Does Joss Whedon know why his shows are good?

[jthwilliams]

I'm of the "Whedon? Fuck, I LOVE Firefly! Wait, he does other stuff?" crowd. I don't care how good the rest is, because Firefly is enough for me. Even Serenity, even though it obviously had to be written to plug the gaping hole in Firefly lore left by Fox's inevitable betrayal the show's cancellation and suffered for it.

Heh, Firefly was the last Joss thing I watched - try Dr. Horrible, Buffy and Dollhouse. I'm probably forgetting a bunch of his other great shows, but whatever.

Anyway, it's the tone. His shows can be dead serious and tongue in cheek simultaneously.

Edit: Agh sorry, no, I'm wrong - according to a couple of people on this thread, Joss writes terrible shows and I should hate all of his stuff. And who am I to disagree?

Not to mention Yaztee hates him so... yeah ... everyone most hate him too???

 

[jthwilliams]

I'm of the "Whedon? Fuck, I LOVE Firefly! Wait, he does other stuff?" crowd. I don't care how good the rest is, because Firefly is enough for me. Even Serenity, even though it obviously had to be written to plug the gaping hole in Firefly lore left by Fox's inevitable betrayal the show's cancellation and suffered for it.

Heh, Firefly was the last Joss thing I watched - try Dr. Horrible, Buffy and Dollhouse. I'm probably forgetting a bunch of his other great shows, but whatever.

Anyway, it's the tone. His shows can be dead serious and tongue in cheek simultaneously.

Edit: Agh sorry, no, I'm wrong - according to a couple of people on this thread, Joss writes terrible shows and I should hate all of his stuff. And who am I to disagree?

Not to mention Yaztee hates him so... yeah ... everyone most hate him too???

Yeah, definitely. I mean, his word is even more valid than 'random guy on the internet who disagrees with me'.

Well he draws a funny guy with a hat and little black imp things. Also he does reviews on the interwebs and tells how much he doesn't like things. So of course his word is more valid. He isn't random guy on the internet. He is random angry guy on the internet.

 

[Krion_Vark]

Can I just say that I feel like Buffy is part of Geek Culture because of the MOVIE and not because of the show?

 

[jthwilliams]

Can I just say that I feel like Buffy is part of Geek Culture because of the MOVIE and not because of the show?

You can say it, but I would think you are wrong. Google or Bing "Buffy" and you'll get lots and lots of Buffy Geek fan sites that are all related to the show. I have personally never seen one devoted to the movie. (just cause I have never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist).


Further here in seattle, there is a "Buffy the Vampire" and "FireFly" (The browncoats) meetup club. The buffy club is about the show.

My personal experience says the show has had much more impact on the geek and non geek culture than the movie. That being said my experience isn't definative and I could be wrong.

 

[Krion_Vark]

Can I just say that I feel like Buffy is part of Geek Culture because of the MOVIE and not because of the show?

You can say it, but I would think you are wrong. Google or Bing "Buffy" and you'll get lots and lots of Buffy Geek fan sites that are all related to the show. I have personally never seen one devoted to the movie. (just cause I have never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist).


Further here in seattle, there is a "Buffy the Vampire" and "FireFly" (The browncoats) meetup club. The buffy club is about the show.

My personal experience says the show has had much more impact on the geek and non geek culture than the movie. That being said my experience isn't definative and I could be wrong.

The movie is also written by Whedon and it actually came out way before the show started. The movie gave us the character Buffy. The show gave us her friends.


Also anyone know how to do chinese symbols for a captcha?

 

[Rubashov]

The movie is also written by Whedon and it actually came out way before the show started. The movie gave us the character Buffy. The show gave us her friends.

True enough, but do you really think that the character Buffy would have had the impact she did if she had only been the star of an obscure horror-comedy that received mixed reviews, rather than also being the star of a seven-season series that was a critics' darling for essentially its entire run?

 

[Krion_Vark]

The movie is also written by Whedon and it actually came out way before the show started. The movie gave us the character Buffy. The show gave us her friends.

True enough, but do you really think that the character Buffy would have had the impact she did if she had only been the star of an obscure horror-comedy that received mixed reviews, rather than also being the star of a seven-season series that was a critics' darling for essentially its entire run?

I actually thought it kinda dropped off after she

Spoiler

killed herself to save the entire world and then was brought back. and lost interest and just stopped watching.

I think it would be more a cult thing like Serenity is.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

From the posts in this thread, it is very obvious that Joss Whedon is hit or miss: It seems most either state how they love most of his work, or that they hate it.
In my opinion, anyway, Joss Whedon is great.

 

[KnowYourOnion]

He has like two female character models.

Attractive and inexplicably strong with over the top cheesy kung fu effects. Or ditsy and useless.

The only difference between Buffy and River is that River is meant to be GRIMDARKSPACEEXPERIMENT.

I dont know what you're talking about. You've obviously never paid any attention to Kaylee, Zoe, or Inara, because those three don't fit into any of the categories you describe. They have loads of character depth, even if we didn't get to see much of it due to the series cancellation. Buffy produced several strong and complex female characters, and Dollhouse had its own deal going which made its characters far more than stereotypes.

Please know what you are talking about before you make a statement like that.

Hyperbole, learn it, practice it, come back to me.

The point I was making, my pedantic little friend, was that he uses a lot of the same character types. You can look at pretty much any of his shows and pick out characters that fit the same, supposedly unique, niche. And that doesn't just apply to women.

Your comment wasn't the epitome of hyperbole if I may make so bold, so why don't you stop patronising people "my little friend".

Also who said his characters were unique?! Those "models" you're referring to are called character archetypes, They fit into well established moulds but in fairly unique ways. Give me another example of a highly educated prostitute like Inara in any other sci-fi series?

I just wanted add that what Abandon4093 said was craziness not Hyperbole. First River wasn't the main character of FireFly basedon screen time she was a major supporting character and she may have become a major character if the series has continued, but she had little or nothing to do with what made the show good.

The lead female character was either Zoe or Kaylee, I'm not sure which but with the Firefly at least we have 4 female characters who showed up either in ever episode or almost every episode

Kaylee - A tom boy who is very mechanically gifted but regrets not being more "girly". She often plays one of the guys, but she also often shows herself to be driven by her selfimage as female.

Anora - who at first as a companion at first seems like a weak female character, but as we learn more about what she actually does, she appears to be more of a sexually empowered individual who wants and is very capible of standing up for herself and controlling situation dispite not being a fighter.

Zoe - a soldier who lost. Extremely loyal to the one person she thinks never faltered even when she did. She respects powerful, firm and serious people like Mal, but when she got married she married a silly comical man who could make her laugh. Her over milterization puts her in constant conflict with who husband who she clearly loves. An entire episode was dedicated to her conflict between respect and loyality to mal vs her love to her husband and how it differs.

River - a severily pysically damaged girl who has difficutly dealing with day to day life as a result of experimentation done to her. She was once a very bright girl, but now has trouble communicating even on a basic level. She loves her brother but distrusts everyone else including Mal who is probably the most trustworthy character in the show. Throughout most of the TV series she in no way showed herself to be Overpowered the only hint of it was when she shot 3 people with her eyes closed. Again, the story never really circles around her. If anything she is the foil to her brother who otherwise would be the ideal citizen of the aliance.


Which of these are the overpowered female who could just waltz though the world making conflict meaningless? Which is the ditz? which one shows unexplainable strength?

Also while I am sure there their could be debate on the topic, i think the story actually mostly revolved aroud Mal, most of them started and/or ended with a line from him and most had him as the central driving force of the plot.

Now, if you talk about Buffy, you might have a slightly stronger ground to stand on as there were quit a few female characters who were much much stronger than anyone normal. A good deal of them badguys. In fact the willow story arch pretty much explored the idea of power corrupting. However, for every female character who was overpowered, there were female characters who were not and even one ditzy character who grew up and matured and became less of a ditz and learned to be independent and strong without any mistical powers.




So saying that Joss Whedon only knows how to write two types of female is not Hyperbole it is just wrong That being said you can say that he has a facination of the idea of very weak seeming characters being extremely powerful (even super human powerful) at the core. He has used that theme a lot


Dr Horrible's Sing along blog:

Only one female character of note who had not supperpowers and only remarkable because she was chearful and upbeat and wanted really to change the world even though she had nothing special about her that would make her able to do so more than anyone else. She is a counter point to captain hammer who has all the power to changed the world for the better but doesn't because he only cares about himself. She is the love interest of Dr. Horrible because she is everything he thinks he likes about the world and serve as an idea person to him.


I never really watched Doll's house but as I understand it as well as circling around a woman who has had her life stolen from her by a shaddy organization which uses mindcontrol to basically fetishize their woman and is basically a pimping service has dozens and dozens of female characters who are not Dolls.

THANK YOU MY GOOD MAN!
Abandon is just an arse who thinks he's more intelligent than others and feels the need to try and crush inferior beings 'neath the heel of his mighty boot of intelligence for daring to have an opinion that is different to his. I mean how could we question his wild assertions by bringing our own arguments to the table?

Now if you'll excuse me I'm just going to suffocate myself with some extra soft marshmallows, it's a fitting punishment for questioning the Almighty Abandon...