Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Sharpen Your Pencils, Chung

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time or even if you've just surfed by in the last week or so you know about my imaginary relationship with Jose Chung, writer and currently serving in a totally cracked part of my brain as Prothonotary of Dead Heroes Frank Spotnitz Has Killed.  He's been a little bored recently, hence last week's magic document.  Spotnitz has been a writer/producer on The X-Files, The Lone Gunmen, Millenium and as of October 4th the first series of Hunted on BBCOne and Cinemax in the US.  Most significantly for those of us in the RAniverse, he's also the head writer of Strike Back: Project Dawn and is the man who made the decision to kill John Porter.  I'll wait till you're done hissing and booing.  Done?  Good, let's move on to today.

Earlier I got a tip from a dear friend on Facebook that he was doing a live chat at Reddit right that moment and could ask anything.  Anything is broad, right?  I found almost 300 questions or comments about The X-Files which is as it should be, really, but that wasn't what I was interested in at that moment. 

Think about that for a second.  Me, an XPhile of long standing, wasn't interested in hearing about it.  You have all corrupted me and I hope you're proud of yourselves, fruit baskets are in the mail.  No, I wanted to know about John Porter, specifically WHY it was necessary to kill the poor guy off.  "I know Richard Armitage has been unavailable," I said (and you thought I couldn't do understatement).  Mr. Spotnitz wrote back the following (yes, I have a screenshot but couldn't figure out how to make it fit.  If you want to see it or can help me with formatting email me).

There was a big debate about whether to kill him, and in fact in the early drafts of the script we strongly hinted at the end of Episode 2 that he was still alive.  But I think we ultimately realized there was no chance we'd get Richard back and that the story was more powerful if his character was in fact dead.

I did not ask if he'd do RA a solid to make up for the fact that he killed off Porter and cast him in Hunted because it didn't cross my mind and a large part of me was going, "OH MY GOD!  Frank Spotnitz answered me!  Eleventy!!!!"  Sorry, gang, no scoop but there's at least an answer.  And we all know that Porter is still alive and well in the land of the So Not Dead over in fedoralady's den.   

In honor of my favorite hero Frank Spotnitz has offed, here's GizTheGunslinger's "No Place For No Hero" John Porter fan vid.  If you had a chance what would you ask any writer who's done one of RA's characters wrong?  Comments are open.

20 comments:

  1. Hi Funky,
    I can't imagine why the new producers even included Porter's character in the start of the awful SB 2. They could have left Porter off in hiding trying to get back to his daughter Lexi--and merely refer to him from time to time.

    Killing Porter off was gratuitous--and a waste of a superb character--honorable, damaged, striving, flawed--who would have made a good feature film focus.

    Not developing Porter's stories for feature films is lost opportunity in my view.

    No Cheers! Grati ;->

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    1. I'd be really interested in knowing the timeline there because I know RA has made comments about extracating himself from something to play Thorin but I was never certain if it was John Porter or Lucas North. I think this points to it's having been Porter.

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  2. Thanks Jazzbaby! :)
    GiztheGuyslinger- one of my fav vidders!

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  3. Wow! That's cool that you got to ask that question from the series writer. I can't say I am satisfied with the answer either. I would have rather had a loose end, than the assassination of such a crucial character.
    The 2nd series was not of any interest to me. Not just because they got rid of the character that the book was based on either. It had nothing going for it except violence and sex, but I guess that's all that some people want to watch anyway...

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    1. I think it's a very political answer, actually. The truth is in there (you can boo now) but maybe not all of it.

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  4. Thanks for charing the answer with us. Nothing really unexpected but nice to know anyway :-)

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  5. Thanks for sharing the answer. I, too, thought an open or indefinite end would have been much better than literally and figuratively wasting Porter. Better fanfic has been written about Porter post-Series 1 than anything the SB2 writers produced. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

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    1. I agree that an open end would be better. But given the kind of junk SB became after Series 1, it would not be a good idea for RA to come back into it anyway.

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    2. I agree with you Anonymous, the second series of SB was vile. It was torture to watch the 10 minutes leading up to Porter's death and I stopped watching after that.

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    3. @1st Anonymous...I definitely agree about the fanfic.

      @2nd Anonymous...I wasn't totally sold on SB as a series anyway even though I loved Porter.

      @Grati...you and me both...I read Traxy's review instead, which was infintely more entertaining.

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  6. Hi Jazzbaby,
    Well, at least they considered keeping him alive. Was this the best option for fans of the 1st season. :0)
    Cheers!
    Ana Cris

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    1. Thanks for the comment! I think they were trying to make it more US friendly, though I'm not sure if that says something about the executives at Cinemax or their audience.

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  7. I'm particularly impressed with your understatement :) Truth is there are many unwarranted deaths in that world ...

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  8. I must add as a fan of Sean Bean .. character deaths for me is more about HOW they die ;) and can't help to thank them for that trailer song which I was MOST pleased about used Giz

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    1. I think we need a moment of silence for poor Sean Bean...

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Thanks for commenting!