Press this button to skip down past Star Wars junk
Jar Jar Binks - George Lucas's best
creative idea since about 1984
These posters are more entertaining than
the last 3 Star Wars movies:
Joss Whedon
In contrast to the Star Wars rubbish or a Star Trek franchise now on
life support, I'd argue that the best entertainment of the past 10
years has been just about anything done by Joss Whedon.
Buffy,
Angel, Firefly, the Serenity movie - it's all been good
Here's a screed I posted after Serenity
was released in 2005. It's a pity there won't be a second
Serenity movie
Monday, October 03, 2005
Now I feel sorry for George Lucas.
I admired him for a while, after he made the first Star Wars trilogy.
They weren't brilliant but they were FUN and you walked away feeling
like the people involved had the intention of doing a good job and
cared enough about the audience to do their best. Then the Phantom
Menace and the rest of the prequel trilogy came out and it became
abundantly clear that Lucas has traded in his passion for cool computer
effects and a big bank account. They may as well have been written by
someone whose recreational drug of choice is Prozac.
Then there's Star Trek.
I used to love Star Trek too because even when an individual show was
mediocre, there was some idealism and the desire to tell a thought-
provoking story. Then they turned a talented ensemble into bit players
in the Picard and Data show. Then they misread their blind luck in
casting a gorgeous voluptuous woman (Jeri Ryan) who also happens to
have a brain and can ACT. And they hired a voluptuous model with no
discernible personality (or acting skills) to play a Vulcan in the lame
show Enterprise. So now the Star Trek franchise is on life support as
well?
What's left that's worth seeing? ANY damn thing that Joss Whedon does.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was brilliant. The casting was brilliant, a
solid ensemble who seemed to have fun with what they were doing. The
writing was outstanding. The story arcs were TIGHT and left you dying
to see what would happen next. People of all kinds loved the stories
without putzing around worrying that they were gaga over a damn liberal
(or conservative) show. These comments apply to Angel as well.
But Firefly (and now Serenity) is a completely different animal.
Firefly is what you would get if Joss Whedon took ALL the right lessons
from Buffy and Angel, took all the lessons learned from those projects
and used them to jump his work up a level or two in quality. If he
miraculously found another very talented but under appreciated ensemble
cast and created compelling stories that had his fans clamoring for
more. And that's clearly what happened.
However, Firefly was cancelled WAY to early, due to network idiocy
that's clearly more interested in milking lots of money without
creating good stories. "Why spend money when we can get the public to
waste their time watching reality TV?"
Fortunately, Joss Whedon has had a shot at bringing back Firefly this
past week as the feature film Serenity.
I have to admit, I was worried that the story would be too aimed at
pleasing Firefly fans, to the point that newbies seeing it wouldn't get
a good story out of it. It wasn't. Several friends seeing it with no
prior exposure to Firefly have asked how they missed such an amazing
show.
I was prepared to sit down to a "pretty good" movie and settling for
that.
It wasn't. It was so freaking amazing, so damn good that I left the
theater almost in shock, that my first words posted after seeing it
kept talking about it being made to such a high standard that my nose
would probably be bleeding for hours. Whedon outdid himself. The cast
was tremendously enjoyable, the dialogue sharp and witty, the story
compelling. I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. I was gut
punched and blindsided and dazzled and had the time of my life.
This movie was so freaking good that I saw it twice in two days and
can't wait to see it with another friend, later this week. I haven't
been that bowled over and thrilled by a movie since the first Star Wars
movie.
And that's why I feel sorry for George Lucas. He'll never do that
again.
He may have many times more money than Joss Whedon but Lucas will never
craft a story a fraction as good as the original Star Wars (which now
seems mundane and idiotic compared to Firefly/Serenity) again for as
long as he lives. He may make more movies but his good work is all over
20 years old.
Whedon's career is still very young, he's accomplished and he's shown
that he wants to keep creating better work, not to create a franchise
he can milk just to fill a bank account.
