Avenging Serenity

Avenging Serenity (or- ‘Whedonising the masses’)       posted on February16th 2012 by David Leadbeater

Ah, where did all the Browncoats go? Still licking their wounds, I guess.

    Will we ever forget poor old Alan Tudyk being impaled at the end of Serenity? Or the spine- tingling, utterly immortal words of Summer Glau: “My turn. . .” Our desperation suddenly and expertly turned to fire.

    So, with his new movie will Joss finally avenge the death of Firefly, the greatest Space Western of our time?

    If anyone could. . .

    Our hopes are on fire. The reason I’m connecting Firefly with The Avengers is because we all know the problems that plagued the show from Upstairs.  Make this happen, they said. Make that happen, they said, whilst flicking the oily disinterest from the collars of their Saville Row suits. Malcolm Reynolds is too dour, too aggressive. The pilot ain’t right so let’s run it out of order, oh, and then let’s run some of the other episodes out of order too. That’ll solidify the viewership.

    Now Marvel are just Marvel, I guess, a huge entity of its own. But there’s no getting away from the fact that they know what they’re doing. Let me say this (too late): give Whedon free-reign, let him experiment. He will breathe new life into your aging characters. He will bring new blood to what has occasionally become a bloodless franchise. The Mutant Enemy is your salvation, my friends.

    My proof? Ask any Whedonite if they watch any new series or movie that involves a Whedon-branded actor? Well, the answer’s clear, and it’s all about the cult status. An actor achieves this status when he’s been Whedonised. Real word- just added it to my Thesaurus.

    And one more whisper into the ear of the masses: http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com/

    -they aim to misbehave in support of charity and have raised over $150,000.00 so far by movie screenings alone.

    And the trending goes on.

    The Avengers already has cult status, it started when they announced the name of the Director.

    

Joss Whedon and the Bite Size Vampire

Joss Whedon and the Bite-Size Vampire   posted on 30^th January 2012 by David Leadbeater

I don’t know Joss Whedon, not personally. I am one of the millions who know him only through his work. I first met him in 1997’s Welcome to the Hellmouth, and back then, even in that first forty minutes, you could just tell that something special was happening.

    So the forty-minute or, bite-size, Vampire was born. Some after-tea snackage sharpened with wit, dripping with humour, and glistening with character. This was a new programme that used pop culture references for fun and then later became a pop culture reference itself. This Joss Whedon guy made you care as he created a comical cocktail before mixing in a heady twist of fear.

    Simple, you say?

     It only seems simple when it’s done right. I only have to say Once More With Feeling or Hush. Simple premises, but has any other TV show ever pulled off anything similar so well?

    Something so deeply touching as a High School student body giving a special award to the geek-girl in The Prom, because the Class of ’99 has the lowest mortality rate in history, though no student questions why, or how? Or as ironic as a politician hiding the fact that he is a monster- and that monster is a giant snake?

    The Vampire, before Whedon, was a relic as outdated as the T-Rex before Jurassic Park. And yes, ironically, new life was breathed into a creature long dead, a creature many, back then, associated only with old Hammer Horror films.

    Whedon raised the bar again by instilling a cult status into his work. From college students inventing drinking games – sinking one whenever Sarah showed her bra or Giles cleaned his glasses – that continue to this day, to real life tragic stories where people sought solace in back-to-back episodes that saved them from the brink of suicide. Five by Five.

    The women are strong, all of them- though sometimes they do not know it. The Vampires are bigger and fiercer - they are monsters - but seen to be weaker because they go up against friends who fight as a team, unintentionally becoming heroes by their actions.

    The way was paved for a new flood of fanged fiends- Lost Girl, True Blood, Twilight. A new genre called Paranormal Romance. Their existence is a validation of original genius. One person took the time to care, allowing others to continue the momentum and care for offspring of their own. A life lesson.

    So Vampires are trending again. And yes, I guess I write about Vampires, but my Vampires are not Whedon’s. They’re good (for now), and at least one of them is gay. But my women are strong, as the new tradition rightly suggests they should be. Vampires have cheated death, you might say. Something once thought a mere terrifying extra is suddenly filling people’s lives, being identified with, laughed at, and even cheered on.

    And cried at? Well, do you remember Becoming? The Body? Chosen?

    So an ordinary girl becomes a hero, rising to be extraordinary, and so do her friends as they share every bitter end together. And in the end High School is the biggest demon here, one we all have to overcome. If I asked Joss do you think he’d say his High School sat on a Hellmouth and that he fought demons almost every day?

    And yours? What of yours, my friend?

    Shiny.

    Next. . . The Avengers.