IGN Comics: The new status quo for Buffy and her companions removes them from every day situations and scenarios. They're in castles with decoys and whatnot. Did you intend to set that up or was it merely the direction of the story?
Joss Whedon: Um, both. I did start with that basic idea that they had left Sunnydale, but it was a very mundane storyline. I then had to shake myself loose from the show and say, "No, wait a minute. Not only are they in distant lands, but they are having an epic life." They are in a comic book. It's not a show and we can't recreate the day-to-day metaphor, but we can recreate the characters, concepts and emotions, and just put that on a grander scale.
IGN Comics: Do you think doing that will move the franchise too far from what made the show a hit in the first place?
Whedon: You know, I was talking to Brian Vaughan about his arc. Halfway through the conversation, because we were like, "This could be cool, that could be cool," and we said, "Wait. Let's just stop. What are we saying here? What do we need to say about Faith that we've never said before?" And these are the exact questions I'm asking when I'm running the show. So, I really don't think so… I think you need a certain amount of distance. You need to blow it up… well, most of all you need Giant Dawn, but you also need Willow's magic. You need access to the kind of world that she lives in that you could never have on TV. You need things to have a giant scope. People need to swing from the rooftops, and do the hero stuff, to keep a level of visual excitement that you have to achieve without the actors - without the actual people in front of you. [...]
