Comics - Who Would Be a Fan?
It's something I've been thinking about for a while now, that anybody who enjoys anything more than the norm, a fan (or the attempt to be less spodderish, but actually more spodderish 'enthusiast') is setting themselves up for an endless line of disappointments in life. The mockery they can live with, but disappointment, that's tough to bear.
A man has recently given up his Doctor Who collection for god. He hasn't done the decent thing and burned it in a big pyre, while screaming insanely. Oh no, he's e-baying it. Despite Doctor Who getting him through depression and alcoholism, he's no match for the Omnipotent One™ it seems. God may have less merchandise (and the memorabilia trade hasn't been the same since the middle ages), but he's obviously filling a necessary gap for stories and mythology in this man's life. It's perhaps an attempt to avoid the real issues in life, but then, we all need a little time out from reality.
I first realised fans had a raw deal from the Alien franchise. Knowing someone who was really into it, collected everything they could find, watched the movies endlessly. And all he got was a gradual erosion of all the faith he'd placed in the films as they got increasingly shoddy. They started well with an interesting premise, a good story (courtesy of O'Bannon and Shusett) and the design interests of Ridley Scott (who had the same art teacher as me, with wildly differing results). They'd ended with some sort of living poo running around a ship calling out for its mother, Ripley. With Geiger claiming they literally turned his creature into shit. Once that had been spent and tossed aside, they moved onto Aliens versus Predator. This had been an alien fan's wet dream since the Predator 2 movie featured an alien skull and the Dark Horse range of comics which were often thought better of than the films. But that was rubbish too, this was the dog end of a franchise.
The law of diminishing returns with movie sequels applies. With each subsequent film there is a need to provide what is familiar, more of the same thing which made it successful in the first place. And the desire to add new elements usually results in some odd deviation. In Aliens (which is a good example) one alien is now not enough, so it becomes many. But that diminishes the horror so a new Queen alien is introduced. For later films the aliens change with their hosts and then finally (as if this wouldn't have happened the first time if they swap DNA) become human/alien hybrids with nonsensical results. Eventually the films are almost entirely divorced from their ancestors.
The problem is that many a great film as conceived as a one off, to try and graft on an unplanned sequel by different writers and directors is always going to create something that, in its soul, isn't continuous. While movies filmed back-to-back are without a doubt one of the greatest blights of the modern movie age. There is only so much soul (creative craft) to spread about and if you split it between two or more movies, all you have is something that hasn't had a full breath of life pumped into it. A staggering zombie cash cow.
Ongoing dramas such as a radio serial, TV series or comic strip manage to deal with these problems much more seamlessly, but still suffer with problems once there has been a break in continuity. But any fan of a movie franchise is in trouble and it's the very word 'franchise' that is the problem. Once you have a franchise, then you may as well just nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure this crap won't multiply. Because by then it's become 'product' to be spun out into endlessly shitty forms to be sold back to the fan or 'devoted consumer'. Fans will watch a rubbish sequel to get a small scrap of joy from it. A small morsel of background information on a world can keep them going for a while.
We all want to buy into these worlds on some level, these mythologies, but when they are sold back to us all it really gives us is a hefty credit card bill. The truth is we're clutching at rainbows. A great one off film might make you want to know more, but that's the intangible magic, the product of your own imagination. We all have different thoughts of what might happen after a good movie, so why can't we just keep them to ourselves where they will forever remain vital and unsullied. Instead of saying 'What if?' and expecting someone to present us with an answer, why not just take the 'What if?' as our reward?
What you can do is rise up, retain your imagination and your desire for new things by staying a healthy distance from these things. Sure, buy yourself a little bit of tat if you want, but keep it in proportion. If you want to build a Tardis in your garden, fine. But does it have to be a full-sized one and what the hell are you going to do with it? Sit it and hum the Doctor Who theme in the dark? Remember, your loyalty to Aliens isn't respected by 20th Century Fox, it's exploited.
This doesn't of course just apply to aliens, it's something fans of The Matrix, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Planet of the Apes and an endless array of 'marketable properties' will be familiar with. Recently I was told of a grown man with a family who bought a three-foot long Lego Star Destroyer. That's not something that can really bring pleasure, it's a placebo, something that at best reminds us what we once enjoyed about an old movie, long long ago...
A man has recently given up his Doctor Who collection for god. He hasn't done the decent thing and burned it in a big pyre, while screaming insanely. Oh no, he's e-baying it. Despite Doctor Who getting him through depression and alcoholism, he's no match for the Omnipotent One™ it seems. God may have less merchandise (and the memorabilia trade hasn't been the same since the middle ages), but he's obviously filling a necessary gap for stories and mythology in this man's life. It's perhaps an attempt to avoid the real issues in life, but then, we all need a little time out from reality.
I first realised fans had a raw deal from the Alien franchise. Knowing someone who was really into it, collected everything they could find, watched the movies endlessly. And all he got was a gradual erosion of all the faith he'd placed in the films as they got increasingly shoddy. They started well with an interesting premise, a good story (courtesy of O'Bannon and Shusett) and the design interests of Ridley Scott (who had the same art teacher as me, with wildly differing results). They'd ended with some sort of living poo running around a ship calling out for its mother, Ripley. With Geiger claiming they literally turned his creature into shit. Once that had been spent and tossed aside, they moved onto Aliens versus Predator. This had been an alien fan's wet dream since the Predator 2 movie featured an alien skull and the Dark Horse range of comics which were often thought better of than the films. But that was rubbish too, this was the dog end of a franchise.
The law of diminishing returns with movie sequels applies. With each subsequent film there is a need to provide what is familiar, more of the same thing which made it successful in the first place. And the desire to add new elements usually results in some odd deviation. In Aliens (which is a good example) one alien is now not enough, so it becomes many. But that diminishes the horror so a new Queen alien is introduced. For later films the aliens change with their hosts and then finally (as if this wouldn't have happened the first time if they swap DNA) become human/alien hybrids with nonsensical results. Eventually the films are almost entirely divorced from their ancestors.
The problem is that many a great film as conceived as a one off, to try and graft on an unplanned sequel by different writers and directors is always going to create something that, in its soul, isn't continuous. While movies filmed back-to-back are without a doubt one of the greatest blights of the modern movie age. There is only so much soul (creative craft) to spread about and if you split it between two or more movies, all you have is something that hasn't had a full breath of life pumped into it. A staggering zombie cash cow.
Ongoing dramas such as a radio serial, TV series or comic strip manage to deal with these problems much more seamlessly, but still suffer with problems once there has been a break in continuity. But any fan of a movie franchise is in trouble and it's the very word 'franchise' that is the problem. Once you have a franchise, then you may as well just nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure this crap won't multiply. Because by then it's become 'product' to be spun out into endlessly shitty forms to be sold back to the fan or 'devoted consumer'. Fans will watch a rubbish sequel to get a small scrap of joy from it. A small morsel of background information on a world can keep them going for a while.
We all want to buy into these worlds on some level, these mythologies, but when they are sold back to us all it really gives us is a hefty credit card bill. The truth is we're clutching at rainbows. A great one off film might make you want to know more, but that's the intangible magic, the product of your own imagination. We all have different thoughts of what might happen after a good movie, so why can't we just keep them to ourselves where they will forever remain vital and unsullied. Instead of saying 'What if?' and expecting someone to present us with an answer, why not just take the 'What if?' as our reward?
What you can do is rise up, retain your imagination and your desire for new things by staying a healthy distance from these things. Sure, buy yourself a little bit of tat if you want, but keep it in proportion. If you want to build a Tardis in your garden, fine. But does it have to be a full-sized one and what the hell are you going to do with it? Sit it and hum the Doctor Who theme in the dark? Remember, your loyalty to Aliens isn't respected by 20th Century Fox, it's exploited.
This doesn't of course just apply to aliens, it's something fans of The Matrix, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Planet of the Apes and an endless array of 'marketable properties' will be familiar with. Recently I was told of a grown man with a family who bought a three-foot long Lego Star Destroyer. That's not something that can really bring pleasure, it's a placebo, something that at best reminds us what we once enjoyed about an old movie, long long ago...
posted by paulvonscott at 7:14 AM
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