revisit – Only Mostly Dead

So this was where it all started.

In 1992 the original movie of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was released. It was written by Joss Whedon, a TV writer who’d worked on Roseanne and would later go on to work on Toy Story.

It wasn’t very good.

But before we get to that, I’ve actually been here before. In 2001, at the height of my fandom, I bought the movie when it was released on DVD. I then wrote this review. It’s interesting how positive I was. To explain/excuse that I should say that it was written for/to the fan community, the received wisdom of whom was that the movie was rubbish and should not be considered as connected to the TV show, which we all loved of course.

Although some of my thoughts on the movie have changed, I don’t intend to write a full re-review as it were. In this blog, I’m largely interested in how things fit in with my own history as a fan.

I can remember hearing about the movie around the time it was released on what was probably Film ’93. Barry Norman thought it was an interesting concept but poorly executed I think. On the strength of that, as was my usual custom at the time, I didn’t make any effort to go see it. When I finally did see it, I was already a fan and happy to find good in it. Now having watched it again with a little of that distance I spoke of yesterday, what do I think?

The thing I think is best about it is still Kristy Swanson. If there’s a moment I liked or a joke I laughed at, she was usually responsible for it. Actually there were other funny moments from Stephen Root as the Principal, but that comedy seemed a little divorced from the film itself.

Two things really stand out on watching it again. One is how static it is, especially in the action scenes. It’s more than needing to “do flippy things and kick each other a bit.” it’s the fact that the reality of any stake (pun unavoidable) or any threat is undermined. Not seeming to either run toward or away from the fight, or expend much effort in it, leaves a feeling that that character doesn’t care much about the outcome. And if they don’t why should I?

The second is the blase way in which everyone reacts to the discovery that vampires are real. Apart from Hilary Swank, whose screaming whilst scenery chewing was way over the top, everyone seems to treat the discovery as mildly annoying or irritating. Even where they say things as if they’re scared for their lives, the acting and delivery of the lines betrays that. Again they don’t really care, so I don’t. I think this comes from a misunderstanding of how to do comedy (he says as if he’s an expert!) – no matter how broad the joke, the actor should play the character’s reactions as real, because to them, within that fictional world it’s real – even if it’s ridiculous and funny to us. As the TV show later proved, you can have great emotional reality and humour side by side.

Anyway, the big question – for me at least – is if, in 1992/3, I’d seen this movie, would I have seen enough in it to want to check out the TV show 5 years later? I think the honest answer is no. I might still have watched but it would have been despite not because. I don’t think I would have thought “here’s a good concept done poorly” I think I would have just dismissed it as a bad movie. Not a bad movie with good parts, just bad.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie: 3/10.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, planning it in fact.

I’m going to re-watch all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in order, and possibly Angel. I think.

I started to think about it back in the early part of last year. From mid-2000 I’ve been a huge BtVS fan. I acquired the videos and later the DVDs and watched them over and over (often in preference to anything new on TV). I discussed each new episode on the internet endlessly with other fans. However when it ended I was not distraught. It had run its course, finished whilst it was still good enough not to tarnish its reputation (others would not agree). I remained, remain, a fan but there’s less to be fannish about. The internet discussions died down and the ones remaining tend to re-visit the same old ground.

Then last year, after some of the dust had settled from moving house, and after I had got over the initial initial excitement of setting up Mythtv, I began to realise I hadn’t watched an episode of Buffy for some time. I began to deliberately not do so i.e. not pick out a favourite ep when I was at a loose end what to watch.
I wanted to have a clear stretch – at least a year – so that I could, to some extent watch them with new eyes. Would they, I nervously wondered, stand up? I think the answer to that is yes for the really good episodes and perhaps less so for others. I was very forgiving of any mistakes when I was in full-on fan mode.

During October, when I had some time off work, I started copying my DVDs onto my Mythtv box. This means I can watch them without getting up to change the disc. In my mind this was all part of the preparation. As I was transcoding them down to smaller files this took 3 or 4 weeks to do them all, plus Angel. Then I got into writing again. Then it was Christmas.

And now, now that I have organised myself time-wise, I am actually going to do it. I think.

Why the hesitation? Well the idea was not just to re-watch them but to review them in my blog – like the Harry Potter re-read. The problem with that is that there are 144 episodes of Buffy and 110 of Angel. That’s 254 45minute episodes. At one a day that would take more than half a year. Of course in the old days I watched four in an evening sometimes. But I wasn’t trying to write anything about them, or about anything else come to that. And even if I accept that it’s a longer term project and maybe take a year or two over it – do I want my blog to be about that for so long? After all my worries about getting people to read is this a good strategy? 3-4 years ago it would have been, even now though there will be people who’d be interested, I’d be discussing things that have been done to death in many ways.

So what to do? Well I think my plan is to definitely watch all the episodes but not necessarily comment on them all. Or perhaps I will comment on groups together with a line or two about the less interesting ones, keeping the focus always on – what it’s like to re-visit them. My goal also is to update this blog a couple of times a week with only one being a Buffy review post.

Another question is what order to do them in. Sounds a silly question – but it’s very tempting to do them in ‘autobiographical’ order – the order I originally watched them in and the meaning that had to me (so my first ep was the first ep but after that I missed a few only later going back when I had them on video/DVD). It’s tempting but I don’t have the memory to get that order right, except for a few key points which I’ll highlight along the way.

Having got that off my chest, and therefore not ‘contaminating’ the reviews themselves with it, I’ll now go and watch the first – which is probably not what you think.