Did Joss ever talk about BUFFY post-S7?

We kind of are discussing this in Joe Washington's thread.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=151838

 

well, to be fair, i made my thread much earlier.

 

I've read that he said he isn't completely satisfied with Chosen and would have done some things differently now if he could, but I can't give you the exact quote or link.

 

Well he took ideas from the original series finale "The Gift" back in season 5 that never made it into that episode since they announced a 6th season on UPN and put them into Chosen. One of those ideas being Sunnydale falling into the ground

I heard Joss wanted the finale to be 2 hours but UPN would not order 23 episodes.

 

@ReadyandWilling this has nothing to do with being "fair". Yeah you started a thread but haven't provided any content in it for months only to update it recently with a question that was already being discussed in a current thread with current content. It'd be one thing if this thread had been active until you updated but it wasn't until the middle of Feb.

 

Disappointing. My one complaint about "Chosen" is that it feels very, very rushed.

 

yah, i felt the same way.

 

It could have been longer. Still, conceptually the finale was brilliant. I don't imagine that Whedon had that specific ending in mind when he wrote the first episode of the series, but he might well have.

 

The phrase "to be fair" is usually used when you are acknowledging a point to the other side of a debate, not when you are attempting to prop up your own.

 

I think that "Chosen" is brilliant in some parts but a very, very flawed episode. But it could have been much better if it was longer and if some things didn't feel so rushed. I like what the episode was trying to get across, but I don't think it executed it that well, which may be why so many reviewers and fans have these really weird, totally-point-missing interpretations that make no sense unless those people believe that Joss was trying to make Buffy look like a horrible person and that this was his message.

 

What did he say about Donald Sutherland?

 

Joss, on Sutherland in the BTVS movie: "I pretty much eventually threw up my hands because I could not be around Donald Sutherland any longer...he was just a prick...Donald was just... He would rewrite all his dialogue, and the director would let him. He can't write - he's not a writer - so the dialogue would not make sense. And he had a very bad attitude. He was incredibly rude to the director, he was rude to everyone around him, he was just a real pain. And to see him destroying my stuff... Some people didn't notice. Some people liked him in the movie. Because he's Donald Sutherland. He's a great actor. He can read the phone book, and I'm interested. But the thing is, he acts well enough that you didn't notice, with his little rewrites, and his little ideas about what his character should do, that he was actually destroying the movie more than Rutger was. So I got out of there. I had to run away.

(Source: Slayage.com)

 

Hey, what can I say? The First winning makes so much more sense. Season 7 (and Chosen) did have a great concept (and I see where they were going with it), but the execution hurt the overall story. Another hour for the finale would have been nice.

 

Also would've been nice to have a better explanation as to why Buffy thought it was a good idea to activate every Potential in the world. I've watched "Chosen" a couple times since it first aired, and while I get the whole "needing an army now" thing, it was an incredibly short-sighted decision and inconsistent with her whining for 7 years that she didn't want the responsibility that came with being a Slayer.

But, hey, at least "Chosen" gave us "Damage," where we did indeed get to see how stupid that decision was. And, god, how did I want to punch Andrew in the face in that episode (though that hadn't changed from every one of his Buffy appearances).

 

Interesting, thanks for that.

 

I think that part's obvious. The Shadowmen created the Slayer and made sure that only one girl could be the Slayer at a time as a system of patriarchal control: Sending the expendable member of the village (the young girl) to fight the demons, and making sure she can never join with others just as powerful as herself to threaten the village elders' power.

Over time, the exact institutions of society evolved -- the Shadowmen became the Watchers, and society became more than just the desert village. But the Slayership remained a system of control.

By causing all of the world's Potential Slayers to be Called at once, Buffy overturned that particular form of patriarchal oppression. No more would the Slayer be dependent on a Watchers Council, treated as a mere pawn in men's games. The Slayers would be able to unite, combine their powers, be treated as equals. The extreme psychological isolation that both Buffy and prior Slayers were constantly tormented by would finally be abated.

To make an economic comparison: Think of it as the equivalent of forming a union instead of being forced by your boss to compete with your coworkers for a commission.

 

Except the Potentials all over the world didn't necessarily have to become Slayers at all. They could have gone on living completely normal lives, never encountering a vampire or a demon.

For Buffy, it was a mystical destiny. For the Slayer Army, it was Buffy who forced that life on them just so she wouldn't have to feel alone anymore. Sure, it might have been cool for the Potentials living in Buffy's house who knew what they were getting into, but there were so many other girls all around the world that never had Watchers and never had a clue what a Slayer even was.

 

My bottom line issue with the mass Calling is that Buffy didn't believe the Shadowmen (and then the Watcher's Council) had the right to force girls into becoming Slayers, yet she forced every Potential all over the world to suddenly become a Slayer. I don't think her decision was all that different from the Shadowmen; she forced new circumstances on a large number of individuals. If the Shadowmen had no right to do that when they created the first Slayer, what right did Buffy have to do the same thing on a larger scale in "Chosen"?

 

wow, that's interesting. i'd love to hear more stories like this.

 

A valid position. My response would be this:

Every single one of those Potentials had already been pushed into that world. Every last one of them already had a giant target on their back -- either from the Watchers Council, finding them and pushing them into Slayer training, or from various Big Bads out to wipe out the Slayer line. (The First Evil in Season Seven, and, apparently, Spike and Dru back in the novel Pretty Maids All in a Row, set circa WW2ish.)

So they had already been forced into that world. Having them Called -- and having them Called at all once -- was like forming a union. It allowed them to share their power and their resources, it empowered them and disempowered groups that would attempt to control or destroy them. And it also gave them choices: If there are hundreds of Slayers that have been Called and are now active, then it's much easier for any one Slayer to refuse her Calling and refrain from becoming active. Whereas, if there's only one girl in all the world -- well, she doesn't really have any choice, does she? She'll either fight to survive, or she'll be forced into it by a Watcher, or she'll try to live a normal life and get killed by a Big Bad who tracks her down and decides he wants to be able to brag about having killed a Slayer.