Buffy The Vampire Slayer – The Sequel! (but wait…)
May 26th, 2009 | 
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The first time I saw it was as a headline. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer Remake”.
The first thing that runs through my head is, “Oh my God, they’re going to let him do season 8 on TV!!!” Yeah. No such luck (and honestly, how COULD they? That comic is fairly epic in scope, and would be a bitch to translate to the TV…) OK, but still, another Buffy movie!? Hope SMG has stayed in fighting shape! And then I continue to read…
Now, I’m not going to dismiss the movie yet, just because they aren’t going to do exactly what I want them to do. That would be silly. However, isn’t it also silly to make a Buffy movie without Joss Whedon?! C’MON, people?! He’s Joss! She’s Buffy! They go together like peanut butter and jelly!!! How can you do one without the other?
Apparently, Fran Rubel Kuzui and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, the directors of the first Buffy movie, are planning on making number two. However, they “have yet to reach out to Joss”. OK, well what are you waiting for?! Don’t they realize that the only reason anyone watches their movie at all is because they became rabid fans due to the Buffy TV series?!
On top of no Joss, neither will we have Xander, Willow, Giles and it sounds like we may not even have a Buffy…from what I’ve been able to put together so far, the producers want to continue in the “every generation has their own slayer” theme and move onto an entirely different cast. I suppose that would actually be for the best, considering the amount of baggage that people have for Buffy herself, but the last thing we need is another lame “Twilight” wannabe.
Joss’ response is, of course, classy and awesome. “I hope it’s cool.” he is quoted as saying.
Me too, Joss. (But, I kinda doubt it will be…)
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18 Responses to “Buffy The Vampire Slayer – The Sequel! (but wait…)”
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I just listened to your podcast for this ep and I think I remember you guys wondering who the band was. I think the singer is Angie Hart. I could be wrong but if it is her, she also sang in the episode from the last season, Conversations with Dead People.
I’d be fine if one of two things happened:
- They continued with the “in every generation…” concept… BUT included Joss. That could actually be interesting.
- They just did their own thing. Seriously, people have been basing fantasy/sci fi on other fantasy/sci fi since the genre was invented.
WRAZZZAL FRASZZAL SLEOC ELEWIOWCN AWCO INEWCOWEICNWON!!!! (Donald duck style)
Seriously!!! I think it would be OK if they got Joss to do a remix of the first movie (I would have liked to see what the first one would have been had he been left in control) and it was an update with the slayer mythos intact. New slayer, new watcher, new baddie, new Scooby-ish characters (Pike? Please no), fine. But remember what happened last time?
“Joss Whedon was so frustrated by how much of his vision was being mishandled and how much of it was being rewritten that he eventually left the set during production and never came back.” -IMDB Trivia
Maybe we’ll get lucky, and they’ll have Pee-Wee Herman in it again.
How can this even be a Buffy movie without Joss? Hasn’t Hollywood figured out
that alls well in the universe when they leave Joss Whedon alone??!?!?!
The idea of a Slayer: The Next Generation show always seemed like a good idea to me, but if it was A) on the telly, and B) handled by one of the original Buffy creative types – Whedon if possible but Jane Espenson or Doug Petrie would also be good. This film just seems like a cynical attempt to wring a few more dollars out of the series to , and since it’s coming from the makers of a film that was mediocre at best, I don’t have high hope.
That was classy of Whedon to say he hopes it will be cool, but I bet it’s not.
P.S. Keep up the good work with the podcast. Very funny and insightful stuff.
P.P.S Sorry about the typos. Half the text in this comment box is not visible, just I just stab the keys and hope for the best.
Anything w/o at least former Buffy writers (Espenson, Petrie as mentioned above) would likely be Buffy in name only, and certainly w/o Joss on board as at least a Creative Consultant I fear that it would probably suck nearly as bad as the first movie. That said, it has the “Buffy” name attached to it, so I’ll probably at least go see it in the theater, though I may cry later & desire the previous 2 hours of my life back
Is it horrible that I would be ok without the TV cast? Not that I don’t love them, but if they’ve said “Enough” then I’m going to respect that. (I understand that not all of them have this attitude, but if I can’t have the Scoobs in force, I’d rather not see them in bits & pieces. I’m a whole enchilada kind of gal.)
I was mostly outraged at the thought of Joss not being involved. Even more than SMG, JOSS IS BUFFY, and BUFFY IS JOSS. Period. So for me: No Joss? No movie – no way, no how.
This is just WRONG. I don’t care what legal rights they have to BTVS; this story is not theirs to tell. And however few ties there’s going to be “our” Buffy, what business do they have rebooting a story that’s still being told?
Also: If they’re going for a whole new slayer, what the hell are they going to call it if they still want people to be aware what inspired the film? “Buffy The Vampire Slayer (who’s really called Jessica, but we wanted to keep the name for franchise reasons)”? “[insert name] the Vampire Slayer” would just be stupid. But then, the whole film probably will be.
*takes deep breath*
I have been listening to your podcast, and to me it doesn’t seem like you actually LIKE the character of Buffy at all, or at least not how SMG portrays her. It seems that you harping on her fighting style, her wardrobe or lack there of, etc …. I always found Buffy to be a very empowering and a wonderful role model for young women. I just don’t get the same appreciation of the actual character from you guys. ….
Ulrikke – it’s no different than the studios wanting to make a sequel to the original Stargate movie, even though 10(!) seasons of a well-done TV show have been done, and there’s a rich canon already established.
Ulrikke…that’s a good point, actually…what are they going to call the movie? “Buffy the Vampire Slayer II…Buffy-less”?
However, after having watched an amazingly elegant and completely entertaining reboot this weekend (Star Trek) I’m going to bite my tongue until I see more of what their plans may be. It may be good. (Not that anything indicates that in the slightest…dop! I did it again!)
And Daisy…how can you SAY that! We like her enough to do an entire PODCAST about her! I’ll give you this…we can certainly be critical of her. But we criticize because we love. Her wardrobe certainly has her good and bad days, but no one really blames SMG for that. As for the fighting style…that’s more of a Jason thing (sorry, J, don’t mean to throw you under the bus or anything!) =). But it’s never bothered me, and I think Kathleen took a little offense to that as well. if I remember right, she piped right up to her defense, telling the story of how she ran too much like a superhero in “The Grudge”.
MetalFRO, I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here? Are you disputing what I said or not? :s
For the record (not directed at anyone in particular), my problem lies less in the reboot and more in who’s behind it. In an ideal world we’d have Joss or any of the other writers/producers/directors behind BTVS doing this. But I’d survive if it weren’t. But seriously; the Kuzuis?! Did anyone actually think the ‘92 film was any good?
Point is I wouldn’t mind a reboot so much if I trusted that the people behind it would make anything even remotely related to the kind of movie I’d like to see.
Still; I hope it’s good.
Ah, I was going to say something more, but I’m knackered and I forgot… It probably wouldn’t have made much sense anyway. :p
Ulrikke – actually I was just drawing a parallel. When someone owns an IP, if they see a potential to exploit that for money, they will. A reboot might be interesting, if it could be done well – for example, if anyone here is old enough (other than me) to remember the miniseries “V”, the original was done by Kenneth Johnson, and was a good sci-fi drama that had a fairly rich cast of characters & drew a lot of parallels to the holocaust. The sequel, “V: The Final Battle” was done mostly w/o Johnson in the same way that the original BtVS movie was – he was on board until the network (NBC in this case) decided they wanted to take the story in a different direction, and then he split. Since NBC already owned the rights, they continued & made the sequel. It wasn’t as good as the original, but it did move the story along well. Then they kind of derailed when they made the ill-conceived TV series. It was okay, but nowhere near the caliber of even the 2nd miniseries due to overuse of stock footage, sub-par scripting, and replacement of many key characters too early on in the series. Anyway, Kenneth now is looking at possibly doing a “remake” of the original miniseries, but brought up to modern times & w/ more modern socio-political issues in place rather than what made sense in the early 80’s. I guess the BtVS took a backward track – the original film was lame, but the TV series that carried on the story line had a much richer canon & development, despite the humble beginnings.
But yeah, I’m with you – I’m willing to spend the $7.75 at the closest theater that will probably show it in my area, as long as I know that if it sucks I won’t feel obligated to go & buy the DVD later
Anyone heard what Athony Head had to say?
Doing a Buffy movie without Whedon? “I wouldn’t want to see it, no,” Head admits. “The Kuzuis didn’t do a great job on the movie the first time around. It was Joss’ script at the age of 19, but they changed a lot of it. They said, ‘Look, we know best and we know how to make this movie,’ and it became quite schlocky and high camp.” Head recalls the time when he went to audition for the Buffy series because he loved Whedon’s pilot script so much, and his agent advised him to watch the movie to get the tone of the show before his screen test. “So I did and I went, ‘Oh, that’s not it at all.’ I went in and saw Joss and said, ‘I watched the movie last night!’ And he went, ‘Oh. Did ya?’ I just put it out of my mind. The bottom line is if a movie was ever to be made, it should be made with Joss Whedon, whether it’s a retrospective or not. But it would be madness to do it without him. [The Kazuis] have the rights to because they have the rights to the original movie, but it should be interesting to see. It may be a bit like watching a car wreck.”
http://blogs.usaweekend.com/whos_news/2009/05/anthony-head-on-invisibles-merlin-and-a-possible-buffy-movie.html
The man is awsome. Gotta love him for speaking his mind.
*bows in ASH’s direction* and on the day awesome was redefined, we all stood around in awe and watched.
Thanks for posting this, Ulrikke!
Argh!! I love this podcast so thats why I’m replying to this article. I’ve been trying to make peace with this news about the Buffy reboot.Its like..times are hard now..everyone is trying to make a buck,also everyone is jumping on the vampire bandwagon right now with the success of Twilight and True Blood.
Joss is so busy with other projects now..Cabin in the woods, Dollhouse, A Dr. Horrible sequel. SMG is with child.
It did’nt work with Dark Shadows..It was sad. It did work with Star Trek..it was brilliant. We just have to wait and see..If you dont want to give it power..stop talking about it. Hey Look on the bright side.. maybe they will cast Amy Winehouse as Drusilla!
a big fan——>Tony