*Cowboy Bebop * was boring, trite and a waste of space. At least Whedon’s work is interesting.
hey VC03 - you started this thread. Care to comment?
That’s a good point. In fact, what Whedon gets lauded for more than anything else is precisely the opposite of originality; he takes worn out cliches and presents them in ways that make them fresh and interesting again. Hell, the entire concept for Buffy started from reworking the cliche of the petite, cute blonde chick walking down a dark, ominous ally, getting attacked by a monster… and then beating the holy bejeezus out of it. This sort of reversal of expectation is probably his most recognizable hallmark as a writer, even more than the snarky dialogue.
I personally think that if the rest of the series was just more of the same of what was in the pilot and the next two eps, a lot fewer people would care about the show. The second and third discs have the stuff that got most of us hooked.
Hang in there for just one more episode (“Shindig” is the first one on Disc 2), and see what you think then. If you’re still not interested, then go ahead and throw in the towel.
From Turek’s link:
Wow.
Soap operas? What, haven’t you heard of Midsummer Night’s Dream? Haven’t you heard of Valhalla? Soap operas–feh. If you’re going to accuse him of derivativism, at least go back a few millennia.
You’re comparing how others have treated film to how he has treated television. Shall I cricize Orson Welles becaues people have stretched canvas lightyears further than he, or anyone else, will ever be able to stretch film? That’s apples and oranges.
Joss Whedon is very, very good at the television format, at recognizing both its limitations and its storytelling possibilities. He tells a longer story in a season of television than just about anyone tells on film.
Many television directors do that. Whedon, I submit, is one of the best at doing it.
You say he’s not particularly revolutionary. I say, yeah he is. His influence can be seen in other works, especially his brand of skewering cliches.
YOu don’t like him; that’s fine and dandy, and ducky for you! But the way I see it, he’s made a significant impact on speculative fiction.
Daniel
I’m a fan of Joss’ work, but this is a valid critique. Not necessarily a flaw—you could probably say much the same about a lot of writers, from Oscar Wilde to David Mamet—but there is a degree of interchangeability to some of the characters’ speech (esp. on Buffy, where most of the characters were the same age).
I kind of agree with Fortean—all this Joss-love is skeeving me out.
I found the movie exciting, entertaining, very enjoyable, and somewhat disappointing (as expected). Summing up 15 hours of lead-in over a feature length movie is just too tall an order.
If, from where BSG now stands, the entire series were concluded in an under two hour movie (with time sucked up for exposition and sketching out characters for non TV-fans), do you think that all of the various threads of the series could be satisfied? Hell, even explaining why anyone gives a shit about Boomer or allows Baltar to wander about would take most of the time. The race to explain situation/resolve Pegasus crisis/find Earth/defeat Cylons/explain Cylon plan would make it a let down from the standards of the series, even if it remained a rollicking good space opera. Heck, BSG’s problems would be even worse than Serenity’s, given that Serenity “only” has nine fairly prominent characters. You’d never get past Tigh being a drunken prick. (okay, bad example)
It doesn’t bother me that much because it’s clever, but that’s valid. Although with Mamet it’s much more noticeable because he has a very distinct style. Whedon’s characters just all reflect his sense of humor. See also: Tarantino, Quentin. And you could probably say the same about Aaron Sorkin.
Or William Shakespeare. Iambic pentameter doesn’t exactly lend itself to naturalistic dialogue.
You want to talk about unoriginal? Shakespeare had one gimmick, iambic pentameter, and he ripped it off from Marlowe. I just don’t know what anyone sees in that guy, because as far as I’m concerned, if you can’t come up with your own totally new style of verse, your plays don’t deserve to see the stage.
Or something.
Can someone explain to me why everytime someone jumps on the “Joss is ripping stuff off from Japanese anime” bandwagon, the Firefly-Cowboy Bebop connection is drawn? Yes, they both happen in space, and yes both crews live paycheck to paycheck. And Cowboy Bebop has the word “cowboy” in its title, which apparently is enough of a connection to Firefly’s Western motif. And the characters in both use guns. What else is there, though, that warrants a comparison between the two?
You want a decent “Joss is ripping stuff off from Japanese anime” comparison, could we at least compare it to Trigun? At least then we have among the common elements a coordinated attempt to colonize other worlds, a protagonist who’s wanted by the ruling government, and the then-inevitable “lovable rogue” archetype.
Seriously, I’d argue “Buffy is a ripoff of Devil Hunter Yoko” (and be wrong) before arguing the whole Firefly-Cowboy Bebop thing.
(Sorry for the hijack and the mini-rant. I seriously don’t get that comparison.)
There are superficial similiarities though I don’t happen to believe Firefly was a ripoff of Cowboy Bebop. What a lot of people fail to take into account is that writers and producers are often influenced by the same sources.
Marc
Having tortured myself by watching two episodes of “Bones” (the new series on Fox, starring David Boreanaz of “Angel”), I can tell you that good writing isn’t nearly as apparent as bad writing. Bad writing is painful. Good writers are like good actors; they fool you into believing it’s effortless.
IMO, Whedon is not just a good writer; he’s an excellent writer. He has provided me hours and hours of entertainment. I put him in the same league as David Chase (Sopranos/Northern Exposure) and Steven Bochco (NYPD Blue). And that’s some fine company to be keeping.
So in the hopes of derailing an impending argument, I have a question:
I really liked Cowboy Bebop and consider it one of the finest pieces of television drama in any medium. Do you think I would like Firefly?
Yeah, probably. Everyone I know likes both quite a bit. I don’t really see the similarities, myself, aside from them both being in the same genre, but they’re both top-shelf science fiction. I like Firefly quite a bit more, personally. Better dialogue, and more continuity between episodes.
Cool; thanks!
I do think, although Cowboy Bebop’s dub is one of the best out there, that there are just some cultural nuances that are inevitably lost in the process of translation. I generally prefer subs anyway, but those tend to be much more literal and require a certain level of background familiarity (and nuances are still lost).
Firefly sounds to me like a lot of fun, and not particularly similar to Bebop.
From what I’ve heard of the first episode, it actually makes me think of Outlaw Star… 
I haven’t seen too much Trigun, but there are a few more similarities between Cowboy Bebop and Firefly. Bebop and Serenity are both beat up, unarmed transports used for somewhat shady purposes. The societies are both spread over several planets and multilingual, and Earth seems to be kind of a crappy place to be. Both crews have a sense that their troubled past will eventually catch up to them.
Despite all that, I don’t think Cowboy Bebop and Firefly are really that similar. Bebop is more noirish and bleak, and you never feel that the Bebop crew really care about each other the same way that the Serenity crew do.
And besides, the show Whedon stole from is Outlaw Star
(Just kidding, but there are some parallels, most notably that of the Living Weapon ne Girl in a Box.)
Boy, you opened up a can of worms now.
You cannot say anything even resembling something less than adoration of… that guy, around here or the sharks start to circle.
Obviously you’re just too stupid to understand his genius. You haven’t seen episode “XYZ” in the dark with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon synched up. His low-quality shows on third-rate networks changed my life, and if they’re less than cathartic to you, you need to watch more!
What the overzealous fans don’t seem to get is that just because they enjoy the characters and the writing and the scenery and the eye candy, doesn’t mean that everyone needs to appreciate it the same way.
I’ve watched Buffy, and it’s crap. It’s crap on toast. The characters were banal, spoiled, and entirely unbelievable. The writing was hackneyed and stilted, and the acting was downright awful. The overall quality was low, and IMO, none of the eye candy was all that flavorful (except maybe Charisma Carpenter).
Now. None of that means that the show shouldn’t have its fans. There are many on this board. Some people like their shows campy. Hell, I used to thoroughly enjoy Hercules: TLJ because it was so cheesy. I know for fact that many of said fans will argue that the show wasn’t campy, but that’s the can of worms.
In essence, I agree with the OP, though I don’t think that guy was even very good at writing snarky dialogue.