The Unhappy World Of Star Wars Fandom
Sep. 2nd, 2011 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lazypadawanLet's be honest here: Star Wars Fandom, Inc. is one cesspool of misanthropy. At least it is in many quarters, especially on the internet. All it takes is anything new at all in the universe of films or even on Clone Wars and the whole thing just blows up into seething rage, hate, and fury. It doesn't help that many bloggers and pro entertainment/pop culture sites, publications, and t.v. shows fan those flames of discontent. For something that's supposedly a huge pop culture icon/phenomenon that makes soooo much money, it doesn't seem like very many people who invest so much of their lives into it actually like it. If you came from another planet and what you know about Star Wars comes only from the internet, you could be forgiven for thinking Star Wars is widely despised and George Lucas must be worse than Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Charles Manson, and John Wayne Gacy combined.
Seriously, when was the last time you saw real joy and happiness in Star Wars fandom? *Shrug.* Maybe kinda sorta at the last Celebration?
You can't lay all of this on George Lucas either for making what are really just very minor changes over the years, which have happened almost constantly since 1977. After all, the first version of ANH I saw wasn't called "A New Hope," it was just plain "Star Wars." No, this has always harbored a lot of very reactionary fans. That crowd has only grown larger and louder over time. You see, I've been involved in Star Wars fandom for almost 20 years. My first fannish contact was with the fan fiction/zine crowd. This was years before rumors even surfaced about the Special Editions. Yet I still encountered people who found fault with everything and with Lucas. I never mentioned this before, but the first time I sat down to watch the existing trilogy with some of these folks, I was shocked that some of them were nitpicking all of the films. Didn’t like this person’s delivery. Oh look at that mistake. I never liked this scene. Yadda, yadda, yadda. In all of the years I’d watched the first Star Wars trilogy--in the theater, at home by my lonesome, with family, with friends, etc.—I had never watched the movies with a jaundiced eye like that. I watched them to enjoy them, to get re-immersed in that world, to find little things that made me rethink the story, and so forth. There was a time or two when I’d watched the movies with people who didn’t quite get them and with one wise guy who wasn’t really into that sort of thing, but these were fans. Before there were message boards, there were zine lettercols and there were some headdesk worthy rants in those. I vaguely recall complaints about Lucas’s refusal to “share power,” a whole lot of dumping on the new novels and comics back when I still liked them for no other reason than they were something new, and looking down on fans viewed as too pro-Lucas. There was one zine in particular that was so abrasively anti-Lucas, I dropped it. And this was one small slice of fandom prior to 1995!
When I first got wind of possible changes to the first trilogy during the summer of 1994, my first reaction was, “No, that’s not going to happen.” Changing anything about the existing Star Wars movies was to my much younger self was almost sacrilegious. As I put it at the time, it was like putting a bikini on Goya’s “La Maja Desnuda” (go look it up). It didn’t make any sense…until it made sense. I realized the Special Editions were in many ways a needed dress rehearsal prior to tackling new movies, and that included working with digital effects. If it made Star Wars fresher to younger audiences used to “Jurassic Park” or “Independence Day,” fine by me. In fact, while the fanboys griped about Greedo shooting first, what went unnoticed were the legions of new fans the movies attracted and the opportunity finally given to fans who had only seen the films on t.v. to enjoy them on the big screen. One of the additional benefits of the Special Editions is that the restoration process saved the negatives from total disintegration, which would have made future re-releases difficult if not impossible.
When I first got wind of younger, hot Anakin getting put in as a blue ghostie in the ROTJ DVD, my first reaction was, “Why?” Then I figured out why…it helped tie the movie in better with Eps II-III, which I think was the real problem the complainers had with the tweak because they don’t like Hayden and it ticked them off he was interfering in “their” movie.
To me the little tweaks are part of what keeps Star Wars fresh and alive, not a museum piece. It’s fun to find the little surprises. I think it’s great Lucas is trying to finesse it and have the two trilogies be as cohesive as possible to make an amazing whole. You may not think they are necessary, you may not think they are executed as well as they could have been. The Blu-Ray has tweaked the Greedo/Han shootout further and I think it’s the best execution to date based on a “leaked” clip (you know I have never cared about the whole shooting bit). But the constant meltdowns over fairly small things is perplexing to me, and far more disappointing than any “change” Lucas could ever devise. They're hugely embarrassing to me because it does not reflect well upon anyone who claims to be a fan. Seriously, it doesn’t despite the egging on from i09 or Gizmodo or whatever. When people who clearly aren’t Star Wars fans are referring to the angry bird fanboys as “Star Warstards” and “Star Wars f@gs,” you know folks are really getting sick of this crap. I’m sure the mentally disabled and gays are greatly insulted by the comparison. And well they should be if the best fans can do is to flame Katie Lucas’s or Bonnie Burton’s (!!) Twitter accounts, as though it’s all their fault.
“But, don’t I have a right as a fan to be upset?!” some of you might ask.
I can’t crawl into your head and tell you what you can and cannot find meaningful, even if I don’t understand why you find it that meaningful. But I have to wonder why anyone who says he or she loves the saga is willing to toss it all aside because of a single liiiittle thing. Don’t buy the Blu-Rays if you don’t want them but I think you’re cheating yourself out of the many POSITIVE things about the Blu-Rays in the bargain. (I will also say the same for those who wholesale reject the prequels or Clone Wars.)
Moreover, try to see it from Lucas’s perspective. It has to be hugely frustrating to have this vision in your head of how everything is supposed to look and what’s supposed to happen, only to find limitations put on that vision by cold hard reality: money, available technology, the collaborative nature of film and all of the egos that go with it, time, etc.. The Star Wars that lives in Lucas’s noggin is probably frustratingly just out of reach but with each new innovation, the reach gets shorter, and I think that is especially true with Eps IV-VI. So whenever he gets a chance to go back to it, he can make that Krayt call closer to the way he wanted it to sound or put in more creatures or something. He can make the connections between his first set of movies and his second that much more readable to the audience. While I’m sure most if not all filmmakers would love to go back and finesse their earlier movies, not everybody can and not every film has enough interest to warrant the effort. And we’re talking about something a little different here than a Woody Allen comedy and something bigger in scale than one-shot blockbusters.
Here’s the only thing I care about: I want people watching Star Wars long after I’ve bought the moisture farm. A century from now. 500 years from now. Only God will determine when Lucas has tweaked enough and perhaps he will, in blue ghostie form, continue to announce changes to whomever’s in charge.
Do read what Randy Martinez and Tom Hodges have to say about the topic:
http://artistrandymartinez.tumblr.com/
http://www.tomhodges.com/2011/09/01/haters-will-hate-always/#.Tl_zH67zZgk.twitter
Seriously, when was the last time you saw real joy and happiness in Star Wars fandom? *Shrug.* Maybe kinda sorta at the last Celebration?
You can't lay all of this on George Lucas either for making what are really just very minor changes over the years, which have happened almost constantly since 1977. After all, the first version of ANH I saw wasn't called "A New Hope," it was just plain "Star Wars." No, this has always harbored a lot of very reactionary fans. That crowd has only grown larger and louder over time. You see, I've been involved in Star Wars fandom for almost 20 years. My first fannish contact was with the fan fiction/zine crowd. This was years before rumors even surfaced about the Special Editions. Yet I still encountered people who found fault with everything and with Lucas. I never mentioned this before, but the first time I sat down to watch the existing trilogy with some of these folks, I was shocked that some of them were nitpicking all of the films. Didn’t like this person’s delivery. Oh look at that mistake. I never liked this scene. Yadda, yadda, yadda. In all of the years I’d watched the first Star Wars trilogy--in the theater, at home by my lonesome, with family, with friends, etc.—I had never watched the movies with a jaundiced eye like that. I watched them to enjoy them, to get re-immersed in that world, to find little things that made me rethink the story, and so forth. There was a time or two when I’d watched the movies with people who didn’t quite get them and with one wise guy who wasn’t really into that sort of thing, but these were fans. Before there were message boards, there were zine lettercols and there were some headdesk worthy rants in those. I vaguely recall complaints about Lucas’s refusal to “share power,” a whole lot of dumping on the new novels and comics back when I still liked them for no other reason than they were something new, and looking down on fans viewed as too pro-Lucas. There was one zine in particular that was so abrasively anti-Lucas, I dropped it. And this was one small slice of fandom prior to 1995!
When I first got wind of possible changes to the first trilogy during the summer of 1994, my first reaction was, “No, that’s not going to happen.” Changing anything about the existing Star Wars movies was to my much younger self was almost sacrilegious. As I put it at the time, it was like putting a bikini on Goya’s “La Maja Desnuda” (go look it up). It didn’t make any sense…until it made sense. I realized the Special Editions were in many ways a needed dress rehearsal prior to tackling new movies, and that included working with digital effects. If it made Star Wars fresher to younger audiences used to “Jurassic Park” or “Independence Day,” fine by me. In fact, while the fanboys griped about Greedo shooting first, what went unnoticed were the legions of new fans the movies attracted and the opportunity finally given to fans who had only seen the films on t.v. to enjoy them on the big screen. One of the additional benefits of the Special Editions is that the restoration process saved the negatives from total disintegration, which would have made future re-releases difficult if not impossible.
When I first got wind of younger, hot Anakin getting put in as a blue ghostie in the ROTJ DVD, my first reaction was, “Why?” Then I figured out why…it helped tie the movie in better with Eps II-III, which I think was the real problem the complainers had with the tweak because they don’t like Hayden and it ticked them off he was interfering in “their” movie.
To me the little tweaks are part of what keeps Star Wars fresh and alive, not a museum piece. It’s fun to find the little surprises. I think it’s great Lucas is trying to finesse it and have the two trilogies be as cohesive as possible to make an amazing whole. You may not think they are necessary, you may not think they are executed as well as they could have been. The Blu-Ray has tweaked the Greedo/Han shootout further and I think it’s the best execution to date based on a “leaked” clip (you know I have never cared about the whole shooting bit). But the constant meltdowns over fairly small things is perplexing to me, and far more disappointing than any “change” Lucas could ever devise. They're hugely embarrassing to me because it does not reflect well upon anyone who claims to be a fan. Seriously, it doesn’t despite the egging on from i09 or Gizmodo or whatever. When people who clearly aren’t Star Wars fans are referring to the angry bird fanboys as “Star Warstards” and “Star Wars f@gs,” you know folks are really getting sick of this crap. I’m sure the mentally disabled and gays are greatly insulted by the comparison. And well they should be if the best fans can do is to flame Katie Lucas’s or Bonnie Burton’s (!!) Twitter accounts, as though it’s all their fault.
“But, don’t I have a right as a fan to be upset?!” some of you might ask.
I can’t crawl into your head and tell you what you can and cannot find meaningful, even if I don’t understand why you find it that meaningful. But I have to wonder why anyone who says he or she loves the saga is willing to toss it all aside because of a single liiiittle thing. Don’t buy the Blu-Rays if you don’t want them but I think you’re cheating yourself out of the many POSITIVE things about the Blu-Rays in the bargain. (I will also say the same for those who wholesale reject the prequels or Clone Wars.)
Moreover, try to see it from Lucas’s perspective. It has to be hugely frustrating to have this vision in your head of how everything is supposed to look and what’s supposed to happen, only to find limitations put on that vision by cold hard reality: money, available technology, the collaborative nature of film and all of the egos that go with it, time, etc.. The Star Wars that lives in Lucas’s noggin is probably frustratingly just out of reach but with each new innovation, the reach gets shorter, and I think that is especially true with Eps IV-VI. So whenever he gets a chance to go back to it, he can make that Krayt call closer to the way he wanted it to sound or put in more creatures or something. He can make the connections between his first set of movies and his second that much more readable to the audience. While I’m sure most if not all filmmakers would love to go back and finesse their earlier movies, not everybody can and not every film has enough interest to warrant the effort. And we’re talking about something a little different here than a Woody Allen comedy and something bigger in scale than one-shot blockbusters.
Here’s the only thing I care about: I want people watching Star Wars long after I’ve bought the moisture farm. A century from now. 500 years from now. Only God will determine when Lucas has tweaked enough and perhaps he will, in blue ghostie form, continue to announce changes to whomever’s in charge.
Do read what Randy Martinez and Tom Hodges have to say about the topic:
http://artistrandymartinez.tumblr.com/
http://www.tomhodges.com/2011/09/01/haters-will-hate-always/#.Tl_zH67zZgk.twitter
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 01:25 am (UTC)I'm not particularly upset about people not agreeing with certain changes, but is the wank really necessary? Is the hate-filled speech really necessary? Shouldn't these fans be embracing the Saga with all the changes, even if they don't particularly agree?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 02:31 am (UTC)I'm one of the fans of everything who could care less about the changes Lucius is making (and who thinks that the Special Edition ending of ROTJ is one of the most powerful moments of the saga). But I think that just as I have the right to my opinion, so do other fans. There are parts of the EU that I really passionately hate, and I want to be free to rant about those things as much as I praise the things I love. And I think others should have the same freedom.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 03:30 am (UTC)I guess I'm just used to it because I see it in a lot of fandoms. It seems that the fandoms that inspire the most passion (Harry Potter and Supernatural in particular besides Star Wars) also inspire the strongest opinions. And a lot of the extremes are just the loudest and manage to ruin things for everyone else and end up being nasty to the creators that gave us this stuff. But I don't think those fans are in the majority (even in Star Wars, while maybe dislike of the prequels is a majority opinion, bashing is not), and there are definitely other places in the fandom to go where discussions lean towards the things we love.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 08:26 am (UTC)I see SW as a myth or a fairy-tale, and fairy-tales tend to have several versions, each as valid as the others.
> To me the little tweaks are part of what keeps Star Wars fresh and alive, not a museum piece.
Yes, that too!
Everyone is free to express their opinions but I don't understand the level of vehemence I often encounter at that, and lack of respect to other's opinions, as I see it. I also rant sometimes but I try to do it in places where I think I won't rile anyone up.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 10:42 am (UTC)I'm one of those who first got into Star Wars thanks to the Special Editions (someone loaned me the tapes and I discovered Star Wars...) and I wasn't aware of all the drama until I followed the SW fandom online back in 2002.
I understand not liking the changes I'm a bit of a nostalgic person myself (but for now I don't mind the changes to the OT) but if you don't like the changes, don't buy the new editions or buy them but watch the older versions I don't know... no one forces them to buy the Blu-Rays.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 02:18 pm (UTC)I think the problem is one of nostalgia. I can understand being frustrated at not being able to buy the version you loved as a child on DVD/Blu-Ray. I think any changes to something like 'Star Wars' will more often than not be met with hostility because you're messing with someone's childhood memories. It's not a question of "raping" anyone's childhood - my goodness, that oft quoted line is irritating! - but simply meddling with it.
And I can understand this. I would be pretty damn upset if the creators of 'Watership Down', my favourite film as a child, re-released it on DVD with completely different colouring and voice-acting because they wanted to make it "better". It's not a question of better or worse, but of me wanting to enjoy again the film I loved unaltered. Simple nostalgia.
I think a lot of the hostility comes from not re-releasing the originals with with the new addition discs. My VHS collection was ruined by mould and I no longer have my favourite edition of 'Return of the Jedi'. I want to watch the new additions (pun!) too, but I also want the old film... and now I can't just go and buy it. That's the only thing I resent, really. That I can't have the original along with the new in the same box, since it's commonplace when buying a Director's Cut on DVD. And that's what Lucas is doing, really. A continued series of Director's Cuts.
As for everything else, you get bitching and hate in every fandom, especially, as was noted above, in those where people are most passionate, where they have taken the material the most to heart. I hear Harry Potter fans bewail and curse the seventh book all the time. Nothing brings people together like mutual hate of something - as we learn from history! >.>
The unfortunate thing about 'Star Wars' is that it is so mainstream that the media exacerbate and encourage fan irascibility by presenting it as the norm. Stereotyping plays a big role in this too: I am a SW nut, ergo I must hate Jar Jar and deplore the prequels. Therefore, to be a SW nut, I must hate Jar Jar, etc... I know people who like SW but aren't what I would call real fans, who loudly proclaim they despise Jar Jar and it isn't because they really have any opinion about Jar Jar, but because disliking Jar Jar Binks is the fan culture equivalent of saying "oh, modern art is rubbish" as a way of showing you know something about art. It has gotten to the ridiculous point, however, when saying "I love Jar Jar", means you are not a SW nut! It's crazy!
In other words, a lot of it is pretentious, self-absorbed wank. Hate is cheap, hate is easy.
The faster, more seductive path...Far easier than actually participating in fanart, fanfiction, rpgs, cosplay, and so forth.But it's 2.13 am and my brain just blanked out on what I was going to say next. But I definitely think that more people should remember that being a fan is about loving something, not hating it. Also, Thumper's mother's advice is always good to remember: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 05:43 pm (UTC)They got it already on DVD, period, full stop - if they're for whatever deranged reason not "satisfied" with that, totally *their* problem and no one else's. Besides, the "O-OT" version *is* preserved for posterity in film archives and the like, so it's not like it's going away anytime soon....it'll be preserved there looooooong after the rantage and all the fanboys with it have faded to dust. Meanwhile, however, George Lucas is able to present his vision for his story, so it matches what he's had in his head all this time (but which he wasn't able to do at the time, finances and lack of technological advancement and all - but now he *can*, so he has every reason and right in the world to do it) - which is, yeah, only natcheral when it comes to this flowing, evolving, constantly-changing and never-static medium of art. Maybe it's never truly "finished", it's just....continually honed, fine-tuned, but there's always something to tweak in it, to make it better match the original vision....
And, yeah, it definitely does remind me, too, of what I've found with my own fic-age and such - that's a very good point mentioned above :) - because I've looked back over a few of my stories, or old RP posts and whatnot, and even though they were plenty fine at the time and they still read quite well enough - there *can* definitely be those places where I look back on it now and think, hrmmmm, I probably would've changed that....dropped that part, and cut that other part down....it's just that George Lucas truly has the ability, the right and the license too with his own stuff, and that's a rare and enviable opportunity indeed....to be able to make of his art everything he needs it to be, just so's it matches what the artist intended all along. Because first and foremostest, surely, it's the *artist* who has to be happiest with what he's done....then everyone else can realize that, and be equally happy with it in turn. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 09:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 10:37 am (UTC)The problem I have with the continually tweaked versions is not that they exist. I could give you a long list of the ways in which I DON'T think they were improvements...but whatever. If other people like those versions better or at least just as well, that's none of my business. I'll watch my version, you watch yours. No, the problem I have is that Lucas is basically tying to wipe the old versions out of existence.
Yes, they're archived somewhere, fine. Are those archives that anyone who wants can access? I haven't seen the DVD release of the O-OT, but from what I understand it...doesn't stretch to fit the screen? (I'm not talking about anamorphic, I don't WANT it anamorphic because that's not the aspect ratio it was originally filmed in anyway, but the picture has a black box all the way around it, instead of the letterboxes only at the top and bottom which would be necessary anyway to present the full picture that was shown in the theater...right? Correct me if I'm wrong) If that's the case, it's got to be annoying to watch, especially if you don't have a very big TV to start with. Yes, there are VHS and laserdisc releases...which I own, and which still play, but not everyone can say that. To someone new coming into the fandom, they don't necessarily have easy access to all possible versions and therefore can't MAKE the choice of which they prefer to watch like older fans who hang onto old technology can.
I also think it's very disrespectful to the other people who worked on the original films. I'm sure they signed away any right to their creative work when they came to work for Lucas, I'm not making a legal argument there. But Richard Marquand was dead when the ROTJ special edition came out, and that is UNDOUBTEDLY the film...the single THING for which he is most commonly remembered. I think it's incredibly disrespectful not to keep the version that he worked on available, since there's no way of knowing whether or not he would have wanted the changed version to be the definitive one or not. This goes for the special effects artists that did the non-CG version of the Battle of Yavin, to poor Sebastian Shaw, to everyone else who worked on these very collaborative films.
I have less of a problem with the PT, because I get the impression that everyone who worked on THOSE knew from the start that they were there to get Lucas's vision on screen, whatever their personal creative impulses were telling them. But it still would be nice for the fans if all versions were kept available, affordable, and playable on whatever the latest technology is, just for anyone who wants them. With the technology we have today it should be possible to store multiple versions digitally and to keep them available for all times, and it shows a disregard for the fans who provide his livelihood and for his creative collaborators who helped to make the films as great as they are that GL doesn't seem to care about preserving the past versions.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 07:22 pm (UTC)The people who worked on all of the films, including Eps IV-VI, were just as much there to get Lucas's vision on screen as the ones who worked with him 20 years later. That's why they were hired. I recall they did consult with Irwin Kershner while working on the TESB Special Edition, while they couldn't with Marquand because was deceased. But it's not the same thing as James Cameron deciding to play around with one of Sidney Lumet's movies just for fun. Marquand was there to put what Lucas wanted and what they were able to do at the time on screen. He understood that from the get-go. And 99% of the film is still the same one he shot in 1982. Really, that's the case for all of the movies. Why should a stop-motion guy be sore when his work on say the Battle of Hoth in TESB still hasn't been touched except to remove matte lines and stuff? The Battle of Yavin has some CG shots now but most of it is still the original work.
None of this is going to change your mind I'm sure ;), but that's how I see it.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 08:44 pm (UTC)People did what???