Joss Whedon

[Nicodemus]

Can someone explain to me the appeal of his work?

 

[The Ü™]

To me, he's really good with timing. He knows when and how to portray events. He's very good with build-up and these build-ups tend to have a very satisfying pay-off. I can't think of a better analogy right now, but his style makes you feel kind of like a kid following a candy trail that leads to a van, you pick up small goodies along the way, but then there's a van that you think is full of all the candy your heart desires...and it actually is full of candy your heart desires and not some letdown trap.

 

[Totenkindly]

To me, he's really good with timing. He knows when and how to portray events. He's very good with build-up and these build-ups tend to have a very satisfying pay-off. I can't think of a better analogy right now, but his style makes you feel kind of like a kid following a candy trail that leads to a van, you pick up small goodies along the way, but then there's a van that you think is full of all the candy your heart desires...and it actually is full of candy your heart desires and not some letdown trap.

Well, except for when he blows it up.

He did kinda douchebag Kitty Pride in Astonishing X-Men at the end of the Unstoppable arc. Then again, if you were a careful reader, you would have seen the ending telegraphed a few issues earlier.

His movies are definitely aimed more at the median. I enjoyed Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, as it was the right touch of camp and seriousness, poking fun with cultural references... and the music was actually really decent/witty, on par with anything from Wicked or The Book of Mormon... the singers actually competent.

 

[Qlip]

I love the dynamics that he builds between characters, and how capable he is building an ensemble. Mostly I'm a fan of his TV work.

 

[uumlau]

The primary appeal is his ability to give his characters surprising depth, and the depth of his characters is leveraged to create some remarkably intricate plots that just seem to flow from the base characterization. In the meantime, he can entertain viewers/readers by making his characters interact with each other in very human ways.

There are very few writers who do this well. David Eddings was one such, in my opinion. Other than that, especially in fantasy or sci-fi, the characterization is often a weak point, often reflecting the cognitive biases of the author. It takes great insight into human nature (I would type Whedon as INFJ) to be able to build characters that hide the authors cognitive biases very well.

I find that I usually need to watch an entire season of one of his shows before really understand his characters and appreciate what he's doing with them. Out of context, his episodes will often lack the special charm that most people see in his work, because he doesn't reveal that much of any character at any one time, but rather lets you get to know them by seeing them in many different contexts/stories/episodes. This is, by the way, how he hides his cognitive biases from his audience: he portrays the behaviors very accurately, but only lightly brushes in the attributed motivations. Thus, seeing/reading his work out of context, you see people doing stuff that either makes obvious sense (because the reasons are immediate to what is happening) or make no sense at all or only superficial sense (because the reason was indicated in three other episodes you've not seen). His really great Buffy episodes, such as Hush or the musical episode, for example, simply aren't as enjoyable if you haven't spent time on other episodes and thus understand the Buffy characters.

 

[Nicodemus]

Is 'Buffy' worth giving a try if I think that 'Serenity' is a pretty weak film?

 

[Qlip]

Is 'Buffy' worth giving a try if I think that 'Serenity' is a pretty weak film?

Yes. I didn't care for Serenity. If you don't mind the affects, I'd recommend Firefly. EDIT: It's stronger out of the gate.

 

[Nicodemus]

Yes. I didn't care for Serenity. If you don't mind the affects, I'd recommend Firefly. EDIT: It's stronger out of the gate.

'Firefly' is out of the question: I can't stand Nathan Fillion.

 

[The Ü™]

The Avengers was one of the best movies of 2012, I'd give that one a shot.

 

[Nicodemus]

Already saw that one. 6/10 points.

 

[Qlip]

'Firefly' is out of the question: I can't stand Nathan Fillion.

Ah. I've seen in Castle recently, I don't like him in that much, either. Okay, start with Buffy, but realize that you'll have episodes to slog through before it starts coming together.

I was skeptical about his movie career, because his talents are really made for TV. I saw Avengers. It's not my genre, and what I will say is in agreement with even the most critical of his reviews, he did an amazing job putting together a movie with so many strong characters, and not have it be an utter mess.

 

[Within]

Can someone explain to me the appeal of his work?

Explain it, no. What I can say is that it's probably the same reason as to why I like J.J. Abrams stuff.

 

[uumlau]

Is 'Buffy' worth giving a try if I think that 'Serenity' is a pretty weak film?

I like Firefly enough that I enjoy rewatching it every few years; I don't feel tempted to rewatch Serenity.

So yeah, I think it might be, but keep in mind the "context" points I made above. When I first saw a Buffy episode, it was maybe from the middle of season 1 or season 2, and it held zero interest for me at all. I watched it seriously at the urging of an INFJ friend of mine. The first season is so-so (not bad, but it sets the groundwork), seasons 2 and 3 are where the plot(s) really take off, and it gets pretty fun. After that, the overarching plots are a bit weak in my estimation (instead of monster of the week, it's monster of the year, where seasons 2 and 3 overarching plots focused on character issues), but the character development subplots remain superb. Season 4 has "Hush" and season 6 has "Once More With Feeling" (the musical episode).

 

[cafe]

For me, if I have to pin it down, what I like is the way he creates, develops, and explores his characters. I also like the way he explores the concepts of human nature and good/evil. He covers a lot of serious stuff, but the humor keeps it from total bleakness and despair or taking itself too seriously. Firefly, Angel, and Dr. Horrible are my favorites.

 

[Totenkindly]

'Firefly' is out of the question: I can't stand Nathan Fillion.

His deltoids of compassion scare the bejeebers out of me.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I agree with what uumlau said, on a couple of points. I’d caught parts of episodes back when it was on the air and couldn’t have been less interested. I only started watching Buffy a couple years ago because so many of my friends love the show- I was sick of missing references- and I’d just seen Firefly for the first time and really liked it, so I forced myself to watch the first several episodes. A catchy rapport really does build up between the characters. It’s enough to keep watching for the first few seasons (even though most people I know loved it even then, I only kinda liked the first half of this series), and then I really started to like it after that. And the characters I ended up liking the most are ones that I really didn’t like at all initially. There are a couple that never stop being annoying, but there is surprising depth in most of them. I mean- [possible spoiler] I think it’s the fourth season- Buffy wants to die for pretty much the entire season. It’s believable, and it’s really not easy to write a show in which the character struggles with the will to live yet the audience doesn’t walk away feeling like they’ve just watched The Bad Lieutenant or Doom Generation or whatnot. [eta: But like uumlau said, I don't think anyone could really get what makes the later seasons so good if you start there- you have to watch the previous seasons to form familiarity with the characters first.]

For some reason Firefly really did catch right away. I wouldn’t have guessed it, since I’d seen the movie first and didn’t especially like it. But it’s definitely ‘strongest out of the gate’ of all Whedon’s series. And if I hadn’t watched it (which I did out of boredom one day) then I would never have watched his other series. Fillion is horrible (imo) in Castle, at least the few that I watched- and I actually found him annoying in Dr. Horrible too- but I really liked him in Firefly.

 

[KDude]

Early Buffy is pretty good. When Cordelia was still a bitch (and funnier), Spike was Evil (and funnier), and the "big bad" were run of the mill vampires (after awhile they had to escalate the villains to apocalyptic levels).