# Star Wars 1-3, would be great if Joss Whedon re-did them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 5, 2006, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233 "2006-07-05T01:38:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233/41 "2006-07-06T20:32:46Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] Wow, I’ve never encountered anyone else who agreed with me on the whole Whedon cult of the warrior-chick the way **RickJay** and **Loopydude** seem to. I’ve always thought the whole thing was SO stupid. Tarantino’s fetishized female assassins in the Kill Bill movies also make me feel the same way. I have no interest in the mostly Japanese-influenced killer chick pop culture mythos. [/QUOTE] You can’t argue taste and all that, but am I the only one who thinks that equating Buffy in the TV series to The Bride in Kill Bill shows that you really didn’t get the point of Buffy? I mean I understand that not everyone will enjoy a TV series that uses the supernatural to explore the emotions of adolescence (including fear of assuming responsibility), but it’s not really the same as an extended homage to cartoon/pop-culture violence devoid of characterization or meaning. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233/42 "2006-07-13T03:44:12Z")
[QUOTE=Quercus] You can’t argue taste and all that, but am I the only one who thinks that equating Buffy in the TV series to The Bride in Kill Bill shows that you really didn’t get the point of Buffy? I mean I understand that not everyone will enjoy a TV series that uses the supernatural to explore the emotions of adolescence (including fear of assuming responsibility), but it’s not really the same as an extended homage to cartoon/pop-culture violence devoid of characterization or meaning. [/QUOTE] I don’t think you’re quite grasping the point. That Buffy and Kill Bill are very different isn’t in doubt. What IS true, however, is that both rely, to a huge extent, on the iconic image of a skinny girl who does karate moves. They may have different purposes in doing so, but nonetheless they’re using a similar image to deliver two different messages. “Serenity” is a compeltely different story again, but again, it’s relying (to a huge, huge extent) on the archetype of an unstoppable female kung fu artist. Again, even if the purpose is different, it’s the same image, and it’s an image that A) Has been exhaustively overused in television and movies of late, and B) is, in particular, a virtual cliche whenever Joss Whedon is around. It is not mere coincidence that his superhero movie of choice is going to be “Wonder Woman” - believe me, his Wonder Woman is going to mostly kick people. Irrespective of what his thematic intent was, Whedon’s choice of central image in “Serenity” was the badly overused River Tam character, whose purpose was, aside from having bad dreams, to do kung fu stuff. It’s just too cliche to be original anymore. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233/43 "2006-07-13T03:53:24Z")
So…then every character that Shakespeare recycled was a cliche? Damon Runyon? Euripedes? Tom Stoppard? The message is the key, not the character. ---
**Author:** ![velveeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/13edae/32.png) [@velveeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velveeta)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233/44 "2006-07-13T13:00:42Z")
[QUOTE=Hodge] **Miller** beat me to my own recommendation. I just watched the _Clone Wars_ DVD and it was mind-blowing just how good it was. Orders of magnitude better than the prequels. The action sequences were much better paced and directed, the acting better (for the most part) and the romance scenes weren’t even cringe-inducing. [/QUOTE] Agreed. I thought Clone Wars was fantastic. The prequels are so so bad. Even Bioware, maker of the video game Knights of the Old Republic, knew how to craft a story far superior to 1-3. They made me care about the characters they created. Lucas just doesn’t seem to get it. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233/45 "2006-07-13T16:29:29Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] Irrespective of what his thematic intent was, Whedon’s choice of central image in “Serenity” was the badly overused River Tam character, whose purpose was, aside from having bad dreams, to do kung fu stuff. [/QUOTE] I think her other purpose was to speak the whackball crazy talk that Whedon seems to enjoy writing (cf. Drusilla; that stretch on Buffy when Tara went coo-coo), and which always bugged me to tears. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233/46 "2006-07-13T20:54:46Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] I don’t think you’re quite grasping the point. That Buffy and Kill Bill are very different isn’t in doubt. What IS true, however, is that both rely, to a huge extent, on the iconic image of a skinny girl who does karate moves. They may have different purposes in doing so, but nonetheless they’re using a similar image to deliver two different messages. “Serenity” is a compeltely different story again, but again, it’s relying (to a huge, huge extent) on the archetype of an unstoppable female kung fu artist. Again, even if the purpose is different, it’s the same image, and it’s an image that A) Has been exhaustively overused in television and movies of late, and B) is, in particular, a virtual cliche whenever Joss Whedon is around. It is not mere coincidence that his superhero movie of choice is going to be “Wonder Woman” - believe me, his Wonder Woman is going to mostly kick people. Irrespective of what his thematic intent was, Whedon’s choice of central image in “Serenity” was the badly overused River Tam character, whose purpose was, aside from having bad dreams, to do kung fu stuff. It’s just too cliche to be original anymore. [/QUOTE] I’m sorry, but I don’t see your point here. Girls are cool. Kung-fu is cool. Girls doing Kung-Fu is cool. It’s not any more cliched than men doing kung-fu. Less so, because we’ve only recently accepted female action stars. Was Equilibrium less cliched than Ultraviolet because the hawt kung-fu protagonist had a penis? I think it’s insulting to equate all female action heroes together because of their gender. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-1-3-would-be-great-if-joss-whedon-re-did-them/363233.md?page=2)