Joss Whedon Thanks Fans After Avengers' Success

[Simonoly]

Whenever I see Joss Whedon's face I can't help but shed a tear for Firefly.

 

[Infernai]

You're very welcome Joss Whedon. Now go get some rest, have a few parties and remember one thing from you're fans: Thanks for everything.

 

[Mullahgrrl]

Am I the only one who thinks Alien: Ressurection was the best alien movie?

 

[malestrithe]

I'm not a fan of his dialog, something that gets a lot of praise. It is not clever to make a pop culture reference when describing something. Clever is finding a novel way to describe something.

I'm not a fan of his original creations. His original creations are sarcastic nerds, which is fine when there is only one of them, but not a whole team of them.

So, I take it you actually haven't WATCHED (and I mean watched, by putting actual thought into it) any of Whedon's shows? Because you couldn't be further off with this.

His series, like Buffy, Firefly and Dollhouse, feel unfinished from the first episode and in all cases, it takes around 8 episodes before they have a direction. Angel and Fray were different. Both were in Buffy's Universe and already had established ground rules when he wrote them. The Serenity movie worked better than the Firefly series because the universe was already built and he only used the parts that were necessary for his movie. They felt like they belonged and not cobbled together like in the series.

So a series in the beginning doesn't have a fully furnished and finished world, but takes a moment to get going as it sets up the story arcs? WHO KNEW? Of course the latter stories feel more whole, because that's what the first episodes and seasons build towards.

It feels odd that you feel entitled to criticize someone as a writer, when you display having such complete ignorance over what writing actually is.

Getting upset over this proves why I have a huge dislike for Diehard Whedonites. Do you get some happiness out of "disproving" a well thought out and reasoned argument? Do you realize that I've heard these asinine rebuttals before and it has not swayed me?

As for the points:

1: Yes, I've heard his dialog. Yes, I have seen his shows, probably more times than you'll ever have and it is not clever to make some pop culture reference while talking. Clever dialog explains the situation in an original way without having to rely on some pop culture short hand as a cheat. Do you know who makes references to other movies? Those guys that do the Scary Movies, the Epic Movie and those kind of parody films. Would you call those clever? No you wouldn't, and Whedon does not get a pass for doing the same thing.

And 2: It is not a character flaw on my part to expect a universe that feels put together before the first episode is written. It is me trusting the writer to tell the story he wants to tell and not get bogged down making the things up. That's the problem with Firefly: he did not do enough prior planning before writing the first episode. He was throwing shit on the wall and seeing what sticks. I'm aware that he had a plan for where he was taking his 9 Han Solo clones, but that should have been obvious from episode 1 and not in the Serenity movie.

Also, Worldbuilding 101 dictates that you should atleast develop the world you are in before the start of the first adventure in it. I'm not asking to explain everything about the universe. I am asking that he does the work so it feels like it belongs in that universe.

Do you know where it's done right? Before he got the green light to do the first episode of Young Justice, Greg Weissman started creating the world. He spent time picking heroes for the universe, creating the tech, building outer space, and so on. He spent time creating all of the characters, and making them fit into his vision of the DC universe. He also took the time to figure out what his ideal plot progression for each character is. After he got the green light for the show, he started writing episodes and used his already built plot lines as his blueprint for the series. He has a "master book" that has over 200 pages of stories that he is never going to use, but it does not matter. That kind of work makes universes feel alive. He is not alone in doing this. Creators of Ben 10 do this, so did the creators of Avatar: the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra. Had Joss Whedon done even a tenth of that preparation for any of his non Buffy related project, he would be a lot more received outside the community.

Quit protecting Joss Whedon from criticism. He does not need you to do it. He understands his short comings. When I talked to him at the SD comic con a few years ago, he was not upset I did not like his writing. He was taken aback that I told him he was a great director, just not a good writer.

Furthermore, come up with better "attacks." All of us non Whedonites have heard them before and we are still not convinced by them.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Never understood why liking Buffy and Angel is a bad thing. Yeah they got corny every now and then. Yes Buffy had "Girl power" written all over it, but the character development was intense and felt very real.

One of the things so many other people have forgotten. I don't watch explosions, I don't want shocking twists, I want a halfway decent story and good character development.

Still haven't seen the Avengers though. Wife is taking me this weekend for my birthday

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I hope they let him make his wonder woman film now.

 

[Strazdas]

If there ever was a man who deserved the fame, its Joss Wheadon, being small time director he has brought us amazing shows. finally he hit it big. lets hope he wont forget his dreams - spaceships in trouble.

 

[malestrithe]

I hope they let him make his wonder woman film now.

Not going to happen. Not a knock against Whedon, but DC. DC has a continuity checker on staff. His job is to make things fit within established mythos. That guy is part of the reason why Green Lantern and Superman Returns failed. No matter how good Whedon's script is, if it deviates too much to established Wonder Woman continuity, it will not get green lit.

Maybe they'll let him do it because his stock is high in Hollywood at the moment, but my money is on DC and Time Warner being stupid.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I hope they let him make his wonder woman film now.

Not going to happen. Not a knock against Whedon, but DC. DC has a continuity checker on staff. His job is to make things fit within established mythos. That guy is part of the reason why Green Lantern and Superman Returns failed. No matter how good Whedon's script is, if it deviates too much to established Wonder Woman continuity, it will not get green lit.

Maybe they'll let him do it because his stock is high in Hollywood at the moment, but my money is on DC and Time Warner being stupid.

That's kind of what I meant that he can use his rep as a jumping off point. I know he's wanted to do the film for ages now but keeps getting turned down.

It's a shame Wonder Woman is an awesome character with loads of potential. You have the entire classical greek mythos to play around with.

 

[Larmo]

He's not wrong about getting flack for being a Whedon fan. So many people don't understand how I can love Dollhouse or Buffy, now I can point them to Avengers and go, "There!"

I do love how Joss still hasn't figured out how to make drama without random deaths. Random deaths are his "You must feel sad now!" pathos button.

Which random deaths would this be in the movie? (Not trying to be an ass, asking a serious question here).

Spoiler: Spoiler...? I dunno, whatever.

The death of that SHIELD agent dude who was in Thor? I forget his name. He had vintage Cap'n 'merica playing cards. But he died and Thor was like NOOOOOOO and it made everybody depressed so yeah there we go.

Isn't it heavily hinted that he isn't dead? The cards Fury showed to the team actually came from his locker, and when questioned about that he notes that they needed something to motivate them.

Spoiler

They needed something to motivate them, and I just assumed that Fury put a bit of blood on them and pretended agent Coulson carried them around with him always, for more emotional impact I suppose. Besides, I don't see how the cards being in his locker suggests he isn't dead

The actor has signed on to play in iron man 3 no word if this is a cameo or if hes going to be back

 

[malestrithe]

Snip

Yeah, I know. I'm a meanie for not like Whedon the way most people do. I get that I'm hurting your feelings for saying something you don't want to hear. I also understand that you should not bother with responding the way you are, but you are compelled to do so. I get all of that because you are not the first person to use variations of these when responding to what I'm saying. I've heard this for 7 years since Firefly was cancelled. (Wasn't the network, not enough people watched it when it was new. You could have stayed home Fridays)

I also know that if you have to resort to point by point rebuttals to what I's saying, you really don't have a solid argument. Otherwise, you would not need to use nitpicking.

Sorry to break it to you, but no amount of line by line rebuttal auditing will change my opinion of Joss Whedon. Fine director, lousy writer.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Snip

Yeah, I know. I'm a meanie for not like Whedon the way most people do. I get that I'm hurting your feelings for saying something you don't want to hear. I also understand that you should not bother with responding the way you are, but you are compelled to do so. I get all of that because you are not the first person to use variations of these when responding to what I'm saying. I've heard this for 7 years since Firefly was cancelled. (Wasn't the network, not enough people watched it when it was new. You could have stayed home Fridays)

I also know that if you have to resort to point by point rebuttals to what I's saying, you really don't have a solid argument. Otherwise, you would not need to use nitpicking.

Sorry to break it to you, but no amount of line by line rebuttal auditing will change my opinion of Joss Whedon. Fine director, lousy writer.

Huh? I'm sorry I think you might have quoted the wrong person? My post was about Wonder Woman.

 

[repeating integers]

Snip

Yeah, I know. I'm a meanie for not like Whedon the way most people do. I get that I'm hurting your feelings for saying something you don't want to hear. I also understand that you should not bother with responding the way you are, but you are compelled to do so. I get all of that because you are not the first person to use variations of these when responding to what I'm saying. I've heard this for 7 years since Firefly was cancelled. (Wasn't the network, not enough people watched it when it was new. You could have stayed home Fridays)

I also know that if you have to resort to point by point rebuttals to what I's saying, you really don't have a solid argument. Otherwise, you would not need to use nitpicking.

Sorry to break it to you, but no amount of line by line rebuttal auditing will change my opinion of Joss Whedon. Fine director, lousy writer.

Marty DiBergi: (quoting a review) "This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry."
Nigel Tufnel: That's just nitpicking, innit?

If you ask me, the real sign someone doesn't have an argument is when they refuse to respond to the other guy's arguments and instead just dismiss them out of hand, complete with snide insinuations about his character.

 

[malestrithe]

That's kind of what I meant that he can use his rep as a jumping off point. I know he's wanted to do the film for ages now but keeps getting turned down.

It's a shame Wonder Woman is an awesome character with loads of potential. You have the entire classical greek mythos to play around with.

Wonder Woman does have potential to be good and I would to see it. She is a fully rich and diverse character with almost 70 years of material to draw upon. Cheetah is probably the best known enemy, so it might be her for the first movie.

The same could be said for Green Lantern however. That movie desperately wanted to be three movies. It certainly had enough material to be three movies. Parallax would be the overarching enemy of the series and it would control other Enemies. Hector Hammond and Waller would be the first two villains for the origin story and keep it Earth centered. The second one would probably be the big budget adaptation of First Flight, making Sinestro the villain. Third one would be Half on OA and half on Earth and we meet Parallax finally.

I'm not the best writer in the world that took me 15 minutes to figure that out.

 

[AgentNein]

*snip*

Alright, I'll bite. While I'm an admitted Whedonite, I don't think everything he's done was gold, I absolutely hated the vast majority of Angel for instance, and Buffy season 8 (comics) does a complete disservice to the show, although that can be partly summed up to the limitations of the comic book as a format for storytelling in my opinion. Point is I don't think his work is in any way above criticism.

But I just don't GET some of your issues with him. And they're issues I hear from a lot of whedon-haters. Reliance on pop culture references? From which show? I've never really noticed them. Buffy had the Trio, a group of stereotypical nerds in season 6 who could barely communicate without invoking Star Wars or some other geek holy grail when communicating with each other and that's the only real goldmine of pop culture the show threw at the audience. I think the real issue a lot of Whedon fans have with this critique is that it's just so divorced from the reality of his stuff. Pop culture references in his work are occasional at best, and when the characters in question (such as in buffy) are teenagers or twenty somethings in the modern day world it feels perfectly natural. As others have said, you'd be hard pressed to find anything like a modern day pop culture reference in Firefly.

And as far as the world building thing goes, yes I understand to sci fi and fantasy fans world building tends to take on an extreme importance, but I think there are multiple ways to approach it. Some authors build the world more or less fully and completely in their minds before the story even starts, and some let the world grow and evolve as they create it. Neither is the 'right' way. Just two different approaches. For what it's worth, both Firefly and Dollhouse had pretty clearly defined worlds from the word GO, and while Buffy's world took a bit of time to leave the cheese factory (the first season) it's world was also fairly well thought out. Can I think of any retcons? Nope. It was consistent.

 

[Disasterpiece Press]

I do love how Joss still hasn't figured out how to make drama without random deaths. Random deaths are his "You must feel sad now!" pathos button.

To be fair, in the Avengers, the death wasn't so random. I loved how he used it as a catalyst for making a group of super-heroes into a fully-formed team. It was almost a tip of the hat to his fans and a "See? Not every major character death is without point."