Smallville Season 1 announced... (1 Viewer)

[Andrew D F]

Oops. Thanks Gord. Turns out I'm an idiot.

I don't watch much TV through the device that receives WPIX/KTLA/etc. and I forgot that I had been playing around with custom zoom/stretch modes on my widescreen set several months back. Apparently I was creating my own 1.78:1 frame baring absolutely no relation to that which the director intended.

Excuse me while I go hang my head in shame...

 

[Wouter Heyse]

Not to dishearten any smallville fans, but couldn't this be a mix-up? With the recent R2 rumors, someone might have their facts mixed up...
http://www.r2-dvd.org/article.jsp?se...articleId=4987

 

[Daniel Kikin]

Like Wouter said, not to dishearten us Smallville fans but according to KryptonSite, the DVD rumor is bogus for at least this year according to "very reliable sources". I'm hoping they're wrong but I guess we'll have to wait for an official announcement like Bill said.

 

[John Berggren]

If it's anamorphic I'll buy it. If it's not, I'll never get around to checking out Smallville.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

Smallville is listed for region 2 on the same site that lists the region 1 version. So unless WB makes an announcement, I'll hope it's at least coming sometime this year.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

If it's anamorphic I'll buy it. If it's not, I'll never get around to checking out Smallville.

Your loss.

 

[John Berggren]

Your loss.

Not really, I watched the Pilot, and I watched the first Jeph Loeb episode (red kryptonite) and I have just not been impressed. I find it to be a weak mix of Buffy and Dawson with a boy pretending to be Superman. I also think they stole liberally from "Rising Stars" by JMS.

However if the set were anamorphic, it would give me an extra nudge to give it another shot.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

I agree, it's a huge Buffy rip-off.

Chloe is completely Willow. I find it hard to believe that every single freshman can hack into things so easily.

Hell, in the first season there was a pre-credit teaser involving an invisible person beating up a jock in the locker room... extremely like a first season Buffy episode.

Well I love the show, it's not nearly as good at turning the horrors of high school into metaphors, even though it tries really hard to do that. Buffy was much better.

Smallville is a fun popcorn show, Buffy is fantastic deep show.

 

[ChrisLee]

I agree, it's a huge Buffy rip-off.

Well I wouldn't go so far into saying that Smallville is a huge ripoff. There's similarities sure but I tend to see them as different shows. I mean aspects of Buffy has ripped off from somewhere else too (like willow being this brain of the group...three stooges had a brain of their group too.) Its not THAT original. Nothing is these days.

I myself will welcome the dvd set in R1. I'm tired of waiting three years to get television boxsets.

 

[Joe Caps]

called a friend at Warner Home Video - he said that Warners does want to put out smallville at some point but they are still in negotiations - I said - How about filmed interviews with some of the stars? That would be fun. At any rate, it will be a while before we get this series arriving on dVD.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

John: Despite Loeb's notable history writing Superman comics, "Red" was the weakest episode in recent memory. The pilot was better, but far from the top of the heap.
Joe: Thanks for the update. It's nice to know that talks are happening even if the final product may not be for a while.

 

[Tim Glover]

Personally, Smallville is my favorite tv show of all time. Granted, I'm not a big tv watcher. Watch mostly college football, and movies, but Smallville is terrific. Would easily grab the dvd.

 

[Keith Helms]

Oh come on guys, if you describe the plots of any two fantasy shows where characters have "super" powers in abstract enough terms, you can make them sound alike. Smallville is NOT a Buffy rip-off. The Superboy saga precedes Buffy by about 50 years!

Here are my top 10 reasons the shows are not alike:

10. Clark has no adult around like Giles that can help him understand his powers.
9. Clark is not "the chosen one". He's a being from another planet whose powers derive from his race. He has no "calling" to fight any particular evil.
8. The threats in Smallville are not mystical in nature, but mostly are blamed on "weird effects from meteor rocks". (okay, it's hokey!)
7. The other main characters in Smallville actually have relatives that appear in episodes. We saw Willow's mother once in S3 and Zander's folks in S6, but that was about it for Buffy.
6. None of the other main characters in Smallville have any extraordinary powers. There are no powerful witches or ex/current vengeance demons that can pitch in in a crisis.
5. Clark as yet hasn't gotten into multiple futile/doomed/bad relationships that end miserably.
4. Clark's parents play a big role in the series. Buffy's mom rarely had an important role and her dad was only sighted once or twice.
3. Chloe may be a computer hacker, like Willow, but is confident and assertive, not meek and hesitant. The odds of her turning into a powerful witch or an evil threat are pretty low too.
2. Clark does not save the world from some all-powerful evil force every season. There is no all-season-long "big bad" in Smallville.
1. With one exception, Clark's "Scoobies" don't know he has any powers and don't help out in his "adventures". Okay, Chloe looks up stuff on the computer, but has no clue how the information is being used.

 

[TonyE]

I find Smallville to be very entertaining now and then. I think the show is at its best when it doesn't deal with some villian with super powers. I like the episodes that are about Clark himself. Watching him trying to understand these powers in a small farm town is an original take on the Superman story that is quite refreshing. It can be quite funny too.
My favorite episode so far is the one where he firsts learns he can shoot beams out of his eyes. He gains these powers by, uh... if you seen the episode then you know what i mean!
I don't watch T.V. anymore, only for a couple of shows and football, but i find Smallville to be a pretty cool show.

 

[Jason Quillen]

I'm not getting into the Buffy/Smallville debate...

Buffy's mom rarely had an important role

This is far from the truth. Buffys mom has always had one of the most important roles in the show, even after her death. In seasons 1-3 she was the parent that "didnt understand" as teenagers always say. Though this doesnt seem important, it is part of what made Buffy so good in those high school years. In season 4 Joyce and Buffys house provide a stable safe haven from the uncertainty of college life, and in seasons 5 though present Joyce has been that unattainable "mom" that Buffy wants to be for Dawn, but doesnt know how. The fact that she wasnt on screen every week does not automatically marginalize her importance.
Ok, you can have your thread back
JQ

 

[Keith Helms]

Oh, all right. It wasn't an insignificant role. But Clark's parents are in pretty much every episode advising him on how to use his powers and how he must not reveal them, so I would still claim they play a bigger role than Buffy's parents.

Anyway, it's nice to be able to have one of these "steak vs. lobster" debates. They're both excellent shows.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

How about this, Smallville pretty much based it's first season and half on Buffy's first season.

They are similar, if Clark was "The chosen one" and they were complete side kicks, it would be exactly like Buffy, and I think they wanted to be original.

The blaming of the monsters on meteor rocks is similar to the simple way they are explained on Buffy (hellmouth) However, Buffy actually got away from the MONSTER OF THE WEEK concept of which Smallville is currently still stuck in.

Basically, you can say Smallville is what Buffy would have been if it handn't evolved past the formula for season one. While I like Smallville, I love Buffy.

 

[Joel C]

A great comparison of Buffy and Smallville can be found
here.
My favorite pull quote:
"If Smallville continues to mimic Buffy as closely as it has, we can look forward to a torrid, gothic romance between Clark and Lex."

 

[Robert Ringwald]

That's what I thought too. It's very similar, and you know they made it that way. The second the WB lost Buffy everything I read about smallville mentioned it as "the wb will be replacing Buffy with Smallville"

It's clearly a bigger hit for them, but It's not nearly as good. I guess more people will tune into a show called Smallville than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I must say, the name does throw you off.

"Buffy" might have been better
or "The Slayer" also.

I have grown to love the name of the show, but I can understand how some people are turned off.

 

[Brad Grenz]

To be fair to Smallville, Buffy started out pretty slowly too. It's unfair to compare season 1 of Smallville to seasons 2-7 of Buffy. Buffy's first season had some hokiness, a kinda absurb excuse for the frequence of supernatural phenomena in the area too. But Smallville has gotten much better this year. They've distanced themselves from the kryptonite monster of the week format and they're really starting to exploit the interpersonal relationships. I look forward to Smallville Season DVD sets.