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Jetfire
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You are thinking of Dark Angel by James Cameron.
If Joss Whedon was in charge of...
- Thread starter Joe Washington
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You are thinking of Dark Angel by James Cameron.
I think it'd be fair to say emotions run high on the matter. People love Joss Whedon, hate Joss Whedon, love and hate Joss Whedon, but they're seldom indifferent to the guy. The sort of fanatical adulation some of his fans give him has a similar polarising reaction.
Lots of it is. A fair number of the films he's credited to, for example. Alien 4, Titan A.E., the Buffy movie, etc.
Can't speak much for Titan A.E., but for the other two, he's gone on record many times (and was proven fact somewhere, I can't remember) that these disasters were out of his control. He pretty much disowns them because he recognizes them for the shit they are (and he does tend to criticize himself, so don't think this was due to fan response or something).
I don't think he's the end to all show makers, I love plenty of shows that he probably has contempt for, but I just find something about his shows appealing, there's a marketability in it for me, and somehow I can find the characters...relateable, even in situations of fighting demons and living in space ships.
He proved nothing as far as Aliens 4 goes. It's my pet bugbear with him, honestly; the worst thing about that film is how unrepentantly awful the script is. No direction in the world would have saved that movie. Not that he'd ever concede that; so he is doing a nice play of when something sucks, he's not to blame. This isn't his most charming attribute, to be perfectly candid.
Besides I'd tend to trust the guy behind Amelie more than the guy behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but what the hell do I know?
As far as Buffy I only know the movie by reputation, and Titan A.E., yeah, that also has a terrible script (though I don't know, weren't there other writers on that movie? - many Whedonesque flourishes though, like planet bob.)
I'll always love Titan A.E. just for the "I put a button on it...I don't know what it does!" scene.
How about DS9 created and written by JW? First off, Sisko would never have come to terms with his dead wife in the pilot - he would have brooded in his quarters about her a lot. Odo and Kira would still have fallen in love, but after they made love, Odo would have turned Founder on her and killed half the station while torturing her emotionally. Kira would be more like 19, twice as hot, and always kick a bunch of butt. Bashir would have gotten together with Dax, but she'd have cheated on him and turned into a lesbian. Mrs. O'Brien would be out; instead, Quark would be the mean-spirited principal of the station's school. The wormhole would not be called the Celestial Temple; it would be called the HeavenMouth. The Dominion war would have spanned seasons 2-5, would have featured 10 times as much emotional turmoil, and the Federation would have fallen in season 5. After Sisko had to abandon the station, they'd have been stuck on either a freighter or a busted up Defiant, and they'd spend the rest of the series avoiding the Dominion and working scrappy little capers. Nobody would ever be happy. Garak would be exactly the same.
How about DS9 created and written by JW? First off, Sisko would never have come to terms with his dead wife in the pilot - he would have brooded in his quarters about her a lot. Odo and Kira would still have fallen in love, but after they made love, Odo would have turned Founder on her and killed half the station while torturing her emotionally. Kira would be more like 19, twice as hot, and always kick a bunch of butt. Bashir would have gotten together with Dax, but she'd have cheated on him and turned into a lesbian. Mrs. O'Brien would be out; instead, Quark would be the mean-spirited principal of the station's school. The wormhole would not be called the Celestial Temple; it would be called the HeavenMouth. The Dominion war would have spanned seasons 2-5, would have featured 10 times as much emotional turmoil, and the Federation would have fallen in season 5. After Sisko had to abandon the station, they'd have been stuck on either a freighter or a busted up Defiant, and they'd spend the rest of the series avoiding the Dominion and working scrappy little capers. Nobody would ever be happy. Garak would be exactly the same.
Hmmm, that might be an interesting one. Heroes does seem kind of up Joss's alley, with a big ensemble of young and quirky characters.
His track record does seems to suggest that he's better off in TV than movies. Even his short-lived TV shows still have strong fan followings.
I'm not a Whedonite...never liked anything from him but Firefly...so I'd give him just the stuff that's been botched so badly that anything he'd do would be an improvement, eg, Heroes and Stargate.
That sounds pretty good...and probably better than whatever George Lucas will inflict on us.
We've seen so little of how it affects a family to have one member be whisked away to Jedi-hood that giving her a brother is also a good notion. None of this needs to be inspired by Firefly in particular, since it's all the kind of stuff we've seen in stories that predate either Firefly or Star Wars.
Despite being a Big Damn Niner, I would love to see this as well:
But what about Dukat, Damar and Weyoun? Also exactly the same?
That sounds pretty good...and probably better than whatever George Lucas will inflict on us.
I also like that! Having one character be a Jedi-in-hiding seems like a mandatory item for the checklist, and since there have been too few female Jedi in the mainstream of the story, the character should be female, so you're on the right track there. And the Jedi should be at a disadvantage versus the bad guys, so making her young and not finished with her training also works well.
We've seen so little of how it affects a family to have one member be whisked away to Jedi-hood that giving her a brother is also a good notion. None of this needs to be inspired by Firefly in particular, since it's all the kind of stuff we've seen in stories that predate either Firefly or Star Wars.
Despite being a Big Damn Niner, I would love to see this as well:
But what about Dukat, Damar and Weyoun? Also exactly the same?
Fuck the general consensus, if that's the case. The man has skillz and even the haters know it.
Dukat would have ingratiated himself with the Bajoran Provisional Government and would be the friendly First Minister (who was secretly evil). He would not turn into a snake. It never helps.
Damar would have women problems and drink too much. He'd frequently have his plots foiled by those darn niners.
Weyoun would be working on a way to engineer the Jem'Hadar to subsist on the blood of their enemies instead of the White.
Nope. You would never mistake one Whedon show for another, even based in the same universe.
Regarding movies versus tv, it's probably worth noting that Whedon has directed exactly one movie: SERENITY. On all those other films he was just one of the writers. And writers are usually treated like hired hands on most major movies.
He's had more creative control on his tv work, and next to none on his movie assignments. (Except for SERENITY.)
Alien Resurrection sucked.
Haven't seen Buffy/Angel actually.
Firefly/Serenity was great.
Dollhouse was more of a Dullhouse in its early episodes, but in mid/late Season 1 it started to become continuously better and it was pretty good towards the end.
Haven't seen Buffy/Angel actually.
Firefly/Serenity was great.
Dollhouse was more of a Dullhouse in its early episodes, but in mid/late Season 1 it started to become continuously better and it was pretty good towards the end.
And yet, the rule arguably holds true here. Even people who like the movie to the best of my knowledge tend not to consider it as good as the TV series (cue dissenting voices, please.)
Certainly I felt it wasn't as good, though truthfully still okay and I did really like Firefly.
One of the best films of 04, and IMO, THE best science fiction film of that year. No, not AS GOOD as the show, but the focus of the movie shifted, less character oriented, more emphasis on action. Joss is strongest when emphasizing character.
Still, that said, it still was a great movie. And it's hardly the only franchise that lost some character focus to action on the silver screen. It was the same with Star Trek. Just two different mediums, TV and film, especially the way Americans make and consume them, science fiction wise. Sure, you have your slow, thoughtful science fiction movies, but those, as amazing as they can be (Blade Runner is my fav all time movie), tend not to be the big money makers, and often find their audiences after the fact, if at all.
Still, that said, it still was a great movie. And it's hardly the only franchise that lost some character focus to action on the silver screen. It was the same with Star Trek. Just two different mediums, TV and film, especially the way Americans make and consume them, science fiction wise. Sure, you have your slow, thoughtful science fiction movies, but those, as amazing as they can be (Blade Runner is my fav all time movie), tend not to be the big money makers, and often find their audiences after the fact, if at all.
Yeah, I think you covered it pretty good here, when he can assert more control, things tend to come out pretty good. His writing style (even in scripts) can be a hit and miss if the corret/proper combination of talent/understanding hasn't been brought together. In the case of the movies, as you said, he was merely the writer, whether he was one of several, just a few or one, it doesn't matter as a writer, he wrote it and that was that.
That said, I liked Serenity it's problem (if anything really) was that it had to cover what the rest of season one and season two would have done, while showing a passage of time since season one aired.
Even more still though, I'd be interesting in checking out that Cabin in the Woods flick.
Probably should reverse those. IMO first yes?
This is a generalisation that's only partly true. The TOS movies were in some ways more character focused than your average episode of that show; it was only the TNG films that uniformly lost character focus when compared to the series - and they plainly suffered as a consequence, so not a great example.
There's actually no instrinically good reason why this should be the case; just the kneejerk assumption that a movie of the TV show should be more of the same, only more epic. That may have sounded like a bankable idea, (as opposed to just an overlong episode of the show) but I don't think Joss got it to work spectacularly well.
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