The worst idea since having Greedo shoot first?

[lirazel]

"Rebooting" Buffy?

With no Joss?

And no Sarah?

And supposedly there's a huge fan base just waiting to see it get rebooted?

Uh-huh.

I'll believe that when I see it.



I am trying not to think about this too much lest I get really, really, really angry.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I think removing the limitations of a seven year TV series will help make a better movie personally. We need only look at Season 8 with its over bloated cast and story-about-the-story meta to see how too much fat can ruin a dish.

Far better to start over with the original basic ingredient of a great recipe, then to continue adding things to the mix that sour the dish.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

But it's pretty much fracturing the audience into nothing.

If you cut out all the fans of the supporting players, all the fans of the ships, the ships themselves, all the Whedon fans, and all the SMG fans...well you've pretty much decimated the fandom they're trying to attract.

I kind of agree with someone over on the EW site that said that if they wanted to pick up the Slayer mythology maybe they should have bought the rights to Fray. As it is, it feels like they've effectively removed the interests of most of the fandom they're supposedly targeting.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I totally want a Fray movie, btw. I agree with that. It'd be easier. Frankly, it makes me wonder though why Joss never tried to make a Fray movie or something like it.

Basically, I think Joss is done trying to make a Buffy movie. A part of me hoped that after The Avengers he'd want to do it, but I think he's a bit tapped out on Buffy. I think Season 8 over four years has exhausted him the way doing the series has done.

I mean, how many of us have seen the Buffy movie even though Joss says it wasn't the way he wanted? I think Buffy fans will watch this because they want to see it, partly out of schadenfraude and partly out of hope that it's awesome.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

But Buffy was 'successful' on a small network, and that was ten years ago. It really is a cult franchise. It's hard to 'reboot' what only a few people were particularly aware of to begin with.

Batman has been around for over half a century in multiple incarnations. Everyone knows the basic outline of it, it's easy to reboot. Similar with a Trek reboot. It had been around in multiple incarnations since the 60s.

Any reboot we're talking about here is going to have to be an entirely new imagining because they don't have rights to the show at all. They only have the original Swanson movie... which wasn't successful. So they have very little of Buffy's origin story. Basically, all they've got is 'generic vampire hunter'. It really may as well be Anita Blake.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Doesn't Buffy being a cult hit make it easier to reboot? Because only the hardcore fans are going to object or put up a fuss. If it's marketed right, it could be very successful and bring in a broader fanbase.

Any reboot we're talking about here is going to have to be an entirely new imagining because they don't have rights to the show at all. They only have the original Swanson movie... which wasn't successful. So they have very little of Buffy's origin story. Basically, all they've got is 'generic vampire hunter'. It really may as well be Anita Blake.

I think it's too soon to tell what it will or won't be. But as a person who loves Buffy, I think it's possible to write a story about her that essentially reads as an AU that just takes her in a different direction from Sunnydale. And it could still be Buffy. It's not about 'generic vampire hunter'. Buffy is still Buffy--if the writer is good enough to capture her essence.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm going primarily by when it popped up last year who had the rights to what.

Fox owns the rights to the television series, and this isn't FOX. It's the Kuzis who were talking about rebooting and they owned the rights to the movie alone (thus their producer credits on the TV show which were based entirely on their having had the movie rights). That this reboot is coming from Warner Brothers, and not FOX (and certainly not Whedon) makes me think we're almost certainly talking about Kuzi's movie rights again.

And I don't think that it being cult makes it easier to reboot. Successful reboots have a huge nostalgia appeal. What made Trek a successful reboot was that it could draw a large, multi-generational audience. And much of the joy of the Trek reboot was it hitting the points that made it Trek. It was Kirk/Spock interacting, Kirk faking the kobayashi maru, Sulu having a sword fight, anticipating the requiste red-shirt death, "beam me up Scottie", etc. A Buffy reboot would have none of that. There would be no Willow, Xander, Giles, Spike, or Angel moments. Heck, there would be no soul canon. No hellmouth... not even a Sunnydale. You would also have none of Buffy's formative history, nearly all of which took place on the show. Basically they have a superheroine without 90% of her origin story, without her home city, without any of her side kicks, and without any of her love interests. That's not a whole heck of a lot left to reboot or re-imagine. It's basically starting from scratch except for the title and "chosen one".

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

even worse there would be NO SPIKE. OR ANYA OH GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

If you cut out all the fans of the supporting players, all the fans of the ships, the ships themselves, all the Whedon fans, and all the SMG fans...well you've pretty much decimated the fandom they're trying to attract.

This. Exactly this. I can't imagine a Scooby-less Buffy. If I wanted a Scooby-less (or, more specifically to me, a Spike-less) Buffy, I'd rent the Kristy Swanson version and remember being in kindergarten and thinking Luke Perry was hot. While I think eventually a reboot is possible, it's too soon. We need to wait until the original Buffy TV show cast has aged enough that cameos are retro and not passe - Leonard Nemoy was brilliant in the new Star Trek, and that's what they should be going for. Not while the cast is still young and hot and the creator is still out there creating. When Joss' remains have been shot into space (or the equivalent Buffyverse metaphor) like Gene Rodenberry, then we can talk. Now? It's just capitalizing on Twilight. And it looks bad and alienating.

It's nice to imagine the writer as one of us, but she could be working on a completely different take on the 'verse, and studio capitalization being the tendency it is, I don't want my 'verse rebooted with Buffy and Angel starring as Bella and Edward. That is NOT my verse.