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Mathew Buck (aka Film Brain) reviews "The Avengers" after seeing an early UK release of the film. This review is SPOILER FREE for those who are interested.
FB: "What Joss Whedon has created here is possibly one of the best superhero films ever made. He has delivered everything you possibly could have wanted from this massive crossover. It is a Masters class in audience gratification, and you can tell in every single frame of this movie that he knows the characters, knows their personalities, and knows how to handle them. Considering the amount of characters here and the amount of backstory here in the Marvel film continuity, the fact that Whedon not only successfully performs the balancing act but manages to make it look easy is quite an accomplishment."
And yet Whedon can't or doesn't want to handle his own creations anymore. How ironically tragic or tragically ironic (which is just the kind of thing Whedon likes). Despite good reviews, I stand by my earlier pledge not to see this film in the theatre or to any way, shape, or form give Joss Whedon any more of my money or to add to the box office. I might see the film at some point in the distant future (though I have stuck to my pledge to never watch "Titanic," "Pearl Harbor," or "Wedding Crashers," and I haven't, thank God), but I will not be paying for it (no, I will not be pirating it). I'd rather give my money to someone who hasn't spat upon everything that I once liked about them. That's why I spent money to buy a new G. R. R. Martin book and Season One of Game of Thrones, but I did not spend money to see "Cabin in the Woods" or "Star Wars: Episode I" in 3D. And it's also why, in the future, I will be buying J. K. Rowling's new book to give her a chance outside of Harry Potter. George Lucas and Joss Whedon are on my "To Don't" list until a miracle happens and I actually like something that they do with characters that actually belong to them.
FB: "What Joss Whedon has created here is possibly one of the best superhero films ever made. He has delivered everything you possibly could have wanted from this massive crossover. It is a Masters class in audience gratification, and you can tell in every single frame of this movie that he knows the characters, knows their personalities, and knows how to handle them. Considering the amount of characters here and the amount of backstory here in the Marvel film continuity, the fact that Whedon not only successfully performs the balancing act but manages to make it look easy is quite an accomplishment."
And yet Whedon can't or doesn't want to handle his own creations anymore. How ironically tragic or tragically ironic (which is just the kind of thing Whedon likes). Despite good reviews, I stand by my earlier pledge not to see this film in the theatre or to any way, shape, or form give Joss Whedon any more of my money or to add to the box office. I might see the film at some point in the distant future (though I have stuck to my pledge to never watch "Titanic," "Pearl Harbor," or "Wedding Crashers," and I haven't, thank God), but I will not be paying for it (no, I will not be pirating it). I'd rather give my money to someone who hasn't spat upon everything that I once liked about them. That's why I spent money to buy a new G. R. R. Martin book and Season One of Game of Thrones, but I did not spend money to see "Cabin in the Woods" or "Star Wars: Episode I" in 3D. And it's also why, in the future, I will be buying J. K. Rowling's new book to give her a chance outside of Harry Potter. George Lucas and Joss Whedon are on my "To Don't" list until a miracle happens and I actually like something that they do with characters that actually belong to them.
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Gabrielle
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*sigh* I should know better but I don't.
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*glomps you* I cannot wait until Wednesday when all my school will be over for the semester I can actually catch up with writing and reading fics. I am so behind.
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And yet Whedon can't or doesn't want to handle his own creations anymore.
You may be in the ballpark about the "can't" part of that. I just don't see how the money people not wholly trusting him with his own projects is his fault. I'm also a fan of Terry Gilliam, so it's not like I haven't seen auteurs with a particular vision get shut down before. Still, I think Whedon is doing pretty well: in addition to everything else, he's self-produced the "Dr. Horrible" and "Much Ado About Nothing" projects. (Do you plan to boycott that last one because Joss didn't write it?)
I totally understand "The Avengers" not being to a person's taste, and same with "Cabin". I can also understand feeling betrayed by an artist you once trusted. It seems like you are saying you hate his work after some unspecified point — it could be anything: some people hate Firefly, some hate Dollhouse, many many hate the Buffy comics — but you don't want to support him unless he goes back to working with his own characters. Except for The Avengers and the episode of Glee that he directed, he pretty much has been doing just that. Sometimes to good effect, sometimes less so. So far, I've liked pretty much everything except large chunks of the comics, but I wouldn't begrudge the guy the chance to step out and take a job for hire every so often. We've all got to work, more's the pity. If I didn't like his original work, I'd probably be happy to see him stop making that crappy stuff and just do car commercials or what have you.
This is a digression, but I'm not a big fan of James Cameron. I think his stuff is bloated, simplistic, and melodramatic, even if skilled. (There could be some exceptions in his body of work, but I don't care enough to find them.) Last summer at Comic-Con, I went to a panel of women working in genre and a whole bunch of them said that Cameron was a fantastic mentor, and had opened huge doors of access for women both behind and in front of the camera. Same for Whedon. So, I decided I should just be happy for the good things he's done, and continue to only follow the work that interests me. Does that make sense?
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Filmmaking and television are hugely collaborative endeavors, unlike prose fiction, so why is Whedon persona non grata for taking a directing gig, or handing over the director's reins to his co-writer on "Cabin"? Am I missing something?
I think that Joss Whedon has lost the plot, so-to-speak. I don't like how he handles himself publicly or how he handles his work, no matter what part he has a hand in.
As for Dr. Horrible, I did not enjoy it. It fell into the "You got Jossed!" trope of killing off someone in MAN!PAIN fashion in the third act without a real resolution to the story. That, in a nutshell, ruined what might have been an enjoyable three-parter. And for "Much Ado," I didn't even know he was doing that.
It seems like you are saying you hate his work after some unspecified point —
I can tell you the exact three moments that made me lose all faith in the man's ability as a storyteller. 1. Him admitting that he let the BtVS get away from him in Season Six. 2. His rant against "torture porn" after Season Six and asking the MPAA to censor a film he had not seen. 3. Chosen. That was the game over moment when I realized he didn't care about the story anymore and neither did I.
it could be anything: some people hate Firefly, some hate Dollhouse, many many hate the Buffy comics — but you don't want to support him unless he goes back to working with his own characters.
What I meant to say was, if by some miracle, he was able to craft his own story with his own characters to the point where I could actually give him some kudos for a job well-done, I would. Unfortunately, he's yet to release anything that I think I could watch and/or read. I tried to watch Firefly, but it was too much like Cowboy Bebop for my liking (I could just watch Cowboy Bebop). I got through maybe fifteen minutes of Dollhouse before given up. I read the Fray comic and felt rather "meh" about it, along with his Sugar-something comic that was a few pages long. You probably are wondering why I would even bother to watch anything that he does when I've grown to detest him... Well, I've found that BtVS/Ats fandom is one in which one cannot make criticisms unless one attempts to watch/read something. So, I tried... until I actually got goaded into reading Season Eight, and I wanted to gouge out my computer screen. Yeah, after that, I'm through. Unless a friend really recommends a movie that has anything to do with him, I'm not going to go see it for money. With the Avengers, it doesn't seem like it has the same WTFery of "Cabin in the Woods" and its meta-ness, so maybe in the distant future, I might see it if someone has a copy or if someone else rents it.
I guess what upsets me about Whedon is that he's capable. He has the ability to not fall in his own tropes and to not make an arse of himself as he admits that he enjoys messing with people as he tries to be charmingly self-deprecating. If he can treat other people's characters with respect (the X-Men comic he did not withstanding), I guess I just don't know why he couldn't treat his own creations that way.
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I guess what upsets me about Whedon is that he's capable.
Yeah, I think that's a part of it for me, too. He knows better than to fall into these (usually offensive) patterns and does it anyway. Then he proceeds to blame the Status Quo for it. It's the public's fault for liking it, not his fault for writing it.
But that's a minor part of it. There are a lot of people whose work bugs me that I don't have a boycott on. I just find the guy himself detestable. He lies. He's insulted the series, actors, studios, mocked fans and plays it all off as a joke that you know isn't really a joke at all. I've been around enough passive-aggressive people to know the difference. He's a hypocrite. He never seems to give anyone more than lipservice for their contributions to the product. Most creators are assholes, I've come to accept this, but there's a breaking point.
Plus there's a small bit of spite to it. The guy never gets called out on *anything* vs if one of the actors says something even mildly critical or anything that isn't praise, they're vilified. Brendon points out Joss didn't write every ep? What an asshole!
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Some people wonder why I lay so much blame on Joss when it's a multi-person production. It's because, somehow, when he's involved with a production, he gets all the credit. I always tell the story of how when I first was in fandom people told me Joss Whedon wrote "Toy Story." I found out later he was one of seven people who submitted treatments for the script, and it would be hard to guess who wrote what. If he ever does something that fails or that people don't like, he gets none of the blame. People are willing to take his word for the fact that it's the fault of the actors (Donald Sutherland in the original BtVS or anyone in the Alien movie he did) or the Kazuis or Fox or whoever he picks to blame. If he wants and takes all the credit, then he gets all the blame, in my opinion.
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when he's involved with a production, he gets all the credit.
Exactly. Personally, I don't give him all the credit, but when I'm told over and over and over again how everything is all Joss, then I'm going to blame him, too.
And heh, about the Toy Story story. It's funny people lauding Joss (again) for Avengers when last I checked he only did a revision on that as well.
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In true Jossian fashion, the two criticisms that I've seen reviewers make about the Avengers and Cabin in the Woods, in relation to Joss's other work (no matter much or how he little he had to do with them), are: 1.) Joss Whedon cannot handle exposition/Why is this enormous, boring plot dump in the middle of an otherwise exciting film?/Why is there no exposition at all in this horror film that desperately needs some exposition to get the audience to feel any sense of urgency?, and 2.) You can tell this is a Joss Whedon film because people just don't talk that way.
I'll give people the first one as quite important (and looking at S8, there is so much exposition fail). To paraphrase Mr. Plinkett, the failure of the comics and some of Joss's other later works (like the later works of George Lucas), the audience is expected to accept too many things that we are and are not told. But of all the criticisms to make, how people talk is the one that gets mentioned! Not the "I'm Joss Whedon, you should assume that I'm subverting this very obvious trope I'm putting in front of your face, even though nothing in what's being presenting on screen suggest that I'm trying to subvert it." Penny from Dr. Horrible comes to mind.
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I could write, like, a book on the fail of the comics and CitW. They are, in concept and execution, the same story written to the same end. Like I said to Shadowkat once, I don't think it's a coincidence that CitW was written around the time he was getting bored with the comics. They both basically attempt to serve up every trope of a genre to the audience and condemn them for wanting it (even though they didn't). Both only work if it's accepted that what they're seeing is a random series of meta commentaries, not an actual story with actual characters operating within a narrative. It works better in CitW because it's a vehicle created specifically for it, but it still falls down. On the meta level, we can say it's possibly redeeming, the characters saying F-U to the audience and not giving them what they want. On a story level, they just slaughtered everyone in the world out of spite. The Buffy comics, a pre-existing 'verse with long-established characters? Forget about it.
Metaphor and Story must operate cohesively, Jossypants. They can't contradict.
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On a story level, they just slaughtered everyone in the world out of spite.
Everything I read and have seen of CitW relates back to the big gods of S8. I kept thinking to myself, "Gods don't work that way!" Sure, gods can be petty and cruel, but why did a god/sentient universe need to be born into the earthly plane when it was already physically on the earthly plane? Why was Buffy's mystical uterus so important? Why was Angel's mystical cold dead seed necessary to facilitate this birth of a universe/dimension/god/plot device? Why should the audience care? What is the real threat of Twilight except obvious Stephanie Meyers jokes? Oh, Lord, I needed something to make sense in that plot. I mean, Joss basically always has his audience doing the legwork for him- making connections, finding symbolism, making the story seem more important and well-thought-out than it really is. His method falls between making quips at both the tropes he himself is making and the tropes he claims to be working against and mocking the audience, his fans, and even himself (though he's really not mocking himself, he's mocking fans for criticizing him).
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I think the comics are a joke that no one thought was funny. They were CitW only instead of mocking horror fans, they were mocking comic fans (what comics need and Buffy fans need are usually mutually exclusive, or whatever he said). The tripping point was that very few comic fans were reading them. Now Allie and company are like comics who just died but won't leave the stage and keep insisting their act was funny.
Why was Buffy's mystical uterus so important? Why was Angel's mystical cold dead seed necessary to facilitate this birth of a universe/dimension/god/plot device?
'Cause sex is teh evol (unless it's with
JossXander) and pregnancy is destruction. The imagery is something I need bleached from my brain.From:
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And some of the comic fans who were reading them got very offended at Joss & Co.'s constant party line of "This is the stuff that real comics are made of. This is what comics are about." I know I was offended. I, for one, read good comics that don't do random crap for the sake of random crap (unless it's Deadpool, and his random crap makes an effed up kind of sense because he's literally insane). You know, Deadpool is a good example of meta storytelling. Deadpool is aware he's in a comic book with readers, but all the other Marvel characters just think he's crazy. He's still crazy, but he's also right, which makes for some hilarious moments because the audience is in on the joke (in comparison to Whedon's case in which the audience IS the joke).
I will never cease to be amazed by the fundamental lack of understanding some of the BtVS crew has had towards its viewers. I know it's true in all mediums, but Christ... I think it was Doug Petrie or maybe Joss that complained that the audience wanted Buffy to have a "normal" boyfriend but when they wrote Riley, the audience didn't like him. The people who wanted a "normal" boyfriend for Buffy responded, "We asked for "normal." You gave us a drug-addicted, slightly emotionally unstable secret agent military operative who experiments on demons like some creepy SS nightmare." What happened to the slightly goofy Teaching Assistant? Why couldn't that guy have been none-the-wiser to Maggie Walsh and then stumbles into Buffy's world of monsters by accident, becoming one of the new Scoobies the old fashion way (by sleeping with one of the Core Four, I'm kidding)?
As much as I love Brian Lynch, he too fell into this trap, but it's like something a fanfic writer would do-- He is so sure Spike would act one way because he's a fan of the show and likes Spike and thinks he knows how Spike would act. Willingham, Williams, and Armstrong fell into this same pit of horribleness (though the first two weren't really fans of the show). However, many fans were like, "WTF? Why would canonly monogamous Spike suddenly turn into a man!whore in these comics? Why is he sleeping with everything that moves? I think you have him confused with Liam. There's too many Williams in this show." We all know he's capable of a one night stand, but sheesh, enough with pimp!Spike.
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Well, in-story meta really only works when you acknowledge that it's meta to some degree. The comics don't. Even when they might be acknowledging it, sure enough Allie is there to say that it's straight.
I think it was Doug Petrie or maybe Joss that complained that the audience wanted Buffy to have a "normal" boyfriend but when they wrote Riley, the audience didn't like him.
I don't know about that. Could be Petrie. I remember Joss and Jane saying they knew people were going to dislike Riley. I think Blucas said Joss told him he wasn't going to be popular. Whether they knew *why* they disliked him is another question, I guess. Given his recent pronouncement that Riley was well-adjusted, I think Whedon fell down a long flight of stairs at some point after 2003 or maybe he's attempting to rewrite the story in interviews. That boy has said some completely ridiculous shit in attempts to explain those comic books
he's a fan of the show
When I hear of writers being fans, it does not make me feel any better about said writer. Quite the contrary, actually.
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That boy has said some completely ridiculous shit in attempts to explain those comic books
I completely agree.
Quite the contrary, actually.
Again, I wholeheartedly concur. I've seen fans produce some amazing things, but most of those amazing things were never done for profit. XD
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I've seen fans produce some amazing things, but most of those amazing things were never done for profit.
Fans have their biases. It's part of being a fan. It's like, would you want Petrie heading up a Riley series? Plus I think fans kiss too much ass. As big an asshole as he is, Fury told Joss what he thought and I think that voice of "reason" is missing from the comics. There has to be someone there with the guts to say something is freaking stupid. That someone is supposed to be the editor, but Allie edits nothing. Maybe spelling, that's it. You don't have wrong color eyes and characters created by the artist out of confusion when there's an editor doing their job.
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Very true.