The high-minded fan

I am a loner. Even as a geek, even within fan communities of big franchises like Star Wars, Doctor Who or (when it aired) Lost, I stick to myself. This is just an aspect of my personality, I don't know if there was a source event for it or it's the way my brain is wired. It's not something I go out of my way to do, it's just the natural fit for me.

However, there are cases where I do want to be alone. In general, I find a lot of people either uninteresting or on a different wavelength from myself or whatever. And I know this sounds egotistical and abrasive, but that's kind of the point of this post.

Within fan communities there will always be people who take the work too seriously just as there will always be people who just enjoy it for what it is and don't think much about it. The latter is fine, I don't begrudge people watching a show or movie or reading a book just for the momentary escapism, though the former can be very easily off-putting, especially when they try to claim a greater level of appreciation for said work than everyone else. There's no reason to get into a dick-measuring contest over how much you like this film or that show.

I try to take this sort of thing in stride, either way. Casual fans won't have much to say and arrogant ones I can just ignore, when I do engage fellow fans on something. But lately...

Let me stop and say right here that I'll be talking about a specific work without naming it, and talking about a podcast about said work without naming it, and I won't be naming it because I don't want to give the impression that I'm attacking anyone specifically. I'm not writing this to lambast someone for saying something I consider stupid and it's not about making a personal attack on anyone.

So lately I've been listening to past episodes of a podcast about a specific sci-fi franchise, a couple featuring big roundtable discussions on various topics, and I've found myself getting so frustrated by what the people have been saying. Not to be rude, but I think these discussions demonstrate why fans should not be given the reins of any franchise, because they can only view it as fans and not as writers or producers.

That sounds vague, I know, so let me try to give an example. One discussion is about a proposed adaptation of the work in a different medium, and there are several factors to consider when taking, for example, a book and turning it into a film. Films, by and large, are made to appeal to the largest audience possible and studios are almost always concerned about that first weekend and how much money they make in those three days. Books aren't written with that mindset and TV shows aren't made with that mindset. Even if you take a work with a preexisting fanbase, the studio is still going to want to net the largest audience possible; at the very least they'll try to please the fanbase while attracting a fresh audience who needs everything spoonfed to them and at worst the studio will say 'Fuck the fans' and just dumb it down/simplify it to appeal to people who don't know all the obscure characters and throwaway information.

Yet the people in the discussion are saying "Let's see this idea that will appeal to the fans like us but won't a lick of sense to the prospective audiences who are coming in cold," and I just want to scream at them "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you really have no idea what motivates Hollywood producers or how these businesses are run?"

And then they start asking each other "If you were given the reins of this franchise, what would you do with [iconic part of the franchise]?" and most of the people are answering "I'd go back to this older and outdated aspect of it because I really liked that version when I was growing up" and they're just wallowing in nostalgia. That'd be like saying "If I was given a chance to write Superman I'd take away his power of flight and say that he can just jump hella high, because I really like that old version of the character." An ongoing franchise cannot last by eating its own past. It has to move forward, things have to change and if you're a fan and you liked this one part of it that is now gone, then you just need to accept that it's gone.

And it's not that these people are all saying "They changed it, now it sucks." I could just ignore them for being idiots. But these people are fans, they enjoy what the franchise is in its current incarnation, but they have this narrow field of vision of what the franchise should be and how possible it is for their fan-wanky ideal to appeal to a wide enough audience that the franchise would continue.

They're fans, they don't take the franchise too seriously or too lightly and they know what they're talking about a lot of the time, but at times they get really ridiculous in their proclamations and wishes and I just want to smack them and say 'No!' And I do feel a bit bad for being so egotistical, saying I'm smarter than them.

But there it is. That is what I feel, even if it's not a good thing.