The Umbrella Academy is a wild ride filled with super-powers, talking monkeys, and a soundtrack that'll give James Gunn a run for his money. As such, it has been a hit with comic book lovers since it's release, bringing more exposure to the graphic novel it was adapted from.
Despite being different from the comics in some ways, fans seem to have been happy with the Netflix adaptation so far. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Showrunner Steve Blackman had a lot to say about the differences from the comic, the unexpected ending, and much more. Obviouslty, his comments will contain spoilers so if you haven't finished season one of
The Umbrella Academy, this is a good time to stop reading.
Yeah, it ends horribly! What I really wanted to do was find a really good cliffhanger. I also thought it was too easy for this family to come together in eight days and save the world. It has to be trickier than that. I wanted to have an ending where they sort of came together as a family, but they didn’t achieve the greater goal of saving the world. If we get a second season, we’ll see how they’re gonna end up. These guys aren’t dead, but we don’t know what happens. I thought it told a lot about who this family was, which is they couldn’t quite get it together. Their wonderfully dysfunctional family couldn’t quite win the day. I thought that was very telling for the season.
Regarding Ellen Page and her transformation from ordinary outsider to The White Violin, Blackman had the following to say.
I talked about it early on with Ellen. We decided we wanted to play it from start to finish. Ellen made some really creative choices and acting choices in episode 1 to show the whole metamorphosis into episode 10. Like how she goes from less to more makeup, how she starts wearing her hair down as this relationship with Leonard Peabody (John Magaro) escalates and she starts feeling more in control of her life. All the way to the endgame, where she’s overtaken by the abilities she didn’t even know she had. So it was a lot of talk with Ellen about playing a full metamorphosis in the truest sense of the word, going from light to dark or dark to light, whichever way you see it. There is more to Hargreeves, he’s not just a villain. There’s much more to this character that we’ll see if we get more seasons. But he held her back, he medicated her, told her she was nobody, and she became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She lived believing she wasn’t special, and that’s very damaging. Getting to open up like this overwhelmed her in the end.
Steve also talked about what he did to insure that he was faithful to the comics for the fans even though he made some changes from the source material.
For the graphic novel fans, I still wanted to give her an ending that was similar to the graphic novel. The ending’s different, but similar ideas are in there so that real fans won’t feel cheated. I really wanted to get back to Apocalypse Suite, even having our composer Jeff Russo to spend a lot of time on that. The guy’s won an Emmy. He wrote that from scratch, the whole “Apocalypse Suite.” All that music you’re hearing is Jeff Russo’s score. It’s a 90-person orchestra, it’s all original music, and it’s all fit to what we’re doing. I told Jeff right away this is what I wanted to do and that he had to write a 20-minute score. That’s something I want people to know, because that’s an amazing thing Jeff Russo did. It’s a true “Apocalypse Suite.”
As far as the "villain" of the story goes, Blackman also opened up about the actor and The Conductor's eventual demise.
First of all, John Magaro is great. I wanted to get away from the conductor, because it felt like too much of a trope. It was such a villainous character, almost with a twirling mustache. It worked in the comics, but I needed someone to psychologically manipulate Vanya as opposed to physically change her. So the idea was to give her a love interest. What was tricky about him is he’s read that journal and knows all the secrets of the family, so he approaches Vanya thinking she’s the weakest link to go after them, and so he sort of unleashes the monster without realizing it. He does it well, I worked it out with him and Ellen early on how we’d slowly over time peel the onion on this story. He manipulates her with every single beat, but you can get it, given who Vanya is. He keeps it together almost until the end, but then his hatred spills over and he spills the beans too early. But he almost makes it with her! Once she’s in that bathtub, he’s gotten her to comply and she’ll do whatever he says. Oh, I love his death. That was so much fun to do. I think for the audience it’s unexpected when it happens, because usually the villain makes it to the end. I wanted to kill him in the early-middle part of an episode where you just go wait, he can’t die, he’s the bad guy! But it’s too late. Vanya has her own autonomy now, her own agency now, and she’s moving forward even without him. The mad scientist is gone now, but the monster’s there.
There are two episodes in season one which involve a paradox with time travel, and a day that never winds up happening. The Showrunner also adresses this unique bit of storytelling that fans were treated to.
I want them to see it with trust, but in a world where a guy like Five exists, there’s a paradox where he can go back and reset a day. “The Day That Was” and “The Day That Wasn’t” are the two episodes. I thought it was a really beautiful way to show how each of our actions has consequences. As minor as they may seem, getting another chance and turning left instead of right or saying something different may shift the course of your life. For example, Luther and Allison will never know that kiss happened. That might be torturous to the audience, but I hope they take it for what it’s worth. It’s fun storytelling to show them this is the world that these characters live in. It was not to torture the audience. I wanted it to be something fun and whimsical so they could understand why we did it, because it’s just pure storytelling in my mind. It tells a great story about what Five is going through and then he comes back a day earlier to be able to say “we’re not gonna f— around on personal s— today, we’re going to pull together as a family and make things right.” And that changes all those moments they had together. They might be my favorite episodes. They were hard to write and break, but I’m really proud of those two episodes.
When talking about Klaus' trip to Heaven, he compares it to Netflix's
Roma. There's also mention of that colored shirt!
[Laughs] If I didn’t colorize his shirt, he would be in Roma, wouldn’t he? That’s a good point. I did want to keep the shirt in color, which was expensive because we had to do it in every frame. But I wanted it to feel like a comic book, with a bit of color on a white background. If I didn’t do that and he ran around you’d be like, he’s in Roma! My favorite scene in the whole show I think is where Hargreeves gives Klaus a shave. It’s just a wonderful moment where you get to talk to your dad who’s dead, and the fact that he’s giving you a shave is just so weird and creepy. By the way, I didn’t say it was heaven! So it may or may not be heaven where that happened.
While Ben was included throughout the season, only Klaus saw him until the very end. How does that effect the others when they find out he's been around the whole time?
Yeah it was very important that we came full circle and they got to see that Ben’s still weirdly with them still. It’s why they broke up in the first place, because his death broke him apart. Now they see him at the end of the first season, and you got it that it represents their greater reconciliation. Now if only they only could achieve their final job of saving the world!
What do you think of these comments? If you haven't checked it out yet, watch the trailer for
The Umbrella Academy below!
The Umbrella Academy revolves around a dysfunctional family of adopted sibling superheroes who reunite to solve the mystery of their father's death, and the oncoming threat of the apocalypse.
The Umbrella Academy is available to stream now on Netflix.