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Buffy Reimagined (now released!)

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NewSpock

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I name this Buffy saga: "Buffy Reimagined", in which I turn the first two seasons of the Buffy TV show into these five movies:

1. Buffy The Prophecy (I already released this one before, containing Buffy season 1 as a movie. But I reworked it for this release.)
2. Buffy 2 - I The Truth
3. Buffy 2 - II The Life
4. Buffy 2 - III The Love
5. Buffy 2 - IV The Awakening

By telling the story in form of movies it was possible to make the story more interesting, removing the lame uninteresting or bad story elements and being free of the TV-format being able to create new movie-spanning story arcs. And on top of these there is one big story-arc combining these five movies.

Of course I got rid of commercial breaks as much as possible, but more interesting I used the opportunity to improve upon the story by fixing story-blunders in the original or getting rid of villains and characters, that didn't work, for example:

1. I removed the villain "The Judge", because he was superfluous and disturbed the building of the story arc that should culminate in the finale.

2. I also removed that bug-assassin, one of the three assassins of the order of taraka, because he was simply ridiculous as a threat.

3. I redeemed the start of Xander-Cordelia-relationship. In the original it was very much ridiculed.

There are other things changed and improved, but I don't want to spoil them even in this spoiler-tagged area. :)


Releasedate: First week of march.

Here's the trailer for it:


:)
 
What do you think of calling the quadrilogy "The secret"? And then every one of the movie would represent an aspect of that secret, like for example "The secret of innocence", "The secret of passion"...

... yeah, it's a bit lame... still brainstorming. Any suggestions?
 
NewSpock said:
Why? Do you think that I can't pull off this quadrilogy-edit?;-)
Click to expand...

I have the utomost Faith in you;-)

(drat, that's series three:-o)
 
Zarius said:
I have the utomost Faith in you;-)

(drat, that's series three:-o)
Click to expand...

Hehe, I have this eerie feeling that you must be mistaking me for someone else: My very first fanedit-project was to make an edit of Buffy season 4, a tv-show-to-tv-show edit, not a movie-edit. The goal was to fix some of the problems of the season and the pacing/writing.

But I put it on the backburner because I realized it might be best to start with season 1 and after having seen Bloodlust's attempt at it, I finally saw what great potential (no pun intended;)) there is in making movies out of the Buffy show and so I made a movie out of season 1, which I finished.

So you can rest assured and can have indeed faith ;) that I'll deliver.

While I'm at it I can offer a little update: I've pinned down the story of the first of the four season 2-movies.:party:
 
I'm so confused by this conversation.
 
Neglify said:
I'm so confused by this conversation.
Click to expand...

Hehe, me, too.

I think I'll call the first movie in this quadrilogy: "Buffy - The Truth". When watching the movie it will get clear why I named it that way.
 
"Buffy 2.1 The Truth", the first of the Buffy-season 2-to-movie-quadrilogy is finished.:) But I want to let it be previewed first, before posting it.
 
I need a previewer. The previewer needs to have seen "Buffy The Prophecy", cause this here builds up on it. If someone is interested to preview, write me a pm. In a few days the preview version will be uploaded.
 
I've decided to not release the four movies separately, until all four movies are finished and ready, so that people wouldn't have to wait if they want to see the story through.
 
Here's an update:

The first two movies are finished, am right in the process of making the third, but this one is really by far the hardest yet.
 
So now nearly having finished the third movie, I think it’s time to update this thread with all the juicy details of the movies-making:


For the first movie I interweaved the episodes "When she was bad", "School hard" and "Lie to me". It's named "Buffy 2.1 The Truth":

In "When she was bad" there is a scene between Buffy and Xander after vampires kidnapped Giles and Willow leaving Xander behind hurt. Buffy comes into the library after having followed a diversion set up by the vampires so that she wouldn't be around.

Xander is angry about Buffy's careless behavior and says to Buffy: "When they hurt Willow I'll kill you".

And he didn't say it just as if he didn't really mean it, he said it with a strong emphasis and conviction.
Threatening to kill Buffy, I think that crossed a line.

So I changed it: Now Xander says "If they hurt Willow, I'll" and then I let Buffy interrupt him by asking "Why didn't they take you?".
That way we get both, Xander stating the importance of Willow for him without Xander threatening to kill Buffy.


For the second movie I interweaved the episodes „Halloween", "The dark age" and "What's my line 1+2“, called it "Buffy 2.2 The Life":

I began the second movie with "The dark age". On the one hand I always loved the episode for showing Giles' dark past and its interaction between and consequence for Giles and Jenny, but I dislike how some of the storyelements are executed, like for example:


The first time Eygon appears in the form of a woman and that guy she chases hammers on that door and waits to be killed, which looked simply ridiculous.


And seeing Xander, Willow and Cordelia and only them being forced by Mrs.Calendar to visit an extra-class on saturday was ridiculous as well.


So I start the movie with that guy searching for Giles and then he turns and sees that woman in the dark and says "Oh my god". At that point I make a cut, before the face of the woman is shown without showing how she actually kills him. That way it remains mysterious instead of ridiculous. I also don't show Buffy training to that loud music in the library.


Instead the direct next scene is the nightmare Giles has and then he wakes up in his bed.


The next scenes cut are the talk of Jenny, Xander and Willow about the saturday-class, and also showing them enter the room on saturday with Cordelia and then also Buffy talking with Jenny about Giles strange behaviour.


So Buffy visits Giles in the night after Giles has forgotten his meeting with Buffy in front of the hospital, and Giles tells Buffy that he will see her the next day at school. So the next scene is at the next day showing Buffy entering the library in search of Giles where then she meets Ethan instead.


And then Buffy says: "Hey, I know you, you are the one who sold us the costumes, that nearly killed us" and then I show in a flashback the episode "Halloween" from that point on when Buffy sees that nice costume in Ethan's shop.

The story of "Halloween" then continues till shortly before the children turn into monsters, when I show some more dialogue between Buffy and Ethan in the library and then the "Halloween"-episode continues to its end and then Buffy hits "Ethan" and Ethan says "Are we even now" with which "The dark age" continues.


Stumbled upon another plot-problem: Spike calls in "What's my line" for the order of taraka to kill Buffy and Giles tells Buffy that the order of taraka were a different breed, that it wouldn't matter how many of them Buffy killed there would be always another one coming until they collect the bounty and the target is eliminated.

But as we all know the order of taraka stopped right there in that episode and didn't send further assassins.

So I removed that line of Giles that there would always be another one coming. And while I was at it I also removed that bug-like-assassin, he didn't serve the plot, except for giving Xander and Cordelia something to do, and was imho ridiculous as a threat.

Besides, it didn't make any sense for Giles to send Xander and Cordelia to Buffy's home after they have already previously established that Buffy were not home ("impossible for a 16 year-girl to unplug her phone") but hiding somewhere else.



But the third one was the hardest yet, interweaving the episodes: „Surprise“, „Innocence“, „Phases“ and „Passion“, calling it "Buffy 2.3 The Love":

The reason is that I tried to get rid of the Judge. His only purpose was a) to create some sort of ominous world-threatening atmosphere and b) to confirm that Angel's loss of soul is real.

But imho the threat was pretty lame and more importantly I think to introduce a villain just for the purpose of confirming Angel really lost his soul is imho flimsy.

Besides to have the judge as a worldthreat imho lessens Angel's impact in the story and also lessens the importance of the last act with the portal-opening-demon.

So in my movie edit it is Drusilla's telepathic skills, her second face, that reports and confirms to Spike Angel's change.

Drusilla has already proven before to be able to read Angel's heart and mind perfectly.

The other big problem is how to integrate Oz turning into a werewolf so that it doesn't disturb the flow of the stroy built up around "Surprise", "innocence" and "passion", so I had to make some drastic cuts, like completely getting rid of that werewolve-hunter and the story-element about werewolves following the scent of horny teenagers...

I had thought about postponing Oz's werewolve-phase till season 3 and its movies, but I then thought it to be important for Willow's development to experience this before.

After finishing the hard case that is the third movie, only the last one is left, so the end is near. It won't be ready this year, but hopefully sometime in January or February.:)
 
I've finally found a way how to...

tell the Oz turning into a werewolve story in the third movie so that it makes sense within the context of the whole Angel losing his soul-story:


I tell it as a parallel to the Buffy and Angel-love-story: Willow and Oz develop their friendship while Buffy and Angel get closer to making love... and then when it happens and Angel loses his soul and bites that smoking woman in the alley and says "I feel just fine", the next scene is sun coming up over the woods and then a werewolve is seen there laying on the ground and then he turns into Oz.


And then some scenes later after Angel meets Spike and Drusilla and says "Yeah, baby I'm back" the next scene is showing Oz going through the pupils-filled school-hall thinking about the revelation that he is a werewolve and then he looks into the direction of the library but doesn't go in. So it takes quite a while till he is able to go back to the scoobies, while all the Angel trying to kill Willow, killing Jenny's uncle happens.


Buffy then seeing the blood written words on the hotel room's wall "Was it good for you, too?" says: "It makes it only easier. I know what I have to do now... kill him"... The next scene is then showing Theresa going through the streets at night being scared by the growling of a werewolve hiding in the bushes and then running into Angel... and then Cordelia and Willow talk with each other about their problems regarding Xander and Oz, with Willow complaining to her that Oz seems not interested in getting closer with her. Cordeila says then "What's his problem? Yeah, he is a guy.." and Willow says :"Guys! ... Couple of guys" and the next scene shows a werewolve following up on a bloodtrail and confronting Angel who just killed Theresa...


And then Giles drives Buffy home in his car... and then two of my favourite silent moments get shown: Giles talking with Buffy regarding Buffy making love with Angel... and even more favourite to me the scene with Buffy and her mother on the couch while watching a black-and-white-movie and her mother says "So, what did you do for your birthday, did you have fun?" and Buffy saying "I got older" (brilliant writing there). Her mother replying "You look the same to me" and then igniting the candle of the two mini-cakes... "Happy birthday... Go on make a wish" and Buffy looking broodful and saying: "I just let it burn" and then her mother looking at her sensing something is not alright but not able to decipher it... Great writing, great acting!


Then the music of the black and white movie comes up... with the actress in the movie singing "Good night, my love.." and when she sings "remember that you're mine sweet love" I let that part of the music dwell over into the scene where Xander and Cordelia are kissing in a car in the woods and Xander stops as if he would hear that spilled over music and says "Did you hear that?" and Cordeila says angrily "What now??! Is Willow sending out some sort of distress signal that only you can hear?"... and shortly later they get attacked by the werewolve...


That's then the first time the scoobies get aware of the existence of a werewolve... Buffy and Giles patrol at night in the woods for it and listening in the radio about "Theresa's death"...and Giles says "We can't do much, the werewolve is not a werewolve much longer" because the sun comes up and then I use a transition to Oz face in the library looking thoughtful as if trying to figure out what he did last night as a werewolve... and Willow says to him: "Are you ok?".. Oz says: "What?" being disturbed in his thoughts and Willow says "You kind of knew Theresa", Oz saing "I try not to think about it. It's a lot".. and then when Willow asks him to help with her together doing research this night, he says that he has to go, leaving back a dissatisfied Willow... the next scene shows the moon going up and Oz trying to chain himself up in his living room.. but then Willow knocks wanting to know why he is always so distant to her...


then you know what happens...


After Willow shoots werewolve Oz and Oz and Willow finally come to terms the next day and Willow kissing Oz I make a transition where the picture of Oz looking happy in direction of Willow walking away after the kiss and Angel in the Bronze looking at Buffy dancing while saying during that transition "Passion....It lies in all of us..." transition smoothly into each other.
 
I've finished the third movie. The great thing about this "TV-show turning into movies"-process is that it allows me to fix plotproblems along the way, and by removing all the bad things and restructuring other things, I can focus on developing the important themes and character-arcs in a way that let them shine.

Of course this is only possible because I'm free of the limitations the TV-show-format sets on any producers, I don't have to resolve things under 45 minutes, I don't have to use commercial breaks, I don't have to explain every little detail in repetitive exposition because of the week-to week-release of episodes, I don't have to produce 22 episodes to fill up a season. And I have the 20/20 hindsight and can see what works and what not, what is contradictory and what is silly, what can be redeemed:

I can tell the stories in the format of a 2 hour movie, and can choose which storyelements to tell, which character-developments to focus on and how to bend the story-arc, which is a liberating and satisfying experience.

And that's what I love about fanediting.

Wish you all a merry christmas.:)
 
Don't think I forgot my magnus opus ;-), while editing "Matrix Reimagined". It's actually good that I took a detour for a while to complete "Matrix Reimagined", that way I got some distance to the Buffy edit and thought about it unconsciously while editing something else.

After having returned to it I went back to the second movie to optimise a scene that unfortunately was treated with little respect in the original Buffy tv show:


Maybe you remember, but in the second movie I interweaved the episodes "Halloween", "The dark age" and "What's my line 1+2".


But before I talk about the optimisation, I want to talk about something I learned while doing these movies and that is that eventhough some scenes have no real meaning for a plot, they are still necessary to create some breathing space between all the important tension-driven-plot-relevant scenes. My first versions of the movies were very tight and only important scenes were used, but then while watching them I came to the conclusion that something was missing. Yes, they were tight, exciting and tension-driven, but it missed some charm.


Small, unimportant scenes give life and charm to a movie and breathing space.


So I searched all episodes for these little charming "unimportant" scenes and found them in those episodes that are awful from a plotpoint. The "Fish" episode has that little scene where the swim-team is celebrating on the beach at night, the episode "Reptile" has that charming scene where Xander, Willow and Buffy are watching a bollywood-movie...


I interweaved these small scenes in the movies where it made sense.


Back to the original topic. There was something that was handled in a ridiculous way by the original that I wanted to redeem:

Xander and Cordelia's attraction for each other. In the original a ridiculous plot-point was used to bring them together: Even though everyone knew that Buffy wasn't home, Giles send Xander and Cordelia to Buffy's house and there they were entrapped in the cellar by that equally ridiculous bug-like assassin of the order of taraka.


And then there in the cellar, Xander and Cordeila started to heavily argue and then they suddenly kissed and some awful carnival-music played that ridiculed that moment.


Later on after the danger was all over they met in school and Xander and Cordelia start to talk about what happened there and then after arguing again they kiss again and again that awful carnival music is played.


Thankfully after a lot of thinking and tinkering I found a way how to tell this important story-element in a much more dignified way:


Of course I completely got rid of the bug-assassin and so that cellar-scene in Buffy's house and Giles sending Cordeila and Xander there which was contradictory anyway is all gone.


In my edit in the second movie, I show the scene where Xander says to Cordeila : "We need to talk" in the school after the adventure regarding Giles and Ethan's magic-gone-wrong story from the "Dark Age". In that adventure I seamlessly interweaved the "Halloween"-episode.


So at that point after Buffy comforted Giles because Jenny wants distance after everything that happened, Xander says to Cordeila: "What happened?" and Cordeila says :" you are a pervert"... and "It was a race, it will never happen again"... then I interweave a short scene from the "Halloween" episode where Xander gives his jacket to Cordeila and she looks on his muscle-arms (when he was that soldier) and seems attracted to him at that moment.


Soon after that scene Xander, as a soldier, says to Cordelia: "Catwoman you are with me", while Angel and Buffy leave to secure the kitchen's door.


So by interweaving a scene from "Halloween" as a short flashback, I make it seem like a kiss happened between them while Xander was that soldier.


So when Xander says: "The memory of your lips on mine makes my blood go cold" it seems like he wants to distance himself from that memory, making an unspoken excuse that he was not himself, he was that soldier.


Then they argue again and start to kiss, now Xander is himself, thus acknowledging that his action as the soldier only expressed what he felt for her all along, but couldn't face.


And then when the kiss happens I removed that awful carnival music that ruined the moment in the original, instead I use the music from another scene that I let follow: The scene from the "Fish" episode where the sea is seen breaking its waves on the beach. The music from that scene and the sea and its waves are a much better symbol for that moment. And it's a nice transition to see them thereafter on that party on the beach at night.

 
Since a picture is more worth than a thousand words and a video more worth than 23,976 pictures per second, here's the scene I was talking about in my last post:


Password: Summers
 
NewSpock said:
cause this here builds up on it.
Click to expand...

I read this in a southern accent.

But seriously, this sounds fun and I look forward to seeing it....Er....them. =)
 
mrbenja0618 said:
I read this in a southern accent.

But seriously, this sounds fun and I look forward to seeing it....Er....them. =)
Click to expand...

Hehe, thanks for your interest. :)
 
Update: I've redone the second movie to add that layer of charm that was missing from it. It's now finished.
I've added a little but important (
for Xander and Cordelia's relationship
) scene to the third movie, which is now also finished.

So now it's going into the last lap, completing the fourth and last movie (which is 3/4 finished) of this quadrilogy, previewing it with my friends to see what works and what doesn't and then finishing it up. A February release for this saga it will probably be. :)
 
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