Congratulations on the new novel from me, as well and thanks for responding to my questions. It seems I opened a Pandora's Box of sorts with my lengthy inquiries about Arrow. I couldn't help myself. I love that show. I remain a proponent for a book about the show. Memory is a tricky thing.
Having seen and read much of your TV, film and novel writings, I'm wondering how your non-writing life blends into and informs your concepts, dialog, descriptions, character development and characters' relationships. How does your art imitate life?
Thank you for answering the question about FlashForward! I'm glad to hear that Dyson Frost (Michael Massee) and his associates ("the bad guys") were actually the good guys the whole time. That is my favorite kind of plot twist. I always knew they were the good guys because they had had thousands of flashforwards and they could have easily used that to enrich themselves, take out Mark and Lloyd, etc. Plus, Dyson Frost said that the whole world was running out of time, so I figured that someone could justify causing a global blackout killing 20 million people in order to save the entire world...
I love the idea of having the decreasing time horizons for each flashforward: great increase in tension. I can imagine if the series had continued that governments and corporations would try to engineer flashforwards to "print their own money" as Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan) said or to manipulate geopolitics as CIA agent Mike Vogel (Michael Ealy) said. There's lots of different ways the show could have went with this... (like Minority Report). And I imagine Dyson Frost was staying in the shadows because he didn't want people to abuse this ability.
I was thinking the extinction level event might have been nuclear war because of the reference to Oppenheimer, and plus it's one of the few events caused by people to end all of humanity. (Outside of maybe AI running amok or an engineered bioweapon, but those aren't really about people being antagonistic towards each other or other countries, so less drama and conflict. And if it had been a bioweapon, there could have been a single point in space and time they could have stopped it from originating. And there was a single date written on Dyson Frost's Garden of Forking Paths for "The End" so an event that happens within a day. It could have been an asteroid strike but they could have just warned people about that.) Plus Dyson Frost grew up in Wyoming where they have nuclear stockpiles...
From your answer, it sounds like the flashforwards were designed to give humanity the knowledge that the visions largely turn out to be true, and humankind would then truly believe they only have 24-hours left to live in the final flashforward, and would act together to save themselves...
In retrospect, I think there would have been a way Crisis could have incorporated Dean Cain without actually having him in it. Or it's just my fannish wishful thinking:
What if, in the Earth-75 sequence, the extra doubling for Superman had been wearing a Dean Cain costume and it was Teri Hatcher mourning him? That way. no credit can be given to that guy while at the same time, the show could have still been represented. Then again, maybe the budget was so high at that point, Teri Hatcher was not very affordable.
Three I will ask about, though:
- Was there any reason (such as, maybe the movie people) that Helen Slater couldn't/didn't reprise Supergirl in Crisis? It seemed like it would have been a great opportunity to homage the comic, bonus with a red headband.
- The original press announcement for Erica Durance mentioned she was in "multiple chapters," which technically there was, considering that she was Alura in Part 1. But was there any temptation to keep Smallville's Lois around for more than one scene?
- And then finally: If Michael Rosenbaum had been in Crisis, would the Lex storyline have had to be changed a bit? As it stood, I thought the team did a great job of having Jon Cryer's Lex interacting with Tom Welling.
Since you've cracked the door open for CRISIS questions, would you be willing to discuss how the SMALLVILLE Lex Luthor appearance would have gone had Michael Rosenbaum been willing? Was it planned to be basically just the same scene that Jon Cryer played with Tom Welling? Or would Rosenbaum's Lex have appeared elsewhere in the story?
Congratulations on the new novel from me, as well and thanks for responding to my questions. It seems I opened a Pandora's Box of sorts with my lengthy inquiries about Arrow. I couldn't help myself. I love that show. I remain a proponent for a book about the show. Memory is a tricky thing.
Having seen and read much of your TV, film and novel writings, I'm wondering how your non-writing life blends into and informs your concepts, dialog, descriptions, character development and characters' relationships. How does your art imitate life?
Congratulations on the new novel, Marc!
Thank you for answering the question about FlashForward! I'm glad to hear that Dyson Frost (Michael Massee) and his associates ("the bad guys") were actually the good guys the whole time. That is my favorite kind of plot twist. I always knew they were the good guys because they had had thousands of flashforwards and they could have easily used that to enrich themselves, take out Mark and Lloyd, etc. Plus, Dyson Frost said that the whole world was running out of time, so I figured that someone could justify causing a global blackout killing 20 million people in order to save the entire world...
I love the idea of having the decreasing time horizons for each flashforward: great increase in tension. I can imagine if the series had continued that governments and corporations would try to engineer flashforwards to "print their own money" as Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan) said or to manipulate geopolitics as CIA agent Mike Vogel (Michael Ealy) said. There's lots of different ways the show could have went with this... (like Minority Report). And I imagine Dyson Frost was staying in the shadows because he didn't want people to abuse this ability.
I was thinking the extinction level event might have been nuclear war because of the reference to Oppenheimer, and plus it's one of the few events caused by people to end all of humanity. (Outside of maybe AI running amok or an engineered bioweapon, but those aren't really about people being antagonistic towards each other or other countries, so less drama and conflict. And if it had been a bioweapon, there could have been a single point in space and time they could have stopped it from originating. And there was a single date written on Dyson Frost's Garden of Forking Paths for "The End" so an event that happens within a day. It could have been an asteroid strike but they could have just warned people about that.) Plus Dyson Frost grew up in Wyoming where they have nuclear stockpiles...
From your answer, it sounds like the flashforwards were designed to give humanity the knowledge that the visions largely turn out to be true, and humankind would then truly believe they only have 24-hours left to live in the final flashforward, and would act together to save themselves...
In retrospect, I think there would have been a way Crisis could have incorporated Dean Cain without actually having him in it. Or it's just my fannish wishful thinking:
What if, in the Earth-75 sequence, the extra doubling for Superman had been wearing a Dean Cain costume and it was Teri Hatcher mourning him? That way. no credit can be given to that guy while at the same time, the show could have still been represented. Then again, maybe the budget was so high at that point, Teri Hatcher was not very affordable.
Three I will ask about, though:
- Was there any reason (such as, maybe the movie people) that Helen Slater couldn't/didn't reprise Supergirl in Crisis? It seemed like it would have been a great opportunity to homage the comic, bonus with a red headband.
- The original press announcement for Erica Durance mentioned she was in "multiple chapters," which technically there was, considering that she was Alura in Part 1. But was there any temptation to keep Smallville's Lois around for more than one scene?
- And then finally: If Michael Rosenbaum had been in Crisis, would the Lex storyline have had to be changed a bit? As it stood, I thought the team did a great job of having Jon Cryer's Lex interacting with Tom Welling.
"Hello, Buckwheat" -
Since you've cracked the door open for CRISIS questions, would you be willing to discuss how the SMALLVILLE Lex Luthor appearance would have gone had Michael Rosenbaum been willing? Was it planned to be basically just the same scene that Jon Cryer played with Tom Welling? Or would Rosenbaum's Lex have appeared elsewhere in the story?
Best,
Tony