On the Buffy remake. And creating/sustaining an evolving mythology.

[prozacpark]

In case you haven't heard, there's been talk of a Buffy reboot in the form of a movie franchise that's going to keep the core idea of the 1992 movie, and go with that premise but reimagine it. As suspected, fandom is not happy

Comments

[anarchicq]

Ok, I kind of feel that I shouldn't be talking because I don't like the Buffy series and I barely remember the movie.

And I don't think Joss is that great, I love Dr. Horrible and Firefly but the rest is ...eh...

But I have thought about this...

I don't think of Buffy as a mythology, I think of it as a series in a universe, like Gargoyles, or Supernatural or, fuck, I dunno, Simpsons.... and change works best with these sorts of things through gradualness.

Batman and X-men are able to have wild plot shifts that Buffy shouldn't because those 'verses have been constantly rebooting or revising themselves since the '60s or more.

This isn't Flight of the Navigator or The Breakfast Club or Heathers or Karate Kid where there's been little or no reminder that it even exists through a TV show or cartoon or comic, this is Buffy the fucking Vampire Slayer! Like you said, her grave isn't even cold yet! She hasn't vanished from the collective memory of fans and viewers. They are most likely not ready to...accept...a new Buffy'verse.

Aaaand then, of course, there's the matter of No Joss. While I feel it's a dick move on their part and the right holders should have struck while the iron was hot, Joss did ultimately give/sell/whatever the rights to them, and that's how Hollywood works. Sucks, but it's the facts. Though I wonder why they waited so long to do this, and what will happen to the Season 8 comic books?

However, if they do indeed decide to go with "Each generation there's a slayer" thing, then fine, just call it something else. "Taffy, the Vampire Slayer"

[prozacpark]

I generally tend to think Joss is a one-trick pony, but Buffy is that trick for me. I think everything he's done since then has either been full of Gender Fail, a repeat of Buffy themes, or just not that good, period.

But Buffy is mythology, in its structure. You can choose to not think of it as such in terms of how influential it is, but Joss did create a self-aware and a female version of the popular Classical hero myths. And we see echoes of this even within the show, where Buffy gets to live many lives and gets to die and come back, etc. And ultimately, that's a huge part of its appeal for me.

And just because Buffy hasn't rebooted so far doesn't mean it shouldn't? We have it existing in different forms, narratives, and alternate verses already. It doesn't have that history of 40+ years behind it, but it's a relatively new canon.

I think we already got Joss's take on Buffy. Twice. It'd be interesting to see how someone who didn't create this concept approaches it?

Incidentally, one of the things I really wanted as a Buffy spin-off when it was ending was an anthology type of series with a series of mini-series about different slayers. So I may get behind "Taffy, the Vampire Slayer." But...I think where myths are concerned, names have...power, and I would not mind having the new Slayer still be a version of Buffy.