When I read that Warner Brothers was rebooting Buffy The Vampire Slayer yesterday, I thought about the first three nearly-perfect seasons of the show, and was absolutely outraged. Then I thought about the last three seasons of the show, and I found it didn't really bother me all that much.
I'm kidding. About being outraged at all, I mean. Don't get me wrong, I like Buffy. Even the last three seasons weren't bad, if you take out about half of the episodes. And Dawn. And evil Willow. And Spike, once he stopped being evil. But to be fair, there was some good stuff. I dug the musical episode. Andrew was great. And I am reading the "eighth season" comics. But it was interesting to see the reaction on Twitter and various geek-ish websites when the news broke, where everyone basically acted like WB had announced its intentions to purchase and paint over the Mona Lisa. Really, the only one who should be pissed off is Sarah Michelle Gellar, whose plan to distance herself from the character once the show ended worked so well, she managed to distance herself from any character of note. Raise your hand if you saw any of her recent films like Possession, Suburban Girl or Veronika Decides to Die or even knew these were actual movies. You think she wouldn't kill to star in a Buffy film now?
Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. The franchise, such as it is, is pretty much dead. I guess in theory, they could do a movie with the TV cast, and it would probably do okay. But by the time it would come out, it would be almost ten years since the show went off the air. I'm not sure a 35 year-old Slayer and her pushing-40 sidekicks can pull off a whimsical vampire epic. Time's finally even caught up with James Marsters. I don't care how much bleach they put in his hair.
So why not relaunch it? I guess it would be nice if Joss Whedon was involved, but doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose of starting over if you're just going to hire the guy who did it the first time around? There's a school of thought that the creator always knows best, but one can only imagine how terrible a Stan Lee-written Spider-Man film would be, or what would have happened if Syfy had relaunched Battlestar Galactica as a light space opera like the original, instead of a gritty political drama.
And at the end of the day...it's freaking Buffy The Vampire Slayer. If they can reboot James Bond and Captain Kirk--both of which worked out pretty well--it seems weird that Buffy Summers is somehow sacrosanct.
I'm kidding. About being outraged at all, I mean. Don't get me wrong, I like Buffy. Even the last three seasons weren't bad, if you take out about half of the episodes. And Dawn. And evil Willow. And Spike, once he stopped being evil. But to be fair, there was some good stuff. I dug the musical episode. Andrew was great. And I am reading the "eighth season" comics. But it was interesting to see the reaction on Twitter and various geek-ish websites when the news broke, where everyone basically acted like WB had announced its intentions to purchase and paint over the Mona Lisa. Really, the only one who should be pissed off is Sarah Michelle Gellar, whose plan to distance herself from the character once the show ended worked so well, she managed to distance herself from any character of note. Raise your hand if you saw any of her recent films like Possession, Suburban Girl or Veronika Decides to Die or even knew these were actual movies. You think she wouldn't kill to star in a Buffy film now?
Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. The franchise, such as it is, is pretty much dead. I guess in theory, they could do a movie with the TV cast, and it would probably do okay. But by the time it would come out, it would be almost ten years since the show went off the air. I'm not sure a 35 year-old Slayer and her pushing-40 sidekicks can pull off a whimsical vampire epic. Time's finally even caught up with James Marsters. I don't care how much bleach they put in his hair.
So why not relaunch it? I guess it would be nice if Joss Whedon was involved, but doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose of starting over if you're just going to hire the guy who did it the first time around? There's a school of thought that the creator always knows best, but one can only imagine how terrible a Stan Lee-written Spider-Man film would be, or what would have happened if Syfy had relaunched Battlestar Galactica as a light space opera like the original, instead of a gritty political drama.
And at the end of the day...it's freaking Buffy The Vampire Slayer. If they can reboot James Bond and Captain Kirk--both of which worked out pretty well--it seems weird that Buffy Summers is somehow sacrosanct.
5 comments:
It's too soon.
This movie will be a 'reboot' of the 1992 theatrical film, not the television series. The filmmakers do not have rights to anything from the TV show--characters, events, or places--other than the Buffster herself.
Also, there are seven seasons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_episodes
I know. But the fourth season was just sort of there. Some good episodes, but also a lot of boring crap involving the Initiative. So I left it out.
Are you serious? Coming from a true Buffy fan- The TV Series,NOT the movie, I don't think that there will be anybody who could live up to the roles of the characters that were performed in the show. I also don't think that there would be any director that would or could do the "movie" justice like Josh Wheddon (hope I spelled his name right)did for the show. The original movie and characters "SUCKED". With that being said, I hope that they are not even thinking about re-making this movie with the same lame-ass plot and the same lame-ass characters. They would be better to get with Mr. Wheddon to pull off this one.
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