Anyhow..regard VK/CC - CC said that he had bad breath, smoked, and his toenails were disgusting - apparently they had fungus or something. (I found it amusing, b/c VK's career has taken off and CC's has more or less stalled. CC was a huge problem on Angel, apparently she didn't just act Cordy, she was Cordy, of course that's why they hired her.)
[Some people find the personal lives of people interesting, me? I'm fascinated by what people do for a living. So I went nuts over the interviews about how people were cast, how they made the show, what caused problems, and the disconnect between script to screen. The process fascinates me - that's why I know all this stuff. I literally read or listened to every frigging interview I could get my hands on and talked to fans who had inside info back in 2002-2007.]
RE the A/R - uh...there are contradictory interviews online regarding what happened, many of the links are dead now. Everyone involved says something different, the only two who have not spoken at length regarding what happened are the two who matter and made the decisions: the guy who directed the episode (it was not Deknight) and Whedon (who edited it). What a lot of people don't know is they do numerous takes for every scene. The bathroom scene probably took an entire day. It takes a week to film 43 minutes. They probably did at least 20 different takes, 20 different ways. The actors didn't know by the end of the day which take would make it to air. Also every script submitted is edited by Whedon and Marti. I would not be at all surprised if Whedon wrote the dialogue between Spike and Clem, or Marti did all the Willow/Tara scenes.
As a result, we don't know what the decision process contained. What I do know is Marti pitched a humilation scene based on her experience. Whedon listened to it and decided to turn it into horror, he said that an attempted rape would be more effective - in convincing the character that he needed to get a soul, it also fit with the vampire biting metaphor - which is a rape metaphor, that he had dropped. It also had the same impact that Angelus killing Jenny did. And it was about power - and it fit the theme of his season and episode. So rightly or wrongly, Whedon chose the story. People blamed Marti, but it was Whedon's choice and he has said very little about it, outside of the fact that he wanted to show that an act does not demonize you, it does not condemn you forever, it is what you choose to do afterwards that..well we are works in progress, each new choice changes who we are and what we become. That's all he said, leaving the rest open to interpretation. And we all interpreted it differently. Mileage varies a great deal on this.
I think Whedon saw Buffy as many things, part supernatural soap opera, part horror tale. He's a horror writer, horror fan not a romance one. He's studied mostly horror films and critiques them. The film he watched the most in college was Terminator. He's not a romantic. So I think he saw Buffy as a horror soap opera, emphasis on horror, with a bit of the X-men thrown in. Horror is not easy to watch. I've always struggled with it. And in horror - you don't ride off into the sunset with your lover. Especially not in noir horror. Anyone who thought Buffy was going to end up with Xander, Riley, Angel or Spike was going to be really disappointed. Whedon would have never done that. He planned on ending the series - with Buffy dying, Xander being killed for housing Glory, and Willow being killed by Buffy for going all dark and veiny. (or rumor had it). And the Frayverse exists because Buffy took the demons into another dimension and closed the door after her - dying to save the world. Whedon's a lot of things, but not a romance writer.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-11-12 10:47 pm (UTC)Anyhow..regard VK/CC - CC said that he had bad breath, smoked, and his toenails were disgusting - apparently they had fungus or something. (I found it amusing, b/c VK's career has taken off and CC's has more or less stalled. CC was a huge problem on Angel, apparently she didn't just act Cordy, she was Cordy, of course that's why they hired her.)
[Some people find the personal lives of people interesting, me? I'm fascinated by what people do for a living. So I went nuts over the interviews about how people were cast, how they made the show, what caused problems, and the disconnect between script to screen. The process fascinates me - that's why I know all this stuff. I literally read or listened to every frigging interview I could get my hands on and talked to fans who had inside info back in 2002-2007.]
RE the A/R - uh...there are contradictory interviews online regarding what happened, many of the links are dead now. Everyone involved says something different, the only two who have not spoken at length regarding what happened are the two who matter and made the decisions: the guy who directed the episode (it was not Deknight) and Whedon (who edited it). What a lot of people don't know is they do numerous takes for every scene. The bathroom scene probably took an entire day. It takes a week to film 43 minutes. They probably did at least 20 different takes, 20 different ways. The actors didn't know by the end of the day which take would make it to air. Also every script submitted is edited by Whedon and Marti. I would not be at all surprised if Whedon wrote the dialogue between Spike and Clem, or Marti did all the Willow/Tara scenes.
As a result, we don't know what the decision process contained. What I do know is Marti pitched a humilation scene based on her experience. Whedon listened to it and decided to turn it into horror, he
said that an attempted rape would be more effective -
in convincing the character that he needed to get a soul, it also fit with the vampire biting metaphor - which is a rape metaphor, that he had dropped. It also had the same impact that Angelus killing Jenny did.
And it was about power - and it fit the theme of his season and episode. So rightly or wrongly, Whedon chose the story. People blamed Marti, but it was Whedon's choice and he has said very little about it, outside of the fact that he wanted to show that an act does not demonize you, it does not condemn you forever, it is what you choose to do afterwards that..well we are works in progress, each new choice changes who we are and what we become. That's all he said, leaving the rest open to interpretation.
And we all interpreted it differently. Mileage varies a great deal on this.
I think Whedon saw Buffy as many things, part supernatural soap opera, part horror tale. He's a horror writer, horror fan not a romance one. He's studied mostly horror films and critiques them. The film he watched the most in college was Terminator.
He's not a romantic. So I think he saw Buffy as a horror soap opera, emphasis on horror, with a bit of the X-men thrown in. Horror is not easy to watch.
I've always struggled with it. And in horror - you don't ride off into the sunset with your lover. Especially not in noir horror. Anyone who thought Buffy was going to end up with Xander, Riley, Angel or Spike was going to be really disappointed. Whedon would have never done that. He planned on ending the series - with Buffy dying, Xander being killed for housing Glory, and Willow being killed by Buffy for going all dark and veiny. (or rumor had it). And the Frayverse exists because Buffy took the demons into another dimension and closed the door after her - dying to save the world. Whedon's a lot of things, but not a romance writer.