Continued from previous page...
Scott Allie and Joss Whedon ~ living large and on the Fray
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Once again, the main conference halls of 6B, C, D, E, and F combined were filled to capacity en masse awaiting to hear words of ensuing wisdom, or just sounds of snoring, from the 'evil genius' himself Joss Whedon.
A hush came over the floor as Scott Allie (editor of Dark Horse Comics) stepped upon the dais, his quiet voice making a simple yet inciting introduction that brought about thunderous applause; several minutes later as Joss settled into his chair and poured a glass of ice water we heard, "First of all I want to say that I'm very tired. . ." The audience was treated to a nice 'state of the onion' address to assure everyone of what he was doing, where he was going and when he would create the next apocalypse, a sneak peek of his original pilot episode for his new Sci-fi series Firefly, and a good solid 45-minutes of brilliant Whedon banter as he opened up the floor to questions from the audience. Throughout the questions there was much praise for Buffy episodes: "Once More with Feeling", "The Body", and "Hush". And there were a few brave moments, when someone who wasn't so pleased with Joss's work, came to the mic and said so, and that was fun too. But first we being with all things oniony . . .
THE MAN, THE MACHINE, HE BE JOSS
(We refrained from inserting 'laughter' and 'applause'; you can be assured there was plenty of both and where you think it may have occurred, it did, much.)
"So, that's it for the speechifying." ~ Joss
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Joss continued, ". . . but I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be working on whatever it is you're here for. There's some vampires, and Buffy, Angel, Fray and Firefly. It's an interesting year over at Mutant Enemy, we're doing everything, all the time. I'm really happy?" Joss said on the verge of faux exhaustion. "I want to thank Dark Horse for again bringing us out here and putting this together. Scott Allie in particular for his support and his incredible patients. I do plan to finish the 8-issue run of Fray, real soon. That will be coming out in the store and your grandchildren will enjoy them much. There have been some delays but it'll all work out, there was this other series and Carl [Molen] went to CrossGen and it was all confusing." He assured everyone, "We're going to finish it together and we're going to finish it soon so thank you for your patients on that. I'm very excited about it and those should be coming out in the early Fall.
"We're into the 7th year of Buffy. The first time I ever came here [Comic-Con] was with Aly [Alyson Hannigan] and Nicky [Nicholas Brendon], it was after the first 12 had aired and none of us knew if we had any fans. Until the people showed up here and we walked out and we heard a noise that sounded like a roar and we thought, 'Maybe we'll be back next year,' that was exciting. So this is always fun for me, however if I do fall asleep just prod me and I'll come back," joked Joss. "We're into the 4th year of Angel. We're very proud of that show, I thought we had a great year last year. That creative team has gelled enormously and while I morn the passing of [David] Greenwalt, 'cough-traitor-cough'," This brought about laughter and a few moans, but Joss followed with sincerity, "We miss him terribly but we have a fourth-year plan that I think is really spectacular and Angle--being the middle child--I feel very protective of it but I think the purest are finally starting to figure out that we're really doing something there. So I'm happy about that. And we are also in the first, tumultuous but very exciting year of Firefly. I feel differently about this show then I ever have before, I just think the cast has jelled in a way that I've never seen, the sets are unbelievable, the world that we're creating and the fact that I have Tim Minear creating it with me, the people who are on it are just truly phenomenon and I have a feeling that it works. I could be wrong and next year I might not have it any more, but I really do feel that it's something really special."
Alas the network didn't share in that feeling and Firefly has gone the course of many a series that failed to be appreciated and never had the chance to get off the ground. But here, fans were treated to a 5-minute scene from the original pilot which Joss wrote and directed prior to many of the cuts the network executives asked for in the series premiere version. FOX did finally air the original 2-hour Pilot on Friday December 20th - its amazing story arch, which after seeing most of the season, played into each episode and character development, showed how much the network execs lacked in their foresight and brought about the potential downfall of the series. After the preview, the audience reaction was energetic and supportive. "So that's it for the speechifying and that's it for the videotape clip," Joss continued. "You all secretly taped it, don't even try to deny it, you're just embarrassing yourselves. So at this point if people have questions I will do my best to answer them with what is left of my voice."
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS, sort of . . .
"I have no life and I'm the biggest Buffy geek alive.
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"If I do fall asleep just prod me and I'll come back."
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"I've started to forget certain things, my wife. ."
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Audience Member: Everything is always so incredibly well written and tight scripted, how do you keep track of everything? Even now when you throw things into Angel, (for example: when Cordelia found Willow and Xander making out and she fell into the cellar) Angel goes, 'It's hard to concentrate with a rot iron sticking out thru you,' and she's like, 'I know the benefits of a Sunnydale education.'
Joss Whedon: I have no life and I'm the biggest Buffy geek alive.
AM:: The Second.
JW:: Oh, I can take you! And our writers too, we're all nerds. The stuff like that is really the joy of it, having those callbacks. It's being able to go, 'Oh this is from way back,' we can make it mean something, or just make a reference to it. That's so much of the fun and once you're in the universe you're in it. Occasionally I've started to forget certain things; my wife, sometimes to dress in the morning, it's just horrible. But I'm so in it with everybody, we feed off each other, the stories feed off themselves so it's not really that hard to keep track of. If we can look in this world and remember stop lights and phone numbers I can pretty much remember that universe, it's a little bit smaller."
Audience Member:: Emma Caulfield told us yesterday that you have given her another musical number. Will anyone be joining her in that musical endeavor?
JW:: No, but she's not lying, I believe in episode 5 of next year we're going to have a flashback to a part of Anya's life that took place during the musical and she is going to have a ballad that she gets to sing. Which basically came about because we really wanted to look at Anya's life and start giving her, her due as a character, and Emma her due as an actress and everyone wanted to hear her sing again.
Emma Caulfield (Anya)with more singin', less bunnies!
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Audience Member:: I just read that you're going be having a lot more Faith on the next couple of seasons of Buffy and Angel and I was wondering when you're going to spin off Faith the Vampire Slayer?
JW:: Faith will be returning. Boy, I hope that doesn't fall through. I'll really look stupid (sing-song voice). As for spinning her off onto her own series, don't think we haven't thought of it. But I can't, I need another series right now, is what I need! But we love her [Eliza Dushku], and we're dying to have her back. She's been doing so many movies, now she has a break in her schedule and we grabbed it so I think it will be good. And yes, she will be on both shows.
Audience Member:: What are some of your next comic projects?
JW:: Ah ha! (painful laughter) Finishing Fray. About this time last year, when Fray really started to happen I thought about 14 comics that I had to do and a million things; working with Dark Horse is great, Brett [Matthews] and I were doing Angel and having so much fun. Then I ran out of time so I don't actually have any planned at the moment. This year is going to be about the three shows and I'm actually going to try and start and finish if they're a limited series so I don't do what I've done this time which is turn into Mr. Top Cow and not deliver. I'm not dis'ing him, (under his breath) 'idiots'. But they're known for not turning in on time, and now so am I, so I'm a proud member of that family. I'm holding off, I do have some stuff in mind, and we did discuss a Firefly comic as well but I want to put the breaks on that until we've really established the world on the show, because we're still finding it out as we go. For now I can say nothing, but I definitely have some stuff in store.
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"Faith will be returning. I hope that doesn't fall through. I'll really look stupid." ~ Joss
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Audience Member:: You're one of the greatest writers I've ever heard of, you following Ray Bradbury into the room, and I think you stand right at parallel to him. So why the hell did you write Water World?
JW:: That's a very fair question. Security!? It started out so well, with praise and I was like Ray Bradbury.
AM:: It's just like your writing, I set you up and took it way.
JW:: Well, there ya go. I guess I had it coming. First of all I want to address the first part of that which is how f***ing cool is it to follow Ray Bradbury in this room!? Who is one of the biggest influences, I grew up reading him and he is 'way' better than I am so that's just extraordinary. Anyway, back to Water World.
AM:: But he did not have Eliza Dushku.
JW:: No, but imagine what he could have done with her. That came out a little unsavory. Water World was a great goddamn idea. They told me they have this idea, 'It's Mad Max in a world of water,' I was like, 'I love this, this is cool.' The script didn't really work but that's my job. The script for Speed was a piece of s**t, the script for Toy Story was unreadable, and so Water World I fell in love with. I flew to Hawaii and spent seven (mumble) weeks doing nothing; watching them not use my stuff, hanging out with Kevin Costner and basically taking dictation. I've never taken a project that I didn't love, including Water World. The problem was in the script as I got it, in the 120 pages in the last 40 pages there was no water of any kind. The guy had gills, that was his special power and they didn't have any water. It was just a big shootout in a warehouse that happened to be a ship. And I thought I was gonna change all that and ultimately I still think that it could have been a great movie. I think it just got sucked up into the machine, a lot of big egos, a lot of big money and nobody had their eyes on the prize which was how cool this could have been. I stand by my decision, although I don't exactly watch the film every night. I'm glad you brought it up.
Audience Member:: I had started watching [Buffy] like a lot of fans, following it once it switched networks. I was really high one night and I flipped to it and I love it now.
JW:: I don't approve of 'that' kind of behavior.
AM:: You're writing a soap opera about monsters, I guess you might approve of it a little bit.
JW:: I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Security!?
AM:: What was your favorite episode, and your favorite you had the most fun writing?
JW:: There's different kinds of favorites; my favorite episode of Buffy, as an episode, is still "Innocents", because that was the first time we ever showed a show about feelings. And my favorite experience as a writer was probably "Once More With Felling". And a very quick, and to most of you meaningless, shout out to Chris Buchanan, president of my company who without whom [the musical CD] would never have happened. My favorite episode filming was Angel's "Waiting In The Wings", the ballet episode. That was the most fun I ever had while filming anything because there was ballet in it. The ensemble just jelled in a way that the whole experience was magical. Plus the entire thing we shot during the day instead of nights, which for the Angel crew was so beautiful that I think they liked me more than they actually would have otherwise.
Audience Member:: There's been a lot of talk regarding exactly when this relationship/rape between Spike and Buffy was created?
JW:: It was not at the very beginning, but it was certainly not added at the last minute. It became apparent that it was the logical extension of that unhealthy relationship, and that when they were investigating those boundaries and sort of pushing at them and role-playing with them that eventually they would begin to blur and something really ugly would happen. A lot of that season was also about power and abusive power, and misunderstanding of power and also about male power. The fact is what we wanted to show was the impotence of rape and the impotence of guys like Warren who are firing guns at people and relate them together. What started out as very light hearted or romantic or sexy on one side and funny on the other, we really wanted to get to the dark and some people were like, 'Okay, that's enough of the dark', but it was just sort of the natural flow of the season that that should happen and it should happen in the same episode where Warren kills somebody.
