aaronwaltke

[aaronwaltke]

hey Aaron! I just recently found you!

I hope you don’t mind if I ask- what makes a story worth writing/ telling for you? what do you crave in a good story?

Jesus loves you- thanks!

There is probably too much for me to say on this topic, so I will try to keep it brief. I also don’t want to be prescriptive — there are a lot of great ways to tell stories. I gravitate towards some more than others.

For me, a few aspects stand out. Personal emotions and struggle and growth, set against a backdrop of grand scale and big ideas. Epic adventure with a wide enough umbrella to hold joy and fear and sorrow and silliness and regret in its full spectrum. I also enjoy genre for that very reason — it tends to use myth and magic and speculative fiction as a metaphorical lens to explore universal truths about the human condition with relevance to our contemporary experience.

I also am a fan of stories about outsiders looking in — sometimes, the best view from which to apprehend life is held by those who don’t fit easily within its confines. Stories about strangers who are thrust together as they hurry in out of the rain. Oddities and weirdos that cling to the promise of a future over the next horizon, even if they’re unsure how they’ll get there or if it exists outside of their most secret dreams.

And lately, I’m drawn to hopepunk. It’s easy to tear down or simmer in the numbing abyss of nihilism. The bravest thing someone can do is stare into it, take a breath, then look for the toeholds you can use to lift others up and inch towards the shelter of something better… even if you have to create it yourself, one stone at a time, brick by brick.

[aaronwaltke]

Who's been your favorite character to write for the Wings of Fire TV show so far?

Honestly? Queen Scarlet is a LOT of fun to write.

[aaronwaltke]

Aaron Waltke has been reading up on the Wings of Fire series!

[aaronwaltke]

Hey Aaron, hope you don't mind answering this. Are you a fan of Robert McKee and do you have a favourite book on writing (not necessarily by Robert) be it about story, dialogue, screenplay or something else?

I haven’t delved much into McKee, but I’ve heard his work is useful if you need a framework to jump off from. Similarly, I’d recommend Save the Cat as a very straight forward guide to Hollywood structure. Some also swear by Syd Field’s Screenplay, which coined the phrase “fatal flaw” in screenwriting protagonists.

Dan Harmon’s story circle (unabridged installments can be found here) and Matt Stone/Trey Parker’s “buts and therefores” methodology are also great quick references to kick the tires on whatever narrative you are trying to crack.

Once you’ve delved into those, I highly recommend finding as many screenplays as you can — not transcriptions — and reading them, while applying what you’ve learned. That way you can see inside and out how they conform and break from the norms as needed.

[aaronwaltke]

Hello Aaron! This is the blog behind wingsoffirenews here on Tumblr! I was wondering if potentially you'd like to share what FanWing Fest was like while you were there, like what activities and crafts were present. And if you were there for the "special video announcement," maybe you could share what that was! I plan to share this with my followers if you don't mind! It's all up to you and I hope you had a fantastic time!

The recent FanWing Fest in Glendale, CA at “Once Upon a Bookstore” was a lovely event — fun activities like a trivia contest, a scavenger hunt, and a “draw your own dragon” station and I believe a spot where you could make your own dragon ears. While I was there, the book store was completely full of young fans, many of whom had wonderful questions for me about storytelling, the series and how animation works.

It ended with a special video from Tui herself welcoming everyone and doing a reading from the upcoming book, “The Hybrid Prince.”

[aaronwaltke]

Aaron Waltke was at today's FanWing Fest!

[aaronwaltke]

Thank you Television Critics Association for nominating STAR TREK: PRODIGY in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming”!

Congratulations to everyone on our crew. 🖖

[aaronwaltke]

Sorry for another question so soon it’s just this has been haunting me for so long but since it was never explicitly explored in the show

can and how would Blinky and Dictatious make up after everything that happened in the Darklands/after?

Would Dictatious ever acknowledge what he did was wrong and apologize to Blinky? Again sorry for asking so many questions I really appreciate you taking the time to answer them 🙏

Given how they both tend to over-intellectualize things, I’d imagine they’d have a heart to heart that was the equivalent of twelve hours of talk therapy and hash it out, both apologizing profusely.

[aaronwaltke]

hi aaron. i have an ask about the ending of wizards!! (hoping it hasnt been asked yet)

i believe(?) i read that one of the ideas for post-full-troll jim was for him to become a changeling. was there a reason he turned fully human again instead? thank you!!

For Wizards, we’d originally planned for Claire to use her new mastery over shadow magic to turn Jim into a changeling, just as Morgana originally created them back in the Middle Ages. (Merlin couldn’t do it or refused to acknowledge the possibilities of its powers, because he never learned or trusted dark magic.) Jim would have been able to shift between human, half-troll and beast form at will — or perhaps via his emotions, not unlike The Hulk.

This ending was altered when those working on the follow-up film determined Jim’s arc for the movie would revolve around him coming to terms with losing his powers and being “merely human” during the magic apocalypse. Sadly, our ending simply wouldn’t work with that direction for the film.

For the curious, I’ve attached a small snippet of the original outline grid to see how it would have slotted in rather elegantly.

[aaronwaltke]

Idk if you answer questions on Trollhunters anymore but

I've been wondering lately about Blinky and Kanjigars dynamic and while I know the tie-in books display some of it (saying they were best friends, ect) I was wondering if you had anymore insight to give on the two? like for example to what extent did Blinky help with training Kanjigar as Trollhunter?

I think they likely had some interaction, but it may have largely been one of admiration on Blinky’s side. From what I recall in the writers’ room, when we meet Blinky at the beginning of Trollhunters he is largely considered an eccentric, if not somewhat of a hasbeen, because the last Trollhunter he personally trained was Unkar the Unfortunate who died so quickly that Blinky lost credibility.

We do see in some episodes that Blinky is quite familiar with Kanjigar’s moves and exploits — “Kanjigar’s Creeping Spider! A Classic!” I’m sure Kanjigar tolerated his praise and/or suggestions admirably, while mostly keeping his distance or doing his own thing.

[aaronwaltke]

STAR TREK: PRODIGY - S2E13 A Tribble Called Quest

[aaronwaltke]

To celebrate the reveal of Aaron J. Waltke being the showrunner for the Wings of Fire show I thought I’d create some crossover art of Trollhunters and WoF!

Lake and Goby the Seawings and Shadowdancer the animus Nightwing! ^^

For those who care, I have thought about this crossover extensively, so here is a list of everyone else's tribes lol

Steve: Sandwing

Eli: Rainwing

Aja: Silkwing

Krel: Silkwing

Varvatos: Hivewing (The Morando coup is the “Tree Wars”)

Luug: Fennec Fox

Douxie: Animus Mudwing (Icewing in bloodline)

Archie: Animus enchanted cat (Same abilities as in show)

Zoe: Animus Skywing

Merlin: Animus Icewing

Morgana: Animus Nightwing

Nari: Ancient Leaf-Speaker (Like Freedom)

Trolls: Still Trolls

[aaronwaltke]

What a fun day that was at FanWing Fest in San Diego, celebrating Wings of Fire! I met so many amazing and passionate fans.

I can’t wait for you all to see the TV series we are working on for Amazon Prime!

[aaronwaltke]

Steve Palchuk is one of my favorite characters, especially the book version. Were you and the other writer(s) originally going to keep him as a changeling? I've heard that Draal was supposed to be his changling form in the show, and I've been wondering why the writers changed him to human.

I love the series, thank you for working on it and the fun I had watching it.

Very early on, we briefly discussed the possibility of Steve being a changeling as he was in the books — but we realized it would have a lot of emotional overlap and repetition with his favorite teacher Strickler also being a changeling. So, we decided it would be more interesting to keep him human, as a representative of the troubles Jim faced exclusively in the human world.

It’s possible an early sketch of Draal was originally an exploration of what Steve would look like as a troll — but from what I remember, Draal’s design was originally an early conceptual sketch of Bular. That said, I believe the team commissioned mock-ups of all the teachers as trolls when Trollhunters was still being developed as a feature film before it became a series.

They were such good designs, I think most of them were reused in some form or another as residents of Trollmarket!

[aaronwaltke]

Since a few folks have been asking me, some action adventure projects I’ve been involved with are:

TROLLHUNTERS

WIZARDS

STAR TREK: PRODIGY

DC COMICS

TRANSFORMERS ONE

And now, WINGS OF FIRE

I was busy working on other projects in development between, so I wasn’t involved in 3Below or the Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans movie. I also co-wrote an episode of Teen Titans Go, but that was a freelance script for friends — I wasn’t part of the production.

Suffice to say, I love genre! Specifically fantasy and science fiction, where emotional journeys collide with the extraordinary. Metaphorical lenses that reflect our time.

[aaronwaltke]

I’m beyond thrilled to be joining Tui T. Sutherland on this journey, adapting her fantastic WINGS OF FIRE novels as a television event series for Amazon Prime.

Pyrrhia is a realm of wonder, epic drama, and hope for a better tomorrow.

I can’t wait for you all to see it take flight!

[aaronwaltke]

There is no reply back button after you answer my messages and it always feels rude like I got my answer and that's that, so I just wanted to say thank you Aaron, truly, for answering my questions. I know the fandom can be much at times and I know I tend to contribute to that with my takes. But the sheer fact that you take time to reply to people you don't know ... I don't know it's just that I'm really grateful for that.

My pleasure!

At the risk of sounding too pretentious, I believe one of the main purposes of art is to engage with others in a personal (and sometimes challenging) way. It is gratifying to have the opportunity to talk with folks about my work, if it enhances the dialogue.