Buffy Vs. Blade

Cafe Society
#1

Two different mythologies. Two different methods. Same goal: the eradication of vampires.

And yet… and yet… Blade seems to do a much better job of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d (still, despite this season’s goings-on) love to watch Buffy and the Scoobites kick butt all day long, more than I’d like to watch Blade do so. But in light of the cool approach that Blade and Blade II took towards vampire-bashing, Buffy’s approach looks positively medieval.

I understand that some of the limitations are necessary in order to maintain the series. No guns, I assume, is to keep it from becoming too graphically violent, and thus ending up in a later time slot.

But… it seems to me that the Slayer, in insisting on hand-to-hand combat only, possibly augmented by crossbows, is neglecting her duties. There are so many resources that she and the Scoobies could be drawing on, that they persistently ignore. And now that her own personal life has fallen into a shambles, I’d love to see her simply get serious about going out and wasting vast numbers of undead.

Suggestions:

[ul]
[li]Have the Scoobs learn martial arts.[/li][li]Get some serious weponry; shotguns firing stakes, holy water pistols, multishot pencil guns…[/li][li]Hire help. There are mercenaries that would pay for the opportunity to inflict mayhem without consequences.[/li][li]Artificial sunlight[/li][/ul]
And she should get on the horn to the Watchers’ Council and tell them that if they want an effective Slayer, they’d better damned well cough up some cash. How much sense does it make to have your one-and-only Slayer in the whole wide world spending eight valuable vampire-killing hours a day in the Double Meat Palace?

And if that doesn’t work, surely there are some rich demons out there.

Seriously, these conventions were easy to deal with as long as Buffy had real obligations elsewhere in her life; her family, getting through school, some goal other than being the Slayer. But now that all that has been cast aside, the plot conventions are getting to be grating. She’s been freed up to do her job, and she’s not even doing it well.

Seeing Blade II this weekend, with him as a finely-honed fighting machine, in charge of a vampire-hunting operation, made me realize just what Buffy could turn herself into, given time.

So, would it ruin the show to do so?

#2

Yup.
Buffy waltzing round with Uzi’s firing silver bullets would kinda get dull after a while, a sword would be nice tho…

#3

Ooo, that’d be pretty cool. I’d watch. Maybe if the rumors of a major character getting the ax at the end of this season are true, it’ll be the catalyst for Buffy going all Taxi Driver on the undead. She’s already got a new hair cut, so she’s halfway there…

FTR, the coolest anti-vampire idea I’ve ever seen was in some crappy straight-to-video vampfest years and years ago. The film had two good scenes: the good vampire and the evil vampire fighting with two-handed claymores, and a shot of the heros getting ready for the big rumble by emptying the pellets out of shotgun shells and re-filling them with rosary beads. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to steal that idea for a short story, or an RPG game, or something, but the proper opportunity has yet to present itself.

#4

Especially since it would do much good against vampires. Unless Oz shows up again, all bitter because “Greg the Bunny” flopped.

#5

Right now I’d just settle for Buffy to actually, yknow, slay some vampires.

When Mr. Trick showed up in season 3 I was really hoping he would be a high-tech vampire who actually knew about guns and weapons and such. I really wanted him to take the fight to a different level. Alas, it was not to be.
The initiative sort of flirted with the idea, but it’s hard to tell how well they did that because the whole initiative storyline was so much dreck, with or without nice weapons.
In an alternate universe Riley and Sam are out hunting evil with cool weapons and helicopters. I wish a show of that was playing here. I sure could go for a tv show about fighting evil where the characters actually fight evil.

#6

Yes, maybe that’s the problem–low-tech villains (demons and such) whose weapons are like spells, curses, amulets, etc. It’s just not a fair fight if you go after those guys with guns and such. Don’t you remember how dull the “fight” with The Judge was?

#7

Except that there’s just one Slayer, and, presumably, a bazillion vampires. And demons, and werewolves, and demon/robots…

And in the Buffyverse, silver doesn’t do diddly against vamps, so guns are unlikely to help much. But maybe a few shotguns loaded with stake-rounds, or hell, paint-ball guns loaded with holy water… it doesn’t have to be Deus-ex-Machina level, but a few clever tricks would be nice.

If I recall, it was Darla who originally unloaded a couple of automatics at Buffy back in Season 1. Since then, several have taken advantage of higher tech. And since Buffy no longer has access to SuperWillow, I’d think she’d take any edge she can get.

I guess what gets me is that after years of fighting vampires, she’s still duking it out just like she did when she first started. You’d think that with that much combat experience, she’d have a few tricks up her sleeve. At least the Scoobies should talk to her about how well actual tactics worked, in that one scene where Willow was directing the action from a good vantage point, way back at the start of this season. Sure, she can’t do the Vulcan Mind Broadcast anymore, but family band radios are about $15 apiece anymore.

The plot is progressing, the characters are growing, and the vampire fighting is stagnant. And it’s growing ever more unbelievable that a gang of intelligent, creative, dedicated vampire fighters can’t come up with a better plan than “Get 'im!”

#8

I saw this suggestion on another site, but I voted for Vampire Hunter D.

#9

[disclaimer - I’ve only see up to Buff’s 2nd death. For all I know they might take this into account. But I don’t bet on it.]

The watchers have been around ages, you’d have thought they’d have sorted some stuff out. In John Carpenter’s Vampire$, you got quite a good impression of them figuring things out as they went along.

After all, has anyone ever tried silver bullets? How about silver bullets melted from holy crosses? Or charcoal bullets? A machine gun shooting anything could decapitate a vamp if they did it right. At least Buffy’s training up with the martial arts.

#10

Come on guys, we all know that the way these shows are written, if she carried around a gun it would be just like Brisco County Jr. where at the beginning of every fight, the gun gets knocked out of her hand and she’d have to fight hand to hand anyway. That kind of flashy action just doesn’t fit. Sure, it’d be nice, but then you’d just be getting a bunch of lame gun fights of Buffy walking around shooting unarmed demons and vampires and al the fight scenes would be over way too quick. And of course, it wouldn’t matter, because just like Blade and, more specifically Blade 2, all that high tech stuff wouldn’t work against a major villian. We all know the only way to defeat a major enemy is to beat them to death with our own bear hands (I mean, that’s how I kill all of mine).
And if I recall, there were several episodes where Willow was trying to develope self contained sunlight, but they quickly stopped mentioning that (I think after she accidentally summoned the Troll). I haven’t seen much of this new season, and from what I heard, it’s more story, but in the first episode, I liked just watching her tear the fuck out of guys with her bear hands. It just makes her all that more terrifying to those she’s hunting. Anyone with enough amo and weaponry can kill demons (need I remind everyone Wesley was a demon hunter for a while? Or at least, claimed to be). If she had a little team, that could be cool, but for the most part, they’d make up some story plot to make sure that in the end, it comes down to tooth and nail. And in my opinion, that’s the way it should be. Blade wasn’t scary to all the vampires because he had all those fancy weapons, it was because he was their boogie man…someone with the power to kill them who not even the sunlight could kill. He was a myth to vampires, and a nightmare to those who actually came across him, but his weapons had nothing to do with it. That’s the same thing with the Slayer. High tech weapons or no, that’s what terrifies the demons, and that’s what’s gonna kill you in a dark alley some day.

#11

I think the two are hard to compare, since vamps are a lot easier to kill in the Blade universe (the new bad guys, on the other hand…).

Even so, I find the hand-to-hand showing-off excessive in both. Why punch and kick the monster for a couple minutes when you know it won’t even slow it down? Either kill it, or do something to set it up for the kill. The martial arts rarely seem to be accomplishing much.

#12

Would a squirt gun filled with holy water be outside of the spirit of the show? And I think it would be really interesting for Buffy to come up against someone who is a better fighter than she is, someone that insured she would have to get creative. Not a Glory-god kind of being, just someone who’s spent a lot more time fighting than she has.

It always bugged me a little bit that something with the lifespan of a vampire hasn’t spent more time ensuring that their not gonna get knocked off. It could be a demon who’s obsessed with staying alive. After all, if you were only able to defend yourself half the time and there was someone out there who had been born specifically to kill you, wouldn’t you get paranoid?

#13

I don’t really watch Buffy unless my girlfriend makes me. That said, and correct me if I’m wrong, buffy can be killed by conventional weapons, right? Why can’t some vampire just go to the gun shop, by a Glock and jack her ass up when shes on her way home? Yeah, its not as exciting as biting her head off, but common? At this point, you can’t be picky.

#14

I can’t think of anything witty, so I’m going to resort to a smiley:

:stuck_out_tongue:

I feel so dirty.

#15

Except wowing the audience. Good 'nuff.

#16

A quote from “Flooded”:

It’s weird, 'cause I was just thinking about this today. While I think in some cases, yeah, she should go further high-tech, in a lot of ways the show is based around the mystical rather than the scientific, like Blade. I think Buffy has worked itself around so that there is no such thing as chance: the character that is the most powerful (as defined by the universe it takes place in) invariably must win in a physical conflict. Which is pretty weird, 'cause you’d think that every once in a while, some guy would get a lucky shot.

My final answer? There seems to be some kind of underlying philosophy to how the fights work within the supernatural realm of the Buffyverse, and that philosphy just doesn’t include technology.

msmith, guns have been used against Buffy. In What’s My Line pt. 2, especially. See quote above.

#17

I think it was pretty well settled in “Restless” where in Buffy’s dream she puts down her bag and says “I have weapons.” In the bag is just mud which she smears on her face.

#18

Hah! This reminded me of something very specific that’s been bugging me lately. They teased us with Mr. Trick. In the season three ep “Bad Girls”, a vampire assassin guy tries to kill the Mayor. With a sword. Mr. Trick stops him, and then comments, “Why are they always using swords? It’s called an Uzi chump, woulda saved yo ass right about now.”

And then…and then…in the very next ep, when the Mayor sends him to off Buffy and Faith, he rounds up a bunch of other vamps, and they attack the Slayers (* the Slayers*) with their bare hands (and fangs). No weapons. No Uzis. Not even a sword. WTF???

I just wanted to echo Trick’s words back at him after he got dusted…

#19

I think vampires want to drink the blood of the Slayer. It apparently heals them if suffering from rare poisons and so it must have other nifty properties. Shoting them wastes the blood which is the whole fun of killing a Slayer. Though Spike seemed to just snap the neck of that second Slayer. Maybe he wanted to try the blood a little cooler that time.

#20

Also, there is not as much wire-fu in Buffy as there is in Blade, which is almost all wire-fu.

Buffy once used a rocket launcher against a revived Master. In a crowded mall no less.