Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite show of all time. Still. Probably always, unless someone decides to come up with a neo-CW sensation called Buffy the Vampire Slayer Kicks It With Veronica Mars, Sydney Bristow and Kara Thrace. Also, Daisy Steiner Is There.

And yet, I never got around to seeing that bit of early ’90s teen dream cinema that started it all — you know, the Buffy movie. The one with a just-beginning-to-bald Dylan McKay and cameos from whodathunkit future Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Ben Affleck. This is very unlike me. When I love something, I am generally all about absorbing any scraps of expanded universe data I can get my hands on, even if said scraps end up looking more like sloppy, crayoned renderings of the classic product. (This level of obsessiveness may or may not have led to me Googling for fanfic about a certain pairing on a certain show, the name of which may or may not rhyme with “Schmossip Schmirl,” and then reading a story based exclusively around the notion that one half of this pairing smells like strawberries. Just for example.)

Anyway. My avoidance of the Buffy movie was never meant to be one of those big, fat geek medals of honor — a red badge of nerdage — or anything. I didn’t shun it so I could loudly proclaim that I only recognize TEH ONE TRUE BUFFY. I just didn’t think it was…necessary. Joss Whedon always said that Buffy the show was Buffy done right, and Buffy the movie was sort of a not-done-quite-right false start. So why bother?

But when our friends at Fantastic Fangirls declared this What Are You Waiting For? month — ie, read/view/consume some vital bit of geekiana you’ve avoided up ’til now — I realized maybe it was time to just watch the thing. After all, how can I consider myself a true Buffy Buff if I’ve never seen her original origin story?

Buffy the Movie gives us a Buffy who is familiar (sunny, blonde, quick with the quip), yet not (Kristy Swansonized, obsessed with things like shiny yellow jackets). We watch her transformation from ditzy popular girl to ass-kicker, as guided by a gruffily-voiced Donald Sutherland. Her parents are neglectful. Her boyfriend’s a tool. She’s normal but she’s not, and she slowly realizes that whilst wearing tons of painful 90210-era fashion, the likes of which we really never need to see again (how many pairs of high-waisted pastel shorts can one girl own?!).

There’s a gloss of camp here that was replaced with something darker and deeper on television, but I have to say: in its own way, Buffy the Movie is pretty damn winning. Swanson is an appealing Young Buffy, an innocent who eventually accepts her warrior role. Her scenes with Sutherland are genuinely touching, and I do love the moment when she steps protectively in front of Pike (that’s Dylan!), shielding him like you would a classic damsel in distress.

And even though this does feel a little off from what we now know as Whedon’s complete vision, a lot of the dialogue is Classic Joss — Paul Reubens snarling “kill him a lot” or the dopey basketball coach yelping “Assert your personhood! Actualize! Actualize!” Perhaps the moment most pure in its Jossiness is the one where Pike, slow-dancing with Buffy, whispers in her ear that she’s “not like other girls.” She smiles a little: “Yes, I am.” Something about that hit me the way the show hits me — for all its supernatural trappings, Buffy was always a show about a girl. A girl who, at her core, is maybe like you or maybe like me.

This moment made me supremely grateful for two things: 1) that Buffy the Movie exists and 2) that Whedon got a chance to capitalize on this idea and spin it out the way he wanted to. Buffy the Movie is a fun slice of the Slayer mythos, but it kind of has that crayon-rendered feeling. It slips and slides between the iconic moments, but can’t quite capture the nuance and texture of the series. It handily sets up Buffy as a hero that’s somehow both conventional and unconventional, but doesn’t really capitalize on what that means. The “high school is hell” metaphor never quite comes through.

And yet…I think that’s okay. Buffy the Movie is sort of like a prologue, a longer version of that “In every generation…” thing they used to run sometimes before the show. It’s cheesier, sillier, broader — but so, at this point in her existence, is Buffy herself. I like that we can see the initial DNA for this character encapsulated within these 90 minutes. I like it even more that Whedon was able to take that base and create a more fully fleshed-out heroine without losing the spark that made her such an enjoyable presence in the first place.

But both versions, I am convinced, possess that essential Whedonian spirit, that distinctive voice that may not come through as clearly in Buffy the Movie, but comes through all the same. So let’s maybe not go through with an all-new Buffy movie without him. Because I would hold avoiding that up as a red badge of nerdage, and I would do so proudly.

TEH ONE TRUE BUFFY exists for me now in two different forms. Any more than that is just pushing it.