I would have liked a resolution that made it seem more self-contained, rather than a pilot for a show we might never get see made. (But my fingers are crossed.) I suppose it’s hard to have a sunshine and birdsong ending when we were rooting for a character that wanted to enter the Evil Society of Evil, and against the jerky superhero. I still want a Captain Hammer t-shirt though.
If Joss Whedon had had a great time in high school, none of us would be having this conversation right now.
I just want to know who his RL Kitty Pryde/River/Penny was.
… fifty cents suggest she might have been Kitty Pryde… not the real one, the one in the comics.
Edit: Yes, there is a real Kitty Pryde. She goes by K. D. Pryde now, thanks to the attention.
I’m not sure you can really put Penny with River. I was actually thinking about this the other night; given Joss’s penchant for Power Girls, Penny was a remarkably stereotypical superhero love interest, not at all like his usual female characters.
I think a particularly clever bit of foreshadowing was how, in the first act, Hammer almost kills Penny by acting without thinking it through first - he smashes the van-control device, the van goes out of control, and it nearly kills Penny. In the last act, Penny dies when Hammer pulls the trigger on the death ray, while Horrible is begging him not to, and it blows. Hammer messes with things he doesn’t understand, and people get hurt - and that’s what makes him contemptible.
Man, watching that ending hurt. I loved that very last shot of Horrible, though. “Anything.” Poor bastard.
This is comics.
Since when is death in comics permanent? We have a mad scientist and a dead body. What do you think will happen? (And then, presto! She goes mad, hates them both, with powers.)
Well, if we deconstruct what the doc wanted, he said he was going to ‘show her that he was a true villain’. He certainly did that. I will say, though, that
Her last words
Almost tore my heart out.
I stumbled on this… yet stand in awe.
I must say, two songs made me appreciate this very much:
-
The duet between Dr. Horrible and Penny. Especially since the content of their songs is a perfect opposition. Sadly, it wasn’t scored by Bach. What would he done with that theme?
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The jarring counterpoint to Captain Hammer’s “uplifting” song. That, in itself, is a very well written song. It gives the “villain” a voice that, in any other movie, would actually be the climax. (Maybe that’s why everyone disliked it? Because it actually made one sympathize with Hammer? And even underscored those feelings with the occasional reference to his bad traits?) It’s followed by a dissonance, sung by the “hero”. Who, in that scene is actually acting like he should, in accordance with comic book lore.
In other words, I guess I’m saying that the third act’s score isn’t as compelling… because it’s far more complex. But it’s every bit as good as the previous ones.
The birdsong was the ending of Act II - “…the birds are singing that you’re gonna die!” 
Nothing so deep. I just didn’t find it as catchy. 
I have, however, been singing Brand New Day to myself all day.
“Go ahead and laugh / Yeah I’m a funny guy!”
It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. Entertaining, diverting, fun stuff - never thought I’d hear a quality song like that about a freeze ray, for one thing.
As for foreshadowing and recurring themes, this is something little, but fun. Did you notice in Act III that all that evil laugh practice had paid off?
Speaking of Act III, I love Captain Hammer’s last song, complete with flipping Dr Horrible the bird.
So, how would you classify Dr Horrible in this story? At best, he’s an Anti-Hero, and I’m not sure if he quite counts as a Villain until the very end. Similar question for Captain Hammer.
Also, the end of Dr Horrible, what do y’all think, leave it how it is, or follow on later? I’d be curious to see where he goes from here.
I definitely want more - but not sure what form I want that “more” to take
Personally, I’d like to see him work to redeem himself in some future work (another musical maybe, but a comic book or graphic novel could be cool too).
A thought on Captain Hammer at the end, spoilerboxed since it’s the climax of the story:
[SPOILER]I did rather like Captain Hammer’s reaction to feeling pain for the first time. He had no idea how to deal with it. Since he never felt pain due to being redunkulously buff, he had literally no pain tolerance to speak of, while Dr Horrible, considerably weaker (and only a few feet farther away from the Death Ray which Hammer was holding), was used to being beat up quite regularly and just shrugged off the effects of the explosion which sent Captain Hammer flying some distance away.
I like to think that knowing what it feels like to be hurt will help Captain Hammer to grow up a little, but somehow I seriously doubt it.[/SPOILER]
Also, did anyone notice the frozen yogurt in Act III?
I noticed it.
If you read the little comic book as well, it seems to be pretty clear that the idea is that Cpt. Hammer represents sort of just any other dumb jock who’s immensely popular, while as Dr. Horrible is representative of geeks and nerds. Hammer, representing the anti-intellectualist elite, hounds all geeks into having to turn around and lash out, even though they wouldn’t have had to in the beginning.
Anti-intellectualism is the villain of the show more than any of the characters are. In a proper world, Cpt. Hammer wouldn’t be lauded so much for being so blatantly offensive and so he would have been more limited in his ability to create villains out of nerds.
Started up the first act and watched it for maybe 10 minutes before I had to turn it off. It was excruciatingly bad. I’m normally a Joss Whedon fan, but, man, this just sucked at whole new levels of suckage. I honestly am confused about why people are ranting over it.
You should try sticking through it. 
I almost turned it off during Act I but I grit my teeth and by the end it was better than I expected.
Heh.
That’s precisely my point.