ANIMATED INSIGHTS BY SHANNON MUIR – now called SHANNON MUIR’S ANIMATED INSIGHTS – takes you inside Shannon’s latest reflections on her passion for animation as a medium, and other animated insights about life. To catch up on all posts, check out the Animated Insights portion of the website!
Forty years ago, I was a kid with a dream. Well, it was the dream of my sister and I in the beginning. However, as life has it, things affect people differently and our individual lives took their separate ways.
For me, it became a journey of proving people wrong.
I remember being told, especially by high school, that an interest in animation writing was silly.
I’ve since learned that when I went to college starting my senior year, people thought I was at best naive and at worst ridiculous saying I would eventually be working for large companies in Hollywood.
Yet, somehow, I ended up working not only for Sony but Nickelodeon/Viacom (currently owned by Paramount). Some independent studios, also, along the way.
Lastly, in a very roundabout but full-circle way, my first writing credits would actually be for a Japanese studio – given my initial interest in animation happened when my family lived in Japan, and that the show that first would inspire me to take the journey seriously would be a show brought over and dubbed for the American audience that later produced original episodes.
It has been almost four months since I got on stage and talked about how much the influence from that show – VOLTRON – had on my life. Like so much in my life, it is difficult to see as just mere coincidence. It still defies explanation.
I am very much aware that a live-action movie is in the works, but like everyone else have no idea what is about. It may redefine everything that the property has meant up until now – or, as the works that have been in-between, just be another alternate dimension in a standard that has been established since the 1984 show.
I’ve been well aware for many years now that there are some people out there who think I have an ego as to my involvement in the whole VOLTRON fandom and all that. It’s the furthest thing from the truth. I really don’t like having the spotlight on me unless there seems to be a reason. It is like I said during a panel I did last year at VOLTCON, every time that things seem to bring me away from the fandom, other things draw me back. I put up my website before I left where I was living to come to Hollywood to share what I had and leave my fan past behind; I had no idea what would follow that would tie me to VOLTRON: THE THIRD DIMENSON through the Starmap. When VOLTRON FORCE was announced, I thought my time was really through then, until the LET’S VOLTRON PODCAST discovered me based on what was known about me from VOLTRON: THE THIRD DIMENSION, and my involvement continued with them through VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER though I had no direct connection to that series (though several people on staff for that show I had worked with in the past at other studios; the world is small).
As I said, there is a live-action movie in the works now, a different medium altogether with a new set of rules. I have been asked if I have any involvement with the film, and I want it for the record that I have no attachment to the production. Not only do I need to have to come at the movie as solely a film watcher, I’m going to have to leave forty plus years of all my knowledge, devotion and determination on the shelf.
That second part may be the biggest ask of all.
There’s still a lot I do not have answers for. Was my role in all this just to keep fandom motivated enough to get to al live-action film, or do I still have a role left to play?
I’m still seeking those answers.
To quote the song that became my anthem of sorts after VOLTRON ended, performed by the Moody Blues, “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere”.