Adventures of Logan Starblazer

GWC Community Geek Hobbies
#1

If you guys and gals don’t mind, I’ll like to keep a running commentary on the project that I’m going to be embarking on. I’ve had a burst of being creative and it looks like I’ve found something that I’m passionate about. It’s weird as I’ve never really be arty before although I did like copying pictures when I was younger (I remember drawing Lion - O, Snarf among others).

Anyway back to the reason for this post.

My project that I have in the beginning stages is an animated short that I want to produce for my son, I want him to be able to watch it and enjoy it :). The working title so far is ‘The adventures of Logan Starblazer’. For now, it’ll have to do.

The premise is that it is about a boy and his friends in space.

My initial vibe about the setting is that he’s just a normal kid who lives on the station and plays with his friends who are about the same age as him. However, there isn’t that much to do on the station for kids that age (except when their parents take them places) so they get up to mischief and fun.

So these adventures are all the imagination of the kids, it almost has a Muppet baby vibe about it (e.g. When a real parent looks in on Logan, he’s sitting in a box with a bowl on his head surrounded by the other kids/stuff animals. However, in the ‘adventure world/imagination of the kid’, he’s in the latest star fighter talking to his anthropomorphic friends who are helping him defeat the latest baddie of the week/helping him to solve a problem.

Setting

A space station that is shared with other families and personnel who work and live there. It is a self contained ‘city’ where people go to and fro (almost like a B5/DS9 situation) or I was thinking that it’s a really boring space station environment - we’ve only just go to the stage where living in space is a viable idea. Think of a situation of living in a town that’s far from the city where the only entertainment is the one screen cinema and the skuzzy bar. (Maybe he’s an earth born who has moved to the boring space station).

Now his friends are all anthropomorphic characters (think Bucky O’Hare, Thundercats) who accompany him on his adventures. He also has several human friends who live on the space station and are in the same situation as he is in.

So the initial characters that I have in mind are:

[ul]
[li]Logan Starblazer - A kid that is between the age of 2-4 who has wild adventures in space with his friends. He has his own star fighter.
[/li][li]Average smarts, friendly with people but has a habit of getting into trouble.
[/li]
[li]Stuff Animal #1 - My real life son has a teddy called ‘Woffie’ who is actually a dog with really long ears, so I going to base the drawings on them. So this character is going to be a dog that is going to be the techie character that makes/keeps his tech all in working order. He knows his stuff, loves to read books and always helps out with advice for our character.
[/li]
[li]Stuff Animal #2 - RL Stuffed animal is a rabbit, this character is going to be a female, and is the solider type of the group, likes to work out, eat healthy and is pretty hot when it comes to flying the star ships. Can be hot-headed at times - Logan has to calm her down at times. Likes art. An idea is for a background story for her is that she fought in the Rabbit/Weasel war.
[/li]
[li]Stuff Animal #3 - RL animal (Big stuffed teddy bear aka Mr. Worf) - This is going to be the Beckman/Charlie/Mr DOS (if you watch Special Agent OSO) character of the group - Has a good sense of humour and gives them their missions. Initial character reference is someone like Brian Blessed.
[/li][/ul]

RL Friends

Becky Stargazer - Female character, who is of the same age, has strict parents who don’t allow her to do much. Loves to hang around Logan as he’s fun. Parents are the heads of the station.

Tech

Star fighters

I’m kind of stuck to how to go with the star fighters, my initial thoughts were as follows:

[ul]
[li]Space above and beyond model - Use something like a Harrier Jump jet but make them more space like.
[/li]
[li]Animal based craft - Make the ships look like mythical creatures, phoenix/dragons, etc.
[/li][/ul]

That’s as far as I got.

Personal Mode of transportation

My son loves his skuttlebug so I’m going to combine the general design of that with hover jets so it’s more bike like (in my head, it’s a combination of a skuttlebug bike/where they lean forward (almost Tron like).

That’s as far as I’ve got with ideas so as I design more, I’ll post here.

In terms of look, not to sure whether to go anime style or just more cartoony (it might just be what ever I can do giving my limitations)

Anyway, hope you join me on my journey and make suggestions, point out any flaws, advice or critique. It’ll be welcome. Questions and comments are always welcomed. Let’s make this a reality.

#2

This sounds promising.

#3

The first thing that needs to be done is to establish the theme and essentially have a reason for our characters to be there, why should people connect with the characters that they see before them. What journey or things do they learn? Would I be correct in saying that in every great story there is a theme?

Let’s look at some shows and see what we can find.

These are just my ramblings so if you disagree, then please let me know.

[ul]
[li]Thundercats - This was essentially about a young boy who had to take responsibility when he literally wasn’t ready for it, he had to lead a group of individuals (even Willykat and kat) who were more skilled than himself (when you think about it, all he had was the sword and claw). He was literally a boy in an adult world and throughout the series, he had to learn to step up to the plate and lead the Thundercats. I like to think that the hook that drew people in was the eye of thundara, the music and seeing cool things like the thunderlair and tank. I’m sure Cheetara helped ;p
[/li]
So for Thundercats, it’s young boy learning how to deal with things in an adult world.

[li]He-Man: Never really watched it enough to know the ins and out of it, but when I think of what he-man boils down to is that it’s all about the opposites. You have Prince Adam and Cringer - both individuals who wouldn’t inspire anyone. Then once they both transform, they become strong and powerful. He-man is all buff while his nemesis is just bones.
[/li]
[li]Dungeon and Dragons: This was your typical lost from home and trying to get back to the real world. Is this the literal meaning of the Hero’s journey that Audra goes on about? If I remember correctly, the weapons reflected the characters personalities. As they travel through the realm, they learn more about themselves. What was the hook for this show, for me, it was the cool weapons and dragons. (When they did the D&D film, I thought it was going to be a live action of this cartoon - how disappointed was I).
[/li]
[li]Ulysses 31 - Another lost from home, trying to get home. I’m sure that there is a ton of analysis that can be done on Ulysses considering that it’s a classic, but since I’ve never read it, all I can go on is the cartoon. I guess the hook for this was taking an old classic and updating it. That and the music rocked. You notice that the cartoons around the 80’s had pretty cool soundtracks. (E.g. Pole Position, Mask, Thundercats, Silver Hawks, He-Man, Gummi Bears, etc)
[/li]
[li]Galaxy High - This was your typical high school role reversal; I mean they even explain it in the song intro. Doyle was the jock and popular on earth, while Amy was your typical nerd. They go to a different school in a different galaxy and the roles are reversed because they respected different values.
[/li][/ul]

Let’s come to the future

[ul]
[li]Special Agent Oso/Handy Manny/Mickey Mouse Playhouse - These cartoons all try and teach a moral for the day. Common factors include that they are very musical in nature. Mickey is very repetitive in nature (Son loves toodles), Handy Manny is good in that it teaches how to be a team player and to always help people (it’s very vibrant) and not to sure what the appeal of Oso is about from the fact that he’s a bear. shrug.
[/li][/ul]

I’ve only listed those ones as these are the ones my son watches at the moment, so it’s more fresh in my mind.

So why have I done this, mainly because I wanted to examine what aspects my story needed to have, what is the foundation of the ‘short’.

It’s important to get the story right in my opinion, because I could have the best animation, great looking effects but if the story isn’t there, then it won’t shine as well as it could. I mean you have things like Avatar, but the effects were that good that it dwarfed the story. Look at something like Toy Story vs. Avatar; I’m sure most people are going to choose Toy Story because they can relate to it more due to the story/characters. I’m sure if you asked most people to name the characters in Avatar, you would be hard pressed.

So back to my story - ‘The Adventures of Logan Starblazer’.

The theme that keeps running through my head is the theme of ‘opposites’. The real life reality is what I’ve highlighted above; Logan is a child who is with his parents who have moved to the space station. The human race has only been living in space for about 50 years so things are still in their infancy. It’s not Babylon five or DS9 where they are a multitude of things to do. For children on the space station, all they have is school, the artificial park, and each other for company. The adults generally have a bar like area and the odd meeting place like a cinema. However, although the surroundings are not that exciting, all the kids are loved by their parents and generally do have a good childhood. Just wanted to point out that they are not being ignored.

However, in their imagination, the kids have tons of people around them, their ‘world’ is vibrant and exciting and there are aliens and baddies to vanquish. They have exciting technology and awesome friends.

My other ‘concern’ is to what age Logan should be, I’m thinking in the 6-8 range as it’s still young enough to be innocent but old enough to do things.

As usual, questions, concerns and thoughts are always welcome.

#4

I’ve left this one for a while, but I want to leave a good legacy for my child(ren) so I’m going to go back to the drawing board and craft histories for the characters, conflicts and what I want to achieve.

If someone wants to move this to the writing forum, then that would be cool. I think this is a nice creative project to do.

If it gets turned into a major motion picture, then you’re all invited.