Wednesday, May 27, 2009

A Whedon-less Buffy?

A slight diversion from the purely horrific, although I find the following frightening and disgusting...

OK, so I have read about this three times now. Due to the successful re-booting of Star Trek and Batman, both of which I am a fan of, they are now in the early stages of planning to re-boot Buffy The Vampire Slayer, only, without Joss Whedon.

Buffy comes back

Entertainment Tonight.

Chicago Tribune.

Why must Hollywood be so f@cking stupid?

So many things wrong with this I cannot begin to comprehend it. First of all...aaaarrrgh! I cannot find the correct words. I brought this to the attention of Ms. Aly Greaves, WildClaw company member, founder of Undead America and resident Buffy expert. She simply said "Yes, I am aware. I am currently ignoring that."



I cannot believe that anyone involved in the series, which was wonderful, would consider doing this without Joss Whedon. And if no one from the series is doing it and Joss is not doing it...you have now lost the fans entirely.

In my opinion, it was not the concept that made that show so good...it was the execution. That show had huge potential to be horrible. In the wrong hands, it could have been right up there with Cop Rock.

Now, I am not a Whedon junkie like Ms. Greaves, but the guy is good at what he does. This was a landmark in television. It is still right there in our collective memory. I mean seriously, 2003 is not that long ago folks, not long enough for anyone to have forgotten. And I was not a fan of this show for 5 of its years, but not until I sat down in 2001 with my 70 year old father and watched two episodes back to back. Dad and I remarked at the end that we were surprised at how much we enjoyed it. Like, really, enjoyed it, had fun while watching, did not feel markedly stupider after viewing...I was very surprised, as I had often made fun of my friend Krista for her devotion to this show. I was wrong, and I was hooked. Vampires, demons, monsters, hot chicks having sex, and kills, quality kills. What more can you ask for in TV?

I was going to let our resident Whedon expert Ms. Greaves address this at some point, because she is well versed and more articulate than I, but...then I read it a third time...seriously people. This must be stopped. For so many reasons. It is time to tell Hollywood that they need to actually pay for creative people to come up with new stories, or they must pay fair price for the old ones. Seriously, today I am having one of those days where I am fearing deeply for the future of our people. If they make Buffy without Joss Whedon, the terrorists have won.

Hollywood is so out of touch. I mean, you know, there is this thing called the Buffyverse, and it is real, and these pop culture nerds (one of whom I happily reside with) can hold their own with Trekkies, Trekkers, Star Wars geeks, Dungeons and Dragons nerds...I just don't think Hollywood thought this one through...

1 comment:

baby tiger said...

Hollywood would not be Hollywood without its continual disappointments and shocking lack of judgment. Undervaluing an individual's talent and obvious impact on the success of an artistic project is Hollywood's forte. It is sadly ironic that an epicenter of creativity has no idea what actually contributes to its own success. With all the crap it tries to pass off as art I guess we just have to be thankful for the little bit of brilliance that it does spit out from time to time. (Buffy being a prime example and still one of my all time loves!)Thank you for your outrage!