Yeah, I'm going there

[next_to_normal]

I've seen a couple posts now regarding Season 8 and Promethea and how they might be related. I'm not in any way qualified to talk about this, since I've never read Promethea, and my interest in Season 8 vanished long ago. But when has that stopped me from talking? lol

Anyway, the thing that got me thinking was eilowyn's comparison to Batman. The short version is this:

Season 8 : Promethea :: Batman and Robin : The Dark Knight

And it seemed like the criticism of that comparison is, "Batman and Robin wasn't meant to be serious, so you can't criticize it by saying, 'It's not serious enough.'" And that's where I started thinking (always dangerous, I know).

I think maybe the point isn't to say that Batman and Robin would've been better if it were more serious. I think it's to say that the source material (the story of Batman) is more suited to a serious, gritty tone than a cheesy, tongue-in-cheek one. And that's why The Dark Knight works better as a movie - because the storytelling matches the story.

I get that Batman and Robin wasn't meant to be serious, and that's exactly what's wrong with it. It's taking a serious story and telling it in an incompatible tone. The cheesiness undercuts the inherently tragic nature of Batman, which makes it neither a compelling drama nor a comedic romp. You can't make it better simply by cutting out the jokes. You have to tell a totally different story.

And that's the argument being made about Season 8, I think. It's not the appropriate tone for the source material. The bubblegum art doesn't fit the style of the TV series, the sentient Universe explanation doesn't fit the mythology of the TV series, the over-the-top space fucking doesn't fit the tone of the TV series, etc. And people are citing Promethea as an example of a similar story where they got those things right. The storytelling (art, mythology, tone, etc.) is suited to the story that Alan Moore is trying to tell (I'm assuming - like I said, I haven't actually read it). I think for a lot of people, Season 8's storytelling doesn't match the story of Buffy that we watched for seven years.

I don't think eilowyn or angearia are saying "Batman and Robin should be more like The Dark Knight." Batman and Robin was simply the wrong story to tell with that material. Season 8 is the wrong story to tell with this material. The take away I get isn't, "Season 8 should be more like Promethea!" but rather, "Season 8 should be more like Buffy... and a good way to do that is to examine how a really good comic with some notable similarities (Promethea) synthesizes the elements of its own story, and apply those techniques to the Buffyverse."

Redundant Disclaimer is Redundant: All art is subjective. That means that other people might think Season 8 is totally cut from the same cloth as the TV series. That doesn't mean the people who see a problem are wrong. It suggests that they latched onto different elements of the show, which may or may not have been carried over to the comics.

Now, y'all go ahead and argue. :) Except I don't really have enough knowledge to go deeper than that, and I'll be at class most of tonight anyway, so the arguing thing isn't likely to go anywhere, lol.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, and I apologize if my post came across a little grumpy, but... I just don't think Batman is a very good example, is all I'm saying. Frank Miller's comic The Dark Knight Returns (which is fantastic) was itself a reaction to what Batman had become during the 70s and 80s. (A lot of people didn't like Miller's take on him for that very reason; they didn't want their Batman (not to mention their Superman) that dark.) And Nolan's Dark Knight films are a reaction to what the franchise became in the 90s with Batman And Robin. Batman's been around for 70 years, and in that time he's been everything from a go-go-dancing shark-repelling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jg2okfrmR4) clown to a psychotic murderer - several times over. Unlike with Buffy, there's not one single source material to choose from. Will some people prefer one Batman over another? Obviously. Is one take inherently more correct than another? No. Batman And Robin's problem isn't that Joel Schumacher tried to recreate the feel of the TV series, that's a perfectly valid take on the characters; the problem is that (much like Season 8 so far) he failed.

An example. A couple of years ago, Miller wrote another story (named, confusingly enough, Batman And Robin.) It depicted the first meeting of Batman and Robin thus:

Is it supposed to be dark? Yup. And yet a lot more people laughed their asses off at it than even cracked a smile at Schumacher's movie. The problem, with both Schumacher's and Miller's wildly different Batman And Robins, isn't that they choose the wrong interpretation of the story; it's that they try to pick one way to tell the story and don't do it well. The comedy isn't funny; the dark psychodrama is hilarious.

Though at least neither of them had Batman and Robin Catwoman having sex in space. So call it a plus. :)

[next_to_normal]

Well, I didn't pick Batman as the analogy, I was just going with what was suggested. Maybe another franchise would've been better. But the Batman analogy DID resonate with me quite a bit because I've never liked the lighter interpretations of the character. (Full disclosure: I've never read any of the comics, so I'm certainly not aware of the full range of interpretations.) I thought the Adam West version was boring and too silly, and I never could get into it. And I didn't even bother to see the 90s movies because they looked ridiculous. It wasn't until Batman Begins that I went, "OH. Now I get why everyone loves Batman so much."

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to turn this into the "We love Batman!" thread. :) And while I really like Burton's movies - you should at least give the first two a go, as Emmie said they do a great job of mixing darkness and comedy - I definitely agree that Nolan's movies (the second in particular) are a very good take on the story. They're just not the only take on the story.

And now I'm wondering... if the Kuzuis' Buffy reboot ever gets made, and is "darker and edgier" as promised, will the new fans decry the TV series for being too silly? :)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

You know, I think the counterargument of "it wasn't funny" is just saying the exact same thing. Because what does it take to be funny? It takes the proper set up of tone, timing and context (knowing the mythology so well that you can make jokes about it: "Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday." or Xander: "...go for the eyes. Everything's got eyes."/Dawn: "Except the Bringers.")

But throughout Season 8, there hasn't been a single climax for a story arc that fubar'd the tone so completely. WatG had the satire funny of Mecha Dawn and the Willow & Buffy talk a lot while Satsu falls to her death, but it was also extremely dark in tone as well. The balance of tone is what makes the funny still funny and the dark still dark. When Dracula is all in shadow and says "fear the old man" it's awesome, when Xander beheads Toru, again awesome. And DARK and serious. Just as Renee's death is treated seriously.

That's the difference. There's knowing when to tell a joke. Batman & Robin doesn't know when to tell a joke, or how or probably why, so the whole thing becomes a laughable joke. Same thing with Twilight. Over the top worldending space frakking, the world being blown to bits, and at the literal moment of climax, Buffy and Angel are fucking in space with a dialogue bubble that pokes fun at there being no sound in space? It's a bad joke that destroys the drama.

It destroys the balance and turns the entire thing into a joke. Just as all of Batman & Robin turns into a joke because the balance is off.

Being funny is about timing and tone. So yeah, again I think we're talking about the same things. And Batman & Robin is still a relevant example.

But I also agree with Eowyn about this:And I didn't even bother to see the 90s movies because they looked ridiculous. It wasn't until Batman Begins that I went, "OH. Now I get why everyone loves Batman so much." Batman never became a huge storytelling deal until it took itself seriously (and I mean more huge deal in box office bang for popularity and critical acclaim as ways to measure it). Even the 90's movies don't stand up to The Dark Knight imo. But at least the 90's movies had a better balance of funny and darkness. And that's the thing about Buffy--it blends the comedy and drama, so that they're two distinct flavors. That's why BtVS was so great--the flavors didn't get lost or overpowered. This is true of WatG, I think. However, in Twilight, it gets lost and becomes overpowered by the wrong timing, pace and poorly chosen jokes. When does the drama get to breathe if it never gets its own moment? If we go by Meltzer's example, maybe Goddard should've thrown in more jokes during Renee's death scene and really hammed it up.

Anyways, I see "the problem is that the movie wasn't funny" as a just a lead up to "why wasn't it funny?" Because Teh Funny is an art form, just like Teh Drama. Meltzer didn't know how to do either all that well, but he put too much emphasis on Teh Funny starting with Issue 32 when he geekgasmed over Comics References Jokes instead of Buffyverse Jokes, and the geekgasming kept on coming and coming and coming. ;-)

I think we're talking about the same thing, but using different terminology like it somehow makes our two points different... which it doesn't really.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Imma beg forgiveness now for editing like crazy. Sorry, y'all!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I partly disagree. What does it take to be funny? Actually being funny. True, jokes don't work in a vacuum, they need to fit into the main context, but the jokes still have to actually work. My point was that Batman isn't necessarily a serious story - for most of the franchise's existence, with notable exceptions in the late 80s and late 00s - it was frequently only slightly grimmer than Superman, and occasionally completely screwball. B&R shouldn't be criticized for being a lighthearted comedy, which is how I understood the "not meant to be serious" comment; it might have been a great one. It deserves criticism for being a bad lighthearted comedy, with a weak script and actors who have no idea what they're doing. Which may be splitting hairs, but hopefully you know what I mean; it's the difference between, say, Airplane! and Disaster Movie. Both are crazy comedies about serious subjects; in one, you can tell that nobody takes their job seriously.

But throughout Season 8, there hasn't been a single climax for a story arc that fubar'd the tone so completely.

Well, I'd say most of them have, but Twilight is a special brand of wtf, definitely.

Batman never became a huge storytelling deal until it took itself seriously (and I mean more huge deal in box office bang for popularity and critical acclaim as ways to measure it)

Quoth Wikipedia: [Burton's] Batman opened on June 23, 1989, grossing $43.6 million in 2,194 theaters during its opening weekend. This broke the opening weekend record, set by Ghostbusters II one week earlier, with $29.4 million.[42] Batman would eventually gross $251.2 million in North America and $160.15 million internationally, totaling $411.35 million.[43] Batman was the first film to earn $100 million in its first ten days of release,[1] and was the highest grossing film based on a DC comic book, until 2008's The Dark Knight.[44] The film is 42nd highest ever in North American ranks.[45] Although Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade made the most money worldwide in 1989,[46] Batman was able to beat The Last Crusade in North America,[47] and made a further $150 million in home video sales.[48]

It then goes on to mention that fans criticized Burton for making it (quote) "too dark" (end quote). Personally, I think Burton's two movies hold up really well; it's only after that that things go wrong very quickly.

and the geekgasming kept on coming and coming and coming. ;-)

*puffs on cigarette* Was it good for you too? :)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Right, but isn't that largely covered by "tone, timing and context"? When you say again "being funny", that's not a quantifiable state. There's an innate understanding of how to undercut or overemphasize or satirize--and it's about knowing where to push, how much, and when. I think it is an artform, but in all art there's technique that we can define.

I believe my response to the initial argument that B&R shouldn't be criticized because it's not trying to be serious was my going "um, I don't even know how to respond to that because B&R is awful for so many more reasons than it not being serious, including the actors and the awfulness of AWFUL" or something. Actually, I think the comparison has been a bit lost here.

To refocus, B&R fubars the balance of tone. And just as the actors suck it, so does Jeanty's art in Twilight in convincing emotion. As does the writing which fubars the tone. Where as when the writing is strong enough (like Whedon, Goddard, Vaughan or Espenson on a good day) that the bothersome tone of the art doesn't impeded feeling the characters (when Jeanty's on a good day)--but when both fail, when both ring a bit hollow, then the house of cards falls.

B&R and Twilight are both examples of stories that try and pretty much fail abysmally. And I think it all comes back to tone and failing to understand how to make the source material funny and when to make the source material serious. In understanding the balance, and producing the balance relies on good execution.

Anyways, since we're on the subject of humor, I was thinking about how BtVS is mostly wordplay humor and character humor and poking fun at itself. Like: "Out. For. A. Walk... Bitch." is character humor for Spike because it's undercut by him hopelessly stalking her, then he goes on to insult her hair--it's totally driven by his character and how he's putting on a show. Or "I'm a bloodsucking fiend, just look at my outfit!" is funny for the line itself, but it's even more funny because it's Willow saying it and Willow puts so much stock in what she's wearing and how others perceive her. She thinks wearing the leather is enough, by God, and all those vampires should, too.

Or Xander and Harmony's slapfight which is humor on two levels--first that it's Xander and Harmony.. SLAPFIGHTING. Because yes, that is how Harmony would fight, and why yes, that is how Xander would get drawn into a fight with Harmony because inside he still has his petty little Boyness. And the epic music and slow motion take it even further, that this is the most epic fight of epicness ever in a show that has actual epic fight scenes. So it's poking fun at itself by taking something too seriously that isn't serious at all. And it's brilliant. (Well, I imagine some people wouldn't find it funny. Like stormwreath who doesn't like OTT humor. But he's strange and British and also didn't like the rocket launcher scene in Him and I hope you aren't about to say you didn't like it either otherwise I might have to rethink my stance on you being the funniest person on my flist.)

Which I'm gonna bring back around to say that I think the humor pandered to in Twilight isn't really Buffyverse humor. Where the humor derives from the characters acting ridiculously because they have silly, silly egos which then collide with their environment. Xander geeking out over Buffy's superpowers kinda, sorta works, but it goes on too long. And after that point, I can't remember an example of the humor genuinely embracing its origin in characterization. The jokes are just jokes, they're not that funny, they're poorly timed so that the jokes deflate the drama, and they don't tell us anything about the characters. So yeah.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Right, but isn't that largely covered by "tone, timing and context"?

Largely, sure, but I was thinking of it from the perspective of how the movie's made. Those things are largely the job of the actors and director; there has to be a funny script there too. B&R is one of those rare instances where it all comes together; where you have clueless actors (did Alicia Silverstone ever make another movie after this?) in cringe-inducing costumes delivering supremely unfunny lines on a set that looks like a latter-day Michael Jackson video. It's a complete failure, right across the board. It wouldn't have been the same mess if there'd been a decently funny script underneath. ;)

But yeah, with this

B&R is awful for so many more reasons than it not being serious, including the actors and the awfulness of AWFUL

I think we're basically agreed.

Anyways, since we're on the subject of humor, I was thinking about how BtVS is mostly wordplay humor and character humor and poking fun at itself.

Hmmm... I better leave this alone or I'll have to write an entire essay on the use of humour in BtVS. :) But yeah, I agree that that's at the heart of BtVS as comedy, but I think there's also a broader use of humour to play off familiar stories and tropes. Humour is much more than just comedy.

and I hope you aren't about to say you didn't like it either otherwise I might have to rethink my stance on you being the funniest person on my flist.

Funniest. Scene. Ever.

And after that point, I can't remember an example of the humor genuinely embracing its origin in characterization. The jokes are just jokes, they're not that funny, they're poorly timed so that the jokes deflate the drama, and they don't tell us anything about the characters.

Very good point. Though I'm sure I could think of some examples both to support and question that, but damnit, it's HOT here. :)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

It's a complete failure, right across the board. It wouldn't have been the same mess if there'd been a decently funny script underneath.

Right. Though it still feels a bit comparable in that the acting/characterization is off for "Twilight", the script isn't funny but has poorly timed jokes that even manage to offend the drama (okay: me). And then you have Jeanty's art that gives it the wack vibe of tone/style. But it's much better when you have a Whedon-penned script behind it--it's not the same mess when you have Whedon or Vaughan or Goddard. When it's Meltzer, it's a HOT mess. :p

I think the message folks took away from the analogy Season 8:Promethea::B&R:The Dark Knight was overly simplistic when you say the only different ic serious and campy. It's more about execution. On the far right, you have campy that fails also in execution so the campy is just bad. On the left you have serious that succeeds in execution so it does incredibly well. To say it's just about serious vs. campy is to miss the necessary final step.

Hmmm... I better leave this alone or I'll have to write an entire essay on the use of humour in BtVS. :)

You know, I was just pondering thinking about this. I think it'd make for a really interesting post. Maybe try to think about the different kinds of humor and how they're well-executed. And think of the funniest moments in the series. I think we talk so much about the drama of the show, and we talk so much about the screw-ups, but mostly when it's funny we just laugh and go OMG HILARIOUS (okay: me) and that's all. It'd be nifty to have some analysis of the humor. With our powers combined...

Funniest. Scene. Ever.

♥

Very good point. Though I'm sure I could think of some examples both to support and question that, but damnit, it's HOT here. :)

Ice cube?

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I suppose what I'm saying is that in a reductionist method, I can tear down the B&R and Twilight into the reasons why they failed and I find them remarkably similar (oh, and I hope no one misunderstands the "tear down" phrase as anything but where you simply use reductionism--no deliberately implied negative intended, though enjoy the double entendre if you like). They're playing in the kiddie pool version of Batman and Buffy--they don't demonstrate a deep enough understanding of the source material to make the jokes resonate in-character nor have the story resonate in-verse.

I remember Whedon saying how excited he was that Meltzer could write the characters voices, and I think now "voices, maybe a bit, but does he understand how to write the characters?" It's why I'm uneasy when people praise me for "Oh, the voices were so perfect!" in my fic. Voice is important, but there's sounding like the person, then there's truly embodying the character. That's my problem with Twilight--it doesn't even bare much resemblance to BtVS, the characters begin to disconnect and feel unlike themselves, and though the speech patterns may jive a bit, it feels like you're squinting through water trying to see and understand. And then you begin to suspect you're only looking at empty puppets with a pseudo-convincing voice track.


*puffs on cigarette* Was it good for you too? :)

Seems more like the situation where you wonder "What in the hell did I just get into? Dear God, I wasn't even drunk."