- Joined
- Jan 17, 2018
I agree with that. Firefly is a lot of fun, but go in expecting just that and not the show some of its fans make it out to be. It's good, not great. @Krokodil Overdose's comparison to James Dean is pretty good - people lament the lost potential even more than what they got.It was a pretty good watch overall (Heart of Gold is the only really bad episode, and IIRC that one never aired) but so was the first season of Nu Who- first seasons are where authors have to color inside the lines, stay within budgets, and otherwise keep their shit together instead of writing self-indulgent trash and getting away with it. Whedon, like the vast majority of creatives, needs people with the power to tell him "no" in order to stay on track.
A lot of very talented people work better with some restrictions, though, and great success has a way of removing them. Whether it be outside editors to tell them no, or lower budgets and restrictions they have to work around, limitations are known to spur creativity just as much as hinder it. There's a reason big-budget passion projects mostly flop, and it's because oftentimes the creative person couldn't get their 'dream project' off the ground for very good reasons until people give them the money and carte blanche to do whatever they want.
Sometimes that works. More often you get everything from The Last of Us Part 2, to Heaven's Gate, to Alexander. With Joss Whedon, I'd say it's notable that his passion projects have usually been smaller in scale and successful, creatively - Dr. Horrible, Much Ado About Nothing and Serenity are all well-regarded, generally.
And no one creative gets control over the MCU - he was pretty vocal about feeling stifled in making Age of Ultron. Now what he might have produced, or might still produce, with a large budget and minimal-to-no oversight? That remains to be seen. Can't say I'm particularly optimistic about his future work, but I don't think it will be guaranteed as bad.