WTF???
There's so much going on here, I don't even know how to get it all into words. I think I'll just address each of the three points above and maybe go from there.
So--Buffy on the big screen. WE DON'T NEED THIS. And I say this as a total Buffy fan, one who will just randomly get the urge to watch the ENTIRE series all the way through periodically (and follow through on that urge). I know that there's a huge camp in the fandom who just want more more more. And part of me understands that. It was a wonderful show and it had a lot of influence on all sorts of areas (vampire lore, science fiction, girl power, etc.), but we don't need another Buffy movie.
I'll admit, when the series first came out on television, I wouldn't watch it, because I actually liked the movie. Okay yes, I was and will always be the first one to admit that the movie was completely horrible, but the whole concept jived with me and I am often known to love bad movies when the things that make them bad are things that make me laugh at the movie. I didn't really get into the series until the end of season six because I had a new roommate who was obsessed and there was really no way to avoid the show and live in my house.
Here's the thing, what made the movie fail (primarily, anyway--it really was a bad bad movie for many reasons) and what made the television series succeed was the simple fact that this story is too big for the big screen. To understand Buffy the character, and to really appreciate why she, as a slayer, is so unique and why we, as an audience, should root for her, you need to know what she deals with at home, at school, and at work. You need to see her friends, with and without her, and how they react to her situation and find their places in her world. You need to see all of the different monsters she has to deal with, and why the villains are villains and why they're in Sunnydale and what their end game is.
You could make a movie about a "vampire slayer" who just goes around killing vampires and that's her job and she deals with it and oh, look at all of the dead/destroyed monsters and cool special effects, yay! That would be fine. I mean, that's basically just Van Helsing in a skirt. But if you are going to make a movie about Buffy the vampire slayer, you need the whole story. And that story needs room to stretch out in order to be properly told. Some stories just need that.
Besides, if the big screen movie were going to be a continuation of current Buffy canon, which is what anyone actually clamoring for a Buffy movie actually wants to see, well, in my opinion, there's not really anything left to tell that can be summed up in one chapter such as a movie would give us that would satisfy anyone. For one thing, the series ended too well, and made it very clear everyone was spreading out. Even if you haven't read the comic books (which show everyone all over the world dealing with all of the new slayers), from the ending of the television series I just don't see where they would get a good story for a movie. Basically, if you want more official Buffy, go read the comic books. If you just want more stories in that universe and don't care if they're official, then there is plenty of fanfic out there for you. A lot of it isn't porn, and some of it isn't too badly written.
This leads into my second issue with a new Buffy movie. They don't want anything to do with the original Buffy movie or the television series, other than, as far as I have been able to glean, the name of the main character and the basic concept. I can think of two extremely clear motivations for a studio thinking this is a great time to reboot Buffy--there's a built-in fanbase that they are assuming will guarantee them butts in the theater, and vampires are hot right now. Thanks to Twilight and True Blood vampires are just all the rage, and this is just someone's idea of jumping on that bandwagon without having to go to the trouble of finding new source material. "Vampires are money baby, what do we have with vampires? Well, there's Buffy... Buffy! Great, let's reboot that!"
Geez Louise. I am sorry, but I don't understand what is going on in Hollywood. For the last several years almost every movie that has come out has been a continuation or reboot of an existing franchise or an adaptation of a television series or book or a remake of a pre-existing movie. Clearly something is broken. Where has all of the original content gone? I mean, don't get me wrong, it can be really cool to see a story adapted from one medium to another, and sometimes the idea of just going to see "Things Blowing Up 3" is nice, because it means if I've seen TBU 1 and 2, I don't have to think too much about the story, I can just sit back and enjoy it. But remakes of existing movies just drive me nuts. That right there, that's the sign of someone who just wants to make money and is making movies for no other reason at all. I don't like giving my money to those people. It just makes me feel dirty. I mean seriously, if the original was good enough that you think people still might like it today, why can't people today just enjoy the original? Huh? Huh? I will admit, occassionally an exception to that rule comes along, but at the very least there should be a 30 to 40 year MINIMUM window between the original film and the remake. And as much as I enjoyed the Star Trek movie, reboots are only slightly lower on the icky scale. But that's probably enough to be a topic for a whole other post so I am going to stop this train of thought for the moment.
This leads to the last issue with a new Buffy movie, and that is no Joss. Okay, first off, here's what most people are overlooking--the people who have obtained the rights to write a new Buffy movie and are shopping it around the Kuzuis--and they worked with Joss on the original movie as well as on all of the television series and on Angel. They know what the concept of Buffy is just as well as Joss. BUT. But... But they aren't Joss. That's what it boils down to. Buffy is his creative baby. If I am understanding the story of the movie properly, Joss came up with the concept and wrote the script and the studio said, okay, but make these changes, and let's have someone else to the rewrite. And those changes and that rewrite made it the disaster it is. Then several years down the road Joss got a meeting with someone and pitched Buffy as a television series and said, look, the movie was horrible, but here's why, and here's what I can do to fix it. And it worked. So yeah, I am nervous that someone who isn't Joss is coming in and saying "I want to make a new Buffy, one that's darker and more relevant to today and doesn't have anything to do with what came before."
Let's not overlook the fact that the overwhelming majority of fans of Buffy are fans of Whedon himself. We love Buffy because it is a creation of Whedon, as much as for its own merits. And while I would not categorize myself as a zealot, well, there are more than enough people out there who are. And they are scarily organized. You can expect a lot of vitriol directed at the new movie just because there is no Joss involved, even if he does come out and give it his stamp of approval at some point. You can bet that this is going to also backfire big time in the faces of the people expecting an existing fanbase to inflate the movie's success. These are the people who boycott stuff. This is not a fanbase that likes executives messing around in their universe. At the very least, it's going to make the internet a very scary place for anyone who isn't a zealot and happens to puruse any Whedon-related site for quite some time to come, I can tell you that.
Intellectually I know that a new Buffy movie won't erase the original or the television series. Those will always be on my DVD shelf waiting for me to watch them whenever I choose. I can always go back and enjoy what I love. But still, I worry that the new movie is going to make people who might have stumbled across the series instead avoid it like the plague for the rest of eternity. That just makes me incredibly sad. So, yeah, I feel like a new Buffy movie is a BAD IDEA. It doesn't matter what the movie itself actually ends up being, it's just that the bottom line is, the world doesn't need it.
Sigh.
Sadly, that's not the only bad idea out there as of today. Just the biggest one.
io9 is also reporting that Disney, in going through its vault of old movies that need to be remade, has chosen Flight of the Navigator for their newest project. Sigh. Flight of the Navigator is a beautiful and wonderful movie and it is the embodiment of my childhood in the 80's. We don't need a new one.
Seriously, where have all of the original ideas gone?
So yeah, until next time,
C
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