Archive for November 2006

The Underbelly Of The City

On 26 November 2006 with No Comments

What follows below is the rush transcript (although I think it’s completely accurate) of what Joss had to say about Goners during his appearance on Fanboy Radio today, which ended about half an hour ago, followed by a couple of other remarks which might be relevant.

Goners is a film that also brewed in me for a few years, and then after I finished filming Serenity, I just up and wrote it, because I’ve been wanting to for so long. It’s a supernatural thriller.

There’s not much I’m gonna say about it, because I have no idea when it’ll happen, and every piece of information will get chewed over so thoroughly that I’m afraid if I talk about it at all, by the time the movie actually comes out people will be tired of it.

It’s about a girl named Mia, people know that, who sort of sees in a mystical way the underbelly of the city and of human society, and goes through a kind of extraordinary hell, and we all have a lot of fun in the process.

It’s very much the kind of fiction that I tell. That is to say, I love this character and I’ve been seeing a lot of horror movies that are torture-porn, where kids we don’t care about are mutilated for hours, and I just cannot abide them.

This is much more a story about — literally about human connection and whether or not it’s possible.

But it’s told on a very mystical scale and, in a way like everything I’ve tried to do including Buffy, it’s an antidote to that very kind of film, the horror movie with the expendable human beings in it. Because I don’t believe any human beings are.

Later in the interview, he was asked about his favorite horror films, and in contrast to the “torture-porn” which he criticized in the above, he almost immediately zeroed in on early John Carpenter movies such as the original Halloween and his remake of The Thing, referring to them as “elegant and compellingly simple”. He also mentioned seeing Alien when he was fourteen without any spoilers and how good that was.

Given that Joss has referred to Goners both as “fantasy thriller” and “horror fantasy”, those remarks conceivably could end up having some bearing upon Goners.

To get to some of the chewing, I do find it interesting that while Joss has said that thematically Goners will be “in the Buffy-mode of discovering strength”, here he mentions “the underbelly of the city” which makes me think that Goners might be more like Angel in tone (if not in subject matter).

Not so incidentally, it’s the matter of tone (or mood, or feel) which is addressed by the question I’ve been keeping to myself in the event Joss shows up at Flanvention.

What Is This Site Made Of

On 26 November 2006 with No Comments

Obviously, there’s been another redesign here. It happens, I think, everytime I get the feeling that there might be another minor round of tiny and unhelpful hints coming about Goners.

In this case, the site is a bastardized version of Fashionista by dreamLogic, mainly involving converting the design to grayscale, inverting it, and playing with the brightness and contrast levels.

I’ve also re-done the URL scheme for entries (and didn’t bother to try any server tricks to get the old URLs to redirect), switched the feed to use Feedburner, and added an option to subscribe via email. So there’s no shortage of ways to keep up if and when the news (and accompanying rampant speculation) starts coming fast and furious.

Awaiting Possible New Information

On 25 November 2006 with No Comments

Joss is scheduled to appear on Fanboy Radio tomorrow, and in advance a question thread has been opened. Below are some of the Goners questions that have been asked so far.

Any more information about Goners and if it’s going to be shot before or after Wonder Woman?

- robsthell

We’ve heard so little about the movie Goners. Are you somehow contractually unable to tell us much about it, or just somewhat unwilling to divulge basic information about it?

Other than its characters Mia & Violet, its dark tone and the fact that it’s a horror movie that goes to a “darker place in all of us,” and that it involves “a young woman’s journey” involving “heroics and horror” — we know very little about it. (Oh, aside from the fact that it may contain some “Japanese” and some “Dobermans.”)

Is there anything more about the setting, the characters, the movie’s universe, the journey — anything at all? — that you can tell us.

- QuoterGal

In Goners, will the bad guys be humans? aliens? demons? ghosties? guesties? And will there be a Goners comic?

- cabri

Does Mia have a last name? Can you tell us about how old she is? Is it true that you are currently working on the Goners re-write?

- Lioness

If any of these questions are asked and receive answers, I’ll post them here in another post. So check back late Sunday.