adaptation

Walks like a Duck, Quacks like a Duck

  • Reading time:6 mins read

So, yeah. DuckTales 2017 is, as many predicted, almost more of a re-adaptation of the Duck comics than of the 1987 show. It has the optics: Donald is present as a key team member, Scrooge is in his Comic colors, there are Ben Day dots all over the place. Whatever. But, Jesus.

I mean, seriously, this goes straight back to the comics. And not just Carl Barks. I mean Don Rosa. The first episode combs through Life & Times, with portraits of Scrooge’s parents, a lineage chart for the nephews that includes Hortense and Quackmore, and just generally way more awareness of and investment in the comic mythology, as focused and enhanced by Rosa.

Scrooge and Donald carry something more like their comic personas. Donald is about 60/40 Comic Don versus Cartoon Don here — still recognizably the guy who you can depend on to throw walnuts at Chip & Dale out of spite, but also a more layered character. The Comic Donald is a simple, lazy, fairly unlucky guy way out of his depth in every part of his life. Part of his laziness seems to be a zoned-out avoidance because he can’t handle the life he’s been dealt. But, importantly, when he’s really needed he always steps up and is willing to get, you know, shot in the face if need be to live up to his obligations or protect the people he cares about. He’s a sympathetic character in the way that Cartoon Donald could never be. He also speaks like a normal person, with his own curious idioms and speech patterns, as opposed to an incomprehensible squawkbox. That cartoon element is still present in 2017 Don, because people would flip out if they changed it, but it seems to be played as one more of a million things that makes the poor guy’s life hell. He can’t even get a sentence out, and his lack of an ability to communicate only fuels his bad temper.

Scrooge, meanwhile, is back to being the largely self-centered, irresponsible figure he is in the comics. The first episode goes to great lengths to contrast the two uncles’ parenting styles; whereas Donald is paranoid and overprotective because of his own experiences with life, always on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop, always sleepy from his against-his-nature vigilance against the horrors of life that may at any moment pounce on his nephews, Scrooge just doesn’t give a damn. He has no regard for danger, and often stirs more trouble than he expects or immediately knows how to handle. But he’s sure he’ll think of something. Which totally Freaks Donald Out.

Long ago he used to assist Scrooge on his adventures, but by the time we catch up here he’d long since distanced himself from Scrooge, to the extent that the nephews barely seem aware that Scrooge was a relative.

Since this is 2017, there also seem to be some ongoing story threads. The very final shot of the pilot ought to be interesting, as it dives right into the biggest unexplained mystery in all iterations of the Duck universe. This is like “why exactly did the Doctor leave Gallifrey?” business. A thing that even Don Rosa steered way clear of touching, except in a passing manner in a late chapter of Life & Times.

It also is consciously DuckTales, in that it borrows from the earlier show’s iconography enough to call itself DuckTales. And then borrows from Darkwing Duck, and TaleSpin, and Goof Troop. More than just DuckTales, the show seems to be quietly setting up a new Disney Duck Animated Universe.

You’ve got most of the original DuckTales characters who aren’t useless or annoying (no Doofus or Bubba, I so hope — have yet to hear anything), but they’re remixed and employed in functional roles here. Duckworth is pretty much gone (though I’ve read he’ll appear in some form, later?), while the more-vital Launchpad and Ms. Beakley step into that void and split his duties. Beakley is more vital because she comes with Webby — who now, instead of being, uh, plot luggage, has been upgraded to an audience surrogate — so she’s been made a more general and much more capable personal assistant. Launchpad is just a general hired hand/chauffeur, no matter the vehicle or task. He’s incompetent at everything, but he’s game and presumably he’s inexpensive.

Then you’ve got the odd changes brought about by the 1987 series, which the 2017 one just runs with. Glomgold is not just Scottish (instead of South African, as in the comics); he’s so Scottish that he constantly talks about how Scottish he is. Which… come to think of it may be overcompensation. Is he genuinely Scottish? The way this is set up, I’d be unsurprised to see a long game in here.

Anyway. This is really well-done. The pilot at least is very smart and well-written. They seem to have thought this project through in insane modern showrunner sort of detail, with hints and seeds of future adventures and character development and revelations strewn all over. And nearly everything the characters do, every plot that they embark on, has its roots in character, and in the show’s basic themes (which are themselves rooted in character). You know how Buffy‘s monsters are all projections of the characters’ anxieties and the emotional things they’re going through that week? This is kind of like that, except with Barks/Rosa style adventures that illuminate family tensions and anxieties.

Like, in the pilot, Donald reluctantly leaves the nephews with Scrooge, whom again they’d never met and it seems like Donald has rarely if ever mentioned around them, issuing him (not them) a stern warning to behave while he’s off, because he needs someone to watch them while he goes off on a job interview. That interview happens to be with Glomgold, who Donald is dense or self-absorbed enough not to clock as Scrooge’s arch-nemesis. So while Scrooge gets carried away and winds up on an adventure with the nephews and Webby, Donald ends up becoming Glomgold’s own personal Launchpad. All of which is structurally really cool and which serves as a perfect canvas for exploring what’s going on within and between all the characters, and why it is that Donald is so pissed off with his uncle.

Which… may or may not have something to do with that final shot, again, and that unspoken mystery at the heart of Duckdom.

Change, my dear

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I’m not sure that there’s much consequence to most classic Who stories. Ghost Light is maybe a little odd in that its events have less to do with plot than with theme. There is really no more or less carry-over than you get from Planet of Evil — except that maybe the themes will stick with the viewer more than the mechanics of who escaped from which prison in which order.

Ghost Light is about evolution in all of the ways that the concept could be applied to life, both literal and abstract.

It’s basically the same idea as Adaptation. That’s a really abstract movie about, well, adaptation. It uses the diversity of orchids and the desperation of species to propagate as a metaphor for the creative struggles of a screenwriter (indeed the very person writing the movie at hand), the tragedies and coping mechanisms of a weirdo plant poacher in the Florida Everglades, and the unfulfilled life of a posh magazine writer from Manhattan. And as with Ghost Light, the film doesn’t have much of a plot — at least, not until its shambling events reach the notion of tacking on a hackneyed Hollywood style conclusion of the sort that one of the story’s characters would have written. Instead, every element of the story exists in order to explore some aspect of its basic theme.

Ghost Light plays kind of loose with the literal mechanics of evolution, because it’s more concerned with the implications of change versus stasis. Change is embodied in Control and Ace. Anyone who fails to adapt to circumstances, like the policeman who refuses to wrap his head around what is happening, tends to perish. Nimrod is simple enough to roll with and accept whatever he is handed, so he turns out okay. Josiah’s whole interpretation of change is warped (in a very typical way, insofar as classical understanding of Darwinism), such that he views it as a narrow one-way journey to a static supremacy rather than a simple response to the needs of the environment. His reading doesn’t hold up in the end, so he also dies.

The way that I spell all of this out, I’m making it sound more complex than it is. Basically, it’s just 75 minutes of fantasy TV that dramatizes the notion of evolution in all its permutations.

The Localization of Counter-Strike in Japan

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Taninami, a thirteen-year veteran of Namco’s arcade division, was assigned five years ago to find a solution to the Japanese “network game problem”. Whereas the US has enjoyed about thirty-five years of network connectivity, online games have never really caught on in Japan; for some time, received wisdom placed the blame on a nonexistent or comparably obscure architecture. And yet, now that broadband is prevalent, the market still barely exists.

So why is that, Taninami asked. Flipping the question around, he then asked what makes network games fun. He concluded that pleasure comes in part from the game itself – provided it’s a good game – and in part from the company the player keeps. He called this situation a “relationship of multiplication”: if the opponent fails to play fairly, then the game fails to be enjoyable. As far as Taninami was concerned, that social angle was the biggest problem.

As Taninami had a limited budget, he figured there was no point in wasting resources on development, when there are already so many well-made games available; instead, he poured all of his attention into the network aspect, conducting reams on ridiculous reams of research on how to ensure a fun level of competition. For the game, he selected Counter-Strike, due to its popularity elsewhere in the world. He asked Valve for a license to promote the game in Japan; they said okay and everything was in order. Almost.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Worlds Are Colliding!: The Convergence of Film and Games

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

This year’s final IGDA San Francisco/Bay Area Chapter meeting – held Tuesday, the sixth of December at the Sony Metreon’s Action Theater in San Francisco – featured three representatives from Industrial Light + Magic and two from LucasArts. The assembled personages spent an hour discussing how, thanks to their new joint facility in San Francisco’s Presidio district, they can share resources more easily than before.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

On Licensed Fare

  • Reading time:7 mins read

Occurs to me, the best way to structure a Lord of the Rings videogame is to make it from Frodo’s persective, and Frodo’s perspective alone. Everything else is spiralling around somewhere in the background, out of his control, adding to the atmosphere. Assuming this game were based on the movies rather than the books, it would begin, with no particular prologue, outside the Green Dragon. The player, as Frodo, would amble, slightly drunk, back to Bag End; Sam would be around to help show the way. If the player were to go too far off-track, Sam could say, in a comforting voice, “‘ere, Mister Frodo, you’ve had a bit too much. Best follow me.” And Frodo would stumble around and take a step back toward Sam, with a bit of an acquiescent shrug. Sam would leave the player at the gate to Bag End, maybe pushing a bit, allowing the player to trot up through the door and walk around a little before Gandalf jumps out of nowhere, scaring the player half to death, asking about the Ring.

Within the context of the game, the player of course has no idea what’s happening. Frodo mumbles to Gandalf something about how he thinks he left it in the chest over there; the camera moves to frame it, the player is left free to wander Bag End; Gandalf will start to grow irritated if the player doesn’t go straight to the chest and open it, though. Once open, Frodo automatically fumbles around and draws out the envelope; Gandalf snatches it away, the whole sequence plays. Eventually the player is left free to scramble around for a few moments (there’s an invisible timer of sorts — long enough to be sane, short enough that the player can’t take however long he wants; Gandalf starts to get impatient if the player takes too long) and take whatever in Bag End seems of use. If the player seems confused, Gandalf will bark out suggestions. “Take some food! And try that walking stick over there!” When the player is done, he goes to Gandalf. (If the player just dallies forever, Gandalf interrupts and says they’ve delayed long enough. He might shove a generic pile of stuff into Frodo’s hands.) There’s another short bit of discussion, before Sam gets yanked through the window. Then the game cuts to Gandalf and Frodo walking along the road, toward the edge of Hobbiton, Sam scampering behind, Gandalf berating him. Gandalf offers his advice, and the player is left alone.

From then on, it’s forward. The player isn’t allowed back into Hobbiton. (“No… no, I can’t go back now. I’m afraid it’s no longer safe.”) Otherwise, it’s mostly free reign all through the Shire. Not much will happen aside from exploration. The hobbits become visibly exhausted and will begin to stagger if they don’t rest and eat from time to time. The general idea is to keep off the road, although it’s a good idea to keep the road in sight, lest the player become lost. Stray too far and you might have some strange run-ins; with wood elves or dwarves or even orcs. Sort of a Zelda or Dragon Quest idea of borders: although you can go anywhere, it’s on your own head if you act like a fool and stray far. Likewise, the farther from the path, the darker and more menacing the woods get; the greater the ambient noise. The game will send psychological signals, telling the player he shouldn’t be there (especially given the lack of any real means of self-defense except, perhaps, the occasional stone). Maybe if the player strays really, really far, Sam will be there to freak out and plead with Frodo to get back to the road.

The player probably won’t get actually killed or injured. He might be visibly (if subtly) stalked by wolves for a while. Just to give the player the hint. Perhaps if the player does get attacked, and injured a little, a ranger or a wood elf will pop out to slay the wolf and advise the player back to safety. Of course, if the player runs into someone on the road, that person will probably recognize Frodo and start making a big deal about it: “Why, FRODO BAGGINS, fancy seein’ you ‘ere! Why, wait until I tell the blokes at the pub who I ran across out in the middle of nowhere, why won’t they have a scream!” Frodo will automatically respond “Y…yes, nice to see you again. We’d really best be moving on.” “Oy, now that’s friendly! Well, have it as you will… (mutter mutter)” And the passerby would continue walking down the path. The idea is to give the player the idea that maybe he should avoid being recognized.

It will take a long while to walk from one place to the next; that’s a big part of the point. It’s all about the journey, about the sense of place along the way. Sense of distance. Sense of foreboding, as well. The idea that maybe the player is being watched. That the farther you get from home, the more treacherous the world feels, to a point. (This is before the wonder of travelling starts to really kick in, and when turning back still seems like a viable option, even if you know you can’t.)

Likewise, the game will somewhat funnel the player along the “right” path just by virtue of level design, carrots, and the above psychology. Farmer Maggot’s fields, say, will be the most obvious route to go, just because going any other route will be so unpleasant and slow, and Sam will whine so much, that it will in effect be the only viable option. If the player happens to miss Merry and Pippin one place, they will continue to wander around such that the player will meet them eventually, somehow, in some incidental manner. The level design will also ensure this. How the meeting transpires depends on the circumstances. If the player is being chased by black riders already, the dynamics will be different from if they bump into each other in a corn field or along the road.

As for the black riders: it should be immediately obvious to the player when they are coming — from visual, aural, and tactile cues. The idea is to make the player realize he really, really shouldn’t be where he is, and that he should get away and hide somewhere. It’ll be an ongoing menace for a while, keeping the player from standing around too long. If the player gets caught, maybe Merry and Pippin show up and pelt the rider with rocks, causing it to drop Frodo, and tell the player to follow them. Maybe the game is simply over right then and there. The rider rides off with Frodo, leaving Sam behind, weeping. And after a few moments, the screen fades to black, the player hears the sound of Frodo screaming, and the text “This is not the end…” appears.

The player should have the option to put on the ring at any time. Should be tempted. Perhaps when the Riders are near, the game interface does something to sugest to the player to use the item.

The game continues in this manner throughout the entire quest; things that are out of Frodo’s control are out of the player’s. The player is tempted and guided and manipulated just as Frodo is, all for the psychological effect. The idea is to make the player really feel like Frodo. To eventually confuse the hell out of him, and to make him want to take the easy way out of things.

I don’t see this game getting made. It wouldn’t be all that hard, of course. Not really. It’s certainly feasible. It’s just… not where we are, yet. Not how we think about videogames, yet. A shame, as I want to play it.

Post-production

  • Reading time:2 mins read

You know, the DVD format has its uses.

I think much of the trouble in Jackson’s The Two Towers lies in the editing. There are any number of ways this film could have been assembled. He chose a distracting one. If you isolate the two major story threads, they each flow well (aside from that endless elfy flashback sequence). As the film is assembled, however, they keep interrupting each other.

Following the structure of the original book, it seems to work best to put the Aragorn/Gimli/Legolas/Merry/Pippin material first, then to switch to Frodo and Sam. The question is when to do this. It would be more than a little weird to wait until the end of the one plot, then to rewind and start the other.There is a built-in cutaway point, however, in the Aragorn plot. In a scene in the extended version, Aragorn sits outside of Fangorn while Gandalf discusses the plot. The scene ends with the two of them talking about Frodo and Sam. Then — in this version — we cut away to maybe the second or third Sam/Frodo sequence.

Why not just wait until then to start their major story? It’s a perfect cue. Aragorn tells Gandalf that Frodo has Sam with him. Gandalf is pleased. So let’s see what Frodo and Sam are up to.

The Gandalf sequence at the start is still a good device. It’s just, cut away to the first Merry and Pippin scene after Frodo realizes that it was only a dream and lies back down. Then I suppose it works to cut away again, when Frodo and Sam first meet Faramir. Finish the first plot, then do the last hunk of the Frodo/Sam plot. (There’s not much left, after that point.) And get rid of that big elfy flashback. And. The movie might actually flow, as a coherent unit.

Hmm… I bet there’s a program feature in here somewhere…

EDIT: This thought train is continued here.

In contrast with hedgehogs

  • Reading time:3 mins read

OH JESUS THE FARMHOUSE IS EXACTLY THE SAME!

The barn, same architecute. Same placement. Windmill, exactly the same. Farmhouse itself: run down in exactly the same way. For all I know, all they did was trace over one of the old illustrations.

…

How unexpected.

I mean. There’s faithful adaptation, and there’s… something more than that.

Basically the only real alterations so far, from Mirage volume 1, have been for the better — expansion of Shredder’s and Stockman’s roles; the addition of Hun; an extra half-season of character building before the first big showdown. All of the TCRI stuff saved for season 2 (after season 1 will have focused on the entire original Shredder storyline).

Looks like the Stockman stuff from volume 2 will be worked into the upcoming Return to New York plot. Fine enough. Not a bad place for it; just get rid of all of the key season 1 villains at the same time, so we can get some closure and move on to the next big plot without any regrets.

I imagine that there should be more than enough material with the Fugitoid (assuming he’s around) and Triceratons and the Utroms to fill up season 2 — especially given the way that the animation team’s been operating so far. They’ve proved that they can run with a concept and flesh it out better than Easman and Laird ever really did.

What’ll that leave us with, for season three (assuming it’s coming)? How about City at War? Seems perfect; a return to Earth, and the setting of the first season. The remaining Foot will have been in chaos while they’ve been gone (in this case, whatever corner of space the Triceratons are found — as opposed to Northampton, lounging around for several years).

It’s the next big plot arc in the official canon. The series will be closing on episode fifty by the beginning of season three. Issue #50 is where the C@W arc begins, in the comic (although there’s about thirty issues of one-off meandering by random authors, in place of the paced development of the TV series). Yes! This will be a good thing.

…

I need to calm down.

Ahem.

Now I’m going to watch North by Northwest. And then, maybe the semi-yet-not-really-restored version of Nosferatu (for the sake of contrast with the other version that I own).

And then — hell, maybe Secret Agent? I don’t know.

I’ll just play it by ear.

“Kauf, Kauf…” (or: Malkovich Gaiden)

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Mm. I’ve been kind of scared to watch Adaptation again. I’ve seen it two and a quarter times now — once in the theater, once at home, and the rest in French. The dub was strange.

The point is, I really liked it in the theater. It was one of the only movies that I’d seen which honestly impressed me on an intellectual level. I identified with it in a number of ways. I was, however, uncertain of how stable this might be.

It defeated me the first time. I enjoyed it the second time. Still, the movie isn’t exactly perfect. There are some qualities which are a little annoying — even though it accounts for them just fine. It wouldn’t be the same movie otherwise; it wouldn’t hold together in the same way.

I was afraid that my patience wouldn’t last through those bits and that the movie might start to fall apart, if I picked at it too much. I know that it doesn’t hold up for a lot of people — otherwise rather perceptive people — in a couple of specific places. Towards the end, especially.

Perhaps only in my vanity, I’d like to think that I more clearly understand what the movie is trying to do (and succeeding, as far as what it intends). Was I just tolerating those bits in favor of the larger structure? Did understanding them do me any real good? How about understanding that the movie sets itself up to allow me to watch it any old way that I like? To pick a level (if I wish) and stay with it? To ride it through to the end? Was I merely tricked into outsmarting myself?

The answer: I think, no. I’m watching it yet again. It’s paused right after the last “muffin” line. And… although this is early, it still works. I can project out from here. I think I’m appreciating it better each time. This film isn’t as fragile as I feared that it might be.

Further, it’s… oddly encouraging. Just as it’s depressing.

BONUS NOTE!

Try filtering The Matrix through Adaptation.

You can use the movie as a colander, you know. It’s fun!

Either Matrix will do. Your choice.

Note the bit about broken mirrors.

Choice is good.

The Wachowskis do indeed possess a certain flavour of genius.

I’m not sure if it’s a constructive kind, but it’s undeniably there.

“There are no easy answers”

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Adaptation is a movie which it is impossible to say anything intelligent about. You can take that as you will.

Even saying that, I’m probably missing the point.

Nevertheless, I am thoroughly defeated. This is what films can be at the level to which no one ever seems to bother to take them.

I think once this comes out on DVD, I’ll have an interesting tool. Whenever I want a good gauge of how someone’s mind works, I’ll show him or her Adaptation. See what the conclusion is.

I don’t think I’ve had to work that hard in the act of watching a movie, for a very long time (if ever). After a certain point, I had to watch it three or four times at once with separate parts of my brain while simultaneously rewinding and reframing every other element, character, facet of the film from the first words, with every new sentence which was uttered.

And even in doing that, and in realizing that in trying to even find a level to watch it on, or find… anything to speak about, I am shown for the fool that I am — I am! By simply throwing my hands up and saying that the movie intentionally defies concrete understanding and revels in that fact, I’m still narrowing it down to a point which is so inherently ingrained in the movie’s fiber that that’s not it either.

…

So I’ll simply nod. I, personally, can’t hold this one. I’ll just admire it.

Now, how long will it take before videogames reach this level of art? Hmm…

Art and life really are synonymous, aren’t they? Can I ever birth such an immortal being? What’s the point of being here, if not? We are given such a limited chance, and all most people seem to have the ambition to do is to selfishly create more literal life. Life which will wither and wane and be forgotten. A hundred years, and no one will have the chance to know it. It will have no more to say.

I feel I have a responsibility to do more than that, with all of the resources I’m wasting merely by existing in the first place. But can I do it? Will I ever know if I have?

…

All right. I guess I can say that about the movie, without imposing myself upon it. Without suggesting that what I say is the movie, or its point (if it has any one in particular). If I make sure to make this distinction, I suppose I should be okay.

Unrelatedly, The Two Towers didn’t annoy me anywhere near as much on the instance of my second subjection to it. And I can’t get that damned Gollum’s Song, from the ending credits, out of my head of this moment. The flashbacks are still murder, though.

I just flipped the light switch, in attempt to flush the toilet.

Tales of Derring-Do

  • Reading time:4 mins read

As incorrect as DuckTales was, I’ve always thought the voice fellow they used made a good Scrooge — even though Rosa insists Scrooge shouldn’t really have any accent anymore. The voice just fits him better than most characters. Donald’s voice, for example; it’s fine for the screen-Donald, who, as they say, throws nuts at Chip ‘N Dale — but the comic book Duck, who has a personality, speaks like a normal human being? I have no clue what his voice would sound like.

I also do like the refined nephew voices in DuckTales. They sound “ducky” enough, but are more than normal-sounding, as well.

Actually, DT wasn’t too bad a show. It had a number of well-written episodes, and, hell, it tried. It’s virtually the only acknowledgement by Disney that Barks’ characters ever existed. Just the fact they altered so many things and got so much wrong really annoys me.

I also admit I do like Launchpad. He was basically added to take the place of the Donald role, but he’s an enjoyable character anyway.

What don’t rub me so well are:

  • Webby and “Mrs. Beakly”;
  • “Duckworth”
  • that young fellow named “Doofus”
  • the voice for Magica DeSpell — she’s supposed to be a vixen. Why does she sound like an old hag?
  • Their characterization of Glomgold as a Scotsman who lives in Duckburg rather than a Boer who lives in South Africa
  • Their dumbed-down and “modified” Beagle Boys, with their individual names and personalities (beyond the prunes and numbers)
  • The absence of Donald, he being the axis of the whole situation to begin with
  • The strange, gawky way they drew Gyro
  • The fact that Gyro’s little helper only appeared exactly twice in all the years of the show, in cameos, and that when he did appear they called him “little bulb.” Again, huh?
  • The fact that Gladstone, as major a character as he is, only appeared twice. (Perhaps in absence of his rival, Donald?) He had a brief cameo, which was cute — but when he appeared properly, they got his character all wrong.
  • The minimal acknowledgement of the Junior Woodchucks, and very un-woodchucklike behaviour on the part of the nephews
  • The unfortunate characterization, voice, and appearance they gave to Glittering Goldie.
  • the odd negative color-switch they gave to $crooge’s jersey.
  • The fact they permanently screwed things up by confusing Dewey and Louie, then insisting it had always been that way. (Rather than Huey=red; Dewey=blue and Louie=green, as it had usually tended to be (once colors had finally been settled upon), they made it Huey=red; Dewey=green and Louie=blue.)
  • The absence of the dry wit to Barks’s writing, either misinterpreting it and taking jokes seriously or just being sickly silly.

And yet: they did basically get Scrooge’s character right, which is amazing. Had they just stuck to Barks, the show could still be on now — the elements they removed could provide a virtually endless number of plot ideas, in a number of different genres — the “ten pager,” with Donald and the kids getting into trouble around town or chasing each other around or contesting against Gladstone or other day-to-day activities; the classic Scrooge adventure, which is basically all they used as inspiration; the Scrooge “ten pager,” which they did actually use on occasion, which deal with more daily, small troubles; the Donald adventure story; the Junior Woodchuck competition stories; the Gyro episode… I could go on.

The biggest error is probably their removal of Donald and Gladstone. Compared to their absence, the other changes are nothing. I guess they just didn’t think Donald would be intelligable enough for such a large role — or perhaps they didn’t want the wider public to be confused by the fact he has a personality. I think they just figured everyone else other than the nephews would be “new” characters to most of the viewing population, allowing them to mold the show however they liked.

Result, almost everyone I’ve met seems to think that Scrooge was created for DuckTales in 1986. A few correct them: no, he was the character created for Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1980, remember? Then that just confuses the whole matter. Why would Disney use Ebenezer Scrooge as a major character and call him Donald’s uncle?