#Michael Reaves

[yankeeblue]

LeBron James & Stephen Curry embrace after USA beats France 98-87 to win the Gold medal. Photographed by Michael Reaves & Gregory Shamus.

[90smovies]

[legends-expo]

We’re thinking of the late Michael Reaves’ contributions to the Star Wars galaxy on his birthday today. We have him to thank for the MedStar and Coruscant Nights series, several stand-alone novels, as well as penning episodes on the original Droids and Ewoks animated shows.

[forcesung]

Barriss rose to her feet-just how, Jos could not have said. She seemed to levitate-one moment she was sprawled on the ground, and the next she stood upright. Impressive as that was, however, it was nothing compared to her next action. As Jos watched in astonishment, the Padawan leapt across the bota field, covering a distance of at least ten meters in a single bound. As she arced through the air toward the droid, Jos saw another flash of light. At first he thought the droid had fired again, but then he realized the glow came from Barriss’s hand. She had drawn her lightsaber. Jos had seen images and holos of the Jedi weapon in use, but he had never before seen one in real life. Barriss’s energy blade was an azure streak about a meter in length. It made a sound like a nest of angry wing-stingers, and, even over the noisome stenches borne on the breeze from the nearby swamp, he could smell the acrid scent of ozone it produced. He watched, openmouthed, as Barriss landed next to the battle droid. Before it could fire again, she struck a single blow with the energy weapon that sheared halfway through the droid’s torso. Sparks erupted, and the droid collapsed.

—Medstar I: Battle Surgeons, Michael Reaves

[tomoleary]

John Harris Proposed sketch for the novel 'Death Star' by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry (2007) Source

Final cover

[vertigoartgore]

1994's Gargoyles pilot episode turns 30 today. Feel old yet ?

[tara-of-helium]

The Black Hole of Carcosa by John Shirley, 1988. Cover art by Bob Larkin.

[book0ftheday]

Dragonworld: An Epic Fantasy by Byron Preiss and Michael J. Reaves, illustrated by Joseph Zucker, published 1979.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Gargoyles the Movie: Heroes Awaken (1994)

Back in 1995, I distinctly remember seeing a VHS of Gargoyles: The Movie at the video rental store. I picked it as my movie of the week and was disappointed when I realized it was only the 5-part series premiere edited together. This means we’re not really talking about a movie here, but we sort of are as well. Let's consider it a made-for-TV movie for this review's sake. As that, how does this fare?

In 994 A.D., Scotland, Castle Wyvern repels any invaders thanks to its stone gargoyles, which come to life at nighttime. Despite his frightening appearance, their leader, Goliath (voiced by Keith David) desires only cooperation between his clan and the humans who defend them while they are petrified during the day. Following a betrayal from within the castle walls, most of the gargoyles are destroyed and the few survivors are frozen in stone until the castle they defend rises above the clouds. A thousand years later, in Manhattan, billionaire David Xanatos (Jonathan Frakes) has moved the castle above his headquarters. Awoken in an unfamiliar world, they find a friend in Elisa Maza (Salli Richardson), an open-minded police detective.

Don’t expect the visuals to rival a theatrical production or even something like Nickelodeon’s The Last Airbender. While the characters are consistently on-model, I spotted at least one coloring error in the second half of the picture and there is more than one instance of the stone gargoyles looking pretty different from their awakened state - the "statues" are painted as static background elements so the stone texture and the angles of their muscles/limbs are much more detailed than anything in the moving foreground. Finally, this is a pilot so while it is self-contained, many threads will only pay off in later seasons, such as the gargoyle eggs Goliath leaves with Princess Katharine (Kath Soucie) and her wizard (Jeff Bennett) (not sure why he did that, in hindsight). That said, this is a strong debut.

There are many characters in this story and the gargoyles other than Goliath - they name themselves Lexington (Thom Adcox Hernandez), Hudson (Ed Asner), Brooklyn (Jeff Bennett again), Broadway (Bill Fagerbakke), and Bronx (Frank Welker) - are more established than given character arcs. This makes Goliath the protagonist and the others supporting characters. I’ve found that in most children’s television series, the leader turns out to be the least interesting member of a team but that’s not the case here. Goliath is at once trusting of humans and wary of opening up. He can be calm and collected but is also prone to fits of rage and frequently talks of vengeance against those who’ve wronged him. He adapts well to his new setting but shows no affinity for modern-day tech like some of his comrades. He's many things at once, which keeps you watching and wondering what's next. There are no obvious character arcs within him.

Gargoyles rather elegantly uses the limitations imposed upon it as a boy’s property to its advantage. All of the gargoyles in Manhattan are male, guaranteeing there won’t be any weird “should we start repopulating?” discussions. It also adds an extra level of tragedy to the story by making them the last of their kind. Conveniently, this makes Elisa the lone female hero of the show/film without making her a token. If there’s a secondary protagonist, it’s her (which gives you a bit of a Beauty and the Beast vibe) and unlike other shows, her status as a colored woman does not make her feel like a quota. It should also be noted that Xanatos is a person of color as well, making this a show with more POC than Caucasians. It may be because most of the cast are non-humans but that’s still something I feel is worth noting.

The story features plenty of varied action. There are battles set in 994 and others in the present as well - some of which don’t include the gargoyles at all and allow the human characters to shine. There are twists and turns as allies become enemies and new partnerships are formed. The general tone is tragic and adventurous with a few bits of comedy thrown in here and there. Best of all, this is a wholly original property. The show was conceived as an answer to Batman: The Animated Series but rather than dig up some available superhero property (this was years before Disney acquired Marvel), it's is something new.

My favorite scene of the film is an interaction between Goliath and his mate, Demona (Marina Sirtis), who managed to survive the thousand-year slumber. During a mission for Xanatos, she prepares to throw an unconscious guard out of an airlock to his death but is stopped by Goliath. “The centuries have made you weak, Goliath,” she says. The thing is, very little time has actually passed for the winged warrior. He’s been frozen in stone. He HASN’T changed but that one sentence shows how much she HAS. It’s a nice subtle exchange.

I am coming into this review biased. Though I haven’t seen the show in years, I remember it well and certainly, remember how it made me feel in 1994. It played right into my fascination with mythology & monsters and I attribute my affection for Shakespeare (the series draws inspiration from Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, among others) to the show. It had a lasting impression on me and I believe it has the power to enchant young audiences once more. (July 28, 2022)

[dndhistory]

327. Michael Reaves - Dungeons & Dragons, Episode 15: The Treasure of Tardos  (September 15, 1984)

A fun and important episode of the animated series, The Treasure of Tardos actually gives us the first hint to a more complex plot underlying the story we've been following for the last 15 episodes, and hints at a more involved storyline to come. But that comes right at the end of the episode, so let's look at how it starts first.

There is a danger to the world and Dungeon Master asks the heroes to go fight a monster called the Demodragon, a new monster which D&D fans might recognize as a kind of mix between the Demogorgon and Tiamat, with the lower body of an animal, tentacles and two heads like Demogorgon (although it has hooves); but two heads which are dragon-like, a red one which spits fire and a blue one which spits ice. This monster is being controlled by Venger and aims both to attack the city of Tardos and retrieve the party's magical weapons.

When the Demodragon captures the party's magical weapons the control that Venger had over it is dissipated and the monster goes rogue. This leads to a temporary alliance between the party and Venger to defeat the Demodragon. After all is done we get the revelation right at the end of the episode from a teary eyed Dungeon Master speaking to the screen that Venger's downfall into evil is actually the DMs fault. Fade to black, episode end. Talk about a cliffhanger! 

[mikyapixie]

30 years ago today Gargoyles premiered in syndication!!!

🤩🤩🤩A PERFECT CLASSIC!!!🤩🤩🤩

[90smovies]

[reviews-by-raven]

Star Wars: Darth Maul Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[forcesung]

Back in the Temple, she had once listened to Mace Windu tell a group of students that killing somebody was easy-you could do it with a single swipe of your lightsaber. But living with the knowledge that you had killed somebody would change you for-ever. The Jedi Master had been right-it had certainly changed her. Killing was not a thing you did lightly, not if you had any kind of compassion, or even minimally decent moral and ethical codes. Sometimes, to protect the innocent, or one’s own life, justice and survival demanded a Jedi strike with enough power to lay an attacker low. But the fact that it was necessary did not absolve you from seeing the faces in your dreams, or hearing the anguished cries of the fallen late in the silent night. [...] The Force allowed you to be a powerful fighter, but it also leavened your impulse to do violence. When you knew what you could do with your lightsaber, knew how deadly you were, it gave you pause. Because you could do a thing did not mean that you should... She shook her head.

—Medstar I: Battle Surgeons, Michael Reaves

[very-grownup]

Book 90, 2023

Have you ever read something that you recognize isn't bad but /is/ a bad book? Welcome to "InterWorld" by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves, a book I will be keeping because I have hoarding tendencies. Since I own most of Gaiman's novels, it feels improper to get rid of this title. (It's the inverse of Orson Scott Card, where the author revealed himself to be so toxic I steadily pared down my collection until I was left with "Ender's Game", the object an anchor for my grade eight camping trip and the taste of fresh caught fish cooked over an open fire and eaten with fingers in cool-damp morning.)

"InterWorld" is the most 'let's try to scrape some kind of profit from the time sunk into this project by settling for this ill-fitting adaptation' I've ever encountered. We've all seen unaired TV pilot retooled was TV movie and I know there are self-conscious 'this sitcom pitch got turned down, maybe podcast?' examples out there, and I know old school webcomics that dropped the comic part when there was a falling out with the artist and tried to continue via text alone. The last is probably the closest to "InterWorld", probably because Gaiman and Reaves both had success doing the writing part of visual media (Gaiman's bibliography in that area is well known, while Reaves was head writer for Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles).

It's explicitly admitted in the book's endnote that "InterWorld" was the result of Gaiman and Reaves trying to produce something for tv executives that would make the premise for their series pitch easier to understand (this was before they unlocked the 'throw things into landfill for infinite tax benefit cheat code') and I'm not convinced they put that much time into making it a book-book for publication. There's a real sticks and glue feeling to "InterWorld" and you're expecting a house. Not a big fancy house, not a mansion, just a little default filler house. But you don't have to look at the sticks you were given for long before realizing 'aw shit man this is a repurposed boat'.

The idea of "InterWorld" is a multiverse middle grade adventure battle between extreme forces of magic/chaos and technology/order because what kid doesn't want robots /and/ dragons? There's an organization charged with keeping worlds from falling fully under the control of either side. The twist is that the organization is staffed entirely by versions of the same person from different worlds.

This is a genuinely cool idea and great for kids who aren't quite teenagers, giving Gaiman and Reaves a lot of avenues to explore different genders, cultures, species, just identity in general and how different circumstances can see the same seed growing into wildly varied plants. It's easy to imagine how interesting this could be.

In a visual medium.

Especially something animated, where you could create character designs allowing the viewer to immediately distinguish Main Character Joey from Girl Joey from Joey But Robot.

In writing "The Warrior's Apprentice", Lois McMaster Bujold wanted to name the love interest "Nile". Her protagonist? "Miles". Feedback on the proofreading and copyediting nightmare of a Miles and Nile in the same book saw "Nile" become "Elena".

Please enjoy imagining how frustrating an entire book full of J-name variant characters is, because it is the thing that marks "InterWorld" most clearly as something that should never have been a book and also just a constant little itching in my eye and brain.

Double-checking some things in writing this up reveals that Gaiman and Reaves did publish two sequels, well after the fact. I'm surprised because another thing that made the book feel unlike a book is that it finished not only with loose threads of plot dangling, but with the greatest implied conflict unresolved. A villain from the tech end of the spectrum wasn't even present and my reaction, on finishing the book, was 'well sure, you wouldn't have written the arcs of multiple seasons into this pitchbook, you'd have the establishing arc and maybe one or two bits of adventure after that'.

If I ever stumbled across the following books on the cheap I might pick them up, but I feel no compulsion to do so, and "InterWorld" remains on my shelf as a curio more than a book.

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 105 (Oct. 24, 1987) - "Where No One Has Gone Before"

Written by: Diane Duane & Michael Reaves Directed by: Rob Bowman

The Breakdown

On Starfleet's orders, an Engineer named Kosinski is sent to improve the Enterprise’s warp efficiency with the aid of his mysterious assistant. Kosinski immediately reveals himself to be quite the pompous dickhead with a massive ego, but orders are orders, so Picard and Co. induldge him.  The first test goes so unbelievably well that the Enterprise finds itself in another Galaxy, which everyone acknowledges is a bit too far to make a return trip using standard warp speeds alone.

Excitement over this new technological achievement is soon quelled when Kosinski finds himself unable to repeat the experiment, leaving the Enterprise potentially stranded in the middle of nowhere.  It turns out that Kosinski was actually just an idiot the entire time, and it was actually his assistant who made the jump, on account of being a ‘traveller’ with special abilities that allow him go wherever he wants, with few limitations. Unfortunately, exhaustion just happens to be one one such limitation; and this dude is plenty exhausted after the jump.

Wesley has been the only person up to this point to notice the Traveler, and has tried to bring it to Picard’s attention, but everyone keeps getting too irritated by Wesley’s “Wesleyness” to bother listening to him.  But once Picard IS willing to listen, he pays the Traveller a visit where the mysterious visitor explains that he is a) from a group of advanced space jumping folk, and b) that Wesley is super special and that he should be encouraged in his specialness, but never told about it overtly (apparently he needs to figure it out on his own, for reasons that are definitely not arbitrary).  And with that, the Traveller agrees to one last attempt towards bringing everyone home.  It almost fails again, but Wesley is evidently able to transfer some of his special-boy-energy to aid the Traveller before he disappears-possibly-to-death. With everyone home safe, Picard decides to let Wesley become an acting ensign, to start him on his chosen-one journey toward specialness.

The Verdict

This may be the first episode (chronologically speaking). That I can honestly say I like. Oh, there are still plenty of hokey and down-right-cringey moments, also Wesley is more involved than I care for, but at it’s core this is a solid little episode. The Traveler and his story are both intriguing, and there’s some solid groundwork that’s established seemingly in the service of Picard becoming less of an asshole to children (and hopefully also just in general). I can understand why others would rate this lower, but with Star Trek one has embrace a little campiness, and an embarrassing dose of optimism; That being said, ‘Where No One Has Gone Before’ very closely pushes the limit of what I can tolerate for both.

3 stars (out of 5)

Additional Observations

ST: Voyager is basically the same plot + 7 seasons.

I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually don’t despise Wesley this time around. I mean yeah he’s still the worst (sorry Wil Wheaton), but his character serves the plot, and he legitimately does nothing wrong. Indeed, he actually helps, all while enduring a lot of abuse. I came very close to rooting for him.

At the same time, the way the crew bullies Wesley is also hilarious, if only because it goes completely unaddressed. It’s like the show is trying to gaslight the audience into doubting that it’s even happening.