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Yes, OUAT in WL was pretty good, as it had compelling characters and a contained start, middle and end, but it was only one season in length.
Yes. This is a great point so I went back and did some digging. OUATinWL was 13 episodes; A and E penned zero of those by themselves. Every episode that has A and E’s name on it also has at least one other writer–Zack Estrin or Jane. To compare this to Dead of Summer…its roughly the same so far. No episodes with just their name on it; Ian Goldberg gets credit for writing the pilot with them. Now that’s going to change next week when A and E pen episode 3 (and then 4) by themselves, without Goldberg. So I’ll have a more solid ground to analyze after that. But, so far, episode 2 (no A and E) was better than episode 1 (A and E, plus Ian Goldberg)
That’s so interesting. I was reading another fan blog about whether or not A&E are good writers. You can read that here: part 1 and part 2. It was also supported by another source regarding the terrible plot and writing of Dead of Summer and whether that points to OUAT season 1 having been planned out mostly by someone else (aka Damon Lindelof — showrunner of Lost). To quote from that source (edited for profanity):
Sooooo does this add fire to the “OUAT S1 was someone else’s genius creation” speculation ?
That’s not speculation. In an interview given by Adam and Eddie for the Nov 2013 edition of Written By (the [Writers Guild of America’s] magazine) the following is said:
After a 10-year writers’ block, including a detour to script the feature Tron: Legacy, they still couldn’t find their way into Once. The two had a deal at ABC, as did Lindelof, so they pitched the idea to him, and he encouraged them to follow through on it—more than once. They sent three outlines to the studio, “but before they could give us notes, Adam and I would call and say, ‘We don’t like it; we want to change our minds,’” Kitsis recalls.
Time was passing, and they were very, very late to get a pilot script in. Finally, they received a visit from then-head of ABC TV Barry Jossen and now-head of ABC TV Patrick Moran, who sat the writers down and in a very tough-love way, according to Kitsis, said: “‘Stop f–king around. This is a great idea, you guys can do it, so do it.
So they left and we immediately ran up to Damon’s office and we were like, ‘F–k them, there’s no way to do this. Unless you do this, unless you do that…’ and all of a sudden we had the pilot.”
One could almost hear the munchkins singing “You’re Out of the Woods.”
They assumed Lindelof would take an executive producer credit, but he demurred. “We were like, ‘Oh, because you hate the idea, you don’t f–king believe in us,’” says Kitsis. “And he said, ‘If I put my name on it, it’s my show and everyone will only write about me.’” Horowitz calls it the purest form of mentor- ship. “He was trying to help us realize our vision. He didn’t want anything out of it other than seeing us grow and succeed.”
As first-time creators and showrunners, they applied what they learned from everyone they’d ever worked with. They even created characters that recalled their mentors’ work. “The Evil Queen is a very Ryan character, a strong, tough woman who will get in your face and scare the hell out of you,” Kitsis notes. “Rumpelstiltskin is a Damon character—you’re never quite sure where you’re standing, he’s Machiavellian. Not that these are reflections of these writers’ personalities, [but] it is their style.”
The full article can be found here, but unfortunately, the Written By no longer exists in an official online form without a subscription. The original article was published in Nov. 2013.
[adrotate group="5"]"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy
&E had a plan for season 1-2 but then Neverland came in and that screwed up the plan then ABC did half seasons which screwed up
See this is the problem, the half seasons thing, or better some epis in fall and some epis in spring, was not just for oUAT, lots of other ABC shows had it, HOWEVER, was only OUAT for A&E idea to make each part like diferent seasons, all the others ABC shows, did major cliffangers in fall and then continued the story they were telling in spring, they didnt ended in fall those stories, and acted like the spring was a new season, that is OUAT problem, they simply acted like the spring epis, were new seasons, so “let´s forget everything that happened past season, AKA part A in the fall”.
I think A&E are simply average writers and bad show runners, i think they are those types of people, i think we already encounter those types of persons that in our lives, that are not bad at what they do, but if u leave them alone, they end doing everything wrong, but if they have a leader telling them what to do and making them following a path and stablish goals that they will do their work fine. BC in the end there are good/average writers that simply have no idea how to be a show runner, and that is what is happening here.I agree. Eddie and Adam have no business being show runners. They just have no self control. They are unorganized. They can’t keep details straight. Also, the whole idea that the audience figured it out so we have to change it way of writing is insane. You want your audience to know what is going on, not be thrown by random things happening that are not connected to where the show was building. That is one of the writers biggest problems. It is a completely insane way of writing. That is like oh people figured out that Harry Potter is going to kill Voldemort, that means we have to change it so that random hufflepuff guy kills Voldemort and it is a surprise. Then people read seven books waiting to see Harry kill Voldemort and then he doesn’t. Then everyone is disappointed. That is what happens on Ouat. The show built towards certain things, Emma and Neal working on their relationship, Rumpel making things right with his son, Emma doing actual evil as the dark one. The show builds these things and then they are trying so hard to cause a surprise that then they don’t go to where the proper end should be and then the end is just disappointing. It is absolutely terrible writing. It is completely insane. It fails the very basics of hitting the beats of an arc. It is just terrible.
I agree. Eddie and Adam have no business being show runners. They just have no self control. They are unorganized. They can’t keep details straight. Also, the whole idea that the audience figured it out so we have to change it way of writing is insane. You want your audience to know what is going on, not be thrown by random things happening that are not connected to where the show was building. That is one of the writers biggest problems. It is a completely insane way of writing. That is like oh people figured out that Harry Potter is going to kill Voldemort, that means we have to change it so that random hufflepuff guy kills Voldemort and it is a surprise. Then people read seven books waiting to see Harry kill Voldemort and then he doesn’t. Then everyone is disappointed. That is what happens on Ouat. The show built towards certain things, Emma and Neal working on their relationship, Rumpel making things right with his son, Emma doing actual evil as the dark one. The show builds these things and then they are trying so hard to cause a surprise that then they don’t go to where the proper end should be and then the end is just disappointing. It is absolutely terrible writing. It is completely insane. It fails the very basics of hitting the beats of an arc. It is just terrible.
Agree, i will forever say that Neal/Bae was always supposed to be Peter pan, that left NL and ended growing up and then some other kid took over, that was huge theory back at S2, that Bae was pan and i bet they changed that storyline to Pan being Runple father, especially bc they had other ideas for Rumple father.
Also, they should not be afraid of saying they changed stories, is like the Neal dead was planned after S2, when even recently Adam said that when they made Sean regular they didnt had any intention of killing him, but they changed story mid season, so the same applies to Neal, they most likely decided to kill him, back in the time when CS was nom for best chemistry for PCA`s, i even remembered that some anon at Tumblr after S3 ending( this annon said he worked in ouat crew) that 311 script was rewriten in a hurry, bc Hook was supposed to die by killing pan, but they had to rewrite it to make Rumple die, to have a reason to make Neal die later, bc ABC didnt accepted Hook being killed, bc of CS sucess with the fans and media. Obvious they will never admit this, bc they are afraid of Cs fans and i never understood why, they gave them so power, and is not just the writers, the cast and crew as well.
Yeah, as far as i am concerned the writers are not writing their story anymore. They are writing some fanon/ABC story that is no where close to where they intended it to go originally. That is why it doesn’t make sense. That is why they can’t keep the details straight. They had this original intention and it fell apart because of ABC possibly pushing certain things and the producers reacting to the audience figuring things out by changing their original intention. It is like the characters are no longer their characters. With the removal of Bae it completely changed both Rumpel and Emma as characters. That has then effected the family and plot as a whole. Created this disconnect. It is a complete mess.
I agree with the lying about the changes they make. They should either not comment if they can’t deal with being honest or tell the truth. They should not pretend that things were planned out when they weren’t. That helps nothing at all. I don’t have a problem with there being some fluidity in a story, but you don’t throw out the purpose of your story because of some silly poll by people who are probably not even your target audience. I just don’t understand the lying about it. Like i could understand making a mistake, but then you own it, you don’t lie when anyone with some brains can see where the story was originally intended to go.
It was also supported by another source regarding the terrible plot and writing of Dead of Summer and whether that points to OUAT season 1 having been planned out mostly by someone else (aka Damon Lindelof — showrunner of Lost). To quote from that source (edited for profanity):
Speaking of….
Back during “Ruby Slippers” I tuned into the OSOTM podcast to hear their LGBT thoughts. And during that discussion they brought up something really interesting: that they had knowledge that OUAT is the work of someone else (not Lindelof and not Fables) and that A and E were very close to getting sued for copyright infringement. The two hostesses of OSOTM said that someday they would tell that story they heard and maybe interview their source. It’s always something that stuck in my brain and am always on the look out for. A quote from the article you posted above reminded me of that:
After a 10-year writers’ block, including a detour to script the feature Tron: Legacy, they still couldn’t find their way into Once. The two had a deal at ABC, as did Lindelof, so they pitched the idea to him, and he encouraged them to follow through on it—more than once. They sent three outlines to the studio, “but before they could give us notes, Adam and I would call and say, ‘We don’t like it; we want to change our minds,’” Kitsis recalls.
The bolded stands out in this conversation.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Also, the whole idea that the audience figured it out so we have to change it way of writing is insane.
THIS. That recent EW (I think) interview they gave where Kitsis said basically just that made me both roll my eyes and head desk excessively.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"And during that discussion they brought up something really interesting: that they had knowledge that OUAT is the work of someone else (not Lindelof and not Fables) and that A and E were very close to getting sued for copyright infringement.
Interesting…
i even remembered that some anon at Tumblr after S3 ending( this annon said he worked in ouat crew) that 311 script was rewriten in a hurry, bc Hook was supposed to die by killing pan, but they had to rewrite it to make Rumple die, to have a reason to make Neal die later, bc ABC didnt accepted Hook being killed, bc of CS sucess with the fans and media.
What!? If this is true…
That is like oh people figured out that Harry Potter is going to kill Voldemort, that means we have to change it so that random hufflepuff guy kills Voldemort and it is a surprise. Then people read seven books waiting to see Harry kill Voldemort and then he doesn’t.
lol Right. And to fix it, they would announce that Voldermort was really that random hufflepuff guy’s third cousin. Bet you never saw that coming. (No, A&E, we didn’t. That’s what foreshadowing is for).
I think everyone would be better off if Adam and Eddy get a time out from social media for a while — it seems that part of their problem is that they are in this echo chamber of audience response, and have completely lost any sense of personal creative vision. Which goes back to the comparison that @Slurpeez made with GoT a few pages back — where audience response has never shaped either Martin’s work, or the GoT creators’ way of televising the story.
And during that discussion they brought up something really interesting: that they had knowledge that OUAT is the work of someone else (not Lindelof and not Fables) and that A and E were very close to getting sued for copyright infringement.
That could certainly explain the quality drop. Even if it’s not entirely true, and OUAT is more of a chimera of several people’s ideas which A&E then appropriated as chiefly their own, by this point in the story I think it’s pretty safe to say that A&E can’t sustain a long narrative. They might be better off applying themselves to a mini-series type format. Because lets face it, their worldbuilding is a hot mess, their characters get eviscerated for the purpose of plot (often asinine), and their relationship to the audience/response to their show is just pathetic.
(Also, Hi everyone!)
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