Jim makes a good point. But I'd also like to point out that despite Joss's accolades, Buffy did have it's major moments of suckage. So let's not be anticipative, so we don't crucify the man when he fails to live up to our expectations.

 

Xander in the later seasons of Buffy. Cordelia for half of the first season of Angel. Both were essentially utterly fucking pointless and acted as padding.

That's really all I have to say to shoot that argument down.

Moreover, writing teenage/young adult characters like Whedon does isn't hard-- Just write immature and frankly fucking stupid jackasses that can't formulate a single sentence in a coherent manner, and you have Whedon's formula.

Frankly, all I can say positive about Joss is that he can come up with some really, really cool ideas...

...and then promptly ruin them by taking the easy way out.

No, seriously. That invisible chick in Buffy that ended up working for the CIA and was never mentioned again, despite possibly being the coolest idea in the series? No one remarking about Sunnydale having a higher body count per year than Iraq? Blowing up the mayor with an absolute shit ton of explosives and nothing coming from that? The entirety of The Initiative's arc? The existence of werewolf hunters that are ALWAYS CHAOTIC EVIL HURR? Hell, pretty much every vampire barring Spike being intent on opening up the Hellmouth despite the fact that they're /already/ only medium sized fish in a hugeass lake?

Or, in Angel, what about Doyle's death, and just passing the vision shit on to Cordelia with no consequences? Those demons that got released during the pit-fighting episode never showing up again, despite one of them whupping up hardcore on Angel and them being likely to stick around the city? Angelus popping out being essentially completely arbitrary? Hell, you can take it a step further and just say the entire show was essentially pointless because Angel /never knew what the fuck he was doing./

And, hell, the /entire fucking run/ of Firefly was "good ideas that were never explored, or weakly justified." Blue Sun, anyone? The lack of continued partisan resistance from the Browncoats after the official surrender?

Yeah, I hate Whedon. Not because he's not got some chops, but because he's too fucking lazy to actually bother to make good shit instead of mediocre shit with a strong premise.

 

I don't think you can criticise a show that got cancelled halfway through its first season for not exploring the ideas it set up...

 

Hate Whedon all you want, but at least for something that is his fault. Firefly was canceled before it could explore anything.

 

Alright, maybe, but to be quite honest people nut themselves over Firefly more than anything else Whedon made when really it's just chapter one of a book that'll never get finished.

Though frankly I'd dispute that it was "cancelled before it could explore anything." That's bullshit. A season is plenty enough time to explore a universe if you don't drag your fucking ass. Hell, Cowboy Bebop had 23 episodes and told a fully self-contained story with an amazing universe, and the episodes were half the length of Firefly's. And, unlike Firefly, the movie was an afterthought rather than something necessary to even kind of finish the story. Yes, Firefly did get its last three episodes from the first season chopped from the original airing-- It wasn't "cancelled halfway through the season", don't try to pretend three is half of fourteen, or that the episodes weren't produced and later aired-- but in terms of run time, it had more than enough to do what it had to do and /then some/.

EDIT: Also I'll note that y'all are nitpicking rather than arguing the actual point, which essentially puts y'all on the level of Taure. Good show, gents.

 

That's because I already did my daily quota of arguing about something that is basically matter of taste.

But what really makes me believe that Whedon is a right guy for this movie is his run on Astonishing X-Men where he showed he knows how to handle a superhero team.

 

Okay, okay, I get it: you don't like Whedon.

So, who would you have trusted to helm a team action movie?

 

A team /action/ movie? Tarantino.

A team superhero movie? Honestly, that's a tough question, since the pool of people who'd be willing to work on it's honestly not that big. If it wasn't a team as clean-cut "good guys" as the Avengers, I'd almost say Rodriguez-- Have him tone down the silly a lot and turn up the gritty a bit. I'd love to see him do, say, The Authority or The Boys.

Frankly, though, for a movie about the Avengers, I'm fucking stumped.

EDIT: And Whedon's run on Runaways was so terrible that it kind of cancels out his run on X-men. (Granted, I've not read the latter, so I can't say if it's any good, but for the sake of argument I'll say yeah, sure.)

 

lolwut.

lolfuckingwut.

 

I could see Rodriguez doing a damn-near perfect job for a gritty team, actually. As long as there were no fucking children involved. Nor any Banderas.

I'd almost rec Abrams based solely on Star Trek. But then I would remove that rec based on Alias.

Fuck, who knows? I wouldn't have picked Favreau, but Iron Man came out better than expected. Mayhaps Joss will surprise?

 

Grinning Lizard: Tarantino's shown he can balance a decent sized cast of characters headed in the same direction but with different agendas. And have you even read The Authority or The Boys? Especially the latter, that even /reads/ like a Rodriguez film.

Jim Butcher: Did Favreau also do Iron Man 2? Because frankly, I'm convinced the reason the first was so good and the second was so bad in comparison was that they let Robert Downey Jr. run wild in the first one. I mean, get right down to it, that was the main draw for me.

 

Yeah, seventeen years ago. His ensemble pieces have been a complete fucking mess since then. Now he's reached a point where he doesn't have to work for it, he doesn't. He's a 'moments' director - extraordinary moments that stand out and make you remember a film. That's the complete opposite director than you'd want to direct a decent, well-charactised and cohesive ensemble piece. Inglourious Basterds was a highlights reel - a few excellent scenes drifting in and out of any semblance of a plot.

After The Faculty it took him seven years to get his game back on. Even then, everything post-Sin City has been nightmarish in all the wrong ways. He's so hit-and-miss it's insane, and he completely lacks the ability and flair to pull something like The Authority together into a cohesive, watchable standalone (or sprawling series) without it following the Watchmen route and ending up in the gutter. Preacher reads more like a 'Rodriguez' than The Authority, but for the same reasons I wouldn't let him in the same room as it.

Edit Granted, I've not read The Boys, but I'd imagine the same applies.

 

Alright, Point on Tarantino, though frankly I think most of the complaints about Inglorious Basterds comes more from the marketing than the film itself. Take it as meta-commentary on WWII films and the nature of historical fiction rather than a straight up action movie and it's rather good. Furthermore, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a director that's as meta as Tarantino, and that's /only a good thing/ when it comes to comics. Granted, he doesn't have the love and knowledge of comics to pull it off, so yeah.

Regarding Rodriguez and The Authority, I'd make the opposite argument: There's really not that much baggage to pull together in the first couple of volumes (which, given how the series went downhill hard after those, would be what would be made anyway), and I'd say Rodriguez does in fact have the flair to pull it off. Especially if it was essentially just the second half of the first volume with a "Smokin Aces" style introduction of the team and characters-- IIRC, it even kind of feels structured like a movie. And while I'd agree about Preacher reading more like a Rodriguez film, the issue there is one of subtlety rather than ability or flair.

EDIT: Also, go read "The Boys." I don't actually /like/ it even though I consider it really goddamn good, because frankly it's probably the best "Fuck you, superheroes suck." ever written and I like superhero comics, but I'll still rec the shit out of it.

 

Ugh.

Whedon pisses me off in so many ways, and not because he's bad or incompetent (although he does have his moments), but because he's so bloody inconsistent and he too frequently relies on character archetypes that undermine the creativity of his work, particularly when dealing with established canon. Everything he's written, from Buffy to Firefly to his X-Men runs to even the episode of Glee he directed have this problem, and frankly, I don't think he's the best choice for 'The Avengers' (btw, if he decides that Black Widow needs to fit one of his archetypes, I will walk out of the fucking theater, I swear to God).

As for Tarantino and Rodriguez, I've got to side with GL here - all of their movies work best in pieces than as coherent wholes, particularly when dealing with large ensemble casts. Frankly, I don't think Tarantino would be a good fit for the Avengers at all, simply based upon his own unique style of film-making and cinema cross-reference that he fills all of his movies with - it wouldn't work in an established, canonical film like 'The Avengers' is trying to be. And frankly, I don't think Rodriguez would want to amp back his own stylistic flourishes to work with 'The Avengers' either (although he did do an okay job on 'Predators', even if the movie bored me to sleep).

No, for me, I think someone like Peter Jackson would do decently with this sort of material, and he's got the filmmaking chops to make it epic. And hell, if they really wanted to shake things up, they could just grab Joe Carnahan, give him a budget, and see what the fuck happens.

 

We already know what would happen - A-Team.

Peter Jackson is an interesting choice, but that mostly depends if he is a fan of comics. If he is then it would be epic for sure. But personally, I'd like to see Duncan Jones take on Avengers.

Also, I was thinking who could direct The Boys (if someone dared to make it) and since Simon Pegg is given to play in it then why not have Edgar Wright behind the camera?

 

I'd go with Favreau on his ability to nag alone. He nagged the shit out of the studio to get RDJ cast as Tony Stark. I like directors who have an eye for the right people, as well as their own talent and ability to craft a scene.

Plus he beats off to Marvel comics, sooooooo....

 

To be fair, I didn't say that either of them would fit doing The Avengers. However, I would like to point out that sly cross-referencing /done by a comics nerd/ in a movie about the Avengers could be a very good thing.

 

Marvel is releasing short movies for their verse - The Consultant.

 

This one's new and it just came out folks:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/avengers/

 

And isn't it awesome? Can't wait for this