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Nov. 8th, 2010 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWatched the latest Sherlock but my mind kept wandering. Just couldn't focus on it. I think work has killed my brain again, well that and church and apartment hunting...so I really can't focus on any entertainment that requires any deep thought. Which explains why I review comic books. LOL!
There was however one great line in Sherlock that made me laugh my head off.
Sherlock upon realizing Watson was blogging about him and his cases online. "Go ahead Watson, go back to inflicting your personal opinions on people online." Sigh, unfortunately, that is what we do folks. We inflict our opinions on each other - sometimes politely....
The older I get the more I realize that not everyone interrupts things the same way. Sent out a Request for Proposal last week - and got five different questions all interpreting it differently.
Made me wonder if everyone read the same RFP. People boggle my mind. The range of ways you can interpret the same thing.
For the folks busy arguing about Angel's modus operandi and whether he was invested in saving souls or lives or whatnot? May I suggest that you check out :
http://atpobtvs.com/sindex.html
That site literally analyzes Angel the Series episode by episode, with in depth analysis, annotations, and philosophical meta by people who actually have advanced degrees in the topic.
It's possibly the most extensive site you'll find on Angel. Or at the least amongst them. As well as the most objective and thorough.
I'm used to arguments about Angel - I was on not one but two Angel boards back in 2002-2005. And we had battles, because I see Angel as more of an anti-hero, who pretty much deserved everything he got and then some, but was struggling to pick himself up and find redemption no matter how often his flaws got the better of him. What I liked about Angel was what the writers stated about the series at the time - its about those of us who aren't chosen, who aren't special, who are struggling to make our way. In some respects Angel was about struggling to find meaning in an increasingly meaningless universe. It was a complex story, with a wide variety of conflicting metaphors. But my friends on the ATPO board and Angel's Soul Board saw Angel very differently than I did. Many saw him as a hero, noble, many as just a guy struggling to make life work. What made the character interesting was the varied views.
That said? The character does not work for me in either the Dark Horse or the IDW comics. One has him too heroic, the other too moronically anti-heroic. Apparently this is a character no one can write convincingly - outside of the tv series, who knew? Either that or I really haven't given David Boreanze enough credit. Possibly a bit of both? Turns out Spike is easier to write. But that does make sense if you think about it, Angel after all is the traditional/classical hero (think Batman or Hercules), while Spike is a far more modern hero...think John Constantine or Iron Man.
Damn, it smells like waffles - from the hallway. I'm wondering about my neighbors.
There was however one great line in Sherlock that made me laugh my head off.
Sherlock upon realizing Watson was blogging about him and his cases online. "Go ahead Watson, go back to inflicting your personal opinions on people online." Sigh, unfortunately, that is what we do folks. We inflict our opinions on each other - sometimes politely....
The older I get the more I realize that not everyone interrupts things the same way. Sent out a Request for Proposal last week - and got five different questions all interpreting it differently.
Made me wonder if everyone read the same RFP. People boggle my mind. The range of ways you can interpret the same thing.
For the folks busy arguing about Angel's modus operandi and whether he was invested in saving souls or lives or whatnot? May I suggest that you check out :
http://atpobtvs.com/sindex.html
That site literally analyzes Angel the Series episode by episode, with in depth analysis, annotations, and philosophical meta by people who actually have advanced degrees in the topic.
It's possibly the most extensive site you'll find on Angel. Or at the least amongst them. As well as the most objective and thorough.
I'm used to arguments about Angel - I was on not one but two Angel boards back in 2002-2005. And we had battles, because I see Angel as more of an anti-hero, who pretty much deserved everything he got and then some, but was struggling to pick himself up and find redemption no matter how often his flaws got the better of him. What I liked about Angel was what the writers stated about the series at the time - its about those of us who aren't chosen, who aren't special, who are struggling to make our way. In some respects Angel was about struggling to find meaning in an increasingly meaningless universe. It was a complex story, with a wide variety of conflicting metaphors. But my friends on the ATPO board and Angel's Soul Board saw Angel very differently than I did. Many saw him as a hero, noble, many as just a guy struggling to make life work. What made the character interesting was the varied views.
That said? The character does not work for me in either the Dark Horse or the IDW comics. One has him too heroic, the other too moronically anti-heroic. Apparently this is a character no one can write convincingly - outside of the tv series, who knew? Either that or I really haven't given David Boreanze enough credit. Possibly a bit of both? Turns out Spike is easier to write. But that does make sense if you think about it, Angel after all is the traditional/classical hero (think Batman or Hercules), while Spike is a far more modern hero...think John Constantine or Iron Man.
Damn, it smells like waffles - from the hallway. I'm wondering about my neighbors.
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Date: 2010-11-09 06:24 pm (UTC)The Angel I loved was the one who held baby Connor and wanted desperately to do right by the kid. The Angel I loved was the one who knew how to make Cordy dance with joy if he sent her clothes. The Angel I loved, loved sappy Barry Manilow songs and Charleston Heston movies and who knew "Soylent green is people!" He's the guy who saw the monster as his reflection in Pylea and yet still struggled to try to be the hero. Angel had many good qualities and a few more petty ones. The comics choose to focus exclusively on one flaw, pump it up on steroids, and make him all about that one flaw. It really damages the character because what had once been just one flaw has now become a fatal one that eclipses so much good. I think the biggest (and most inexplicable) thing DH and Joss did was completely ignore Connor's existence and the way that would have influced Angel's actions. It's the big gaping hole in their Twangel plot and without it, it just truly does not make all that much sense. By avoiding Connor they've made Twangel a cartoon.
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Date: 2010-11-09 10:46 pm (UTC)Exactly. And it was fixable, not now - too late, but it was at a certain point. They could have used Connor, much as they do in Home and in End of Days to motivate Angel. Heck it is Connor partly who even motivates Angel in the Jasmine arc. If you've watched the S4 episode about Angel losing his soul (forget the name of it) - that episode makes it abundantly clear that there were four things important to Angel: 1) being the "CHAMPION" or Special and Saving the World, 2) Having Connor's love and a good relationship with him, 3) Cordelia and Wes and his friends, and 4) Buffy. Not necessarily in that order. The comics make out as if the only two things important to Angel are well 1 and 4. They ignore completely 2 and 3 - which is just plain bad writing. Sure you can argue that you can't mention Connor because IDW holds the rights...but I'm not sure that works - considering they took IDW's lead character and turned him into a villain.
Fanfic writers who have done this (and there have been more than a few) have been reamed on sites such as BadFic. Also it is worth saying that when Bill Willingham ignored similar items with Spike - people were in a uproar.
The Angel I loved was the one who held baby Connor and wanted desperately to do right by the kid. The Angel I loved was the one who knew how to make Cordy dance with joy if he sent her clothes. The Angel I loved, loved sappy Barry Manilow songs and Charleston Heston movies and who knew "Soylent green is people!" He's the guy who saw the monster as his reflection in Pylea and yet still struggled to try to be the hero.
Hee, you forgot my favorite - which was that Angel is not a bad detective. He has a photographic memory and is an excellent artist, thinks visually. Also a great deal of empathy for people who have royally screwed up. He understood Faith, Cordelia, Wes,
even Spike - the outcasts. His discussion with Spike in Damage is an insightful one. Angel believes in redemption. That everyone has good in them.
Here - I don't see any of that. What I see is well Captain Hammer. Angelus was far more complex, not to mention smarter than Twangel appears to be. And had better lines. ;-) Angel actually was funny. He's not here. He's Captain Hammer.
The problem with reducing Angel to well a cartoon - is it makes no sense that anyone in their right mind would want to spend their lives with him or shag him. He's loathsome in this role. The only thing that is attractive about this cartoon Angel is his looks.
So it makes you wonder about the heroine. I can see where Whedon wanted to go with it - he was trying to set Buffy up to be so disconnected, so lonely, so desperate that she takes the leap to be with Angel. As OZ states in Retreat, there's a temptation to just give in to the power, give in to the desire, the wolf, let herself be swept away in. That's what the writer tells us he is doing - it's what he intended us to see. BUT it is not what I see on the page, it's not what he shows us. He wrote it all wrong.
He did the same thing in Dollhouse. He has too many ideas, many of which are contradictory, and he's throwing them all on the page at the same time - what he needs is a good editor or director who can pull it together into a cohesive whole. There's a reason he keeps getting canceled - he can't focus. Dollhouse had some of the same flaws the comics do...he's trying to discuss torture porn and female exploitation and horrifying aspects of that at the same time as all these other ideas...so what we end up with is a convoluted mess.
That's why, I think, we've got so many opposing views of the comics. There's too much left open to interpretation.