I think Joss Whedon is over-rated!

[Infern0]

Oh good lord what have i done?

But seriously, I just don't get what is so amazing about the guy.

His work is cliche ridden and filled with corny one liners, his plot lines are unoriginal too.

In many of his shows It's the fact that the actors bond so well and invest much into their characters to make the shows better than average.

so anyway that's what i think, that Joss is pretty much a sci-fi fanboy who stumbled into the tv industry and hasn't been shown the door. I have seen many fan fictions with more creativity and originality than Joss' lauded works.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Well... yes. All people who are good and successful at their jobs end up getting overpraised sooner or later. It seems good at the time but when the backlash comes from a fanbase WATCH OUT! Hyperbole and character assasination ensue. The career of George Lucas serves as an example. There are other popular figures such as Frank Miller and Francis Coppola who have sufferred similar backlashes over the years. Whedon hasn't quite suffered his backlash but it's coming. I've observed more and more dismissiveness towards Whedon's work over the last few years. One day these and other pages will be full of posts calling him a hack and treating him like satan for doing nothing more than producing the best work he knew how to.

 

[Infern0]

Well... yes. All people who are good and successful at their jobs end up getting overpraised sooner or later. It seems good at the time but when the backlash comes from a fanbase WATCH OUT! Hyperbole and character assasination ensue. The career of George Lucas serves as an example. There are other popular figures such as Frank Miller and Francis Coppola who have sufferred similar backlashes over the years. Whedon hasn't quite suffered his backlash but it's coming. I've observed more and more dismissiveness towards Whedon's work over the last few years. One day these and other pages will be full of posts calling him a hack and treating him like satan for doing nothing more than producing the best work he knew how to.

The difference between those guys and Joss is that at least those guys USED to be good

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Oh good lord what have i done?

But seriously, I just don't get what is so amazing about the guy.

His work is cliche ridden and filled with corny one liners, his plot lines are unoriginal too.

In many of his shows It's the fact that the actors bond so well and invest much into their characters to make the shows better than average.

so anyway that's what i think, that Joss is pretty much a sci-fi fanboy who stumbled into the tv industry and hasn't been shown the door. I have seen many fan fictions with more creativity and originality than Joss' lauded works.

QFT. he's the epitome of the bad writing and new writers are emulating this crap.
And unlike george lucas... he hasn't redefined a genre or the film industry

 

[IndyJones]

he's the epitome of the bad writing

So, you would take away his Emmy and Oscar nominations if you could?

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

those organizations have praised other bad writers

 

[Rii]

You'll live.

 

[RoJoHen]

Meh, I'm a fan of everything of his that I've seen.

 

[the Dagman]

I agree that Whedon is over rated. He is some kind of second generation comic fanboy or something that got his foot into Hollywood. And good for him! We should all be so lucky. That is my opinion and is not meant to offend anyone. That is all.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I also agree that he's overrated and I'm speaking as someone who loves Firefly (and to a lesser degree, Serenity).

 

[DWMarch]

What definition of over-rated are we going with here?

I don't think he's overrated by Hollywood. If he was, there wouldn't have been any question about Dollhouse being renewed.

Let's consider his works:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A show about a teenage girl who fights vampires and the supernatural. This show lasts for seven seasons, survives a change of network and inspires a fanbase so loyal that there are college courses taught about the show!

Angel: Spinoff of Buffy, this show lasted five seasons and was an amazing take on the film-noir detective genre. Remember this is a show that gave us demon puppets and made it awesome.

Firefly: despite poor treatment by the network this show again found a tremendously loyal fanbase and had unprecedented DVD sales that were mostly from word-of-mouth reviews. This was a 13-episode series that became a motion picture. Where in the world does that ever happen?

Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog: a musical, told from the villain's perspective. Hollywood has never seen anything like it and it managed to make impressive sales in new media markets.

Dollhouse: a show that is basically about prostitution, human trafficking, slavery and rape manages to be funny, entertaining, emotional and enlightening simultaneously once Fox loosens their grip. Courtesy of "Epitaph One" we have an inkling of where the show is going and there is definite excitement building for season 2.

So is Joss Whedon overrated? Your mileage may vary but I think he has hustled very hard to get to where he is and I think he has earned every bit of praise that is lavished upon him. Is he perfect? Of course not. But is he overrated? Hell no!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

The only people he seems to be over rated by are the people who don't like him in a weird paradoxical way.
It seems like they say fans are actually fanatical about him. When most fans seem to be fairly open about there's plenty he's done they don't like, and that his writing does have faults.

 

[Pingfah]

Hardly anybody watches his shows, they keep getting cancelled. How can he be overrated?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Hardly anybody watches his shows, they keep getting cancelled. How can he be overrated?

Because he has fans, and his fans are nuts, ya should know that from reading the threads around here.

 

[Pingfah]

Another case of people taking TBBS as a microcosm of the world I fear

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Another case of people taking TBBS as a microcosm of the world I fear

I think it's a matter of strong opinions breeding contempt, so the fact that Firefly was loved so much by a group of fans makes the entire output of Joss Whedon overrated, regardless of how good or bad it actually was, or how it was actually rated.

 

[Pingfah]

Quite true yes. I think the disproportionate outpouring of love for Firefly was the result of cancelling the show when it showed so much potential. Had it simply been allowed to run it's course it's fans would not have been any more vocal about it than they were about Buffy or Angel.

Angel was cancelled to much less discontent, and if Dollhouse had been canned after season one it would have had a few people trying to get it back, but nothing on the same sort of scale. So he's not appreciated unconditionally.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Quite true yes. I think the disproportionate outpouring of love for Firefly was the result of cancelling the show when it showed so much potential. Had it simply been allowed to run it's course it's fans would not have been any more vocal about it than they were about Buffy or Angel.

Angel was cancelled to much less discontent, and if Dollhouse had been canned after season one it would have had a few people trying to get it back, but nothing on the same sort of scale. So he's not appreciated unconditionally.

I agree. If Firefly had its time in the sun I think it would have had much less outcry. I also think, despite the fact people would have still blamed Fox for their meddling, there would have been less discontent about Dollhouse than any other of his shows.

 

[Lindley]

His work is cliche ridden

Anti-cliche-ridden, actually. He's always been about taking the cliches and then doing the opposite, ever since the beginning. The very concept of Buffy was to take the "blond girl enters dark alley and is killed by monster" cliche and turn it around to "blond girl enters dark alley and kicks monster ass."

Remember "The Train Job"? The cliche would have been for Crow to give his bad-guy speech, and then the show to be about him chasing down Serenity for the rest of the season. Instead, Mal just disposes of the threat immediately.

If breaking cliches in this manner has at this point become the cliche, it's in no small part due to Joss' own success at the matter.

and filled with corny one liners

Yeah, but he does them so much better than most other writers! And they flow so naturally from the characters who speak them (which isn't, contrary to popular belief, all of his characters) that any cheese value they might have had is generally swallowed up by awesome. Not in every case, but in many.

his plot lines are unoriginal too.

Granted. But then, Joss' plots have always been a showcase for the characters, not the other way around. Nobody watched Buffy for the monster-of-the-week.

In many of his shows It's the fact that the actors bond so well and invest much into their characters to make the shows better than average.

Which is in no small part a credit to his (and his associates') casting choices.

I wasn't too enthusiastic about Dollhouse for most of its run. I'm still fairly lukewarm. But now that I've seen "Epitaph One" and I know just where it's all going.....I would be disappointed if we didn't see it get there.

"Epitaph One" is exactly the sort of thing I like Joss for. He takes a show about a brothel and turns it into a show about the apocalypse in a single episode.

So, is Joss Whedon overrated? By some, probably. But he seems to be underrated by just as many people, if not more. The truth is somewhere in the middle, as always.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I neither love or hate the guy.

From his work I've only seen Firefly & Serenity which I love and DollHouse which I like.

I also like the women he uses in his shows...he's ok