By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed 29 seconds in the past
Sarah Michelle Gellar shocked the world lately when she declared her willingness to return to the world of Buffy. The actor has historically mentioned she wouldn’t need to return, however latest initiatives like Dexter: Unique Sin have satisfied her there are intelligent methods to carry beloved characters and their worlds again. That also leaves the query of the best way to carry the sequence again, however that query was really answered a long time in the past with a failed pilot: merely put, Buffy the Vampire Slayer must return as an animated sequence.
The First Buffy Animated Try
Again in 2004, one 12 months after the live-action present ended, Joss Whedon launched a four-minute presentation for Buffy: The Animated Collection that was designed to assist him promote a cartoon to any networks that may have an interest (you possibly can watch it within the video above when you’re ). He had really been engaged on the mission since 2001, and he hoped the cool animation and returning actors like Anthony Stewart Head may assist him promote this present, which was meant as a prequel set when the characters have been nonetheless in highschool.
The sequence by no means offered and Whedon mentioned the mission was useless in 2005, however with Gellar’s willingness to return, it’s time to carry the thought of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer animated present again to life. She notably didn’t return to voice the character for that 2004 presentation, nor did she reprise the position of Buffy Summers within the wonderful Audible unique Slayers: A Buffyverse Story. Now that she’s keen to return again, it’s essential for a future showrunner to find out the easiest way to make that occur.
Why Animation Works Higher

If Buffy the Vampire Slayer got here again as a live-action sequence moderately than an animated one, the largest concern for any community can be the excessive manufacturing prices. Along with all these good units and particular results, they’d should pay for the legacy actors to return, and a few of them might not like the thought of returning to a grueling manufacturing schedule. Achieved poorly, a live-action Buffy reboot can be just like the Frasier revival, which notably introduced again the title character however relegated the unique ensemble solid to very occasional cameos (mercifully, that modified with Peri Gilpin’s sturdy Season 2 presence).
Thankfully, making Buffy the Vampire Slayer into an animated sequence solves each issues by making manufacturing cheaper even because it makes manufacturing a lot simpler for the expertise. One of many causes that Audible snagged so many veteran Buffy stars for Slayers: A Buffyverse Story is that the majority actors discover merely recording traces fairly preferable to spending hours worrying over hair and make-up earlier than taking pictures scenes into the wee hours. A Buffy cartoon can be equally simple to document traces for, and the flexibility of the format leaves issues vast open for some artistic writers.
Joss Whedon initially tried to create a Buffy the Vampire Slayer animated prequel present, and that concept may nonetheless work if creators and followers needed to make use of this cartoon to flesh out the Scoobies’ earlier adventures. Nonetheless, it will be simply as simple to set the cartoon within the current day and discover how the world modified when Buffy gave her superpowers to each potential Slayer on this planet. In the event that they needed to go the X-Males ‘97 route and rework nice comedian arcs into episodes, Darkish Horse’s killer Buffy comics created as new “seasons” of the unique present can be a fantastic start line.

Talking of X-Males ‘97, that present is proof {that a} Buffy the Vampire Slayer animated present could possibly be profitable whereas nonetheless exploring some very darkish subject material. High quality all the time wins out, and if we get a high-quality Buffy cartoon (with or with out the controversial Whedon’s involvement), followers will come working. Sarah Michelle Gellar is able to come again to the position that made her well-known, and a cartoon adaptation might in the end be our greatest guess to get among the outdated magic again from one of the crucial groundbreaking franchises in tv historical past.
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