Would dragons have worked in the Buffyverse?

R

Robb Stark

King in the North
Joined
May 30, 2012
Messages
2,588
Location
Tempe
Sineya
In 12 seasons of Buffy and Angel, we never saw a storyline involving dragons, which could probably be interpreted as a good, or bad, thing. Do you think they would have worked? The only real time we saw one was the very last episode of Angel, and that was just a distant shot. The dragon plays a large role in "After the Fall" in the comics, but could something like that have worked on either of the shows?

Game of Thrones has three incredibly well produced dragons in their series, but watching commentary on some of the episodes, several of the show's producers have spoken about how expensive they are to create, which is the chief reason why they appear so sporadically. Now, if that's coming from Game of Thrones, the number one series on a pay-by-subscription network with a budget that must absolutely dwarf BTVS and Angel, I'm not sure if the Buffyverse would have been able to pull dragons off well. The ones in Game of Thrones look, move and act incredible, but there are far more examples of T.V. and movies where dragons didn't work.

Within the context and feel of the series, I don't think they would have been a problem in a confined story. Angel basically goes to medieval times at the end of S2, and both shows encounter their fair share of stories that exceed the boundaries of the standard horror genre.

What do you guys think?
 
SinisterPledge
SinisterPledge
Need to see Season 3 badly or what? :P
I love dragons! They are awesome! But I feel like they wouldn't have fitted very well with BtVS or Angel for that matter. They fit in AFT because it's a post-apocalypse scene. I feel like in a regular world they wouldn't work as well.

Another reason I'm glad it didn't happen is that they would have probably looked pretty bad. Remember when Dawn is trying to ressurect her mom and she steal that egg, that was a dragon type creature and it looked a bit funny to me. And we saw another one in the gift when the portals are opening. So it is hinted that they exist, but I'm happy it wasn't explored more than that.
 
R
Robb Stark
I like em' too!
I don't think dragons would have worked all that well. In the Buffyverse most of the humans (outside of the scoobies and AI) seemed pretty unaware of all the supernatural beings that lurk all around; a dragon would have been impossible to keep secret. There is no way the people of Sunnydale (or LA) would have missed a dragon roaming around.
 
The special effects were available when "Buffy" and "Angel" were being taped, so I guess that Joss could have incorporated a dragon into one of his story lines. It wouldn't have been any more complicated than the demon thing that Wilkins turned into at the end of Season 3. Apparently, Joss just wasn't interested in using anything like that. If you notice, almost all of the various demons that Buffy and Angel fought were actors in some sort of costume, even the hell hounds and werewolves, so I guess he's just not into that kind of monsters.

But, yes, I'm sure that, if he had chosen to do so, Joss could have had a story line using a dragon or whatever else he cared to.
 
I think the fact that most creatures in the show were primarily humanoid was to be cost effective more than Joss' personal preference. i could be wrong of course, just whenever I saw some of the creatures, werewolves and hell hounds chief among them, I always though of it just as the graphics and budget being a little more on the low end. I mean the show was made starting in the mid-late 90's so you cant exactly blame them.

Back to the question at hand though, I don't think it would have been practical at all to introduce Dragons into the show. I mean in AtF and in the last episode of Angel there was the dragon but it came from a hell dimension, another world.
 
yeah there was a dragon in "Not Fade Away" and Angels just like "I kinda wanna slay the dragon" right? 🙂 I don't think they'd of really worked either, they're a really big scale evil, maybe in the comics! 🙂 They're better suited to Game of Thrones 😛
 
Wasnt there a dragon in The Gift? It comes out of the portal?

I dont think it would have worked the special effects weren't good enough at the time to make one on that budget that looked good.
 
Joss whedon said in an interview that one of the things he liked about the comics was he didn't have to worry about budget. So I think if it was workable budget-wise, they would have done it.

I don't think civilians in the verse were ignorant to the supernatural. I think that for the most part, it isn't discussed or is covered up by police.

---------- Post added at 09:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 AM ----------

I also read that humanoid monsters were preferred, because they were metaphorical to real life.
 
It wouldn't have looked that convincing. These days CGI has advanced so much that Game of Thrones is able to do it, but I doubt they would have had the same level of technology between '97 and '03. I'm glad they never did, I'm personally not a huge fan of sci-fi/fantasy that strays too much out of the real world context (Lord of the Rings, Star Trek etc). Heck, it's one of the reasons I've only watched about 6 episodes of Firefly and I haven't even bothered to finish Serenity yet. It's not my thing. Dragons generally belong in that sort of realm, so it's not really for me. I prefer more humanoid opponents.

Plus, realistically how is Buffy going to fight a dragon? It would kick her arse.
 
If there had been dragons I imagine they might have been like the ones in Supernatural where they appear as humans and transform into having the wings and the talons and all that jazz. When I saw them on Supernatural I was a bit like ehh... but I think something like that would have fit pretty good in the Buffyverse!
 
I feel like in the Buffyverse the baddies need to be able to be hidden from regular people. So I don't think dragons would have worked, because they would have sort of "outed" magick and magickal beings.
 
Aside from the question of "could they afford it", a good story line would have been Dawn getting a minor cut and thus opening a portal long enough for a dragon to come through before she bandaged it up. There was a movie and TV series called "Tremors" where underground worms were added to by flying dragons that could be made realistically. It would also end the objection of "why had it not been seen in Sunnydale before".
 
Tone-wise it would've worked, since I don't think that's outside of the tone the series generally took. However, that much CGI being necessary in the series? Anyone else remember the last couple episodes of S4 Angel and how terrible that looked? Even with CGI getting cheaper, the budget that show had wouldn't be anywhere near enough in the modern day.
 
To anyone who has the film Dragonheart, watch went into making the dragon, also take note how the actors reacted to it.
Add to that the time allowed for each episode. You decide.
 
R
Robb Stark
Man, I haven't seen that movie in years.
As far as tone of the show goes, it almost fits but not quite. While unreal, the creatures are supernatural rather than fantastical...Yes I made that word up 🙂

While GoT has well produced dragons, that was 6 years after ArS finished and technology has come a long way in a few years and is a lot more affordable for a TV show.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom