"Buffy" reference in the Avengers!

[Black Eye Guy]

Kinda, apparently at the end of his audition Nick Brendon asked if they wanted to go for shawarma!

It turns out the shawarma line in Marvel's The Avengers isn't something that came out of left field. Instead, director Joss Whedon"˜s infatuation with the grilled meat stems from his very first television project: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The credit goes to YouTube user Buffyfan45 (via /Film), who made the connection between The Avengers and Buffy. There's a DVD extra on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen Collection set that includes the tidbit below about Nicholas Brendon's audition. According to Whedon, he has "shawarma" to thank for his role.

"Nicky just tore the place apart [during his audition], was just weird. We hadn't seen it before," Whedon recalls in the clip. "Afterwards, he was like, "˜Does anybody feel like shawarma? I feel like some shawarma!' And I was like, "˜This guy speaks to me!' That was it. I knew there was no other Xander."

As for the joke in The Avengers, story goes that the original line Iron Man is supposed to say in the script is, "What's next?" but Robert Downey Jr. wanted something better. Whedon acceded, and somewhere along the way they decided to go with the shawarma line. Regardless of whether it was Downey or Whedon's suggestion (we're guessing the latter, based on this clip), the rest, as they say, is history.

http://t.co/MhXEz847

Nick should sue for joke stealing 😉

 

[Robb Stark]

Man, I never realized that, but it's kind of awesome. I always like seeing Buffy references. Ultimate dream? Buffy actually IN The Avengers 2. Now that would be awesome.

 

[Groge]

Yeah I just heard about this yesterday! I couldn't believe it! Had no idea this was already a Joss related joke before The Avengers. What a legend Nicholas is (but we all already knew that!) 😛

 

[rockergirl23]

Finding this out I think just made The Avengers that much better of a movie. Granted, usually when Buffy is referenced in anything it raises it up a notch on the awesomeness scale.

 

[Pike]

Maybe he can just hold it to Joss to get a role in the next Avengers 😛

 

[Lilac1]

When I first read the title of this thread I hadn't seen The Avengers yet. So I watched it to see if I could find the reference myself. And I coulda swore it was the opening sequence when they are driving away in the jeep and the ground is caving in. It was so very similar to the ending sequence of Buffy when Sunnydale was caving in and they were driving away in the school bus. But then again I didn't know about the shawarma joke with Nick Brendon. I always hope Joss references his older projects in his newer ones.

Are there any references in Cabin In The Woods?

 

[Mischlings]

I also noticed a line that is way too similar to be accidental: Nick Fury at one point says "What are you prepared to do?", which Whistler basically says to Buffy in Becoming Part 2. Am I the only one who's noticed this?

 

[BladeRunner2007]

Black Widow fighting the bad guys while being tied to a chair was SO Buffy haha.

---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

When I first read the title of this thread I hadn't seen The Avengers yet. So I watched it to see if I could find the reference myself. And I coulda swore it was the opening sequence when they are driving away in the jeep and the ground is caving in. It was so very similar to the ending sequence of Buffy when Sunnydale was caving in and they were driving away in the school bus. But then again I didn't know about the shawarma joke with Nick Brendon. I always hope Joss references his older projects in his newer ones.

Are there any references in Cabin In The Woods?

Yup, first thing that came to my mind was "CHOSEN" 😀

 

[Kean]

When I read the title of the thread I thought it was in reference to the Loki/Iron Man scene where Loki taps Iron Man's power centre in his chest and nothing happens and Loki sort of shakes his staff and says "This usually works." When I saw that scene I immediately thought first) of Xander shaking the cross as if it was broken when he had held it up to Willow in Dopplegangland and second) Spike and Willow's performance speech in S4.

Personally, my favourite Buffy/Avengers thing is Joss little crossover that he cooked up in an interview.

Buffy versus Black Widow

“Buffy would go easy at first, but as soon as Natasha popped her with a Widow Sting, she’d start bringing some slayer brawn to the fray,” he told Matheson. “Natasha’s fast, but a couple of good connects and she’s wobbling, possibly something broken — she whips out her glock and now Buffy’s dodging — right where Natasha wants her. Natasha shoots the cable holding the steel barrels and they tumble onto Buffy, nearly burying her — Buffy just arcs out of the way, grabbing the splintered cable and swinging directly onto Natasha, a bullet grazing her cheek as her feet land hard on the Russian’s shoulders, sending her back flat — crack! — on the floor, Buffy wrenching the gun away and tossing it, fist ready for the final strike. Natasha, struggling to stay conscious, says the fight’s over. Buffy agrees, but Natasha explains: She poisoned Buffy hours ago. That waitress that brought her salad …? Natasha smiles. The poison is dormant — ’til it’s activated by adrenaline. Buffy’s eyes narrow. ‘Too bad I didn’t use any.’ Wham! Natasha’s out for the count, and Buffy’s heading — slowly — to Willow for a mystical cleanse.

“That’d be my first guess.”

Source.

I'm just going to go ahead and call this canon. 😀

 

[white avenger]

Personally, my favourite Buffy/Avengers thing is Joss little crossover that he cooked up in an interview.



Source.

I'm just going to go ahead and call this canon. 😀

Buffy's his character, so I'm sure that Joss is just a bit prejudiced here. I'm not surprised that Buffy would win if Joss wrote the fight sequence, but I'm just as sure that, if the comparative skills and experience of the two combatants were compared in a unbiased manner, Buffy wouldn't have anything like the easy victory that Joss seems to envision.

To begin with, Natasha is a highly skilled martial artist and gymnast, with far more experience in hand to hand combat than Buffy has (that "drawing on the skills of her predecessors" thing is a myth. If it were true, neither Spike nor Angelus, to name just two, would have ever come so close to defeating her.) and a large portion of that skill involves using an opponent's superior strength against them. Martial Arts like Judo, Jujitsu, Hapkido, and Russian Combat Sambo in particular are specifically focused on techniques that use an enemy's greater strength against them. Plus, it must be pointed out that the Black Widow has fought more superheroes and super villains than Buffy has fought vampires and demons, most of them much larger and stronger than she herself is.

Something else to be considered is a potentially fatal flaw that Buffy has, that we saw first in "School Hard" and several more times later on.Buffy likes to talk when she should be fighting, and her overconfidence causes her to underestimate opponents at the wrong time. She would be standing, fists on her hips, quipping and making jokes while Natasha was setting her up for the kill.

Get out the butter, boys and girls, cause Joss' little Slayer is toast.

And don't even get me started on the mangling and dismembering that Buffy would get if she ever tangled with Vampirella!