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Feb. 6th, 2010 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatResisting the urge to snark at the Buffy comics, whose summaries and reviews, I'm finding rather amusing. Okay, so, out of all the comic book plots out there to steal from, Whedon and Meltzer chose the Teen Titans/X-men crossover with Darkseid? They know comic book fans blasted that one out of the stratesophere when it hit the shelves as being beyond lame, right?
For an excellent review of Dollhouse, which clarified what I liked and disliked about the series - go here :http://aycheb.livejournal.com/105845.html?view=661621&style=mine#t661621
Aycheb does a great job of pointing out what bugged me about Dollhouse and to a degree what has been bugging me about Whedon's stories since Buffy. He's trying to be a political sci-fi writer and it's not his genre. He's better at psychological and gothic horror. Political world-building requires an attention to detail and thoroughness that I think Whedon lacks as evidenced by the Buffy comics actually. He's very good at psychological metaphors, but political ones...he gets a tad to preachy and loses his subtle touch. It's just not what he does well. It's not that he can't do political tales -he can but not ones with a broad scope. He's better at intimate stories...one's that focus on fewer characters, epics or stories that are broader in scope seem to get confused. I'm not stating it very well, I'm afraid.
For an excellent review of Dollhouse, which clarified what I liked and disliked about the series - go here :http://aycheb.livejournal.com/105845.html?view=661621&style=mine#t661621
Aycheb does a great job of pointing out what bugged me about Dollhouse and to a degree what has been bugging me about Whedon's stories since Buffy. He's trying to be a political sci-fi writer and it's not his genre. He's better at psychological and gothic horror. Political world-building requires an attention to detail and thoroughness that I think Whedon lacks as evidenced by the Buffy comics actually. He's very good at psychological metaphors, but political ones...he gets a tad to preachy and loses his subtle touch. It's just not what he does well. It's not that he can't do political tales -he can but not ones with a broad scope. He's better at intimate stories...one's that focus on fewer characters, epics or stories that are broader in scope seem to get confused. I'm not stating it very well, I'm afraid.
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Date: 2010-02-06 11:32 pm (UTC)I don't think the problem is that it's not "his genre". It's his lack of attention-to-detail and care. Over time, his world-building became unraveled and very flawed, because he's always willing to junk the foundation for the expediencies of drama and storyline - instead of finding ways to integrate them or shift more naturally. A problem which plagues him whether he writes psycholgical, gothic horror, or political genre works.
Thank you - yes that's it!
Date: 2010-02-07 04:26 am (UTC)Yes, this is it.
It's his lack of attention-to-detail and care. Over time his world-building became unraveled and very flawed, because he's always willing to junk the foundation for the expediencies of drama and storyline - instead of finding ways to integrate them or shift more naturally.
It's a common flaw in pulp story telling - or comic books (a la the X-men) or daytime serials or the low-budget horror flicks/tv shows. They go for the shock value, the short-cut, junking the rest. While in contrast critical successes such as Mad Men, BattleStar Galatica, Caprica, The Sopranos, Babylon 5...spend hours on the detail. They aren't perfect, of course, but...they are tighter somehow, more cohesive. You can see the attention to detail in them. And can appreciate it. Even Lost - is very careful of details, although it too has its flaws.
I was reading a fanfic WIP today based on Whedon's Buffy and Angel series - except the writer has taken the time to build on the details, clearly spent hours thinking about each one, keeping it consistent. Worrying over the individual subplots. Making sure each detail worked with the story as whole. While in both the series and the comics - I don't feel that Whedon did that. It explains why Whedon's series, as much as I may love and enjoy them, always leave me unsatisfied. I want something more.
Odd. I get more obsessed with critically flawed works of art than the other. I own almost all of Buffy and Angel on DVD. Firefly.
Yet only have one season of BSG. Maybe I care less about the flaws than I let on. (shrugs). I have no idea why I loved Buffy hard, but not BSG or Mad Men (which I loved, but not in that hard fannish way that makes you go seek out spoilers, fanfic, and write massive amounts of meta on.)
Re: Thank you - yes that's it!
Date: 2010-02-07 04:37 am (UTC)Probably because Whedon tells his stories very emotionally, and is always driving emotional points - not analytical or intellectual ones. Even if a show is great, it's harder to get passionate about shows that are more dispassionate.
Re: Thank you - yes that's it!
Date: 2010-02-07 04:54 am (UTC)I guess if my job were a little less analytical, intellectual, and dispassionate...then again maybe not. When I had no job, I was even more obsessed than I am now.
No, you're right. Emotionally based stories get me every time. Depending of course on the emotional triggers.
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Date: 2010-02-07 02:54 am (UTC)What happened in the teen titans/ x-men crossover?
Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-07 04:41 am (UTC)Yes, that's it. Both you and dlgood picked up on what I was trying to articulate above. Whedon is better with a smaller scale tale. I noticed that in my re-watch of the Buffy series and it is becoming blatantly apparent in the comics. The issues that work in S8 are the ones that are not tied to the epic Twilight saga, but more personal story arcs.
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-07 09:04 pm (UTC)Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-07 11:18 pm (UTC)They spent all this time and effort keeping the identity of Twilight a secret - junking characterization and plot - to do so. Yet, the story would have been far more interesting, I think, if we'd known who Twilight was much much earlier.
Same thing with the Riley arc - Riley would have been more interesting if we were given more of it. Told that he was working undercover and in danger, or told that he was fooling Buffy and working for Twilight. The interesting part was not whether he was evil or not - we didn't care. What was interesting was why he was working with Twilight.
They JUST don't get it. I had the same problem with Angel S5 and all the misleads about whether Spike would turn against Angel and be evil (we knew he wouldn't), or the misleads regarding Giles as the First. It's boring. If they'd done this differently, I think
the story would have been richer and more suspenseful.
Buffy S2 - the reveals worked better. Sometimes I feel as if Whedon keeps trying to recreate that S2 arc and can't quite pull it off.
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-08 12:20 am (UTC)Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-08 05:25 pm (UTC)Word.
ITA on that one. Although I think I know why he didn't do it.
Had something to do with a Ripper miniseries rattling around in his brain, which we never saw, but is still rattling around up there somewhere. So he was keeping his options open.
I sort of wish, he'd killed Xander off and turned him into the First - another idea that was pitched, but the writers talked him out of. Because that would have been scary and intriguing
as well.
But apparently the only characters Whedon feels that he can throw on the sacrificial altar of hightened dramatic effect are the peripherial ones such as Jonathan, Jenny, Tara, Anya, Spike and Angel. The main Scooby Gang seems to be more or less safe, even when they go nuts. ;-)
(Interestingly enough - he played things a little less safe with Angel the Series...)
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-09 03:17 am (UTC)Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-09 03:34 am (UTC)However...on a dare, I wrote a story in which I attempted to kill as many of the major Scooby characters as I could in as an interesting and scarey a way as I could find without losing the thread of the story. Unfortunately, I ran out of steam and I think readers by the time I made it to Giles. I know what I wanted to do with the story and where it was going - but I lost interest in it. Also the plot really wasn't mine but the guy who dared me to write it. He bet I couldn't write a torture sequence or kill off a major character in a convincing manner. Or shock him. (hee, I proved him wrong.)
It was fun. But after awhile, got old.
You should only kill a character if it pushes the plot forward, and in a manner that pushes both characterization and plot and them forward, otherwise it's that old the character got hit by a bus cliche.
Always stay true to the thread of your characters - then the setting, then the plot, then the theme. That's what I learned.
Speaking of character deaths...did you kill Cordy in POM - you evil writer, you??? (I'm worrying about her, last we saw her she was fleeing Angelus..).
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-09 03:40 am (UTC)Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-09 03:47 am (UTC)Ugh, I hate WIP's. Yet watch and read them all the same. At least yours is free. Can't say the same for Whedon's.
Is the next one The Lesser of Two Evils? I chose to read this bunch so I could appreciate the Lesser of Two Evils properly. Rather loving POM - in some ways more than Necessary Evils. Although Necessary Evils was wickedly good in places. Your depiction of Willow is in some respects gustier than Whedon's.
I wish he had the balls to take it that far. I like Barbverse Willow, and CanonSpike. LOL!!!
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-10 04:12 am (UTC)(There are about 80 stories in this series, not counting the drabbles, and a fair number of them come before and between the novels, as well as after. Right now, four of those 80 are WIPS: "For Auld Lang Syne," POM, "In A Yellow Wood," and "Little Sister.")
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-10 05:33 pm (UTC)Now, I need to figure out if I want to go backwards or stick with POM, then go forwards. Are any of these outside of Raising, Necessary and POM saved on All About Spike? (I only ask because I'm not sure if my kindle can access your site. But will try...after I finish the POM that I'm reading - two chapters to go. And darkapple's fic.)
I'm rather impressed by your fic. And you don't fall into the trap of grudge fic (which a lot of fans fall into the trap of, ruining what would otherwise be a good story), nor does it get overly self-indulgent. Plus the sex-scenes are plausible,
creative, and erotic, push the story forward along with the characters, without overwhelming it. (Some fanfic writers get so caught up in writing erotica...that it begins to lose plausibility and you wonder if the person needs a refresher course in anatomy.)
Re: Yes...actually you picked up on what I was trying to articulate above
Date: 2010-02-11 03:45 am (UTC)All About Spike only has the novels, so far as I know. I'd only written a few of the shorter pieces at the time Laura stopped updating the site.