maggie2

So[Poll #1593032]

Batman was my first true television love. Back when I was seven, I just loved Batman, Robin, and their battle with all those diabolical villains.  When I was older, I realized that Batman was a spoof and I still loved it.  Great that it could work for a literal-minded seven year old.  Great that it could amuse her when she got older.  Adam West and Burt Ward linger in my heart with the warmest affection.

I loved Tim Burton's Batman with Michael Keaton.  Mostly because batman was back and I am and always will be pro-batman girl.  I liked the serious tone, along with the cartoonish tone from the original show.  I'm not sure they worked together very well, though.  I loved that first Batman movie a lot, but more as a really cool failure than as a spectacular success.  The sequels just got worse from there.

I really like the new Batman with Christian Bale.  Oddly, I've only seen the first one once.   It's a bit long and takes itself too seriously.  But I like Dark Knight a lot.  It makes you think a bit.  It's definitely got some of that essential darkness that the TV show didn't have and that Burton couldn't quite blend with the cartoon sensibility..

Folks, these are three very different approaches to the source material which is batman.  If you want to take one of them and canonize it and say the other two don't measure up, that's your perogative.  But I'd like to be free to like all the batmans.  I don't want to live in a world where embracing Christian Bale means I have to renounce Adam West.  I want to live in a world that celebrates them both and which recognizes that the source material for batman is just that rich that it works well as serious brooding drama and as spoofy cheese.

Batman and Robin is a bad movie because it doesn't have the zany cheese of the series, or the weird combo that Burton tried.  It's not a fun movie, or a serious movie or any kind of good movie.  So of course, it's worse that Dark Knight.  But NOT because it fails to be properly serious.    Batman the series is NOT worse than Dark Knight.  It's just different.  Difference is good. 

To the argument in question, season 8 might well be an abject failure -- but at least let it be a failure of Joss to do justice to his own schtick, not a failure to do something he isn't even trying to do.  And please don't tell me that for any given set of ideas there is One True Way.  (Or less snarkily, any subject worth doing well is worth doing in multiple tones.  Literature is a conversation, not a dictatorship).

So back in the day all the cool kids had seen The Blues Brothers.  It only took me three decades, but I've finally seen it!  Woo hoo.  Fun energy.

Am I the only person who didn't know that Brian Lynch got the elevator/Girl from Ipanema idea from this movie? 

OK, batteries (somewhat) recharged. 

So, I've been puzzling for quite a while about how Bangel space porn could possibly fit into season 8 as a whole, since season 8 was all about the consequences of the slayer spell.  #34 has been a central plot point from the get go, we are told -- so it's not like it's just stuck in there for the heck of it. 

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ETA: Check out local_max's excellent follow-up post on all this!

My poll about Dawn's keyness has provoked some vigorous discussion, so I just wanted to state my own position about how her keyness might (or might not) relate to season 8.  It is simply this.  That a season named Twilight began with the character named Dawn as a giant has always seemed to me like a strong suggestion that Dawn is going to matter.  We've since had enough references to her latent keyness for that to be available for the story as it unfolds.  #25 describes Dawn's status as a doll in a way that to me is highly resonant with her status as a key.   #25 also contains lines that would foreshadow Dawn's death (possibly even at Buffy's hand) if that's what turns out to happen.

This is not a prediction.  It's just reading the tea leaves to see what possible directions the story could go.  There are literary markers in the text that would make a story about Dawn's keyness seem rich and well-foreshadowed.  What that story would be I have no idea.  I'm not a creative writer.  Maybe it will be cool.  Maybe it'll be lame.  Maybe it won't happen at all.  I don't know.  All I'm doing is pointing to some details available to serve a literary function if the story goes a certain way.  It's just some speculation. 

Over on Buffy forums, King of Cretins replied that we'd need pages of exposition to explain how Dawn is still a key and available to be used in this story.  That was the main impetus for the poll.  Along the way there have been complaints that it would be bad writing if the story went this way.  Since my argument just was that there are literary markers available for use if the story goes that way, I obviously don't think a story going in this direction would necessarily involve lame out of the blue writing.  But it could still turn out to be a craptastic story.  I have no idea what Joss will do in his last arc, much less how well he's going to do it.

End of my part of the mountain made out of a very, very small molehill.

So I discovered on Buffy Forums today that the majority of fans think that Dawn's keyness definitively ended in The Gift, and that any story that involves her still being the key would require a major retcon.  I don't really want to argue the case here.    What is puzzling to me is that I've always thought the exact opposite.  I thought it was obvious she was the key, and that while her keyness was dormant, it was always around to become a plot point again.  It's just weird when it turns out that what you thought was a plain fact is the opposite of what others regard as a plain fact.  So I want to find out how out of the loop I am on this.  Ergo quick poll:[Poll #1577332]
My second general question (answerable in comments) is are there other issues about BtVS where you think one thing is obvious but it turns out most people think it's really not?    In other words, has this ever happened to you?  It's a weird feeling!!!

It's been a long while since I cared much about LOST, but I did keep watching.  Some random reflections below the cut (full spoilers).

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A question by beer_good_foamy over on flake_sake's new board, along with a comment by angearia on my last post let me to think about the title of #35 -- The Power of Love.

Stipulating that there's a heck of a lot in season 8 that's not making sense, here's a bit that I think makes quite a lot of sense.

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Other note:  I finally watched the latest episode of Lost and I must give them kudos.  I've never liked Jack, but now I really do.  He's had a good arc.

 

It turns out that according to some people if you ever complain about how Spike is characterized it's because the only thing you want in this whole entire world is to see Spike and Buffy making with the smoochies. 

I shouldn't have to say this, but I will.  I love Spike because he's a damned Champion.   As a demon he wanted to be treated like a man.  When he failed he fought for a soul.  He came back to help expecting nothing in return.  He died because he felt it was his part to do.  He came back and took up the fight, notably not running back to Buffy for the smoochies.  He had the wisdom to see that there's a hole in the world.  The poetry to see how things work or don't work. 

He's not perfect (see, e.g. the Harmony hop), he works at being annoying, he's probably an alcoholic.  But he's not a self-serving, sex-crazed, thuggish moron. 

That is sufficient reason to be unhappy with Willingham.  What kool aid do you have to drink to read the present irritation with Willingham as nothing but a mad desire to see some smoochies?   Especially when that irritation is coming from someone who is *at best* ambivalent about wanting any Spuffy in the future.  I'm guessing it's some pretty damned powerful kool aid.