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Post by AndrewCrossett on Jul 22, 2010 10:36:37 GMT -5
The idea to do AtF was Joss's. He gave Brian his plot ideas for the intended sixth season, and told him to develop it as he saw fit, with himself as executive producer. He had approval over the comic, so if Brian did anything he objected to he could have prevented it. While Joss didn't like the idea of Cordelia coming back, he deferred to Brian's judgment.
Joss's involvement was at least as minimal during much of the last 2 seasons of Buffy, when he was no longer showrunning and was spending most of his time with Angel and Firefly.
Bottom line: Joss said it was canon, and he's never since said that it's not. That is the textbook definition of canon: Joss said it is.
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Post by buffster88 on Jul 22, 2010 10:41:33 GMT -5
It always annoys me when people call the comics season 6, because it's misleading. Makes people expect a tv-season like comic series, like season 8 To be honest I hate the whole idea of calling comics 'seasons' anyway.It's completely wrong. What 'season' on television would last over 4 years.? It does the medium an injustice as far as I am concerned. Its not a TV show anymore. I was not into comics before so I just called it as what i heard or read it to be. I don't really think of it as a season. It's definitely way different than the tv show. Thanks for the actual quote Maggie. It makes things more clear. Bottom line: Joss said it was canon, and he's never since said that it's not. That is the textbook definition of canon: Joss said it is. ;D Thats also true.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Jul 22, 2010 10:55:24 GMT -5
Note he says 12-issue, not 17. Doesn't that sound like a pointed detail to add? Well, it's only within the last few months that Buffy season 8 was pegged at 40 issues (and more than that, if you count the one-shots). Things often grow beyond the length they were initially conceived for. In AtF's case, they added a short arc that moved away from the focus on Angel and onto what other characters were doing in Hell-A. I imagine most of that came from Brian. But that quote from Joss satisfies me that his involvement was sufficient to qualify AtF as canon. It was fundamentally his story. He just didn't have the time to work closely over every story point during the course of the season. (And in fact, he didn't do so on all of season 8 either... I think he was mainly an absentee executive producer during Predators & Prey, for example).
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Dorotea
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Post by Dorotea on Jul 22, 2010 12:02:04 GMT -5
More to the point - Joss was involved with the plot in detail enough to make sure , for example, that the dragon does not get killed and was instead reasoned with and turned to be an ally. That is a very significant plot twist that shaped the AtF into what it is. So, it can be assumed that he at least read the scripts and made corrections - same as he is doing with S8 arcs that he does not write himself. At least I think I saw BL mention this.
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Maggie
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Post by Maggie on Jul 22, 2010 13:10:28 GMT -5
The idea to do AtF was Joss's. He gave Brian his plot ideas for the intended sixth season, and told him to develop it as he saw fit, with himself as executive producer. He had approval over the comic, so if Brian did anything he objected to he could have prevented it. While Joss didn't like the idea of Cordelia coming back, he deferred to Brian's judgment. No. He specifically says he was NOT the executive producer of AtF. I take him at his word, which is that as far as he's concerned all that matters is that some 'funky things happened in LA". That's ALL that's coming over to season 8. He's also clear that he didn't have time to be involved in AtF after that initial exchange of ideas. Please read the lengthy quote I provided in my last post. Since for me canon is ONLY stuff that's to do with the story Joss wants to supervise, then that's all that counts. Funky things happened in LA. Whatever that was. Joss has repeatedly said that he was still closely involved and that you can't blame things on Marti or whoever. By contrast he's very clear that he gave Brian a few ideas and then sent him on his way. And Joss just said that what he's going to use as canon is "funky in LA". I think he's also strongly implying disatisfaction with what Lynch did by saying he'd talked about a 12-issue run, when what we got is 17. The final product is obviously very different (5 issues worth) than what Joss envisioned when he tossed a few ideas around with Brian. People have different demands of canon. For me it's about the story Joss wants to do. I could not care less what non-Joss people want to do with his story when Joss was not involved in any meaningful way. And clearly based on this RECENT interview, Joss was not involved. I take Joss's most recent report of the status of the project as the one that matters, not something that is now years out of date.
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Post by Skytteflickan88 on Jul 22, 2010 13:51:27 GMT -5
Maggie, to clarify, you assume that Joss has changed his mind about Atf not being canon? And you would call Atf canon if Joss made a statement today, and said that Atf is canon?
For me, the funky comment doesn't matter. It was funky, what happened in Atf. Both BtVS and Ats and were funky shows. I think Buffy herself would call her whole life funky. She'd probably made a cute joke about it. Point is, it doesn't matter if Atf won't be referenced in Buffy. It's just like on the show, when characters crossed over to the other show; They couldn't give too much detail about all events had happened on the other show, so that viewers who just watched one show wouldn't be confused.
I think you're reading a lot into that comment by Joss, but everyone has the right to their own interpretation. I'm going to assume that Joss knew what he was doing when he handed Atf over to Brian after calling it canon, and that he hasn't regreted it.
Kind of a PR thing, actually. I don't think he'd call something canon without making sure that it was the kind of story he would like, a good story. Would be bad PR.
EDIT- If someone has vol 3 of atf, can they check my Q&A question and Brian's answer? If I remember correctly, it had some further info on Joss involvement.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Jul 22, 2010 14:02:17 GMT -5
A great many major elements of AtF came directly from Joss, including:
* L.A. goes to Hell * Angel becomes human * Gunn becomes a vampire * Wesley returns as a Wolfram & Hart "ghost" * Illyria has to deal with the conflict between her demon self and Fred's memories, with the added complication of being in hell where she can now assume her true form * Everything gets re-set at the end so Angel can return to the Buffyverse without the whole thing being radically changed.
Honestly, that's way more involvement than he usually had with TV episodes that he didn't write himself. And there are an awful lot of episodes of both TV shows that Joss has since admitted were not what he really wanted them to be, for one reason or another.
I don't really see why anyone would challenge the canonicity of AtF if Joss himself isn't. I'm a stickler for canon... just ask anybody around here who's claimed the ongoing Angel comics or their spinoffs are canon, or that the proposed Joss-less reboot move would be. But AtF meets every point of my fairly strict standards for canonicity.
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Dorotea
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Post by Dorotea on Jul 22, 2010 15:37:56 GMT -5
Point is, it doesn't matter if Atf won't be referenced in Buffy. There is at least one reference to AtF in S8 already - the 'itchy neck' comment by Angel-as-Twilight. There are flash-forwards with flying cars - and where have we seen these flying cars ? Hmm... And there is this rather obvious reference to dragons that keeps being repeated in Buffy's dreams. I fully expect for more references to pop up as the S8 draws to closure. ( and I am afraid as often in other cases many prefer to 'ignore' AtF's canoniocity because of *other* reasons that they do not mention directly - manly the fact that Spike's portrayal in AtF was not to their liking) PS Few days ago I finally got my 'The Literary Angel - Essays on Influences and Traditions Reflected in the Joss Whedon Series' book published by McFarland. There is a whole chapter in it ( by Stacey Abbott) dissecting AtF. She spends like 5 pages explaining why AtF is canon, what Joss said he thinks of canon , etc etc. The chapter itself is plain yammy. But I thought it particularly delicious irony to stumble upon this thread and this conversation as I was reading this particular book of essays.
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Maggie
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Post by Maggie on Jul 23, 2010 6:45:05 GMT -5
You have to ask what it was that Joss was calling 'canon' back when AtF was announced. Here he tells us. He saw it as a "12-issue arc". I suppose that would have been canon, if that's the story Brian produced after Joss ceased being involved with the project.
But it's not what we got. What we got was a 17-issue story. Joss has never called that 17-issue story canon. On the contrary, he explicitly says it cannot be called season 6 because he didn't executive produce it.
Andrew, whatever problems Joss might have had with some of the TV episodes, he's never disavowed them this blatantly. He's never said he didn't EP any of those episodes. He did say he didn't EP AtF.
For me all that matters is what Joss thinks happened when he was plotting Twilight. And here he tells us. "The intent was always that, when Angel finally showed up, we'd make some very vague comment saying how "Things had gotten funky, and now I'm here doing whatever it is I'm doing." And, surprise! What did Angel say in #33? "Things were funky in LA..." For me all that matters is what we need to know to understand the Spike and Angel that show up in *Joss's* story, which he is telling in season 8. If Joss decides there was a dragon or whatnot and tells us in Last Gleaming, then there was a dragon or whatnot. So far, all we know is that things were funky. Don't forget that Joss had season 8 plotted out BEFORE he tossed IDW a bone by giving some ideas to Brian for AtF. Brian has since produced something other than that initial idea. Assuming Joss hasn't abandoned the original story for season 8 (which by all accounts has been set in terms of its basic architecture all along), it's not going to fit AtF insofar as AtF has diverged from the original discussions. AtF can't trump anything Joss says in season 8. Wherever there are tensions due to the divergence, season 8 is what counts, and AtF has to be discounted. AtF is therefore at best quasi-canonical. [As Joss says in the quote from earlier *this* year, he's just going to make a very vague reference. Vague = not drawing on details, i.e. LA was in a hell for zero real seconds and Angel's take-away was that things were 'funky', whatever that means -- which is (intentionally) not much.]
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Dorotea
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Post by Dorotea on Jul 23, 2010 8:52:01 GMT -5
Maggie, giving away the pre-S8 plot for Angel would-be S6 is not 'tossing a bone'. Working with the scripts and correcting the plot is not either. I understand you are quite upset with Spike's characterization in AtF ( although I cannot understand why), but please be honest at least about your motives for putting AtF on your personal 'quasi-canon at best' list. My understanding is that you hope for spectacularly single and devoted Spike appearance in S8 that will 'trump' the AtF's Spike's appearance. Just say it so that at least it will be understandable why you object to AtF canonicity.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Jul 23, 2010 8:57:12 GMT -5
Andrew, whatever problems Joss might have had with some of the TV episodes, he's never disavowed them this blatantly. He's never said he didn't EP any of those episodes. He did say he didn't EP AtF. I'm sorry, but I didn't get from that quote that he was disavowing it at all. Regret that he couldn't oversee it more carefully, maybe. There may have been elements in it that didn't come directly from his imagination. But I've seen him speak much more negatively than this about certain episodes of the TV shows. The number of issues is really irrelevant... as I said, that changes constantly as plans evolve, and has done so several times in season 8. Joss knew exactly what he was doing every step of the way. He wouldn't be able to script any of it or act as formal executive producer (reviewing scripts, reviewing art, sending notes back to the writer and artist, etc.) He gave Brian his notes for the aborted Angel season 6, talked with him about his vision for the story, told him to flesh it out as he saw fit, and called it canon. And that is exactly what happened. He knew there would be elements in there that came straight from Brian, just as there were elements in TV episodes that came straight from the writers and not from Joss. Joss even specifically requested that Brian include his original character, Betta George. Also, Joss specifically mentions the cutoff point at which the series stops being canon: "I saw it as a 12-issue arc, and they would dictate what happens after that." The same story originally planned for 12 issues expanded to 17 (18 if you count the epilogue), but that's really irrelevant... stories expand beyond their little boxes sometimes, and it's a lot easier to accommodate that with comics than with TV shows. So the story Joss outlined with Brian... originally slated for 12 issues, then expanded to 17 or 18... was canon, and after that the series stopped being canon. I don't see any element of disavowal at all in Joss's comments... just regret that he couldn't be more involved.
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jellymoff
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Post by jellymoff on Jul 23, 2010 10:29:59 GMT -5
This ^^^
I am usually very open to other people's opinions, but with canon, I see things very black and white. The whole thing about the arc jumping to 17 issues,; that's just what comics do. Very often a series is planned for a number of issues then expands due to the needs of the story. Sometimes they even shrink, reducing the number of issues.
Unless Joss Whedon comes out and says "ATF is not canon, I take it back" then its canon. You can be sure that Joss will not do anything to contradict After the Fall during Season 8.
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Post by Brian Lynch on Jul 23, 2010 11:11:30 GMT -5
We had no idea how long ATF was going to be. We guessed around 12. FIRST NIGHT was supposed to be a one shot series on it's own, but someone decided to fold it into the series. Either way, that story we told? The one Joss wanted us to tell.
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Paul
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Post by Paul on Jul 23, 2010 11:20:39 GMT -5
Maggie, your logic is flawed. Do you really think Joss was closely involved in every single episode of Buffy and Angel? His involvement in some episodes was probably less than it was in AtF, yet we don't label those episodes non-canon based on his level of involvement. At the end of the day, Joss helped plot AtF and his name is on the issue. That's pretty much all we need to know.
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Post by henzINNIT on Jul 23, 2010 13:51:49 GMT -5
The Joss quote makes it clear that he regards ATF as his last involvement on the Angel title before he allowed IDW to go off and continue on their own. I don't see how anyone can read anything else into that.
Joss is not that discrete a person; he moans like a bitch about Alien Ressurection (sorry Joss, it was a shite script). If he felt a need to reject ATF for some reason you'd hear it from him, otherwise it's just an invention from the fanbase as far as I'm concerned.
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