I think when Emmie talked about Whedon's lack of direct involvement, she was referring to an interview he did recently where he said that beyond plotting and a bit of early feedback, he hadn't had any hand in AtF. And I do think it shows.
So on to the main question. Like Emmie, I'm very disappointed in AtF. But my disappointment would be not so much that their aren't themes, but rather that they are entirely pedestrian and uninteresting. Who doesn't think that you should keep on trying even when things look bleak? Seriously. It's not a theme that tells me *anything* that I don't already know.
I also think it's untrue to the greatness that was in the series. NFA is perfectly and utterly ambivalent about whether or not its good to "keep trying" even when everything is against you. Yes, you can read it as you (and obviously Lynch) do where the heroes fight the good fight and "go to work" even though they are against insurmountable odds. But you can also read NFA as being about a suicidal mission where the ends most certainly do not justify the means (killing an innocent, ordering the execution of another, doing hits on metaphorical representatives of businessmen and politicians -- which is assassination, not heroism in many worlds, etc. etc.). BOTH readings are there. Lynch only has one. And that is the heart of my complaint. It takes Angel from being a very fascinating reflection on the hero genre and the ambiguities of that genre to just being an ordinary garden variety exemplar of the genre: heroes fighting the good fight, blah, blah, bore me to tears, blah, make me angry because it was so much more and is not that any longer.
Yes, the plot is tight. But the mechanics of how the "we keep fighting no matter what" brigade manages to overcome what once really was meant to be an entity that couldn't be overcome (for profoundly interesting philosophical reasons) is not interesting, and again aggravating because it flat misses the dimension of the show I loved the most.
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Date: 2009-01-21 08:45 pm (UTC)So on to the main question. Like Emmie, I'm very disappointed in AtF. But my disappointment would be not so much that their aren't themes, but rather that they are entirely pedestrian and uninteresting. Who doesn't think that you should keep on trying even when things look bleak? Seriously. It's not a theme that tells me *anything* that I don't already know.
I also think it's untrue to the greatness that was in the series. NFA is perfectly and utterly ambivalent about whether or not its good to "keep trying" even when everything is against you. Yes, you can read it as you (and obviously Lynch) do where the heroes fight the good fight and "go to work" even though they are against insurmountable odds. But you can also read NFA as being about a suicidal mission where the ends most certainly do not justify the means (killing an innocent, ordering the execution of another, doing hits on metaphorical representatives of businessmen and politicians -- which is assassination, not heroism in many worlds, etc. etc.). BOTH readings are there. Lynch only has one. And that is the heart of my complaint. It takes Angel from being a very fascinating reflection on the hero genre and the ambiguities of that genre to just being an ordinary garden variety exemplar of the genre: heroes fighting the good fight, blah, blah, bore me to tears, blah, make me angry because it was so much more and is not that any longer.
Yes, the plot is tight. But the mechanics of how the "we keep fighting no matter what" brigade manages to overcome what once really was meant to be an entity that couldn't be overcome (for profoundly interesting philosophical reasons) is not interesting, and again aggravating because it flat misses the dimension of the show I loved the most.
And SPOILER (which I'll put in my next comment.