quote:The fact is that the same seasons of Buffy in which Greenwalt wasn't involved, were the same seasons in which Joss himself played a much reduced role. Remember that Joss wasn't even Buffy's showrunner anymore starting in season 6 - by then, he had handed off virtually all creative control of the show to Marti Noxon.
Ahhh then does that mean that Joss doesn't get credit for the majority of Buffy's run? Should we basically say that Buffy wasn't really Joss' show, especially in the last 4 seasons, and thus, we should credit Noxon and the others who *really* ran the show? See, to me, he either gets credit for Buffy or doesn't, so if Buffy is his show then he gets credit for the good and the bad. It can't be the case that he gets credit for the good and no blame for the bad.
What's more, and please please please don't make me go over to Whedonesque and grab the quotes--I will if you so desire mind you Tarrsk but please don't ask, but Whedon has said before that even in seasons 6 and 7, he was the one creatively in charge of the show, it was his vision, his outline, and his ideas that ran the show. Marti Noxon may have been the show runner but Joss Whedon was telling her where to go and how to get there, apparently, so I think that's really important.
quote:Tolkien would never be capable of creating characters with the vibrancy or wit of Whedon's.
I must disagree with you here Tarrsk, I think the characters of Lord of the Rings are much more vibrant and alive than anything Whedon has ever done, and the reason is simple for me. Fiction itself is not a moment in time it is a journey, it takes you on an adventure with characters that we can relate too, and in so doing, it brings us into the story created as if we were the ones who slayed dragons or attacked Mordor. For fiction to succeed though, especially with regard to character, it must succeed in revealing a vibrant journey throughout, the adventure must be consistent through and through or the vibrancy of the journey is compromised. In that sense, where authors such as Tolkien or Moore or Rowling succeed is in the adventure they lay before the reader, it informs the characters and the characters inform the adventure, and in that symbiotic relationship neither can succeed without the other's successful implementation. For these authors, the characters who reside in the stories they create garner their vibrancy through the vibrancy of the story, through the adventure, and in some sense, through their foils and through the drama that is created. I think it's easy to write a funny line or a witty comeback, it's even easier to create moral complexity especially in science fiction or fantasy, but it's another thing all together to create vibrant characters through brilliant story and vice-versa, and to me, that's the hallmark of great fiction. If you can't do one part, then it doesn't matter how well you do the other part, you are just a bad story-teller, and that's what separates Whedon from Tolkien or Rowling. Tolkien and Rowling are talented writers who can bring both vibrant characters and brilliant adventure together into something cohesive and dependent upon each other, and though Whedon may be great at creating characters or moral complexity (which, IMO, is highly overrated for the reasons I mentioned above) he certainly can not put them together in anything I have read or seen of his.
Posts: 457 | Registered: Jun 2005
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No, what separates him from Tolkien and Rowling is that neither one of them writes episodic television -- that I know of -- where each short story has to stand on its own as well as serve a longer story arc while remaining within time constraints, network restrictions and advertiser whims. If Whedon wrote speculative fiction and had several hundred thousand words to spread out in, then you could accurately compare those writers. He doesn't, so I'm not really sure why either of you keep bringing it up
As for Moore... I'm not a fan of military shows, and there wasn't enough humor in his BSG to help me overcome that preference so I never got into it. But I respect him based on the opinions of my friends who do enjoy such shows and absolutely loved BSG. See, Moore's work is not my cup of tea, but I don't claim he's overrated because other people like him.
What I do know is that Whedon's shows have entertained me, his characters have made me laugh and cry and I've identified with them at different times in my life. Whatever you perceive his faults to be, his work has touched me and many others. His shows are not about grand adventures but about getting through everyday life (with assorted undead metaphors added). Even his spaceship show was about a group of people just trying to get by. He doesn't do high adventure, and I'm pretty sure it's not required by any sort of governing body.
Whedon is unmatched at creating the sort of stories, the sort of characters, that I like. Your mileage obviously varies.
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Tolkien and Whedon aren't nearly in the same league, but not in the way that might think.
I can't fathom how you could find Tolkien's characters lacking in vibrancy. His writing style isn't for everyone, but for those who read it, the characters aren't even close to lacking. The wit part isn't really comparable, as nothing of Tolkien's that I've read (everything involving Middle Earth) was really in any way a comedy.
As for Roddenberry, well, I disagree, as I think TNG, and TOS to a lesser extent covered a lot of moral complexity, but that's hardly the best that Trek had to offer. I think if they'd done more plot and character arcs they'd have been better off, but that wasn't really the style back then. Whedon had the benefit of coming after all that. The best of DS9 against the best of Whedon wins in the moral complexity department.
But don't get me wrong. I have Firefly and all of Buffy on DVD, and I watch them from time to time, amazed at how great a lot of it is. Buffy had some singularly spectacular episodes, and Firefly was a great romp through space that I wish could have gone on a hell of a lot longer than it did. I think he's clever, I think he's funny, I think he's AMAZING at casting the roles for his shows (stunningly so really), and he tells great stories with great characters.
It's the characters where I think he wins when comparing him directly to other shows. With the possible exception of BSG, and maybe tied in a way with B5 but probably above that, the characters he creates are singularly awesome. Firefly especially so. Even then it's hard to compare his stuff with a show like BSG because they are so different it's extremely hard to compare.
I think of Whedon like I think of Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant plays the exact same character in every single movie he's in. The names change, the plot changes, the setting changes, but he's the same guy. And I don't care, cause I actually think he's pretty funny, so I watch most of his movies. Whedon, in what I've seen, has nearly identical styles of witty dialogue/banter in his shows, with the same sorts of conflicted characters, different plots that really don't matter all that much, because honestly I couldn't care much less about the vaporous plots in most of his shows, I watch them for the characters. But I don't care if they are the same, similar, or cloned, because they're all really, really good, and I'll watch every variation on a theme he comes up with.
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quote:I can't fathom how you could find Tolkien's characters lacking in vibrancy. His writing style isn't for everyone, but for those who read it, the characters aren't even close to lacking.
I really enjoy Tolkien, but his characters were predominantly set pieces. They were there to further a plot and a history - devices that allowed Tolkien to explore the worlds and languages he had created. Put Gimli or Legolas against Jayne or Spike, and I'd give the edge to Whedon when talking about *character* only.
Of course, ymmv. But Tolkien's goal wasn't to create robust characters.
quote:The best of DS9 against the best of Whedon wins in the moral complexity department.
But Roddenberry was dead a full 2 years before the first episode of DS9 ever aired - and he had little involvement with TNG after the first season. And again, Roddenberry wasn't looking to craft characters. As you said, it "wasn't the style". So again, I'd take Kaylee and Lorne over Checkov and Sulu any day.
Even so, Joss writes for a certain audience (of which I am a part)... but that audience isn't large enough (or his net isn't cast widely enough) to have huge box office success. Hence why I can see them green-lighting a Buffy movie without him.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Firefly is awesome, Dr. Horrible is pretty good. Everything else Whedon has done is complete garbage (except the episodes of Roseanne he wrote). In all other cases he is too obsessed with his own cleverness to write a believable line of dialogue or a decent character. Somehow he thinks he can write female characters, yet every female character he has written except for Kaylee and Willow have been one-dimensional, and characters like Buffy and Inara are self-service/fan-service and painfully corny.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:I really enjoy Tolkien, but his characters were predominantly set pieces. They were there to further a plot and a history - devices that allowed Tolkien to explore the worlds and languages he had created. Put Gimli or Legolas against Jayne or Spike, and I'd give the edge to Whedon when talking about *character* only.
It's easier when you pick weaker characters. Put Sam or Frodo, or even further, someone like Turin, against Jayne and I think you have a much more even equation.
Thing is though, it's sort of a useless comparison, as I said before, not only because the genres are wildly different, but because television is naturally more emotive than literature. Case in point, the LOTR movies at many points use dialogue taken directly from the movies, and use song lyrics taken directly from the movie that are more stunning than I ever could have imagined on the page. So of course people you can see and hear are going to sound fuller than those you have to do all the visualizing yourself for.
Maybe we can have this discussion again when they unearth a Tolkien movie screenplay, or when Whedon writes a book. Then we'll be able to do it justice.
quote:But Roddenberry was dead a full 2 years before the first episode of DS9 ever aired - and he had little involvement with TNG after the first season. And again, Roddenberry wasn't looking to craft characters. As you said, it "wasn't the style". So again, I'd take Kaylee and Lorne over Checkov and Sulu any day.
Huh, I could have sworn I put in a sentence about how I liked the guys who made DS9, Behr, Berman, Piller, etc, who really took ST into a new realm after Roddenberry left off. That's my bad. Anywho, I wasn't talking about characters in comparison between Star Trek and Firefly. If I was, I'd probably end up siding with Firefly, though not any of Buffy's characters, that's for sure. I agree that TOS characters were largely junk, and TNG's were in many cases wooden archetypes, despite the amazing jobs the actors did with it, Stewart in particular. Choosing Roddenberry, in Tarrsk's case, was a little silly maybe, since other than creating the framework, I don't think most people, except the diehards, would really be able or willing to say that he's some storytelling legend. If you're going to pick on Star Trek, compare the best to the best, which to me, means talking about DS9, and it doesn't lack for compelling moral complexity, or good characters who both grow and change over time and wrestle with a lot of moral gray (or black, in Garak's case).
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I'm not a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the Franchise. I'm a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the television series created by Joss Whedon. I hold no inherent interest in a story about a blonde chick who fights vampires. It's what Joss did with that premise that I love.
So, sorry, Kazuis et al. You're not getting my dollars based on franchise name alone. And hate to break it to you, but the world is pretty solidly divided into those who love Whedon's vision of "Buffy" and those who couldn't care less about the whole concept to begin with. Good luck luring that latter population into theaters.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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You know, the other day I was thinking that they could update Buffy as a grown-up, sexy show about a perky blonde waitress with a secret destiny who sometimes stakes vampires and is hopelessly in love with a reformed dark-haired vampire with a tragic past, while also having strong feelings for an evil-but-secretly-sensitive bleach-blond European vampire.
She could have a magically talented gay friend, an unlucky friend who always seems to attract problems, a cool werewolf friend... you know, the usual.
But then I realized that this show is already on HBO.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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No Joss, bad idea. Don't believe me? First, they should watch every single episode of Buffy that Joss wrote and directed himself, skipping all the others. After that they will be thinking "what a fantastic show, we should make a new movie." Then watch all the other episodes and they will say "get me Joss on the phone."
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quote:Put Gimli or Legolas against Jayne or Spike, and I'd give the edge to Whedon when talking about *character* only.
Gimli was a warrior poet -- the most eager for bloodshed and vengeance, and also the most eager to appreciate beauty in all its forms: from the lake of Khelez-Zaram, to the lady Galadriel, to the glittering caves.
(In the movies, he's ofcourse just a belching buffoon)
Legolas is the most lighthearted *and* the most serious. While in a snowstorm he can make light jokes, but weep when recounting the story of a 400-year old couple, or be thrown into a life-changing depression by the cry of a seagull.
(In the movies, he's ofcourse just an emotionless archer automaton)
I loved characters like Spike and Jayne, but Gimli and Legolas more than hold their own against them, even while being largely secondary characters that are meant to primarily illustrate their *races*' ways.
Posts: 676 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The good news is that there will be no Spike, Angel, Faith, or Willow. Those characters are safe, they belong to Whedon.
This is a re-make of the original movie and its characters (or new ones).
I'll treat it like the original movie. Probably watch it once, in a theater if the reviews are good, and move on with my life. This is just an attempt by Warner to furthur cash in on the recent vampire fad.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Bad article. It isn't that he didn't want it, its that he was already contracted and they didn't want to wait for him. He was approached last year, didn't he already have Avengers coming up by that point?
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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That seems a bit earlier than the time he was being approached with Avengers. Of course it's hard to say without actually talking to Joss. Oh Chris?!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Joss having been offered the job doesn't surprise me. It doesn't matter anyway - what's objectionable about this whole situation was never the studio ignoring Joss entirely, but rather that they would go ahead with the remake even knowing that Joss didn't want it to happen.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I'm kind of wondering what the new take on Buffy is.
I thought this was going to be a new show though, not a movie, which tamps down whatever excitement I might have had for it, though of course I have to imagine they'll try to TV-ize it if they can.
While I might not pay to see it in theaters, I'd be willing to rent it, pending reviews, to see what's new or different.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: Joss having been offered the job doesn't surprise me. It doesn't matter anyway - what's objectionable about this whole situation was never the studio ignoring Joss entirely, but rather that they would go ahead with the remake even knowing that Joss didn't want it to happen.
Have Joss and the studio executives ever agreed on anything?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I absolutely adore Buffy. But I don't hate this idea, because 1) It isn't like my DVDs of Joss's show are going to be wiped, and 2) Joss wasn't planning to do something else with Buffy and this thwarted him.
It's the same reason I don't get mad at movie versions of books I love. Art is all about building on what came before and telling the same stories in a different way. That's not a problem - that's healthy and inevitable. I don't know if I will watch it or not, but if I do, I won't be disloyal to Joss.
Artistically, it will live or die on its own. At the moment I don't care, but I'm open to such an amazind story they make me care. Meanwhile, I hope Joss is making something brilliant with the Avengers.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Of course it's hard to say without actually talking to Joss. Oh Chris?!
Sadly, I don't have his batphone.
I'd want to know what they were offering. Was it to bring his whole crew back, and would that have meant sharing the rights to his TV characters with the Kuzuis? There's a nonstarter. Or was it to pick up where the 1st movie left off? Why should he work with that set of characters when he's already gone off and rebooted Buffy once and made her much more successful?
Frankly, I can't see Joss agreeing to a deal that got him involved again with the Kuzuis.
Re: the movie: katharina nailed it, as far as I'm concerned. It's entirely possible it might be a good movie. I'm not in favor of it but I won't march against it or sign petitions or anything. They've got one hell of a challenge, to win over dedicated Buffy fans. Let's see what they do.
If it's crap, then I'll help mock it thoroughly.
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