They have been gaining a reputation for poor writing, 'wheadonesque' if you know the term. Some lowlights on the game Forspoken that they worked on being a recent funny example. I don't like them because I do find the writing bad, but some people don't like them for their politics.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

They are contractor writers, if a company is using such services for their games instead of hiring their own staff writers, then they are not that interested in quality.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

wheadonesque

I thought Joss Wheadon was known for good writing and snappy dialogue?

[–] BluesF@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Snappy, witty, but ultimately shallow. Good lines, not necessarily great stories.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Are we pretending that Buffy, Firefly, and Doll House weren't great stories?

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Cabin in the Woods remains one of my favorite comedy horror movies to this day.

[–] bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

IMO that one works because of how little character each actual character has by design. Dumb jock is dumb and jocky, stoner is stoned, virgin is timid. It's a play on the lack of real character that mid to low budget horror movies often have.

It's a great movie but I do find when Wheadon tries to do anything else, it just simmers down to kitchy one-liners that elicit a mild chuckle and nothing else, and that gets old very quickly.

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There’s no pretending, they’re all middling trash.

Firefly gets by solely on the setting.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago

Firefly gets by solely on the setting.

So Space shows are popular just because they are in space? Andromeda would like a word...

[–] MolochAlter@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago

Speaking as a huge fan of firefly, I'm not even gonna pretend that the writing doesn't have a very specific set of issues, and that cancellation might have saved it from becoming aggressively mid and boring.

If Serenity was more or less the intended ending to the season (specifically revealing the alliance actually created the reapers and are unequivocally villainous) I'm actually happy they didn't get to put that in the show.

Same for the Shepherd Book backstory comic where he was actually a brown coat double agent in the alliance, because god forbid we have to accept that your enemy isn't ontologically evil.

But the best criticism I've seen of Whedon is that all his dialogue has over time exceedingly forgone character voice in favour of funny quips.

So much of his later production's quotable lines are almost impossible to attribute correctly just from the lines themselves.

[–] Cybersteel@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago

Agents of Shield was also quite enjoyable