Yahtzee & Joss Whedon Hard to pick sides
#1
Posted 12 September 2008 - 04:08 AM
I can follow Yahtzee's reasoning, but (for the 1st time) find myself in heavy disagreeage to the master. Yes, as he states, Joss's characters all have the same witty lines, throughout all series he wrote. But they are good, so for me it's a good thing. I hardly know anyone who can forge storylines and witty dialogues like Joss.
Oh no, I am torn apart. Well, no, I honour Yahtzee's opinion anyway. There is far from enough good writing out there to "pick sides".
What do you guys say? Have you listened to the podcast, do you have an opinion to this?
#3
Posted 12 September 2008 - 01:45 PM
Yahtzee's argument is mostly correct. There's a bit of exageration, but the overall point is that Whedon is limited in his ability to write characters, basically being limited to two character types and the occasional character that embodies both. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a fine example, as the three main characters slot in nicely. Penny's a ditz, Captain Hammer's a badass, and Dr. Horrible oscillates between the two.
Whedon is by no means a bad writer; he has an excellent grasp of setting, plot, humour and other bits of writing. The main problem I have is that he's nowhere near good enough to even remotely justify his popularity. Making a few series with decent plots and a collection of memorable moments and one-liners shouldn't get you worshipped as some sort of television God, it should get you recognized as reasonably competent. Instead, Joss Whedon somehow wound up with a bunch of faith-blind slavering fanatics who lay praise on everything he touches.
Actually, Yahtzee's somehow wound up with a bunch of faith-blind slavering fanatics who lay praise on everything he does, but at least he openly despises them.
#5
Posted 14 September 2008 - 04:34 PM
This post has been edited by Poplopo: 14 September 2008 - 04:34 PM
#7
Posted 14 September 2008 - 06:29 PM
One of these.
What better way to show your frankly creepy love of an author?
-The League Against Tedium
#8
Posted 14 September 2008 - 06:57 PM
Erotic fanfiction?
This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 14 September 2008 - 07:01 PM
Quote
#11
Posted 14 September 2008 - 09:00 PM
I tried to watch Angel and Buffy but found everyone extremely unlikeable.
There is now.
This post has been edited by Icey: 14 September 2008 - 09:01 PM
#13
Posted 15 September 2008 - 01:22 AM
Chaotic Good
#15
Posted 15 September 2008 - 11:08 AM
Hmm. I have a special history with Buffy. At first, as every serious darkness-lover I thought "what the hell? Vampire clowns vs. Cheerleaders?".
But the strength is not only (I think!) strong wit, but great storyflow. I mean, season 3, 4 and 5 of Buffy are with few exceptions one long epic storyflow with a lot of good ideas.
I understand the criticism, but it doesn't bother me if I hear the same humour in all lines, that's concept. It's the same with all comedy series I like. But I think he has really heavy characters with a lot of depth (always compared to other TV series, we are not talking literature here). Development of Spike or Willow comes to mind, if you have followed the Buffy series.
If you want to judge his impact as a writer on his own serieses, look at what happens when J.W. is NOT working on them, look at the seasons where he was "away". When he distanced himself from Buffy to do Firefly, the series got really bad, and as soon as he joined Angel, Angel suddenly became good. That's something.
OK I feared as much, not many pro Josses here, well at least I started a thread that actually is about something
The questions I have:
1. Is he so popular? Look at the AustralianGamers forum commenting on the Podcast, Joss gets a lot of hate. OK, he doctored a few Hollywood scripts without much credits. He had Buffy and a little Angel. And Firefly which crashed.
2. And there are so many bad writers out there, many of them much more popular, why can't we attack those? No really, I think his good episodes are among the 10% goodness on TV.
Well not important. Just wanted to talk a little with you guys.