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Portrait of a Slayer at Fifteen: the 15th Anniversary Buffy Retrospective (part 3 of 3)

This is part three of a three-part fifteenth-anniversary retrospective of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It contains spoilers for the entire run of the show.

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Continuing with my top 25 episode countdown, here’s the top ten. You’ll notice that I cheated a little and did a couple of two-parters as single episodes. Well, I did say that 20 percent of the show was 28.8, so if I have 27 favorites, you’ll have to forgive me.

Now, on with the show.

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10: Becoming, Part 2 (Season 2, Episode 22)

Angelus – “I want to torture you. I used to love it, and it’s been a long time. I mean, the last time I tortured someone, they didn’t even have chainsaws.”

Synopsis: Buffy, now a fugitive, joins up with Spike to stop Angelus because, while Angelus is trying to destroy the world via a demon called Acathla, Spike actually kind of likes the planet the way it is. Buffy is also expelled from school and confronts Whistler, an agent of the Powers That Be, to find out what she’s supposed to do. She tells her mother she’s the Slayer, and her mother delivers the classic “if you go out that door, don’t come back” line. Buffy goes out that door. Xander lies to Buffy, saying that Willow told him to tell her to kick Angel’s ass, but really Willow is working to restore Angel’s soul. She successfully completes the spell just as the fight between Buffy and Angel reaches a climax. She kisses him goodbye and then kills him, sealing the vortex that would have destroyed the world. Spike and Drusilla escape, and Buffy leaves Sunnydale for parts unknown. (It turns out to be Los Angeles.)

Notable Guest Stars: Richard Riehle as Merrick, since Donald Sutherland probably would’ve been too expensive; Julie Benz as Darla, the vampire who turned Angel.

It Made The List Because: Which is more important to you? Do you save the man you love, or do you save the world? Buffy chose the world, and the pain of it is writ large on her face. Everything she knows is collapsing — Xander and Willow are hurt, Giles was tortured, Angel is dead, and, worst of all, her mother has turned her back on her. Gellar plays it beautifully.

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9: Graduation Day, Parts 1 and 2 (Season 3, Episodes 21 and 22)

Anya – “When I think that something could happen to you, it feels bad inside, like I might vomit.”
Xander – “Welcome to the world of romance.”
Anya – “It’s horrible. No wonder I used to get so much work.”
Xander – “Well, I’m sorry I give you barfy feelings.”

Angel – “Well, he’s not crazy about germs.”
Cordelia – “Of course, that’s it. We’ll attack him with germs.”
Buffy – “Great. We’ll get him cornered and then you can sneeze on him.”

Synopsis: Throughout the season, Faith and the Mayor have been growing closer, becoming almost like father and daughter. Oz and Willow consummate their relationship. Faith poisons Angel, a poison which can only be cured by the blood of a Slayer. Buffy and Faith fight, and it ends with Buffy stabbing Faith, possibly fatally, and Faith falling onto a moving truck and escaping. The Mayor is quite upset over the fight — he really does care about Faith — and sends his minions to find her and Buffy. Buffy allows Angel to drink her blood so he can be cured. In a prophetic dream, Buffy and Faith seem to reconcile, although that’s only on a subconscious level. The Mayor, speaking at graduation, turns into a demon and starts wreaking havoc, including eating Principal Snyder. No one really complains. Buffy’s master plan — mobilizing the graduating class with weapons and using Xander’s military knowledge from Halloween — saves most of them. The other part of her plan is to lure the Mayor, now in demon form, into the library, where she detonates a large amount of explosives. The Mayor is killed and the school destroyed. Angel, as he promised, leaves Sunnydale (to get his own spin-off).

Notable Guest Stars: Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndham-Pryce; Harry Groener as the Mayor.

It Made The List Because: The conflict between Buffy and Faith comes to a head and we finally see who is the better Slayer. Also, Angel leaves Sunnydale despite the fact that he and Buffy are still in love. It was just a good season finale, satisfying in every regard… which makes sense, given that the main characters are now about to move onto the next phase of their lives: college.

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8: New Moon Rising (Season 4, Episode 19)

Willow – “Tara, I have to tell you –”
Tara – “No, I understand. You have to be with the person that love.”
Willow – “I am.”
Tara – “You mean…”
Willow – “I mean. OK?”
Tara – “Oh, yes.”
Willow – “I feel horrible about everything I put you through. And I’m going to make it up to you, starting right now.”
Tara – “Right now?”

Synopsis: Oz returns to Sunnydale having learned control over his wolf side. He and Willow talk for the whole night, but when Tara arrives, she becomes uncomfortable and leaves before Willow can get back from the bathroom. Willow admits to Buffy that she’s getting serious with Tara. Spike makes a deal with Adam to get the chip out of his head. Oz is captured by the Initiative, but Buffy gets him out. Oz leaves Sunnydale again after talking to Willow — the two of them confess that they will always love each other — and then Willow goes to Tara. Tara blows out the candle.

Notable Guest Stars: Leonard Roberts (Heroes) as Forrest Gates; Bailey Chase as Graham Miller; Amber Benson as Tara.

It Made The List Because: It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the Willow/Tara relationship. Willow loves Tara because she’s Tara; it doesn’t matter that she’s a girl, or that she’s a witch, or that she’s a college student, or that she thought she was going to turn into a demon someday (don’t ask). Since I was a teenager I’ve always believed that you love who you love, regardless of what parts they have in their pants, and this relationship is about that. Plus, we get lots of Alyson Hannigan’s goofy smiles as a result — always a positive.

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7: The Wish (Season 3, Episode 9)

Buffy – “Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic.”
Xander – “Mine is much more advanced.”

Synopsis: Cordelia is pretty upset after Xander and Willow are discovered kissing — at the time, she was dating Xander — and she makes a wish while speaking to the new girl, Anya. Anya is really a vengeance demon, and Cordelia’s wish — that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale — becomes reality. We’re then shifted to an alternate reality where the Master won and Xander and Willow are vampires. Giles figures out that they’re in an alternate universe and they call in Buffy, who was in Cleveland (location of the other Hellmouth). Although Buffy, Angel, Willow, and Oz are killed, Giles defeats Anya by destroying the source of her power and trapping her in human form. The alternate universe disappears.

Notable Guest Stars: Emma Caulfield as Anya, in her first appearance on the show.

It Made The List Because: Mostly because of Willow’s “bored now!” line that comes back with horrifying consequences in the sixth season. Also because alternate universe episodes are cool, and while this one does center on Cordelia a little too much, it’s still pretty good overall.

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6: Chosen (Season 7, Episode 22)

Buffy – “So here’s the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power, now? In every generation, one Slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule. I say my power, should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of this scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?”

Synopsis: The series finale. Buffy kills Caleb, minion of the First Evil. The Slayers and the Potentials go to the new Sunnydale High School for the final battle. Willow works a spell that activates all the potential slayers around the world, giving the Potentials the power to win the battle. Anya is killed in the fight. Spike, wearing a mystical amulet, calls down the power of the sun and sacrifices himself to save everyone else. Buffy barely makes it out, running along the roofs of Sunnydale’s buildings (in poorly-done CG) until she can jump for the schoolbus with everyone else on it. In the end, Sunnydale is nothing but a crater and the Hellmouth is closed. As the series fades to black for the last time, Buffy smiles.

Notable Guest Stars: David Boreanaz as Angel.

It Made The List Because: Truthfully, I found everything after the activation kind of weak. I really felt as though there should’ve been something bigger in terms of a one-on-one fight between Buffy and the First, but then, the First is completely noncorporeal. And Anya’s death was kind of a throwaway, sadly. However, we did have “are you ready to be strong?”, an immensely powerful sequence in the show, and of course Spike’s redemption. Oh, and an appearance by Trogdor the Burninator, who is defeated by Amanda the Potential Slayer.

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5: Grave (Season 6, Episode 22)

Xander – “The first day of kindergarten you cried because you broke the yellow crayon and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You’ve come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion, but the thing is, yeah, I love you. I loved crayon-breaking Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I’m going out it’s here. If you wanna kill the world, well then start with me. I’ve earned that.”
Willow – “You think I won’t.”
Xander – “It doesn’t matter. I’ll still love you.”

Xander (Nicholas Brendon, right) stops Dark Willow (Alyson Hannigan) from destroying the world.
Synopsis: Willow, wracked with grief over the death of Tara, has become Dark Willow, using magic for evil. Spike completes his ordeal in Africa, regaining his soul. Buffy and Dawn are trapped in a pit by Willow, forced to work together to fight against demons Willow raised. Andrew and Jonathan escape to Mexico. Willow, who feels all the pain in the world, attempts to cast a spell to end everything. Only Xander, her oldest friend, can stop her, and despite being attacked he keeps on coming, telling Willow that he loves her and that he’ll be right there with her when she destroys the world. She can’t do it, and she turns back into regular Willow. Anya is quite shocked to find out that Xander saved the world.

Notable Guest Stars: Danny Strong as Jonathan; Tom Lenk as Andrew.

It Made The List Because: Dumbledore was right: love is the greatest power there is. It stopped the most powerful witch in the world from destroying everything. When Willow finally gives in to Xander, it’s the capstone: an intense, emotional moment in a season full of roller-coasters.

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4: Hush (Season 4, Episode 10)

Spike – “We’re out of Weetabix.”
Giles – “We are out of Weetabix because you ate it all. Again.”
Spike – “Get some more.”
Giles – “I thought vampires were supposed to eat blood.”
Spike – “Yeah, well sometimes I like to crumble up the Weetabix in the blood. Gives it a little texture.”

The Gentlemen.
Synopsis: Demons called The Gentlemen steal the voices of every person in Sunnydale. Then they start stealing people’s hearts, killing them in the process. Giles figures out how to defeat the Gentlemen, and Buffy and Riley release the voices of the townspeople. Buffy screams, and the Gentlemen are killed. At the end, Buffy and Riley face each other… and say nothing. Also, we meet Tara.

Notable Guest Stars: Phina Oruche as Olivia, Giles’s on-again-off-again girlfriend; Doug Jones, Camden Toy, Don W. Lewis, and Charlie Brumbly as the Gentlemen.

It Made The List Because: Do not, under any circumstances, watch this episode in the dark. It is by far the scariest of the series, and one of the best. I actually stayed up and watched a second episode the night I saw “Hush” because I was so creeped out.

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3: The Gift (Season 5, Episode 22)

Buffy – “You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world … is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”

Buffy prepares to sacrifice herself as her sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) looks on.
Synopsis: Buffy asks Spike to protect Dawn, because she now trusts him implicitly. This is important next season. Spike’s Buffy-Bot is used as a decoy to distract Glory. The fight continues until Buffy turns Glory back into Ben, her human host, and tells him to leave Sunnydale (she’s shown in the past that she won’t kill a human being). However, the rift Glory created is still there. With everyone distracted, Giles kills Ben. At the top of Glory’s tower, Buffy tells Dawn she loves her and flings herself into the rift to destroy it. At the end, we see Buffy’s grave. Her epitaph: “She saved the world. A lot.”

Notable Guest Stars: Clare Kramer as Glory; Charlie Weber as Ben; Joel Grey as Doc.

It Made The List Because: I added this mostly because of Buffy’s speech to Dawn at the end. Whedon has a habit of doing speeches in retrospect — you don’t hear them until afterward, as a voiceover. Unlike in the first season, when you really don’t know Buffy well enough to care that she’s dead, you feel it in full now, and you see the reactions of her friends and family. A worthy death for a warrior like Buffy… but it doesn’t last. It never lasts.

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2: The Body (Season 5, Episode 16)

Anya – “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean I knew her, and then she’s, there’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she can’t just get back in it and not be dead any more. It’s stupid. It’s mortal and stupid, and, and Xander’s crying and not talking, and I was having fruit punch and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever. And she’ll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever and no one will explain to me why.”

Buffy finds her mother (Kristine Sutherland) dead in their living room.
Synopsis: Some episodes ago, Buffy’s mother had a brain tumor removed. Just before this episode, Buffy came home to find her mother dead on the couch. An aneurysm in her brain killed her quickly and painlessly. The main characters attempt to deal with this loss.

Notable Guest Stars: Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers.

It Made The List Because: One of the most powerful hours of television. Ever. No music, no traditional arc of exposition/rising action/climax. Just all of the characters dealing with death. It’s not even so much about Buffy and Dawn’s grief of a child losing a mother. It’s about Willow, who can’t decide what to wear to the hospital; it’s about Xander, feeling powerless in the face of death; it’s about Anya, who doesn’t understand how to react since she hasn’t been a human long enough to face death; it’s about Tara, who’s been through this before and knows that nothing will make the pain go away. Masterfully written, shot, edited, and acted, this episode is probably near the top of every “Best of Buffy” list on the planet.

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1: Once More, With Feeling (Season 6, Episode 7)

Anya – “It has to be stopped. It was like we were being watched, like there was a wall missing from our apartment. Like there were only three walls and not a fourth one.”

Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar, center) sings the final battle song with Anya (Emma Caulfield, left) and Tara (Amber Benson, right)
Synopsis: After returning from heaven, Buffy has felt increasingly disconnected to the world around her. She expresses this in the form of a song, much to her surprise. The Scoobies vow to figure out what’s going on. Xander and Anya, soon to be married, sing a duet about what they think is wrong with the other person. Tara serenades Willow. Spike tells Buffy to leave him alone if she’s not going to love him the way he wants her to. Giles says he’s going to leave Sunnydale. Dawn is kidnapped by a demon called Sweet, who is the cause of all the singing. Buffy vows to fight Sweet even though she doesn’t feel the emotions she should be experiencing. After revealing to her friends that Willow pulled her out of heaven, Sweet forces her to dance, almost to her death, but Spike stops her in time. Xander admits to invoking Sweet — he wanted to know if he and Anya would have a happy ending. At the end, Spike and Buffy kiss.

Notable Guest Stars: Hinton Battle as Sweet; David Fury as the mustard guy; Marti Noxon as the lady with the parking ticket.

It Made The List Because: A musical episode is hard enough without having to advance the plot; one that advances the plot should be spotlighted. Whedon wrote and scored the entire episode (Adam Shankman choreographed it), and every actor on the show actually sings his or her songs. Amber Benson is particularly good in this one, and she’s given a nice little naughty verse at the end of her solo song, as I mentioned in my review of the soundtrack some time ago. Watching this episode after seeing the entire series only underscores just how much viewers care about these characters. From Buffy’s emptiness at being taken from heaven to Spike’s unrequited love, from Dawn’s fear of being unnoticed to Tara’s depth of love for Willow, from Xander and Anya’s odd-couple relationship to Giles’s fatherly feelings toward Buffy, every character on the show receives full attention in this episode, and every one of them is allowed to be funny, or sweet, or sappy, or angry. Between this and “The Body”, you have two of the best hours of television you’ll ever see. Log into Netflix and watch this one right now.

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And there you have it: my top 25 episodes of Buffy. If you don’t have 144 hours to watch the entire show, you can probably find “must-see” lists all over the internet, but seriously… I made the mistake of not catching this when it was in first-run. I was lucky it was on Netflix and I didn’t have to buy the DVDs. Take advantage, take half a year’s worth of lunch breaks, and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It’ll give you something to sing about.

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Note to Parents: Although BtVS is only rated TV-PG at its “worst”, the show does contain violence, sexual situations, adult language, and intense action and emotional sequences. I’d say it’s safe for middle-schoolers on up. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

Portrait of a Slayer at Fifteen: the 15th Anniversary Buffy Retrospective (part 2 of 3)

This is part two of a three-part fifteenth-anniversary retrospective of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It contains spoilers for the entire run of the show.

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How do you review an entire seven-year run of a television series? How about by picking the top twenty percent of episodes?

Let’s see… 20 percent of 144… 28.8. Let’s go ahead and round that down to the top 25.

So, here you go: the top 25 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At least, in my opinion. Big thanks to everyone who edited the Wikipedia pages for these episodes, because that’s where I got the summaries and cast lists.

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25: Wild at Heart (Season 4, Episode 6)

Willow – “How come you didn’t tell me I look like a crazy birthday cake in this shirt?”
Buffy – “I thought that was the point.”

Synopsis: Spike is captured by The Initiative. Oz meets another werewolf, Veruca, who seduces him to the dark side of werewolf-dom (to this point, he has been locking himself up during the three days when he is prone to change, to keep everyone safe). She also sleeps with him. This understandably upsets Willow, Oz’s girlfriend. Willow plans a revenge spell but doesn’t go through with it; Veruca catches her at it, but Oz rescues her. The episode ends with Oz leaving Sunnydale.

Notable Guest Stars: Seth Green as Oz, in his final appearance as a regular; James Marsters as Spike, in his final appearance as a guest star (before becoming a regular).

It Made The List Because: Throughout the series, and despite her witchcraft, Willow sort of represents the everygeek, even more than Xander. She’s hyperintelligent (and pretty hyper), and has trouble integrating socially in a way that Xander really never did. But she’s grown by this point, and has found love, and she and Oz have overcome that… or so she thought. I picked this episode because it’s a pivotal change in Willow’s character: she’s known love, knows what it feels like, and it makes it that much more special for her when she finds it again.

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24: Lie to Me (Season 2, Episode 7)

Buffy – “Does it ever get easy?”
Giles – “You mean life?”
Buffy – “Yeah. Does it get easy?”
Giles – “What do you want me to say?”
Buffy – “Lie to me.”
Giles – “Yes, it’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Buffy – “Liar.”

Synopsis: In addition to building up Spike and Drusilla as the season two Big Bads, this episode focuses on Buffy and her relationship with her old friend Ford. It’s later revealed that Ford has a disease which will kill him, and in return for handing over the Slayer, Spike will turn Ford and his friends into vampires so they can live forever. After a fight which Spike escapes from, Buffy goes to Ford’s grave and stakes him as he rises.

Notable Guest Stars: Juliet Landau as Drusilla the insane vampire; Jason Behr (Roswell) as Ford.

It Made The List Because: This is the first time in the series where someone has a good reason for wanting to become a vampire. If you’re going to die, wouldn’t you want to do anything possible to keep on living? Is it so bad to have to drink blood if it means you don’t die of a debilitating disease? Also, it showed that Buffy doesn’t always want to slay the vampires, even though she has to, and it worked toward building the father/daughter relationship between Buffy and Giles.

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23: Buffy vs Dracula (Season 5, Episode 1)

Dracula – “You are strange and off-putting. Go now.”

Synopsis: Buffy and the Scooby gang face Dracula. Xander becomes Renfield, Giles becomes Jonathan Harker, and Buffy becomes a combination of Lucy and Mina. Eventually Buffy defeats Dracula and admits to Giles that she really doesn’t want him to leave.

Notable Guest Stars: Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn, her first appearance on the series.

It Made The List Because: Last night, someone linked me to a hilarious fanfic story where Buffy and the Scoobies take on Anita Blake and her harem. This episode is somewhat similar, in that Buffy is taking on another well-known vampire icon, and really, who doesn’t want their favorite character taking on someone famous… and winning? Also, this episode introduces Dawn.

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22: Faith, Hope, and Trick (Season 3, Episode 3)

Oz – “I’m wondering about your position on werewolves.”
Willow – “Oz is a werewolf.”
Buffy – “It’s a long story.”
Oz – “I got bit.”
Buffy – “Apparently not that long.”

Synopsis: A new vampire slayer, Faith, arrives in Sunnydale, having been activated after Kendra was killed by Drusilla. She brought with her Kakistos, an evil vampire with a bone to pick with her. There’s some conflict between Buffy and Faith before the big showdown, in which Faith freezes up and Buffy fights the vampire before Faith kills him with a very large wooden pole. Mr. Trick escapes — he becomes important later in the season — and, at the very end, Angel returns from Hell.

Notable Guest Stars: Eliza Dushku as Faith and K. Todd Freeman as Mr. Trick, both of whom recur through the season.

It Made The List Because: The first appearance of Faith cannot be ignored. Nor can Angel’s return from Hell, which leads directly to a major conflict through the season. And Mr. Trick is a delightful sidekick to the Mayor.

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21: The Harvest (Season 1, Episode 2)

Willow – “Maybe you could blow something up. They’re really strict about that.”

Synopsis: Willow and Xander learn about vampires and such. The Master (season one’s Big Bad) gains power. Xander accidentally slays his friend Jesse when Jesse is turned into a vampire. Buffy kills Luke, one of the Master’s top lieutenants.

Notable Guest Stars: Mark Metcalf as The Master; Brian Thompson as Luke; Eric Balfour (Haven) as Jesse.

It Made The List Because: Pretty much for the scene when Buffy kicks Luke through a window, Luke thinks it’s daylight (even though it isn’t), and then Buffy kills him. Overall the pilot two-parter was pretty standard fare for a genre TV show, but that line was hilarious.

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20: Dirty Girls (Season 7, Episode 18)

Faith – “Damn. I never knew you were that cool.”
Buffy – “Well, you always were a little slow.”

Synopsis: Faith returns from Los Angeles. Caleb, an evil preacher imbued by the power of the First Evil, arrives in Sunnydale. After a whole lot of talking, Buffy and the potential slayers take on Caleb, only to find out that he is more powerful than Buffy. Caleb kills two of the girls and gouges out one of Xander’s eyes, but Spike stops him before he can do anything more. Everyone still alive manages to escape.

Notable Guest Stars: Nathan Fillion as Caleb; D.B. Woodside as Robin Wood; Rachel Bilson as Colleen.

It Made The List Because: By this point, we’ve learned that Joss Whedon is not averse to killing off major characters — he did, after all, allow Tara to die, and Buffy herself died twice on the show. Angel died once too. So in the fight with Caleb, I was expecting a major character to die. I’d read somewhere that Xander ended the show with only one eye, but I wasn’t expecting something quite as gruesome and graphic as what was shown on-screen. This episode hammered home the fact that the good guys might not actually win this one, and even if they did, they wouldn’t come out unscathed.

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19: Normal Again (Season 6, Episode 17)

Spike – “Oh, balls! You didn’t say it was a Glarghk Guhl Kashmas’nik.”
Xander – “‘Cause I can’t say Glarba …”

Synopsis: Throughout the whole run of the show, Buffy has merely been creating a fantasy world inside her head where she’s the hero and has to save the world. But what’s actually been happening is that she’s been locked in an insane asylum since she burned down her old high school gym in Los Angeles (the climax of the BtVS film). Inside the fantasy world, a demon has made her hallucinate being in an asylum, and the only way out is to kill her support system — her friends. She eventually fights it off, but then the episode ends with Buffy locked away again, back in the asylum.

Notable Guest Stars: Dean Butler as Hank, Buffy’s dad; Kirsten Nelson (Psych) as Lorraine, Buffy’s boss at the Doublemeat Palace.

It Made The List Because: Which reality is the real reality? Is Buffy dreaming up all of this, or is the asylum just the place where her mind retreated to try and defend itself from the demon’s hallucinogenic drug? Through the entire episode, I knew that, at the end, Buffy would be in the “real” world — Sunnydale, with her friends — but the way the episode was written left a lot of room for doubt. I was a fair bit shellshocked afterward.

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18: Entropy (Season 6, Episode 18)

Tara – “There’s so much to work through. Trust has to build again, on both sides … you have to learn if you’re even the same people you were, if you can fit in each other’s lives, it’s a long and important process and… can we just skip it? Can you just be kissing me now?”

Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow (Alyson Hannigan)
Synopsis: A lot of plot movement in this episode — the Trio grows closer to their ultimate goal, Dawn shows remorse for her kleptomania, Spike and Anya go to each other for comfort (Buffy left Spike, Xander left Anya), Willow discovers that the Trio has been spying on everyone, Spike reveals that Buffy used to be his lover, and Willow and Tara reconcile after a long breakup.

Notable Guest Stars: Kali Rocha as Halfrek; Danny Strong, Tom Lenk, and Adam Busch as the Trio.

It Made The List Because: After the emotional roller-coaster of last week’s episode, it was time to advance the plot. Finally, we see that Spike and Buffy used to have a relationship, but more importantly, we see Willow and Tara get back together. No matter what parts you have or who you prefer to sleep with, I guarantee your heart warmed to see them move past their troubles. Unfortunately, it would be short-lived.

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17: Seeing Red (Season 6, Episode 19)

Andrew – “I can’t wait to get my hands on his orbs.”

Synopsis: Warren (leader of the Trio) uses a powerful relic to become super-strong and nigh-invulnerable. Buffy, injured from an earlier patrol, just wants to relax and take a bath but Spike, furious with himself and with her, breaks into her bathroom and attempts to rape her. Later, Buffy fights Warren, destroying the relic; Warren escapes, but Jonathan and Andrew (his henchmen/partners) are apprehended. At the end, just as Buffy and Xander reconcile (Xander was quite angry about Buffy sleeping with Spike), Warren surprises them in the backyard and shoots Buffy. One of the shots goes wild, breaking a window and killing Tara.

Notable Guest Stars: No one new, but this is the first and only episode in which we see Amber Benson in the opening credits.

It Made The List Because: I thought the worst thing I would see in this episode is Spike’s attempted rape of Buffy. I was wrong. I finished watching this episode, closed my iPad, and actually found myself near tears. This is what I was talking about in the first part of this retrospective: Joss Whedon makes you care about his characters… and then he kills them. Also, Spike leaves for his journey of redemption, which leads to an important story arc in the next season. But still… Tara, man… *shakes head*

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16: Showtime (Season 7, Episode 11)

Kennedy – “How’s evil taste?”
Willow – “A little chalky.”

Synopsis: The Potential Slayers are feeling pretty down because the uber-vampire Turok-Han is taking them down with ease. Buffy realizes that she has to do something about this, so she arranges a fight where all the Potentials can see her defeat it, one-on-one. Also, we learn that Buffy’s resurrection made it possible for the First to carry out its plan, and in the end, Buffy rescues Spike from the First, who had been using the Turok-Han to torture him.

Notable Guest Stars: Felicia Day as Vi; Iyari Limon as Kennedy, who would go on to become Willow’s lover.

It Made The List Because: There was a hell of a lot of speechifying in season seven, but it was all right, because most of it was good. The episode had Buffy showing the Potentials that they could be powerful enough to win, and it also had Spike’s first major redemptive moment in his reunion with Buffy. It was the end of the first major arc of the season as well.

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15: Restless (Season 4, Episode 22)

Cheese Man – “I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.”

Synopsis: After defeating Adam and the Initiative, the core Scoobies (Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles) take an evening off at Buffy’s house. One by one, their dreams are invaded by the spirit of the First Slayer. The First Slayer kills everyone except Buffy (in their dreams, not in real life), but Buffy defeats her by ignoring her.

Notable Guest Stars: David Wells as the Cheese Man, who I put here because it’s a funny character name; Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder, back from the dead in dream form; George Hertzberg as Adam, seen for the first time without his makeup.

It Made The List Because: “Restless” was unlike any Buffy episode filmed or aired, before or since. There’s an exhaustive write-up of it on Wikipedia. It’s interesting to me that, about a week before I saw this episode, someone in my writing group mentioned it in reference to the use of dreams in fiction. Overall it was a weird, interesting episode, but for more, I’ll leave you to the wiki.

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14: Prophecy Girl (Season 1, Episode 12)

Xander – “You were looking at my neck.”
Angel – “What?”
Xander – “You were checking out my neck. I saw that.”
Angel – “No, I wasn’t.”
Xander – “Just keep your distance, pal.”
Angel – “I wasn’t looking at your neck.”
Xander – “I told you to eat before we left.”

Synopsis: Buffy faces off against The Master, despite the fact that a prophecy has her dying at his hands. Well, it happens; he drinks her blood and throws her face-down into a pool of water where she drowns. Xander brings her back with CPR, and she goes on to kill The Master and end the season.

Notable Guest Stars: No one not already mentioned.

It Made The List Because: Buffy’s death in this episode reinforces Joss Whedon’s predilection for killing main characters, but it also sets up several interesting storylines, most notably those of Kendra and Faith.

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13: After Life (Season 6, Episode 3)

Buffy – “I was happy. Wherever I was … I was happy …at peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time…didn’t mean anything. Nothing had form. But I was still me, you know? And I was warm. And I was loved. And I was finished. Complete. I … I don’t understand theology or dimensions, any of it really… but I think I was in heaven. And now I’m not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out, by my friends. Everything here is hard and bright and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch. This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that. Knowing what I’ve lost.”

Synopsis: In the previous two-parter, Buffy was resurrected after sacrificing herself in the Season Five finale to save her sister. Now she’s trying to get back to normal. Unfortunately, a demon followed her back from wherever she was, using Willow’s magic as a guide; Willow and Tara use magic to make it solid, and Buffy kills it. At the end of the episode, Buffy tells Spike that she was in heaven, not hell.

Notable Guest Stars: Amber Benson as Tara, although really she doesn’t count because she was more or less a regular by this point.

It Made The List Because: Glory, season five’s Big Bad, came from a Hell Dimension. The rift she was trying to open with the key (Dawn) should have led back to it, right? Well, not so much. This episode begins Willow’s downfall into magic addiction by showing the consequences of her actions and her selfishness (wanting Buffy back despite her friend having nobly sacrificed herself) and also strengthens the relationship between Spike and Buffy.

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12: Halloween (Season 2, Episode 6)

Buffy – “A demon! A demon!”
Willow – “It’s not a demon, it’s a car.”
Buffy – “What does it want?”

Synopsis: Giles’s old frenemy Ethan Rayne comes to Sunnydale and uses a chaos spell to make everyone turn into what their costumes portray. Willow is a ghost, Buffy is an 18th-century noblewoman, and Xander is a soldier. Xander protects Buffy while Willow and Giles take on Ethan, eventually defeating him. Also, Oz is seen around town being interested in Willow.

Notable Guest Stars: Robin Sachs as Ethan Rayne.

It Made The List Because: This is the episode that launched hundreds of thousands of fanfics. Just go to any fanfic site, find the Buffy section, and search for YAHF. Also, it helped to set up the long-term courtship of Willow by Oz, which would eventually lead to Seth Green getting into the opening credits. So, y’know, good for him. Finally, by having been a soldier in his costume, Xander retains much of the knowledge the chaos spell gave him, which comes in handy later.

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11: Surprise/Innocence (two-parter, Season 2, Episodes 13 and 14)

Angel – “Still, not every dream you have comes true. I mean, what else did you dream last night? Can you remember?”
Buffy – “I dreamt… I dreamt that Giles and I opened an office supply warehouse in Vegas.”
Angel – “See my point?”

Synopsis (“Surprise”): Spike and company are attempting to bring forth a demon called Judge to defeat Buffy. With the help of computer teacher Jenny Calendar (Giles’s love interest), Buffy figures out what’s going on. However, she’s unable to stop the rise of Judge. Later, she and Angel consummate their relationship — Buffy’s first time. That night, as Buffy sleeps, Angel wakes and runs, screaming…

Cordelia – “So does looking at guns make you wanna have sex?”
Xander – “I’m 17. Looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex.”

Synopsis (“Innocence”): …and loses his soul, the thing that made him a good vampire instead of an evil one. He joins up with Spike and company, taking over as the season’s Big Bad, and begins terrorizing Buffy, who is pretty torn up over the whole thing. Somehow, in the middle of this, Oz and Willow begin their relationship. Anyway, Buffy uses a rocket launcher to kill Judge, then fights Angel (now Angelus) but doesn’t kill him. Buffy admits her mistakes to Giles, who forgives her because she loved Angel and he her.

Notable Guest Stars: Brian Thompson as Judge; Vincent Schiavelli as Uncle Enios; Robia LaMorte as Jenny Calendar.

It Made The List Because: For many people, losing one’s virginity is a watershed event that occurs in the high school years. It’s fraught with mystery, worry, and afterward, a profound sense of relief*. Buffy is clearly not the type of girl who sleeps around, as is referenced many times through the series (and the one time she does, she faces real-world consequences that any person might); she chose to be with Angel because she loves him, which is a good message: that intimacy with someone you love should not be avoided. Unless that person you love is an evil vampire who killed countless people before he was stopped. The episode shows just how much more evil than Spike Angel actually can be, which is quite powerful. And hey, they killed a demon with a rocket launcher. That was pretty darn cool.

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The final part of the retrospective will hit my top ten Buffy episodes. Until then… “goodbye, Picadilly; farewell Leicester bloody Square.”

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Note to Parents: Although BtVS is only rated TV-PG at its “worst”, the show does contain violence, sexual situations, adult language, and intense action and emotional sequences. I’d say it’s safe for middle-schoolers on up. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

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* Or maybe that was just me.

Soundtrack Review: “Once More, With Feeling”

This review contains spoilers for the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer television series.

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If you follow me on Twitter (@listener42), then you know I use the app GetGlue to play a FourSquare-like game with the media I consume. And, for the last six months or so, you’ve observed many quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I finally got around to watching a series my college friends told me was something I should see.

This isn’t a review of the show — I’ve saved that for the 15th-anniversary retrospective that’s being posted this week. Instead, it’s a review of the soundtrack to the musical episode “Once More, With Feeling”, which I received last month and loaded onto my phone.

Yesterday*, I was having kind of a bad day, and I had a long drive ahead of me. So I figured I’d put on some music that had good associations. See, I really liked the Buffy series, and “Once More, With Feeling” was a really good episode — on Facebook, my friend Dave said, “to this day I consider this to be the greatest single episode of a series I’ve ever seen”, and while I’m sure I’ve seen great single episodes before, I can’t think of anything at the moment to contradict his statement. And, according to the episode’s Wikipedia page, the critics tend to agree.

I think the soundtrack works best if you have fond memories of the show, or were significantly affected by it. For me, one of the most emotional arcs of the show was Willow and Tara’s relationship — beginning with the episode she chooses Tara over Oz, and ending with Tara’s accidental death at the hands of Warren Mears. I was particularly moved in the episode following Tara’s death, “Villains”, when Willow invokes the god of death to try and undo what was done to the person she loves. Tara’s death occurred after she reconciled with Willow following a breakup, and that breakup happened shortly after “Once More, With Feeling”. (Trust me, all of this will be relevant in a paragraph or so.)

Emma Caulfield (Anya)

So, in the beginning, I got a few laughs out of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s opening number, “Going Through The Motions”, and I actually thought I’d have a nice Saturday afternoon drive. Although Gellar’s voice occasionally sounded thin, I remember being surprised at how good she did with the song — which explained how empty she felt about her life after being resurrected in the beginning of the season**. “Motions” was followed by a medley featuring solos by Anthony Head (Giles) and Emma Caulfield (Anya), and again I found myself laughing along with Caulfield’s rock anthem about her dislike of rabbits.

Bunnies aren’t just cute like everyone supposes.
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses,
And what’s with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?

I guess you had to be there.

The third track was equally amusing — “The Mustard” — which is a 19-second declaration that the dry-cleaner got the mustard out of producer David Fury’s shirt.

Amber Benson (Tara) and Alyson Hannigan (Willow)

And then things took a turn for the sad, because Amber Benson (Tara) began her first solo, “Under Your Spell”. The song is actually pretty happy on the surface, and if you haven’t seen the episode, you may not know that, just before it, Willow and Tara argued about Willow’s increasing usage of (and dependence upon) magic. Benson has a beautiful voice — an unexpected joy, given her character’s soft-spoken manner — and she spends several minutes serenading Willow. She ends with a verse that could be considered a little dirty, but is still kind of sweet:

The moon to the tide
I can feel you inside
I’m under your spell
Surging like the sea
Wanting you so helplessly
I break with every swell
Lost in ecstasy
Spread beneath my willow tree

Because of what happens through the rest of Season Six — the fight, the reconciliation, the death — I found my throat getting a little tight*** as I listened to the song, and I think that set the mood for the rest of the album.

Nicholas Brendon (Xander) and Caulfield

On the heels of that song comes the duet “I’ll Never Tell”, where Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Anya sing to each other about the things that niggle at their seemingly-perfect relationship. It’s a hilarious song which, among other things, rhymes the words “Scoobies” and “rubies” with the words “tight embrace”. Brendon isn’t the best singer in the group (by a long-shot), but Caulfield carries the song for him, and anyway it’s more about his lyrics than his abilities.

X: Is she looking for a pot of gold?
A: Will I look good when I’ve gotten old?
X: Will our lives become too stressful / if I’m never that successful?
A: When I get so worn and wrinkly / that I look like David Brinkley?

One more interlude follows that song — producer Marti Noxon lamenting “The Parking Ticket” she receives — before things get serious. There’s a great scene with Spike where he fights the urge to sing and dance before being forced to succumb — “Rest in Peace”, in which Marsters channels the rock gods of the 70s and 80s while still sounding like a small-theater performer. He’s not an amateur, but he’s no Anthony Head.

Hinton Battle (Sweet)

We move on next to “Dawn’s Lament” and “Dawn’s Ballet” — Michelle Trachtenberg, trained as a dancer, has a very thin soprano voice, but she dances her feelings instead. The Dawn songs are followed by “What You Feel”, where Tony Award-winning guest star Hinton Battle explains that he’s going to be taking Dawn back to Hell to be his bride, and that he’s the one who’s been making people sing and dance.

Next, we go back to the Scoobies: Anthony Head (Giles), who is a rather talented musician and singer, doesn’t seem to hit his full potential in “Standing”, although he definitely excels in his duet with Benson (“Under Your Spell/Standing — Reprise”). Again, Whedon’s writing to this point in the series strengthens the emotional connection viewers (and listeners) feel with the song: Giles is going to leave Sunnydale because he feels he’s standing in Buffy’s way, and Tara is going to leave Willow because she’s been lying about her addiction to magic usage****.

The next song, “Walk Through The Fire”, is an ensemble/”get ready to fight the villain” montage number, led by Gellar (again her voice is a little thin and her singing feels flat — although she’s supposed to feel unemotional so I guess it was a character choice). Eventually everyone joins in, and Hannigan receives the line of the day with “I think this line is mostly filler” — I wonder how long it took Whedon to come up with that. It’s followed by the most plot-filled song of the episode, “Something to Sing About”, when Buffy reveals to everyone (except Spike, who she already told) that, when Willow resurrected her from the dead, she pulled her out of heaven.

There was no pain,
No fear, no doubt
Till they pulled me out
Of heaven.

So that’s my refrain.
I live in hell
‘Cause I’ve been expelled
From heaven.
I think I was in heaven.

So give me something to sing about.
Please give me something.

Spike, who over the past twenty or so episodes has been getting closer to admitting (to himself and to others) his feelings for Buffy, saves her from dancing herself to death, and then Xander admits that he summoned Sweet (the demon played by Hinton Battle) because he wanted to know if he and Anya would have a happy life together. Sweet reprises “What You Feel” and then disappears.

James Marsters (Spike) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy)

The episode ends with “Where Do We Go From Here?”, a final ensemble where everyone sings about the way their relationships have changed, and closes with “Coda”, where Spike and Buffy kiss for the first time.

Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
The battle’s done
And we kind of won
So we sound our victory cheer
Where do we go from here?

Though the episode itself was excellent, the soundtrack was more effective (in my case) because of the emotional associations with the material. Fans of Buffy will definitely enjoy listening to this, although casual watchers may not get the same level of appreciation. As far as the material itself, the songs are arranged and ordered in such a way that the weaker offerings are interspersed with the stronger. If we could’ve had Benson knock it out of the park with the opening, I think that might have worked a little better, but it wouldn’t have been germane to the primary plot — that Buffy feels nothing since leaving heaven and can’t admit it to anyone except Spike, who she’s supposed to hate (but doesn’t, not really) — I can understand why Whedon didn’t go that route. Still, if for no other reason than to hear “Under Your Spell”, “Under Your Spell/Standing — Reprise”, and “Walk Through The Fire”, I am definitely keeping this soundtrack on my phone. I might get a little teary-eyed driving to work someday soon as a result, but you know what? I don’t care.

Because I am drawn to the fire. Apparently, some people will never learn.

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Note to Parents: I’d rate this soundtrack a very light PG for mild language (mostly “hell”) and thematic elements (death and sex). Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

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* February 4. I’m writing this on the 5th.

** At the end of Season 5, Buffy sacrificed herself to save her sister, jumping to her death to destroy a portal to a Hell Dimension.

*** Okay, a LOT tight.

**** I realize that pretty much every TV show has to have a character addicted to some kind of drug or behavior — alcohol, gambling, sex, painkillers, whatever — but I never really liked the “Willow’s addicted to magic” storyline. It seemed a bit forced in there just to give us some additional tension. The tension was necessary — up until the last quarter of the season, The Trio wasn’t really that great of a Big Bad in terms of villainy — but I almost wish we could’ve had something else (besides Dawn’s kleptomaniacal cry for help, which also was pretty annoying).

Portrait of a Slayer at Fifteen: the 15th Anniversary Buffy Retrospective (part 1 of 3)

This is part one of a three-part fifteenth-anniversary retrospective of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It contains spoilers for the entire run of the show.

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Fifteen years ago this week, television as we know it was changed forever by…

Okay. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn’t “change television as we know it”. At least, not in the beginning.

In 1992, the filmed version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was released to a fair, but not great, reception (it only has a 32 percent rating on the Tomatometer). That was twenty years ago. About five years later, give or take, screenwriter Joss Whedon’s televised incarnation of Buffy Summers launched on the WB Network (now the CW). Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as the title character, and also featuring Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Charisma Carpenter, and Anthony Stewart Head, the show quickly gained popularity among… well, honestly, I don’t know who it was popular with, except to say that my college friends were really into it, going so far as to organize little viewing parties in the Honors Lounge. They invited me every time, but I declined.

Last year, for lack of anything better to do on my lunch breaks, I decided to see what this Buffy thing was all about.

And I was hooked.

Okay, not at first — every show has its growing pains in the first ten or so episodes — but the show quickly gained momentum thanks mostly to Joss Whedon’s writing talent and the way he oversaw the show. He didn’t write every episode, but as the showrunner he had control over the main story arcs, and he most definitely did not disappoint.

Buffy ran for seven seasons — six and a half, actually, since the first season was only twelve episodes — and launched a five-season spin-off (Angel). It’s one of the most fanfic-laden intellectual properties out there (trust me; I looked), and even now the story still continues in an official, canon sense with Whedon overseeing the Buffy comic book series.

How was Buffy different from other vampire stories? For starters, it wasn’t really, when it came to the vampires: they can be killed by sunlight and stakes through the heart; silver and crucifixes hurt them; they drink blood; they make more of themselves by having humans drink their blood; they’re faster and stronger than normal humans. But Buffy took it a step further, actually explaining how a vampire is made: when a person is killed by a vampire, their soul moves on to the next world and a demon takes up residence in the person’s body. Apparently all of these demons know martial arts, too, because right when they come out of the grave they’re pretty good fighters.

So some folks many thousands of years ago imbued mystical powers into a girl — the Slayer — who was called upon to fight vampires (and anything else that falls into the general category of “evil”). She, like the vampires, is faster and stronger than normal people, and heals faster, too. She’s supported by a Watcher, a human member of a secret society whose job it is to keep an eye on “potentials”* — girls who might become the next Slayer after the current one is killed. They die young; fighting evil does that to you. The Slayer fights alone, one girl against the forces of darkness.

The stars of Buffy Season 1: Nicholas Brendon (Xander), Anthony Head (Giles), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia), Alyson Hannigan (Willow)
But Buffy said no to that. She has friends — Willow, a geek who becomes a witch; Xander, a nice guy with a crush on Buffy; and even Cordelia, the queen of the popular kids who can always be counted on to say the wrong thing. And she falls in love with a vampire — again, nothing new here, but unlike a lot of other vampire fiction of the time, said vampire has renounced his old ways and is trying to help in the fight against evil.

And that’s where the strength of the show really is: not “Buffy kills a lot of vampires using ninja moves and wooden stakes”, but the interpersonal relationships between the characters. It means a lot more to viewers when they care about the people they’re watching. Will Buffy’s mom ever find out about the slaying? How will she react? What will Willow do when she realizes her boyfriend is a werewolf? Is Xander’s home life really so bad that he’d rather fight evil than see his parents? And what’s behind that well-constructed British facade Giles shows the rest of the world?

Whedon didn’t just do this with his heroes, either; even the villains got their due — Spike, the Big Bad of season two, is forced to make hard choices when Angel turns evil; the Mayor of Sunnydale, a relentless pragmatist, truly loves Faith, who knows he’s evil but loves him right back; even the Trio, the villains of season six, have their redeeming qualities despite their leader murdering one of the show’s most beloved characters.

Joss Whedon, the man who gave us Buffy, Angel, Echo, Captain Tightpants, and so much more.
It’s that — not the vampires, not the demons, not the pretty girls or the handsome guys — that made Buffy the Vampire Slayer worth watching all those years. We watched to see how Buffy would save Angel, how Spike would be redeemed, how Riley would escape Adam, how Dawn would react when Glory threatened to kill her… and yes, how Buffy would defeat the most evil thing to ever be born of humanity’s desire to do bad. Through it all, we cared about these characters, from the stars of the show to the villains — reformed and not — and even as far as the occasional comic relief**. In the Whedonverse, every character matters, and that’s what makes the show special.

March 10, 1997: the day that changed television for a lot of people. And continues to draw in new viewers all the time. The fashions may not hold up; the slang and pop-culture references might be dated; the effects in the early seasons are definitely iffy. But the storytelling will make this show worth watching even twenty, thirty, or fifty years later.

I’d stake a vampire on it.

I found this on the internet and thought it was apropos.

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Parts Two and Three will cover the top 25 Buffy episodes.

Note to Parents: Although BtVS is only rated TV-PG at its “worst”, the show does contain violence, sexual situations, adult language, and intense action and emotional sequences. I’d say it’s safe for middle-schoolers on up. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

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* I just realized I used this same idea in a story I recently wrote — although mine was about Santa Claus, not vampires. So, Joss, if you’re reading this… please don’t sue me.

** Come on, now; who didn’t just adore Clem?

Film Review: “The Secret World of Arrietty”

The following review contains minor spoilers for The Secret World of Arrietty and the novel The Borrowers. Also, although the names are somewhat different in the original Japanese, since I saw this as an English dub, I’m going to use the English names.

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My daughter loves Miyazaki films. Her favorite movie is Ponyo, and she loves My Neighbor Totoro as well.

On Friday*, Miyazaki’s latest presentation to American audiences hit theaters. It’s The Secret World of Arrietty, based on the Mary Norton novel The Borrowers. Arrietty was released in Japan in 2010 and grossed the U.S. equivalent of $23 million. It runs 94 minutes; there is no coda once the video behind the credits fades to black.

I’ve never read The Borrowers, although I think I may have seen the 1973 Hallmark Hall of Fame version. Still, I knew the gist of the story: tiny people that live in the crawlspaces and under the floorboards borrow things that humans won’t miss, and if they are seen by humans, bad things happen.

The Studio Ghibli adaptation of the novel, written by Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, remains relatively faithful to the novel: a young man named Shawn visits the country home where his parents grew up; he’s there because he’s soon to have heart surgery, and he needs to rest. While there, he catches a glimpse of a tiny girl being chased by the family cat, Nina. The tiny girl is Arrietty, a borrower just on the cusp of maturity (fourteen). Arrietty goes on her first borrowing with her father, Pod, but just before she can borrow a tissue, Shawn wakes up and sees her (but not her father). She escapes, and while her father doesn’t hold it against her, Shawn’s curiosity is piqued and he continues to try and see Arrietty again.

(Continue Reading…)

My Problem With Graphic Novels (Part 2 of 2)

The following is part two of a two-part piece on graphic novels. It contains spoilers for several graphic novel series… serieses… whatever. The most recent one is Buffy Season 8, but many older ones are included as well. Read at your own risk.

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Death reflects upon the death of Dream. Click to enlarge.

Now, let’s move on from action to emotional turmoil. While I will say that many artists are more than capable of giving us a character’s full emotional range via posture and facial expression, somehow I just don’t get the same emotional impact when I read it in a graphic novel as when I see it on TV or read it in a book. In fact, the only time I was truly moved by something I read in a graphic novel was in The Wake, the tenth and final collection of the original Vertigo run of Sandman. In it*, we hear Dream’s siblings pay tribute to him. Perhaps because I’ve always loved Death**, when she talked about Dream I actually was brought nearly to tears.

Compare that to other graphic novels I’ve read:

  • V for Vendetta — I wasn’t really moved by Valerie’s story. Maybe because I’d already seen it done in the film (which I saw first). But I know I was supposed to be touched by it, and even now when I see certain things on TV or read them in books I’m again touched by them. It just didn’t compute.
  • Watchmen — There’s a lot of sadness and betrayal in these books, and I think I was really supposed to feel for Dr. Manhattan when he retreats to Mars to figure out things between himself and Laurie. Didn’t happen.
  • Star Trek TNG: The Worst of Both Worlds — I’ll admit that I read this when I was young and stupid, but I totally missed out on all the painful subplots between Data and Geordi, and all the stuff that went on with O’Brien.
  • Star Trek: Mirror Universe — Published just after Star Trek III was released, these books are an alternate to the whole thing with the whales. I will say that I enjoyed the action sequences, and definitely felt the moment of triumph as Kirk takes the Excelsior from Styles, but the scene where Kirk reunites with Mirror-David just didn’t resonate.

That whole sequence is leading me up to what I really wanted to talk about, and here’s where the spoilers come in.

The death of Giles. (Click to enlarge.)

In issue 39 of Buffy Season 8, Angel kills Giles.

I remember reading about this — perhaps on IO9; I checked their archives but couldn’t find the original article — and I believe I saw some things about how unceremoniously it was done. Now, I know that Whedon is all about the killing of characters with no warning, but there’s a big difference between “I am a leaf on the wind” and Anya getting chopped in half and left for dead. I’m not saying that I disagree with the writing choice, or with Whedon for killing the character, but I have issue with the way it was done.

I already rewrote one of the scenes from Season 8 in text, and I’m not going to rewrite this one too, but let’s imagine if this had happened on screen. In fact, let’s contrast it with another famous Buffy death: Tara’s. With Tara’s death, we had reaction, we had plot movement (Willow becomes Dark Willow), we had a moment for them to be together, one last time. Very visual and visceral, very much a film thing. In the comic, Angel — possessed by the villain/universe spirit called Twilight — simply kills Giles. Now, right afterward, Buffy does kick him through a wall or something, but I just didn’t get the same emotional impact as I have with other big deaths — Data in Nemesis, Dax in Deep Space Nine, George in Grey’s Anatomy, Bobby in Supernatural***. To me it just didn’t seem real.

Some of that might come from what’s been hammered into my head about canon vs non-canon for so long: for years, stuff in comics and books hasn’t really been considered canon when held up alongside television or film properties. Star Trek specifically comes to mind. But Season 8 is canon, and this particular series of issues was written by Joss Whedon — the equivalent of Shonda Rhimes penning a 300-page Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice novel and releasing it in the summer between seasons. When Giles died, it counted.

But in my head, it wasn’t the same.

Lest you think I’m only about the Vampire Slayers****, I also recently read the first volume of Kick-Ass. Comparing the death scenes of Big Daddy in film and comic form, I have to side with the film yet again.

Now, let me say this: I have been moved by things happening in comics, but only in one medium. That medium is webcomics. Could it be because I only knew the characters in that format? Could I be so thrilled that Ozy’s dad and Millie’s mom finally got together because I’d spent years with these characters? Could I be so devastated by Faye’s death in Something Positive that even rereading the “Just Today” strips still makes me cry because, for years before, I’d gotten to know them as comic characters?

Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t really know.

But I do know this: I have a problem with graphic novels. Especially ones that are alongside other forms of media, as tie-ins or sequels, but even if there isn’t a tie-in (when I first read Watchmen, the film wasn’t even in production) a lot of the emotional nuance still misses me completely. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to use my imagination as much (since there’s visual art to compensate for that). Maybe it’s because I expect to see the characters in a different light and it just doesn’t seem real to me when I experience them in graphic novel form. Or, hell, maybe I’m just one of those people who doesn’t get the same satisfaction out of comics that I do out of video, audio, or straight-up textual media.

This doesn't even come CLOSE to what I imagined when I read the novelization of Superman's death.

I’m not saying “don’t read comics”; I think they have a lot to offer. But for someone like me, someone for whom the words are the most important thing, I’d rather skip them and wait until they’re novelized. I got so much more out of The Death and Life of Superman when it was novelized by Roger Stern than I ever would have out of reading it in serialized issue format, or even as a graphic novel. Comics just don’t engage my brain enough, because they give me too much information. They show me the pictures, instead of letting me create them myself.

And, really, that’s what I want.

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* I haven’t read this one in a while, so I’m going on memory. Forgive my lapses.

** She sits on my desk. She’s always the last to be packed up and the first to be set out whenever I get a new job. Here she is.

*** As awesome as Bobby’s final word was — “Idjits!” — do we have to see it in every single “Then” segment before the show starts? Talk about over-trading on your emotional moments…

**** Okay, okay, I’ve been on a Buffy kick lately, I admit it. But it’s like a person who’s never bothered to try pork suddenly discovering the existence of bacon — even six months later, you’re still ecstatic over the awesomeness of its every aspect. Yeah, that’s right, I just compared Buffy the Vampire Slayer to bacon. Deal with it.

My Problem With Graphic Novels (Part 1 of 2)

The following is part one of a two-part piece on graphic novels. It contains spoilers for several graphic novel series… serieses… whatever. The most recent one is Buffy Season 8, but many older ones are included as well. Read at your own risk.

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The cover for the Star Trek: Mirror Universe graphic novel.

I have a problem with graphic novels.

When I was a kid, I read a lot of comics — some superhero stuff, some Archie stuff, whatever looked cool at the comic shop, and of course a bit of Star Trek because, you know, it’s me. Later, as comics started to cost more and more*, I got out of the habit of reading them. I’d pick up an occasional collection, such as the Star Trek Mirror Universe saga, or I’d get a multi-issue run such as “The Worst of Both Worlds”, but for the most part… no more comics for me. I was too busy spending my pocket money on books.

I preferred books. Books were $6 (for a mass-market paperback), and they had hundreds of pages, and if there were no pictures… well… that was fine with me, because I could use my imagination. I could fill in the visual blanks using cover images and my own experiences**. And books took longer to read, too — a 350-page novel would last me a week or two, whereas a 32-page comic book took all of fifteen minutes to read.

Now, a lot of my friends who are comic readers say it’s not just about the story. They tell me the art is important. And yeah, they’re right, the art is important. But not to me.

Let me explain.

I'm specifically referring to the top-right panel. (Click to enlarge.)

When I read a graphic novel, I rarely notice the nuances of the artwork. I’m far more interested in reading the story and finding out what happens next. Often that does happen via artwork, especially in sequences void of dialogue or narration. But for the most part, there’s text. As a short-story/novella writer, what I care about is the storyline. While I totally appreciate great artwork, if it’s just there as a reaction shot, I’m less appreciative.

Let’s take a panel from “Twilight, Part 1”***, issue 32 of Buffy Season 8, written by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens, and Michelle Madsen****. Specifically, the panel that references the iconic scene in Superman where Lois says “You’ve got me? But who’s got you?” At this point in the story, Buffy has gained superpowers and she and Xander are trying to figure out just how powerful she is. At the bottom of a cliff in Tibet, Buffy throws Xander into the air as he calls back to that line, then zips to the top of the cliff to catch him. The panel itself depicts the cliff, a temple at the top where Oz lives, and Xander in the sky with “YOOOOOOoooooooooou?!” breaking vertically out of his word bubble.

Yeah. Really.

Maybe that sort of thing works for some people, but for me it was just silly. For me, I might have better appreciated something like this:

Without warning, Xander jumped into Buffy’s arms. He recognized the mischievous look in her eye and, honestly, it worried him a little bit.

More than a little bit.

“What are you doing?” she asked him, smiling.

Xander didn’t really like the smile — he had a sinking feeling she was going to do something Slayer-like. But he’d committed to the part, and he had to say the line now. “You’ve got me?” he quoted. “Then who’s got you–!”

The last word was a howl as Buffy flung him into the air. He watched the cliff go past, then Oz’s temple — was someone waving at him? — then the treetops, and then he was more stories up than he’d care to count.

As his ascent slowed, something from Geometry class popped into the back of Xander’s mind. Something about parabolas.

He stopped rising.

He started falling.

Well, he thought, at this point, screaming will do me absolutely no good.

He screamed anyway.

The ground was looking awfully close.

And so was Buffy. Who caught him easily in her arms, bounced a little, and smiled. “Hat trick,” she said.

Now, to me that’s got far more impact than actually seeing it happen on the page. Maybe if Season 8 had been televised, and they’d done this on screen, I would’ve appreciated the visual impact, but to my mind action sequences really don’t work in comic form. Plus they have all those Adam West-era Batman sound effects. Like my personal favorite, KPOK!, which some Klingon somewhere will someday read and be pretty ticked off about the misuse of his name.

Admittedly, writing action sequences can be tough; I’ve struggled with fight scenes from time to time — I recently wrote one about two martial artists trying to see who’s better, and I inevitably found myself getting sucked into the witty dialogue at the expense of the ass-kicking — but they can be done well. In Laurell K. Hamilton’s latest Anita novel, Hit List (click the link for my review), I mentioned that the action sequences were well-written and well-paced. Sean McMullen pulls it off admirably in the battle sequences in his Moonworlds saga. And of course we’ve heard it on the various Escape Artists casts — anyone remember the squid combat of Ferrett Steinmetz’s “As Below, So Above”? But when you’re writing an action sequence, you only have to concentrate on transcribing what you see in your mind. When you’re writing the action sequence in a graphic novel (or comic), you have to pick specific points in the action to depict.

I don’t want to see specific points. I want to see the whole thing. And, for me, comics just can’t pull it off.

A battle between the Rebels and the Death Star. Even in 1977, it looked better on film.

Plus, action sequences in comics are sometimes… well… boring. Who needs to see two or three pages of your main characters fighting each other? There’s no story there. There’s no real advancement of the plot. Maybe there’s some “scuffling for the superweapon-of-doom” that you might also see on TV when the good guy kicks the bad guy’s gun away but then has to get to it in order to kill the bad guy… but otherwise, to me it’s just meh. If I’m watching a fight scene on TV or in a movie, it’s maybe two minutes of moves before the plot moves along and someone wins. Occasionally it goes longer — especially if it’s a Boss Fight, or we’re seeing a space battle. But jeez… compared to the video version of a space battle, even if you’re only watching it on a four-inch phone screen, a comic just can’t stand up to that kind of action. You can just do so much more.

I realize it’s a limitation of the medium, one that the artists and writers work valiantly to overcome, but really… there’s a lot more to Kirk blasting the Reliant than a bright orange line and the words ZZZZZAP!!! in bold, colorful letters somewhere on the panel.

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In the second part of this article, I will move from action sequences and general discussion about art to the way comics make me feel… or don’t.

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* I picked up some older comics to read on my iPad, and all the covers say $2.99. That’s for a 32-page book. My friend Chrome, who reads a lot more comics than I do, says prices these days are still the same, but that some books go up to $4.99. Too rich for my blood.

** Someone remind me later to write an article about how we perceive fictional characters we’ve never seen before. I’m on a roll right now and can’t stop to make notes.

*** The episode is rather-cleverly subtitled “Buffy Has F#©$ing Superpowers”. It’s one of the best issues in the entire run of the comic.

**** Letterers: Richard Starkings and Albert Deschesne. Never let it be said that I don’t credit everyone.

Three Dragons, Three Tattoos: a review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Part 2 of 2)

The following article contains spoilers for both the novel and filmed versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It contains discussions of adult material contained in both. Reader discretion is advised.

This is the second part of a two-part article.

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Casting and Characterization

The two main characters in the film are Mikael Blomkvist, a 40-something disgraced journalist convicted of slandering a major financier, and Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old genius with a dark history and a major problem relating to people.

In the Swedish version, Mikael is played very seriously by Michael Nyqvist. He really looks like a journalist — he’s not glamorous and he doesn’t dress well. He exercises, he cooks with his nieces, and he has some genuinely amusing lines in the film. To me, he seems a full, well-rounded character.

In the American version, Daniel Craig — best known to American audiences as James Bond — portrays Blomkvist. Because Craig is… well, let’s be honest here… pretty darn studly, it’s up to both the actor and the director to make him appear more like the Blomkvist of the novels. As such, Craig affects mannerisms that Nyqvist didn’t have to — he wears his glasses around one ear when not using them, and he rather ostentatiously uses what looks like a Moleskine notebook.

I’d have to give the edge to Nyqvist in the case of Mikael’s character — because he gets the look down, he doesn’t have to affect mannerisms. Also, when he celebrates, he looks much happier about it than Craig; I don’t think I’ve ever really seen Daniel Craig look happy when he’s acting.

As for the other main character, Noomi Rapace (Swedish version) runs away with it. Rapace is small, skinny-but-muscular, and very expressive. Even when her face is shut down to emotion, it’s still quite clear what Lisbeth Salander is feeling. In all ways I found her more believable than Rooney Mara.

Mara, who was until this film probably best known as the sister of Kate Mara (American Horror Story), gets the look down pretty well, although a lot of that has to do with costuming and makeup. I think, unfortunately, Mara’s portrayal of Lisbeth suffers from writing and directorial issues. In the novel, Lisbeth has had a tough life, but she still has emotions; in the American film, Lisbeth only has anger and diffidence (and, at the end, sadness).

I think the biggest difference in their characters is the way they play the “holy crap, Martin’s the killer” scene: Mara’s Salander does rush to save Mikael, but Rapace’s really makes me think she cares about him. Again, writing and direction — even during the sex scene, Mara seems disconnected, whereas it’s very clear (via acting) that Rapace’s Salander enjoys the hell out of sex. (Mara does have a great line late in the American version during another sex scene, but even then it’s more like she’s using Blomkvist than they’re sharing something.)

One portrayal I want to also pay additional attention to is that of the adult Harriet Vanger (hey, I told you the articles had spoilers). Although in both cases she only had a limited amount of screen time, the reveals the actresses had to… um… reveal… made it important that a talented actress was cast. And, because of changes made to the ending in the American version, they had to look vastly different as well.

In the Swedish version, Ewa Froling had to look like she’d lived for forty years in the Australian outback, and she did — she was still blond, but her face was weathered and tanned. Because of that appearance, I’m sad to say that I couldn’t get over how silly she looked even as she discussed being abused by her father and brother. This is the actual ending from the novel, by the way.

Joely Richardson, portraying Harriet in the American version, was more convincing to me as Harriet. First shown as pretending to be Anita Vanger after the real Anita’s death, Harriet was revealed to be a financier living in London. She looked more like the girl who played 16-year-old Harriet than Froling did in the Swedish version. Again it comes down to writing — and probably the need to not marginalize the role for a well-known actress like Richardson, as well as avoiding expensive location shooting in Australia (or somewhere that looks like it).

Other important actors and characters in the film:

Erika Berger — Mikael’s on-again-off-again lover, played by Lena Endre (Swedish) and Robin Wright (US). My biggest problem with the American version here is that Berger is not supposed to be glamorous — and Wright plays her just as well as Endre did. The issue is with the casting of Craig; he seems too glamorous for the likes of Wright, who is made up to look like your average 45-year-old woman who’s worked all her life at a difficult job (journalism is hard; trust me). I believed Nyqvist and Endre more than Craig and Wright.

Henrik Vanger — Here I give the nod to Christopher Plummer (General Chang in Star Trek VI) over the Swedish actor Sven-Bertil Taube. Plummer simply emoted better than Taube, especially at the ending; Taube’s acting occasionally seemed forced. I will give Taube a slight edge in the beginning because, instead of appealing to Blomkvist’s journalistic instincts, he appealed to his memories: in the book, both occur, but only in the Swedish film is as much attention paid to his connection with the Vangers (as a boy, Harriet and her cousin Anita used to babysit Mikael).

Martin Vanger — This one is pretty much down to the writing and usage of the character. In the novel, Martin was relatively low-key until it was revealed that he’s a killer. The Swedish version (Peter Haber) was more faithful to the book in the build-up, whereas in the American one I think more foreshadowing of Martin’s activities gave Stellan Skarsgard more to do. Also, Skarsgard simply got to be more evil in the final sequence than Haber — again, writing. Advantage: Skarsgard.

Beyond those four, I had occasional issues with some of the characters, but overall everyone else was in the background. Christer Malm, Dirch Frode, Cecilia Vanger, and Plague weren’t too big on the stage. It was nice to see Goran Visnjic as Armansky, despite the small role — he’ll have more to do in the sequels. There is, however, one more character worth noting, and I think you know who I’m talking about.

THE Scene. You know the one I mean.

Trigger warning: I am about to discuss the scenes in which Lisbeth Salander is raped. If you wish to skip this part, click here.

In order to really understand why Lisbeth was put in a situation where she could be raped by someone in direct authority over her, people who haven’t read the book need to know the following: when Lisbeth was twelve, she tried to kill her abusive father by lighting him on fire. This led to her being institutionalized, and her mother also ended up in a facility (I believe she had some sort of catatonic disorder). After her release, Lisbeth responded to bullying and violence at school with violence of her own. As a teenager, she committed small crimes and was also seen in the company of older men. She was already under guardianship because she wasn’t an adult, but she remained in that situation even into adulthood because, in Sweden, that’s how the social system is. Once a person has a guardian, that person is legally charged with assisting their ward in whatever way he or she needs.

In the case of Lisbeth, her guardian had been Holger Palmgren — in the American version, this is the person Lisbeth plays chess with, and who she finds on the floor having suffered a stroke. Palmgren, as Bjurman states in his moment of exposition, had let Lisbeth have free reign over her life and her finances (in the novel, it’s explained how Palmgren formed a positive relationship with Lisbeth and that she cares for him… at least as much as she cares for anyone). Bjurman, however, believed that Palmgren had not had Lisbeth — someone whose records indicated a mentally-disturbed and extremely violent individual — on a short enough leash. So far, Bjurman has not done anything wrong, per se — again, as Lisbeth’s legal guardian, he has to do what he believes is best for her.

Bjurman menaces Salander in the Swedish film

The three Bjurmans are very different, though. In the novel, after being forced to perform oral sex, Lisbeth investigates Bjurman and finds that, other than what he did to her, there’s no dirt to dig up. In the Swedish film, Bjurman (Peter Andersson) is a little older, but both Bjurmans are portrayed as good-looking single men. In the American version, since being fat automatically equals being evil, a heavier actor (Yorick van Wageningen) was cast. Also, in the American version, Bjurman has children, whereas in the other two he does not. All three behave the same way once they decide to take advantage of Lisbeth, though, and the oral sex scene is pretty much the same in all three.

When I went to see the film, my friend Will said he’d heard the second rape (the one in Bjurman’s apartment) was more brutal than it was in the Swedish film. I wasn’t quite sure how that could be pulled off, since in both films Lisbeth is beaten, bound, and raped. (I noted with somewhat-clinical distraction that both Mara and Rapace scream more or less the same way.) The novel indicates that Bjurman engages in anal sex with Lisbeth, something not explicitly discussed in the Swedish film (although afterward Lisbeth does limp home — which occurs in all three versions). The American version makes it particularly explicit by having Bjurman actually say what he’s doing.

Yorick van Wageningen as Bjurman in the American film

Lisbeth’s “recovery” from the rape is different when comparing the book and the two films. The book is very clinical — in it, Lisbeth retreats into herself, staying in and taking painkillers and sleeping until she feels capable of fighting back. The Swedish film is similar — the limp home, the pills, the cigarettes. The American film is more explicit, showing Lisbeth breaking down in the shower, washing away the blood from the attack. While more powerful, the final scene shows something we never see Lisbeth do anywhere else in the film, and to me that makes it less consistent with the character — especially given the Asperger’s tendencies Mara (and the writer and director) gave the character. I’m more likely to believe Lisbeth turning inward than expressing her pain via tears.

The revenge scene is also similar across all three presentations, although the kicking of the dildo doesn’t occur directly in the book — she kicks him, but not there. It’s much more threatening in the American version than the Swedish, being metal instead of plastic or whatever as well as much larger. In all three she shows him the video; in all three she makes her threats; in all three she tattoos him.

The threatening scene in the elevator, by the way, is exclusive to the American version.

(If you skipped the discussion of the rape scenes, here’s where the article continues.)

Final Analysis

Should you go see the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? I’d say yes: it’s a well-made film with decent acting and a coherent mystery plot. But I think that, to really get the full impact, you need to sit down and read the novel first (or, failing that, right after). The novel is tough to read — it’s very clinical and dry in many places, but it’s not boring. At least, not after the first hundred pages or so.

I also think you should see the Swedish version of the film, if for no other reason than Noomi Rapace’s excellent portrayal of Lisbeth. Once you see the Swedish film, you’ll probably want to watch the second and third ones, and read the second and third books in the series as well. (For my money, the second book is probably the best of them, only slightly edging out Dragon Tattoo.)

Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist

Given how much money the American Dragon Tattoo made ($76 million — the budget was $90 mil, and I expect it to hit that number soon enough), and (more importantly) how much buzz it received, I’d be extremely surprised if there aren’t adaptations of The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet’s Nest in the next year or three.

I just hope they’re a little more faithful to Lisbeth’s character in future adaptations. With the American version of the film, Fincher, Zaillian (the screenwriter), and Mara have pretty much locked us into a certain portrayal of our hero. Unfortunately, that portrayal isn’t quite as accurate as what Stieg Larsson intended when he wrote the book. He didn’t want Lisbeth to be an emotionless machine who sometimes gets angry; he wanted her to be a fully-rounded character. In the Swedish film, she is so much more than what Mara played her to be. Maybe we’ll get that the next time out.

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Note to Parents: These films — and the book — contain graphic violence, explicit language, explicit sex, and rape. I usually say you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children, but I hope that, in this case, I don’t have to.

Three Dragons, Three Tattoos: a review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Part 1 of 2)

The following article contains spoilers for both the novel and filmed versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It contains discussions of adult material contained in both. Reader discretion is advised.

This is the first part of a two-part article.

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I’m not quite sure how it happened, but Stieg Larsson’s novel of murder, intrigue, history, and hacking, Men Who Hate Women (published in the U.S. as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), became a nationwide best-seller.

Well, okay, I know how it happened. It’s a good, interesting book. But compared to other popular American authors — Grisham, Roberts, Connelly, Reichs, and so on — Larsson’s style of writing doesn’t really fit. The first hundred pages are a combination of dry-as-dust infodumps about Swedish financial journalism interspersed with a somewhat-clinical account of an intelligent young woman trapped in the Swedish social work system. Readers have to deal with dozens of characters, many with names they’re not used to reading. The setting is probably unfamiliar. The characters’ motivations are often unexpected.

Still, for whatever reason, Dragon Tattoo became a sensation in the U.S. It was only a matter of time until someone made a film of it.

The thing is, someone already did. And that someone is Niels Arden Oplev, a Swedish director. [NB: He’s actually Danish. Sorry about the mix-up.] The cast? Swedish. The setting? Sweden. The language? You guessed it: Swedish.

I first saw this film in 2011, after I first read Dragon Tattoo and its sequels (I’ve since seen all three Swedish Millennium movies*). I thought it was pretty darn good, and that it was a decent interpretation of the novel.

And then it was announced that David Fincher, an American director probably best known for Fight Club and Se7en, would be helming an English-language version of the film.

Now that I’ve seen both versions of the film, I can actually say that they’re both good adaptations, although both have their downfalls.

The Script**

Let’s start by comparing the American film to the novel, because the movie is an adaptation of the book, not of the Swedish film. And, just in case you didn’t catch it before, here there be spoilers.

I think, for starters, my biggest problem is the way Lisbeth was characterized in the movie. I just finished reading the book for the second time, right after I saw both versions of the film, and in the American version of the film I was quite surprised at just how heavily they played up a throwaway line in the book, about how Blomkvist muses that Salander might have some form of Asperger’s syndrome. Maybe she does; maybe she doesn’t. But in the book, after the climax — Salander saving Blomkvist from Martin — there’s another hundred pages or so of the two of them getting closer. They spend several weeks together piecing together Wennerstrom’s evildoings — the stuff Vanger just hands over to Mikael in the film is actually pretty well-researched by Lisbeth in the book — and it’s clear that Lisbeth cares for him. In fact, she actually admits to herself that she thinks she’s in love with him.

Other than that, there wasn’t a ton left out from the book, and anything that was wasn’t necessary. The film starts after Blomkvist has been convicted and sentenced — in the book, he has a three-month jail sentence, but I didn’t mind so much missing that, especially since we would’ve needed an infodump on the Swedish criminal justice system (which we’re going to get anyway in the third film, should it be made). Some shortcuts were taken in the film vis a vis Greger Vanger, and Mikael’s relationship with Cecilia wasn’t included but it also wasn’t truly necessary except to cement Mikael’s position as a ladies man. Also, the book spends much more time on hacking, and how important Plague is to Lisbeth’s activities as the hacker “Wasp”, but I can understand why that was left out of the film — too complicated.

Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander

Oh, one other interesting small note: in the book, it’s noted that Lisbeth is a redhead with dyed-black hair. In the American film, we can see Lisbeth’s light eyebrows — the actress has light hair, so it works. (In the Swedish film, the actress has dark hair, and I guess it wasn’t important enough to lighten her eyebrows. Or anything else.)

The ending was substantially changed, as I’ll discuss again when I compare and contrast the two Harriet Vangers. I wasn’t unhappy about it, and it did make sense.

Now, to compare the two films; that’s a horse of a different color. A lot of it is contained in characterization and writing, but I’ll be saving the characterization for later. The most notable differences (other than the scene, which I’ll talk about at the end of the article) include:

  • The broken laptop — In the Swedish film, Lisbeth is so self-absorbed that she bumps into the guy who leads his friends in beating her up in the subway station. However, in the American version, she’s simply robbed and fights back. Both have the same outcome, however. Interestingly, in the Swedish version, Bjurman only gives her 7,000 kronor, which he says is “enough” to buy a decent computer; in the American one, he gives her everything she asked for.
  • Mikael’s family — In the Swedish version, Mikael is made more human by spending time with his family. However, later in the film he doesn’t meet up with his daughter (which happens in both the book and the American film). Instead, in the Swedish film, Lisbeth figures out that the numbers in Harriet’s diary are Bible quotes and e-mails the information to Mikael.
    • Mikael (Daniel Craig) confronts Lisbeth (Rooney Mara) in her apartment. He brings her breakfast and coffee as well.
  • The confrontation between Lisbeth and Mikael — I think this is handled best in the book, the way Mikael just barges into her apartment and offers her breakfast. In both films, Mimmi is present, having just spent the night with Lisbeth; however, in the films Mikael is more severe about confronting her. The American film is more accurate in that he finds her out by way of an unpublished press release, while the Swedish one is related to the Biblical revelation. I think the Swedish film handled it a bit ham-handedly, though it was consistent with the Mikael character that had been established to that point.
  • Lisbeth and Mikael’s road trip — Until I reread the book, I’d forgotten that the road trip in the Swedish version of the film wasn’t actually there. They did go somewhere (I forget where at the moment), but it wasn’t a journey around Sweden to learn more about the murders noted in Harriet’s diary. The American film shows Lisbeth doing the investigating on her own.
  • Sex in the cabin — The American film used Mikael’s being grazed by the bullet to build the rapport between him and Lisbeth, and also to get Mikael out of his clothes. Lisbeth seems particularly Asperger-like in the scene where she undresses in front of him. In the Swedish version, she’s simply forward — not at all detached. She also sleeps with him more than once, and we see Mikael becoming more interested in her past and actually starting to care.
  • Who’s on top? — I don’t remember the sexual mechanics of Mikael and Lisbeth’s first time together as recorded in the book, but the two films handled it a bit differently. The Swedish one lets Lisbeth stay on top the entire time, lets her stay in control; I believe this was done to further cement her need to be in control of every aspect of her life (underscoring what was taken away from her by Bjurman). In the American film, Daniel Craig does “the move”, the one seen in so many films but so rarely in actual bedrooms — the “pick up the girl and turn her over without losing the connection” move. It looks romantic and sexy… but even if Lisbeth trusts Mikael enough at that point to sleep with him, she’s still close to what happened with Bjurman and I don’t know if I believe that her character would’ve allowed Mikael to do that move. I do think some of this is related to the time aspect in the book — between the Bjurman scene and Lisbeth sleeping with Mikael, Mikael spends three months in jail. The Swedish film puts the jail term at the end, but it’s still clear that at least some time has passed. The American one compresses time even further — not really a problem overall, but in this case, it made the Lisbeth character behave in a less-believable way.
  • Sex in London — This happens in the book and the American film, but not in the Swedish film. The American film plays it off really amusingly (Mara delivers the “just a minute” line brilliantly), but at that point I’m not sure why they were having sex at all. By that point in the book, Lisbeth and Mikael were comfortable enough together to have sex when the mood took them, but in the American film there just wasn’t enough for me to believe it happened organically.
  • Lisbeth’s mother — I think it was a foregone conclusion that there would be three Swedish films, which is why we spent so much time on Lisbeth’s mother and father. As I said, in the book her mother dies at the end, but in the Swedish film she’s still alive. She’s not even mentioned in the American version, which really skims over Lisbeth’s past — far too much, I think.

I do want to go back to the bit about Mimmi: in the book, enough explanation is provided for us to understand that Lisbeth isn’t gay, although in both films the fact that she’s with Mimmi so relatively-soon after the Bjurman atrocity makes the viewer think she is, thereby making viewers even more sympathetic. However, in the book the situation is clearly explained and also sets the stage for future books by establishing Lisbeth’s friendship with a group of like-minded rocker girls. It also makes her night spent with Mimmi much more sensible; in the Swedish film, she just slept with a girl, no explanation, and in the American one we see her hit a club but we have no idea that she has any history with this person. In short, what was a well-established scene becomes nothing more than shock value.

Finally, the ending: in the book, Martin simply crashes his car into a logging truck and is killed on impact. Unfortunately for filmed audiences, this wasn’t enough. In the Swedish film, Lisbeth sees Martin’s car go over an embankment and then she watches as it catches fire. She later admits she would’ve been able to save him, but chose not to.

The American version, though, I think suffered from the need for American audiences to have a hero who kills the bad guy. After Martin runs, Lisbeth takes his gun and chases him. He crashes his car in front of the convenience store in Hedestad, and that’s where Lisbeth finds him. She cocks the gun, is ready to shoot… and then the car catches fire and explodes. Lisbeth, therefore, doesn’t actually get to do it, although she does witness it (as with the Swedish film). Before she takes the gun, though, she asks Mikael’s permission to kill him. Clearly he deserves it — he’s a multiple murderer — but the line felt kind of lame to me, as if we needed to have a quip to lighten the mood.

The mood didn’t deserve what was done to it.

Music

If you’ve been reading the EP blog for a while, you know I notice music in films. The Swedish film had pretty much just incidental music — nothing really special — but for the American version the producers hired Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and they did not disappoint. A combination of traditional and modern soundtracks, both hard rock and symphonic. I was a little surprised by the remake of the Bryan Ferry song “Is Your Love Strong Enough?”, which I first heard in the Threesome soundtrack (one of my all-time favorites), playing over the credits, but I guess it made sense given the ending.

Location

Clearly Fincher had a lot more money to work with than Oplev, and he put it to use. Although both films take place in Sweden, and both were filmed at least partially there, the Fincher version is darker, grittier, and more realistic. It had a Fight Club vibe to it. The Swedish version, to me, felt more like a movie than an actual place, even though I’m fairly certain that Oplev did a lot more location shooting simply because he is from the region (he happens to be from Denmark). IMDB indicates that, with the exception of the ending sequence, all of the Swedish version was filmed in that country, while the U.S. version was filmed primarily in Sweden but also partly in the U.S.

The most obvious use of non-location shooting I observed was the scene in which Frode talks to Blomkvist in the cabin; if you look carefully at the wall behind Frode (I believe the refrigerator is to his left, our right), it moves in an odd way, suggesting to me that it wasn’t really there. Perhaps the cabin was at a movie studio in Sweden, but it wasn’t a real cabin.

The Dragon Tattoo

The film — and translated book — is named The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for a reason: Lisbeth Salander has a dragon tattoo. In the book, it definitely plays a part; in the Swedish film, it’s a massive thing on her back that goes all the way down one leg and we see it every time we see her with her clothes off.

Noomi Rapace's dragon tattoo

But where is it in the American film? When Lisbeth was in the shower, or having sex with Mikael, I can barely remember seeing it. It’s the name of the movie; shouldn’t we get a good look at the thing? And when we did, it seemed so much smaller than it should have been.

Rooney Mara's dragon tattoo

I think, perhaps, that was what most disappointed me about the American version — it was more about the core idea of the book (Men Who Hate Women, its original Swedish title) than the tattoo itself. However, no one would’ve understood if the film was called Men Who Hate Women; the book phenom is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so calling the movie something different would’ve been an epic failure to capitalize on its popularity — something definitely necessary, given how hard it is for R-rated films to make as much money as PG-13 ones.

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Part two will cover casting, characterization, and the scene. You know the one.

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Note to Parents: These films — and the book — contain graphic violence, explicit language, explicit sex, and rape. I usually say you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children, but I hope that, in this case, I don’t have to.

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* Millennium is the name of the magazine where the main character, Blomkvist, is a writer. The entire series is sometimes referred to as the “Millennium Trilogy”.

** Since I wrote the various parts of the article out-of-order, I apologize in advance if some of it seems a bit repetitive later on.

Book Review: “Out of Oz” by Gregory Maguire

The following review contains spoilers for the first three “Wicked Years” novels.

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I’ve never seen the stage version of Wicked, but when I saw the book in the bookstore, I bought it and read it. I’ve always enjoyed Oz, from the original film to the original Baum books to the newer retellings (Tin Man, The Wiz, etc). And I enjoyed Wicked.

I didn’t really care for Son of a Witch, and I thought A Lion Among Men was pretty blah, but since Out of Oz was supposed to be the conclusion of the Gregory Maguire “Wicked Years” series, I figured it was worth taking a look.

Perhaps I should’ve just learned my lesson.

All of the Maguire Oz books start slow — very slow — and take many years, if not decades, to complete. They get good toward the end, but getting there is a long, sometimes arduous journey. Out of Oz was no different. It begins with a very long Dorothy story, sending her back to Oz so she, along with pretty much everyone else we’ve known along the way, can be in the book. Maguire included dozens of Oz characters — many in passing mention only — that readers of the Baum novels might recognize, including Jellia Jamb, Jack Pumpkinhead, and even the Woggle-Bug. But for the most part, this book focuses on Rain, granddaughter of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and daughter of Liir (the son of a witch) and Candle (a Quadling with the power to see the present).

The beginning of the novel, to me, was quite off-putting — it jumped from Rain’s long-lost memories to the Time Dragon to Glinda and back again until, finally, the plot got on track. It turns out that, sometime between the end of Wicked and the end of A Lion Among Men, Munchkinland seceded from Oz and took with it the nation’s largest source of fresh water, a lake mostly in Munchkinland territory called Restwater. The first act of the book takes place in and around Glinda’s country home — she is now the Lady Chuffrey and a former Throne Minister (president) of Oz. Soldiers usurp her home and lands in their attempt to take Restwater back for Oz, and it is at this point we meet Rain, who is a young girl sweeping the floors. We don’t know why Rain is important; we just know that she is.

Eventually Rain departs Glinda’s home with the Time Dragon — a machine important to the three previous books, run by a dwarf named Mr. Boss. With the Dragon we find Brrr (the Cowardly Lion), his wife Ilianora (daughter of Elphaba’s baby-daddy Fiyero), and the Grimmerie (a magic book that Elphaba once owned, now locked safely away in the Dragon). The travelers end up in Quadling Country (the south of Oz) and spend a year there* before finally meeting up with Liir and Candle, where Rain gets the whole story of her life.

The second act of the book focuses mostly on Rain, with detours into Dorothy’s trial for murder (she did, after all, kill two women the last time she was in Oz), and also introduces the character Tip, a boy about Rain’s age (maybe slightly older). I think you know what will happen between the two of them, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it except to say that, if you’ve read the Baum books… well… what happens to Tip is pretty similar when you compare the Baum books to the Maguire ones.

Act three is the grand finale. I can’t tell you much about it, except to say that after the climax the book goes on for another 100 pages** before ending in what, to me, was a rather unsatisfying fashion. I don’t need a happy ending, but I want to be satisfied.

As with the previous Oz books, Maguire does a masterful job tying his own interpretation of Oz into the Baum version. As someone who’s read about twenty of the original Oz books***, I appreciated the inclusion of events and characters from the original stories. I wasn’t surprised by what happens to Tip because I’d read it before, although I was waiting throughout most of the book for it to occur, so that was interesting. His worldbuilding is excellent, as is his characterization, and never once did I feel that I had learned either too much or too little about a place or a character. It’s also very funny in places — especially the parts with Daffy and Mr. Boss.

I think my biggest problem with the book was its time-scale. I realize that makes me somewhat of a hypocrite, given that my favorite book takes place over about the same scale (ten or so years) and its sequels occur almost twenty years after that, but there was just something about the way Maguire cavalierly tossed off “a year passed” or “a year later” that turned me off to the story. It took away from its urgency, and in a book that takes place against the backdrop of a nation at war, that is problematic for me. Also, as I said, I found the coda (the part after the climax) unsatisfying.

All in all, I found Out of Oz to be a good book, mostly enjoyable and mostly interesting, although it definitely wasn’t as good as Wicked — which, admittedly, suffered from many of the same problems. If you’ve read the other three Wicked Years books, you’ll probably like it just as much as you liked those. However, if you’ve only read Wicked and haven’t really wanted to pick up the others before now… I’m afraid I’ll have to suggest that you pass on them.

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Note to Parents: I would rate this book a hard PG-13 or soft R. It contains lots of bad language, some violence, prurient humor, and a few sex scenes. There are mentions of self-inflicted mutilation, but it’s not actually shown, only discussed. I think teens could handle it, because none of those things are pervasive. Of course, you should use your own discretion when it comes to your children.

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* There’s a fascinating treatise in the book about how time is measured in Oz, but even if you consider a year to be “four seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter”, that’s a long time to do absolutely nothing germane to the plot.

** I have the font set pretty large on my Kindle app, and according to it, the book was 1002 pages. The actual printed novel is 592, so if I do some math, that tells me it’s actually closer to 50 additional pages. Most of it contains whining on the part of Rain, sadly.

*** Admittedly, I read them about 20 years ago, so my memory might be muddled, but I did read them.

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