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Post by gavincallaghan on Nov 6, 2006 18:49:34 GMT -6
I was wondering what some on this thread would think about certain films which deal with magic and magical themes: The Craft, the Harry Potter Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel.
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Post by I AM the Way on Nov 6, 2006 20:38:12 GMT -6
wow, now that's a coincidence! i was going to start a Buffy/Angel thread tonight.
yes, i'm all in favor of such magical media... such fantastic escapism. in particular, i love both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. the special effects, the stories, the human drama, the demonic lore... what's not to love?
never got into the Harry Potter stuff.
most Lovecraft films would also be on my list.
i also love a lot of science fiction: Dr. Who, the Tomorrow People, Red Dwarf, Quatermass and the Pit, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, the Matrix, Star Wars, etc.
fantasy and horror have special places in my eldritch heart as well.
what are some other's favorites or what they shy away from...?
Venger Satanis Cult of Cthulhu High Priestwww.CultofCthulhu.net
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Post by gavincallaghan on Nov 8, 2006 18:08:19 GMT -6
wow, now that's a coincidence! i was going to start a Buffy/Angel thread tonight.
Venger Satanis Cult of Cthulhu High Priest [/size][/b][/color] [/quote] Coincidence is my business...mwah ha ha ha.....(menacing laughter).... It seems like since Buffy and Angel ended, there is nothing left to watch on TV. Literally nothing. Sometimes I watch Saturday Night Live with the sound off, but that's it.... J. Whedon, Buffy's creator, is a very, very talented writer, although his work seems to play better in the serial medium of television, for some reason, than it does in the more compact, less intricate medium of film. Perhaps that is why he seems to be doing so well, now, in his comic book work, which is likewise serial in structure, although I confess I have not yet read any of his comic writing. David Greenwalt, too, who co-produced the first two seasons of Angel with Whedon, is likewise very good; the quality of Angel clearly deteriorated after Season 2, when he left, although it was still by far the best program on TV. Greenwalt had a dark Christian edge to his writing. Indeed, Whedon and Greenwalt could be described as the best Christians writing for television. And like the best Christians: Dame Darcy, Anthony Burgess, J.R.R. Tolkien, etc., they proved being Christian need not interfere with quality of thought or brilliance of imagination (though for the more prosaic multitudes, unfortunately, it invariably DOES). Of the two shows, Buffy and Angel, I think Angel was a better show ---darker, and with a more profound message ---although Buffy's quality was more consistent; Angel had alot of highs and lows. Angel was brilliant...in the first season, the paradigm of the show was strictly Manichaean: good vs. evil, light vs. dark, with Angel fighting for the side of good. In season two, the writers made the brilliant move of having Angel commit "evil" acts while still being himself, and not his "darker- half", "Angelus". The show then did another about face after the characters visted the Host's dimension, Pylea: although I disliked the humerous aspects of these episodes, in the dimension of Pylea, (which, like the first two season of Angel, was organized along a strictly Manichaean paradigm of good vs. evil), the writers succeeded in presenting a caricature of and commentary on the good vs. evil themes which they had presented for the first two seasons, and of Angel himself. The crowning moment in this reversal, however, finally came in Season Four, in which it is Angel's "darker" half, " Angelus", and not Angel himself, who ends up killing The Demon, restoring the sun, and saving the earth. Whedon, in other words, finally succeeded in turning the pardigm of Angel's struggle for redemption upside down, and having the "evil" Angel saving the Earth. Brilliant stroke.
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Post by gavincallaghan on Nov 8, 2006 20:03:50 GMT -6
I neglected to mention the Lovecraftian cosmology which likewise underlies the stories in both Buffy and Angel.
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Post by I AM the Way on Nov 8, 2006 23:16:01 GMT -6
what's more... the Angel investigation team actually succeeded in stopping world peace by defeating the Godlike Jasmine at the end of the 4th season. which lead them to take over Wolfram and Hart. another high point was the Old One reborn, Illyria. from Wikipedia and Buffy's intro episode(s) began with this:personally, i think Angel was consistently great throughout its 5 year run. of course there's always going to be a less-than-great episode or two every season.
i enjoy the humor as well as the seriousness of both Buffy and Angel.
any other Buffy/Angel fans out there?
VS
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Post by gavincallaghan on Nov 9, 2006 18:01:28 GMT -6
what's more... the Angel investigation team actually succeeded in stopping world peace by defeating the Godlike Jasmine at the end of the 4th season. I was going to mention that; forgetfulness i enjoy the humor as well as the seriousness of both Buffy and Angel. I appreciate the humor in both as well; I just felt that in the Pylea eps. it was misplaced; an opportunity to create a truly moving, bleak epic was thereby lost. Strangely, whereas in England they apparently edit both Buffy and Angel for violence, I've found that in the U.S., they tend to edit them for humor, at least for syndication (presumably to make them able to fit in a shorter time-slot). In one syndicated episode, where Willow says of her parallel-world vampire lookalike, "Plus, she was kind of -- gay", they edit out Angel's funny and suggestive response ---that vampirism does not affect sexual orientation. In another syndicated episode, this time an episode of Angel, in which Angel sees that Darla has been reborn for the first time, they edit out the line where Angel says he saw Darla "beside the giant hot dog on the boardwalk" or whatever. Even Buffy was "edited" for violence in the U.S., at least in the scripting stages. In an early episode, for example, where Buffy beheads a demon that's killing children, they get around the inability to show this on television by depicting the event via the drawing of a child who witnessed it: ironically, the child is able to see and show something that television audiences apparently aren't allowed to see. But this is an old television convention; in an episode of Mr. and Mrs. North from the 1950's, for example, the writers get around their inability to show a stabbed and bleeding body in the show by instead showing a doll which had been similarly stabbed. There was apparently one censored episode in Buffy's history, although the episode was eventually aired uncut, with a disclaimer about suicide at the end. TV Guide erroneously claimed the delayed episode was the one where the demon-mayor was killed at graduation, but the delayed episode was actually the one where little Jonathan brings a gun to school in order to commit suicide.
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