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Glen Murakami Teen Titans Interview 2017-01-10 04:27:10 Post No. 89028354
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Glen Murakami Teen Titans Interview 2017-01-10 04:27:10 Post No. 89028354
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Posting a comprehensive interview with Glen Murakami from several years ago about Teen Titans for those who haven't seen it: http://www.titanstower.com/five-seasons-of-murakanime/
Here are excerpts:
BW: TEEN TITANS used a more Japanese approach to storytelling – with the super-deformed reactions and pictorial reactions. Was there any concern about doing that approach in a super-hero show?
Glen: I think the thing we tried with TITANS was an “anything goes” approach. We knew going in, that it wasn’t going to be a typical super-hero show. We didn’t know whether or not it would all work – but we didn’t think there was any reason not to try them. I think sometimes people are dismissive and they say, “Well, you guys are just doing fake anime.” I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to do that stuff.
BW: Slade developed quite a bit during the first season. The original plan was to make him the generic mastermind, but he became much more that that. How did Slade’s role change during the first season?
Glen: Originally, they didn’t want the big bad guy to be as involved in the story. So as we were working on it, David and I had to quickly figure out the reason for Slade. A lot of times, I think it’s more interesting to just make the bad guy the bad guy. Sometimes when you explain the villains, they end up being sympathetic. So if you find out things about Slade, you could end up sympathizing with him – and maybe that makes the character more emotional or more human… But he’s the bad guy. He doesn’t need to be more human. My job is to make Robin more human. So I kind of like the fact that you don’t know who Slade is. That’s how I looked at him.
I remember we asked “What does Slade want?” So we thought, it would be the opposite of Batman...
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>>89028354
BW: Terra became a more sympathetic character than her comic book counterpart; Was it intentional to show more things from her point of view?
Glen: A lot of things with Terra in the comics we just couldn’t do. And a lot of that story relied on how the characters were outside of their costumes. That wasn’t going to support our story.
We knew that we wanted to do Terra. And we knew that we wanted to make her different than the comic book version. I wanted to make her more contemporary. I had her wear more normal clothes, rather than a straight super-hero outfit.
We did want to play the character out longer in the series. But we ended up getting crunched for time and we couldn’t do that in the series. We wanted to show her being part of the group more. The in-between episodes were supposed to have Terra in them. So she felt like part of the group. That way, when the betrayal happened, it would have been more of a shock. It would have been nice to incorporate her into the title sequence. It would have been nice to put her in more episodes. But you run out time. And I know that’s what the fans. And we wanted it too. In the comic, the story just had more time to play it out.
Glen: We wanted to do Brother Blood – but we couldn’t do Brother Blood as a cult leader who hangs out in a pool of blood. We were afraid he’d be too similar to Slade....
BW: We went through a number of changes throughout the season.
Glen: Yeah, and honestly, I have to say, I don’t know if we figured it out quite as well as we did with Slade. It’s tough. There were a number of things we couldn’t do with him – things that wouldn’t be appropriate for a 6-11 year old cartoon. We weren’t trying to water down the character. So maybe it didn’t quite work. I didn’t feel I had a great handle on who Brother Blood was.
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>>89028509
BW: Season four also dealt with the Robin/Starfire relationship in STRANDED. Did you guys talk a lot about that relationship and how far you wanted to take it?
Glen: Here’s the thing about Robin and Starfire: I didn’t want them to be a real couple. I wanted them to like each other and make that pretty clear. But getting into an actual relationship was too complicated for what the show was. I think it would make the stories too complicated.
The show was always supposed to be really, really iconic. And be about metaphors. I wanted the characters to be universal. And make the characters relatable. And by coupling them up, the characters would start to be defined by their relationship – rather than by themselves. I thought that would take away from the characters. I think it’s enough to know that those two characters like each other.
...The fifth season at one point was going to be 20 episodes. We were going to have Slade and the Brotherhood team up at one point. We didn’t get to use the Brotherhood quite the way I wanted. We didn’t get to use the Chief [the leader of the Doom Patrol]. I wanted to use him, but we just didn’t have time. I wanted to bring back Robotman for another story. There was a lot of stuff we wanted to do.
BW: Any plans or ideas for characters in the sixth season?
Glen: If we did a sixth season, we would have probably used Phobia. We would have used Mister Twister. I wanted to do another Mad Mod episode. We talked about Ravager for the sixth season, I think one concern with using her, was making it too similar to Terra. But we did talk about using her.
*That's it for excerpts. Any thoughts?*
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>>89028626
I wouldn't have minded seeing Ravager. Damn I missed this show
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>>89028626
Why wasn't there a sixth season?
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Man I want this Teen Titans back... Been a fan ever since watching it on CN and then read The New Teen Titans and the newest Starfire and Cyborg stories. Sadly the new stuff I read not from Wolfman have been pretty disappointing. Still sad the live action TT show was cancelled... I occasionally catch Go on TV and while yeah it upsets me it's not a new series, it's still funny and clever at some parts at least. Well Cyborg is one of my favorites and he looks pretty good so can't wait to see how he does in Justice League. By the way, any good Teen Titans comics, or anything I should read or watch?
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>>89028354
>My job is to make Robin more human
And yet somehow he still had the personality of a fucking brick.
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>>89029301
>And yet somehow he still had the personality of a fucking brick.
Well, he was raised by batman.
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>>89029174
Executives
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>>89028509
>We did want to play the character out longer in the series. But we ended up getting crunched for time and we couldn’t do that in the series. We wanted to show her being part of the group more. The in-between episodes were supposed to have Terra in them. So she felt like part of the group. That way, when the betrayal happened, it would have been more of a shock. It would have been nice to incorporate her into the title sequence. It would have been nice to put her in more episodes. But you run out time. And I know that’s what the fans. And we wanted it too. In the comic, the story just had more time to play it out.
Yeah, that would have been cool. I know they shoved her into the very end of "Winner Take All"
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>>89028626
>I wanted to do another Mad Mod episode.
Well, damnit, I don't care about the rest but that one stings.
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