Joss Whedon Officially Quits the Marvel Cinematic Universe

[Buckets]

Wah, Wah - I used to have a lot of respect for Joss Whedon and think he did wonders with the Marvel Films, but in this case he is just making himself look like a spoilt child, much akin to Veruca Salt.
Sounds like his time has passed.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

So I'm assuming this will mean he has no further involvement in Agents of Shield as well?

First Lucas and now Whedon. It's almost like Disney is a Soul sucking Corporation gobbling up pop culture properties as fast as they can.

Don't compare Whedon to Lucas. Whedon is a director/producer who was hired to do some films and tv, did them, and now wants a sea change.

Lucas is a narcissistic moron who sold out for billions and then had a sook because they didn't want to listen to him.

I can understand why Whedon wants to leave though. I just don't think the guy is cut out for bigger projects. He clearly has some massive insecurities about his work and that would be crippling when trying to do stuff on the scale he has been.

I hope the Russo Brothers get given the torch from here on out. Winter Soldier was easily the best film released out of the marvel universe in my opinion and Civil War is looking even better potentially.

(Edit: Oh never mind, looks like they already have been)

There's probably a generation gap here, but worth pointing out a few things about Lucas:

- Lucas's greatness was always as a producer. Not as a director, and certainly not as a writer. But as a producer he did some truly amazing things during his peak - not just Star Wars, but Indiana Jones, Labyrinth, even American Grafitti. And Lucasarts - they've been forgotten these days, but older gamers remember a time when George Lucas was behind one of the greatest Adventure Game studios, and gaming studios full stop - and the Star Wars IP was a VERY small part of Lucasarts, compared to, say Monkey Island, the Dig, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Secret Weapons, Maniac Mansion - a truly incredible catalogue and, during their very lengthy peak era, they were downright reluctant to fall back upon Star Wars instead of making new IPs. Again, Lucas contribution was as producer - the fact he wasn't a game designer himself isn't the issue, he consistently made magic happen by hiring great designers and greenlighting great projects that were too ambitious or downright weird (Day of the Tentacle? Earthworm Jim?) for anyone else to touch.

- It's silly to accuse Lucas of 'selling out', given that commercial exploitation of his products for large $$$ was ALWAYS part of his strategy, from the very start. The reason why Star Wars had so many toys is because Lucas took a minuscule paycheck in return for keeping the merchandising rights (he bought the full Star Wars IP later, using the massive $$$ he made from the toys). He was never above 'selling out'. Instead, he was much loved in Hollywood for his vision and generosity in what he did with that money. Lucas was the biggest funder of independent cinema from 1980-1995. If you had an idea for a highbrow sci-fi film, an arthouse drama, anything that was too risky or niche for the big studios to bother with, you went to Lucas for money. It didn't matter that the films that HE made were mainstream blockbusters - he could recognise good films from ultra-niche European arthouse to horror to hard sci-fi. He would take new directors and writers under his wing, and finance their projects for no reason other than because he believed they had talent, often sticking with a young director through multiple flops so long as the director's talent was there, and a lot of the big names of the late 90s would never have made it otherwise.

Lucas was loved because he took the $$$ from mass blockbusters like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and used it for the betterment of American film and gaming. Yes, he also ended up surrounding himself with yesmen, and made a mess of the prequels. Worse (in my view, far worse, given that at least the prequels were a work of passion) he eventually lost interest in Lucasarts and allowed his underlings to hollow out one of the greatest gaming studios ever into the 'milk the Star Wars IP to death' studio. But he should be judged by what he does with the Star Wars cash, in terms of him being a producer of blockbusters. He was never a celebrated director or writer, and it's downright absurd to criticise him as 'selling out' to the big suits, given that his whole success was around BEING a particularly good 'big suit'.

 

[Something Amyss]

Here's a better question name me a show that was anything like it before it came out?

I fail to see how this is a better question, since you have not yet defined what "like it" means. Since that's what I was asking, and you need to bring that first, it seems like a worse question as it depends on answering mine. So let's look at what else you have to say.

Yes Buffy is hardly a shining example of a strong character she spends a lot of time screwing up like an actual human being.

So did people on Highlander. So did people on Babylon 5. So do soap operas and pro wrestling, for that matter.

However that's kind of the point of the show she's someone who doesn't need a man to fight her battles but that doesn't mean she isn't human and prone to mistakes.

Actually, she very much needs a man to fight her battles. The most obvious is Giles, but then there's Angel, Riley, Spike...even Xander steps up when Buffy can't handle herself (which is pretty much always). And, also to this point, when she screws up, it's generally a man who fixes it for her. Though in later episodes Willow does occasionally do it.

Hell, Willow is more of a "girl power" character than Buffy is. And still, not much.

The show blended sci-fi/fantasy tropes and spent a fair bit of time subverting them.

Like Babylon 5 did. I mean, I could probably name more examples if you want, but I have a feeling Bab 5 is going to keep coming up.

Added into the fact the pop-culture references and genuine humour and it was a fairly unique offering.

I'm not even sure how you think these are new or unique to Buffy. But including "pop culture references" in what you think makes the show unique tells me what I need to know, I think.

I'd still prefer more Buffy's in this world for young female teenagers then Rey's (stupidly competent character who are brilliant at everything they try)

...actually, that tells me more, because it's not really a true statement. It's one of ROK's complaints about Rey that has little to do with the movie.

Also, it would be wildly inappropriate to have a Buffy character in the midst of a Star Wars movie, no matter how amazing you think she is. Characters in Star Wars are not human, except in the sense that they ostensibly are members of H. Sapiens Sapiens. Then again, neither is Buffy. She's a cardboard cutout.

and Bella's (it's okay to totally rely on men for everything and nothing else matters).

And that should not be the troubling takeaway one gets from Twilight, either.

Buffy nicely fits between the two which is also a far more realistic interpretation of a teenage girl.

Buffy is an incompetent basketcase who can't get shit done without a man, usually surrogate daddy Giles, to take her by the hand through it. IKf you believe this is reflective of teenage girls, I don't even know what to say anymore.

Anyway better question you accused Whedon of beng derivative how about you tell how he is rather than me just defend an accusation?

I checked the thread for the word "derivative," so I could see the context of the argument (as I didn't recall saying it), and the only use I can find on either page is yours. Please don't accuse me of saying things I haven't said. And don't try to hold them against me, either.

I questioned you calling it innovative, that's it as far as I can see that's even close. Except that's not calling it derivative, it's questioning what you think is innovative about it to back up a claim I don't get.

What before 1997 was anything like Buffy (Xena is the closest I can think of and they're not really the same).

I still don't know what "like Buffy" means. I mean, I guess your standards are:

-Characters make mistakes
-Is human
-blends sci-fi and fantasy.

I'm still not even sure how humour is a claim here, unless your fourth criteria is "written by Joss Whedon." In which ase, yeah, I couldn't name any TV series prior to 1997 written by Joss Whedon.

So I'm going to say Babylon 5 again.

Bab 5 is full of very human characters who are flawed, make mistakes, and are still written as competent human beings. JMS can, on occasion, write a woman who is actually a strong character, though not always. To add to that, women who screw up don't immediately need their daddies to fix things. The series contained a lot of earnest humour, and even the sort of casual aside that I think of when I think Whedon. The series mixes science fiction and fantasy tropes and both fulfills and subverts them (as Buffy does).

Further, this was the series that had to go to the mat for shows like Buffy, with season arcs and multi-season stories, to exist in mainstream TV.

Hell, Deep Space 9 also did most of this, also predates Buffy, and actually does come off as Whedon-esque (trite and superficial, and this one I will call derivative).

I mean, that's two shows right there that seem to meet your criteria as listed, have better (if not always amazing) female protagonists, and I didn't even have to leave the genre of "science fiction set on a space station in the future."

However you can probably list shows post Buffy that resemble it and clearly based on the same mold.

Actually, I can't. Part of this is probably apathy, but I can't think of anything that came after Buffy that is "uniquely" like Buffy.

Well, unless you count Joss Whedon shows, because Whedon likes to copy himself over and over again. But I doubt that's the casse, as arguing Joss Whedon writes like Joss Whedon is a useless tautology.

 

[Ralancian]

*snip*

Okay you make some fair points I don't really want to argue about Buffy as a character I'm more referring to the show as a whole, I think some of the confusion from my derivative remark actually come from the original post I quoted and asked how old Sopley was based on this quote which implied he was calling Whedon's work derivitive.

He's an Abrams-esque hack who can't make anything new or innovative, but can easily make something functional/solid.

This confused me because you answered a comment I made to someone else...I have no idea why you did but you can see why I was confused right?

I don't think you give DS9 enough credit and sound like a very typical B5 fan boy not given it credit where it deserves. All honesty here I admit to being a massive DS9 fan boy but I love B5 too and both are brilliant (first two seasons DS9 can hardly be called great and the acting in season 1 of B5 is poor to say the least). However both pushed to each other to great heights of television for the time and bother are in my top 5 shows whereason Buffy is not. Admitidley I watched DS9 at the time and B5 much later in life on DVD.

Shows post Buffy I'm mainly thinking Smallville but nothing else really caught same time SG-1 but that's younger than I thought it was.

I do agree my criterion does need fixing a little and I'll expand it
Appeal to a broad range of people but specifically teenagers whilst not making a no adult go zone, let's be honest here B5 and DS9 only appealed to us hardcore scifi nuts. Buffy can fairly be attributed to broadening geek appeal much like I say LotR did. In school in the UK lots of kids watched it (13+ I was) whereas I was the only person who watched Star Trek. That was helped by the BBC2 used to show it early evening 6:45 I belive.
Modern day setting which goes a lot to adding to its appeal.
Sci-if fantasy genre.
Easy to digest subtext (don't do drugs, guys you sleep with may turn....yeah it's basic and hammer hitting obvious)
General humorous attitude throughout. Whilst not a comedy most find the show funny throughout yes there is very much what's referee to as Whedon-esque quips and snark....but there's a reason we call it that right? I mean if it's his trait he can hardly be accused of not being different to others.


Now I'll admit some shows tick some of those boxes and like I said you make fair points about characterisation of the lead. My point was simple the argument that Whedon can't do anything new or innovative is not a fair argument given Buffy genuinely was back in 1997. Fair enough later work of his can be argued for trying to copy the Whedon template (I do morn the loss of Firefly though as whilst I was one of the many who didn't watch it at the time it was genuinely good show).

 

[Something Amyss]

This confused me because you answered a comment I made to someone else...I have no idea why you did but you can see why I was confused right?

Not really. These are open forums where people have open discussions. I don't normally expect that people responding to me were the ones I responded to. I got confused recently when someone responded acting as if my post was specifically talking about them when I quoted someone else and was talking to someone else about...well, not them, but as a rule, such replies are common on any board with open discussion. You brought up age, and being that I was almost legally an adult when Buffy first dropped, that got my attention. As did the claim of innovation. So I responded to ask what that even means. And I'm still not sure.

Also, I would hope one would be able to distinguish someone named Something Amyss from someone named Souplex. Especially since he has a static avatar of someone being suplexed and mine is an animated GIF of She Who Must Not Be Named, Eater of Popcorn. Though I guess both our usernames are pun-based. I think that might be the only similarity, though. Well, we may also both be Queen fans, based on his profile.

However, I don't entirely think he's off-base with his assessment of Whedon. I dislike use of the term "hack," given it's tossed around on the internet almost as much as "nazi," but Joss' primary strength is emulation. Which is why I thought he would be and was great for superhero movies. I could easily see him emulating the comic book style. I love Once More With Feeling in part because it showed off how good Whedon is at emulating various music styles. He understands how the music works, and he can emulate it. From showtunes to light metal. Firefly seems to emulate every space Western I've ever watched that isn't explicitly Star Wars, and that's part of what makes it cool. Space+Western=awesome, in my book. But it's not so much that firefly is new, it's just slapping his usual dialogue on a different background. And, I mean, that's okay. I'm a fan of more of the same, so long as it's good/fun/entertaining.

I will point out that this in no way means that I can't enjoy his programming. That still doesn't make him new or innovative. It absolutely doesn't make his women strong or positive.

And while I'm on that subject, one more thing (since you said you don't want to discuss it). The argument that Buffy and other Whedon characters are empowering is often touted out by men, and as such tends to ring as tone deaf at best and condescendingly hostile at worst. One of my problems with Whedon is that he clearly has fucked up ideas about women, but even mild criticism gewts him whining about radicals and extremists, and gets him saying things to the effect of "why don't you get what a good feminist/ally I am?" or "why don't you understand how much I'm empowering you?"

But then, that's often how the "empowerment" angle reads.

I would certainly argue that Bella Swan is a worse role model for girls I(given she's in an abusive relationship), but that's not saying much. I honestly can thnk of a few women who get damseled or fridged I'd still rather look up to than Buffy Summers.

I don't think you give DS9 enough credit and sound like a very typical B5 fan boy not given it credit where it deserves.

I gave it far more credit than your average "fanboy" would by even mentioning Lesser Babylon 5 by name.

But if we're talking fandoms, Star Trek isn't necessarily one of them for me. I don't like DS9 or TNG. I like TOS mostly for the cheese factor. I do like four of the six TOS movies, even love a couple of them, and find Voyager to be watchable. But again, it's not so much based on quality as it is I like to picture Captain Janeway as being slowly driven batshit crazy with guilt, leading to her further erratic decisions.

This isn't about being a Bab 5 fangirl so much as it is when I hear the qualities people associate with Buffy thinking of Babylon 5 as an earlier and often better example.

But let me also be honest: I would rather young girls aspire to be Susan Ivanova than Buffy Summers. Susan is a competent leader, who has demonstrated that she's actually strong and independent in real world situations (rather than declaring she don't need no mayun!), and still manages to be very flawed and human. You see the burden of command weigh on her, as it does everyone else in the series. And I'm pretty sure which bathroom she uses never becomes a controversy in the show.

BTVS is more about telling you Buffy is a strong woman while every dude in town either props her up or knocks her down. Buffy claims women can do everythying men can do. Commander Ivanova shows it. Ivanova says that girls can command spaceships. Buffy says that even if you're the chosen one, you're not special.

Shows post Buffy I'm mainly thinking Smallville but nothing else really caught same time SG-1 but that's younger than I thought it was.

Ooooo-kayyyy...and here's the problem. I'm not even sure what about Smallville could be considered Buffy-like. I mean, if I'm stretching it, there's the "monster of the week" format of the first two seasons, but that was considered a negative point of Smallville and was only noteworthy in the case of Buffy because it somewhat subverted it with the season arcs.

SG-1, a lot of that came from RDA being RDA. Part of what makes O'Neill so awesome is that RDA is amazing at being bitchy. But yes, a show that also came out in 1997 with similar qualities probably isn't fairly called a successor.

Appeal to a broad range of people but specifically teenagers whilst not making a no adult go zone,

I couldn't even name you ten shows aimed to appeal to teenagers, let alone one with broad appeal intended for teenagers.

I can immediately name The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers as a show that didn't preclude adults. In fact, half its fans were already adults when it aired in 1986. And this is not a show that was super original in the strictest sense. It still borrowed from Star Wars, Clint Eastwood movies, the X-Men, etc.

let's be honest here B5 and DS9 only appealed to us hardcore scifi nuts.

I'm not sure I count as a hardcore sci-fi nut. I've covered Star Trek. Other than that, most of what I watch is Doctor Who (old and new series), Star Wars, and I suppose Farscape counts. I haven't really watched Farscape or B5 in YEARS, though. I'm not even sure I have a full B5 set anymore. It does not, however, take a fangirl to note that much of what you attribute to Buffy happened in B5 first.

Oh, and Stargate and Eureka.

Buffy can fairly be attributed to broadening geek appeal much like I say LotR did. In school in the UK lots of kids watched it (13+ I was) whereas I was the only person who watched Star Trek. That was helped by the BBC2 used to show it early evening 6:45 I belive.
Modern day setting which goes a lot to adding to its appeal.

Okay, but in the US, it basically tied with Charmed in terms of ratings, which is neither what I would call popular nor a particularly good argument for its role in geek culture.

Maybe it was super popular in the UK specifically. I don't know. Maybe it brought geek culture into pop culture. I don't know. But here? Really didn't seem to have that impact.

Easy to digest subtext (don't do drugs, guys you sleep with may turn....yeah it's basic and hammer hitting obvious)

So...a show for teens...with blatant morals?

General humorous attitude throughout. Whilst not a comedy most find the show funny throughout yes there is very much what's referee to as Whedon-esque quips and snark....but there's a reason we call it that right? I mean if it's his trait he can hardly be accused of not being different to others.

Calling it Whedon-esque is generally done because he has a habit of writing very blatantly robotic characters with top-line snark detection units. Though being a codifier doesn't mean you did it first. Just because people use "Xbox" as a term to describe video game consoles doesn't mean they were the first company to make a console. Hell, the same goes with Nintendo.

This just means they were identifiable at some point, in some way. And since Whedon-esque is often used in a derogatory fashion, I would equate it more with the Pinto. People don't know the Pinto because it's an awesome and reliable car. They know it because of its tendency to do one specific thing that people didn't like.

Actually, Joss kind of is like a Pinto. He goes up in flames whenever anybody even brushes against him with criticism.

When I hear Whedon-esque, I think tiresome.

Now I'll admit some shows tick some of those boxes and like I said you make fair points about characterisation of the lead.

Some of your criteria are either amazingly vague, or ridiculously specific. Anyway, I can name a bunch of shows that tick most of those boxes, and apparently you can, too. The commonality here would indicate that this isn't such a unique position.

My point was simple the argument that Whedon can't do anything new or innovative is not a fair argument given Buffy genuinely was back in 1997.

Except you haven't made a case for Buffy being new and innovative. At best, you've made a case for it being a slightly different version of the same formula. ReBoot did most of these things. Hell, Dinosaurs--written off as a Simpsons clone--did most of these things, and managed to do so in a way that was so subversive as to get all sorts of awesome shit past the censors. And again, I don't even need to step outside a very narrow area--this time, shows where a main character is voiced by Michael Benyaer.

Hell, I would personally think the fact that one of your first examples of a Buffy-like show was not a successor, but a contemporary, would be demonstration enough.

 

[VondeVon]

I still haven't watched Age of Ultron and haven't felt even the slightest urge to. It's odd how one little change made me reject the movie so thoroughly that, for me, it's almost like it doesn't exist.

Probably won't watch Civil War either if they will be cramming more superheros into it. 'Falcon' from Winter Solider was bad enough and he was just the one newbie. I want sequels to be about continuing the stories of the main characters I've come to love, not just be fanservice for comic readers/new movie launch pads. That's just me, of course. I hadn't realised that there was general dissatisfaction with Age of Ultron though.

 

[VondeVon]

Edit:

With Civil War basically being a small-scale Avenger's movie, let's see how a non-Whedon director/writer handles the inter-character dialog and relationships.

We already did with Guardians of the Galaxy. IMO, it's better than both of the Avengers movies and they didn't have the several movies of development for their characters.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder of course, but I thought GotG was rubbish. Unlikable main character and a 14 year old girl's self-insert for Gamora (ie totally a badass except for how she's strangely ineffective 99% of the time and actually a secret damsel in distress with a tragic past just waiting for The Hero to come along and rescue her). The bit characters were the only thing that made the movie worth watching, for me.

Props to Drago-Morph for calling out the article as deliberately misrepresenting/misleading. That said, I haven't gone and confirmed that myself. Has anyone else?