0:01 Glitch Productions, the studio behind
0:03 shows like The Amazing Digital Circus
0:05 and Murder Drones, has just released the
0:06 trailer for their upcoming show, The
0:08 Knights of Gwennavir. It's created by
0:10 Dana Terrace, and with the pilot having
0:13 a release date of September 19th, it's
0:14 also right around the corner. While
0:16 watching the trailer, however, something
0:18 stood out to me. The show is clearly
0:21 inspired by Disney, and not in the good
0:23 way. It's not exactly a secret that
0:25 Disney has seen better days as of late.
0:27 They have movies underperforming left
0:29 and right and new controversies
0:31 springing up like weeds. On the creation
0:33 level, I would argue that much of these
0:34 missteps are the results of poor
0:36 decision-making and overreach from the
0:38 company executives. Whether that's
0:40 inserting things, removing things, or
0:42 anything in between, it's clear many
0:44 creatives are not happy about the way
0:46 the company has treated its projects.
0:48 And undeniably, one of the biggest
0:50 mistakes Disney has made in this
0:52 department in the last 5 years was its
0:54 treatment of the Owl House. Whether or
0:56 not you were a fan of the show, you have
0:59 to admit its cancellation was a mistake
1:01 for Disney. The Owl House was originally
1:03 pitched in 2016 to three different
1:05 networks: Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon,
1:07 and of course, the Disney Channel, where
1:09 it eventually ended up residing. Disney
1:11 was chosen specifically because,
1:13 according to Dana Terrace herself, it
1:15 seemed more open to queer themes and
1:17 characters. Additionally, at the time,
1:19 both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network
1:21 mainly wanted to pick up episodic
1:23 11minute comedy shows, and that wasn't
1:24 the direction Terrace wanted to go in
1:26 with her show. On top of all that, it's
1:28 not really a surprise she went with
1:29 Disney, considering she had worked on
1:31 prior Disney Channel shows before, like
1:34 Gravity Falls and Ducttales 2017. She
1:36 already understood much of how the
1:38 studio worked, and she already knew
1:40 people there who could work on her show.
1:41 Terrace would later retroactively say
1:43 that if she had made The Owl House with
1:45 a different studio, she probably would
1:47 have had a different team, a tighter
1:49 budget, and shorter episode lengths. All
1:51 of this is to say, Disney seemed like
1:53 the perfect choice, but as I'm sure
1:55 you've gathered, or as I'm sure you
1:57 know, that all went downhill. The studio
1:59 initially ordered two seasons of The Owl
2:01 House, each one consisting of around 20
2:03 episodes. And during the roll out of
2:05 season 1, it seemed to be doing well. It
2:07 was getting decent numbers, and the crew
2:08 knew that they were going to get picked
2:10 up for a third season. However, on May
2:13 17th of 2021, about a month before the
2:15 release of season 2, Dana Terrace
2:17 announced some very tragic news on her
2:19 Twitter page. In response to someone
2:22 congratulating her on season 3, she
2:23 said, "This is a shortened order from
2:26 our expected 10 to 20 episode pickup. It
2:28 was unexpected and focusing on this
2:29 situation was the main reason I left
2:31 Twitter a while back." Someone then
2:33 followed that up by asking if that meant
2:35 season 3 would be the final season, and
2:37 Dana Terrace confirmed it. Basically,
2:39 what happened was that despite the show
2:40 doing well and building towards a third
2:43 season that Disney seemingly wanted to
2:45 do, Disney decided to can it, giving the
2:47 show only three more episodes to finish
2:49 up its whole story while citing that the
2:52 show no longer fit their brand. Many Owl
2:53 House fans initially interpreted this to
2:55 mean that Disney was cutting the show
2:57 because of its queer representation, but
2:59 Dana Terrace herself later confirmed
3:01 this to be false. In my personal
3:03 opinion, it seems much more likely that
3:04 the show was cancelled because of
3:06 panicked executive decisions during the
3:08 pandemic. Anyways, while season 2 was
3:10 rolling out, Dana Terrace said this
3:11 about the cancellation. The meeting was
3:13 extremely frustrating because we were
3:15 doing well. We were getting decent
3:16 numbers. It didn't make sense,
3:18 especially during a time where the
3:19 studio should have been supporting crews
3:21 and artists and their production staff,
3:23 and we were getting none of that on top
3:24 of the show getting cancelled. It was
3:26 just so much. And it took a while to
3:28 recover from that creatively. It was
3:30 only after cancelling the show that
3:32 those executives realized that they had
3:34 made a mistake. Dana Terrace would go on
3:36 to say, "At first, the executives would
3:37 see the show trending every day on
3:39 Twitter and be like, oh, anyone can
3:40 trend on Twitter. That doesn't actually
3:42 mean anything." But seeing the views on
3:44 YouTube and seeing the people who came
3:46 to New York Comic-Con gave them a much
3:48 better idea of, "Oh no, the show is
3:50 actually successful." Unfortunately
3:52 though, by the time those executives
3:54 realized this, the show was already
3:55 cancelled. Dana Terrace was obviously
3:57 frustrated with this. She did everything
3:59 right. She made a show for them which
4:02 was successful and then they canled it
4:03 only for them to later realize that they
4:05 judged it too quickly. They had made a
4:08 mistake. The thing is this mistake
4:10 messes up people's jobs, their
4:11 livelihoods, their art, and their
4:13 passions. How could Disney make a
4:15 mistake like this? They literally had
4:16 all the viewership numbers and stats
4:18 right in front of them. This is
4:21 executive incompetence. And since then,
4:22 Dana Terrace has stated multiple times
4:24 that she would not make a season 4 of
4:27 The Owl House if given the chance. Now,
4:28 this is the part of the story where
4:30 Glitch comes in. On January 17th of
4:33 2025, a new independently animated show
4:35 is announced. It's called The Knights of
4:37 Gwenny, and one of its creators is none
4:39 other than Dana Terrace. The studio
4:41 behind it is Glitch Productions,
4:43 possibly the largest and most popular
4:46 indie studio in the whole world. At the
4:47 very least, it's top two. and they're
4:48 known for basically letting their
4:50 showrunners make whatever the heck they
4:52 wanted as long as it wouldn't get banned
4:54 off YouTube, meaning it has a lot more
4:57 creative freedom than Disney ever did.
4:59 Outside of her Owl House artwork, Dana
5:00 Terrace had always been known for
5:02 drawing some pretty disturbing things,
5:04 particularly body horror. You could see
5:07 that inspiration in the Owl House, but
5:08 obviously because of the show's
5:10 demographic, she could never go that
5:12 crazy with it. But now in this teaser
5:14 for Glitch's Nights of Guyavir, you can
5:16 see that horror in full display. At
5:18 Disney, Terrace had been restricted both
5:20 in the episodes, as I've just recounted,
5:23 but also in it being a family show. Now,
5:25 she's basically free and can do what she
5:28 pleases. And most importantly, there's
5:30 no executive meddling. This isn't all
5:32 about Dana Terrace, however, as I'm sure
5:34 you noticed, there's two other names on
5:36 the Knights of Gwenny creators credit.
5:38 Those being John Bailey Owens and Zack
5:40 Marcus. The first wrote on Future Worm
5:42 and the second wrote on Star Versus the
5:44 Forces of Evil, but most importantly,
5:48 they both also wrote on the Owl House,
5:49 so they all have that bad work
5:51 experience. Yesterday, we finally got
5:53 the trailer for The Knights of
5:54 Gwennavir, and it could not be more
5:56 obvious that it was made by a bunch of
5:58 artists who were screwed over by Disney.
6:00 The trailer opens up to a view of a
6:02 theme park with a large statue of a
6:04 princess overlooking many castles. It's
6:06 clear that this park is themed around
6:07 the princess, but as the narration
6:10 suggests, this was a long time ago. A
6:12 little girl is seen walking towards a
6:14 bed in a large room surrounded by gifts.
6:16 From the following scenes, it's safe to
6:18 assume that none other than the mascot
6:19 of the park, the princess herself, is
6:21 the one laying in the bed. Another shot
6:23 of the bed shows it surrounded with
6:24 medical supplies, and the narration
6:26 describes the princess being trapped by
6:28 machines running on blood and fear.
6:30 Then, suddenly, the old film burns away,
6:33 and we presumably cut to the modern day.
6:35 The park is run down and covered in
6:37 trash and graffiti. We get a shot of the
6:39 little girl pulling on a vital of this
6:41 living princess machine as an older man
6:43 stands above her. We get another shot of
6:45 this older man later on. It seems to be
6:47 a video of him from long ago. He dresses
6:49 the camera and tells the audience to
6:51 meet the different versions of the
6:52 princess. If you zoom in, one of these
6:55 versions is a liveaction version that
6:57 nobody asked for. Another one is a doll.
6:59 But then all of the scenes cut away and
7:01 we're left with a series of much more
7:03 violent ones as the show's logo grows
7:05 towards the audience. While watching
7:07 this, it's impossible not to compare it
7:09 to Disney. The parks with the castles
7:11 and princesses long past their glory
7:13 days. Scenes of this man who you could
7:15 argue does bear some resemblance to Walt
7:17 Disney. And then of course this jab at
7:19 liveaction remakes, a very clear
7:21 reference to Disney's most recent
7:23 obsession. Glitch also put out a very
7:25 brief summary alongside the trailer,
7:27 saying, "Knights of Gwynavir is a
7:29 psychological thriller that welcomes you
7:31 to a planetwide theme park in the clouds
7:33 and the shadows below where a broken
7:35 princess android is two dreamers tickets
7:37 to better lives or the end of them."
7:39 This reads exactly like a corporate
7:42 monopolistic dystopia to me. I mean, a
7:44 world that looks like this that was also
7:46 a planetwide theme park. Just look at
7:48 the residents present day. Clearly,
7:50 whatever company this is didn't care
7:52 enough for the common man. Or at the
7:53 very least, the company abandoned them
7:55 when things got tough. Maybe that was
7:57 when the pinned I'm sorry, I mean when
7:59 the animatronic princess died. I'm
8:00 drifting a tad into theory territory
8:02 here, but I think you can see the
8:03 parallels I'm drawing to the Owl
8:05 Houses's team's own experiences at
8:06 Disney. And regardless of what we think
8:08 of that last point, I think we can all
8:11 agree that this is clearly inspired by
8:14 Disney and not in the good way. It was
8:15 around 10 years ago now that Dana
8:17 Terrace first started working on what we
8:19 know today as the Owl House. What many
8:21 people don't know, however, is that the
8:23 show didn't exactly come from the purest
8:25 of intentions. She had shown a very
8:27 early version of the story to a writing
8:29 partner who called it boring and said
8:31 that nobody would watch it. And it was
8:32 out of spite that Terrace created the
8:34 15-page pitch bible that would be used
8:37 in pitching the show to studios. So, I'm
8:39 just saying if Dana Terrace was able to
8:41 create an entire successful TV show out
8:43 of spite because someone called the idea
8:45 boring, just imagine what she's going to
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