From TVGuide.com:
Looks like SMG is trying her hardest to cut ties to Buffy. Her choice, of course, but doing Scooby-Doo movies hardly seems like a step up. But possible Buffy cartoon- how neat! I thought that idea had died off along with Ripper. Guess not.
I would watch it-- you?
I’m definitely watching- just wondering if it will be a kiddie cartoon or for older audiences- esp RE Willow-sapphic-goodness L
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, especially for action/humor oriented cartoons (c.f. Jackie Chan Adventures). If they don’t go the dual route, then don’t expect anything there for adults, at least if it’s to be played on a network that can afford a decent budget.
A Buffy cartoon is something that I might tentatively watch, even though I don’t like Buffy - I’m a weirdass cartoon buff. But I’d be skeptical.
Hard to tell what the exact tone will be. From what I’ve seen (mostly through AICN links), the setting takes place during Season 1, except that it’s a version of Season 1 that includes Dawn as an already-existing sister (Yep, the whole series is from Dawn’s false memories). Since Willow wasn’t aware of her “sapphic-goodness” until Season 4, I doubt it will be center stage here. But since a lot of the same people are making the show, get ready for it to be foreshadowed extensively.
The single most important question that must be answered about this series: is it canon?
Off the top of my head the only other show I can think of that spawned an animated continuation is Star Trek. I see no reason why ST:TAS shouldn’t be canon but apparently The Fans Have Spoken and the verdict is “it’s not canon, except for that one episode with Spock as a kid, because we really like that one.” Me, I call bullshit on that but I seem to have missed the vote. Similarly I can’t see why the Buffy TAS wouldn’t be considered canon should it come to pass.
Comments?
Otto, if Dawn is there, it’ll probably be “canon” as far as the Scoobies are concerned. That is, we’re seeing their magicked memories. But it won’t be canon as far as the audience is concerned. For example, if it was set in S2 and Angelus grabbed Dawn instead of Willow in the school. Well, as far as we’re concerned, he grabbed Willow, but they remembering him grabbing Dawn…
And I just went cross eyed.
S1 means no Oz right?
If so, bummer.
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask about the allusions to some falling-out or something between Gellar and Whedon. What happened? Or is Gellar just trying to break away from being typecasted? Any Buffy fans want to fill me in?
SMG was pretty upset about the direction Buffy took in S6. As far as I can tell, her main complaint was that Buffy the character lost popularity. At any rate, she didn’t think Buffy was “in character”, and she really shut down acting wise. Fury commented that it was impossible to direct her, so they just stopped trying to get anything from her S6 and S7.
She blamed Joss for that because he was off-set, working on Firefly. In Seasons 1-5, SMG was pretty active when it came to writing/directing, but her participation had a sharp decrease when Whedon made fewer and fewer appearances on the set of Buffy.
Also, I get the impression that Whedone was just plain, flat-out tired of BtVS. His real love was Firefly, and I think Angel took a close second at the time.
Things got really bad at the end of S7, when the future of BtVS and the whole franchise was up in the air. Angel was on the bubble, Firefly was already cancelled, and SMG was treading water. Finally, late in the game, she announced she was “hanging up her stakes” in Entertainment Weekly. As you can imagine, Joss (and the rest of the cast) wasn’t thrilled to hear the news from the press. (As an aside, Eliza Dushku pulled the same stunt when she accepted the role in Tru Calling. Before that, they were talking Faith spinoff).
So, tensions were high, and the writers (Fury, Minear, Goddard immediately spring to mind) pretty much had nothing nice to say about SMG. Allison Hannigan also had nothing nice to say. James Marsters never commented on her at all–he’s a firm believer in not speaking ill of his costars, so he just stopped speaking of her. But she still told Joss and announced publically she’d be willing to do an episode of Angel.
They planned for her to show up in episode 100, 5.12 You’re Welcome. That was the plan. And then she announced…in a magazine again…that she would not be able to make it. This infuriated DB, who up until this time never seemed to have a problem with her and even spouted off Angel/Buffy rhetoric on occasion. he called her unprofessional and it was very clear that he was not pleased.
Afterward, SMG tried to do some spin control and announced she’d love to show up for the finale if they asked her. Jeff Bell announced in an interview that they had already plotted the finale, and it would not include her. He further went on to add that they wrote The Girl in Question and they didn’t need her.
All in all, I don’t think SMG walked away from BtVS or AtS with a single relationship intact.
… and that’s a clever decision, actually. Viewing it as if it were Dawn’s “memories” makes it a perfectly acceptable sub-canon canon. I think this allows them more freedom to take the show wherever they’d like.
And that way we can all say, “Didn’t happen!” if it’s a stinker.
That’s sad. I hate finding out that the actors whose works (or characters) I enjoy aren’t very nice people.
RE SMG- a few years from now, when career desperation is high & if the money is good, a Buffy reunion invitation will be met with tears of joy.
Well pardon me, but that is just brilliant. I’ll be watching.
On a slight side-note, I don’t know how many of you have had opportunity to play the Buffy videogames on Xbox, but Giselle Loren will be a more-than-capable replacement for SMG voice-wise.
The girl does a fantastic impression. I wasn’t even aware that SMG wasn’t doing the voiceover until after the first game was over, and bothered to read the credits.
I too am unhappy that SMG turned out to be such a prima-donna. I think there’s a pretty wide gap between becoming typecast, and burning every bridge on the way out the door. Sad she decided to pursue the latter course.
I read an interview a while back that said that they’d like to introduce Oz at some point even if they’re sticking with the s1 Buffyverse. On one hand, that would disqualify the 'toon from being canon; on the other hand, I like Oz.
I wonder if they’d be able to get Seth Green. He’s already done voice acting on Family Guy.
If they really do stick with the s1 thing, I’d like to see them use the Master some. He was always my favorite Big Bad. I don’t think they’ll stick to continuity well enough for the 'toon to be considered canon, though. A new Buffy series in which they resist the temptation to bring in Spike? I wish, but I doubt it.
Hey, no reason this can’t extend to Season 2 as well. Or, if it’s easier, to bring in Spike via a flashback to the Angelus days.
Personally, I’d love to see a cameo by Mayor Wilkins.
If James Marsters was telling the truth about his future project(s)–right now I’m more than little skeptical about what he claimed–he’ll be too busy to participate in the cartoon. Although, he did leave the door open for a Spike TV movie. I’m skeptical about that too.
JM claimed that somebody is giving him $50 million to do his dream project–MacBeth. he claims he’ll be doing that for the next 3 years, and to show his commitment, he dissolved his band.
I’ve been getting into Buffy via the FX reruns over the past month and will probably try to watch this as well, if it happens. Being so new to the show, I have no comments on its plans to use Dawn’s memories to redo S1 though.
The producers decided it wasn’t canon, not the fans. Notice the episodes aren’t listed in the Encyclopedia whereas every other episode produced for all the other series have (as of the date of publishing, naturally). No matter how much the fanboys whine and cry how something isn’t canon (like they have for ten years now about Voyager and Enterprise), it’s up to the Powers that Be to decide what is and is not fact within the universe.
Well that’s even stupider then. They made the shows, made money off them, presumably still make money off them somewhere. They’re canon.
If the producers get to decide what’s canon and what isn’t then surely ST5: The Wrath of Shatner would have been stricken from the record a decade ago.