| | |  | Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Home » » » 2008 PaleyFest: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion | | | | | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Charisma Carpenter, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seth Green, James Marsters, Marti Noxon | | Director:
| Doug Warner | | Format:
| NTSC | | Studio:
| CreateSpace | | Run Time:
| 65 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| March 05, 2009 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 15 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 15 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 63 found the following review helpful:
 This DVD really is "something to sing about"Mar 09, 2009
By Quinny
In March 2008, to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the first broadcast of the 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' television show, a Cast Reunion Panel Discussion was held at the Paleyfest Festival. With the majority of the main cast members, Joss Whedon and some of the creative team in attendance, a lively and informative discussion of the show, the memories and the legacy of Buffy were discussed at length. The buzz, both before and after the event, was intense and over the last few months snippets of the discussion have appeared on the internet posted by fans who were in the audience. Now the entire Cast Panel Discussion on has been released on DVD.
An era came to a close with the broadcast of Chosen, the final episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Fans (myself included) experienced emotions ranging from feelings of completion and of things coming full circle through to a sense of grief at the loss of a dear friend. Those same fans have devotedly kept the show in the media consciousness ever since, which resulted in Buffy being given an Emmy award in 2008 for Most Memorable Moment in a TV Drama (for the Season 5 finale episode The Gift) - quite an achievement for a television series which had ended a full five years earlier. Since then it has seemed unlikely that the cast and the show's makers would get together in a group again, but in March 2008 it finally happened - at Paleyfest. Following a screening of Once More With Feeling, the majority of the main cast members (apart from Alison Hannigan and David Boreanaz), along with Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon and David Greenwalt, participated in a panel discussion of the show, hosted by Matt Roush (TV Guide's television critic who has championed the cause of Buffy since the very first episode). The overall feeling that the DVD of the discussion gives is that the cast really miss working together, and working on the show, and it is clear that in watching the panel discussion viewers are actually witnessing friends catching up on old times. Among the subjects covered are the darkness of Season 6 and the difficulties which that brought to both cast and crew (Sarah Michelle Gellar notes that at one point she felt that she had "lost the hero" with regard to where the storylines were taking the character of Buffy), how Christophe Beck's music actually caused certain storylines to be built (and how he lost the 'r' from the end of his name), Joyce Summers' death and Sarah Michelle Gellar's ability to play almost an entire script without a break and hit every line flawlessly - leading Joss & Co. to dub her Jimmy Stewart (Sarah's reaction to hearing this is very sweet, warm and funny - it's worth getting hold of this DVD just for that moment). Note is also made of Sarah's work with the charity Care and her forthcoming film Veronika Decides To Die. The only criticism of the Panel Discussion is that the audience, when given the chance to ask the panel questions, really make next to no effort to pose anything thought-provoking and we're left with audience questions that anyone could find the answer to in 5 minutes on the internet (what is on your iPod etc). Thankfully the audience questions take up only a few minutes and don't detract from the overall event.
Lasting more than an hour, and with insightful information throughout, this DVD really is "something to sing about".
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 LOVED this DVDNov 09, 2009
By Beth Muramoto
"Sophie"
I loved the Paley Fest with the Buffy cast. If you are a Buffy fan and if you are a Sarah Michelle Gellar fan especially then you should get this. Sarah Michelle Gellar wasn't always on every panel discussion so this is a treat to get her view on being on the show and her behind the scenes observations. She's really funny and tells great stories. It's short on Charisma Carpenter and Emma Caulfield comments, but they are there and they do say a few things. Seth Green was HILARIOUS as was Nicholas Brendon. Allison Hannigan wasn't there, but she could have been busy. All in all a great DVD
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Great Buffy reunion DVDJun 11, 2009
By R. Sousa
Well, obviously this DVD could have more special features, but it contains the most important thing - Buffy Reunion 2008, five years after the show ended its run on USA. I'm a Portuguese fan and I must say that it really makes me happy watching this DVD. The reunion even show sarah michelle gellar, which is somthing that we are not used to see in Buffy reuniona. So, What more do you want? Its a cast reunion, with the actors that played our favourite character, the genious behind all this Joss Whedon and the producers who also made this dream come true! Spectacular DVD. A must see and buy!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
fantastic panel discussion, hamstrung a bit by lame "Q & A" fan questionsMar 08, 2011
By H. Bala
"Me Too Can Read"
A-ha! I knew PaleyFest was good for something. It's cool that those still suffering from Buffy withdrawal can get a 74-minute respite. On March 20, 2008 the Paley Center featured a reunion of the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER cast (excepting David Boreanaz,.Alyson Hannigan, Eliza Dushku, and Anthony Stewart Head). For those who are all Adrian Monk-y about this stuff, this event takes place on the 6th evening of the 2008 25th annual Paley Festival. This DVD kicks off with the near nine-minutes-long "Intro" segment which has Paley Center director Barbara Dixon and host/moderator Matt Roush (the TV Guide guy) saying some blah blah and BUFFY writer/producer Marti Noxon then presenting the musical episode "Once More, With Feeling" (which the DVD then skips). The DVD next cuts away to the main feature as, one by one, the cast is introduced for the onstage panel discussion and then it's on to Matt Roush and his list of fan-friendly queries. And, thankfully, the ensuing jibber-jabber right away grabs you. This program really is as terrific and as funny as Buffy fans could have hoped for. Practically giddy, I was.
Matt Roush awesomely introduces Sarah Michelle Gellar as "the only one here who has been in two Scooby gangs." I'm so glad that Sarah Michelle - lookin' mighty fine - is so engaged in the discussion, and she offers wonderful, well-thought-out insights. She really contributes to the conversation. I get the sense that Joss Whedon took a step back so as to give his actors more of the spotlight. Seth Green ad-libs some hilarious lines, as does Nicholas Brendon to lesser effect. It's freaky how Brendon and his character Xander seem to inhabit the same personality. Charisma Carpenter and Amber Benson come off as sweet and shy. I love that Emma Caulfield and James Marsters attended, as Anya and Spike are two of my most favorite characters in BUFFY. Marsters even basks in a "Take that, Angel!" moment when Sarah Michelle informs him that Buffy and Spike's tear-the-roof-off sex scene was ranked by TV GUIDE as the steamiest ever on television. Michelle Trachtenberg has grown up, by the way. And executive producers Marti Noxon and David Greenwalt round out the panel.
Plenty of back-and-forth banter, some of it disarming, some of it juuuust a bit racy. We're in for some revealing anecdotes and reflections and deconstructing of the show. Just a whole lot of feel-good nostalgia. A huge chunk of the program features the cast expressing their thoughts on the show's best episodes ("Once More, With Feeling," "Hush," and "The Body"). It's particularly interesting to listen to Sarah Michelle as she talks about the very dark Season 6 and how that season's bleak tone impacted her. There are some cool reveals, such as that Sarah Michelle hadn't been keeping up with Joss's BUFFY Season 8 comic book series and so had no clue that Buffy had macked with a fellow Slayer. We even find out why Whedon and Greenwalt referred to Sarah as "Jimmy Stewart." I loved Sarah Michelle's heartfelt explanation of why she prefers fan awards over the more prestigious accolades. It all ends with an audience-participatory Q & A session. Probably the evening's most awkward moment concerns an audience member asking Amber to elaborate on some past comment she made about not wanting to come back to BUFFY. Amber seems a bit flustered in her response, although I liked her Marlon Brando excuse. By the way, I'm sort of discounting those awkward moments in which Nicholas Brendon's jokes fell flat.
So this is the critique paragraph, and I do have some nitpicks. I would've loved to have heard more from Emma Caulfield and Charisma Carpenter - as I didn't feel that Matt Roush involved them enough. And I love Xander but I wish there were less of Nicholas Brendon whom I felt imposed himself on several occasions. It quickly got old for me. Brendon was trying too hard, and he offered hardly any insight. It's frustrating that, at times, Brendon and Green's periodical jokey interruptions ended up cutting into what probably would have been more in-depth (and relevant) responses from the other panelists, because there were some pretty intriguing questions being lobbed by Roush. 74 minutes isn't that long a window, and the conversational segues - which I would've appreciated more if the panel had been on longer - resulted in precious time being wasted. And I wish someone had socked that first audience member who asked the panelists to share their favorite film and what songs are on their iPods. This sequence sucked the energy out of the room and it dragged for almost ten minutes (but I did enjoy Sarah Michelle Gellar's answer for favorite film). With all those nitpicks aside, this DVD is a must-have for fans of BUFFY, surely one of the most trend-setting, game-changing, and best shows ever. Just seeing the cast together one more time, it made my day.
The DVD has pretty shabby bonus stuff: the afore-mentioned "Intro" segment; A photo gallery; the "Backstage Video" - essentially, a photo op for the Paley Center and the BUFFY cast with the (off-screen) press photogs directing the actors to pose and turn willy-nilly (00:03:52 minutes); and the "About Paley Center" segment which is pretty self-explanatory (00:01:56 minutes).
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
byffy reunion dvdMay 19, 2010
By J. Gunn
cool stuff, man, James masters is the awesome! :) good to see the cast back to together really cool :) Buffy rules! also where was willow?????
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