Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog - Act III

[timepiececlock]

I'm underwhelmed. Is that it?

It ended on a weird note, and I feel like something's missing. I'm disappointed primarily with Penny's end; it didn't seem to serve any purpose, and nothing came from her dying that couldn't have just as easily come from her rejecting Billy. I was hoping for some sort of surprise at the end, but it just...ended.

Act II was the best of the three parts. I loved Act II. And I liked the opening bits of Act III-- Captain Hammer's cringe-worthy song, and Dr. Horrible's song was interesting too in an arty sort of way. But after the freeze-ray unfroze... everything kinda went to pot. I'm not angry or heartbroken like a lot of people on my flist... I wanted to eat pie tragedy, but when I saw what they put in the pie I lost my appetite. Even if the end result SMELLS good and LOOKS good... I still know what they put in it.


I feel like there must be another three minutes somewhere that I skipped, or something. And what are we supposed to take from the fact that it ends with Billy looking at the video blog instead of Dr. Horrible?

Captain Hammer's breakdown reminded me a lot of that one scene in Death Proof.


Disappointing ending aside, I did like:

-NF's over the top acting
-Dr. Horrible's red lab suit
-NPH looking beaten and destroyed, which he does quite effectively
-Bad Horse is an actual horse (that terrible death whinny)


I think it would have been more fun (and less annoying) if Penny had been Bad Horse, rather than as she ultimately ends up, the girl in the refrigerator.

I wish the conclusion had been more open-ended. Something that leaves room for the three-way dynamic to continue into a sequel. I don't really care about Dr. Horrible without Penny there as a contrast, because he's basically a boring villain without that emotional counterpoint that drives him to act.

I get that this was predictable... it was, in fact, EXACTLY like you'd expect a villain story to go. And I don't think I would have liked it if Dr. Horrible hadn't turned out to be horrible. I fully support the mythology of the villain's development. But this was *too* predictable, too much in-line with tradition. It was paint by numbers, whereas the first two Acts had a sense of flair and originality in delivery if not necessarily in chronology. I don't have a problem with Billy becoming Dr. Horrible or with Captain Hammer being beaten... I just was disappointed by the way it happened. It wasn't as fun as I was hoping it'd be, or as interesting. And Penny's character was wasted.

I wanted to embrace the tragedy, but... I was underwhelmed. I wanted a *better* tragedy.

I expected Billy to die. I think that would have been more powerful, except that it would have killed the chance of a sequel.

I'm kind of in the mindset where I want to pretend it ended with Act II, and that the REAL ending is Dr. Horrible making himself into a giant and squashing Captain Hammer. WAY BETTER ENDING.

Comments

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

See, I was expecting him to throw the villain lot away for Penny, when Captain Hammer endangered her life somehow. So this turn was unexpected for me, and I felt true emotion for Dr. Horrible at the end.

Plus - can any couple ever ever end up happily with Joss Whedon?

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I never expected them to end up together. I would have cheered for it to happen, but I figured that no matter what Dr. Horrible decided, Billy was never going to get to be with Penny. So that wasn't a surprise for me at all.

[vickiso.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, for the most part. But it took me a really long LJ post to figure out that I agreed with you.

http://vickiso.livejournal.com/24250.html

Dunno why. I should just listen to you instead of trying to hash it all out myself. Stupid brain.