration compared to the old one is the introduction of an engineering room where Figment tinkers with punch cards, computer parts, and wires in order to create a new machine friend (signifying that even engineering and mathematics require a bit of imagination), something that Apple requested to encourage young people to go into STEM. Another difference was the introduction of Wizard Gellz and his female assistant Gellzya who would escort Figment and the Dreamfinder to their own home, where they do magic tricks with the power of their own imaginations (as a way to indicate that imagination can bring in new friends). All four of them would fly together along with the guests in the final scene as they sing the iconic “One Little Spark” through an ethereal and warm sky.
The new iteration proved widely popular among guests and was one of the highlight attractions at EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration. It even spawned a comics adaptation by Marvel where Professor Dreamfinder and Figment would go on wacky adventures through the Dreamscape, encountering new friends like Wizard Gellz and his assistant while also fighting back threats along the way, though they can always rely on their imagination and each other to back them up. Eventually, the entire universe where Dreamfinder and Figment reside would be brought to life in Disney’s Imaginarium, the second gate at Disneyland Valencia, a whimsical theme park full of creativity and imagination.
World Showcase
Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday (2001)
This ride was considered to be a passion project of Tony Baxter’s and there were many stories from Imagineering about his initial response to this ride being greenlit and how he put even more energy into this whole attraction than even Tomorrowland 2055 and Nextworld, despite his old age. Using his old notes and artwork as his guidelines, he drastically improved upon the concept using the experience he had gained over the decades he worked as an Imagineer. The end result was considered to be nothing short of magical. Set in an expanded space in the United Kingdom Pavilion called Cherry Tree Lane, the ride was an immaculate dark ride that took guests through a colorful and animated experience watching the Banks family and Mary Poppins go on a wacky adventure together.
Cherry Tree Lane (Image Source: Disney Wiki)
Mt. Fuji Rollercoaster (2004)
With Kodak out as the sponsor of the Imagination Pavilion in favor of Apple, this meant that Disney could ask Fujifilm, their competitor, to sponsor an attraction. Although hesitant, when they received word of what the Imagineers were planning, they immediately accepted. EPCOT was well known within Imagineering and by Parks fans to be a park “without a Mountain”, as it lacked a thrilling E-Ticket attraction by the likes of the Matterhorn or Space Mountain. However, the new Mt. Fuji Rollercoaster changed that, as not only it was massive, but also extremely exhilarating due to the track design and special effects the Imagineers used like falling snow or the sounds of a dragon to make it even more thrilling. While the attraction was very popular, it became even more popular once Fujifilm started a campaign during the mid-2000s to advertise photos on the Internet as a way to get people to buy their products. During the 2010s and 2020s, it received a resurgence as people shared their selfies on social media, trying to present themselves as being in Japan when in fact they were in Florida.
The Japan Pavilion with Mt. Fuji
New/Recurring Events
Flower and Garden Festival (1994)
One of the first festivals that opened under George Kalogridis’s direction as President of Walt Disney World, the event was designed to increase EPCOT’s attendance numbers when it waned during the opening of Hollywoodland. It was a minor success and became a core part of EPCOT’s Spring Season when yearly attendance would usually wane after the holidays. Featuring elegant floral displays and miniature topiary/model sculptures, the festival mainly centers around agriculture and gardening, offering unique souvenirs, lectures, and exhibits about the wonders of gardening and flower displays. One of the highlights of the Flower and Garden Festival was the Hanami viewing event as the Japan Pavilion has a wide open space that contains a large array of Sakura trees. Disney cast members often set up picnic grounds where families and guests can relax under the flowering trees, which is made even more cinematic by the massive Mt. Fuji attraction below them.
Food & Wine Festival (1995)
Inspired by George Kalogridis's trip to Aspen during the early 90s, he immediately thought of bringing this to EPCOT as allowing different countries to showcase their cuisines besides the Pavilions was considered to be a big positive for the concept. Opening during the fall of every year, it proved to be even more popular than the Flower and Garden Festival. Focusing on highlighting new cuisines from all across the world from Argentina, India, Brazil South Africa, Nigeria, etc., EPCOT opens up a number of booths that offer dishes that are not part of the usual line-up in World Showcase. In contrast, the Pavilions themselves offer an expanded list of offerings across all of their restaurants and stores. There are also cooking tutorials and shows performed by either Disney’s culinary staff or celebrity chefs that are popular throughout the festival. With the larger amount of Pavilions during EPCOT NM and the bigger budget pool, the Festival became even more audacious and extravagant by the 21st century.
EPCOT Millennium Celebration (1999)
Tapestry of Nations (1999)
A festival dedicated to the unique and diverse nations of the Earth, it differs from its OTL counterpart by utilizing performers and puppeteers from all around the world, taking advantage of Jim Henson’s personal connections and the Aye-Ayes, which is Imagineering’s international division. The parade involves a massive array of puppets from multiple nations from American Muppets to Taiwanese Glove Puppets to Japanese Bunraku and many others.
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth (1999)
Same as its OTL counterpart, this night-time fireworks show was located in the middle of the World Showcase Lake and replaced its original counterpart. Focusing on the story of the Earth, it divided the show into three parts, based on “Chaos”, “Order”, and “Meaning”, which emphasized humanity as a single group and the importance of unity with everyone across the world.
Projectorama (1999)
A projection-based light show in Future World, it displays a brilliant show of colors and effects on Spaceship Earth, which was temporarily modified to have Mickey Mouse Ears for the Millennium Celebration. This continued to be a popular nighttime attraction until the mid-2010s as Disney replaced it with an upgraded attraction called Points of Light where Spaceship Earth was studded with multiple LED lights that allowed them to do complex displays of light.
Leave a Legacy (1999)
A promotional program done by Disney for the EPCOT Millennium Celebration event, it consists of a set of stone monoliths that have images of parkgoers on metal plates. The submission period happened in 1998 during preparations for EPCOT New Millennium and continued for years after the renewal project ended, only ending in 2008. Meanwhile, the stone monoliths continued to be at EPCOT’s entrance in front of Spaceship Earth until the late 2010s when they were moved from the place close to Spaceship Earth towards further in the front to provide more space for topiaries and other flower arrangements. Regardless, they are an everlasting testament to the hopes of the parkgoers going into the new millennium and a mosaic of humanity's diversity.
The Leave a Legacy Monoliths (Image Source: Yesterland)
All Cloned Out!
So remember the X-Men: Mutant High and 1999 Spider-Man show's I mentioned in my Excelsior! - A Retrospective of the late 80’s/early 90’s X-Men and Spider-Man Series guest post? Well here at long last is the very long follow up to that:
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New Millennium Heroes! - A Retrospective of X-Men: Mutant High and the 1999 Spider-Man Animated Series
Post from Nostalgia Zone Net-log, by Terry Vera. September 22nd, 2015.
So a few months back I did a retrospective on the heavily influential and legendary late 80’s/early 90’s X-Men and Spider-Man animated series which both debuted in the late 80’s and lasted well into the mid 90’s. If you haven’t seen it there’s a link here, but I thought it was about time I went over the two animated series based primarily on the same respective characters which followed in their wake, 1999’s Spider-Man and 2000’s X-Men: Mutant High.
Now the thing about both shows is unlike with their predecessors, I never actually watched them as they were coming out. I was in High School by this point and as much as Marvel and comics were becoming more mainstream and ‘cool’, I was going through a bit of a weird phase where I thought I just wasn’t interested in watching animated Saturday morning cartoons. While I did eventually watch both shows, it ultimately wasn’t until the mid-2000’s when both shows had finished their runs and I was in college that I finally took the time to give them a try.
What did I think when I finally saw them? Well I can honestly say I came to regret not giving X-Men: Mutant High a chance earlier. As for Spider-Man? Well I’ll go into that in a bit, but first here’s some context surrounding the creation of both shows.
An ITTL after effect of the rising Marvel Cinematic Universe in the late 90’s is that Marvel Comics started getting a huge boost in sales as the movies helped draw in new fans. Naturally Marvel TV execs wanted to tape into that for two of their main lines whose cartoons ended right before this new boost. (Source: TFW2005)
In late 1998, the Marvel Movie Universe was getting into full swing with the Avengers only a mere two years away from lighting up our theater screens. Comic sales meanwhile were reaching a bit of a high point as interest from the films and animated shows drew in more new readers every day. Of said shows, the original 90’s MCAU was on its last legs as the Avengers and Thor were currently airing what would be their final seasons, while the original Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spider-Man animated series had all finished their respective runs on TV, with the latter two have finished their runs before Marvel had reached this new high.
Though both shows had seen a preview boost in sales from their films, it was noted that the hype for the upcoming Avengers movie combined with the popularity of the animated series was drawing in a unprecedented number of new sales for Avengers comics and the respective main characters featured in a primary roles in the show, like Captain America and Iron Man. For Spider-Man and the X-Men however, both their animated shows had ended a few years before and the previous increase in sales had since begun to drop or weren’t rising as high, though X-Men would see some boosts following the release of each film. It was perhaps worse for Spider-Man, as even ignoring the current issues driving down sales in his comic at the time and the fact he would appear in then upcoming Avengers film, his last mainline starring role in a film was in 1995 and he wouldn’t return again to star in his own film until 2004.
So as you might expect, Marvel became interested in bringing back Spider-Man and the X-Men to the small screen in the hopes it’d help boost comic sales. While Spidey and the mutants had appeared in supporting roles in the Avengers show, Marvel wanted to expand the recent sales boost created by the films and shows for Spider-Man and X-Men by ordering new shows centered on both to be made. Makes sense right?
Well there were two points of issue that Marvel had to figure out, that being continuity and well Spider-Man himself.
One repercussion of there being a smoother and less chaotic ITTL 90’s Clone Saga that didn’t fail ITTL like it did in OTL is that Marvel was now forced to handle a weird situation it never had to in OTL: How to adapt Spider-Man in animation while still trying to boost sales when in said comics the more popular well known person known to the public behind the mask (whom let's not forget the most recent films were also about) is now retired and his replacement has a bit of a convoluted and complicated backstory that might turn new fans away. (Source: TVTropes.com)
The first was a fairly simple decision all things considered: Should Marvel try to fit both shows in the 90’s MCAU and make the shows continuations of the previous shows or should they start fresh in a new continuity? And if they did start in a new continuity, should both shows be set in the same continuity, or separate ones? Ultimately Marvel decided it’d be less of a hassle to try and start fresh then to continue where both previous shows left off. In terms of continuity they also decided to have 1999’s Spider-Man and X-Men: Mutant High to be set in two separate continuities and not have to worry about potentially contradicting each other as had been a frequent concern with the earlier animated shows. While the wider Marvel universe would exist and be mentioned or even shown in both shows, it wouldn’t be until 2009 that Marvel Animation would again attempt a single unified animated continuity, but I’ll get to that one day.
Unlike the relatively simple issue with continuity though, deciding how to handle Spider-Man would be much more complicated. See in 1998, Marvel’s current main Spider-Man was not Peter Parker, rather it was instead his clone Ben Reilly. Peter Parker at this time was basically “retired” for the most part, and wouldn’t officially come out of retirement for another three years. Instead the retired Peter was busy raising his first child Ben Parker alongside his wife Mary Jane Watson while also working as an assistant to Reed Richards. Whenever Peter did put the suit back on, it more often than not was to help the F4 as the unofficial fifth member of the Fantastic Four, leading to the team in this era to often be lovingly referred to by fans at this point as the Fantastic Five [1].
This naturally led to the question of whether Marvel should make the show about Ben Reilly or Peter Parker, since at the end of the day the show was meant to help further boost the sales of the comic, especially since of all the comics at the time Spider-Man was the one receiving the smallest boost. As you can imagine, making a show about Peter Parker when he wasn’t even Spider-Man at this point in the comics seemed a bit contradictory to this, which left Marvel in a bind.
Though not actually a member of the team, this era of Peter’s life ITTL would eventually often be referred to by fans as his Fantastic Five era, having ironically all but finally joined the team after decades following their first meeting in Amazing Spider-Man #1. (Source: Fandom.com)
On one hand, Peter Parker was considered the safe choice for the central character. Not only was he the more familiar Spider-Man to general audiences thanks to his previous three live action films and the original 90’s cartoon, but (at least to execs and some readers) he, unlike Ben Reilly, also didn’t have a complicated clone origin attached that viewers would need to accept and wrap their heads around if they wanted to watch the show. Ben Reilly on the other hand had a more complicated backstory but was the main Spider-Man, which meant the show’s mission to promote the comic meant they should be trying to focus on him rather than Peter.
This therefore led to a bit of a behind the scenes battle, with some prominent Marvel and Disney TV execs really wanting the show to be about Peter Parker, while Marvel Comics Editorial (who had a few influential ties of their own to some Disney and Marvel execs and used them to involve themselves with the show) strongly wanted it to be about Ben Reilly, with some even arguing that Ben, unlike Peter, outright needed the show. They arguably weren’t even wrong to think so, since despite Marvel Editorial’s stubborn support of Ben Reilly over Peter Parker at the time [2], sales for Spider-Man comics had indeed stagnated and weren’t exactly doing as great or at least as many new readers compared to other Marvel comics since Ben Reilly had fully taken over as Spider-Man.
In fact it was even noted by some detractors of Ben Reilly that 1995's Spider-Man 3 had not resulted in nearly as big of a sales boost as the first and second film had, in likely no small part due to the fact that by the release of Spider-Man 3 Ben Reilly had already seemingly permanently taken over the role of Spider-Man and Peter had retired. Simply put, far too many new comics readers seemed to get confused about Ben’s presence and the clone origin [3] or didn’t like the fact the comic didn’t star Peter (which still remained an issue even despite Ben’s growing fanbase) and despite this Marvel Editorial had no intention at this time of bringing back Peter officially despite some increasing pressure to do so.
And none of this was even getting into the fact that the original highly celebrated Spider-Man: The Animated Series cartoon would no doubt cast a long shadow on this new upcoming successor show, so a lot of people at Marvel Entertainment wanted to distance themselves from it and make something distinct from the previous show, so the shows creators (Duane Capizzi and Patrick Archibald) also had to factor in the fact that later half of the last season of the early 90’s cartoon had already adapted the Clone Saga, nor that while the whole behind the scenes battle between Marvel TV execs and Comic Editorial was going on upper Disney management was currently distracted by a massive proxy war with right wing crazies and religious nuts.
The end result of all of this messy behind the scenes, which would notably continue a bit on throughout the shows run even after it’s premiere (though not nearly as openly since by the show’s premier in 1999 Disney upper management was no longer distracted by the whole proxy war), is that the showrunners decided to just split the difference and centered the show on both Peter and Ben by having both share the title of Spider-Man rather than have Peter retire, even opening the show [4] with yet another direct adaptation of the 90’s Clone Saga (meaning if you watched this and the previous show back to back, you’d be treated to essentially watching two consecutive adaptations of the exact same six month storyline).
The messy battle to decide who to center the show on would go on to dominate the behind the scenes for the 1999 Spider-Man animated series, leading to the show to try and center itself on both. (Source: benreillytribute.x10host.com)
While the show’s dual protagonist nature was interesting in my opinion, in my view the show as a whole ultimately suffers a bit from a sense of listlessness as it struggles to both define itself and escape the shadow of its predecessor. It honestly just feels like the team behind it weren’t sure what to do half the time and often weren’t sure who (between Ben and Peter) to even focus on. A lot of that was certainly due to the ongoing behind the scenes drama and Duane Capizzi leaving after the first season, but another was clearly a sense of fear of being unable to match the award winning and critically acclaimed beloved show which came before it. Not helping things was the way the show decides all too often to just keep going back and adding even more Clone Saga-type shenanigans even after the conclusion of the first opening episodes, leading to it often being nicknamed by fan as Spider-Man: The Clone Saga Animated Series as a way of differentiating it from it's predecessor when it's not simply called the 1999 cartoon.
In fact not only do they make Jackal the main villain of the first season, but they keep adding additional new clone characters other than Ben and Kaine, to the point that the show just makes you honestly all cloned out and tired of clones in general. Marvel certainly got cloned out too, since clones got really uncommon in comics for a few years after the end of the first season. Don't get me wrong, sure some of the new clones created for the show like the Spider-Woman [5], Armsy [6], Spider Gwen Stacy [7] and the Spider MJ clones that show up in a few episodes are all actually kind of interesting and well written (even if the concept behind them are kind of simple and cliché), but if I’m being honest they’re more the exception than the rule. Instead most of thirteen new clones introduced in the show, like the kid clone from the 7th episode, the clone of Ben Reilly (not Peter) from the 9th episode, just overall all feel tacked on and lazy, ultimately feeling more like the showrunners just wanted to add more clones just for the sake of adding more clones.
Still there are plenty of things to like here despite the various problems the show has. Voice actor Rino Romano for example brings to the table a pretty well done take on wall crawler, even if he’s ultimately no Robert Hays (though to be fair, I don’t think any Spider-Man voice actor, except maybe Josh Keaton, has escaped Hays’ long shadow). In fact I’d go as far as to say that one thing he actually manages to improve over Hays is that he makes the effort and does a good job at making his voices for both Peter and Ben both distinct yet still similar enough to make it clear they are technically the same voice. Tom Kane meanwhile provides a memorable performance as the Jackel, while Jennifer Hale makes for a decent Mary Jane Watson, though like with Peter/Ben, one can’t help but compare her to OG 90’s cartoon MJ actress Joely Fisher.
Ultimately while the show has its core fans even to this day, it definitely struggled to keep most of its audience as it went along and ultimately only lasted two seasons before it got canned, something which I can’t say I’m all that surprised about having watched it. The main aftermath to note about the show’s relative failure and the behind the scenes spat that was going on during it between Marvel Editorial and Marvel TV Execs is that it barely did anything to increase sales of the main comic and in fact did a lot to weaken the strength of the pro-Ben Reilly faction at Marvel Editorial to the point that Ben got killed off in 2001’s ‘The Death of Spider-Man’ comic [8] and Peter got brought back out of retirement during Tom Delfaco’s third run on Amazing Spider-Man later that year, where Peter would mentor Stanley O’Brian, a teenager who like Peter before him would find himself gaining incredible Spider-like powers when he’s bitten by a radioactive spider [9].
So in a way Marvel Editorial’s steadfast and stubborn pushing for Ben Reilly to be made the sole star of the show inadvertently led to his death in the comics, the very return of Peter Parker that Marvel Editorial had originally been against, and the introduction of fan favorite and new Marvel Editorial golden boy Stanley O’Brian. Go figure.
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While not really exact, there are definitely a number of similarities between OTL X-Men Evolution and ITTL’s X-Men: Mutant High where you can consider it it's OTL counterpart, although the argument can be made that it's also this timeline's equivalent of Young Justice despite being Marvel and not DC, due to being made by the same creators and having a similar kind of story telling. (Source: Wikipedia and GeekDad)
The good news is that for all the ongoing issues with 1999’s Spider-Man, the other new Marvel show which followed it, X-Men: Mutant High, would manage to escape any such needless drama when it premiered in early 2000, which thank god because this show is way too good and I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it got sabotaged by pointless behind the scenes drama. Then again if it had been ruined by BS, I probably wouldn’t be here wanting to gush and rave about it.
Though it would also find itself facing having big shoes to fill (although not nearly to the extreme as Spider-Man did), X-Men: Mutant High chose to try and escape the looming shadow of its predecessor by not adapting any particular X-Men comic or team and instead creating something new and holy original, focusing not on the classic X-Men but on the next generation of young mutants who were destined to succeed them. Instead of giving the spotlight to the well known X-Men, the show would instead focus on a group of six young new and original mutants created for the show who would find themselves attending Xavier’s School for the Gifted and gathered together in a new young team as the next generation of the X-Men [10]. Meanwhile traditional X-Men characters like Xavier, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Beast, Colossus, Shadowcat, Storm, and Jean Grey would be relegated to older mentor roles as the various professors of the school. While they were still recurring characters and there might be a episode or two where the OG characters got a bit of direct shine and attention, showrunners Greg Weisman, Craig Kyle, and Victor Cook pointedly kept the focus on the show's six primary protagonists. In fact, of the OG classic X-Men, only Wolverine (voiced by David Kaye) would find himself getting a really prominent role and even then only due to his familial connection and mentorship with one of the show’s main characters, Musume Oyama aka Weapon XIII [11].
I suppose that’s actually as good a jumping point as any to talk about the show’s main six protagonists, and there’s no better place to start than the aforementioned Weapon XIII (or as she’s later known in later seasons, Talon), who is voiced by Grey DeLisle. The tragic daughter of Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike, Masume was forcibly (although arguably only confirmed as such in the comics) conceived while both her parents were a part of the Weapon X program and grew up under the program that bred her where she was trained as little more than a weapon and assassin, at least until she escaped her handlers and sought out her father, leading to her enrollment at the school. Throughout the show the quiet and anti-social Masume is forced to learn how to be a human girl and not a weapon, growing over the course of the show’s seven seasons from a cold, emotionless former weapon to a thoughtful and caring girl, Masume would often find herself facing off against Weapon X and her own mother Lady Deathstrike throughout the shows run, as said mother sought to return her wayward daughter back to the Weapon X program she served.
Quickly becoming a fan favorite following her premiere in the show, Weapon XIII would also become the first original character from the show to make the transition from the small screen to the comics, debuting in the comics less than seven months following her debut on the show. While most if not all of her fellow teammates would follow her into pages of comics, Masume stands as the fastest to do so.
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Basically the ITTL of both of these OTL fan favorites, as Weapon XIII is basically X-23 but with an origin closer to that of OTL Cassandra Cain. (Source: fightersgeneration.com and DCDatabase.com)
Joining Masume as a main character on the show is her best friend, a character who technically both is and isn’t an original character: Rachel Summers aka Marvel Girl (voiced by Tara Strong). Now if you're a X-Men comics fan who’s lived under a rock and never watched the show you might start scratching your head here since Rachel Summers is very much not a original character that was invented for the show having debuted all the way back in 1981 as part of the famous Days of Future’s Past comic, and you’d technically be right to think so. The reason instead that I say that this Rachel is an original character is because though she shares the same name, powers, and parentage as her comics counterpart, she does not share her origin nor much of her comic personality.
Though her comic origin would be given a nod in Season 2’s Days of Future Past themed episode [12], this version of Rachel was not a time traveler from a war torn future where mutants were hunted like her comic counterpart. Instead this version of Rachel grew up in a peaceful life, if somewhat sheltered life by both her parents. Having grown up without having to deal with anti-Mutant racism due to her upbringing, Rachel starts the series as a bit of an arrogant spoiled brat but quickly finds herself forced to face the ugly truth of just how the world views mutants as she leaves her sheltered childhood and joins the school where she also finds herself facing the scrutiny of classmates due to being the daughter of two of the school’s leading professors. Over the course of the show she goes from being arrogant and stuck up mean girl to humble and very empathetic woman who cares for others and finds herself being a proud defender of Mutant Rights [13].
Oh and did I forget to mention that due to being the daughter of Jean Mother F-ing Grey she’s also destined to be the next host of the Phoenix Force and therefore the most powerful mutant ever, which becomes a bit of a major plot line for Season 4? No? Well now I did, so you're kindly welcome.
Anyways I’d say that overall this version of Rachel is pretty different enough from her comics counterpart that I would honestly equate them almost as being two separate and distinct characters. She’s also debatably the more interesting of the two, though that’s probably more a matter of personal opinion. Sadly she’s the only one of the main show’s team to technically not debut in the comics afterwards, though comics Rachel did start taking on a lot of personality quirks from show Rachel, particularly her friendship with Masume/Weapon XIII and her memorable ice cream obsession.
Whether Marvel will ever do more than that, I guess we’ll see, but with the show reaching its 15th anniversary this year, I doubt it. [14]
The appearance of the show’s version of Rachel Summers would mostly resemble this image of her OTL comic counterpart. (Figurerealm.com)
Next is Matthew Lincoln aka Starforce (Voiced by Khary Payton), the leader of the young team of mutants. Just as Rachel stands in as the teams equivalent to Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and Masume stands in as its own Wolverine, Matthew stands in as the teams own equivalent to Cyclops, as not only is he the leader, but his light based powers are not too dissimilar from that of Cyclops own (although truthfully they arguably more resemble that of Cyclops brother Havok), as they allow him to store any light that comes into contact with him in his body, making his body almost like a battery, and then release that light energy in a devastating photonic attack [15].
While Starforce goes through less character development over the course of the show, with him already starting out as a charismatic and gifted leader who stands as the team's rock of stability. Instead where Matt’s development comes in is not through some massive character change, but instead that he has to learn how to actually gain experience and try to manage being a team leader. It's not just handed to him and he's suddenly a great leader, instead he has the potential of one but has to earn and grow into the role. Really the show does a great job of representing that just because someone has a natural talent for leadership, it does not mean they are instantly a leader or that they suddenly have the experience to do so.
Where the real juicy stuff with Matt’s character comes into the show is in how it deals with and demonstrates the struggle of a black kid who's already dealing with racism due to the color of his skin also has to deal with racism from being a mutant. If done badly that topic could honestly have sunk the show, but I think it does a great job at maturely handling the issue and providing good commentary on racism as a whole. In fact one of the episodes centered on Matt’s personal struggles with racism towards fellow blacks and mutants, “Sunkissed” from Season 2, even went on to be nominated for an Emmy.
While I can't say he's exactly my favorite of the team (Masume, Tempus, and Biokenis are my personal favorites), he still makes for a pretty cool and compelling character. Plus his romance with Tempus in later seasons is honestly adorable.
Though not strictly the same, there would be a lot of similarities between the ITTL show and the OTL comic New X-Men: Academy X. (Source: Amazon.com)
Next there was Julian Vargas aka Biokenis (voiced by Dante Basco), the loud and bombastic biokinetic (hence the name) whose powers, though at first seemingly giving him nothing but a simple ability to heal others, quickly grow in scope as they are revealed to actually give him complete and total control and manipulation over any and all biological matter he comes into physical contact with [16].
In some ways representing the teams equivalent of Bobby Drake and Shadowcat due to being the youngest and the least mature, Julian ultimately goes through the darkest arc of the series when in season 3 it’s revealed that with his powers not only can he remove another’s mutant mutation, but he can also make anyone who’s not a mutant now suddenly a mutant, which can be transmitted worldwide when combined with his ability to affect bacteria in order to create any kind of plague or virus he desires. Over the course of season 3 Julian finds himself becoming the number one target of various mutants like Magneto and his Brotherhood as well as the various human factions who oppose mutantkind, as each wishes to either use his power to either make everyone mutants (in the case of Magneto, who I should mention is voiced here by Tom Kane), use him to end all mutants, or simply kill him to ensure he can no longer potentially do either, culminating in him eventually becoming orphaned when his home is attacked and his family is killed.
From then on Julian goes from the comic relief of the main cast to a much darker and more moody character, bitter and angry against the world. And while it ends up being the love and support of his team that helps to prevent him from falling off the metaphorical edge of the cliff and truly going down a darker path, we still end up paying witness to the devastating destruction Julian can cause if he ever snaps across multiple instances of the show. A prime example of this comes in late season 3 when a angry and vengeful Julian infects the entire town of human supremacists whose leaders killed his family with a painful mutation that not only makes them all mutants but deforms their appearances and leaves them all looking monstrous and inhuman, before leaving them all at the mercy of a group of oncoming Sentinels, an act which comes to haunt him and fill him with guilt throughout the rest of the show.
Yeah, for a supposed kids show, it surprisingly doesn’t hold itself back. This show can and does get very dark, despite being technically aimed at kids.
Anyways, even with the support of his friends, it’s not until season 5 when Julian encounters a future version of himself in Bio that our Julian finally starts trying to move away from the dark path he’s been marching himself towards over the past two seasons. Bio, a alternate future version of Julian who snapped and wiped out most of all life on Earth in his future with a deadly virus, becomes the central villain of the show’s 5th season when he travels back in time and decides to ‘fix’ everything by forcibly turning every human on Earth into mutants [17], leading to the team and Biokenis to have to undo it (even if it puts them at odds with Magneto who wants to defend what Bio has done) when it’s revealed that Bio’s fragile psyche caused him to mess up the virus and that all the new ‘mutants’ he created are cellularly degrading and dying.
Like I said, Julian is probably one of my favorites, as he goes through the darkest arc yet he still manages to come out of it a (mostly) good person, even starting to crack jokes again by the seventh season.
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While Biokenis is sort of this timeline’s equivalent of Elixir from OTL’s X-Men, as a character he and his powers end up coming more in line with Amy Dallon/Panacea from OTL’s Web serial Worm. (Source: Fandom.com and Pinterest)
Next is Cynthia Cartwheel aka Tempus (voiced by Venus Terzo), probably the most heroic (she's certainly the shortest) member of the team even if she arguably has the weakest power. Though her power allows her to control time by pausing, speeding, slowing down, or reversing it, she can only do so for a limit of up to 15 seconds for each and she can’t try going back or forward consecutively after use without becoming exhausted or blacking out. While she can and has temporarily broken that 15 second limit during times of extreme stress, even in one episode going back a whole day into the past and in another accidentally launching herself decades into the far future (leading to my favorite episode of the second season that gave us its own interpretation of Days of Futures Past), for most of the series she tends to be stuck with the small 15 second interval time limit to her powers.
Yet where she lacks in power she makes up for in motivation and pure heroism, being the first team member to decide to join the X-Men and serving as the team’s heart and soul, if not the Team Mom [18]. Of course she’s not perfect, and like a lot of the characters on the show she has her own flaws. In Tempus’ case it’s the fact that she can at times be a little too selfless and overbearing, which stems from the loss of her grandfather, a police captain who lost his life saving hundreds from a terrorist attack a few years before. It’s his heroism which ultimately inspires Cynthia to try and follow in his example and be the best inspirational hero she can be. Yet often this results in her both being willing to get involved and put herself in danger she sometimes can’t handle if she thinks someone else is in danger and needs help as well as often being overly concerned for her teammates and being willing to sacrifice herself for them due to fear of losing them.
Still it is something she eventually gets a handle over during the course of the series, as in later seasons she’s willing to trust her teammates to handle themselves and not being as self-sacrificing as in the beginning. Plus hey, despite being the weakest member of the team, you can’t say she isn’t a total badass considering she gets pretty skilled and eventually even manages to solo and take down freaking Magneto in the sixth season with nothing but her wits, her fists, and her short term control over time.
There's a reason I love this pint sized total badass.
Basically an earlier version of X-Men character Tempus from OTL, although with a different real name, personality, and origin. (Fandom.com)
Finally completing out the original six members of the main cast is Jake Jackson aka Canvas (voiced by Quinton Flynn), a character whose powers allow him to temporarily bring up to five things at a time from any image he sees to life which he can fully command and control. An example of this is during his first scene when he takes a photo of a rampaging Juggernaut who’s trying to capture Jake under the orders of Magneto and then proceeds to bring to life two weaker copies of the Juggernaut himself to fight the original.
Now you’d rightfully think that’d make him really OP, especially with the fact that the copies he creates can have the same powers and memories as the original person at the moment the photo or painting was taken/made, but there are tons of interesting little limits to Jake’s power. Some of these include a time limit for how long a copy can exist in the real world before it begins to weaken and disintegrate (which will occur at a faster rate depending on how more powerful the original source is), a copies powers often being somewhat weaker than the original, a hard limit that lets him only create five copycats at once and makes him wait until one disintegrates before he can summon another, and a limit which makes copies of objects more stable and long lasting than copies of people, particularly mutants. A result of that last means he more often tends to create copies of really powerful objects like Thor’s Hammer (which lacks the worthy limit of the original but otherwise gives him the same power of Thor while using it), Captain America’s Shield, Doctor Strange's cloak, or even a fictional plasma gun from a video game he likes playing, since he ultimately has less reason to worry about them quickly disintegrating at an inopportune moment.
Jake of course isn’t a perfect character despite his arguably OP power. In fact, as much as this sarcastic and witty kid did start to grow on me over the course of the show, he nonetheless starts off as a very unlikable and rude brat, not helped by the fact he can and has caused drama due to abusing his powers. In one season 1 episode he gets rejected by a pretty girl while visiting the town near the school and has the bright idea of stealing a photograph of her to create a copy of her that will date him, which if you’ll remember the fact that he has complete and total control over all his copies and that they have the memories of the original makes this honestly pretty creepy and disgusting (especially with some of the implications the show eventually makes about the copies behind sentient/aware living beings), even if you excuse it due to Jakes being so young (he’s barely fifteen in the first season). Thankfully the show and it’s other character agree with me at it being creepy and disgusting since it makes a huge point to show how wrong and vile Jake was for doing that, but that ultimately is just an example of how terrifying Jake’s power is and how willing he is to abuse it.
And sadly it’s not the last and only time he will abuse it. When his mom dies in a car accident in season 3, he keeps trying to bring her back as a copy and tries to hide the fact from his team, thereby nearly getting them hurt in a battle because he didn’t tell them he was using one of his copy slots and could only create four copies rather than his usual five. When the anti-mutant Senator Kelly seems poised to get a worrisome piece of Anti-Mutant legislation passed in the 4th season that the rest of the X-Men are trying to peacefully and legally prevent getting past, Jake has no issue going on his own to betray the teaching of Xavier and the professors as well as the rules of law by creating a copy of Emma Frost to change the memories of four senators allied with Kelly while creating and marching four impersonating copies of those very same senators to ‘turn’ on Kelly and vote down the bill.
If you've ever watched something like Chalkzone, you'd think being able to bring anything from an image, whether fictional or real, to life as a power seems pretty tame, but now imagine having complete control over them and the people or objects being brought to life having the same powers and memories as the original, and put it in the hands of a completely irresponsible teenager. Not so tame now is it? (Source: Pinterest)
And while he does improve over the show, even choosing in season six to only create copies of people who approve being copied beforehand, his is definitely one of the most terrifying and most easy to abuse powers in X-Men and they are ultimately in the hands of a person who very frequently demonstrates over the course of the show that isn’t entirely responsible with them. Let’s just be thankful that he never went villain, at least not in the show (yes readers, I’ve read the recent issue of Uncanny X-Men and yes Canvas going bad is definitely terrifying [19].)
Still I can’t deny that some of my favorite episodes from the show have involved Jake’s powers or been caused by them.
One great example of this is season four’s, Dark Phoenix Reborn, which involves the one and only time Jake ever manages to actually break the limit on his power and create a permanent copy of a person that doesn’t disintegrate or affect his number limit. For those who haven’t watched the episode, basically during a fight with Emma Frost and her students (I’ll get more into that in a moment) he creates a copy of a eighteen year old Jean Grey from when (at least in the timeline of the show, since she was probably much older in the original comic at that point) she was Dark Phoenix, only for her to then not to disintegrate as normal after a certain time, even when he loses his control over her and regains his fifth copy slot. Long story short, the X-Men realize the Phoenix Force intervened to save the copy of its favorite host, they have to fight her, and we get treated to an awesome battle between a Phoenixed up Jean Grey and Rachel Summers against the Dark Phoenix and defeat it. Not a super complicated episode, but definitely a cool and fun one, especially since it ends up giving us the show’s version, and what is arguably my own favorite version, of Madelyne Pryor [20].
As for the aforementioned Emma Frost thing, in the the show’s second season they decided to introduce and adapt the Generation X storyline from the comics, which in case you might have forgotten basically involved a rival mutant school that was headed by X-Men nemesis Emma Frost (voiced by Erica Schroeder). Naturally it had its students who served as rivals to our heroes, with the most prominent and recurring being Chamber, the M-Twins, and Synch. Eventually the school would be attacked by human supremacists in opening of Season Six, resulting in most of what’s left of the school either merging with the Xavier institute or joining Magneto, thus forcing our heroes to have to get used to the idea of not only having former enemy Emma Frost as a teacher but being classmates with the kids they were rivals with and once fought against. That season as a whole does a good job at showcasing former enemies and rivals being forced to get used to the idea of no longer being on opposing sides and having to come to accept each other and work together for the common good.
1994's Generation X comic still comes into existence ITTL just like it did in OTL, leading to it getting adapted in the show as a recurring rival mutant school who often come into conflict with our heroes. (Source: TVTropes)
Honestly there’s a whole lot more about the show I can gush about, like how it introduced a lot of fan favorite characters like Pixie, Surge, Prodigy [21], Hunter, Freight Train, and Weapon XIV [22] who would over time gain prominent roles in the show and also see themselves make the transition to the comics, the show’s outstanding third, fourth, and fifth seasons (all the seasons are great, but those three are really when the show reached its height), or how it did a fantastic jobs of dealing with a lot of the themes of the original comics like overcoming and peacefully fighting discrimination and still also balanced in everyday normal regular teenage problems and issues like relationships, school, and puberty, or how it went on to define and influence the course of X-Men comics for years after more than even the 90's cartoon did. But honestly if I did we’d be here all day if I did and this post is getting way too long, so all I’m going to say is that I’m really glad I finally went back and watched this masterpiece when I did and if you haven’t watched it you really need to give it a shot, even if you aren't an X-Man fan.
Anyways, next time I’ll be talking about Marvel's second attempt at doing a Spider-Man show following the end of the classic 90’s animated series when I discuss 2002’s Spider-Man Unlimited.
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[1] - Not surprising perhaps since while Peter isn’t really officially a member of the team, he joins in their adventures often enough that he’s all but a fifth member.
[2] - This is sort of tying into the attitude of Marvel Editorial that in OTL lead to the infamous and justifiably hated One More Day comic where Peter Parker and Mary Jane sold their marriage to the devil to save a dying Aunt May. Essentially a number of people at Marvel Editorial don’t like Peter and MJ’s marriage and don’t want to have to deal with it, hence why a lot of Marvel Editorial is rallying so much around Ben Reilly here ITTL. Basically Ben being the main Spider-Man lets Marvel have its cake and eat it too as they get to retire Peter without undoing his marriage and give him his happy ending, while at the same time telling all the stories they want with a single Ben Reilly. The fear of bringing Peter officially back is that it’ll undo all that and open the can of worms they just shut on whether or not to end the marriage like they eventually did in OTL, while also disrupting Peter’s happy ending.
[3] - Let's be fair, Ben’s origin is a lot more convoluted for a new reader than Peter’s relatively simple origin is, meaning new readers need to understand or know about both the 70’s and 90’s Clone Saga just to understand Ben and his origin. Seriously, as much as I like Ben Reilly, it’s hard to imagine him being able to stay as the main Spider-Man for long, even with the ITTL 90’s Clone Saga being a lot cleaner and shorter than in OTL.
[4] - The first three episodes of the show that adapted the comic clone saga would then later be merged together and repackaged as a TV movie that could then be sold on home video, kind of like how the first few episodes of Aladdin: The Series and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command in OTL became Aladdin 2: Return of Jafar and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV movies that in OTL got sold on home video.
[5] - Sort of a ITTL version of Ultimate Jessica Drew, in that she’s a female clone of Peter that appears in a one off episode. She notably eventually makes her own ITTL comic book semi-debut in the form of Mary O’Brian during the ITTL early 2010's when the third Spider-Man, Stanley O’Brian, gets his own little three issue clone saga, with the main difference between the cartoon and comic versions being which Spider-Man she’s cloned from.
[6] - Basically a clone of Peter from a one off episode who was born with 6 arms and becomes Man-Spider like in the OTL 90’s show.
[7] - Before anyone complains, Jackal is known for having a Gwen Stacy obsession and frequently makes Gwen clones when he's not making Peter clones, so the idea of him making a clone of Gwen but with Peter's powers is not outside the realm of possibility. Ultimately this Spider-Gwen, for lack of a better term, won't really resemble her OTL in any way, simply being a clone that shows up in a one off episode who's a version of 616 Gwen who also just so happened to have Spider powers. In a show that keeps almost seemingly throwing darts at a wall to see which clone idea can stick, it was bound to have eventually created Spider powered clones of Peter's love interests, Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy.
[8] - Notably since this was the death of the second Spider-Man and led only to the original Spider-Man returning, there’s no general expectation that Ben will necessarily return, so don't worry about this leading to the beginning of the OTL comic trope of death being a vacation that emerged prominently after the OTL Death of Superman comic.
[9] - As mentioned before in my ITTL Spider-Man 2 movie guest post, Stanley is basically a earlier ITTL equivalent to Miles Morales.
[10] - So basically the ITTL equivalent of OTL’s X-Men: Evolution, but if it leaned more into New Mutants aspect, with elements of OTL’s 2001’s and 2004’s New X-Men plus New X-Men: Academy X mixed in. I’d argue it can also be viewed as this timeline’s equivalent to the Young Justice cartoon, since it’s from the same creator as that and OTL’s Spectacular Spider-Man and has a number of similarities to Young Justice despite being X-Men focused rather than DC. In fact, considering this show ends up treating the older classic X-Men much the same way Young Justice treated and handled the Justice League, I’d say the comparison is even more appropriate.
[11] - Basically ITTL’s version of X-23, who still exists because her creator Craig Kyle is still involved like he was with OTL’s X-Men Evolution. Though she has a somewhat similar origin and identical powers (like OTL X-23 she has two claws on her hands and one on her feet along with the general Wolverine power set), the ultimate big difference (other than her prominent Japanese ethnicity) between this version of Laura (named Masume, which is Japanese for Daughter. If you can’t take the hint, it’s because that is the only thing she was ever referred to as growing other than Weapon XIII) and her OTL counterpart is of course the lack of cloning in her origin which is mostly as a result of cloning headache caused by the then ongoing 1999 Spider-Man show making the showrunners for this X-Men show want to steer clear of clones whenever possible. Instead her origin is kind of more similar to that of OTL’s Cassandra Cain, except instead of Lady Shiva for a mother, it’s Lady Deathstrike.
[12] - If you know about Rachel Summers in Days of Future Past, you can probably already guess what said hint is of. If you don’t, look up Rachel Summers Hound. It's honestly kind of messed up.
[13] - I’d kind of almost compare her to Weiss Schnee from RWBY, if you want a example of a character with a similar character development and transition.
[14] - In ITTL 2018, so about three years after this was written, they would sort of finally do this by having Rachel Summers in the comics experience and gain the memories of an alternate life and childhood which is basically almost or at the very least similar identical to her life from the X-Men: Mutant High show. Thus sort of trying to merge comic Rachel with her popular show counterpart.
[15] - Admittedly I’m taking inspiration for this character's powers (Just the powers mind you) somewhat from an original character from a X-Men fic called Extraordinary Times by Kenchi618. I’d highly recommend reading it if you haven’t and are a fan of the X-Men.
[16] - While one could argue that he could be considered the ITTL counterpart/equivalent of Elixir, in truth Biokenis’s powers (and arguably much of his character direction after season 3) more closely resemble that of Amy Dallon/Panacea from the web serial novel Worm by Wildbow, minus the fact that like Elixir and unlike Amy, Biokenis can also affect his own biology. There’s no manipulation of life force like Elixir has, instead Biokenis how the full ability to control, reshape, and manipulate any and all biological matter he comes into physical contact with.
[17] - Arguably that makes this arc from the show’s fifth season the ITTL equivalent of House of M, since it features a world where mutants "win" and everyone is a mutant.
[18] - If you want examples, you can almost say she’s the Katara (from Avatar: The Last Airbender) of the show, though sort of also mixed with Ruby Rose from RWBY.
[19] - You'd know that if you read the Hensonverse's Uncanny X-Men #598!
In all seriousness though, Canvas has a scary OP power and when combined with his willingness to abuse it and his general a-hole type attitude, it's unsurprising that ITTL comic book writers would decide to make him a villain for a bit. The show writers for X-Men Mutant High even briefly considered doing it for the show's third season as well before they went with the dark and tragic Biokenis arc by considering having Canvas betray the team. While it didn't happen, knowing his character doesn't really make it all shocking.
[20] - So yeah that’s sort of how the show introduces Madelyne Pryor, who both is and isn’t a clone. She’s basically a copy of Dark Phoenix era Jean Grey created by Canvas that due to an intervention by the Marvel Universe’s literal embodiment of life and creation basically got saved when she would have started disintegrating after Jake’s power was no longer attached to her and therefore keeping her alive. She then goes on to fight the X-Men, her older self, and her alternate daughter before getting defeated and separated from the Phoenix by the combined efforts of her older self and alternate daughter. Then she kind of finds herself struggling to move past the trauma of not being the real Jean Grey, having been Dark Phoenix and briefly being completely and totally having her body and will controlled by Canvas, as well as having a hard time adjusting to living in what is essentially her future with her alternate future self and said alternate future self’s daughter and husband Cyclops (who from the perspective of young Jean was her boyfriend before she got copied and brought to the future). In the following season young Jean runs away from the school, goes rogue, and meets Magneto. She briefly then becomes a villain in Magneto's Brotherhood for a while before getting a redemption arc in the final season, rejoining the school, and even starting a romance with Logan. Oh and during all this she decides to adopt the name Madelyne Pryor, which in the universe of the show is Jean’s middle name (Madelyne) mixed with her mother’s maiden name (Pryor).
[21] - All three of whom you might notice are the ITTL equivalents of the characters from the same name. Though all of them were created in OTL in 2004, the reason they or rather alternate versions of them still exist here is because they were all created by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir. In case you aren’t aware they’re both comic book and television writers, having worked on X-Men comics and the show Kim Possible. I figured therefore it’s not outside the realm of possibility they end up working on this show and end up introducing some of the same, or at least close approximations, of the X-Men characters they created in OTL.
[22] - Think X-24 from the OTL movie Logan. He’s basically a mindless clone of Wolverine who’s under the control of Weapon X.
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So yeah that was a lot. I guess tell me what you think?
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New Millennium Heroes! - A Retrospective of X-Men: Mutant High and the 1999 Spider-Man Animated Series
Post from Nostalgia Zone Net-log, by Terry Vera. September 22nd, 2015.
So a few months back I did a retrospective on the heavily influential and legendary late 80’s/early 90’s X-Men and Spider-Man animated series which both debuted in the late 80’s and lasted well into the mid 90’s. If you haven’t seen it there’s a link here, but I thought it was about time I went over the two animated series based primarily on the same respective characters which followed in their wake, 1999’s Spider-Man and 2000’s X-Men: Mutant High.
Now the thing about both shows is unlike with their predecessors, I never actually watched them as they were coming out. I was in High School by this point and as much as Marvel and comics were becoming more mainstream and ‘cool’, I was going through a bit of a weird phase where I thought I just wasn’t interested in watching animated Saturday morning cartoons. While I did eventually watch both shows, it ultimately wasn’t until the mid-2000’s when both shows had finished their runs and I was in college that I finally took the time to give them a try.
What did I think when I finally saw them? Well I can honestly say I came to regret not giving X-Men: Mutant High a chance earlier. As for Spider-Man? Well I’ll go into that in a bit, but first here’s some context surrounding the creation of both shows.
An ITTL after effect of the rising Marvel Cinematic Universe in the late 90’s is that Marvel Comics started getting a huge boost in sales as the movies helped draw in new fans. Naturally Marvel TV execs wanted to tape into that for two of their main lines whose cartoons ended right before this new boost. (Source: TFW2005)
In late 1998, the Marvel Movie Universe was getting into full swing with the Avengers only a mere two years away from lighting up our theater screens. Comic sales meanwhile were reaching a bit of a high point as interest from the films and animated shows drew in more new readers every day. Of said shows, the original 90’s MCAU was on its last legs as the Avengers and Thor were currently airing what would be their final seasons, while the original Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spider-Man animated series had all finished their respective runs on TV, with the latter two have finished their runs before Marvel had reached this new high.
Though both shows had seen a preview boost in sales from their films, it was noted that the hype for the upcoming Avengers movie combined with the popularity of the animated series was drawing in a unprecedented number of new sales for Avengers comics and the respective main characters featured in a primary roles in the show, like Captain America and Iron Man. For Spider-Man and the X-Men however, both their animated shows had ended a few years before and the previous increase in sales had since begun to drop or weren’t rising as high, though X-Men would see some boosts following the release of each film. It was perhaps worse for Spider-Man, as even ignoring the current issues driving down sales in his comic at the time and the fact he would appear in then upcoming Avengers film, his last mainline starring role in a film was in 1995 and he wouldn’t return again to star in his own film until 2004.
So as you might expect, Marvel became interested in bringing back Spider-Man and the X-Men to the small screen in the hopes it’d help boost comic sales. While Spidey and the mutants had appeared in supporting roles in the Avengers show, Marvel wanted to expand the recent sales boost created by the films and shows for Spider-Man and X-Men by ordering new shows centered on both to be made. Makes sense right?
Well there were two points of issue that Marvel had to figure out, that being continuity and well Spider-Man himself.
One repercussion of there being a smoother and less chaotic ITTL 90’s Clone Saga that didn’t fail ITTL like it did in OTL is that Marvel was now forced to handle a weird situation it never had to in OTL: How to adapt Spider-Man in animation while still trying to boost sales when in said comics the more popular well known person known to the public behind the mask (whom let's not forget the most recent films were also about) is now retired and his replacement has a bit of a convoluted and complicated backstory that might turn new fans away. (Source: TVTropes.com)
The first was a fairly simple decision all things considered: Should Marvel try to fit both shows in the 90’s MCAU and make the shows continuations of the previous shows or should they start fresh in a new continuity? And if they did start in a new continuity, should both shows be set in the same continuity, or separate ones? Ultimately Marvel decided it’d be less of a hassle to try and start fresh then to continue where both previous shows left off. In terms of continuity they also decided to have 1999’s Spider-Man and X-Men: Mutant High to be set in two separate continuities and not have to worry about potentially contradicting each other as had been a frequent concern with the earlier animated shows. While the wider Marvel universe would exist and be mentioned or even shown in both shows, it wouldn’t be until 2009 that Marvel Animation would again attempt a single unified animated continuity, but I’ll get to that one day.
Unlike the relatively simple issue with continuity though, deciding how to handle Spider-Man would be much more complicated. See in 1998, Marvel’s current main Spider-Man was not Peter Parker, rather it was instead his clone Ben Reilly. Peter Parker at this time was basically “retired” for the most part, and wouldn’t officially come out of retirement for another three years. Instead the retired Peter was busy raising his first child Ben Parker alongside his wife Mary Jane Watson while also working as an assistant to Reed Richards. Whenever Peter did put the suit back on, it more often than not was to help the F4 as the unofficial fifth member of the Fantastic Four, leading to the team in this era to often be lovingly referred to by fans at this point as the Fantastic Five [1].
This naturally led to the question of whether Marvel should make the show about Ben Reilly or Peter Parker, since at the end of the day the show was meant to help further boost the sales of the comic, especially since of all the comics at the time Spider-Man was the one receiving the smallest boost. As you can imagine, making a show about Peter Parker when he wasn’t even Spider-Man at this point in the comics seemed a bit contradictory to this, which left Marvel in a bind.
Though not actually a member of the team, this era of Peter’s life ITTL would eventually often be referred to by fans as his Fantastic Five era, having ironically all but finally joined the team after decades following their first meeting in Amazing Spider-Man #1. (Source: Fandom.com)
On one hand, Peter Parker was considered the safe choice for the central character. Not only was he the more familiar Spider-Man to general audiences thanks to his previous three live action films and the original 90’s cartoon, but (at least to execs and some readers) he, unlike Ben Reilly, also didn’t have a complicated clone origin attached that viewers would need to accept and wrap their heads around if they wanted to watch the show. Ben Reilly on the other hand had a more complicated backstory but was the main Spider-Man, which meant the show’s mission to promote the comic meant they should be trying to focus on him rather than Peter.
This therefore led to a bit of a behind the scenes battle, with some prominent Marvel and Disney TV execs really wanting the show to be about Peter Parker, while Marvel Comics Editorial (who had a few influential ties of their own to some Disney and Marvel execs and used them to involve themselves with the show) strongly wanted it to be about Ben Reilly, with some even arguing that Ben, unlike Peter, outright needed the show. They arguably weren’t even wrong to think so, since despite Marvel Editorial’s stubborn support of Ben Reilly over Peter Parker at the time [2], sales for Spider-Man comics had indeed stagnated and weren’t exactly doing as great or at least as many new readers compared to other Marvel comics since Ben Reilly had fully taken over as Spider-Man.
In fact it was even noted by some detractors of Ben Reilly that 1995's Spider-Man 3 had not resulted in nearly as big of a sales boost as the first and second film had, in likely no small part due to the fact that by the release of Spider-Man 3 Ben Reilly had already seemingly permanently taken over the role of Spider-Man and Peter had retired. Simply put, far too many new comics readers seemed to get confused about Ben’s presence and the clone origin [3] or didn’t like the fact the comic didn’t star Peter (which still remained an issue even despite Ben’s growing fanbase) and despite this Marvel Editorial had no intention at this time of bringing back Peter officially despite some increasing pressure to do so.
And none of this was even getting into the fact that the original highly celebrated Spider-Man: The Animated Series cartoon would no doubt cast a long shadow on this new upcoming successor show, so a lot of people at Marvel Entertainment wanted to distance themselves from it and make something distinct from the previous show, so the shows creators (Duane Capizzi and Patrick Archibald) also had to factor in the fact that later half of the last season of the early 90’s cartoon had already adapted the Clone Saga, nor that while the whole behind the scenes battle between Marvel TV execs and Comic Editorial was going on upper Disney management was currently distracted by a massive proxy war with right wing crazies and religious nuts.
The end result of all of this messy behind the scenes, which would notably continue a bit on throughout the shows run even after it’s premiere (though not nearly as openly since by the show’s premier in 1999 Disney upper management was no longer distracted by the whole proxy war), is that the showrunners decided to just split the difference and centered the show on both Peter and Ben by having both share the title of Spider-Man rather than have Peter retire, even opening the show [4] with yet another direct adaptation of the 90’s Clone Saga (meaning if you watched this and the previous show back to back, you’d be treated to essentially watching two consecutive adaptations of the exact same six month storyline).
The messy battle to decide who to center the show on would go on to dominate the behind the scenes for the 1999 Spider-Man animated series, leading to the show to try and center itself on both. (Source: benreillytribute.x10host.com)
While the show’s dual protagonist nature was interesting in my opinion, in my view the show as a whole ultimately suffers a bit from a sense of listlessness as it struggles to both define itself and escape the shadow of its predecessor. It honestly just feels like the team behind it weren’t sure what to do half the time and often weren’t sure who (between Ben and Peter) to even focus on. A lot of that was certainly due to the ongoing behind the scenes drama and Duane Capizzi leaving after the first season, but another was clearly a sense of fear of being unable to match the award winning and critically acclaimed beloved show which came before it. Not helping things was the way the show decides all too often to just keep going back and adding even more Clone Saga-type shenanigans even after the conclusion of the first opening episodes, leading to it often being nicknamed by fan as Spider-Man: The Clone Saga Animated Series as a way of differentiating it from it's predecessor when it's not simply called the 1999 cartoon.
In fact not only do they make Jackal the main villain of the first season, but they keep adding additional new clone characters other than Ben and Kaine, to the point that the show just makes you honestly all cloned out and tired of clones in general. Marvel certainly got cloned out too, since clones got really uncommon in comics for a few years after the end of the first season. Don't get me wrong, sure some of the new clones created for the show like the Spider-Woman [5], Armsy [6], Spider Gwen Stacy [7] and the Spider MJ clones that show up in a few episodes are all actually kind of interesting and well written (even if the concept behind them are kind of simple and cliché), but if I’m being honest they’re more the exception than the rule. Instead most of thirteen new clones introduced in the show, like the kid clone from the 7th episode, the clone of Ben Reilly (not Peter) from the 9th episode, just overall all feel tacked on and lazy, ultimately feeling more like the showrunners just wanted to add more clones just for the sake of adding more clones.
Still there are plenty of things to like here despite the various problems the show has. Voice actor Rino Romano for example brings to the table a pretty well done take on wall crawler, even if he’s ultimately no Robert Hays (though to be fair, I don’t think any Spider-Man voice actor, except maybe Josh Keaton, has escaped Hays’ long shadow). In fact I’d go as far as to say that one thing he actually manages to improve over Hays is that he makes the effort and does a good job at making his voices for both Peter and Ben both distinct yet still similar enough to make it clear they are technically the same voice. Tom Kane meanwhile provides a memorable performance as the Jackel, while Jennifer Hale makes for a decent Mary Jane Watson, though like with Peter/Ben, one can’t help but compare her to OG 90’s cartoon MJ actress Joely Fisher.
Ultimately while the show has its core fans even to this day, it definitely struggled to keep most of its audience as it went along and ultimately only lasted two seasons before it got canned, something which I can’t say I’m all that surprised about having watched it. The main aftermath to note about the show’s relative failure and the behind the scenes spat that was going on during it between Marvel Editorial and Marvel TV Execs is that it barely did anything to increase sales of the main comic and in fact did a lot to weaken the strength of the pro-Ben Reilly faction at Marvel Editorial to the point that Ben got killed off in 2001’s ‘The Death of Spider-Man’ comic [8] and Peter got brought back out of retirement during Tom Delfaco’s third run on Amazing Spider-Man later that year, where Peter would mentor Stanley O’Brian, a teenager who like Peter before him would find himself gaining incredible Spider-like powers when he’s bitten by a radioactive spider [9].
So in a way Marvel Editorial’s steadfast and stubborn pushing for Ben Reilly to be made the sole star of the show inadvertently led to his death in the comics, the very return of Peter Parker that Marvel Editorial had originally been against, and the introduction of fan favorite and new Marvel Editorial golden boy Stanley O’Brian. Go figure.
While not really exact, there are definitely a number of similarities between OTL X-Men Evolution and ITTL’s X-Men: Mutant High where you can consider it it's OTL counterpart, although the argument can be made that it's also this timeline's equivalent of Young Justice despite being Marvel and not DC, due to being made by the same creators and having a similar kind of story telling. (Source: Wikipedia and GeekDad)
The good news is that for all the ongoing issues with 1999’s Spider-Man, the other new Marvel show which followed it, X-Men: Mutant High, would manage to escape any such needless drama when it premiered in early 2000, which thank god because this show is way too good and I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it got sabotaged by pointless behind the scenes drama. Then again if it had been ruined by BS, I probably wouldn’t be here wanting to gush and rave about it.
Though it would also find itself facing having big shoes to fill (although not nearly to the extreme as Spider-Man did), X-Men: Mutant High chose to try and escape the looming shadow of its predecessor by not adapting any particular X-Men comic or team and instead creating something new and holy original, focusing not on the classic X-Men but on the next generation of young mutants who were destined to succeed them. Instead of giving the spotlight to the well known X-Men, the show would instead focus on a group of six young new and original mutants created for the show who would find themselves attending Xavier’s School for the Gifted and gathered together in a new young team as the next generation of the X-Men [10]. Meanwhile traditional X-Men characters like Xavier, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Beast, Colossus, Shadowcat, Storm, and Jean Grey would be relegated to older mentor roles as the various professors of the school. While they were still recurring characters and there might be a episode or two where the OG characters got a bit of direct shine and attention, showrunners Greg Weisman, Craig Kyle, and Victor Cook pointedly kept the focus on the show's six primary protagonists. In fact, of the OG classic X-Men, only Wolverine (voiced by David Kaye) would find himself getting a really prominent role and even then only due to his familial connection and mentorship with one of the show’s main characters, Musume Oyama aka Weapon XIII [11].
I suppose that’s actually as good a jumping point as any to talk about the show’s main six protagonists, and there’s no better place to start than the aforementioned Weapon XIII (or as she’s later known in later seasons, Talon), who is voiced by Grey DeLisle. The tragic daughter of Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike, Masume was forcibly (although arguably only confirmed as such in the comics) conceived while both her parents were a part of the Weapon X program and grew up under the program that bred her where she was trained as little more than a weapon and assassin, at least until she escaped her handlers and sought out her father, leading to her enrollment at the school. Throughout the show the quiet and anti-social Masume is forced to learn how to be a human girl and not a weapon, growing over the course of the show’s seven seasons from a cold, emotionless former weapon to a thoughtful and caring girl, Masume would often find herself facing off against Weapon X and her own mother Lady Deathstrike throughout the shows run, as said mother sought to return her wayward daughter back to the Weapon X program she served.
Quickly becoming a fan favorite following her premiere in the show, Weapon XIII would also become the first original character from the show to make the transition from the small screen to the comics, debuting in the comics less than seven months following her debut on the show. While most if not all of her fellow teammates would follow her into pages of comics, Masume stands as the fastest to do so.
Basically the ITTL of both of these OTL fan favorites, as Weapon XIII is basically X-23 but with an origin closer to that of OTL Cassandra Cain. (Source: fightersgeneration.com and DCDatabase.com)
Joining Masume as a main character on the show is her best friend, a character who technically both is and isn’t an original character: Rachel Summers aka Marvel Girl (voiced by Tara Strong). Now if you're a X-Men comics fan who’s lived under a rock and never watched the show you might start scratching your head here since Rachel Summers is very much not a original character that was invented for the show having debuted all the way back in 1981 as part of the famous Days of Future’s Past comic, and you’d technically be right to think so. The reason instead that I say that this Rachel is an original character is because though she shares the same name, powers, and parentage as her comics counterpart, she does not share her origin nor much of her comic personality.
Though her comic origin would be given a nod in Season 2’s Days of Future Past themed episode [12], this version of Rachel was not a time traveler from a war torn future where mutants were hunted like her comic counterpart. Instead this version of Rachel grew up in a peaceful life, if somewhat sheltered life by both her parents. Having grown up without having to deal with anti-Mutant racism due to her upbringing, Rachel starts the series as a bit of an arrogant spoiled brat but quickly finds herself forced to face the ugly truth of just how the world views mutants as she leaves her sheltered childhood and joins the school where she also finds herself facing the scrutiny of classmates due to being the daughter of two of the school’s leading professors. Over the course of the show she goes from being arrogant and stuck up mean girl to humble and very empathetic woman who cares for others and finds herself being a proud defender of Mutant Rights [13].
Oh and did I forget to mention that due to being the daughter of Jean Mother F-ing Grey she’s also destined to be the next host of the Phoenix Force and therefore the most powerful mutant ever, which becomes a bit of a major plot line for Season 4? No? Well now I did, so you're kindly welcome.
Anyways I’d say that overall this version of Rachel is pretty different enough from her comics counterpart that I would honestly equate them almost as being two separate and distinct characters. She’s also debatably the more interesting of the two, though that’s probably more a matter of personal opinion. Sadly she’s the only one of the main show’s team to technically not debut in the comics afterwards, though comics Rachel did start taking on a lot of personality quirks from show Rachel, particularly her friendship with Masume/Weapon XIII and her memorable ice cream obsession.
Whether Marvel will ever do more than that, I guess we’ll see, but with the show reaching its 15th anniversary this year, I doubt it. [14]
The appearance of the show’s version of Rachel Summers would mostly resemble this image of her OTL comic counterpart. (Figurerealm.com)
Next is Matthew Lincoln aka Starforce (Voiced by Khary Payton), the leader of the young team of mutants. Just as Rachel stands in as the teams equivalent to Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and Masume stands in as its own Wolverine, Matthew stands in as the teams own equivalent to Cyclops, as not only is he the leader, but his light based powers are not too dissimilar from that of Cyclops own (although truthfully they arguably more resemble that of Cyclops brother Havok), as they allow him to store any light that comes into contact with him in his body, making his body almost like a battery, and then release that light energy in a devastating photonic attack [15].
While Starforce goes through less character development over the course of the show, with him already starting out as a charismatic and gifted leader who stands as the team's rock of stability. Instead where Matt’s development comes in is not through some massive character change, but instead that he has to learn how to actually gain experience and try to manage being a team leader. It's not just handed to him and he's suddenly a great leader, instead he has the potential of one but has to earn and grow into the role. Really the show does a great job of representing that just because someone has a natural talent for leadership, it does not mean they are instantly a leader or that they suddenly have the experience to do so.
Where the real juicy stuff with Matt’s character comes into the show is in how it deals with and demonstrates the struggle of a black kid who's already dealing with racism due to the color of his skin also has to deal with racism from being a mutant. If done badly that topic could honestly have sunk the show, but I think it does a great job at maturely handling the issue and providing good commentary on racism as a whole. In fact one of the episodes centered on Matt’s personal struggles with racism towards fellow blacks and mutants, “Sunkissed” from Season 2, even went on to be nominated for an Emmy.
While I can't say he's exactly my favorite of the team (Masume, Tempus, and Biokenis are my personal favorites), he still makes for a pretty cool and compelling character. Plus his romance with Tempus in later seasons is honestly adorable.
Though not strictly the same, there would be a lot of similarities between the ITTL show and the OTL comic New X-Men: Academy X. (Source: Amazon.com)
Next there was Julian Vargas aka Biokenis (voiced by Dante Basco), the loud and bombastic biokinetic (hence the name) whose powers, though at first seemingly giving him nothing but a simple ability to heal others, quickly grow in scope as they are revealed to actually give him complete and total control and manipulation over any and all biological matter he comes into physical contact with [16].
In some ways representing the teams equivalent of Bobby Drake and Shadowcat due to being the youngest and the least mature, Julian ultimately goes through the darkest arc of the series when in season 3 it’s revealed that with his powers not only can he remove another’s mutant mutation, but he can also make anyone who’s not a mutant now suddenly a mutant, which can be transmitted worldwide when combined with his ability to affect bacteria in order to create any kind of plague or virus he desires. Over the course of season 3 Julian finds himself becoming the number one target of various mutants like Magneto and his Brotherhood as well as the various human factions who oppose mutantkind, as each wishes to either use his power to either make everyone mutants (in the case of Magneto, who I should mention is voiced here by Tom Kane), use him to end all mutants, or simply kill him to ensure he can no longer potentially do either, culminating in him eventually becoming orphaned when his home is attacked and his family is killed.
From then on Julian goes from the comic relief of the main cast to a much darker and more moody character, bitter and angry against the world. And while it ends up being the love and support of his team that helps to prevent him from falling off the metaphorical edge of the cliff and truly going down a darker path, we still end up paying witness to the devastating destruction Julian can cause if he ever snaps across multiple instances of the show. A prime example of this comes in late season 3 when a angry and vengeful Julian infects the entire town of human supremacists whose leaders killed his family with a painful mutation that not only makes them all mutants but deforms their appearances and leaves them all looking monstrous and inhuman, before leaving them all at the mercy of a group of oncoming Sentinels, an act which comes to haunt him and fill him with guilt throughout the rest of the show.
Yeah, for a supposed kids show, it surprisingly doesn’t hold itself back. This show can and does get very dark, despite being technically aimed at kids.
Anyways, even with the support of his friends, it’s not until season 5 when Julian encounters a future version of himself in Bio that our Julian finally starts trying to move away from the dark path he’s been marching himself towards over the past two seasons. Bio, a alternate future version of Julian who snapped and wiped out most of all life on Earth in his future with a deadly virus, becomes the central villain of the show’s 5th season when he travels back in time and decides to ‘fix’ everything by forcibly turning every human on Earth into mutants [17], leading to the team and Biokenis to have to undo it (even if it puts them at odds with Magneto who wants to defend what Bio has done) when it’s revealed that Bio’s fragile psyche caused him to mess up the virus and that all the new ‘mutants’ he created are cellularly degrading and dying.
Like I said, Julian is probably one of my favorites, as he goes through the darkest arc yet he still manages to come out of it a (mostly) good person, even starting to crack jokes again by the seventh season.
While Biokenis is sort of this timeline’s equivalent of Elixir from OTL’s X-Men, as a character he and his powers end up coming more in line with Amy Dallon/Panacea from OTL’s Web serial Worm. (Source: Fandom.com and Pinterest)
Next is Cynthia Cartwheel aka Tempus (voiced by Venus Terzo), probably the most heroic (she's certainly the shortest) member of the team even if she arguably has the weakest power. Though her power allows her to control time by pausing, speeding, slowing down, or reversing it, she can only do so for a limit of up to 15 seconds for each and she can’t try going back or forward consecutively after use without becoming exhausted or blacking out. While she can and has temporarily broken that 15 second limit during times of extreme stress, even in one episode going back a whole day into the past and in another accidentally launching herself decades into the far future (leading to my favorite episode of the second season that gave us its own interpretation of Days of Futures Past), for most of the series she tends to be stuck with the small 15 second interval time limit to her powers.
Yet where she lacks in power she makes up for in motivation and pure heroism, being the first team member to decide to join the X-Men and serving as the team’s heart and soul, if not the Team Mom [18]. Of course she’s not perfect, and like a lot of the characters on the show she has her own flaws. In Tempus’ case it’s the fact that she can at times be a little too selfless and overbearing, which stems from the loss of her grandfather, a police captain who lost his life saving hundreds from a terrorist attack a few years before. It’s his heroism which ultimately inspires Cynthia to try and follow in his example and be the best inspirational hero she can be. Yet often this results in her both being willing to get involved and put herself in danger she sometimes can’t handle if she thinks someone else is in danger and needs help as well as often being overly concerned for her teammates and being willing to sacrifice herself for them due to fear of losing them.
Still it is something she eventually gets a handle over during the course of the series, as in later seasons she’s willing to trust her teammates to handle themselves and not being as self-sacrificing as in the beginning. Plus hey, despite being the weakest member of the team, you can’t say she isn’t a total badass considering she gets pretty skilled and eventually even manages to solo and take down freaking Magneto in the sixth season with nothing but her wits, her fists, and her short term control over time.
There's a reason I love this pint sized total badass.
Basically an earlier version of X-Men character Tempus from OTL, although with a different real name, personality, and origin. (Fandom.com)
Finally completing out the original six members of the main cast is Jake Jackson aka Canvas (voiced by Quinton Flynn), a character whose powers allow him to temporarily bring up to five things at a time from any image he sees to life which he can fully command and control. An example of this is during his first scene when he takes a photo of a rampaging Juggernaut who’s trying to capture Jake under the orders of Magneto and then proceeds to bring to life two weaker copies of the Juggernaut himself to fight the original.
Now you’d rightfully think that’d make him really OP, especially with the fact that the copies he creates can have the same powers and memories as the original person at the moment the photo or painting was taken/made, but there are tons of interesting little limits to Jake’s power. Some of these include a time limit for how long a copy can exist in the real world before it begins to weaken and disintegrate (which will occur at a faster rate depending on how more powerful the original source is), a copies powers often being somewhat weaker than the original, a hard limit that lets him only create five copycats at once and makes him wait until one disintegrates before he can summon another, and a limit which makes copies of objects more stable and long lasting than copies of people, particularly mutants. A result of that last means he more often tends to create copies of really powerful objects like Thor’s Hammer (which lacks the worthy limit of the original but otherwise gives him the same power of Thor while using it), Captain America’s Shield, Doctor Strange's cloak, or even a fictional plasma gun from a video game he likes playing, since he ultimately has less reason to worry about them quickly disintegrating at an inopportune moment.
Jake of course isn’t a perfect character despite his arguably OP power. In fact, as much as this sarcastic and witty kid did start to grow on me over the course of the show, he nonetheless starts off as a very unlikable and rude brat, not helped by the fact he can and has caused drama due to abusing his powers. In one season 1 episode he gets rejected by a pretty girl while visiting the town near the school and has the bright idea of stealing a photograph of her to create a copy of her that will date him, which if you’ll remember the fact that he has complete and total control over all his copies and that they have the memories of the original makes this honestly pretty creepy and disgusting (especially with some of the implications the show eventually makes about the copies behind sentient/aware living beings), even if you excuse it due to Jakes being so young (he’s barely fifteen in the first season). Thankfully the show and it’s other character agree with me at it being creepy and disgusting since it makes a huge point to show how wrong and vile Jake was for doing that, but that ultimately is just an example of how terrifying Jake’s power is and how willing he is to abuse it.
And sadly it’s not the last and only time he will abuse it. When his mom dies in a car accident in season 3, he keeps trying to bring her back as a copy and tries to hide the fact from his team, thereby nearly getting them hurt in a battle because he didn’t tell them he was using one of his copy slots and could only create four copies rather than his usual five. When the anti-mutant Senator Kelly seems poised to get a worrisome piece of Anti-Mutant legislation passed in the 4th season that the rest of the X-Men are trying to peacefully and legally prevent getting past, Jake has no issue going on his own to betray the teaching of Xavier and the professors as well as the rules of law by creating a copy of Emma Frost to change the memories of four senators allied with Kelly while creating and marching four impersonating copies of those very same senators to ‘turn’ on Kelly and vote down the bill.
If you've ever watched something like Chalkzone, you'd think being able to bring anything from an image, whether fictional or real, to life as a power seems pretty tame, but now imagine having complete control over them and the people or objects being brought to life having the same powers and memories as the original, and put it in the hands of a completely irresponsible teenager. Not so tame now is it? (Source: Pinterest)
And while he does improve over the show, even choosing in season six to only create copies of people who approve being copied beforehand, his is definitely one of the most terrifying and most easy to abuse powers in X-Men and they are ultimately in the hands of a person who very frequently demonstrates over the course of the show that isn’t entirely responsible with them. Let’s just be thankful that he never went villain, at least not in the show (yes readers, I’ve read the recent issue of Uncanny X-Men and yes Canvas going bad is definitely terrifying [19].)
Still I can’t deny that some of my favorite episodes from the show have involved Jake’s powers or been caused by them.
One great example of this is season four’s, Dark Phoenix Reborn, which involves the one and only time Jake ever manages to actually break the limit on his power and create a permanent copy of a person that doesn’t disintegrate or affect his number limit. For those who haven’t watched the episode, basically during a fight with Emma Frost and her students (I’ll get more into that in a moment) he creates a copy of a eighteen year old Jean Grey from when (at least in the timeline of the show, since she was probably much older in the original comic at that point) she was Dark Phoenix, only for her to then not to disintegrate as normal after a certain time, even when he loses his control over her and regains his fifth copy slot. Long story short, the X-Men realize the Phoenix Force intervened to save the copy of its favorite host, they have to fight her, and we get treated to an awesome battle between a Phoenixed up Jean Grey and Rachel Summers against the Dark Phoenix and defeat it. Not a super complicated episode, but definitely a cool and fun one, especially since it ends up giving us the show’s version, and what is arguably my own favorite version, of Madelyne Pryor [20].
As for the aforementioned Emma Frost thing, in the the show’s second season they decided to introduce and adapt the Generation X storyline from the comics, which in case you might have forgotten basically involved a rival mutant school that was headed by X-Men nemesis Emma Frost (voiced by Erica Schroeder). Naturally it had its students who served as rivals to our heroes, with the most prominent and recurring being Chamber, the M-Twins, and Synch. Eventually the school would be attacked by human supremacists in opening of Season Six, resulting in most of what’s left of the school either merging with the Xavier institute or joining Magneto, thus forcing our heroes to have to get used to the idea of not only having former enemy Emma Frost as a teacher but being classmates with the kids they were rivals with and once fought against. That season as a whole does a good job at showcasing former enemies and rivals being forced to get used to the idea of no longer being on opposing sides and having to come to accept each other and work together for the common good.
1994's Generation X comic still comes into existence ITTL just like it did in OTL, leading to it getting adapted in the show as a recurring rival mutant school who often come into conflict with our heroes. (Source: TVTropes)
Honestly there’s a whole lot more about the show I can gush about, like how it introduced a lot of fan favorite characters like Pixie, Surge, Prodigy [21], Hunter, Freight Train, and Weapon XIV [22] who would over time gain prominent roles in the show and also see themselves make the transition to the comics, the show’s outstanding third, fourth, and fifth seasons (all the seasons are great, but those three are really when the show reached its height), or how it did a fantastic jobs of dealing with a lot of the themes of the original comics like overcoming and peacefully fighting discrimination and still also balanced in everyday normal regular teenage problems and issues like relationships, school, and puberty, or how it went on to define and influence the course of X-Men comics for years after more than even the 90's cartoon did. But honestly if I did we’d be here all day if I did and this post is getting way too long, so all I’m going to say is that I’m really glad I finally went back and watched this masterpiece when I did and if you haven’t watched it you really need to give it a shot, even if you aren't an X-Man fan.
Anyways, next time I’ll be talking about Marvel's second attempt at doing a Spider-Man show following the end of the classic 90’s animated series when I discuss 2002’s Spider-Man Unlimited.
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[1] - Not surprising perhaps since while Peter isn’t really officially a member of the team, he joins in their adventures often enough that he’s all but a fifth member.
[2] - This is sort of tying into the attitude of Marvel Editorial that in OTL lead to the infamous and justifiably hated One More Day comic where Peter Parker and Mary Jane sold their marriage to the devil to save a dying Aunt May. Essentially a number of people at Marvel Editorial don’t like Peter and MJ’s marriage and don’t want to have to deal with it, hence why a lot of Marvel Editorial is rallying so much around Ben Reilly here ITTL. Basically Ben being the main Spider-Man lets Marvel have its cake and eat it too as they get to retire Peter without undoing his marriage and give him his happy ending, while at the same time telling all the stories they want with a single Ben Reilly. The fear of bringing Peter officially back is that it’ll undo all that and open the can of worms they just shut on whether or not to end the marriage like they eventually did in OTL, while also disrupting Peter’s happy ending.
[3] - Let's be fair, Ben’s origin is a lot more convoluted for a new reader than Peter’s relatively simple origin is, meaning new readers need to understand or know about both the 70’s and 90’s Clone Saga just to understand Ben and his origin. Seriously, as much as I like Ben Reilly, it’s hard to imagine him being able to stay as the main Spider-Man for long, even with the ITTL 90’s Clone Saga being a lot cleaner and shorter than in OTL.
[4] - The first three episodes of the show that adapted the comic clone saga would then later be merged together and repackaged as a TV movie that could then be sold on home video, kind of like how the first few episodes of Aladdin: The Series and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command in OTL became Aladdin 2: Return of Jafar and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV movies that in OTL got sold on home video.
[5] - Sort of a ITTL version of Ultimate Jessica Drew, in that she’s a female clone of Peter that appears in a one off episode. She notably eventually makes her own ITTL comic book semi-debut in the form of Mary O’Brian during the ITTL early 2010's when the third Spider-Man, Stanley O’Brian, gets his own little three issue clone saga, with the main difference between the cartoon and comic versions being which Spider-Man she’s cloned from.
[6] - Basically a clone of Peter from a one off episode who was born with 6 arms and becomes Man-Spider like in the OTL 90’s show.
[7] - Before anyone complains, Jackal is known for having a Gwen Stacy obsession and frequently makes Gwen clones when he's not making Peter clones, so the idea of him making a clone of Gwen but with Peter's powers is not outside the realm of possibility. Ultimately this Spider-Gwen, for lack of a better term, won't really resemble her OTL in any way, simply being a clone that shows up in a one off episode who's a version of 616 Gwen who also just so happened to have Spider powers. In a show that keeps almost seemingly throwing darts at a wall to see which clone idea can stick, it was bound to have eventually created Spider powered clones of Peter's love interests, Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy.
[8] - Notably since this was the death of the second Spider-Man and led only to the original Spider-Man returning, there’s no general expectation that Ben will necessarily return, so don't worry about this leading to the beginning of the OTL comic trope of death being a vacation that emerged prominently after the OTL Death of Superman comic.
[9] - As mentioned before in my ITTL Spider-Man 2 movie guest post, Stanley is basically a earlier ITTL equivalent to Miles Morales.
[10] - So basically the ITTL equivalent of OTL’s X-Men: Evolution, but if it leaned more into New Mutants aspect, with elements of OTL’s 2001’s and 2004’s New X-Men plus New X-Men: Academy X mixed in. I’d argue it can also be viewed as this timeline’s equivalent to the Young Justice cartoon, since it’s from the same creator as that and OTL’s Spectacular Spider-Man and has a number of similarities to Young Justice despite being X-Men focused rather than DC. In fact, considering this show ends up treating the older classic X-Men much the same way Young Justice treated and handled the Justice League, I’d say the comparison is even more appropriate.
[11] - Basically ITTL’s version of X-23, who still exists because her creator Craig Kyle is still involved like he was with OTL’s X-Men Evolution. Though she has a somewhat similar origin and identical powers (like OTL X-23 she has two claws on her hands and one on her feet along with the general Wolverine power set), the ultimate big difference (other than her prominent Japanese ethnicity) between this version of Laura (named Masume, which is Japanese for Daughter. If you can’t take the hint, it’s because that is the only thing she was ever referred to as growing other than Weapon XIII) and her OTL counterpart is of course the lack of cloning in her origin which is mostly as a result of cloning headache caused by the then ongoing 1999 Spider-Man show making the showrunners for this X-Men show want to steer clear of clones whenever possible. Instead her origin is kind of more similar to that of OTL’s Cassandra Cain, except instead of Lady Shiva for a mother, it’s Lady Deathstrike.
[12] - If you know about Rachel Summers in Days of Future Past, you can probably already guess what said hint is of. If you don’t, look up Rachel Summers Hound. It's honestly kind of messed up.
[13] - I’d kind of almost compare her to Weiss Schnee from RWBY, if you want a example of a character with a similar character development and transition.
[14] - In ITTL 2018, so about three years after this was written, they would sort of finally do this by having Rachel Summers in the comics experience and gain the memories of an alternate life and childhood which is basically almost or at the very least similar identical to her life from the X-Men: Mutant High show. Thus sort of trying to merge comic Rachel with her popular show counterpart.
[15] - Admittedly I’m taking inspiration for this character's powers (Just the powers mind you) somewhat from an original character from a X-Men fic called Extraordinary Times by Kenchi618. I’d highly recommend reading it if you haven’t and are a fan of the X-Men.
[16] - While one could argue that he could be considered the ITTL counterpart/equivalent of Elixir, in truth Biokenis’s powers (and arguably much of his character direction after season 3) more closely resemble that of Amy Dallon/Panacea from the web serial novel Worm by Wildbow, minus the fact that like Elixir and unlike Amy, Biokenis can also affect his own biology. There’s no manipulation of life force like Elixir has, instead Biokenis how the full ability to control, reshape, and manipulate any and all biological matter he comes into physical contact with.
[17] - Arguably that makes this arc from the show’s fifth season the ITTL equivalent of House of M, since it features a world where mutants "win" and everyone is a mutant.
[18] - If you want examples, you can almost say she’s the Katara (from Avatar: The Last Airbender) of the show, though sort of also mixed with Ruby Rose from RWBY.
[19] - You'd know that if you read the Hensonverse's Uncanny X-Men #598!
In all seriousness though, Canvas has a scary OP power and when combined with his willingness to abuse it and his general a-hole type attitude, it's unsurprising that ITTL comic book writers would decide to make him a villain for a bit. The show writers for X-Men Mutant High even briefly considered doing it for the show's third season as well before they went with the dark and tragic Biokenis arc by considering having Canvas betray the team. While it didn't happen, knowing his character doesn't really make it all shocking.[20] - So yeah that’s sort of how the show introduces Madelyne Pryor, who both is and isn’t a clone. She’s basically a copy of Dark Phoenix era Jean Grey created by Canvas that due to an intervention by the Marvel Universe’s literal embodiment of life and creation basically got saved when she would have started disintegrating after Jake’s power was no longer attached to her and therefore keeping her alive. She then goes on to fight the X-Men, her older self, and her alternate daughter before getting defeated and separated from the Phoenix by the combined efforts of her older self and alternate daughter. Then she kind of finds herself struggling to move past the trauma of not being the real Jean Grey, having been Dark Phoenix and briefly being completely and totally having her body and will controlled by Canvas, as well as having a hard time adjusting to living in what is essentially her future with her alternate future self and said alternate future self’s daughter and husband Cyclops (who from the perspective of young Jean was her boyfriend before she got copied and brought to the future). In the following season young Jean runs away from the school, goes rogue, and meets Magneto. She briefly then becomes a villain in Magneto's Brotherhood for a while before getting a redemption arc in the final season, rejoining the school, and even starting a romance with Logan. Oh and during all this she decides to adopt the name Madelyne Pryor, which in the universe of the show is Jean’s middle name (Madelyne) mixed with her mother’s maiden name (Pryor).
[21] - All three of whom you might notice are the ITTL equivalents of the characters from the same name. Though all of them were created in OTL in 2004, the reason they or rather alternate versions of them still exist here is because they were all created by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir. In case you aren’t aware they’re both comic book and television writers, having worked on X-Men comics and the show Kim Possible. I figured therefore it’s not outside the realm of possibility they end up working on this show and end up introducing some of the same, or at least close approximations, of the X-Men characters they created in OTL.
[22] - Think X-24 from the OTL movie Logan. He’s basically a mindless clone of Wolverine who’s under the control of Weapon X.
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So yeah that was a lot. I guess tell me what you think?
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I LOVE IT!So remember the X-Men: Mutant High and 1999 Spider-Man show's I mentioned in my Excelsior! - A Retrospective of the late 80’s/early 90’s X-Men and Spider-Man Series guest post? Well here at long last is the very long follow up to that:
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New Millennium Heroes! - A Retrospective of X-Men: Mutant High and the 1999 Spider-Man Animated Series
Post from Nostalgia Zone Net-log, by Terry Vera. September 22nd, 2015.
So a few months back I did a retrospective on the heavily influential and legendary late 80’s/early 90’s X-Men and Spider-Man animated series which both debuted in the late 80’s and lasted well into the mid 90’s. If you haven’t seen it there’s a link here, but I thought it was about time I went over the two animated series based primarily on the same respective characters which followed in their wake, 1999’s Spider-Man and 2000’s X-Men: Mutant High.
Now the thing about both shows is unlike with their predecessors, I never actually watched them as they were coming out. I was in High School by this point and as much as Marvel and comics were becoming more mainstream and ‘cool’, I was going through a bit of a weird phase where I thought I just wasn’t interested in watching animated Saturday morning cartoons. While I did eventually watch both shows, it ultimately wasn’t until the mid-2000’s when both shows had finished their runs and I was in college that I finally took the time to give them a try.
What did I think when I finally saw them? Well I can honestly say I came to regret not giving X-Men: Mutant High a chance earlier. As for Spider-Man? Well I’ll go into that in a bit, but first here’s some context surrounding the creation of both shows.
An ITTL after effect of the rising Marvel Cinematic Universe in the late 90’s is that Marvel Comics started getting a huge boost in sales as the movies helped draw in new fans. Naturally Marvel TV execs wanted to tape into that for two of their main lines whose cartoons ended right before this new boost. (Source: TFW2005)
In late 1998, the Marvel Movie Universe was getting into full swing with the Avengers only a mere two years away from lighting up our theater screens. Comic sales meanwhile were reaching a bit of a high point as interest from the films and animated shows drew in more new readers every day. Of said shows, the original 90’s MCAU was on its last legs as the Avengers and Thor were currently airing what would be their final seasons, while the original Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spider-Man animated series had all finished their respective runs on TV, with the latter two have finished their runs before Marvel had reached this new high.
Though both shows had seen a preview boost in sales from their films, it was noted that the hype for the upcoming Avengers movie combined with the popularity of the animated series was drawing in a unprecedented number of new sales for Avengers comics and the respective main characters featured in a primary roles in the show, like Captain America and Iron Man. For Spider-Man and the X-Men however, both their animated shows had ended a few years before and the previous increase in sales had since begun to drop or weren’t rising as high, though X-Men would see some boosts following the release of each film. It was perhaps worse for Spider-Man, as even ignoring the current issues driving down sales in his comic at the time and the fact he would appear in then upcoming Avengers film, his last mainline starring role in a film was in 1995 and he wouldn’t return again to star in his own film until 2004.
So as you might expect, Marvel became interested in bringing back Spider-Man and the X-Men to the small screen in the hopes it’d help boost comic sales. While Spidey and the mutants had appeared in supporting roles in the Avengers show, Marvel wanted to expand the recent sales boost created by the films and shows for Spider-Man and X-Men by ordering new shows centered on both to be made. Makes sense right?
Well there were two points of issue that Marvel had to figure out, that being continuity and well Spider-Man himself.
One repercussion of there being a smoother and less chaotic ITTL 90’s Clone Saga that didn’t fail ITTL like it did in OTL is that Marvel was now forced to handle a weird situation it never had to in OTL: How to adapt Spider-Man in animation while still trying to boost sales when in said comics the more popular well known person known to the public behind the mask (whom let's not forget the most recent films were also about) is now retired and his replacement has a bit of a convoluted and complicated backstory that might turn new fans away. (Source: TVTropes.com)
The first was a fairly simple decision all things considered: Should Marvel try to fit both shows in the 90’s MCAU and make the shows continuations of the previous shows or should they start fresh in a new continuity? And if they did start in a new continuity, should both shows be set in the same continuity, or separate ones? Ultimately Marvel decided it’d be less of a hassle to try and start fresh then to continue where both previous shows left off. In terms of continuity they also decided to have 1999’s Spider-Man and X-Men: Mutant High to be set in two separate continuities and not have to worry about potentially contradicting each other as had been a frequent concern with the earlier animated shows. While the wider Marvel universe would exist and be mentioned or even shown in both shows, it wouldn’t be until 2009 that Marvel Animation would again attempt a single unified animated continuity, but I’ll get to that one day.
Unlike the relatively simple issue with continuity though, deciding how to handle Spider-Man would be much more complicated. See in 1998, Marvel’s current main Spider-Man was not Peter Parker, rather it was instead his clone Ben Reilly. Peter Parker at this time was basically “retired” for the most part, and wouldn’t officially come out of retirement for another three years. Instead the retired Peter was busy raising his first child Ben Parker alongside his wife Mary Jane Watson while also working as an assistant to Reed Richards. Whenever Peter did put the suit back on, it more often than not was to help the F4 as the unofficial fifth member of the Fantastic Four, leading to the team in this era to often be lovingly referred to by fans at this point as the Fantastic Five [1].
This naturally led to the question of whether Marvel should make the show about Ben Reilly or Peter Parker, since at the end of the day the show was meant to help further boost the sales of the comic, especially since of all the comics at the time Spider-Man was the one receiving the smallest boost. As you can imagine, making a show about Peter Parker when he wasn’t even Spider-Man at this point in the comics seemed a bit contradictory to this, which left Marvel in a bind.
Though not actually a member of the team, this era of Peter’s life ITTL would eventually often be referred to by fans as his Fantastic Five era, having ironically all but finally joined the team after decades following their first meeting in Amazing Spider-Man #1. (Source: Fandom.com)
On one hand, Peter Parker was considered the safe choice for the central character. Not only was he the more familiar Spider-Man to general audiences thanks to his previous three live action films and the original 90’s cartoon, but (at least to execs and some readers) he, unlike Ben Reilly, also didn’t have a complicated clone origin attached that viewers would need to accept and wrap their heads around if they wanted to watch the show. Ben Reilly on the other hand had a more complicated backstory but was the main Spider-Man, which meant the show’s mission to promote the comic meant they should be trying to focus on him rather than Peter.
This therefore led to a bit of a behind the scenes battle, with some prominent Marvel and Disney TV execs really wanting the show to be about Peter Parker, while Marvel Comics Editorial (who had a few influential ties of their own to some Disney and Marvel execs and used them to involve themselves with the show) strongly wanted it to be about Ben Reilly, with some even arguing that Ben, unlike Peter, outright needed the show. They arguably weren’t even wrong to think so, since despite Marvel Editorial’s stubborn support of Ben Reilly over Peter Parker at the time [2], sales for Spider-Man comics had indeed stagnated and weren’t exactly doing as great or at least as many new readers compared to other Marvel comics since Ben Reilly had fully taken over as Spider-Man.
In fact it was even noted by some detractors of Ben Reilly that 1995's Spider-Man 3 had not resulted in nearly as big of a sales boost as the first and second film had, in likely no small part due to the fact that by the release of Spider-Man 3 Ben Reilly had already seemingly permanently taken over the role of Spider-Man and Peter had retired. Simply put, far too many new comics readers seemed to get confused about Ben’s presence and the clone origin [3] or didn’t like the fact the comic didn’t star Peter (which still remained an issue even despite Ben’s growing fanbase) and despite this Marvel Editorial had no intention at this time of bringing back Peter officially despite some increasing pressure to do so.
And none of this was even getting into the fact that the original highly celebrated Spider-Man: The Animated Series cartoon would no doubt cast a long shadow on this new upcoming successor show, so a lot of people at Marvel Entertainment wanted to distance themselves from it and make something distinct from the previous show, so the shows creators (Duane Capizzi and Patrick Archibald) also had to factor in the fact that later half of the last season of the early 90’s cartoon had already adapted the Clone Saga, nor that while the whole behind the scenes battle between Marvel TV execs and Comic Editorial was going on upper Disney management was currently distracted by a massive proxy war with right wing crazies and religious nuts.
The end result of all of this messy behind the scenes, which would notably continue a bit on throughout the shows run even after it’s premiere (though not nearly as openly since by the show’s premier in 1999 Disney upper management was no longer distracted by the whole proxy war), is that the showrunners decided to just split the difference and centered the show on both Peter and Ben by having both share the title of Spider-Man rather than have Peter retire, even opening the show [4] with yet another direct adaptation of the 90’s Clone Saga (meaning if you watched this and the previous show back to back, you’d be treated to essentially watching two consecutive adaptations of the exact same six month storyline).
The messy battle to decide who to center the show on would go on to dominate the behind the scenes for the 1999 Spider-Man animated series, leading to the show to try and center itself on both. (Source: benreillytribute.x10host.com)
While the show’s dual protagonist nature was interesting in my opinion, in my view the show as a whole ultimately suffers a bit from a sense of listlessness as it struggles to both define itself and escape the shadow of its predecessor. It honestly just feels like the team behind it weren’t sure what to do half the time and often weren’t sure who (between Ben and Peter) to even focus on. A lot of that was certainly due to the ongoing behind the scenes drama and Duane Capizzi leaving after the first season, but another was clearly a sense of fear of being unable to match the award winning and critically acclaimed beloved show which came before it. Not helping things was the way the show decides all too often to just keep going back and adding even more Clone Saga-type shenanigans even after the conclusion of the first opening episodes, leading to it often being nicknamed by fan as Spider-Man: The Clone Saga Animated Series as a way of differentiating it from it's predecessor when it's not simply called the 1999 cartoon.
In fact not only do they make Jackal the main villain of the first season, but they keep adding additional new clone characters other than Ben and Kaine, to the point that the show just makes you honestly all cloned out and tired of clones in general. Marvel certainly got cloned out too, since clones got really uncommon in comics for a few years after the end of the first season. Don't get me wrong, sure some of the new clones created for the show like the Spider-Woman [5], Armsy [6], Spider Gwen Stacy [7] and the Spider MJ clones that show up in a few episodes are all actually kind of interesting and well written (even if the concept behind them are kind of simple and cliché), but if I’m being honest they’re more the exception than the rule. Instead most of thirteen new clones introduced in the show, like the kid clone from the 7th episode, the clone of Ben Reilly (not Peter) from the 9th episode, just overall all feel tacked on and lazy, ultimately feeling more like the showrunners just wanted to add more clones just for the sake of adding more clones.
Still there are plenty of things to like here despite the various problems the show has. Voice actor Rino Romano for example brings to the table a pretty well done take on wall crawler, even if he’s ultimately no Robert Hays (though to be fair, I don’t think any Spider-Man voice actor, except maybe Josh Keaton, has escaped Hays’ long shadow). In fact I’d go as far as to say that one thing he actually manages to improve over Hays is that he makes the effort and does a good job at making his voices for both Peter and Ben both distinct yet still similar enough to make it clear they are technically the same voice. Tom Kane meanwhile provides a memorable performance as the Jackel, while Jennifer Hale makes for a decent Mary Jane Watson, though like with Peter/Ben, one can’t help but compare her to OG 90’s cartoon MJ actress Joely Fisher.
Ultimately while the show has its core fans even to this day, it definitely struggled to keep most of its audience as it went along and ultimately only lasted two seasons before it got canned, something which I can’t say I’m all that surprised about having watched it. The main aftermath to note about the show’s relative failure and the behind the scenes spat that was going on during it between Marvel Editorial and Marvel TV Execs is that it barely did anything to increase sales of the main comic and in fact did a lot to weaken the strength of the pro-Ben Reilly faction at Marvel Editorial to the point that Ben got killed off in 2001’s ‘The Death of Spider-Man’ comic [8] and Peter got brought back out of retirement during Tom Delfaco’s third run on Amazing Spider-Man later that year, where Peter would mentor Stanley O’Brian, a teenager who like Peter before him would find himself gaining incredible Spider-like powers when he’s bitten by a radioactive spider [9].
So in a way Marvel Editorial’s steadfast and stubborn pushing for Ben Reilly to be made the sole star of the show inadvertently led to his death in the comics, the very return of Peter Parker that Marvel Editorial had originally been against, and the introduction of fan favorite and new Marvel Editorial golden boy Stanley O’Brian. Go figure.
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While not really exact, there are definitely a number of similarities between OTL X-Men Evolution and ITTL’s X-Men: Mutant High where you can consider it it's OTL counterpart, although the argument can be made that it's also this timeline's equivalent of Young Justice despite being Marvel and not DC, due to being made by the same creators and having a similar kind of story telling. (Source: Wikipedia and GeekDad)
The good news is that for all the ongoing issues with 1999’s Spider-Man, the other new Marvel show which followed it, X-Men: Mutant High, would manage to escape any such needless drama when it premiered in early 2000, which thank god because this show is way too good and I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it got sabotaged by pointless behind the scenes drama. Then again if it had been ruined by BS, I probably wouldn’t be here wanting to gush and rave about it.
Though it would also find itself facing having big shoes to fill (although not nearly to the extreme as Spider-Man did), X-Men: Mutant High chose to try and escape the looming shadow of its predecessor by not adapting any particular X-Men comic or team and instead creating something new and holy original, focusing not on the classic X-Men but on the next generation of young mutants who were destined to succeed them. Instead of giving the spotlight to the well known X-Men, the show would instead focus on a group of six young new and original mutants created for the show who would find themselves attending Xavier’s School for the Gifted and gathered together in a new young team as the next generation of the X-Men [10]. Meanwhile traditional X-Men characters like Xavier, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Beast, Colossus, Shadowcat, Storm, and Jean Grey would be relegated to older mentor roles as the various professors of the school. While they were still recurring characters and there might be a episode or two where the OG characters got a bit of direct shine and attention, showrunners Greg Weisman, Craig Kyle, and Victor Cook pointedly kept the focus on the show's six primary protagonists. In fact, of the OG classic X-Men, only Wolverine (voiced by David Kaye) would find himself getting a really prominent role and even then only due to his familial connection and mentorship with one of the show’s main characters, Musume Oyama aka Weapon XIII [11].
I suppose that’s actually as good a jumping point as any to talk about the show’s main six protagonists, and there’s no better place to start than the aforementioned Weapon XIII (or as she’s later known in later seasons, Talon), who is voiced by Grey DeLisle. The tragic daughter of Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike, Masume was forcibly (although arguably only confirmed as such in the comics) conceived while both her parents were a part of the Weapon X program and grew up under the program that bred her where she was trained as little more than a weapon and assassin, at least until she escaped her handlers and sought out her father, leading to her enrollment at the school. Throughout the show the quiet and anti-social Masume is forced to learn how to be a human girl and not a weapon, growing over the course of the show’s seven seasons from a cold, emotionless former weapon to a thoughtful and caring girl, Masume would often find herself facing off against Weapon X and her own mother Lady Deathstrike throughout the shows run, as said mother sought to return her wayward daughter back to the Weapon X program she served.
Quickly becoming a fan favorite following her premiere in the show, Weapon XIII would also become the first original character from the show to make the transition from the small screen to the comics, debuting in the comics less than seven months following her debut on the show. While most if not all of her fellow teammates would follow her into pages of comics, Masume stands as the fastest to do so.
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Basically the ITTL of both of these OTL fan favorites, as Weapon XIII is basically X-23 but with an origin closer to that of OTL Cassandra Cain. (Source: fightersgeneration.com and DCDatabase.com)
Joining Masume as a main character on the show is her best friend, a character who technically both is and isn’t an original character: Rachel Summers aka Marvel Girl (voiced by Tara Strong). Now if you're a X-Men comics fan who’s lived under a rock and never watched the show you might start scratching your head here since Rachel Summers is very much not a original character that was invented for the show having debuted all the way back in 1981 as part of the famous Days of Future’s Past comic, and you’d technically be right to think so. The reason instead that I say that this Rachel is an original character is because though she shares the same name, powers, and parentage as her comics counterpart, she does not share her origin nor much of her comic personality.
Though her comic origin would be given a nod in Season 2’s Days of Future Past themed episode [12], this version of Rachel was not a time traveler from a war torn future where mutants were hunted like her comic counterpart. Instead this version of Rachel grew up in a peaceful life, if somewhat sheltered life by both her parents. Having grown up without having to deal with anti-Mutant racism due to her upbringing, Rachel starts the series as a bit of an arrogant spoiled brat but quickly finds herself forced to face the ugly truth of just how the world views mutants as she leaves her sheltered childhood and joins the school where she also finds herself facing the scrutiny of classmates due to being the daughter of two of the school’s leading professors. Over the course of the show she goes from being arrogant and stuck up mean girl to humble and very empathetic woman who cares for others and finds herself being a proud defender of Mutant Rights [13].
Oh and did I forget to mention that due to being the daughter of Jean Mother F-ing Grey she’s also destined to be the next host of the Phoenix Force and therefore the most powerful mutant ever, which becomes a bit of a major plot line for Season 4? No? Well now I did, so you're kindly welcome.
Anyways I’d say that overall this version of Rachel is pretty different enough from her comics counterpart that I would honestly equate them almost as being two separate and distinct characters. She’s also debatably the more interesting of the two, though that’s probably more a matter of personal opinion. Sadly she’s the only one of the main show’s team to technically not debut in the comics afterwards, though comics Rachel did start taking on a lot of personality quirks from show Rachel, particularly her friendship with Masume/Weapon XIII and her memorable ice cream obsession.
Whether Marvel will ever do more than that, I guess we’ll see, but with the show reaching its 15th anniversary this year, I doubt it. [14]
The appearance of the show’s version of Rachel Summers would mostly resemble this image of her OTL comic counterpart. (Figurerealm.com)
Next is Matthew Lincoln aka Starforce (Voiced by Khary Payton), the leader of the young team of mutants. Just as Rachel stands in as the teams equivalent to Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and Masume stands in as its own Wolverine, Matthew stands in as the teams own equivalent to Cyclops, as not only is he the leader, but his light based powers are not too dissimilar from that of Cyclops own (although truthfully they arguably more resemble that of Cyclops brother Havok), as they allow him to store any light that comes into contact with him in his body, making his body almost like a battery, and then release that light energy in a devastating photonic attack [15].
While Starforce goes through less character development over the course of the show, with him already starting out as a charismatic and gifted leader who stands as the team's rock of stability. Instead where Matt’s development comes in is not through some massive character change, but instead that he has to learn how to actually gain experience and try to manage being a team leader. It's not just handed to him and he's suddenly a great leader, instead he has the potential of one but has to earn and grow into the role. Really the show does a great job of representing that just because someone has a natural talent for leadership, it does not mean they are instantly a leader or that they suddenly have the experience to do so.
Where the real juicy stuff with Matt’s character comes into the show is in how it deals with and demonstrates the struggle of a black kid who's already dealing with racism due to the color of his skin also has to deal with racism from being a mutant. If done badly that topic could honestly have sunk the show, but I think it does a great job at maturely handling the issue and providing good commentary on racism as a whole. In fact one of the episodes centered on Matt’s personal struggles with racism towards fellow blacks and mutants, “Sunkissed” from Season 2, even went on to be nominated for an Emmy.
While I can't say he's exactly my favorite of the team (Masume, Tempus, and Biokenis are my personal favorites), he still makes for a pretty cool and compelling character. Plus his romance with Tempus in later seasons is honestly adorable.
Though not strictly the same, there would be a lot of similarities between the ITTL show and the OTL comic New X-Men: Academy X. (Source: Amazon.com)
Next there was Julian Vargas aka Biokenis (voiced by Dante Basco), the loud and bombastic biokinetic (hence the name) whose powers, though at first seemingly giving him nothing but a simple ability to heal others, quickly grow in scope as they are revealed to actually give him complete and total control and manipulation over any and all biological matter he comes into physical contact with [16].
In some ways representing the teams equivalent of Bobby Drake and Shadowcat due to being the youngest and the least mature, Julian ultimately goes through the darkest arc of the series when in season 3 it’s revealed that with his powers not only can he remove another’s mutant mutation, but he can also make anyone who’s not a mutant now suddenly a mutant, which can be transmitted worldwide when combined with his ability to affect bacteria in order to create any kind of plague or virus he desires. Over the course of season 3 Julian finds himself becoming the number one target of various mutants like Magneto and his Brotherhood as well as the various human factions who oppose mutantkind, as each wishes to either use his power to either make everyone mutants (in the case of Magneto, who I should mention is voiced here by Tom Kane), use him to end all mutants, or simply kill him to ensure he can no longer potentially do either, culminating in him eventually becoming orphaned when his home is attacked and his family is killed.
From then on Julian goes from the comic relief of the main cast to a much darker and more moody character, bitter and angry against the world. And while it ends up being the love and support of his team that helps to prevent him from falling off the metaphorical edge of the cliff and truly going down a darker path, we still end up paying witness to the devastating destruction Julian can cause if he ever snaps across multiple instances of the show. A prime example of this comes in late season 3 when a angry and vengeful Julian infects the entire town of human supremacists whose leaders killed his family with a painful mutation that not only makes them all mutants but deforms their appearances and leaves them all looking monstrous and inhuman, before leaving them all at the mercy of a group of oncoming Sentinels, an act which comes to haunt him and fill him with guilt throughout the rest of the show.
Yeah, for a supposed kids show, it surprisingly doesn’t hold itself back. This show can and does get very dark, despite being technically aimed at kids.
Anyways, even with the support of his friends, it’s not until season 5 when Julian encounters a future version of himself in Bio that our Julian finally starts trying to move away from the dark path he’s been marching himself towards over the past two seasons. Bio, a alternate future version of Julian who snapped and wiped out most of all life on Earth in his future with a deadly virus, becomes the central villain of the show’s 5th season when he travels back in time and decides to ‘fix’ everything by forcibly turning every human on Earth into mutants [17], leading to the team and Biokenis to have to undo it (even if it puts them at odds with Magneto who wants to defend what Bio has done) when it’s revealed that Bio’s fragile psyche caused him to mess up the virus and that all the new ‘mutants’ he created are cellularly degrading and dying.
Like I said, Julian is probably one of my favorites, as he goes through the darkest arc yet he still manages to come out of it a (mostly) good person, even starting to crack jokes again by the seventh season.
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While Biokenis is sort of this timeline’s equivalent of Elixir from OTL’s X-Men, as a character he and his powers end up coming more in line with Amy Dallon/Panacea from OTL’s Web serial Worm. (Source: Fandom.com and Pinterest)
Next is Cynthia Cartwheel aka Tempus (voiced by Venus Terzo), probably the most heroic (she's certainly the shortest) member of the team even if she arguably has the weakest power. Though her power allows her to control time by pausing, speeding, slowing down, or reversing it, she can only do so for a limit of up to 15 seconds for each and she can’t try going back or forward consecutively after use without becoming exhausted or blacking out. While she can and has temporarily broken that 15 second limit during times of extreme stress, even in one episode going back a whole day into the past and in another accidentally launching herself decades into the far future (leading to my favorite episode of the second season that gave us its own interpretation of Days of Futures Past), for most of the series she tends to be stuck with the small 15 second interval time limit to her powers.
Yet where she lacks in power she makes up for in motivation and pure heroism, being the first team member to decide to join the X-Men and serving as the team’s heart and soul, if not the Team Mom [18]. Of course she’s not perfect, and like a lot of the characters on the show she has her own flaws. In Tempus’ case it’s the fact that she can at times be a little too selfless and overbearing, which stems from the loss of her grandfather, a police captain who lost his life saving hundreds from a terrorist attack a few years before. It’s his heroism which ultimately inspires Cynthia to try and follow in his example and be the best inspirational hero she can be. Yet often this results in her both being willing to get involved and put herself in danger she sometimes can’t handle if she thinks someone else is in danger and needs help as well as often being overly concerned for her teammates and being willing to sacrifice herself for them due to fear of losing them.
Still it is something she eventually gets a handle over during the course of the series, as in later seasons she’s willing to trust her teammates to handle themselves and not being as self-sacrificing as in the beginning. Plus hey, despite being the weakest member of the team, you can’t say she isn’t a total badass considering she gets pretty skilled and eventually even manages to solo and take down freaking Magneto in the sixth season with nothing but her wits, her fists, and her short term control over time.
There's a reason I love this pint sized total badass.
Basically an earlier version of X-Men character Tempus from OTL, although with a different real name, personality, and origin. (Fandom.com)
Finally completing out the original six members of the main cast is Jake Jackson aka Canvas (voiced by Quinton Flynn), a character whose powers allow him to temporarily bring up to five things at a time from any image he sees to life which he can fully command and control. An example of this is during his first scene when he takes a photo of a rampaging Juggernaut who’s trying to capture Jake under the orders of Magneto and then proceeds to bring to life two weaker copies of the Juggernaut himself to fight the original.
Now you’d rightfully think that’d make him really OP, especially with the fact that the copies he creates can have the same powers and memories as the original person at the moment the photo or painting was taken/made, but there are tons of interesting little limits to Jake’s power. Some of these include a time limit for how long a copy can exist in the real world before it begins to weaken and disintegrate (which will occur at a faster rate depending on how more powerful the original source is), a copies powers often being somewhat weaker than the original, a hard limit that lets him only create five copycats at once and makes him wait until one disintegrates before he can summon another, and a limit which makes copies of objects more stable and long lasting than copies of people, particularly mutants. A result of that last means he more often tends to create copies of really powerful objects like Thor’s Hammer (which lacks the worthy limit of the original but otherwise gives him the same power of Thor while using it), Captain America’s Shield, Doctor Strange's cloak, or even a fictional plasma gun from a video game he likes playing, since he ultimately has less reason to worry about them quickly disintegrating at an inopportune moment.
Jake of course isn’t a perfect character despite his arguably OP power. In fact, as much as this sarcastic and witty kid did start to grow on me over the course of the show, he nonetheless starts off as a very unlikable and rude brat, not helped by the fact he can and has caused drama due to abusing his powers. In one season 1 episode he gets rejected by a pretty girl while visiting the town near the school and has the bright idea of stealing a photograph of her to create a copy of her that will date him, which if you’ll remember the fact that he has complete and total control over all his copies and that they have the memories of the original makes this honestly pretty creepy and disgusting (especially with some of the implications the show eventually makes about the copies behind sentient/aware living beings), even if you excuse it due to Jakes being so young (he’s barely fifteen in the first season). Thankfully the show and it’s other character agree with me at it being creepy and disgusting since it makes a huge point to show how wrong and vile Jake was for doing that, but that ultimately is just an example of how terrifying Jake’s power is and how willing he is to abuse it.
And sadly it’s not the last and only time he will abuse it. When his mom dies in a car accident in season 3, he keeps trying to bring her back as a copy and tries to hide the fact from his team, thereby nearly getting them hurt in a battle because he didn’t tell them he was using one of his copy slots and could only create four copies rather than his usual five. When the anti-mutant Senator Kelly seems poised to get a worrisome piece of Anti-Mutant legislation passed in the 4th season that the rest of the X-Men are trying to peacefully and legally prevent getting past, Jake has no issue going on his own to betray the teaching of Xavier and the professors as well as the rules of law by creating a copy of Emma Frost to change the memories of four senators allied with Kelly while creating and marching four impersonating copies of those very same senators to ‘turn’ on Kelly and vote down the bill.
If you've ever watched something like Chalkzone, you'd think being able to bring anything from an image, whether fictional or real, to life as a power seems pretty tame, but now imagine having complete control over them and the people or objects being brought to life having the same powers and memories as the original, and put it in the hands of a completely irresponsible teenager. Not so tame now is it? (Source: Pinterest)
And while he does improve over the show, even choosing in season six to only create copies of people who approve being copied beforehand, his is definitely one of the most terrifying and most easy to abuse powers in X-Men and they are ultimately in the hands of a person who very frequently demonstrates over the course of the show that isn’t entirely responsible with them. Let’s just be thankful that he never went villain, at least not in the show (yes readers, I’ve read the recent issue of Uncanny X-Men and yes Canvas going bad is definitely terrifying [19].)
Still I can’t deny that some of my favorite episodes from the show have involved Jake’s powers or been caused by them.
One great example of this is season four’s, Phoenix Reborn, which involves the one and only time Jake ever manages to actually break the limit on his power and create a permanent copy of a person that doesn’t disintegrate or affect his number limit. For those who haven’t watched the episode, basically during a fight with Emma Frost and her students (I’ll get more into that in a moment) he creates a copy of a eighteen year old Jean Grey from when (at least in the timeline of the show, since she was probably much older in the original comic at that point) she was Dark Phoenix, only for her to then not to disintegrate as normal after a certain time, even when he loses his control over her and regains his fifth copy slot. Long story short, the X-Men realize the Phoenix Force intervened to save the copy of its favorite host, they have to fight her, and we get treated to an awesome battle between a Phoenixed up Jean Grey and Rachel Summers against the Dark Phoenix and defeat it. Not a super complicated episode, but definitely a cool and fun one, especially since it ends up giving us the show’s version, and what is arguably my own favorite version, of Madelyne Pryor [20].
As for the aforementioned Emma Frost thing, in the the show’s second season they decided to introduce and adapt the Generation X storyline from the comics, which in case you might have forgotten basically involved a rival mutant school that was headed by X-Men nemesis Emma Frost (voiced by Erica Schroeder). Naturally it had its students who served as rivals to our heroes, with the most prominent and recurring being Chamber, the M-Twins, and Synch. Eventually the school would be attacked by human supremacists in opening of Season Six, resulting in most of what’s left of the school either merging with the Xavier institute or joining Magneto, thus forcing our heroes to have to get used to the idea of not only having former enemy Emma Frost as a teacher but being classmates with the kids they were rivals with and once fought against. That season as a whole does a good job at showcasing former enemies and rivals being forced to get used to the idea of no longer being on opposing sides and having to come to accept each other and work together for the common good.
1994's Generation X comic still comes into existence ITTL just like it did in OTL, leading to it getting adapted in the show as a recurring rival mutant school who often come into conflict with our heroes. (Source: TVTropes)
Honestly there’s a whole lot more about the show I can gush about, like how it introduced a lot of fan favorite characters who would see themselves make the transition to the comics like Pixie, Surge, Prodigy [21], Hunter, Freightrain, and Weapon XIV [22], the show’s outstanding third, fourth, and fifth seasons (all the seasons are great, but those three are really when the show reached its height), or how it did a fantastic jobs of dealing with a lot of the themes of the original comics like overcoming and peacefully fighting discrimination and still also balanced in everyday normal regular teenage problems and issues like relationships, school, and puberty, or how it went on to define and influence the course of X-Men comics for years after more than even the 90's cartoon did. But honestly if I did we’d be here all day if I did and this post is getting way too long, so all I’m going to say is that I’m really glad I finally went back and watched this masterpiece when I did and if you haven’t watched it you really need to give it a shot, even if you aren't an X-Man fan.
Anyways, next time I’ll be talking about Marvel's second attempt at doing a Spider-Man show following the end of the classic 90’s animated series when I discuss 2002’s Spider-Man Unlimited.
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[1] - Not surprising perhaps since while Peter isn’t really officially a member of the team, he joins in their adventures often enough that he’s all but a fifth member.
[2] - This is sort of tying into the attitude of Marvel Editorial that in OTL lead to the infamous and justifiably hated One More Day comic where Peter Parker and Mary Jane sold their marriage to the devil to save a dying Aunt May. Essentially a number of people at Marvel Editorial don’t like Peter and MJ’s marriage and don’t want to have to deal with it, hence why a lot of Marvel Editorial is rallying so much around Ben Reilly here ITTL. Basically Ben being the main Spider-Man lets Marvel have its cake and eat it too as they get to retire Peter without undoing his marriage and give him his happy ending, while at the same time telling all the stories they want with a single Ben Reilly. The fear of bringing Peter officially back is that it’ll undo all that and open the can of worms they just shut on whether or not to end the marriage like they eventually did in OTL, while also disrupting Peter’s happy ending.
[3] - Let's be fair, Ben’s origin is a lot more convoluted for a new reader than Peter’s relatively simple origin is, meaning new readers need to understand or know about both the 70’s and 90’s Clone Saga just to understand Ben and his origin. Seriously, as much as I like Ben Reilly, it’s hard to imagine him being able to stay as the main Spider-Man for long, even with the ITTL 90’s Clone Saga being a lot cleaner and shorter than in OTL.
[4] - The first three episodes of the show that adapted the comic clone saga would then later be merged together and repackaged as a TV movie that could then be sold on home video, kind of like how the first few episodes of Aladdin: The Series and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command in OTL became Aladdin 2: Return of Jafar and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV movies that in OTL got sold on home video.
[5] - Sort of a ITTL version of Ultimate Jessica Drew, in that she’s a female clone of Peter that appears in a one off episode. She notably eventually makes her own ITTL comic book semi-debut in the form of Mary O’Brian during the ITTL early 2010's when the third Spider-Man, Stanley O’Brian, gets his own little three issue clone saga, with the main difference between the cartoon and comic versions being which Spider-Man she’s cloned from.
[6] - Basically a clone of Peter from a one off episode who was born with 6 arms and becomes Man-Spider like in the OTL 90’s show.
[7] - Before anyone complains, Jackal is known for having a Gwen Stacy obsession and frequently makes Gwen clones when he's not making Peter clones, so the idea of him making a clone of Gwen but with Peter's powers is not outside the realm of possibility. Ultimately this Spider-Gwen, for lack of a better term, won't really resemble her OTL in any way, simply being a clone that shows up in a one off episode who's a version of 616 Gwen who also just so happened to have Spider powers. In a show that keeps almost seemingly throwing darts at a wall to see which clone idea can stick, it was bound to have eventually created Spider powered clones of Peter's love interests, Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy.
[8] - Notably since this was the death of the second Spider-Man and led only to the original Spider-Man returning, there’s no general expectation that Ben will necessarily return, so don't worry about this leading to the beginning of the OTL comic trope of death being a vacation that emerged prominently after the OTL Death of Superman comic.
[9] - As mentioned before in my ITTL Spider-Man 2 movie guest post, Stanley is basically a earlier ITTL equivalent to Miles Morales.
[10] - So basically the ITTL equivalent of OTL’s X-Men: Evolution, but if it leaned more into New Mutants aspect, with elements of OTL’s 2001’s and 2004’s New X-Men plus New X-Men: Academy X mixed in. I’d argue it can also be viewed as this timeline’s equivalent to the Young Justice cartoon, since it’s from the same creator as that and OTL’s Spectacular Spider-Man and has a number of similarities to Young Justice despite being X-Men focused rather than DC. In fact, considering this show ends up treating the older classic X-Men much the same way Young Justice treated and handled the Justice League, I’d say the comparison is even more appropriate.
[11] - Basically ITTL’s version of X-23, who still exists because her creator Craig Kyle is still involved like he was with OTL’s X-Men Evolution. Though she has a somewhat similar origin and identical powers (like OTL X-23 she has two claws on her hands and one on her feet along with the general Wolverine power set), the ultimate big difference (other than her prominent Japanese ethnicity) between this version of Laura (named Masume, which is Japanese for Daughter. If you can’t take the hint, it’s because that is the only thing she was ever referred to as growing other than Weapon XIII) and her OTL counterpart is of course the lack of cloning in her origin which is mostly as a result of cloning headache caused by the then ongoing 1999 Spider-Man show making the showrunners for this X-Men show want to steer clear of clones whenever possible. Instead her origin is kind of more similar to that of OTL’s Cassandra Cain, except instead of Lady Shiva for a mother, it’s Lady Deathstrike.
[12] - If you know about Rachel Summers in Days of Future Past, you can probably already guess what said hint is of. If you don’t, look up Rachel Summers Hound. It's honestly kind of messed up.
[13] - I’d kind of almost compare her to Weiss Schnee from RWBY, if you want a example of a character with a similar character development and transition.
[14] - In ITTL 2018, so about three years after this was written, they would sort of finally do this by having Rachel Summers in the comics experience and gain the memories of an alternate life and childhood which is basically almost or at the very least similar identical to her life from the X-Men: Mutant High show. Thus sort of trying to merge comic Rachel with her popular show counterpart.
[15] - Admittedly I’m taking inspiration for this character's powers (Just the powers mind you) somewhat from an original character from a X-Men fic called Extraordinary Times by Kenchi618. I’d highly recommend reading it if you haven’t and are a fan of the X-Men.
[16] - While one could argue that he could be considered the ITTL counterpart/equivalent of Elixir, in truth Biokenis’s powers (and arguably much of his character direction after season 3) more closely resemble that of Amy Dallon/Panacea from the web serial novel Worm by Wildbow, minus the fact that like Elixir and unlike Amy, Biokenis can also affect his own biology. There’s no manipulation of life force like Elixir has, instead Biokenis how the full ability to control, reshape, and manipulate any and all biological matter he comes into physical contact with.
[17] - Arguably that makes this arc from the show’s fifth season the ITTL equivalent of House of M, since it features a world where mutants "win" and everyone is a mutant.
[18] - If you want examples, you can almost say she’s the Katara (from Avatar: The Last Airbender) of the show, though sort of also mixed with Ruby Rose from RWBY.
[19] - You'd know that if you read the Hensonverse's Uncanny X-Men #598!
[20] - So yeah that’s sort of how the show introduces Madelyne Pryor, who both is and isn’t a clone. She’s basically a copy of Dark Phoenix era Jean Grey created by Canvas that due to an intervention by the Marvel Universe’s literal embodiment of life and creation basically got saved when she would have started disintegrating after Jake’s power was no longer attached to her and therefore keeping her alive. She then goes on to fight the X-Men, her older self, and her alternate daughter before getting defeated and separated from the Phoenix by the combined efforts of her older self and alternate daughter. Then she kind of finds herself struggling to move past the trauma of not being the real Jean Grey, having been Dark Phoenix and briefly being completely and totally having her body and will controlled by Canvas, as well as having a hard time adjusting to living in what is essentially her future with her alternate future self and said alternate future self’s daughter and husband Cyclops (who from the perspective of young Jean was her boyfriend before she got copied and brought to the future). In the following season young Jean runs away from the school, goes rogue, and meets Magneto. She briefly then becomes a villain in Magneto's Brotherhood for a while before getting a redemption arc in the final season, rejoining the school, and even starting a romance with Logan. Oh and during all this she decides to adopt the name Madelyne Pryor, which in the universe of the show is Jean’s middle name (Madelyne) mixed with her mother’s maiden name (Pryor).
[21] - All three of whom you might notice are the ITTL equivalents of the characters from the same name. Though all of them were created in OTL in 2004, the reason they or rather alternate versions of them still exist here is because they were all created by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir. In case you aren’t aware they’re both comic book and television writers, having worked on X-Men comics and the show Kim Possible. I figured therefore it’s not outside the realm of possibility they end up working on this show and end up introducing some of the same, or at least close approximations, of the X-Men characters they created in OTL.
[22] - Think X-24 from the OTL movie Logan. He’s basically a mindless clone of Wolverine who’s under the control of Weapon X.
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So yeah that was a lot. I guess tell me what you think?