Buffy TVS to be (ugh) Rebooted

[Captaindemotion]

^ The difference is that the movie was crap and didn't represent JW's original vision. The tv series was brilliant and did represent his vision. He was putting right what had gone wrong. No such justification can be offered for this reboot.

It was a brave step, to pitch a tv series off the back of a financial and critical flop of a movie. Even those who hadn't heard of the movie might also have been put off by the name. However, the current decision is simply a way of (a) cashing in on the name, which now has a good deal of brand recognition and (b) cashing in on the current craze for vampires - which in many ways is down to Twilight, a neutered, toothless, bloodless, (puns intended) watered down version of BTVS.

 

[PsychoPere]

It was a brave step, to pitch a tv series off the back of a financial and critical flop of a movie.

Minor correction: It was Gail Berman at Fox Television Studios who approached Joss about doing a Buffy series, rather than Joss pitching to the network.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^Yes, but Buffy the series wasn't a reboot of the film, it was a continuation, done by the creator of the original. Not a cheap cash in done with no regard of what the original creator wants.

 

[Captaindemotion]

It was a brave step, to pitch a tv series off the back of a financial and critical flop of a movie.

Minor correction: It was Gail Berman at Fox Television Studios who approached Joss about doing a Buffy series, rather than Joss pitching to the network.

Well, I didn't say who pitched it; but whether it was her idea or his, it was a brave step.

 

[DevilEyes]

No, wait - following current gender-altering casting trends, I think we should cast a teenage boy as Buffy. Or Biff the Vampire Slayer!




What?

Biff Summers

Will O'Rosenberg (Irish-Jewish Wizard)

Xandra Harris

Cordon Chase (bitchy football player)

Y'know, if they did this, at least it would show some balls (pun intended). More so than the planned movie.

Biff Summers, fearless super-powered action hero, the scourge of vampires, demons and other monsters, goes to high school by day, uses his fists and sharp pointy objects to slay bloodsuckers at night (with a snarky comment thrown in), saves the world repeatedly. His Achilles heel is his weakness for dangerously sexy vampire females.

Alexandra "Xandra" Harris, "the Chick" of the Scooby group, the only one without any special powers or super-strength, her only contribution usually being humorous comments and loyalty to her friends. Has an unrequited crush on Biff. Finds herself often in damsel-in-distress situations as a result of her attraction to guys who turn out to be demons, and has to be saved by Biff.

Will O'Rosenberg, shy, insecure computer nerd, Biff's best friend and sidekick. Has been Xandra's best friend all their lives, and has a crush on her, but unfortunately for him, Xandra tends to go for more assertive and aggressive guys. Will later becomes a wizard, and eventually realizes he's gay.

Rowena Giles, Biff's matronly librarian British Watcher/mentor. (Suggested casting: Judi Dench, Helen Mirren.)

Cordon Chase, popular and arrogant football player. Has an antagonistic relationship with Biff, and constantly mocks Will. There is a suppressed attraction between him and Xandra that they hide by bickering and insulting each other. After they finally give in to their attraction and start dating (to Will's horror), he starts hanging out with the group, and changing his ways, eventually getting ostracized from his football buddies.

--------------------------------------------------

What is funny about this is that - completely unlike Battlestar Galactica - the gender switch in this case would actually result in much more conventional gender roles ("Biff" and "Xandra" in particular) than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which actually says something important about Buffy.

 

[Kegg]

^ The difference is that the movie was crap and didn't represent JW's original vision. The tv series was brilliant and did represent his vision. He was putting right what had gone wrong. No such justification can be offered for this reboot.

Not the issue.

If you want to defend/attack the variations incarnations of Buffy on their merit or their relation to Whedon's auteurist vision, be my guest.

But if you want to say it's too soon, that'd have to be said while ignoring that Whedon's own reboot of the franchise happened a lot sooner. So as an argument it does have this amusing contradiction.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^ The difference is that the movie was crap and didn't represent JW's original vision. The tv series was brilliant and did represent his vision. He was putting right what had gone wrong. No such justification can be offered for this reboot.

Not the issue.

If you want to defend/attack the variations incarnations of Buffy on their merit or their relation to Whedon's auteurist vision, be my guest.

But if you want to say it's too soon, that'd have to be said while ignoring that Whedon's own reboot of the franchise happened a lot sooner. So as an argument it does have this amusing contradiction.

Wasn't a reboot, it was a continuation done by the person who wrote the original.

 

[Kegg]

Wasn't a reboot, it was a continuation done by the person who wrote the original.

Whether or not the TV series is in-continuity with the film a la Star Trek or Superman Returns, I'm pretty sure there's completely different casts for both titles and a different setting, et cetera. 'Reboot' seems an apt enough term, if nothing else. In fact, Wikipedia suggests the TV series was considered a sequel to the original script, rather then the original film.

And besides, this is a reboot that's done by the person who directed the original.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I liked the TV series, but I also wouldn't mind a reboot either. I dunno, I may be in the minority, but I think when Buffy and Angel ended, that was the end of the Whedon-era. I think a big budget motion picture that would have continued it would have been great--a few years ago--but now I think a new version of the property would be nice. I think Whedon's Buffy was borne out of the 1990s, and I'd like to see what one from the 2010s might be like.

I'm keeping an open mind about a reboot of Buffy. If I think it sucks after I've seen it, then I'll rip it a new one, but until then...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Wasn't a reboot, it was a continuation done by the person who wrote the original.

Whether or not the TV series is in-continuity with the film a la Star Trek or Superman Returns, I'm pretty sure there's completely different casts for both titles and a different setting, et cetera. 'Reboot' seems an apt enough term, if nothing else. In fact, Wikipedia suggests the TV series was considered a sequel to the original script, rather then the original film.

And besides, this is a reboot that's done by the person who directed the original.

Doctor Who is also a continuation with a completely different cast, but it's still a continuation. Yeah, that would be right, Buffy the TV series is continuing from the original script rather than film. Personally I'm not going to judge the film before it gets made, but I have my doubts considering the original director is the one who made the original film in to a farce rather than like the series turned out to be, and if Joss isn't having any input then I think it's wrong considering he created it and isn't particularly happy about it.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

But if you want to say it's too soon, that'd have to be said while ignoring that Whedon's own reboot of the franchise happened a lot sooner. So as an argument it does have this amusing contradiction.

No, there's really not an amusing contradiction. The 1992 movie was a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it. It came and went as a barely-remembered flop. In an unusual turn of events Gail Berman recognized that Whedon's concept had great merit and might work as a TV series even though the movie (which had been taken entirely out of Whedon's hands) had been a critical and financial failure. The TV series that followed ran for seven seasons and produced a five-season spin-off series. Remaking a failed movie with a good core concept and remaking a beloved cult hit TV show after a similar number of years have passed are entirely different propositions.

 

[Kegg]

No, there's really not an amusing contradiction. The 1992 movie was a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it.

Not the issue. People were objecting to the very idea of a remake within such a short frame of time. "Not even old enough to warrant a remake" would be The Borgified Corpse's exact words.

Remaking a failed movie with a good core concept and
remaking a beloved cult hit TV show after a similar number of years have passed are entirely different propositions.

They are remaking the movie again, actually, however much that may or may not be influenced by the marquee value of the TV series (quite a bit, I'd concede, if the screenwriter is talking about having watched it in college).

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Not the issue. People were objecting to the very idea of a remake within such a short frame of time. "Not even old enough to warrant a remake" would be The Borgified Corpse's exact words.

Of course it's the issue. It's too soon to be doing a reboot with a different cast precisely because the TV series - unlike the 1992 movie - had a significant pop culture impact and developed a passionate fan following. To take the "it's too soon" argument in isolation from the factors of why it's too soon is a little obtuse.

They are remaking the movie again, actually, however much that may or may not be influenced by the marquee value of the TV series (quite a bit, I'd concede, if the screenwriter is talking about having watched it in college).

It's quite obvious that the name value of the TV series is what's driving them to develop a new movie. If they could include all of the main characters from the TV series I'm sure they would. The reboot is linked to the 1992 movie and not the series because that's all they have the rights to.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ The difference is that the movie was crap and didn't represent JW's original vision. The tv series was brilliant and did represent his vision. He was putting right what had gone wrong. No such justification can be offered for this reboot.

Not the issue.

If you want to defend/attack the variations incarnations of Buffy on their merit or their relation to Whedon's auteurist vision, be my guest.

But if you want to say it's too soon, that'd have to be said while ignoring that Whedon's own reboot of the franchise happened a lot sooner. So as an argument it does have this amusing contradiction.

I disagree because the reboot/ continuations have to be set in context. As has been said, few remembered or cared for the original movie. The tv series is still well remembered, loved and discussed and is continued as the subject of a well-received comic. It also spawned a spin-off which ran until 2003. 'Too soon' has to be relative.

 

[DevilEyes]

I disagree because the reboot/ continuations have to be set in context. As has been said, few remembered or cared for the original movie. The tv series is still well remembered, loved and discussed and is continued as the subject of a well-received comic. It also spawning a spin-off which ran until 2003. 'Too soon' has to be relative.

2004.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ I was actually going to type that, then got 2003 in my head. My bad.

 

[Ethros]

Just to clarify, the TV series is not a continuation of the movie.

There are numerous differences with how the vampires are represented, SMG Buffy wasn't called in 1992, SMG Buffy burned down the gym unlike movie Buffy, etc

It's more of a continuation of Joss's original script.

Yeah it's the same basic story, but just saying to be nerdy, that movie is not "canon"

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Just to clarify, the TV series is not a continuation of the movie.

There are numerous differences with how the vampires are represented, SMG Buffy wasn't called in 1992, SMG Buffy burned down the gym unlike movie Buffy, etc

It's more of a continuation of Joss's original script.

Yeah it's the same basic story, but just saying to be nerdy, that movie is not "canon"

Yeah, that's been said. It's a continuation of the original script, not a reboot of the story as a whole. Mostly because the film was a bastardised version of the script.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Considering the fact that Joss essentially did his own version of the film and recast Merrick in the television series yeah they are two separate entities.

 

[PsychoPere]

And as you previously pointed out, Admiral_Young, the comic "The Origin" is essentially a retelling of Joss's original script. Joss himself has stated that, while it's not perfect, the comic story can be safely regarded as the canon background. Come to think of it, I have yet to actually read that; I should really get around to purchasing the TPB.