Comic Vs TV what do you prefer?

[lady_windermere]

sueworld2003 said "Trouble is as beautifully done as they are, they mainly served to push home to me how much I miss seeing those characters in a live action format." I was wondering how many others felt the same. Two polls under the cut.


[Poll #1129330]

Comments

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

You could equally well say it feels like the difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Portrait of a Young Man and Ulysses or Firefly and Serenity in the transition from a story about one girl and one town to one with truly global scope.

I have no idea what National Treasure is, was the first movie any good either? But two points of comparison do not make a pattern or I'm as dead as my ex-cat (being also a mammal).

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I meant the current "sequelitis" outbreak in Hollywood that has nothing to do with classic literature.

I'm not comparing BtVS to NT. (Although - yes, everything Jerry Bruckheimer does is utter trash that earns a lot of money, including NT-1).

I'm comparing the mechanisms of producing a successul sequel. Today to make a commercially successful sequel the creators have to increase the shock level. To make the audience gasp. Lookey - Nicolas Cage kidnaps the president! Lookey - Indiana and Marion have a son! Lookey - Buffy robs banks!

It's a formula of entertainment business.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I can see what you meant, my point was that there is no more basis for making your comparison with trashy Hollywood sequels than for mine with classic literature. And although BtVS S8 is commercially successful that doesn't mean it has to be so by adopting Bruckenheimer's tactics. You can read the bank robbery in terms of caper movie conventions, but it's not a reading that's easy to maintain given that the previews for issue 11 already indicate that Joss doesn't see it that way but as something with serious repercussions that his protagonist is all to aware of and responsible for.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Problem is that if you regard the situation seriously then Buffy is the ultimate villain. She takes the young girls away from their families and teaches them to be criminals. She corrupts innocent souls. She creates a generation of superbeings who are above the law.

That's why I doubt that Joss will go all the way about responsibility and repercussions.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Where does she take young girls away from their families? You make it sound as if she's running around suburbia kidnapping the nation's youth. Did she teach Xander and Willow to be criminals or did they choose to help her in the fight against a corrupt authority in any way they could? If I break one law by parking in a restricted area to get my child into A&E does that make me above the Law as a whole? Does opening the universities to women allowing them to fufill their potential make all those who do so ungovernable superbeings? Did Ghandi corrupt people's souls or Nelson Mandela or Emmeline Pankhurst? Because yes the whole Slayer movement highlights the whole issue of when does political activism, giving young people a purpose, spill over into breeding fanaticism and terrorism. The bank robbery, what could have lead to it and what it might now lead to is complicated and dramatically compelling. Calling Buffy the ultimate villian is a wierdly all or nothing, madonna or whore judgement of her at this stage.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I don't call her the ultimate villain. I say that from RL POV she's the one.

But actioners are about the suspension of disbelief. Good guys in a Bruckheimer movie can commit crimes without responsibility and repercussions.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Is villain even a RL concept as opposed to a fictional role? In RL you have psychopaths and fanatics, the bad and the misguided but villain suggests a more structured narrative. Either way I disagree that, based on what she's done, Buffy must be regarded as a villain from the RL POV. A criminal certainly (and she was already that) but not necessarily a villain unless you would say the same of Ghandi, Mandela and Pankhurst (the British suffragette leader) all of whom broke the laws of their countries in service of what many now believe were righteous causes.

Good guys in a Bruckheimer movie can commit crimes without responsibility and repercussions.
So as Buffy clearly is seeing repercussions and claiming responsibility we can conclude that Season 8 is not an actioner.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

"Villain" is a term of a genre narrative. "Criminal" is a mostly social term.

So as Buffy clearly is seeing repercussions and claiming responsibility we can conclude that Season 8 is not an actioner.

There is a big difference between seeing the repercussions and suffering them. Nicolas Cage's character in NT-2 sees the repercussions of kidnapping the president but he proceeds with his plan anyway and we're supposed to regard him as a white hat.

If Buffy goes to jail or gets herself killed, then season 8 would sport a RL approach. But BtVS has never been about RL. The show has always existed in an enhanced, heightened reality; its characters have always been bigger than life.

In attempt to outdo himself Joss increases the scales of everything - the locations, the danger, the conflict, the battles. Typical for an action sequel. To up the ante, you need shocking twists and turns.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I don't think we are or ever have been supposed to regard Buffy as a white hat but as a gifted but flawed human being who struggles to do the right thing although sometimes she gives up and can't even do that.

If Buffy goes to jail or gets herself killed
Amongst the many shocking twists and turns the series took Buffy already died twice and I seem to remember Faith going to jail at one point. Shocking twists and turns have never been the sole preserve of action movies. Moreover as stormwreath pointed out below the bank robbery isn't a shocking twist when you think about it but almost inevitable, like the idea of Spike getting his soul back.

Better weapons and equipment mean that her Slayers can save even more innocent lives. And not die in the process. Stealing bread to feed your starving children is a crime, but most people wouldn't call it immoral. Embezzling a million euros so your children will never have to go hungry again is a different matter. At what stage do you draw the line?

Alternatively:
Even if Buffy were to continue to act exactly as she always has done the scaling effects of her being one of many make the ethics of it completely different. One girl stealing a rocket launcher is an innovative solution to a seemingly intractable apocalyptic problem. 500 girls stealing 500 rocket launchers is a threat to world peace in and of itself.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Amongst the many shocking twists and turns the series took Buffy already died twice and I seem to remember Faith going to jail at one point.

I meant Buffy being killed for real, by police. And Buffy, not Faith (supporting character), going to prison. But it's a RL outcome, not suitable for a genre narrative.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Your version of RL seems far more prone to people inevitably getting their just deserts than mine. But that aside what do you make of the scaling effects point?

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't understand you. What do you mean by "scaling effects point"?

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

The points that I quoted stormwreath and myself making in the comment that you just replied to. About the near inevitability of of bank robbery type issues arising from there being hundreds more Slayers than before.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I see the problem from a different angle. For me, it's not about the change of the situation, it's about the change of the genre. I'm absolutely sure that Joss could write a compelling story without turning Buffy into a criminal. But he has changed the Buffyverse ethic and morality according to new genre demands.

In a Jerry Bruckheimer type of universe "bank robbery type issues" are inevitable. As well as kidnapping presidents or stealing CIA secrets (Mission Impossible). Shocking plot twists are crucial to move the plot forward in such movies; and Tom Cruise and Nic Cage are still good guys, even when they trespass the law.

As to inevitability, I wonder if you mean Buffy or Joss. The Buffy I saw on TV show doesn't need satellite system. It's Joss who needs shocking, garish plot twists to create a successful comic franchise.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

But you present no evidence beyond logically flawed arguments from analogy that the genre has changed whereas we can both agree that the situation has. There's no need to generate all these unsupported theories about Joss having motivations beyond that of writing a story that follows on from what went before and explores the characters in interesting ways. That gives them new challenges and imagines how they might respond. As to who has changed I mean Buffy. Buffy on the show didn't need a satellite system because she only had to communicate with 3-4 other people all based in the same town.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

I'm absolutely sure that Joss could write a compelling story without turning Buffy into a criminal. But he has changed the Buffyverse ethic and morality according to new genre demands.

I'm afraid I'm just not seeing the same change in genre you are. Consider my icon. Buffy and her friends were stealing deadly military hardware from an army base way back in season 2. In season 7 Anya was even robbing banks, and it was played entirely for laughs. When a young girl committed suicide in her home, Buffy didn't inform the police... she secretly buried her body in an unmarked grave. How many laws was she breaking there?

The show has always showed this sort of thing without making a big deal of it, most of the time. Occasionally, though, it pulls out the rug from under us by telling us the real consequences of what were watching. They fdif it in 'Dead Things'. And with the 8.11 preview, I think they're about to do it with Buffy's bank robbery.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

There was a real threat, real urgency in season 2. And in season 7 both Buffy and Anya were under a spell. Here I see only two options:

1) there was an urgency, a big threat but Buffy can't talk about it, even to Willow so she concocts some lame excuses. In this case we have a complex conspiracy plot that will be unraveling during the next 5 years

2) it's played for laughs

In both cases it's not typical for Buffyverse

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

3) There was an urgent, big threat so Buffy broke the law to counter it. Then there was a not quite so urgent, not quite so big threat, and Buffy broke the law to counter it. Then there was a fairly routine threat, and Buffy broke the law to counter it. Then Buffy thought there might be a big threat some time in the future, so she broke the law to counter it. Slippery slope.

4) There are 2,000 girls who are now Slayers. Their lives are in danger, and Buffy is completely responsible for their current situation. Every one of them who gets killed makes her feel she's got blood on her hands. So anything at all - even crime - is justifiable if it will save their lives. And how else can she find lots of money to buy semi-legal military equipment quickly?

(4) is my favourite.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

(4) is my favourite.

You frighten me. :)

But, seriously, it's the kind of logic bolsheviks used when they did the revolution and established communist regime. They considered themselves responsible for the suffering of the poor. To save poor people from their lot they overthrew the legal government. They thought it was justifiable if it will save people's lives.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

But that logic is hardly unique to the bolsheviks. And for every Russian or French revolution there's an American or an English one. Which kind Buffy might end up being involved in is the big question (and not one addressed much by action movies).