thewhitelily | Thoughts on Dr. Horrible

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Thoughts on Dr. Horrible

benpayne has made it "Blog your thoughts on Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog Day", so... well, here I go.

I'm a sucker for musicals. I'm a sucker for superheroes. I'm even more of a sucker for supervillains. I was always going to love a musical about a supervillain made by Joss Whedon. Add in the acting talent on this thing? Be still, my beating fangirl heart!

If you haven't seen it during its limited free-to-internet engagement, you have seriously missed out. Personally, I've seen it um... let's just say enough times that I hope I've got the songs memorised until the DVD comes to Australia. That way I won't have to compromise on my moral objection to giving money to Apple. :P

I'm not going to say it's a searing inditement on the tropes, or an unparalleled parody of the genre. I'm just going to say it was absolutely awesomely rewatchably enjoyable, and I can't sleep because "Slipping" keeps running through my mind, caught like every 3/4 tune always is, and I keep trying to say the line: "Because the world's a mess, and I just need to... rule it" in a way that's even one tenth as good as the original. Not to mention the very fact of introducing the evil plan by means of a love song just warms the cockles of my flowery heart.

There's something delightfully Gilbert and Sullivanesque about some of the rhymes, as well - rhyming words in the middle and then just keeping on going with the line. Nothing quite paralleling their trademark broken words ("... occupied in crime (pied in crime!)") or ridiculous non-words ("I'm plucky and adventury"), so I'm not sure why it's so reminiscent to me - perhaps just the grinningly clever rhymes in there, along with a few unexpected rhyme schemes to keep us on our toes. Nice.

I found Penny annoyingly vacuous, but I think she was meant to be, and it didn't interfere with my emotional connection with Billy's adoration of her. I loved the pie metaphor, which applied just as well to Billy, who was nice on the outside, just a veneer over Dr. Horrible, who in turn was a veneer over the Billy inside who only really wanted to be not a screwup so he could deserve Penny and honestly couldn't have pulled the trigger on the incapacitated Captain Hammer - who exactly was he trying to fool, anyway, with that "no mercy" self-talk?

Regarding the end: there are a number of ways it could have gone. The best alternate theory I think I saw was Penny turning out to actually be Bad Horse. That sparks my imagination with her delivering his rejection from the Evil League of Evil in person (with the chorus around her, of course), and poor Horrible realising that she's just completely out of his league as far as evil goes (no pun intended).

I was horrified, and a little disappointed when the way it would all end became clear. But after walking away with my world rocked, it kept resonating in my head - those last two words from Billy, looking into the camera for the last time, all pride and artifice stripped away. And I don't feel... a thing. Such a brief flash, but... you know what, I think that was the most powerful moment in the whole story.

I guess that's what every artist would wish for.

So be careful what you wish for, kiddies.

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OMG YAY FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE WHO WATCHED IT *GLOMPS*

I TOTALLY LOVED IT. IT'S TAKEN OVER MY BRAIN.

BILLY WAS ADORABLE! AND NPH'S ACTING + SINGING = BOTH WIN. ♥ AND THEN "...A THING." :'( :'( *CLINGS TO BILLY* ~~(I feel kind of bad actually because I sort of love broken!Billy more than nonbroken!Billy? :/ )~~

[/incoherent]

I soooo badly want to write fic for it. (I have an idea for one but it is utterly cracked.)

PS: The hammer is my penis.

Yaykitty! *glomps back*

It's definitely latched onto my brain, too. I've listened all the way through two other musicals today, trying to dislodge it but... I still think it's slipping... aargh! I may have to succomb to iTunes after all. :! <- not sure what this smilie means, but it seems appropriate.

I'd never identified NPH as a talent before - I'll certainly be on the lookout for him from now on, though! As far as loving broken!Billy more - he's the pastry at the bottom of the pie, the only one who was totally honest and totally aware - he's the one you were loving all along. :/ *pets him*

Cracked idea? That's the best kind!

_{PS: XD Yes, thank you, Captain Hammer, WE GOT THAT. XD}

Hahaha, you can't avoid it even when you try. XD In those few moments when I haven't been listening to the songs, they've been running through my head anyway. At least until today when somebody uploaded a Billy/Penny fanvid and now the song from that is stuck in my head! Lolll.

Apart from a single episode of How I Met Your Mother that I saw about a month ago, I'd never seen him in anything before - and to be honest, at the time I didn't really notice him because I was more focused on Alyson Hannigan! (Willow FTW.) Until last week I hadn't really even heard of him. But, oh man, I've been converted now! I shall have to chase up all of his previous projects. I'm totally going to start watching HIMYM now - I've checked and it's on every weekday. (Oddly enough, today's episode is the one that directly follows the one I saw a month ago! What a crazy random happenstance, eh? :D)

Yeah, I was definitely loving Billy in his shy, awkward moments, when he was vulnerable and without artifice... but I loved it more not when he was vulnerable and thus in danger of getting hurt, but when he was vulnerable and actually in pain. I hope that this is just some hurt/comfort maternal-instinct type thing, rather than, y'know, latent sadism or something. XDD;;

Well, usually I'm up for crackfic but this one is Billy/Dr Horrible - yes, as a ship. (I saw someone refer to the character as "Billy/Dr Horrible" and I just thought "haha, that looks like a ship - imagine if it was!" And then of course, I did. XD;; ) Fortunately I've had a few ideas for Billy/Penny fics since then, but I do keep coming back to that first idea...

PS: Ahahaha, Captain Hammer is ridiculous. 8D He's amazing though. "Lacy, gently wafting curtains." <3

Dr. Horrible rocks my socks!! I love NPH and was amazed at his awesome singing voice. (At least I assume he was really singing, but I could be incredibly wrong.) I loved the whole story. I'm a sucker for a happy ending so I was hoping for Billy to turn against his evil ways and be with Penny. However, the final line was so brilliant, I forgive the non-happiness. :-)

BTW, I've been meaning to tell you: John McCain came to speak in Muskegon or something last week sometime and first stopped for a corn dog at the Pronto Pup in Grand Haven! ;-)

It's even rocking the socks that are still in my cupboard. :) NPH was definitely made of awesome. I'd never really noticed him before - I usually don't notice actors unless they make a particular impression - but I'll certainly be on the lookout for him now! (And yeah, definitely singing. It makes such a huge difference when it's real.) *grin* Happy ending would have been nice, yeah - although perhaps run the risk of rivalling Captain Hammer for the cheese!

*laughs* That's pretty awesome. I've been meaning to mention, too - when we arrived back in Oz, there'd been a bit of a scandal, which became colloquially known as Dagwoodgate. The Prime Minister got briefly sick, sparking rumours he'd had a heart attack, which he dismissed by saying he'd just eaten "a dodgy dagwood dog" (which is what we call corn dogs here - vastly inferior to the fried-on-the-spot-in-front-of-you extravaganza at pronto pups!). The problem came when reporters attempted to track down the source and it turned out that the function the PM had been attending the previous night hadn't served dagwood dogs! The web of lies! Had he been paid off by the real food poisoning culprits to blame another fast food vendor? Is the leader of our country incapable of distinguishing between batter and pastry? Was he, in fact, the victim of an attempted assassination in an attempt to gain control of the foreign fried food market? Who knows! Blame was eventually rerouted to a "party pie with sauce", but most discerning citizens are certain that the good old Aussie pie was only a scapegoat...

...who exactly was he trying to fool, anyway, with that "no mercy" self-talk?

That was the hottest part in the whole musical.

The ending mad me sad, mainly because I liked Penny's singing voice. I remember being vaguely bored during the whole thing, but I did watch it at about one in the morning.

Absolutely. 'Twould have been a very different ending if that freeze ray had just kept on working.

Ah, one in the morning's tje best time of day. :)

Love Dr Horrible. Want to have Joss Whedon's babies. Well, to be entirely precise, want to practice baby making with Felicia Day, but that's posted in the sealed section, in a brown paper envelope, under ice.

Agree with you except for one point: I did not interpret Penny as vacuous, but as so desperately lonely that she would suppress her own personality and character to conform to the ideals of whoever she was with.

I was equally horrified at the ending, but then remembered: this is Joss Whedon. Joss does not do happy endings. Joss definitely does not do happy endings for his leading ladies.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall. The people who built this have thrown down a rather large and shiny gauntlet in front of the traditional flim/television industry, and seem to have shown that you can make money out of free-to-air content. To put it another way, depending on how the money works out from DVD and iTunes sales, and T-Shirts and similar, they may have demonstrated the truth of the argument that you can make serious money out of selling rich media content to the long tail.

Delivered to a PO box, under cover of darkness, with a misleading name on the credit card charge, of course.

Penny conformed to the ideals of whoever she was with? I didn't see that at all. Do you mean the song beginning the third act? I saw that as just that she was so supremely convinced that everyone was innately good that she'd believe and give anyone the benefit of the doubt, even when her gut said no. Right to the end, no matter how Captain Hammer humiliated her, no matter that she'd recognised Billy, she was completely unchanged by the story and still not perceptive enough to see that there was more to people than her own hopes for them. *shrug*

I'll take the happy endings thing under advisement and without much comment: my sister and I have just finished season six of Buffy in our weekly TV night, still mostly unspoiled. :) I must say, though, being Joss Whedon and him always doing that would have been a pretty poor excuse if it had been an unsatisfying ending. Fortunately, it was damn powerful the way he did it, so it's all good.

They may make back their money and a serious profit - that won't necessarily mean it'll catch on. This was a pretty low budget production in the first place, and when there's a small, talented team doing it mostly for love, you skip a massive proportion of the overheads generally required for - well, anything. That's the magic of small teams whether in software or anything else. I have no doubt that if this succeeds we'll get more serious productions made by said small, talented teams, and whoohoo - although I think it'll require fame or cult status on the scale of Whedon to make it truly profitable for anyone. But I suspect the big established companies will always need the upfront return to balance their overhead.

I can see the G&S parallel (although Whedon's more immediately influenced by Sondheim, whose influence is also quite apparent).

I thought the last line was great too...

Sondheim... Oh. West Side Story. *blush* And Into the Woods, as well! Did you happen to see that during the recent Ignations production? Anyway, I don't really know Sondheim well enough to spot the influence. I'm just a big G&S geek. :)

A great last line transforms the indifferent into the sublime - and on a show that was already pretty awesome... Yeah.

Into the Woods is my favourite alltime musical.... haven't ever seen it live.... and Sweeney Todd was good too...

Oh, you missed out in a big way, then - only a couple of months ago. Now I know I really *should* have got around to posting a review on LJ! Red Riding Hood was particularly spectacular in an OMG, did they get her on purpose, kind of way, that actually disappoints me now I see her played any other way. ITW definitely has the best example I've ever seen of each part singing about different things in conflicting harmony, which is pretty much my absolute favourite musical trick.

Sweeney Todd... I dunno, just didn't send me away singing. *shrug*

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