Random spoilerific commentary on Dr. Horrible, Acts I-III

[orichalcum]

Dude, what's up with Joss Whedon's obsession with death by impalement of sharp metal (or wooden) objects, anyway? Is it all just a Buffy reference?

Also, I kinda wish we'd had a warning about the Abrupt Genre Change from high school romantic comedy with wanna-be supervillains to dark angstful tragedy.

Comments

[siercia]

Yeah, for real. I kind of felt like I'd been stabbed at the end.

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

Dude, what's up with Joss Whedon's obsession with death by impalement of sharp metal (or wooden) objects, anyway?

We just two minutes ago got done watching, and the first thing the L.C. said was, "What do you suppose happened in Whedon's life that he's so hung up on that, huh?"

Yeah. Whoa.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Seriously! I felt like I was watching poor Wash all over again!

[ladybird97.livejournal.com]

*sniffle* Poor Wash!

And yeah, suddenly it was serious tragedy, and my brain kept thinking "wait, isn't it going to be funny again? why is everything so sad?" But then when it did get slightly funny in the ending montage, it felt out of place because of all of the intense emotion that had just happened.

It was all extremely well-done, and I continue to be hugely impressed by Neil Patrick Harris's singing. But still! Joss! Enough with the impaling! Please!

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

"Joss the Impaler"...

[emilymorgan.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I just realized now that I found Serenity so out of keeping with Firefly that I haven't even been thinking of it as canon.

[ladybird97.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've been willfully denying that it's canon pretty much since I saw it in the theater :) *sniffle* Poor Wash!

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

Woot! Fans of Firefly for the de-canonization of Serenity, unite! :)

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

I'll join. :)

[emilymorgan.livejournal.com]

Hooray, I'm not alone! :-)

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

I think we need to work on the acronym, though. FoFftDoS just doesn't work somehow.

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

I just finished Act Three. My exact quote was "So, I guess it's a tragedy then."

[viking-cat.livejournal.com]

I think it's hard to be a good supervillain unless you have a good reason to hate the world.

And really, Dr. Horrible won. The death got him into the Evil League of Evil, and Captain Hammer is helpless to stop him. And it wasn't even his own doing; just like in the comics, the bad guy sows the seeds of his own defeat.

But still. Damn. It's the last, vulnerable frame that does it.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

I'm with the camp that really wanted Penny to be a supervillain. That would have been flawless victory...

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Oh yah. Come the end of Act II, I was totally figuring that Penny was a super of one variety or another. Real pity she wasn't.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we just finished watching it too. Ow. The thing that got me was, Penny dies thinking that Captain Hammer will save the day. And there's no way that Dr. Horrible can change that.

We thought that it was all really very well done, with the acting by the Dr. Horrible actor being particularly good. Also the music was surprisingly good, especially in Act 3 - the contrast between the (I assume deliberately) bad/trite "Everyone's a Hero" by Captain Hammer and the almost Sondheimesque "Slipping" really showed how complex and excellent the latter song was.

This is, I will somewhat abashedly admit, the first thing either of us has ever seen by Joss Whedon (except for the first seven minutes of Serenity, but I don't think that counts). I'm curious: how typical of his work is it?

(Funny. I was just thinking about blogging on Dr. Horrible, with the same thought about the abrupt genre change.)

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

I would say, as someone who is not a particular fan of Whedon's work (I like Firefly, I dislike Serenity, I'm so-so on Buffy, I like his X-Men), that this is very typical Whedon. Clever dialogue, humor, genre fiction tropes used to actually tell different (often young adult romantic comedy) stories, bizarre tragic deaths that come out of nowhere and often involve impalements... It does have more singing than most of his other works. :)

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

Hubby said the same thing (i.e that it was very typical Whedon), but I found the plot much thinner than his usual. There's a reason why Serenity is his most notable failure so far--he's meant to be working in a long-term, serialized genre where he has time to work in his dialogue and quirks and still get the story out. I found Dr. Horrible very funny, but not very satisfying, and I usually find Whedon more satisfying.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

This is also the first Whedon where the guys are much more interesting as characters than the chick.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else keep thinking of Penny as a refugee from Guys and Dolls, btw?

Compare and contrast Buffy/Zoe/Willow/Cordelia/Kaylee/River/Kitty Pryde, and the differences are startling.

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

I didn't think of Guys and Dolls, but yeah. I complained multiple times about Penny as I was watching. She is both clueless and uninteresting--why is Dr. Horrible interested in her in the first place?

I wonder if this is effect rather than cause, as he snagged two really interesting male actors who could easily handle whatever he threw at them, and a female actor that I, at least, have never heard of and was not particularly impressed by.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

She's from Buffy's last season - yet another one of Whedon's stable of "actors he really likes who he'd like to see get more exposure and good jobs." Which makes sense, but...

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, yeah, I saw that on IMDB but I don't remember her at all. Of course, 5 years is a long time.

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

A lot of those actors kind of look like eachother, too. <wry />

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, yeah. I kept thinking she was going to do something interesting (especially when she sort of ran away and hid from Captain Hammer in act III), but ... no. Just sat there looking wispily pretty. Which she did quite well, mind you, but there are limits to how interesting that is.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Yes, she _looks_ like a perfectly good Whedon girl, but she doesn't _do_ anything.

[ellinor.livejournal.com]

I really liked it. I liked the humor, I liked the performances, I thought the heartbreak and victory played perfectly together, and I didn't think it was an abrupt shift at all. It was pretty angsty and dark all the way through. You are not the first to make your observation, but . . . I agree with viking_cat, it struck me as a fitting end. Sure, not everything that happened *had* to happen, but it was ultimately a sort of coming-of-age story.

I did keep waiting for a twist with Penny. This was just a different twist than I expected, and I think a more rewarding one.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Really, I would have been much more okay with her death if it hadn't been by friggin' impalement.

[contrariety.livejournal.com]

Joss Whedon is very into the "I will screw with your genre and turn it on its head and use it to do weird and funny things until suddenly I turn around and kick you in the gut by delivering just what you should have expected from the genre all along, only now you'll actually care, because I made you pay attention" trick.