Creature Shop and Call of Duty

Here's some E3 news I read:

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/513/513604p1.html

--Klonoa

Well whoever said that puppets where going to be taken over by computers and video games might be wrong. they want profesonal puppetters well i wonder if the muppet prefromers will be on hand to give lessons on puppettreing or if they will even have some voices in the game as well. This could be a really good team for the Fraggles to have a Game but we know that know all Muppet games will be under Disny interactive. Which is not all bad when you think of Kingdm hearts.

Like it wasn't upsetting enough to hear that the Muppets would be Disney's latest pillage, now we find out that the Henson company is lending its hand to a military-based video game. While I'm not related to Jim and I cannot claim to have had intimate knowledge where he stood on any particular subject, as a fan and an person well educated in all things Muppet, I cannot imagine that Jim would have approved of his company taking part in such a product. Jim had always maintained that the Muppets (or more specifically, the Creature Shop) would work exclusively in the realm of family entertainment and not lend itself to horror or war genres. Jim had reservations about working on the Ninja Turtles film, for Pete's sake, and that had mostly dilluted, cartoony violence. So how could the company think that the Henson name would be a good match with a war game? Anyone who's read Jim Henson: The Works or seen any intimate interview with Jim would understand his goals for peace and understanding and his opposition of war and violence. The company's involvement in this video game just seems like a slap in the face of Jim's memory, and a far cry from what the Henson name has come to stand for for the better part of fifty years.

dwayne1115 said:

Well whoever said that puppets where going to be taken over by computers and video games might be wrong.

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I think they are definately wrong. Most of the big action movies this summer have had puppeteers working on them in one capacity or another (I was writing about this in my blog today). A lot of puppeteers have also gone in to animation (like Karen Prell and Mike Quinn) and the skills required for puppetry are easily transferrable to computer graphics and animation.

lowercasegods said:

I cannot imagine that Jim would have approved of his company taking part in such a product.

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Well according to Pete Coogan from the creature shop, he thinks Jim would have love this.

From http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040517.gtpuppetmay17/BNStory/AtPlay/

Mr. Coogan, who has worked with Henson's company since 1983, said his former boss — who died in 1990 — would have been excited about puppeteering's evolution.

"Jim would have embraced this technology enormously and really enjoyed it. He loved to play. He would have embraced it and pushed it to its limits."

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It's not the techhology that I'm questioning. There's no doubt that Jim would have loved that. What I'm saying is that Jim would have been opposed to his company being involved in a product that promotes of deals with war. So Mr. Coogan is correct, Jim would have been thrilled with the new technology that his company is employing. But thematically speaking, Jim would have opposed the technology being used for a war game. Once again, I encourage the reading of Jim Henson: The Works or any other writing on Jim to see where he stood on matters of war and how he embraced the ideals of peace and harmony, neither of which would a game of this sort embody in the slightest.

I know that Jim wanted a world in peace. But who would not like that.

But to say that a war game is bad, is a bit to far. I could understand that Jim would have something against it if the company was hired by the US army to make a wargame for them. But to make a computer game, that are for enyjoyment for all. I don't think that Jim would have anything against that.
Is it not better to play war on a computer, were it's controlled fun, rather than to make war in real life ?

I appreciate your perspective, and also appreciate the opportunity to be able to discuss Muppet-related news with another fan. And you're right, it's much better to have people playing war-related video games than to actually engage in war. And I'm not begrudging those who make or play such games either, since there's obviously a market for them and many people enjoy playing them. All I'm saying is that, in my opinion, Jim would not have wanted to be involved in an entertainment venture that involved war. So it just seems wrong that his company would be involved in this sort of product. Jim has made many, many shows, specials and projects that have pushed for peace, so it seems contradictory for his company to help make a war game. Now, if, say, Quentin Tarantino wanted to make a game like this, it would make sense, since he has no opposition towards creative violence. But that sort of thing just isn't Henson, y'know? So I'm not objecting to the creation of war related video games. Just the illogical involvement of Henson's company in their creation.