Y'know, stuff like this bugs me, for many reasons.
Now, granted, this is a relatively harmless little bit of, well, fan-fiction poetry. It hurts no one, and it's all good. That said, the underlying entitlement is fairly oppressive, honestly. The inference of a continuing relationship that, simply...Does. Not. Exist.
"Don't be sad, Matthew?" He decided to leave the show, for his own reasons, and he's off to make a movie with Ryan Gosling. Why in the hell would he be sad? I'm sure he's well aware that where he is now is almost entirely because he said "yes" to Doctor Who. If he doesn't, he's a fool. He has to know that maintaining a relationship with the fans will be useful for his future career.
And, make no mistake, that is what Matt Smith is thinking about right now. What comes next, and how to make his time in the spotlight not about the show, but about him. The way the show, itself, has changed will help him with that, but...if you think he's laying awake nights worried about how long Whovians have to wait for the next series to begin, I think you need a reality check.
"Go to them?" Really? Like he's some sort of holy man?
The 11th (12th if the John Hurt rumors are clear) Doctor is gone, or will be soon. Just like the ten actors before him. They'll move on, to whatever level of success they may be destined for, and do some interviews from time to time.
I'll tell you this, I don't get the impression that ANY of the Doctors from the newer incarnation of the show are interested in carrying on the fan service that people like Peter Davison and Colin Baker have done. You're not going to see Tennant, Smith or Eccelston as fixtures on the convention circuit (MAYBE Capaldi, but only because of his deep ties to Who fandom...he might enjoy it), because, in the way that the show has become personality-driven, these guys are now on the radar of Hollywood.
I think that every fanbase has to go though a point of realization. Where you see that while I'm sure Matt Smith does love the fans, the power, adulation, and attention they brought, he doesn't LOVE you. He's not going to jump in front of a bus for a fan, he's not going to place fans over personal relationships, and he doesn't owe you any of that.
He owes you the performances he's already given that you enjoyed. So, his part of the deal is done, baby.
He doesn't have to hold your hand through the change to a new Doctor, or assure you that it's all OK. Of course it's OK, it's Doctor Who! Regeneration is the name of the game.
Never underestimate the irrational fanboy need to be "right." It makes sense, honestly. Most of your hard-core fanboys (certainly myself) grew up feeling outside of anything and everything that would be considered "mainstream."
Yet, in recent years, we have this situation where fanboys have become a driving force in pop culture. With Hollywood falling over itself to make big-budget hay out of almost every cartoon series or comic book I grew up with, my generation of nerdy-types are feeling like the belle of the ball. Everybody wants in our pants...to grab our wallet.
The fan reaction to this sort of attention is always the same, and we've seen it over and over, and over again. A sense of entitlement, a sense of ownership. It's good, honestly, in small doses, breeding a deep affinity for these characters and properties. However, I can't think of a single case where this fan-property relationship hasn't turned dark.
Yeah, it's the UK poster, what of it?
The latest place where I see this is over on Rotten Tomatoes, in regards to the critical response to The Avengers (or, I guess the official title is Marvel's The Avengers - there you see Disney ownership in action). At the time I write this blog, on May 1st, 3 days before opening on May 4th, the "tomatometer" rating for the film is 94%. An excellent score, by any rational estimation.
Right now, there are five "rotten" reviews, with 82 "fresh." Now, I look at that and think, "well some people just don't enjoy this kind of entertainment." Part of my growing up as a fanboy made me 100% certain of two things. One is that I like what I like, and I shouldn't ever be embarrassed by that. Secondly, that not everyone is going to like what I do, and...so what?
I love the hell out of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, Across the Eighth Dimension, and, when that movie came out, virtually no one else did. Trust me, I've rarely felt as alone as I did sitting through that movie - twice - in a 500+ seat Cinerama theater with 3 other people.
But I loved that I was alone. I loved that Buckaroo and the Hong Kong Cavaliers were something for me and just a few others. No internet to connect with those folks. The movie was, and is, quirky, weird, and not for everyone. That's part of why it's awesome.
Now obviously, The Avengers (screw you, Marvel's) is supposed to be a much more populist entertainment. Yet, I still wonder, what the hell happened to the sense of the individual in fandom? Why do we see fans getting in such a twist over the film "losing" it's 100% Tomatometer rating?
Worse yet, we see fandom as a offshoot of our current political discourse. Comments on every, single "rotten" review call for that critic to be "removed" (i.e. censored) from Rotten Tomatoes. Or, long, involved, overly fannish diatribes as to why the review is wrong.
I was particularly annoyed by the responses to Stephanie Zacharek's only barely negative response to the film in at Movieline. Where fans, including "Marvel Fan" (*sigh*) take umbrage with Ms. Zacharek's comparison of the film to the nostalgia-fests The Artist and Midnight in Paris (which, to be fair, it's pretty clear she likes more). Why in God's name would a fan be offended at that? Any mainstream superhero movie is, by it's nature nostalgic! If you're offended by that, then you better be offended by the entire way both Marvel and DC Comics have handled their publishing for the past twenty to thirty years!
Critics are not supposed to make you, or the people who made the film, feel better. They're supposed to honestly tell you how they felt about watching the movie in question. Stop acting like their job is to reinforce your personal self-worth by telling you how right you are.
The silliest damn thing about all of this is that the "94% Fresh" rating is never going to stand. Never. Once the mainstream press reviews start coming hot and heavy on Thursday, that percentage is going to drop like a rock. I don't think it's going to fall into "Rotten" territory (below 50%), but I suspect, ultimately, at a guess, somewhere in the 80% range. Respectable, even great, and the film is gonna make a bazillion dollars. With that pretty much assured, I don't see why people fixate on what Cole Smithey thinks. I mean, he's a pretentious twat, but what difference does that make to me?
I also get somewhat bothered about how this impacts my personal interactions. I am more of a fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman films than I am of the "Marvel Movie Universe," even if I enjoy both of them tremendously. I think Nolan makes insanely commercial art, and Marvel makes extremely artful commerce. I wouldn't miss either, but I'll always prefer the former. Upon seeing the latest trailer for Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, I shared it, and my excitement about it, on Facebook.
I was particularly hit by comments that I made being labeled divisive. What I wrote was, "I'm gonna be 100% honest with you folks...Every, single time I see something from this, I stop caring about Avengers." That's truth. I didn't say "Avengers sucks." Perhaps I could've elaborated, explained more, I'll admit, but after being really excited to see The Avengers on Thursday, all it took was less than three minutes of The Dark Knight Rises to make me absolutely more excited to see that.
You may disagree. That's perfectly OK by me. I like what I like, and not everyone is going to like what I do.
Of course, with that kind of thought process, Master of Puppets would never have happened. Metallica would be in a basement club, somewhere, cranking out a revised version of Seek and Destroyfor the 25th time. That would be fine, but they also wouldn't be Metallica, a band that, from day one, was progressing. Progressing toward more melodic songs, longer, more complicated arrangements, and then back to more simplistic ones. The watchword was "change," and change motivated by whatever was turning them on at any given time.
Which, folks, is how it should be. As Eddie Van Halen once said, in his more lucid days, "As an artist, I'm egotistical enough to think that what excites me will excite other people" (or something like that). Any artist, in any medium, can only create things that draws an honest reaction from themselves. Personally, I've always felt Metallica was better at this than many other bands, and honest about it. You could love it, hate it, or endure it, but they were giving you where they were at the time.
Which doesn't mean it always works, but, come on, it's just a fucking album, people. It's not even a "Metallica" album. If everyone was being honest here, this would've been released as a Lou Reed album, or ever "Lou Reed featuring Metallica," the interviews seem to indicate that Metallica saw themselves as supporting Reed's vision, rather than influencing it. Honestly, the fact that the boys tried something completely out of left field, and in most respects, dropped the ball, doesn't bother me as much as the fan whining.
All that is prologue to my actually talking about Lulu. If you want the short form, it's a mess, clearly a project conceived and recorded in a hurry, a huge swath of it just does not work, but with some really interesting things going on that make it well worth the time, in my opinion. If you don't want to slog through the weirdness and bad choices to get to the good stuff, I understand, and more power to you.
Again, I point out, this is more of a Lou Reed album than Metallica album, and to try to judge it in terms of the latter is a fool's errand. Metallica contributes some pretty spectacular riffing, but the songs are rather one-note and monotonous, as Lou Reed is sort of known for. The ultimate result is "hey cool riff," followed by, "is it gonna change at all?" This is further compounded by the fact that all the songs are at least eight minutes. Point? It's a Lou Reed album, with Metallica contributing some riffs. If you're absolutely compelled to view this record in comparison to the artist's prior work, Reed's work provides the only fair comparison.
The first two tracks, Brandenburg Gate and The View exemplify all the criticisms heaped on this album, they're atonal, without melody and Reed's vocals are utterly jarring over the music. It's just a goddamn mess, and harder than hell to sit through. Track three, Pumping Blood, gets a bit better, as Reed's vocals become more intense, and I found myself actually trying to understand what he was trying to convey lyrically. Then Mistress Dread, which offers up the most "thrash metal" riffing on the album, and that caught my ear.
Perhaps it was low expectations, or maybe my ear was acclimating to the album, but, as I listened, I was getting drawn in. Then Iced Honey, where things start to really come together. Not easily, in fact, downright painfully, but with this track, you feel the "Lou Reed" and "Metallica" gears start to mesh. I actually think I may love this track, I've found myself re-listening to it several times. You see the ambition, the musicians working together to make somethign different, and I admire it. Cheat On Me, the next track, which ends the first disk, continues along these lines. On both these tracks it's still atonal and not melodic, but the cadences are coming together, it feel like a unified song. So, if nothing else, I can say the first disk ended strong, for me.
The second disk is stronger than the first. Frustration, Little Dog and Dragon continue along the same lines, it's not top-tapping, or pretty, but things feel unified and the lyrics are certainly provocative and interesting. Then comes Junior Dad, which is, and I mean this, quite amazing. Like most of the album, it's too long, at nineteen minutes, but here, finally, we have melody and Reed actually doing his "talk-sing" thing, rather than the more spoken-word style of the rest of the record. It's a real smack in the face, as to what this collaboration could've brought us. I get why James Hetfield and Kirk Hammet said they found the song very moving. The lyrics, which I interpret as being about feeling like a disappointment, hit home for me, as well.
This sentiment will likely continue
I'm not going to make any sort of case for Lulu as album of the year, or anything close to it, because that would be silly. It's not an inspired album, but it is an interesting one. It may not be of interest to you, personally, but I can certainly see the reasons for doing it. Lars Ulrich has always had the "bohemian artist" streak, and I'm sure part of him just loves doing these projects because of the fan reaction. This is not a mass-market album, and I can't imagine that anyone who worked on it ever thought it would be. The audience for Lulu will find it, and I would guess that audience will be a Lou Reed audience.
I think I've been pretty clear over the years that I think the division between fans of some form of entertainment and the people that create said entertainment is a sacred and important line. I've long felt that when fans begin to hold too much sway over the direction and output of a franchise, of any kind, it leads directly to creative bankruptcy.
Enterprise was a interesting way to take the Star Trek franchise (yeah, I said it), until the creatives buckled under the weight of fanboy/girl wishes. When the Ferengi showed up, I knew it was all over. It was downhill from there, because they had stepped over into the realm of fan fiction, and whatever might've come from exploring that era, and the birth of the Federation, was lost to, "I wonder how Archer would handle the Borg?"
Episode II of Star Wars, Attack of the Clones, is hands-down the worst of the series. Why? Because from frame one, you can see Lucas ticking off things that the fans had been bitching about not seeing in The Phantom Menace. Right down to throwing in Boba Fett, becaue we all love Boba Fett, right? That and letting Samuel L. Jackson just pose instead of act.
There's a fine line to walk between acknowledging that the fans are inherently important to the success of any franchise, and bowing to their ultimate power, chasing down their whims. Seriously, fans never actually know what they want. They'll say they want new and original, loudly and with conviction, then when you give it to them, they'll complain, loudly and with conviction, about the elements you left behind to achieve new and original.
The internet has compounded all of this. Fan press is a vital and important part of letting the fans communicate with each other and feel connected as a group, and it goes back to the mimeographed "fanzines" that were written and edited by fans, for fans. It's a valued and noble tradition. The problem is, it was never the place to go for hard news or criticism. Hell, even the legitimate publications, likeWizard magazine, are usually nothing but a marketing mouthpiece. (Look at that site, it's more about selling stuff than anything else)
The internet allowed the fanzines to reach larger amounts of fans, and gradually they became the place for news and announcements. The comic book publishers were coming to these sites to announce things and give interviews, and whatnot. The publishers saw cheap publicity, and a venue that would be so happy to just interview Geoff Johns, for example, that they'd never dare ask the tough questions, or call him out on missteps.
Now we have a journalist quagmire. Sites like Comic Book Resources or Newsarama are now considered legitimate news sources for the comic medium, but they lack the journalistic integrity that would allow them to truly become an important voice in the medium.
The flip side is also that, by allowing these fanzines such access, the publisher/studios have bred a sense of inflated importance in the fan community. Fan now expect special treatment, and they feel cheated if they don't get it. In many ways the fans have become spoiled.
Now, this is clearly marked an Op/Ed piece, so we'll not hold Mr. Avila to the level of journalistic integrity that would come from a "news" article. That said, this piece shows us a lot of the problems with the modern, internet-based fan press.
First off, there's the bias. Now, it's an Op/Ed piece, so this comment is technically irrelevant, but I offer it as a example of the sort of thing you can see all over these types of sites. When talking about the Avengers panel, we get;
more star power than Hall H has EVER seen at one particular moment, Marvel dropped the hammer on San Diego. The moment when the entire cast of the Avengers assembled onstage, bathed in flashbulbs and video camera lights and taking in ear-piercing applause, was one of those Double Rainbow, once-in-forever moments. It's no stretch to say that no one who was inside Hall H at the time, will ever forget it.
"More star power than Hall H has EVER seen?" One newly-minted A-lister (Downey), a solid B-lister (Jackson), an indie darling (Ruffalo), some up-and-commers (Johansson, Renner, and I'm giving it to Evans) and two guys no one's ever heard of (Hemsworth and Gregg). It's not a bad cast, in fact I like it a lot, and having Joss Whedon (who I think you could make an arguement was the most exciting person on the stage, in terms of a Comic-Con crowd) on board gives me a lot of hope...
But I think Harrison Ford walking out on that stage in handcuffs a couple of hours earlier trumps your star power, right there. Not to mention Angelina Jolie the day before. Even with the "at one particular moment" caveat, I think superstars like that are "dropping a hammer" on your theory. Not to mention that the Ford appearance was an honest-to-God surprise. After the Edward Norton debacle, everyone knew what Marvel was going to do.
Avila was clearly beside himself to be in that room. I understand that, but there's a point where, if you're putting yourself out there as a journalist (even in an Op/Ed piece), you have to step back and not just get swept away by the excitement of the moment. As a fan, you can bellow "THE MOST AWESOMEST THING EVER!!" and get away with it. I expect more from writers on a website, or publication of any kind, that I'm supposed to take knowledge from.
Second, it's the immediate, fanboy belief that they're owed something special. Doesn't matter if it exists, or not. Take these comments about Christopher Nolan;
I understand Christopher Nolan was busy with "Inception" promotion, but couldn't anyone high up the food chain impart to him the importance of flying down to San Diego to at least do an evasive Q & A? An update on "Batman 3" would have earned considerable press coverage. Even a few statements on the upcoming "Superman" reboot he's Godfathering would have been a major moment for the Con. A major missed opportunity.
It's really, really clear why Nolan didn't appear, and it really had nothing to do with Inception. I love Chris Nolan, and I've been eating up interviews with him. Every, single interview asks about Batman, and every, single time he says the same thing, "there's nothing to talk about."
The next Batman film will likely get shot early next year, they have a plot, which I'd guess translates to an outline. There's no script, there's no casting, and Nolan hasn't even agreed to direct, officially, at this point. The Superman situation is even more nebulous.
He takes one film at a time, and focuses completely on that film, and Warner Brothers seems to respect that. Why can't we, as fans, do the same thing? There was no Nolan panel because, literally, there is nothing to talk about. There's no need to "Impart the importance" of going to SDCC to do nothing but stroke the fan ego. It's because it's not important, making great films is important.
Likewise Mr. Avila's reactions to the Green Lantern panel; The WB showed only a minute of footage from "Green Lantern" at their panel. And while that brief reel had everyone who saw it recanting the Green Lantern oath as they walked through the Gas Lamp District, they didn't show any shots of Ryan Reynolds in uniform. Word has it they're retooling the GL costume after the initial image on the cover of "Entertainment Weekly" was greeted with less glowing praise. Whatever the reason, it seemed a very conservative panel, very 'play it safe.' And it's the little things, too, that matter. They only showed the footage ONCE! A 60-second clip reel, and they couldn't be bothered to show it again?! Awful decision. It's a good thing Reynolds had that nice moment with the young fan, reciting the GL oath word-for-word and then signing an autograph for the kid, because otherwise, the noise from the Marvel panel would have completely drowned out the post-Con coverage of the Warners' presentation.
There's a reality to be understood about the Green Lantern movie. The "suit" is a pure CGI creation. Why no shots of the suit? Perhaps because they weren't done? Maybe the design is being re-tooled, but so what? The movie doesn't come out for ten months!
Again, we see a "gimmie, gimmie, gimmie" reaction. You only showed the footage once? HORRORS!
This actually leads into the third thing, which makes me want to wax poetic about my childhood. When I first started getting really interested in movies, you really wouldn't hear anything about them until maybe two months beforehand. Usually it was an actual, honest-to-God coming attractions trailer, maybe a teaser trailer. I remember a glorious one for Superman: The Movie;
I jumped out of my skin when I first saw it. If you showed it to a Comic-Con crowd today, the internet would be filled with variations of "they didn't show us ANYTHING!!!" Then on to various comments about how the movie must stink.
I defy anyone to tell me Superman: The Movie "stinks."
See, the fan community has grown to believe that you're only proud of something if you're willing to show it to us. Because they've come to believe they are an integral part of the process. If you're not willing to let us see something, then something must be wrong, the makers must be ashamed in some way.
Take Avila's comments about Chris Evans as Captain America/Steve Rogers;
Something else we learned from the Marvel panel is that Chris Evans is the biggest wild card of the incredibly grand Avengers experiment. We know Robert Downey Jr. is going to bring it as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Chris Hemsworth looks to be in lockstep with his hybrid Thor from the Ultimates universe and from Walt Simonson's classic Thor run, so it's up to Evans to carry his share of the load of the Big Three. Watching the development of this film is going to be interesting, because Cap is so important to the Marvel mythos, that without a strong effort from Evans, the whole thing could fall apart.
While I agree, wholeheartedly, that getting Cap right is absolutely essential, I also figure that Joe Johnston and the Marvel team knew what they were doing when they cast the guy. Why is it that, just because all they have is a brief costume test of they guy, his performance becomes suspect? The fact is, they've only been rolling film for a few weeks. I'd wonder if he's even put on the suit for actual shooting at this point.
Can't we just let them make their movie, and judge, y'know, after we've seen it?
The studios seem only too willing to be held hostage by the fanbase. To bow and grovel to them for approval before anything is even created. Joss told another panel that the Avengers script isn't anywhere near done. So, they have a cast and a director...that tells us pretty much nothing that a press release couldn't.
I think the studios are losing the track. The publicity is taking over the process. They've bought into the integral nature of the fanbase, and seem to be more than happy to treat them as the ultimate word, rather than the creative people they've hired to actually solve the problems.
We are fans, and we do get excited. We want to know more, everything we can, and we want the creators to know we are watching, and will judge what they do. The creators don't owe us anything but their best work, and that doesn't need to be exactly the way we think it ought to be. We need to be open to different interpretations of this material that we love, and we need to have faith in the people working on these projects. No one sets out to create something bad. Let them finish before we tear them apart.
Now, I mean no disrespect to Mr. Avila, although, as a comic book fan, why weren't you at the myriad panels about actual comics on that Saturday? (I'm joking, of course.)
I'm also fully aware that this blog can be attacked in the same manner I'm employing.
The core point is that it would be nice if Comic Book Resources, Newsarama, and other sites of that nature might step up and try to move away from the fanzine model. The comic book industry needs a legitimate press that will function not only as a publicity platform, but also as a voice for quality and better work.
