Joss Whedon
Serenity Now
While we all wait for what Joss does next, the A.V. Club has an extremely insightful discussion of Serenity in it’s ‘New Cult Canon’ feature. The line is basically this: it’s a love letter to fans that doesn’t hit the highs of the show and here’s why. And I more or less agree.
I travelled with a friend down the highway to Geelong to watch Serenity in a pre-release screening. I had a good time, liked the film, saw it once again in the cinema on general release with another friend and bought it when it came out on DVD in order to help boost sales and convince them to make more. We now know that that’s never going to happen but what the hell. At least I have it on DVD right?
But here’s the problem: I’ve never watched the DVD. Beyond that, I’ve never revisited the original Firefly series (which I also own on DVD). I’m currently watching (extremely slowly) Buffy with my highly horror adverse wife and I’m enjoying it – we’re only two episodes in and it’s still astonishingly amateurish but it’s fun. When I think of Firefly now I think of it being (a) slightly forced and (b) unfinished. Now I know that (b) is not Whedon’s fault but (a) certainty is. Firefly, I suspect, is not going to go down in history as one of the great shows. If Fox hadn’t canned it in mid-stream, the reasons it is so missed would have been removed. Hopefully it would have provided new reasons to be missed, but I don’t think we’d seen them yet.
What next for Whedon?
Since the cancellation of Dollhouse I’ve been thinking a lot about why it’s creator, Joss Whedon, seems to keep making the same mistakes. Some people have commented that it’s because he’s a bit of a diva, or perhaps it’s just that he is a victim of his own hype and success.
I haven’t blogged much about Dollhouse’s cancellation, mostly due to a lot of other people already what I had to say. As a series it was deeply flawed and didn’t always get it right, but the thing it always had underpinning it was that it was just so different. That difference in approach to a theme is classic Whedon, as much as the layered characters and pithy dialogue. It wasn’t Buffy or Angel and it certainly wasn’t Firefly. It was it’s own beast, with it’s own issues.
Did the US network, Fox, step in and mess it up? Maybe. Did the show tiptoe around it’s loaded subject matter? Of course it did. It was about human slavery, prostitution and a person’s hunt for self when they’re stuck in that world. It’s heavy stuff, too heavy no doubt than a lot of everyday TV watchers.
The fans watched though. Us rapid fan boys and girls who lap up anything “The Whedon” does and then sit around for months and years afterwards talking about how good it was. How it was canned too soon. Despite the fact that we fans meant the almost guaranteed success of the internet musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog we are not enough to keep a major US TV network happy.
So what next? There is that episode of Glee that is coming up, but that won’t be a Whedon show. It will be an episode of Glee directed by Joss Whedon, not written. Then of course there is the much rumored follow up to Dr. Horrible. They’d be mad not to really. Will Joss Whedon go back to TV? I’ve heard it said that he’s not interested, at least not in it’s traditional format.
I’ve talked about this with a few people and I reckon there are two formats that would suit a Whedon style story down to the ground:
- Mini-series format – Torchwood did it for their Season 3 and it was amazing. I reckon Joss Whedon could really blast this format. 5 x 1.5 hour episodes, back to back and really concentrating on the story. Though he’s have to work on that slow build up thing of his that seems to happen in every series , bar Firefly.
- Online streaming – This is the other format that has been mentioned a lot. A regular show, with proper production values which is shown only on the internet. Anyone who wants to watch it pays a subscription, and then at the end of the season the DVDs are released as normal. No networks exerting control or pulling the strings. The technology is there and the fan base as well, pretty much all of whom are very internet savvy.
So those are my vague thoughts on the matter. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next, whether it be ‘net based, TV or another movie.
Linky linky linky linky LINKS
Sorry for last week’s lack of links and apologies in advance for the lack of links next week!
- Mark Charan Newton thinks sci-fi books are dying. I tend to agree.
- Why fandom owes even more to H.P. Lovecraft than we realised.
- A man has ‘beaten’ WoW. Sort of (via Boing Boing)
- Dollhouse battles were about sex. So says Whedon – Fox will never tell.
- Real life vampire killing kits!
- Using Microsoft’s Surface to play D&D – more footage.
Yet another THURSDAY LINK DAY!!!
- More DMing advice from Penny Arcade
- The movie Gattaca is being made into a sci-fi, police procedural TV show. Sound pretty cool!
- How we’ll cope (or not) with the Dollhouse cancellation – the 5 Stages of Grief. But, maybe we’ll get more Buffy?
- Setting up your Mac to play PC games.
- Michael Chabon on breaking out of genre and the role of fan-fiction in popular culture.
- What Stormtroopers do on their day off.
- Some guy at the Guardian reads George R. R. Martin for the first time.
- Robin D. Laws does a great real world RPG inspiration. Maybe we should change the way we do ours?
- i09’s take on what SFF books you might like if you liked some recent movies. It’s a cool idea, done well and the recommend some great books!
- Finally, The Onion A.V. Club gives us more geek fun with their New Cult Canon write up on Army of Darkness, a movie I have never seen but now really want to!
Dollhouse cancelled
Apparently Dollhouse has been cancelled but will still see out the second season.
I haven’t watched any of season 2 yet, but still this is a shame. It was an interesting show.
Thursday Link Day
It’s Thursday link day!!!
- The Onion AV Club have done another ‘Gateway to Geekery’, this time focusing on H.P. Lovecraft.
- Critical Hits have written a pretty good piece on how to get most (and longest) bang for your buck with Game Workshop minis games.
- Apparently dreaming about games makes you better at them. Does that mean that if you dream about sex you get better at that too? (via Felicia Day’s twitter.)
- Joss Whedon is bidding for the Terminator rights. Sort of. Background is here. (Via the A.V. Club)
- EuroGamer has a big, informative and pretty balanced article on the campaigns in Germany to ban violent video games.
Bah! No time for thinking, only for linking!
So I’m in Singapore for work and had a bit of time to look around but not much. Bu I do have some links to share!
Chris Pramas has done a Dragon Age PnP RPG interview here. It sounds like a simple, introductory system which gels with what Pramas has said before and could be interesting. Also surprising was that Bioware approached them, not the other way around.
Our first release is a boxed set and it presumes no previous experience with tabletop RPGs. It’s designed to teach people how to play, so it has lots of advice and examples.
In less promising news, the Kuzui’s (producers of Buffy) are planning another Buffy movie, without Whedon. Fran Kuzui was the director of the original movie and there’s obviously some terrible, complex rights issues here. Needless to say, I can’t imagine the new movie would be any better than the first without Whedon’s input.
Dollhouse – the end?
As promised some time ago I haven’t been blogging weekly about Dollhouse, the latest show created by Joss Whedon. However with the final episode being shown last week in the US (not to forget about the 13th episode, but the season is over) and the likelihood of a second season remaining slim I thought I’d try to digest my thoughts on the show. If you are staying spoiler free don’t jump below the cut as I’ll be talking about the season as a whole, and won’t spare details when needed.
Dollhouse – One more thing
Ok, I promise that this will be my last comment on this until the end of the first season when no doubt I’ll do a round up. However I just read an interesting piece by Anna Pickard, over at The Guardian. The bit I like most is this quote talking about Joss Whedon,
He’s got a huge fan base, a track record that includes both the popular and the critically acclaimed, and is hailed by many as a god of all things pop-cultural. And yet every time he comes up with some- thing new, people (particularly TV critics) can’t wait to call it a failure.
Read the rest of the article if you’re interested.
I for one am enjoying the show as I like that it is shiny and over produced while being creepy and morally hard to get a handle on. I honestly don’t think the acting is that bad and after only 3 episodes (I seem to remember it took Buffy more than 3 episodes to get into it’s groove) I think it’s got a lot of life in it. But then if you were going to like this show, you’ll like it. It isn’t for everyone, nothing is. But it would be sad to see it pulled off air before it had a chance to really do it’s thing, aka Firefly.
Bring on Friday for episode 4!
Dollhouse – Nick’s take
So the second episode of Dollhouse has aired and so I thought I’d offer my opinions on it. Overall, I’m jsut not that impressed. I find the premise slightly creepy, Dushku’s acting exactly what I feared it would be and it’s just not very Whedon.
This last point is particularly important – I understand it’s on purpose but I like the snappy dialogue and quips and without those it’s a substandard sci-fi thriller with a very pretty but slightly crap actress in the lead role.
I trust Joss so I’ll give it a few more weeks, especially given the first line in this week’s Onion A.V. Club episode review where the review says
the line [Dushku] was pushing on the show was that it really kicks into gear starting with the sixth episode, which is written by Joss Whedon.
But after six weeks if I don’t give a crap still, I’m gone until ‘teh interweb’ tells me I’m making a mistake.