This week, Trolling hauls out the big guns. Boy oh boy will you be pissed off after this one.
He is a successful screenplay punch-up man, having had a hand in well-regarded films like X-Men and Toy Story. Thanks to a string of cult TV series (one of which was actually successful!), he has garnered a vast army of adoring followers. His fans are not only numerous, but are possessed of a frothing and uncontrolled devotion that reaches an almost unseemly fervor. Thanks to his involvement in a certain recent Disney-owned film franchise, he also is credited for making one of the most successful movies of all time. What’s more, thanks to his interests in genre movies and TV, and his own enthusiasm for comic books, he has essentially risen to the central throne in the Olympic pantheon of Geek Gods. Ask anyone, and their eyes will fill with sparkles when describing him. He is an infallible deity, a glittering example of what perfection is.
I refer, of course, to Uwe Boll. ZING! Just kidding! I’ll get to Uwe Boll next week. No, I refer to the well-known and endlessly adored Joseph Hill “Joss” Whedon, the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and writer/director of Marvel’s The Avengers. Joss Whedon is the latest in a three-generation legacy of successful TV writers who, after toiling away in Hollywood punch-up, eventually rose to the level of TV series creator and occasional film director, and, along the way, began to foster a cult following that is perhaps more passionate than any other cult following. Seriously. I think The Beatles in their prime were not as highly praised as this guy.
Well, according to the unshakable tenets of CraveOnline’s Trolling, anything or anyone that is that well-loved can’t possibly be worth the hype. And even when you strip away the hype, what do you have? A great screenwriter and underappreciated genius? Or a bland and mildly amusing idea man? Indeed, when you take a good look at Joss Whedon’s body of film work, the following conclusion may easily be reached: Joss Whedon SUCKS! Get out your beating implements now, you mad Whedonite cultists, ‘cause I’m about to openly ask for it.
[Editor’s Note: Folks, I usually like to stay out of this, even when Witney seemingly writes an installment of Trolling just to piss me off, but what can I say? He’s finally trolled me. We will be having a lengthy debate about this topic – not for the first time – on the next installment of The B-Movies Podcast. Listen to Friday, January 10th’s episode for my heated rebuttal.]
Whedon’s strengths cannot be denied: His wit and humor is always plainly evident, and he clearly has an enthusiasm for genre material similar to that of his intended audience. But being able to write a pretty funny and plainly serviceable superhero screenplay does not make him a god amongst men. Most of his ideas are typical at best and bland at worst, and the adulation that is constantly heaped upon the guy is wholly unwarranted. However much you liked The Avengers, ponder that there was actually a great version of that movie made in an alternate universe with a different screenwriter. Joss Whedon: pretty average.
Until next week, let the hate mail flow.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Joss Whedon SUCKS
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He’s Not Good with Story
Joss Whedon is often credited as being a clever story man, but how true is that? When one looks at Whedon’s movies, none of them have anything approaching an original story. They tend to fall back on common Saturday Morning cartoon tropes and rather usual end-of-the-world scenarios. The Avengers was not complex, and the story itself (co-invented with Zak Penn) barely registered. Alien: Resurrection was a thudding bore with dumb dialogue. Even The Cabin in the Woods, perhaps his most daring screenplay (for what that’s worth) was little more than a rehash of “The Twilight Zone.” None of his stories are deep or meaningful or complicated. In this regard, Whedon is average at best.
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He’s Not Good with Character
If he’s not good with story, than he must be good with characters, right? Well this doesn’t really hold true either. His characters – from high school kids to superheroes to working stiffs to military guys – all feel and sound disappointingly similar. They are all witty chatterboxes who are flip and funny in the face of extreme fantasy or sci-fi situations. Here’s a trick to prove my point: think of your favorite Joss Whedon line. Think of who said it. Now put that line in the mouth of just about any other Joss Whedon character. It still works, doesn’t it? Yeah, if you can only write one character, you’re showing your weaknesses as a writer. That one character is funny, but it’s been the same one dozens of times.
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He’s Not Good with Tone
Both Joss Whedon’s movies and TV shows suffer a similar “revolving door” approach to their tone. Or perhaps, more accurately a “short attention span” approach. This is especially noticeable in his film Serenity, based on his failed TV show “Firefly.” Whedon, as I indicated above, loves jokey characters reacting flippantly to admittedly goofy genre tropes, giving his movies and shows a comedic, near-satirical tone. This would be fine if he rode the comedy and satire, and let his films be comedies and satires. But Whedon will then change his mind, and try to wring a dark death, a moment of anger, a moment of actual sincerity out of the situation. And it never works. You feel off-balance and jerked around. His films are too silly to work as dramas. He knows satire, but not sincerity. So it’s hard to ever take anything seriously.
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He’s Not a Good Feminist
Whedon has been endlessly credited for being a modern-day feminist, as he tends to feature “strong” female characters. This, however, is yet another critical fallacy. Many filmmakers and critics tend to (wrongly) assume that if a character is capable of violence and physical strength, then they must be “strong,” right? Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer “strong?” Is The Black Widow? I would argue that, as I mentioned above, his heroines are just as interchangeable as any of this characters, and their ability to fight and do violence does not make them interesting. His lesbian characters may come a little closer, and their sexuality is largely incidental, but I feel his lesbians are less rich characters who happen to be gay, and more from the Multi-Culti Rainbow Coalition School of Ensembles. Y’know, like “Captain Planet and the Planeteers.”
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He Writes Like a 17-Year-Old
Joss Whedon never writes outside of genre. Realist dramas, spy movies, anything that doesn’t have magic or monsters is kind of beyond him (his film version of Much Ado About Nothing, well, wasn’t written by him). As such, he’s kind of hamstringing himself from, y’know, actual critical development. He knows the rules of genre cinema very well, and he polishes off genre material with wit and a deft hand, but he has never once chosen to transcend genre tropes in the least. He’s like a 17-year-old who with some r’ll r’ll cuul ideas, but doesn’t think to address the very fabric of genre, choosing instead to just sort of scoot around inside of it. If The Cabin in the Woods is as close as he can come to genre transcendence (a film that eventually stays within its own rules, and doesn’t actually rattle genre at all), then I see that he never will reach beyond his comfort zone.
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Shane Black Did It Better
Y’know that one screenwriter who is known for deft, swift-moving action screenplays full of cute, quippy one-liners and self-aware witty characters? Remember Shane Black? The big-time Hollywood screenwriter who did exactly what Joss Whedon currently does, only 20 years earlier, and much better? To all Joss Whedon fans I say: Watch Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, or Lethal Weapon, or even Iron Man Three. You’ll see how it was once done. i.e. Better.
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When Something Goes Wrong, He Refuses Blame
I think we can all agree that one of the dumbest lines in recent blockbuster history is Storm’s crack about toads and lightning from Bryan Singer’s X-Men. Joss Whedon wrote that line. His excuse? In an interview he claimed that they just didn’t read it right. How about the screenplay for Alien: Resurrection, often called the worst of the franchise? They didn’t read it right. If so many people are reading your screenplays wrong, sir, then perhaps you’re not writing them clearly enough. He’s not an apologist for his bad work. He just places the blame elsewhere. His fans do too. To Whedon and to his fans: It’s okay to admit you/he is capable of occasionally cracking off a turkey.
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He Keeps Casting Nathan Fillion
Nathan Fillion is an odd-looking caveman with an unsettling screen presence. He has the body of a squat bodybuilder and the face of a Frank Miller character. Every time he’s on screen, I get creeped the heck out. Pointing a camera at this man is a bad idea. And Joss Whedon has done it multiple times!
