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Just watched the last of Amazon's Rings of Power. Good God, they really did just make the whole thing up, didn't they?
What kind of hellworld do we live in that a big corporation can spend millions just to buy rights to a deeply beloved book so it can comprehensively misrepresent it in the most expensive way possible? I can't even call it fanfiction because whoever wrote this can't have actually been a fan.
Why couldn't they have written a story that they did have the rights to? And then they could have made something that could have lived with the actual canon.
GDI Amazon.
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Date: 2023-01-30 04:02 pm (UTC)From:I know! It's such a waste of a property that could have been bringing in new fans for another two generations - which you would think they would want to be bringing in new fans for years. And the whole wringing as much as we can from TV spin-off things is a whole other rant for me, given that I refuse to pay for Disney +, which means that one of the great formative fandoms of my life is now locked away from me entirely.
If they ever do a Qui-Gon series, or a history of the First Order series, I might be persuaded to watch a pirated edition, but for now Disney have deprived me of SW altogether. Which is a sad end to a story I've cared about for 40-odd years.
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Date: 2023-01-31 05:50 am (UTC)From:And I guess they feel they ARE bringing in new fans, because the shows are popular, and they're on a proprietary streaming service that's already popular with kids, so they can hook 'em young.
The TV rant is absolutely a big one from me, too. I genuinely resent the idea that I have to jump between multiple TV shows and films, some of which are hosted in different places (though Disney has consolidated that pretty significantly for both their Star Wars and MCU stuff), in order to not miss something. IDK. The response from me is not "Ooh, new movie/show: better subscribe to D+!". The response from me is "Welp, guess I'll never see that, then."
I know a lot of people feel the opposite way, that they LOVE the fact there's endless content, and that seeing all the MCU stuff or every Star Wars thing means that they have hundreds of hours of content to get through. To me, that sounds... exhausting. I loathe the idea of "sit through a show about characters you don't care about because ooooh, cameo from a fan-fave toward the eeeend!" I've never cared all that much about the MCU, but my impression of a lot of the shows and movies are that they're practically just extended commercials for OTHER MCU shows or movies. I care more about Star Wars, or at least I did, but it starts to feel the same way... like it's more about churning out bottomless content to keep people subscribing rather than making each release a big deal. (Though I hear a lot of the shows are good! I'm just not gonna see 'em!)
I could ALSO go on a long rant about how taking something like Star Wars, which has been a FORMATIVE pop-culture franchise to basically every geek out there for the last 40 years, and putting most of it behind a proprietary paywall, is... shitty. It seems like it's going to be harder to even find those sorts of broad "everyone is into this thing" megafandom/cultural touchstones going forward, because so much is locked to specific services.
I personally have Netflix, Hulu, and Prime... but I hear good things about shows on HBO and on AMC and on Paramount and on D+ and on Peacock and on AppleTV... but fuck if I can afford to subscribe to all of those to find out.
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Date: 2023-01-31 03:57 pm (UTC)From:The response from me is not "Ooh, new movie/show: better subscribe to D+!". The response from me is "Welp, guess I'll never see that, then."
Yes, exactly! If there's something I absolutely cannot live without seeing, I'll ask to watch it at a friend's house. I did that with The Mandalorian and the Loki series, and then because both of them were underwhelming I rather lost interest in anything they produced.
I do wonder if Disney is behind my inability to be fannish over the past few years, though, as everything I might have been fannish about is now locked behind a Disney paywall. I've had to start watching Chinese dramas on netflix just to get my fix of SF/F.
I've never cared all that much about the MCU, but my impression of a lot of the shows and movies are that they're practically just extended commercials for OTHER MCU shows or movies.
Yes, exactly. I gave up on reading comics when they went to a model where if you wanted to read one character's adventures you had to follow them through lots of different characters' comics. I was a dedicated follower of the Thor comic, and then the Loki ones when they came out, but it just became too frustrating (and expensive) to keep up with. Apparently that model is working for them, given that they've rolled it out to the movies and TV series, but I can't be having with it.
Yeah, the idea of taking SW away from everyone and locking it behind a paywall is symptomatic of everything that's wrong with the new model. It might be delivering a constant stream of content to the people who can afford it, but what about the rest of us?
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Date: 2023-02-01 08:15 am (UTC)From:I keep hearing that I MUST see The Mandalorian, but idk. A lot of the shows seem... okay but not amazing? I have a feeling I'd be underwhelmed. I know a lot of people have loved some of them, but I just don't feel like I'd be as excited about them.
I've had a pretty serious negative turn toward Disney over the last few years. I used to have some warm fuzzies toward a lot of the classics and the music, and I mean, Kingdom Hearts was my big fandom... but as they've consolidated more and more creative properties and made a lot of choices that seem terrible to me... I've gotten so soured on them that I have an almost knee-jerk negative reaction toward anything that has to do with them anymore. (And I KNOW they're an evil corporation and that they have been for a long time, but... it has made it harder to be fannish.)
The MCU in particular I recall being praised way back when for making the stories so accessible. The nods between them were fun, and having an occasional crossover was exciting... now it's just exactly replicated all the issues that kept me from having any interest in the comics. I don't WANT to have to follow the story I'm interested in into a series that I don't care about. I don't want to feel like I never ever get a complete story, because it's ALWAYS about what the "next phase" is going to be. The "oooh, post-credits hint at a future story!" thing has turned into the eye-roll inducing "The End... OR IS IT??" type thing. Ugh.
(Sorry for the rant!)
But exactly. It's one more move that makes it a lot more transparent that it's about money and not about the art or the property. And yeah, you'd always have to buy the movie ticket/the DVD/rent it/whatever. And yes, art is absolutely worth paying for! [Except a lot of people have been very open about how deeply shitty companies are toward the creators when it comes to streaming and what they pay.]
But the availability of buying a movie ticket every few years to a big theatrical release, or a DVD if you really liked it... is very different than "pay a monthly fee in order to access this, and if you stop paying, you lose that access."
I don't mean to sound like a hippie or whatever, but I love art as community. Fandom matters to me, and the ability for thousands of people to share in the fandom for a show or movie is something I love on a level beyond any single fandom itself.
MCU and SW are big enough juggernauts that they aren't going to go away - it's not like these are going to vanish or stop having thousands upon thousands of fans. But fandom feels very different to me when the participants (or potential participants) have extremely different access to the canon material.
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Date: 2023-02-01 06:03 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, I was very underwhelmed by The Mandalorian. It was your standard 'tough guy is forced into situations that require him to get out of them via ultraviolence, but get this, he has a baby.' I have no doubt that it was interesting to people who wanted to know more about Mandalorian culture - Boba Fett fans etc - but that is not me. (And honestly as a person who likes good worldbuilding, I didn't find any of the culture particularly interesting either.)
Likewise with the Loki show the worldbuilding was yet more 1960s stuff and the characterization was really bad, and the whole thing built to the reveal of a villain who was going to be in the next movie, and left the literal god of chaos as a willing member of an authoritarian murder operation. None of the Loki fans that I hung out with liked it at all.
So yeah, I don't think you're really missing anything. It does feel like there's some kind of standard story template that they're feeding the characters into and then they hit all the same beats and there's no passion or originality left, because nobody involved really cares.
I do completely understand the rant and agree with it! I sort of expect book fandoms to get more popular from here because we can at least all participate in those.
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Date: 2023-02-02 07:08 am (UTC)From:I ALSO feel like I'd be underwhelmed by the Loki show if I watched it. My Lokean friend was extremely into it, and I saw lots of other fanning around it, but most of what I actually heard of it plot-wise left me unimpressed. (But that's been my general feeling toward the MCU for a while.)
But that feels like a lot of it. I don't want to be an asshole to the actual creatives involved, because I'm sure some of them really do care and are doing their best. But at the same time, it does feel like a soulless churn of content, all designed to appeal to the widest possible base (and not alienate anyone), which means that it fits the formula and comes out bland.
I kind of hope that book fandoms gain more prominence. That's certainly more accessible!
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Date: 2023-02-02 05:23 pm (UTC)From:No, absolutely, it must be a dream come true for a creative person to land a job with Marvel or Disney. I wouldn't dream of blaming any of the people who actually make the content for the moneygrubbing of the executives above them. In fact I bet they could use a union to get them better pay and conditions.
I'm going to be hypocritical now however, because my daughter has loaned me her D+ passwords while we're recovering, and I might go and watch the Obi-Wan show, because I was such a Qui-Gon fan and I really want to see the point where his Force ghost finally turns up. I know it will probably not be anything like what I want it to be either, but it will be good to see.
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Date: 2023-02-03 04:40 am (UTC)From:Haha, enjoy! Obi-Wan is apparently quite good from all I heard! I hope you enjoy it.
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Date: 2023-02-03 04:33 pm (UTC)From:I am enjoying it so far :)
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Date: 2023-02-04 04:56 am (UTC)From: