However much credit he deserves, I still think the franchise deserves a shot at living beyond him. Just like Trek deserved to live beyond Roddenberry.
Should there ever be a Buffy The Vampire Slayer reboot/remake?
- Thread starter Kristine
- Start date
Yup.
Exactly. Escalation. How does the demon world respond? There is hardly any real balance, so many slayers. Will they try to regain power in some way?
I'll google that and see what I can find.
The thing is though, Wedon can say they are canon as much as he wants. If a studio decides to follow up on the show, they can ignore it as much as they want. Unless Wedon somehow has a clause that if someone buys the rights and makes a sequel, they MUST follow the comics.
As someone who's never seen an episode of the franchise, my understanding is that there's nothing particularly special about the setting, species, or mythos itself - indeed, the generic aspects of the series (Chosen One, demons/vampires, secret lineage of holy warriors) are kind of the point, no? The challenge of the show was to make a memorable series despite the generic, well-trod nature of the tropes. As opposed to The Nevers, which aimed to wow audiences with a highly specific and inventive premise (albeit one that wasn't fully revealed right away).
Anyhow, one can't copyright the basic concept of "attractive high schooler embraces their magic heritage and battles monsters of the week," so, especially given the Whedon problem, why would anyone bother to do an official reboot? The pair behind Smallville and Wednesday didn't.
Anyhow, one can't copyright the basic concept of "attractive high schooler embraces their magic heritage and battles monsters of the week," so, especially given the Whedon problem, why would anyone bother to do an official reboot? The pair behind Smallville and Wednesday didn't.
This.
Is it even possible to remake/reboot whatever Buffy without Joss Whedon being involved? As creator, wouldn't he always be owed some kind of royalties at least?
I guess that would depend on who owns the copyright.
If memory serves, the people who produced the film retain certain rights. They were planning a revival a few years ago, which he wasn’t involved in; this was even before he was cancelled.
Has anyone seen this? Did somebody in this thread write it?
https://www.cbr.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-reboot-update-dolly-parton/#Echobox=1706288051
https://www.cbr.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-reboot-update-dolly-parton/#Echobox=1706288051
Reboot/Reimagining/Remake/etc. Leave it to Dolly to describe it as "Revamping" which of course is perfect for Buffy.
How would an increased number of Slayers result in a lack of balance, when there are so many demons?
I mean, there's no reason someone couldn't create a new series set in the Buffyverse, same way Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, et al, were all later created and set in the Star Trek universe.
But when they did that, they didn't actually remake Star Trek: The Original Series, and I see no reason to remake Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy was a product of its time (as are all works of art); parts of it have aged better than others, but on balance it's still recognized as an extremely well-written show with a fanbase that's still active, and its legacy as extremely influential to most modern television is secure. While it's not without its flaws, even its problematic elements are part of what lends it dramatic power, and I generally don't see how a remake could bring anything new to the table that a spinoff couldn't. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a complete story, and it's a story that ended twenty years ago now. I think we should... dare I say... let it rest in peace.
I have to disagree that a complete story well told should just by default never be retold by someone else. We still retell the same Arthurian legends or all the plays of Shakespeare, etc, etc. It's what keeps stories alive across generations, as well as gives new storytellers the chance to learn how to find new ideas and and new interpretations in existing works. It won't always work out for the better (though sometimes it works out incredibly well) but people should always have the freedom to try it.
Having said that, I've got no objection to the franchise continuing with a 'Next Generation' spin-off, either. That was the plan of the new show they were going to make a few years ago and I was really looking forward to that. Especially if they can get Gellar, Hannigan, etc, for the occassional supporting role.
I mean, fair, but they didn't do that until after they'd made four spinoffs and TOS had been over for twice as long as Buffy has been.
It's not that I think it should never be retold, but I do think it shouldn't be retold unless there's something new being brought to the table that makes retelling the story sufficiently interesting.
Buffy was such a well-written, multidimensional show that I'm not convinced there's anything new that can be brought to the table yet to make a retelling of the story worth the effort. I really think that Buffy might be one of those shows that proves so enduring it takes another twenty years, like ST:TOS, before a retelling becomes worth the while.
I don't think it's at all right to say there's anything about the amount of time that has passed that is even remotely relevant to whether a remake has anything worthwhile to bring to the table or not. It always comes down to creative skill and vision regardless of whether it's been ten years or fifty. And nobody's ever going to know for sure if the skill and vision is there or not until a show actually gets made, so the idea that it shouldn't get made unless it has something special is meaningless.
Creatives should have the freedom to try stuff like this if they feel it's worthwhile without having people jump all over them for daring to touch a classic. This is what classics exist for. If in the end it turns out it wasn't worthwhile it still changes nothing about the original or the value of the ideas.
I mean, they have the freedom. No one's saying they shouldn't have the right to make the show. But I do think that there's a meaningful relationship between the artwork's era and the audience's era that can make a retelling a better idea. And sometimes it's not about skill -- sometimes you can have very skilled artists, but they just don't bring anything new to the table. Gus Van Sant is an extremely talented director, and Vince Vaughn, Anne Hache, Juliane Moore, Viggo Mortensen, and William H. Macy are all extremely talented actors, but the 1998 Psycho remake brings nothing new to the table to make it worth the while of making it or watching it.
We've already seen at least one reimagining of Buffy in the form of the recent comic book reimagining, and looking at the summaries for it... it just seems gimmicky. "What if the Master, but it's Drusilla?" "What if Robin Wood, but student?" "What if Xander, but vampire?" Like, hey, maybe it's good, I dunno. But the world's full of good art, and nothing about it seems new enough to be worth reading.
A Buffy remake needs to bring something new to the table and not just be a variation on a pre-existing idea for it to be worth making in my view, or worth watching.
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