Buffy Reboot Cancelled

[Ruin Explorer]

(I'd argue that both Acolyte cancellation and tLJ backtrack both happened because loud voices reached the parts of Disney has been really weird about women main characters for a while now and will not give those the time or attention it needs to succeed.)

You can argue that, but the trouble is, we don't know, and we don't have much evidence about it, and the "parts of Disney that have been weird about women main characters" allegation is pretty vague and like, who, exactly, are you even talking about? Were they even in the chain of command here?

I ask because my experience is people make these vague hints at dark forces but then when we try and pin it down, it'll start turning out that half the people being said to be the villain will not even have been involved, sometimes will have left the company before the decision was made and so on.

So without some evidence or specifics, I would say that you're not actually "arguing" it, you're just alleging stuff or theorising.

BUT

That doesn't mean you're wrong. I say all that, and I don't think you actually are wrong, I just don't think that without support and specifics it's an argument as much as a vague allegation or theory. Is it a fanciful theory? I don't think so, but it would be helpful to have specifics. Because it might be completely false, and historically similar claims have turned out to be false.

We've also heard how Disney has killed projects even though Kathleen Kennedy believed in it.

We have, but only like two I can think of.

Her "crime" was not having a finished synopsis for the new trilogy.

That absolutely was a crime in the metaphorical sense. That was why the new trilogy went the way it did. They should not have started work without that. The crime isn't just on her, but also on whoever agreed that it was okay to go ahead without that.

 

[nyvinter]

It was everyone involved going "we should do it just like George did" without realising that it sort of worked making things up as he went along because he had total control.

And to tie it into the topic, it's something so many reboots have relied upon. Not daring to be different from the predecessor even though we actually have Battlestar Galactica as a proof that sometimes one need to make that jump. Buffy being a continuation and shaking things up, they seemed to have done that the right way that isn't just a carbon copy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It was everyone involved going "we should do it just like George did" without realising that it sort of worked making things up as he went along because he had total control.

What's your basis for this re: "everyone" though? What's your source? Because what I've heard is a much, much more complex story.

Kennedy has had to deal with some outrageous nonsense and blatant misogyny, but I really haven't heard this "Everyone at Disney agreed to just cargo cult Lucas". Indeed, if we look at Disney's output, the only "cargo cult Lucas" stuff is maybe The Force Awakens and arguably Obi-Wan, at least to my mind (The Rise of Skywalker is too inept to even call cargo cult Lucas I'd say). JJ Abrams, sure, that dude is a cargo cultist in a lot of his work (including Super 8), a talented one but a cargo cultist nonetheless. But I haven't previously seen it claimed Disney as a whole were trying to cargo cult Lucas. I'm not even saying it's not true, but I'd like some kind of basis for that claim.

The total eradication of the EU could be read either way too, so doesn't really inform us a great deal.

As to the general point of needing to be willing to change, absolutely, but when you're continuing an IP, that's a complicated judgement call. nuBSG worked because the original BSG was not beloved, and kinda sucked, so really they just used ideas and broad aesthetics to tell a pretty different story with an incredibly different tone. But if BSG had been as beloved and worshipped and continually added to as Star Wars was, nuBSG would at best be basically Andor, something seen as a gritty, edgy reboot for a smaller and different audience, and at worst "a dumb needless gritty reboot" like Bomberman: Act Zero.

 

[nyvinter]

What's your basis for this re: "everyone" though? What's your source? Because what I've heard is a much, much more complex story.

I do agree what you say when put it like that. I meant a lot more subconsciously. Solo production was riddled with problems but I feel that too is playing it safe with a Hero's Journey, following the New Hope template while also trying to adhere to Lucas tone of storytelling when it probably should have at least deviated more from that.

There's very little original stories that don't tie into the characters or previous movies. Sometimes, like Andor, that's amzing. Sometimes it's the animated Ewoks. But we didn't get any stand-alone away from the original movies until Skeleton Crew.

Even in Mandalorian and Rebels they had to add cameos and guests we already knew.

 

[Stalker0]

Should they have cancelled it? Probably not, especially not with that cast and that amount of great setup.

I think this is a pretty solid question to ask in general. When is it "appropriate" to cancel a show?


There are some shows on the air that are garbage, and they get greenlit for a second season...and its still garbage.
And there are shows like ST TNG....whose first season is honestly pretty bad, and I think on paper it would have been a very reasonable decision to cancel it. But of course imagine if they had!

Without the benefit of hindsight that makes geniuses of us all, what is the best way to tell?

 

[Stalker0]

What's your basis for this re: "everyone" though? What's your source? Because what I've heard is a much, much more complex story.

Kennedy has had to deal with some outrageous nonsense and blatant misogyny, but I really haven't heard this "Everyone at Disney agreed to just cargo cult Lucas". Indeed, if we look at Disney's output, the only "cargo cult Lucas" stuff is maybe The Force Awakens and arguably Obi-Wan, at least to my mind (The Rise of Skywalker is too inept to even call cargo cult Lucas I'd say). JJ Abrams, sure, that dude is a cargo cultist in a lot of his work (including Super 8), a talented one but a cargo cultist nonetheless. But I haven't previously seen it claimed Disney as a whole were trying to cargo cult Lucas. I'm not even saying it's not true, but I'd like some kind of basis for that claim.

The total eradication of the EU could be read either way too, so doesn't really inform us a great deal.

As to the general point of needing to be willing to change, absolutely, but when you're continuing an IP, that's a complicated judgement call. nuBSG worked because the original BSG was not beloved, and kinda sucked, so really they just used ideas and broad aesthetics to tell a pretty different story with an incredibly different tone. But if BSG had been as beloved and worshipped and continually added to as Star Wars was, nuBSG would at best be basically Andor, something seen as a gritty, edgy reboot for a smaller and different audience, and at worst "a dumb needless gritty reboot" like Bomberman: Act Zero.

Since Cargo Cult is used so often in this post, can I get an understanding of what that term means to you? I have seen definitions online but they don't quite fit what the context your using that in.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Without the benefit of hindsight that makes geniuses of us all, what is the best way to tell?

When there's no obvious path to profitability. That can be calculated a lot of ways -- ad revenue, syndication fees, how it impacts streaming subscriptions, toy sales -- but at the end of the day, if the math doesn't math, it should go.

TNG didn't math the first season, but it was reasonable to assume that it could get its feet under it in the second season, as well as being a big success in syndication. So it kept going.

Acolyte, based on its creators' bonafides, was probably going to improve in its second season. And if it got an Andor-style awards season promotion from Disney (the For Your Consideration ads are inescapable here in Southern California each spring), it might have helped lure more people to subscribe to Disney+, as Andor did. But that's a lot of maybes and Disney likely has a ton of data about how many D+ people put the show on their to-watch list, how many actually completed it, etc., which helps drive streamers' decisions. (I have a friend who has a series on Netflix and she begs everyone she knows to binge the show the first week, rather than waiting, because Netflix puts a lot of emphasis on how quickly people devour a given season when it comes to renewals.)

Folks in the TV industry cancel shows they like all the time, because executives who oversee a bunch of money losing shows end up teaching film studies at Cal State Los Angeles and driving a Toyota Corolla.

 

[Deset Gled]

I, too, blame everything I don't like about Star Wars for cancelling the Buffy reboot. I'm pretty sure Kathleen Kennedy is also responsible for my phone not charging last night.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I, too, blame everything I don't like about Star Wars for cancelling the Buffy reboot. I'm pretty sure Kathleen Kennedy is also responsible for my phone not charging last night.