Toon Makers (Saban Moon) Sailor Moon pilot?

[Memelord_Yoshi]

Loved it! Better than Crystal!

 

[journeyin2mystery]

To be fair, perhaps he was speaking mostly in his 'yes man' professional capacity of not being able to badmouth a project he was involved in (contrasted with something like Roy Sheider talking about how awful he thought Seaquest's plots were, or that guy who played the first officer Chakotay in Star Trek Voyager).

I could even imagine this show having enjoyed a brief run of 'success'.

But by the year 2000 it would've been old and dead and, at best, remembered as one of those cheesy old things. The closest thing it would probably get to a revival is cheap jokes on Robot Chicken.

The real Sailor Moon definitely had more fame during this interview than I think this show could've had, because it was on the leading edge of the expanding anime community next to Dragon Ball Z (to the point that stock, crummy parodies of anime culture almost ubiquitously referenced DBZ and Sailor Moon). And it retained a lot of very loyal followers in the almost two decades since.

Heck, it still picks up new followers. I didn't really sit down to watch it through or start caring about it in a big way until 2011.

The DiC dub may have it's issues, but it really seems to me like we dodged a bullet by getting that instead of... this thing. Anime fandom in the US still would've come through, but this was an early gem, and it might've blipped past people's radar if they only heard of the real deal once it was old news, and it would've been missing a major bright spot in many people's lives back then.

That said, morbid curiosity has me intrigued enough that I would be willing to consider watching a pilot if one surfaced. It looks really, really dumb, though, and I say that as someone who could kinda get behind the glider sail things.

100%

I thank god nearly everyday that this “sh&t” was never released. This would have probably erased the Japanese version for the world distribution...

They ditch the girl in the wheel chair!!!
HOW DARE THEY DO THAT!!!

This looks worse than Saban Moon...the press on nails aren't even straight

Loved it! Better than Crystal!

“Take that tall, dark and gruesome!”

The galaxy brain they had to have to go through all of that effort to make… THAT pilot to pitch such a convoluted idea when the obvious answer was to just dub the series. Honestly, ICONIC.

Literally every second of that pilot is meme-worthy.

haha, yes!

Seeing Mercury flying around and shootimg laser beams from an Astro wheelchair is problematic. Not because of the disability. That's not an issue, it's the delivery of her lines as she does it that makes you want to push Lead Crow out of the way and take her place in the black hole.

Lol, switch places with Lead Crow when she said "make way for the original party girl"...

Amazing.

great find!

Did anyone else catch that Beryl steals a line from Lord of the Rings lol?

Galadriel's speech in LOTR (book and movie), before she refuses the One Ring, ends with: All shall love me and despair!

And Beryl's speech in the pilot includes the line: Behold Queen Beryl and despair!

I have to assume this is a reference to LOTR, especially since they call the crystals the "Jewels of Power" lol

good catch...I thought it sounded like a familiar reference

I finally watched the pilot today as a guest on a Dual German/English Sailor Moon Podcast, so look forward to that episode when it comes out, I’ll link the episode here on the forum, anyways my thoughts:

• 
  Right off the bat one of the biggest changes Saban Moon made was the establishment of the Silver Millennium in response to Beryl’s attack, rather than it existing beforehand. This is a major change because it changes the the whole context of their past lives drastically. No longer was the Silver Millenium a time of peace and prosperity like it’s presented as in all other versions, but rather a time of war and great political upheaval. It also puts into question just what Beryl’s beef was with Queen Serenity in the first place? Because in all other versions she’s attacking the Moon precisely because she views them as “too well off”, but here that doesn’t seem to be the case at all so it makes me wonder how they were going to attempt to explain away the conflict.
• 
  Another big change is that Princess Serenity was apparently already Sailor Moon back on the Moon, the premise of the entire franchise is built on the notion that Usagi’s life here in the present is different from her past and she can now take up the mantle of fighting herself to protect her loved ones - as big of a change as this is though I actually really sort of dig it? It manages to fit in with later manga lore and actually makes sense of it, one of the biggest downfalls to Naoko’s retcon of the lore in later arcs is that it leaves a big gaping plot-hole as to why Princess Serenity wouldn’t have awakened as Sailor Moon back during the SilMil, I mean she’s the Senshi of the Moon and is the carrier of the Moon’s Silver Crystal Starseed/Sailor Crystal is she not? Queen Serenity didn’t seem to have any powers of transformation, so what, was the Moon just without a guardian Senshi at the time? How on earth then did it manage to be the crowning leader of the entire SilMil civilization?
• 
  Princess Serenity (Or I guess in this version it would be “Princess Victoria?”) and Prince Darien are in an arranged political engagement rather than being actually in love and I also quite like this change because I was never a fan of their overly saccharine Miracle Romance to begin with. It puts more emphasis on the Political Intrigue that was going on at the time, which I am always here for and wish the franchise had focused on more.
• 
  Probably the most drastic change is that rather than being killed and then reborn like in all other versions, in this one Sailor Moon and the girls apparently are apparently time traveling/trans migrating through eras and their civilian forms on Earth are just undercover disguises. Does this mean they no longer have their own Earth families? How much exactly do they remember? Because the pilot was unclear as to whether they had lost their memories or not.
• 
  Speaking of Earth families it seems like they have to still have them because Grandpa Hino transformed into Jiji was in the pilot. (as was Rhett Butler, were they just going to use the 7 Great Youma right off the bat and axe the Shittenou?) The fact that they had Mars of all people be the one to attack him felt a bit too on the nose to be entirely coincidental. I talk more about this in the Podcast episode but it would’ve been really cool if this was meant to be part of some bigger subplot where Grandpa Hino pulls a “Dark Mercury/Black Lady/Evil Endymion” and is taken hostage by the Dark Kingdom/Negaverse and now the girls have to fight to get him back. I always love unexpected twists like that regarding switching up which characters are going to be the ones to turn evil especially if it happens to be one of the regular, civilian characters because then that’s Senshi life directly cutting into their civilian lives and it’s a brilliant catalyst at raising the tension between the two.
• 
  Beryl appears to have come from another dimension in this version just like in the DIC dub. I’m wondering if now like with the name “Victoria” DIC got the idea of the Negaverse dimension from here?
• 
  Why does Queen Serenity look so drastically different from her daughter? Does this mean they would’ve potentially given “Princess Victoria” a father?
• 
  And why change the color of Tuxedo Mask’s/Darien’s signature roses from red to white? Not that I care much or anything but that’s certainly a really random change like they did with Luna’s coloring.
• 
  Speaking of Luna, does Artemis not exist in this version?
• 
  Was that girl who first barged into Victoria’s room Minako/Carrie or was that supposed to be Molly? I do hope they were planning on still keeping Molly and Melvin’s characters, after all who else is going to be Youma bait? And it helps ground Victoria more to her “normal girl” life.
• 
  Of course they made Mars “the Asian one,” she’s the most Japanese-coded character, not even just cause of her Shrine and being a Miko but even by sheer design.
• 
  What is it about American SM dubs and designating Mercury to be the one to deliver the sick burns? “Tall Dark and Gruesome” has got to be a precursor to the infamous “Go bleach your roots creep!” lmao
• 
  Speaking of existing patterns American adaptations of SM tend to follow, why do they all somehow manage to be closer to the Manga in regards to the Senshi Princess Lore than the actual Japanese version itself?
• 
  The Henshin scene was better than the early Crystal ones, I’ll say that much.

And that’s basically all my thoughts. Overall I would say that it’s definitely an…interesting take on the franchise. Certainly unique with some brand new ideas that had never been done before which is more than I can say for Crystal. I don’t know if I would’ve wanted this to replace the actual Optimum dub, but I would’ve certainly liked to live in a world where this is what we got for the 20th anniversary for Sailor Moon rather than Crystal, at least it brings something new to the table and continues to follow in the tradition of every iteration of Sailor Moon basically being a different spin on the core concept.

i appreciate your take...and what is the podcast?

Personally I think she's got the best & coolest character design among the five.

so cool...def my fave character design of the bunch

 

[Sabrblade]

Part 2:

 

[YuYu Yuichiro]

Hey everyone! While the true pilot is found, i still want to continue as I've already put so much into it. This is the first trailer for my Toon Makers reanimation project! I want to take this relic of 90's lost media, and do my best to give it another chance. While I would never replace the original Sailor Moon, this alternate universe had a lot of potential. What if they had more time, and a better budget? Let's find out!

Goals:
*improved animation/TLC
*more interesting dialogue that better expresses the character's personalities
*patch up confusing plot points
*dive more into sailor moon/Darien's relationship
cool action scenes i unno


*shrug Animation is a very time consuming process, and i'm working on 2 big projects by myself. I want everything to be the best it can be, so please bear with me!
tune in next time~!

 

[Memelord_Yoshi]

I'd love to see them animate that wheelchair.

 

[DREWdesu]

Omg I can't wait to see if they finish this reanimation project! The trailer gave me chills.

Anyway I did some internet snooping and found out Danny DeLacey had further acting credits under the name Dani Lee. It went up to 2003. I wonder how she's going now...

Here are some youtube clips of her. This channel also has videos from the actresses for Moon and Jupiter too.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

^ So they're still being followed by fans like the PGSM girls? Maybe they should also have a reunion talk show like the latter did just lately.

 

[Sabrblade]

^ So they're still being followed by fans like the PGSM girls?

More like that channel was created just last year in light of Ray Mona's recent detective work. Before then, no one knew who these girls were besides Jupiter's actress.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

More like that channel was created just last year in light of Ray Mona's recent detective work. Before then, no one knew who these girls were besides Jupiter's actress.

Probably so, hence I'd amend that line in my last post above to "So they're now being followed by fans like the PGSM girls? ".

 

[Sabrblade]

Probably so, hence I'd amend that line in my last post above to "So they're now being followed by fans like the PGSM girls? ".

At least followed by that one person.

But be it one or one hundred, it's cool that those girls now have a fanbase.

Now if only the actors who played Venus and Tuxedo Mask could be identified.

On a different note: Wow! The Wikipedia article for this pilot has grown exponentially more informative: Sailor Moon (1994 TV pilot) - Wikipedia

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

On a different note: Wow! The Wikipedia article for this pilot has grown exponentially more informative: Sailor Moon (1994 TV pilot) - Wikipedia

lol It's now treated like a regular, formal show.

 

[Clow]

DIC Entertainment was already adapting Japanese works for American audiences back in the early-90s.

This is DIC’s adaptation of Denkou Choujin Grindman

Apparently, adapting Sailor Moon into a TV show was initially an idea that Bandai USA and DIC had.

 

[kasumigenx]

DIC Entertainment was already adapting Japanese works for American audiences back in the early-90s.

This is DIC’s adaptation of Denkou Choujin Grindman

Apparently, adapting Sailor Moon into a TV show was initially an idea that Bandai USA and DIC had.

TOEI preferred the anime being dubbed over that.

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

DIC Entertainment was already adapting Japanese works for American audiences back in the early-90s.

This is DIC’s adaptation of Denkou Choujin Grindman

Yes they were riding the Power Rangers wave by mixing a super hero toku show with American footage

Apparently, adapting Sailor Moon into a TV show was initially an idea that Bandai USA and DIC had.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but Sailor Moon was a tv show before DiC knew what a Sailor Moon was

 

[Clow]

I also wonder why they chose Sailor Moon, specifically.

Yes, Sailor Moon won the anime of the year award in 1992, but many TOEI productions, e.g. Saint Seiya, were already popular in Latin America and Europe.

 

[Clow]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but Sailor Moon was a tv show before DiC knew what a Sailor Moon was

I mean turning it into a live action TV show for the American audience.

 

[kasumigenx]

I also wonder why they chose Sailor Moon, specifically.

Yes, Sailor Moon won the anime of the year award in 1992, but many TOEI productions, e.g. Saint Seiya, were already popular in Latin America and Europe.

DIC wanted to adapt Sailor Moon at least into a live-action movie which would later be taken over by Disney but it did not push through, they dubbed the anime with Canadian voice actors because that is what TOEI wanted.

 

[Sabrblade]

I also wonder why they chose Sailor Moon, specifically.

Probably because Sailor Moon's concept looked like "Power Rangers for girls" and they could use it to continue riding that wave.

 

[kasumigenx]

We could have Team Angel with Joss Whedon as director instead of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer...Bandai was in the wrong place at the wrong time and with the wrong people to create a live-action sailor moon adaptation.

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

DIC wanted to adapt Sailor Moon at least into a live-action movie which would later be taken over by Disney but it did not push through, they dubbed the anime with Canadian voice actors because that is what TOEI wanted.

Disney wanted to adapt Sailor Moon into a live action movie after they acquired DiC. This was circa 1997 when the first 65 episodes had already aired and the last 17 episodes of R were either being dubbed for YTV or DiC and Irwin Toys were in the process of getting that worked out.

DiC never expressed interest in a live-action movie before that and were always going to just dub the anime. The appeal to DiC was always "the animation has already been done for us and it had a proven successful toyline around the world)