How does The Avengers bear up against Joss' other projects?

[JCoatsworth]

Hey, everyone!

Joss' movie The Avengers was, as we all know, a huge, huge success. Some consider it to be the greatest superhero movie of all time.
[MENTION=11975]Always Bangel[/MENTION] mentioned the following:

Story wise, I thought The Avengers was one of his best. Firefly probably has superior characters, but I thought The Avengers was a far better movie than Serenity, and story wise the only Joss-related project I thought was better was the Buffyverse.

...whereas I think that The Avengers (although I think the movie is really great) is one of his weaker projects. Now I'm talking, of course, about the projects of which he was in (almost) total control and not about Toy Story, which is still fricking awesome, of course, or Alien: Resurrection, which was apparently butchered by the director and the producers.
So those other projects are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Dollhouse. (Did I leave something out?)

Compared to his other projects, do you think The Avengers holds up well?

 

[Black Eye Guy]

I think it's a really great piece of work, I'd rate it about Dollhouse and Dr.Horrible.
Unless we count the comics, in which case I think the comics are the weakest.

I think Dollhouse was his weakest live action piece, and Firefly/Serenity was his strongest, Buffy second, and I'm not sure which I think is better The Avengers or Angel...

 

[sk]

The Avengers is just another super hero movie for me. Well made and all that, but so are most of them these days.

Even think it's hard to compare. The Avengers is so different to his TV shows and I have a hard time to see it as a Joss Whedon project.

So even if I think he did a great job with The Avangers, and it's kinda cool that he managed to have this huge success with it, I still prefer most of his other stuff.

/SK

 

[TiMER]

I think it's sort of unfair to compare a movie to a tv show like Buffy and Angel that were around for several years. If I had to then I would rate it at the bottom because I prefer his characters over the pre-made ones.

 

[JCoatsworth]

As I said, I think The Avengers is rather weak compared to his other stuff. First of all, the story. It was way too plain, in my opinion. They had to stop Loki from executing his evil plan and when that didn't work out, they had to save the world from those alien monster guys from another dimension. There were great action scenes and it's all really entertaining, but I didn't doubt for a second that they wouldn't fail. There were almost no problems. It never seemed hopeless. That's kind of what I miss in this movie. I'm also very hopeful that, now that he has proven that they are capable of pulling off such a flick, Joss will go to darker places. Let the characters suffer a bit. (By the way, the Iron Man 3 trailer looks really promising to me.)

And then there's the characters. Sure they were given from the beginning and he had to work with them, since it's a comic book adaptation, but I guess that was the problem. I only really like Tony Stark and Nick Fury (and I think only because he's Sam Jackson). When he killed off Coulson, I didn't feel a thing. (Surprise, surprise, he's back now) I mean, you know him, but don't really know him. It's just not like, for example, (Firefly spoilers!)

Spoiler

Wash's death

or (Buffy season 6 spoilers, just in case)

Spoiler

Tara's death

.

Well, I definitely think that Serenity is a better movie. The story is deep and gripping. The characters are great. But Serenity has the advantage of being part of a TV series, so you really know the characters. You can't really do that in movies.

So, I'd rank Joss' works about like this:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Firefly and Serenity
Angel / Dollhouse
The Avengers
Dr. Horrible

I think it's sort of unfair to compare a movie to a tv show like Buffy and Angel that were around for several years. If I had to then I would rate it at the bottom because I prefer his characters over the pre-made ones.

Well, I only want you to state how you like The Avengers compared to his other stuff. Not objectively, but subjectively. I know it's kind of unfair. A big-scale movie has a lot better effects and stuff like that, but TV series can really concentrate on the characters and that's just what makes the difference to me.

 

[itssmiletime]

I haven't finished Dollhouse or started to watch Dr. Horrible Sing Along Blog.

I'd rank Joss' projects like this:

BTVS
Angel
Firefly
Serenity
The Avengers

All are amazing though. Anyway, for me, The Avengers is one of the rare superhero films that do live up to standard in multiple viewings. A problem I have however is that some elements of it do come across as cartoonish in a bad way (Loki and Thor's dialogue is cringe worthy, oh thank god for Iron Man). Emotionally, it didn't do much for me. It was a really great, enjoyable film but when compared to say, Buffy or Angel, it doesn't hold up.

Story-wise, The Avengers was quite strong. A problem many people had with Nolan's TDK/ TDKR is that it felt too much was going on. When I think Avengers, I think that Whedon wanted to give people a great time, and therefore the story was involving, yet simple, which gave it a good, solid flow. I do think Firefly / Serenity had the better storyline, just because it has a bit more range, although this is a bit of a cop out answer, I kinda felt prior to the Avengers, all the characters had already been established- the only exception would be the Hulk. Whedon used Serenity to show us more about River Tam's past, society, reavers, etc.

I'm really struggling to compare the Avengers to Buffy/ Angel, storywise. It has nothing to do with that the buffyverse has over 250+ television episodes and that the Avengers is a 2 hr film. I mean, I've gotten the impression from Whedon that he has expressed his emotions, experiences, feelings, beliefs throughout BTVS and ATS. There is an excellent special feature in the season 5 btvs dvd called about Joyce's death and how Joss was so connected to the episode whilst making it. With The Avengers, it's more of a celebration kinda film of what inspired Whedon's work throughout the years. The writing of it is so comic-book esque (and I mean that in a good way), the colour, the dialogue, the many characters. But it failed to leave that impression, to be moved that buffy/ ats managed to do.

 

[Robb Stark]

I like The Avengers a lot. I thought the story was cool, and while it isn't my favorite superhero movie of all time or anything, like I mentioned, I like it more than any of Joss' other projects beyond Buffy and Angel.

I like Serenity, but if I'm being honest here, it's a bit overrated in my eyes. I think a lot of the love for Serenity comes from the feelings about the Firefly series, how sad everyone was it got cancelled so early and how Serenity was the final hurrah for the franchise. But if you look at the movie itself, it isn't perfect. The third act is a complete mess, and really, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It lost money at the box office and didn't perform up to expectations. Don't get me wrong, as a fan, I really enjoy it. I thought the Reaver storyline was excellently resolved.

But as a movie, on it's own merits, I much prefer Avengers.

 

[Mischlings]

Umm... err... argh........

Okay, I really don't know how you can compare The Avengers, straight up, to anything else Joss has done. Really, outside of comparing it to other movies he's been heavily involved in, it doesn't really make sense. The Avengers was 2.37 hours, Firefly was 11.25 (13.25 if you count Serenity), Dollhouse was 20.37, Angel was 80.67, and Buffy was 105.7. A lot more time for things, really. There's not really a way to compare them directly -- I can't even say whether or not I enjoy the movie more than his shows, since they're all just that different.

So... yeah, not really an answer, but a thing or two to think about.

 

[Kurai]

I prefer Buffy and Angel, but Avengers comes pretty close. In fact, it was after watching The Avengers which made me want to start watching Buffy again, so it converted me back to the Whedonverse.

As for Firefly, I've only seen one episode thus far, so I can't really say all that much about it XD