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Bruce Timm On 'Justice League: The Savage Time' By Jim Harvey 11-07-2002 Toon Zone was able to catch up with Bruce Timm to discuss the much anticipated three-part Justice League season finale, "The Savage Time." It will air on November 9th, 2002 at 7 pm (ET) as a full length movie on Cartoon Network 's Cartoon Theatre. "'The Savage Time' is finally airing in North America!" said Timm. "It's funny that practically all season long, there seemed to be very little buzz for this one. Especially compared to more mainstream fan-favorite/villain-fests like 'Injustice for All,' and I liked it that way. It would have been kinda cool if it had just come blitzing out of nowhere, taking everybody by surprise. Oh well! Now that our friends in the U.K. have seen it (two-thirds of it anyway), and dug it, and there's all this anticipation, hopefully it will live up to its hype. Personally, I think it does, but I'm maybe just a wee bit biased!" The inspiration behind Justice League: The Savage Time came from the creative team's love for the war-themed comics of the 1940's. Everything came together in the production of the episode. "I've always loved that whole 'Superheroes Fight the Axis' sub-genre, going all the way back to the very beginning of superhero comics, up through books like 'The Invaders,' 'All-Star Squadron' and that amazing 'Superman vs. Wonder Woman' one-shot (one of the absolute best 'Treasury'-sized comics ever, well worth tracking down). And I've long had a soft spot for the Blackhawks and Sgt. Rock, so this was a special treat for me, as well as for most of the crew," said Timm. "As I've mentioned before, for scheduling purposes, we had to split the show between our two directors, and it worked out perfectly: Dan Riba is a huge Serial/Golden Age comics fan, and Butch Lukic is a major WWII buff, so they both poured their hearts and souls into this one. Butch is so into Sgt. Rock that he even story-boarded all the 'Easy Co.' scenes in Dan's show! And Dan went so far as to buy and build a Grumann Skyrocket model kit for the animation team at Koko to use as reference. All this extra effort paid off: the WWII battle scenes are pretty damn spectacular across the board, if I do say so myself, definitely some of the most ambitious action set-pieces we've ever attempted." A regular episode of Justice League takes around eight hours to edit together. The creative team spent a whole day working on the "dogfight" sequence to make sure it flowed perfectly. "The sheer amount of 'pencil mileage' in this one is staggering," said Timm. "We all breathed humongous sighs of relief when the show came back from overseas! It could have been a disaster, but the gang at Koko also went that extra mile and did just a superb job." A crucial part of any series, whether it be animated or live-action, is the music composition. Given the subject matter of the episode, the creative team was able to slip in a small musical homage to the WWII comic era. "I mean, everybody put 110% into this show: all three of our composers each did some of their all-time best work," said Timm. "I especially get an enormous kick out of hearing Lolita Ritmanis' 'Blackhawk' theme during that dogfight in Part Two! Long-time fans know that there actually was a 'Blackhawk Theme' that they used to sing as they roared into battle, and it was even recorded back in the day as a 'single.' The music and lyrics were recently reprinted in DC's magnificent 'Blackhawk Archives' hardback, for those interested. We couldn't afford to use the original song, but we made sure that the 'new' theme would work with the old lyrics, so you can actually sing along as the Blackhawks kick Nazi butt: 'Hawk-aaa, we are the Blackhawks! Hawk-aaa, we're on the wing...!'" "Rob Hargreaves' sound effects are the icing on the cake," Timm added. "An incredibly elaborate feature-film-quality sound-design. I can't wait for this baby to come out on DVD!" Bruce Timm also said the voice cast, both guest stars and regulars, did another magnificent job on the three-part event. "Our vocal cast was terrific! Phil Morris had a small part as the Gorilla General in 'The Brave And The Bold,' and we were all so impressed, we immediately made a mental note to remember him for Vandal Savage later in the season. He's perfect, bringing just the right mix of sophistication and brutality to the part. And as good as he is in this episode, he's even better in Season Two! Robert Picardo as the icy cool Blackhawk, Patrick Duffy as the square-jawed All-American Steve Trevor, and Fred Dyer as the tough-as-nails Sgt. Rock all sound just right. And amongst our 'regulars,' I have to single out Susan Eisenberg - she totally sells the 'love story' elements of the show, easily one of her best performances in the series to date." "I can't say much more without spoiling left and right, so I'll just wrap up by saying that if the audience has half as much fun watching it as we did making it, then a guaranteed good time will be had by all!" Originally posted on Toon Zone News. [ Back to Backstage ] |