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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 25, 2010 12:56:21 GMT -5
That is a totally different thing. The Bond films have almost all been made by the same company, Eon, headed up by the Broccoli family. And Ian Fleming, Bond’s creator, was involved from the start right up until he died. The exceptions were the terrible Casino Royale spoof in 1963, and in 1983 where something similar happened as is now happening to Buffy and a rival Bond film was made in Never Say Never Again. Kevin McClory, who co-wrote Thunderball, owned the rights to that story and went to court in order to gain remake rights, which he managed to do. Hence Sean Connery returned for Never Say Never Again the same year that Eon put out Octopussy with Roger Moore. But the difference was that McClory only had the remake rights to that one story. He couldn’t use the Bond character in anything else so there was no chance of a rival franchise. If the Kazui’s and co. could only do a remake of the original film and nothing more then I wouldn’t be especially bothered. It would be a blip that could easily be ignored. The problem is that they can potentially create a whole new franchise which has nothing to do with Joss and the Buffy we know and love; a franchise which will essentially replace Joss’s Buffy as the ‘real’ Buffy in the eyes of the world. And no matter how good or bad the reboot might be in its own right, I think that to do so without at the very least Joss’s input and consent is fundamentally wrong. The Bond films have all been made by one company? Other than the name, everything about that company (personnel, philosophy, policies) has changed several times since the 60s. It's not the same company at all. Nothing that lives can remain the same for 50 years. Forget all the legal mumbo-jumbo. What do people see on the screen? Bond is sometimes a bastard, sometimes a gentleman. The plots sometimes borrow from cold-war politics, sometimes stick to the near-fantasy of SPECTRE. All these are variations on the same thing, and the different Bonds are variations on the same character. This is good! It's the very diagnostic of life! The monotonous theme I hear on this thread is, "keep it the same, the same, the characters the same, the writers the same, the actors the same, no growth, no development, nothing new, let's stay in our comfortable rut." That's the real reason you guys want Joss to be involved. You want him to be a watchdog to make sure nothing new happens. Don't you see this is a formula for death?
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 24, 2010 20:13:47 GMT -5
I love SMG too. But she's now too old to play Buffy as we knew her. I could imagine a film where an older Buffy, played by SMG, would tutor a younger Slayer, "Karate Kid" style, but I don't think this film will be it.
What's so bad about letting another actress have her chance? She won't have all the beauties and virtues of SMG, but she'll have other qualities of her own.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 24, 2010 19:02:32 GMT -5
Sweet? Is he a villain? If you don't summon him, he'll never bother you. Am I wrong? He was a great character, but I don't think of him as a villain. He kidnapped Dawn and wanted to force her to marry him. That's a villain-move to me. The way she's written, it seems like Veruca was a ... is there a word? She's an adjunct to another character, not a full character on her own? One/two dimensional? Sweet assumed that Dawn had summoned him. It's not like he picked her out at random. In his mind, according to some theory of justice that operated in his world, she was obligated to marry him. Veruca was, I wouldn't say one-dimensional, but it's clear that she was created just for the sake of that story. I can imagine the writers talking about it. "Oz is cool, but he has this weakness. Now what sort of woman could use that weakness to seduce him, thus breaking Willow's heart?" I'd be interested to see a story about her, though, separated from the Sunnydale situation. That's the way to learn more about her.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 24, 2010 18:39:54 GMT -5
I'm sure the "new" Buffy will be different from the old. The absence of Joss will make little difference in the new characterization, but the new actress will.
The James Bond franchise rolls on happily, despite multiple changes of both actor and writer. The different Bonds are indeed different characters. Fans shrug and accept them as different versions of Bond, all valid. Why can't Buffy fans do the same thing?
angeliclestat, I'm the kind of fan who is devoted to Buffy. I don't care about Joss, who "signed off" on "Queen of the Slayers" and sold out the whole story line to get a fifth season of Angel. I want more good Buffy stories and I'm delighted to see them coming out, no matter from where.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 23:07:25 GMT -5
I do plan to see it, even if I hear bad things about it, which I surely will. I have my own take on the Buffy saga, but that's not the only truth. I want to see what somebody else's take is.
I do respect you for your strict sense of fairness and justice, even if it differs from mine. I do not think that the notion of fairness is funny, an opinion I have run into from time to time.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 22:48:57 GMT -5
Hope this doesn't count as a double post after more than a week.
How do you feel about crossover fics? I'm working on Electra's Elsewhere, which is a good site if you like Fuffy. It includes a little crossover, Buffy-Dollhouse and Buffy-VM.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 22:34:23 GMT -5
Yes, I would be OK with that. That person with his piece of paper, signed by me, gave me a leg up when I needed it. I signed it with a clear mind, and without duress. I have no legitimate complaint. I don't know how most people would feel. I gather Joss's actual feelings are not far from mine.
I'm not sure just where the confusion is, but money and respect are two very different kinds of value. If we're talking about respect, then the fact that fanfic makes no money makes no difference. If we're talking about money, then money is a creation of law, which has its own "right" and "wrong" which don't exactly correspond to anybody's idea of what ought to be.
Your indifference to the quality of this movie (which of course remains to be seen), strikes me as sad. You're going to deny yourself something good out of -- what exactly?
Can't you keep these two Buffys separate in your head? I suppose you've read the Iliad at some time or other. You know the character of Achilles that appears there. You may also the character of the same name who has shown up in DC comics. The two aren't entirely unrelated, but they're different. When reading the comics, I manage to keep the image of Homer's Achilles out of my mind. You can't?
Here's an example that may be clearer. I suppose you've read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and probably you've seen the Walt Disney version. Consider the character of Phoebus de Chateaupers (hope I spelled that right). In Hugo's original, he is venal, vulgar, and a cad. In Disney's version, he becomes a Prince Charming. When you watch the Disney film (which is not too bad IMHO, moving in places) do you let your memories of Hugo get in the way? Can't you keep the two characters on two different tracks in your mind?
I guess I really am in a minority here. I have a high tolerance for ambiguity. The Buffy saga is not a fixed reality in my thinking, but a cloud of possibilities, most of which have yet to be explored. Some of these possible stories may well be as good, or better, than the so-called "canon."
Some of you want a single guiding mind who will keep things simple and compact and consistent (all three are already lost causes, especially the last one, but that's another issue). I most emphatically don't. I want the Buffy saga to escape into the collective mind, where it can live and grow to its full potential.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 21:53:19 GMT -5
Help, 7.4. The one with Cassie Newton, the precog. Not my favorite episode, often predictable, a little too sentimental at times. But it was built around Buffy being a counselor, a good idea that might've been a basis for an eighth TV series. And it gave Dawn something positive to do. And it introduced a few new characters. And it foreshadowed the end of Chosen, where Buffy tells Spike she loves him. Can't hate it.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 21:24:35 GMT -5
I agree with most of what you said. Adam, not so good. The Mayor and Glory were the best villains.
Of course scale is not the only factor. But it is a factor. Buffy and her friends must be able to confront the villain on something like equal terms, right? That means the villain can only be so powerful. I'm not sure just where the limit is. It looked to me, for a while, as if Glory might be too big a villain. Indeed, I'm not to this day quite satisfied with the way Buffy beat her. Glory's fatal weaknesses should've been developed either.
Oh, what you say about the First is right on. It was a cool idea, but not well thought out.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 21:14:07 GMT -5
If this movie turns out to be great, we'll all embrace it, including Joss, including you, and you'll conveniently forget that you ever said that. Don't tell me what I will or won't do, and don't tell me that my moral and ethical beliefs are somehow phony. All right, I got a little hotheaded there. I don't know what you will or won't do. But things go down the memory hole all the time. You still haven't explained to my satisfaction how it can be disrespectful to somebody to do honest creative work based on his characters and situations. I assure you, most of the fanfic authors out there, whatever they think of their own creations, mean no disrespect to Joss and would be flabbergasted at any suggestion that they were being disrespectful. Joss was once asked in an interview (can't track it down right now) if he was flattered or embarrassed by fanfic. He replied, "Plenty of both." Now, there is such a thing as disrespect to an author. Although I'm a champion of fanfic (on record there), I admit there is some fanfic out there that amounts to vandalism. For instance, I once happened on a fic set in the universe of The Chronicles of Narnia which depicted an incestuous relationship between Peter and Susan. That was indeed disrespectful to C. S. Lewis, and should be condemned. I'm not a C. S. Lewis fan. My feelings about his work are mixed and complex. But I do think he should be treated with respect for his talent and dedication. Even though he is dead. Whether the author is dead or living makes no difference I can see. The difference between respect and disrespect is not the quality of the writing, but the intent of the author. A pastiche can be clumsy, but still respectful. This upcoming Buffy movie might turn out bad, but that in itself does not imply disrespect.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 20:45:35 GMT -5
Yes, it is.
If what you say is true, it applies equally well to fanfiction of all sorts, both in the Buffyverse and elsewhere. Obviously most of us think that's all right, no issue of respect involved. I could find a hundred posts by a hundred people that say that.
Again, why does it matter whether the author is alive or dead? It's a distinction without a difference.
Finally, very few of the posts on this thread have even mentioned "respect to Joss." That's not why people are upset about this. They don't want to be shocked out of their comfort zone. They don't want to learn or see anything new. They want to stick in the same old rut.
If this movie turns out to be great, we'll all embrace it, including Joss, including you, and you'll conveniently forget that you ever said that.
And if it's not great? Contrary to what some people say, we'll still gain. There is no such thing as bad publicity.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 20:19:52 GMT -5
D'Hoffryn is an interesting case. Somehow I never thought of him as a villain. Now I have to sort out my feelings ...
A villain is usually out for power, pleasure or glory. Right? D'Hoffryn isn't. I don't think. Why does he do what he does? Is this a hobby for him? Is some higher power coercing him, or paying him? Does he feel it's a duty?
If you asked him, I suppose he'd say that he serves a function in the larger order of things. He's like a policeman or a soldier, he has a nasty job, but he does it because he thinks it's necessary. Remember, Halfrek says they are "justice demons."
When you say "his evil side," I suppose you're thinking about what he did to Halfrek. I never got how he thought that was justified, how he could think she deserved that. But I don't think he did it just out of nastiness. He thought it was necessary. Or did he? What do you think?
Oh ... Ethan. Nobody mentioned him before, including me. I always thought he was a great character, never used sufficiently, an opportunity missed. I don't think he'd make a big bad, though. He's too little-minded, not able to imagine great things, let along accomplish them. He could've been a good lieutenant to some big bad, though.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 19:47:31 GMT -5
No Arthur Conan Doyle, no Sherlock Holmes? No Euripides, no Hercules? No Pythagoras, no Theorem? Come off it. All of the cases you mention are ones in which the original author is long, long dead. In fact, all of those characters/things are legally in the public domain. It's fundamentally unethical to steal a creator's character when he's still alive, still telling his own stories with that character, and doesn't approve. How in the world does it make a difference, when the original author lived or whether he's alive or dead? If it's disrespectful as you say to use a living author's characters, then it's equally disrespectful to use a dead author's characters. In fact, it is highly respectful. It's the sincerest form of flattery, to borrow a phrase. Do you think Tom Stoppard was disrespectful to Shakespeare? Making new stories based on characters developed by someone else is an established and recognized form of creativity. It's been practiced since ancient times to today, and it will continue to be practiced as long as people write stories. In his statement, remember, Joss mentioned, in an ironic vein, his own work with the X-men characters. Get used to it!
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 11:38:51 GMT -5
No Arthur Conan Doyle, no Sherlock Holmes?
No Euripides, no Hercules?
No Pythagoras, no Theorem?
Come off it.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 23, 2010 0:04:51 GMT -5
In my starting post, I said I thought a villain with a limited motivation would work better. Apparently that doesn't resonate with anybody. Maybe I should try restating it.
BtVS is about the lives of young adults. If the problems they face, and the powers they wield, are too far from the scale on which normal human lives are played out, then we'll lose that. Buffy and her friends won't be human like us any more, and we won't be able to care about them as people anymore. I know there's a temptation to ramp up the volume and escalate the extravaganza to an epic level. It's critical to resist that. In places, S8 is already overdone. I don't know S9 will be like.
In the TV series, the writers sometimes managed to retain the human scale while still getting a bit of epic resonance. They did this by having Buffy fight great evils in their embryonic form. Buffy stopped Glory before she attained her true form.
I'm not sure they did this out of wisdom. They might've done it mostly because of budgetary constraints. In the Angel comics, with no such constraints, we see the "true form of Illyria," for example, which is as big as a hurricane or an earthquake. No human decisions or actions are relevant to such a thing.
Keep the villains small!
Am I all by myself on this?
I think tkts and I may have about the same idea, though we're saying it differently.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 22, 2010 23:27:48 GMT -5
I'm 100% in favor of NEW BUFFY STORIES, no matter by whom. I hope it kicks ass. Maybe that will shock some people out of this crazy idea that "only Joss can do it," as if he didn't put his pants on one leg at a time like everybody else. If we stifle creativity, then we will die as a fandom, and we deserve to.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 22, 2010 22:02:29 GMT -5
Definitely, Caleb should've been brought in earlier. I suppose the season was a few episodes along before the writers realized they needed somebody like him, a physical "strong right arm" for The First.
I agree with tkts about Marcie. I always figured she could've been redeemed, and that would've made a good story, but the writers chose the easy way out, the way that disposed of her really quickly, while pandering to suspicion of the government.
You're right she could've been a great ally as a spy, saboteur or assassin. She could've helped out in a crucial situation, and either enter into good grace or else die heroically.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 22, 2010 20:44:49 GMT -5
I always liked Jenny. I think it was a big mistake to kill her off. Much could've been done with her half-supernatural, half-technical background, and her connection to the Gypsies.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 22, 2010 17:20:34 GMT -5
I just finished Ground State, 4.2. I have mixed feelings. I never liked the idea of Cordelia as a higher being, and I never thought Angel being in love with her was convincing really. I think of it again now that I'm reading S8 of Buffy. But the part about Dinza and the Axis of Pythia, that was well-done. And the character of Gwen Raiden. They could've done more with her, especially if they softened her up a bit, made her a little more human. It was entertaining, but not great, not one of my favorites.
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Post by midwesternwatcher on Nov 22, 2010 17:05:44 GMT -5
I should've known!
I own all the DVDs too. Don't we all? And I have computer files for everything but Dollhouse.
My website is still plain-looking, I'll have to go yell at my son, who's my "admin," and get him to improve it. I was visiting him last weekend and we tentatively settled on a design, an austere one. He's older than you are, BTW.
And I'm closing in on collecting Electra126. Good Fuffy stuff. I'll be sending it to you wiki soon.
Oh, I just entered the contest.
Is this turning into a personal message? Sorry.
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