Horrible Dr. Horrible...
I have long since come to accept the fact that I hate 99% of everything everyone on my flist likes in terms of entertainment, and collectively people on my flist like about 1% of what I do. In terms of entertainment -- common interests, we does not has them. Therefor, if anyone tuning in right now is a Joss Whedon fan and might feel offended by pitiless snarky criticism of his crap, stop reading now.
That said, every so often it just annoys the hell out of me to be the only person not squeeing over the same things everyone else I know does. Because I can tend to be a bit of a tool, I actually DO go through the trouble of watching some of the stuff it seems like half my flist is obsessed with at any given time more frequently than you'd think, with the result that I invariably fail to comprehend the appeal. This can get a bit frustrating.
So out of purely egotistical interests, I feel compelled to ask -- am I seriously the only person on the internet who thought Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was incredibly lame? After all the hype and tripe I've run into cluttering the web all over the place, I finally came across the thing and decided to actually watch it with Mouse and find out what it was.
The damn thing feels like it ends in the middle of the story, and that Dr. Horrible guy is probably the worst take on the mad scientist archetype I've ever seen. I am a more villainous villain than that lump of simpering puppy fluff, and my inventions SUCK. They're not even inventions, they're glorified LED displays attached to pre-built motor bits, switches, and Legos. They're kindergarden robots. But I digress. He's an idiotic character. He's some pouty little Sondheim ripoff one step away from being Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors--
...*pause of actual real-time mid-rant revelation*...
...you know what, come to think of it, aren't those two plots essentially identical, with essentially identical characters and a metaphorically identical ending? The original, not the movie. Except that Little Shop of Horrors actually feels like a complete story and is original and interesting instead of a zero-budget cop-out full of badly-done stereotypes...
*pause for Wikipedia-brand memory refresh*
Holy shit. Yes. Yes it is. They are exactly the same story, with exactly the same characters, doing exactly the same things, with exactly the same ending, except that Dr. Horrible cuts off before the ENDING-ending.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.
And oh, LOL, Wikipedia agrees with me about Dr. Horrible: "Some of the music was influenced by Stephen Sondheim." To say nothing of the CHARACTERS. XD Sondheim's thing is to make shows full of "but what about how I feel???" characters and plots.
So this is Joss "The Eternally Overhyped" Whedon doing the Sondheim version of Little Shop of Horrors.
Fail. Seriously, fail.
WELL THEN! Since Dr. Horrible cut off the proper ending, allow me to summarize it for you fine folks:
With Audrey Penny having become the unwitting sacrifice for Seymour's Dr. Horrible's glory and Orin Captain Hammer having died after ODing on nitrous oxide run off weeping like a little girl, Seymour Dr. Horrible honors his beloved by using her death to keep the giant anthropomorphic carnivorous alien plant from outer space Evil League of Evil strong. This is where Dr. Horrible's show ends. But what happens afterwards... Patrick Martin from the World Botanical Enterprises Bad Horse offers Seymour Dr. Horrible a chance at fame and fortune by selling clippings copies of his giant carnivorous alien plant from outer space improved Death Ray. Recognizing the true destructive potential he will have unleashed, and that this must have been the giant anthropomorphic carnivorous alien plant from outer space Evil League of Evil's plan all along, Seymour Dr. Horrible makes an attempt to destroy the giant carnivorous alien plant from outer space Death Ray and all its spawn copies. Unfortunately, the original has been made so strong now that even its original botanical caretaker inventor cannot dismantle it. Desperate, Seymour Dr. Horrible charges into the plant's gaping maw with a machete attempts to re-create the circumstances of the original Death Ray's explosion, knowing this time he himself must fire it. He does, but the giant carnivorous alien plant from outer space improved Death Ray eats him and spits out the machete blows his dumb ass into a trillion bits without exploding itself. The giant anthropomorphic carnivorous alien plant from outer space Evil League of Evil goes on to populate the world with miniature carnivorous alien plants from outer space improved Death Rays, which, as Seymour Dr. Horrible foresaw, eat kill everyone.
There you have it, folks. My homeboy Howard Ashman: Doing it better than Joss since 1982.
But if anyone still reading really DOES like Dr. Horrible more than Little Shop of Horrors, I would recommend that you look into the musicals Company, Into the Woods, Merrily We Roll Along, and Sweeney Todd -- the actual musical, not the butchered, watered-down film version starring Tim Burton's Brain and Tim Burton's Bitch.
That said, every so often it just annoys the hell out of me to be the only person not squeeing over the same things everyone else I know does. Because I can tend to be a bit of a tool, I actually DO go through the trouble of watching some of the stuff it seems like half my flist is obsessed with at any given time more frequently than you'd think, with the result that I invariably fail to comprehend the appeal. This can get a bit frustrating.
So out of purely egotistical interests, I feel compelled to ask -- am I seriously the only person on the internet who thought Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was incredibly lame? After all the hype and tripe I've run into cluttering the web all over the place, I finally came across the thing and decided to actually watch it with Mouse and find out what it was.
The damn thing feels like it ends in the middle of the story, and that Dr. Horrible guy is probably the worst take on the mad scientist archetype I've ever seen. I am a more villainous villain than that lump of simpering puppy fluff, and my inventions SUCK. They're not even inventions, they're glorified LED displays attached to pre-built motor bits, switches, and Legos. They're kindergarden robots. But I digress. He's an idiotic character. He's some pouty little Sondheim ripoff one step away from being Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors--
...*pause of actual real-time mid-rant revelation*...
...you know what, come to think of it, aren't those two plots essentially identical, with essentially identical characters and a metaphorically identical ending? The original, not the movie. Except that Little Shop of Horrors actually feels like a complete story and is original and interesting instead of a zero-budget cop-out full of badly-done stereotypes...
*pause for Wikipedia-brand memory refresh*
Holy shit. Yes. Yes it is. They are exactly the same story, with exactly the same characters, doing exactly the same things, with exactly the same ending, except that Dr. Horrible cuts off before the ENDING-ending.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.
And oh, LOL, Wikipedia agrees with me about Dr. Horrible: "Some of the music was influenced by Stephen Sondheim." To say nothing of the CHARACTERS. XD Sondheim's thing is to make shows full of "but what about how I feel???" characters and plots.
So this is Joss "The Eternally Overhyped" Whedon doing the Sondheim version of Little Shop of Horrors.
Fail. Seriously, fail.
WELL THEN! Since Dr. Horrible cut off the proper ending, allow me to summarize it for you fine folks:
With Audrey Penny having become the unwitting sacrifice for Seymour's Dr. Horrible's glory and Orin Captain Hammer having died after ODing on nitrous oxide run off weeping like a little girl, Seymour Dr. Horrible honors his beloved by using her death to keep the giant anthropomorphic carnivorous alien plant from outer space Evil League of Evil strong. This is where Dr. Horrible's show ends. But what happens afterwards... Patrick Martin from the World Botanical Enterprises Bad Horse offers Seymour Dr. Horrible a chance at fame and fortune by selling clippings copies of his giant carnivorous alien plant from outer space improved Death Ray. Recognizing the true destructive potential he will have unleashed, and that this must have been the giant anthropomorphic carnivorous alien plant from outer space Evil League of Evil's plan all along, Seymour Dr. Horrible makes an attempt to destroy the giant carnivorous alien plant from outer space Death Ray and all its spawn copies. Unfortunately, the original has been made so strong now that even its original botanical caretaker inventor cannot dismantle it. Desperate, Seymour Dr. Horrible charges into the plant's gaping maw with a machete attempts to re-create the circumstances of the original Death Ray's explosion, knowing this time he himself must fire it. He does, but the giant carnivorous alien plant from outer space improved Death Ray eats him and spits out the machete blows his dumb ass into a trillion bits without exploding itself. The giant anthropomorphic carnivorous alien plant from outer space Evil League of Evil goes on to populate the world with miniature carnivorous alien plants from outer space improved Death Rays, which, as Seymour Dr. Horrible foresaw, eat kill everyone.
There you have it, folks. My homeboy Howard Ashman: Doing it better than Joss since 1982.
But if anyone still reading really DOES like Dr. Horrible more than Little Shop of Horrors, I would recommend that you look into the musicals Company, Into the Woods, Merrily We Roll Along, and Sweeney Todd -- the actual musical, not the butchered, watered-down film version starring Tim Burton's Brain and Tim Burton's Bitch.