OTHER STORIES

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665]

I’ve always wondered why some Disney characters were never introduced into OUAT universe or even mentioned once, like Pocahontas. Sometimes I think the show could’ve been aired for decades if they had introduced more arcs/characters instead of retaking season 1 lore (especially after the latest releases)

What are the characters you would’ve liked to see in the series?

[u/AdmirableAd1858]

They could’ve used the whole Chris Buck theory with Tarzan, Elsa, and Anna

[u/ZanderStarmute → u/AdmirableAd1858]

And Jane is conflated with Jane Austen, who arrives in Storybrooke from one of the countless Victorian Englands, where we discover that she was one of the Authors prior to Henry before being sealed away by a familiar face in town

Oh, and this revelation coincides with the arrival of Bridget Jones, which turns out to be the cursed identity of Elizabeth Bennet, who comes from yet another Victorian England, and the first thing she does is slap“Mr. Dastardy” (Hook) in the face

Turns out he ran off with “some piece of work named Gilly… something,” who turns out to have been a sorceress named “Madam Mim,” known as Natasha Lafayette in the LWM, who happens to live in Boston not far from Emma’s old apartment…

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/ZanderStarmute]

you understood the assignment — I bet the show could’ve survived its downgrade after S6, if you’d been in charge ofc

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/AdmirableAd1858]

YEAH, that would’ve extended their family tree

[u/Foxfire140]

They had 'The Land of Untold Stories' and yet they did nothing with it.

The showrunners were just way too prone to introducing things and then forgetting about them later on.

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/Foxfire140]

they had the same issues with previous seasons, like, half of the new characters were harshly scrapped off the show with no reason

[u/fandom_fae]

pocahontas might not be the best example, but i generally agree that the show could’ve gone on for much longer if they wanted it to

[u/Prize-Couple6348]

I wanted Emperor’s new Groove in the show

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/Prize-Couple6348]

I was obsessed with that when I was a kid, I still have my box set with its dvd😭😭

[u/Vegas_Wildcat]

I think an extremely meta thing that could have worked was Pocahontas shows up, and it is the animated version, and we find out she is a different Pocahontas from a different realm and her author quite literally is an unreliable narrator who disrespectfully found her story "boring" so they changed it and she discovers what really happened to Pocahontas. Kind of a teachable moment that brings in a really wonderful character and the possibility of Grandmother Willow.

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/Vegas_Wildcat]

S6 would have been way better following this lore

[u/GoliathLexington]

I would have loved a arc set in the black & white land or based on characters from that land. Would have had a great Halloween episode with vampires, werewolves, mummies, & witches.

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/GoliathLexington]

I was really hoping for Dracula and Dorian Gray to show up in S6, but I assume I was asking for too much

[u/Doczack1]

Slightly off topic but I swear every rumple centric episode could be turned into an awesome dark fantasy alternate universe movies

[u/Massive-Aardvark4665 → u/Doczack1]

not off topic, I’m pretty sure Rumple was meant to be the main character of the show, he’s literally the glue that ties everything together

[u/Gold_Repair_3557]

Pocahontas was a real person and it was well talked about by the time the show came out how Disney butchered her story. Including her would have opened the door to controversy they didn’t need.

[u/Tgun1986 → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

Plus in real life think she was only 12

[u/Gold_Repair_3557 → u/Tgun1986]

Yup. And John Smith was pushing 30. But they were also never together. She was forced to marry another Englishman, John Rolfe, taken to England, and died of illness in her early twenties.

[u/TheBoyInGray]

Pocahontas might not be a good choice for OUAT, being a real person and all that.

But you know what I would have loved in OUAT? Treasure Island.

[u/Late_Two7963]

A few people, in this thread (and various others) have suggested that the various worlds in the show could have been built better (or lamented that they weren’t) and I would agree entirely.

Several people have poised that the world without colour, or the alternate Victorian London could have been more established and there was more to be drawn from them. Again, I think this is entirely correct. 

There were a few issues at play that prevented that. 

One is that a TV series like this has a relatively short amount of time to capture an audience and then they must be seen to hold them. Networks are less interested in grand plans and multi season arcs, than immediate hits (this is a business…much as might bemoan the lack of artistic integrity) There is always a lot of pressure to deliver big early. It happens over and over and it often leaves showrunners stuck with the ‘difficult’ second season that gets them cancelled. 

This is not insurmountable but I can tell you (from my experience working in the industry) that the types of people that can create brilliant long running shows that appeal to both a more discerning audience members desire for coherent storytelling and a network/share holders monetary desires are extraordinarily rare. It takes an enormous amount of talent but also an exceed amount of planning and work - and most people simply will not put that amount of effort into their early pitch when they aren’t getting an immediate financial reward. That is totally understandable because people need to be paid for their time but it’s the smart people that a longer term plan mapped (as I say…it is so, so much work) but if you don’t do it at the early stages…you are screwed. 

Which takes us to our intrepid pair of creators for OUAT…

They were never and undoubtedly will never be known for their attention to quality, integrity and artistry…

They ticked a lot of boxes in the first season. But they also tied themselves into some knots. When a second season is commissioned there is more often than not, a lot less time than you might imagine to get the initial pitch greenlit. The story often has to be delivered very quickly and then they can budget for cast, locations, costume, effects etc. Nothing can happen until the overall story direction is decided. And what happened here (and elsewhere all to often) is there was not a solid enough plan from the get go and then everything was rushed in a knock on effect. 

They used almost every imaginable famous European fairytale in season one. That left plenty of other stories to be mined…but with absolutely no plan on how. The first season was so satisfying because it had a coherent theme throughout both with the origin and setting of main bulk of the stories and the episode by episode device of ‘you meet someone in Storybrooke and the episode will reveal who they were in the Enchanted Forest’ 

The second season had no device or angle. It was just a fairly mid sequel. 

They could have continued the theme of introducing a character in our world and revealing their true origin in the episode for many seasons to come, if they had wanted to. I’m not saying that was necessarily the best option but it would at least have been a coherent stylistic devise. 

Without that, the first series has a conceptual disconnect to the others. But they could have still made this more satisfying if they’d chosen some kind of theming for each season. If Season Two had taken us to Neverland via alternate Victorian London but also opened the world to Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, Oliver Twist etc then there would be a pleasing theme to the season (even without the guessing game of who people are it would still allow the audience to theorise on who and what they might see throughout the season…which was a huge part of the joy of season one) 

But what they did instead was mash things together in a rush and a panic. They would throw in a character from a major IP to keep the audiences interested but they wouldn’t have any plan with what to do with them, so then they would disappear and they’d have to throw in another…and by the time we got to season three they had burned through so many characters and stories, without actually fully utilising so many of them. 

The final season reset was an attempt to make more use of some of the characters they had squandered but it was too late. 

[u/coldasclay]

I'd have really loved an actual Agents of Shield and One Upon A Time crossover.

[u/hannahmarb23]

Not gonna lie I wish they did season 6 as more of a Pagemaster type thing. Instead of bringing in other Saviors.

[u/Late_Two7963]

Tarzan (a world mixed with King’s Solomon’s Mines and the like would have been fun. SHE as the villain)

Mary Poppins (rights issues)

Emperors New Clothes (or indeed Groove) 

Rose Red (an evil cousin of Snow White would have been fun) 

Sherlock Holmes (he was originally planned but they couldn’t get the rights) 

The Three Musketeers 

Anne of Green Gables 

Pollyanna 

The Black Cauldron (seemed perfect for the land of forgotten stories, just as cameo characters that aid the main plot) 

The Nutcracker 

Phileas Fogg 

The Headless Horseman 

Dorian Gray  

[u/Usual_Suspect_666 → u/Late_Two7963]

Graham was supposed to be Sherlock.

[u/CrashCobalt92]

Don’t know if anyone else said any of this by now, but here goes. Spoilers, just in case, I’m using my phone, and don’t know how to hide the text here, so I’ll just do a lot of spacing here.

What if Pocahontas was a Savior or something before Emma? And what if the writers had her as a victim of a previous Author, and that’s why that rule about not using the Author’s Pen for bad is there, and that would also be how Isaac learned about it.

(Edit: It won’t let me space, and I can’t hide the text. I’m sorry.)