Yet another blow to the memory of Jim Henson.

[Eater of Clowns]

The movie adaptation of Fraggle Rock is getting a new screenwriter - for an "edgier" script.

Director/Screenwriter Corey Edwards has updated his blog with a note warning Fraggle Rock  fans that "there are some dark days ahead, my friends." As it turns out, The Weinstein Company, who has been working with Edwards on a big screen Fraggle Rock movie, has begun a wide search for a new screenwriter to come aboard the project after demanding the the script was "not edgy enough."

Down at Fraggle Rock they had things just about figured out.  Of course they had problems; space gets cramped underground you know, but oh what little those caves did to their spirits.  Living with no sun to speak of would drive the best of our moods spiraling downward but not those little guys.  You ask one of them what it's like to live in a dark stone cavern and they cheerily reply with how well it carries their voices on their many daily songs, how it melds their voices together to something more.  That's what the Fraggles were all about; individuals each strong alone coming together for something greater still.

They did their work with us, with their "Ambassador" Henson, for four years.  It was a big four years for them, they were explorers at heart and loved the idea of a new world above to strike out and learn about humanity.  And we lapped up every second of it, didn't we, their catchy tunes and their oddly relevant lessons?  Here we had beings so foreign who somehow understood us better than we did ourselves.  It wasn't at the price of introspection that they knew so much and still remained cheerful.  No, they were deep people, they after all knew only darkness really.  It was through strict discipline of mind that the Fraggles kept things running as they were lest they fall into the traps we've all seen ourselves.

Henson saw the toll our world exacted on them as days went by.  Groups of Fraggles would strike off as stowaways on boats and airplanes to examine the humans above and report back.  They would gather together like they loved to do in one of the production areas, at these times strangely less welcoming of outsiders than was their nature.  They would speak in hushed voices.  Faint gasps could be heard.  Every day some scouts returned was followed by a wary eye by the Fraggles the next day on set; stress lines began crossing their eyes.  Listen closely to the final season and you might hear a note of sorrow in their song.  How could they trust humans knowing what we're capable of?

It was the height of their success that the kindly muppet man requested they return home.  The higher-ups were obviously less than thrilled that their merchandising and ratings would disappear just like that.  Like always, Henson fought them tooth and nail on behalf of the strange creatures he'd come to love.  Even seeing in his other projects how cold the money makers could be, Jim left that meeting disturbed; disturbed by the sly and slight smile on the face of one man in the back of the room.  A man who was biding his time.

Things were largely normal back home for them for quite a few years.  Long enough, almost disturbingly precisely perhaps, for us to forget what the Fraggles once meant to us.  And maybe for them to forget what we are.  Their man came to Fraggle Rock long after Jim was gone.  There was quiet in the cave.  They didn't like him, didn't like the menace behind the well trained publicity smile.  They didn't like the greed they saw when they explained the Doozers, how he almost licked his chops at the idea of a race of workers who knew only to work and never understood why.  But they listened.  That's what they do.

Turns out that man didn't need contracts.  He didn't need legalities.  All he needed to was ask for help.  Help us.  It was a cry none of the Fraggles could turn down.  The ones that had forgotten the world above in their twenty year absence jumped at the chance to try again to teach us what life was really about.  They could sing and laugh again, for us, and we could share it.  And the man just smiled sly and slight.

With props to Richter for his recent Audio Book entry on bringing this about.

[Suu]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

[AFK]

They are taking the Fraggles out of Fraggle Rock.  What the hell is the point?  I'm assuming this means there will be no Trashheap.  This means there probably won't be any Travelling Matt.  Hollywood seems to be bent on sullying all of these good properties from the 80s.  WTF? 

[Doktor Howl]

They are taking the Fraggles out of Fraggle Rock.  What the hell is the point?  I'm assuming this means there will be no Trashheap.  This means there probably won't be any Travelling Matt.  Hollywood seems to be bent on sullying all of these good properties from the 80s.  WTF? 

That is old and quaint and yesterday.

Get ready for new and shiny and "edgy" today. 

Children don't need Fraggle Rock, they need shows that will teach them what to be and what to buy, what to think (as opposed to HOW to think) and what to say.

Ideas are too dangerous.  We have to protect the children.  That way we can forget the fact that it's we who fucked them up in the first place.

It occurs to me that this isn't the future people talked about in the 70s.

[AFK]

I know the entertainment industry has always been about making money.  And maybe I'm just becoming a jaded, cynical 30-something, but, at least back in the day, it seemed like at least they were giving us an imaginative story, and then told us to go out and buy the action figures, breakfast cereals, and lunchboxes.  I could tell, even as a young kid watching Fraggle Rock, that the stories they were telling were imaginative and poignant.  I think that goes for the other Henson properties and many other shows/movies from back in that time. 

Today it just seems way more cookie-cutter and formulaic.  It's the merchandise first and then the story, which is basically just mad-libbed.  It's why I like the Pixar movies.  Probably one of the few movie companies that are attempting and producing original content.  Even the sequels don't suck. 

Everyone else is going to take everything we grew up on, dip it in plastic and splosions, and pretend somehow that it is a) good, b) entertaining, and c) somehow maintaining the spirit of the original. 

The answer is obviously d) none of the above, ever. 

[Eater of Clowns]

I know the entertainment industry has always been about making money.  And maybe I'm just becoming a jaded, cynical 30-something, but, at least back in the day, it seemed like at least they were giving us an imaginative story, and then told us to go out and buy the action figures, breakfast cereals, and lunchboxes.  I could tell, even as a young kid watching Fraggle Rock, that the stories they were telling were imaginative and poignant.  I think that goes for the other Henson properties and many other shows/movies from back in that time. 

Today it just seems way more cookie-cutter and formulaic.  It's the merchandise first and then the story, which is basically just mad-libbed.  It's why I like the Pixar movies.  Probably one of the few movie companies that are attempting and producing original content.  Even the sequels don't suck. 

Everyone else is going to take everything we grew up on, dip it in plastic and splosions, and pretend somehow that it is a) good, b) entertaining, and c) somehow maintaining the spirit of the original. 

The answer is obviously d) none of the above, ever. 

I'm glad you mentioned Pixar here, I was halfway through your first paragraph when I thought of them.  Here we have a company that other companies love because their marketability, but one that delivers quality in spite of it.  They'll crank out the sure-thing merchandising brands like Cars and Toy Story (which are still at least good) to give themselves the creative legroom for really experimental projects like WALL-E (how the fuck do you sell a movie where the two main characters don't speak) and Up (how the hell do you sell a movie about an old man and a kid flying in a house with balloons).  It's just too bad they're part of a trend where traditional animation seems to be suffering in favor of CG animation.

There seems to always have been a trend of children's entertainment just being children's marketing.  Every now and then instead of the same old there's a real gem among them that has more to it than just distraction.  Henson was one of these, Pixar might be one of these, the first Shrek had some good fairy tale deconstruction to it as well.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I spotted something mental today.

Shrek, used to sell nail polish. There was a pretty pale blue one.

The Ad man seems to even be aiming that at grown women, cos said brand was not cheap.

I remember Fraggle Rock, the lighthouse keeper and the old English Sheepdog, Sprocket, the happy little Doozers, and Red, the epitome of hyperactive. Red's on Ritalin of course, these days, the trademark bouncing has gone, the Doozers enslaved!

Edgy! Fuck! In the 80's kids had the Goonies, all about having adventures and mad gadgets, pirate gold and snogging girls!

Edgy is what happens on too many drugs ffs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"Edgy"? Why the hell does Fraggle Rock need to be "Edgy"? My kids grew up on old Fraggle Rock videos; they love them. They adore all the old drek I used to watch when I was a kid. They don't need "edgy". They don't want "edgy". Fraggle Rock is for the under-six set, FFS... what the hell do kindergarteners want with "edgy"??

[the last yatto]

Thetis loves the recent comic... hopefully they hire someone from Archaia Comics or they have some pull to avoid another Lucas.