1/11/2009

Buffy vs. Twilight: No competition

So I recently discovered hulu.com has the first two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and now that I'm off my Bones addiction, I figured I could get into again. Little did I know that it's just as awesome as I remembered. But the one thing that stuck out the most is how much better this saga is than Twilight. In fact, episode 7 of season 1 "Angel" boils down the problems with a human dating a vampire into 44 easy minutes, not hundreds of grueling pages.

Besides time, other things about the Buffy/Angel love story is just better than Bella/Edward:

1. Actual personalities and non-obnoxious character traits. Buffy is witty and spunky; Bella is bland and codependant. Angel helps out Buffy only when necessary; Edward looms over Bella creepily.

2. Buffy can take care of herself for the most part and when Angel does help her, they both fight demons/vampires. Bella is lame and can't do anything but annoyingly beg to be a vampire.

3. Vampires in the Buffy world actually get injured and feel pain and presumably sleep. Vampires in the Twilight world are statues and everything about them is awesome except the feeding on people thing (see book 4). Um, way to create NO CONFLICT.

4. Buffy combines kitsch, myth, comedy, and drama all into one successful package. Twilight combines an interesting idea with boring characters, Tolkeinesque tangents, and superfulous repetition to create an unsatisfying package.

5. I'm too tired to list more ways. But seriously, just watch the "Angel" episode. Angel stays at Buffy's overnight without creepily watching her sleep the whole time like a creepy stalker face. Also, he reveals the truth without being lame and making her guess.

To wit, Buffy takes the sting out of reading all four of those terrible books. Joss Whedon is 2349 times more clever and interesting than Stephenie Meyer and her half-formed ideas that only tease at greatness (or at least not terribleness). So, count this as my super-obvious post forthe day and go watch Buffy.

26 comments:

  1. Totally agree! You put it so eloquently I shall never write on the subject again :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is SO true. I keep telling my friends, but they don't even watch Buffy!!! You explained it so well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey jst to let you guys know if you go on free-tvshows.com it has every season of buffy and every season of angel literally the best thing that ever happened i used to watch the show as a kid and it was just as awesome now if not more awesome lol

    ReplyDelete
  4. Couldn't have said it better!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I completely agree. You're my hero. =) I once told my Twilight obsessive friend how much better Spike and Angel were than edward and she basically tried to murder me. Great post, explains it so well. Also, amde me want to watch Buffy again for about the millionth time.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Last week in class, my teacher had to separate a group of girls who were having a 'Edward vs Jacob' cat fight! I nearly gagged. Also Edward is a twatt who wears far too much make-up, while Spike and Angel seem just so damn sophisticated in comparison. Xx

    ReplyDelete
  7. Vampires DO NOT SPARKLE!!!

    'Nuff said.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love both, Twilight is a love story, and Buffy the vampire slayer is an action teleseries. It has different stories. I actually love watching both, the movie Twilight and the series Buffy.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Comparing the two vampire stories is a lame thing to discuss. The movie and the series are very entertaining to watch so why argue.

    ReplyDelete
  10. We argue because one (Buffy) is so much more awesome than the other (Twilight) and the tweens just don't get it!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Another pointless argument regarding both buffy and twilight. why can't we all agree to disagree on both? first of all, buffy is not anything like twilight as far as content, because buffy was a show about a teenage girl who was made to kick some serious vampire ass. Twilight is all about the love between bella and edward, nothing more or less. i get that you don't like twilight and i get that other people out there hate the series for one reason or another, but really, this whole argument is apples and oranges. Bella is no Buffy and Angel is no Edward, nor is he a Spike. Get over it. Also, to pundit, I'm a fan of both and I have not been a tween or teen for that matter in at least five years. I grew up on Buffy. There is nothing wrong with liking something different. If you don't like it, fine, but let others enjoy it. Who cares if he sparkles. Again, apples and oranges.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The supposed "love" relationship between Bella and Edward isn't even love at all. The whole relationship is superficial at best. What Angel and Buffy had, that was a more realistic take on love. They fought for what they had, and in the end, they just didn't get their happy ending. Bella and Edward, that's not love, it's infatuation.
    Besides the love aspect in Buffy and the lack of love in Twilight, Buffy wins hands down for characters with actual depth and multiple dimensions.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I was around 10 or 11 when I started to watch Buffy (My cousin put me on to it.) and I started saving up for Angel as soon as I knew it existed. (I think I spelt that wrong.) Anyway, they are the best DVDs in the whole world. Also, I get so mad when people say how cute Edward is, seriously, just have a really close look at him. (No offence to anyone who likes him, or him, if he reads this.) BUFFY AND ANGEL ROCK!!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. The main difference between the Twilight Saga and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that one is a teen romance and the other is metaphor on the horrors of high school with romantic elements. I have watched both, abhorred the teen romance and adored the coming of age story, and failed completely to understand the savage hatred that exists between the two fandoms. These are two different stories with two different target audiences (or they should have two different target audiences; Hollywood is whoring above and beyond its usual level if it thinks otherwise) and I'd actually be more freaked out if the fans overlapped and loved them both.

    On the other hand, I'm unlikely to be the target audience for any of this (middle aged boomer female; I think I'm meant to be watching Oprah and Lifetime and WE OMG) so I may not be qualified.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Okay, I'll put it straight to you. If Twilight was just about a teenage romance (if you can call it that), then there is no point to adding vampires into the mix. Adding vampires and saying that it is a teenage romance novel is just plain stupid.

    The only reason Twilight is so popular is because it lures teenagers (mostly girls I think) with young "hot" actors. Total commercial movie, no real substance.

    ReplyDelete
  16. you are totally right buffy and angel is so much better i started to watch it at night on hulu i was loking at random shows and i saw buffy after i started watching i found out they made a show just about angel because David Boreanaz was so pop on buffy i mean i used to love twilight until Buffy but now it SUCKS the story is so boring unlike buffy if you haven't seen buffy and you dont whant to see it from the beginning to get the whole story WATCH THE EPISODE ANGEL season 1 the best place to go is [ http://www.iwatchbuffythevampire.com/season1/episode7-angel/ ] from there you can go to all different shows the best one to go on is MEGAVIDEO AND CLIK THE BOK WOTH THE ARROW TO MAKE THE SCREEN POP OUT BUFFY & ANGEL ROCK

    ReplyDelete
  17. one thing about buffy and angel is that they are two crossover tv shows like in angel season 1 episode 1 angel called buffy and in buffy season 4 ep 1 buffy answered the phone and buffy found out angel came to sunnydale because his friend had a vision and didn't tell buffy when she fond out buffy left the show buffy the vampire slyer and appeared on angel
    BUFFY AND ANGEL ROCK

    ReplyDelete
  18. ONE GOOD THING IS THAT THEY ARE CROSS OVER TV SHOWS THAT MEANS IT BUFFY GOES TO SEE ANGEL SEE APERS IN THE TV SHOW ANGEL AND VISVERSA
    BUFFY AND ANGEL ROCK

    ReplyDelete
  19. Cant we all just get along! LOL!
    I think the real issue of the movie debate is not which movie is better. The real issue is personality. What appeals to one, may not appeal to another. Some may b drawn to a love story. Some may be drawn to indepence/action. The movie a person likes, truely speaks volumes about who they are as a person. Are they sappy and mushy or are they fierce and strong. One movie could quite possibly co-exist with another...opposites do attract.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Great list, I can't resist adding a few things since you are understandably tired.
    There's the supporting cast. Several Twilight Characters have the potential to be interesting, but there is too much telling and too little showing with characters like Carlisle, Jacob, Jasper, Rosalie, Alice, ect. Buffy has Giles, Willow, Xander, Spike, Joyce, Oz, Cordelia, Faith, Dawn, Tara, Anya ect. They have distinctive personalities an contribute to the story instead of just fawning or obessing over Buffy like Certain Twilight characters do over Bella. Bella and Edward also have a tendency to look down their noses at normal humans. Buffy and Angel get annoyed with people, but don't look down their noses at them. Buffy and Angel also work to protect others and put others before themselves, While Bella and Edward are completely self involved. How many people's lives were destroyed while Edward farted around delaying tranforming Bella just so she could keep her virginity until they got married? What about Bree Tanner, Riley and all the other people who lost their lives and families who lost their children so Bella and Edward could be together? I can't imagine Buffy, Angel and the Scoobies standing idly by while someone like Victoria built and Army for revenge.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hello S. Meyers stole the story of Buffy, just flipped it to make it not be so noticable. All these suckers who made this women a millionaire. Because she copied Buffy. She had a dream one night and couldn't get these charaters out of her head, because she just had watched buffy the vampire series for 3 days. She's a copy cat. If you like twilight your a sucker to follow a thief and a lier.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Buffy is so much better than Twilight. The other characters have real depth to them and arent just excuses to have more characters. If you think Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett and Alice can actually compare with Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya, Tara, Spike, Angel and Dawn then you are sadly mistaken.
    Think about the Twilight story: A girl meets a dark and brooding boy, she falls in love with him, he turns out to be dangerous as well, after getting hurt and her life put in danger she finally givs herself to him and they live happily ever after.
    Now think about the Buffy story:
    A girl meets a dark brooding boy, they fall in love, he turns out to be dangerous and hurts her, he decides that if he truly loves her he will move on.

    Buffy is much better because when you really think about it, it isnt even really about vampires. It is about going through life, facing hardships and getting hurt along the way. The Buffy characters are fantastic and have their flaws instead of just being shallow 'perfect' characters like those in Twilight.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I too am a buffy and angel lover. I think they just had perfect chemistry. Of course, you have to think, buffy was a tv series with all the time in the world to develop character. Ms Meyer has 2 hours or 500 pages to develop. I am a fan of both and still watch Buffy even tho I can recite the scripts. But Ms Meyer has a different take..........that's the good thing about america, there's room for all sorts of different expression!!!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Buffy kicks ass well said and totally agreed with

    ReplyDelete