{"id":3452,"date":"2009-05-26T18:15:11","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T22:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3452"},"modified":"2009-05-26T17:00:20","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T21:00:20","slug":"raising-the-undead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3452","title":{"rendered":"Raising the undead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The big talk in the blogverse today — well, besides this<\/a>, or this<\/a> — is of a planned Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em> reboot<\/a>. This is obviously a very bad idea<\/a>, especially since it will reportedly be without the involvement of creator Joss Whedon. Whedon, however, doesn’t own the rights to the character — Fran Rubel Kuzui, the director of the original Buffy<\/em> film, does — so such a project could conceivably go forward:
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

The new “Buffy” film, however, would have no connection to the TV series, nor would it use popular supporting characters like Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike. Vertigo and [Fran Rubel] Kuzui are looking to restart the story line without trampling on the beloved existing universe created by Whedon, putting the parties in a similar situation faced by Paramount, J.J. Abrams and his crew when relaunching “Star Trek.”<\/font><\/font>One of the underlying ideas of “Buffy” allows Vertigo and Kuzui to do just that: that each generation has its own vampire slayer to protect it. The goal would be to make a darker, event-sized movie that would, of course, have franchise potential.<\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suppose nobody told Kuzui that her Buffy<\/em> movie wasn’t very good? (Seriously, I don’t think many people are waiting around for the return of Kristy Swanson or Luke Perry’s Pike.)<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


\nThe worst thing about the success of the new Star Trek<\/em> reboot is that it’s encouraging this sort of behavior, suggesting remakes where none needs to be made. Just because you can<\/em> kickstart a series doesn’t mean you should. What’s especially annoying about this one, however, is that, unlike the Trek<\/em> franchise, the Buffy<\/em> brand is still going strong<\/a>. It doesn’t need<\/em> a kickstart.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Occasionally a reboot can work — I’ve gone into some detail<\/a> on why I think the new Star Trek<\/em> doesn’t — but there needs to be a reason<\/em> for it, beyond corporate synergy or the desire to make lots of money. Battlestar Galactica<\/em>, for instance, worked — when it worked, which wasn’t always, and with increasingly less frequency as the series went on — because it took a relatively bad<\/em> series, or at least one that was not well loved or well remembered, and made it its own, with its own story to tell.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

You could argue that it ultimately failed in the telling, but I don’t think you could argue that the attempt was without merit.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Kuzui’s attempt, however, seems like exceptionally poor judgment. I’m hoping there’s no truth to this story, or the idea will die a merciful death in committee.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Unless, of course, Whedon does<\/em> get involved. Then I might<\/em> be willing to consider it.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big talk in the blogverse today — well, besides this, or this — is of a planned Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. This is obviously a very bad idea, especially since it will reportedly be without the involvement of creator Joss Whedon. Whedon, however, doesn’t own the rights to the character — Fran Rubel … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[36,14],"class_list":["post-3452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-buffy","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}