A geek, yes. There can be no question. Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, the list goes on. Escapist asction shows with a twist of impossibility, either sci-fi or fantasy. I love them. I do. many do.. but I am a fan.
I’m not a costume wearing fanatic (although I was paid to wear the costume as an actor), its not about that. Its not necessarily the action, which is cool.. but can be found anywhere. Why be a fan, why care about fictional characters who are as unlikely as vampires and androids – and why do I want all of these things, all now defunct, all now finished, to continue?
It is a conversation Rowan and I have had.. he is also a person who enjoys all these things… but not a fan. To him, these are fictional people, to be let go easily, and to allow to leave when it is time. Not so for me. I want these things to continue, and I think I know why.
The realm of fantasy, in order to suspend disbelief, requires one to leave “here”, and go to another place. You need sunnydale for Buffy… you need the future for Trek. I am someone who is not so happy with the here and now today. And today, I pulled my Star Trek nemesis DVD out of the dust it was gathering to finally watch, of all things, the interviews with the cast, to hear them say how close they feel. I went on to watch some more of it, just because, “being transported” to this familiar place felt safe, and for a little while I could go on a journey, and feel like I had people there I knew.
People like “Friends” not for the jokes, but for the relationships. Like Cheers, or MASH, people like to leave there lives, and watch the dramas of others. For me, its easy to let that go. When Friends ended.. new york was still there. For my shows, when they end.. the entire universe of the shows come to an end.
I invest in the fantastical because a lot of times in my life, it gave me a place to go to where the things that sucked for me were very far away.. and I suspect many of us feel the same way. So, I wait for the Star Wars TV show, the Spike movie, the Serenity DVD, and for Trek to somehow find its way out of the toilet. Why? Because these are universes I like to go to. ports of call that are closed to me, and on nights like tonight, I could use 42 minutes of time focusing on something else than the real world.
If it ain’t broke – or – Hey.. I’m commenting on me…
How different this seems from my next blog, in which I pretty much said “you can’t go back again”.
The difference is in the desire to create something new.
I love to rewatch old stuff and reminisce.. and I love sequels… but I tend to dislike remakes, and that’s the difference.
I’m a continuity whore who loves things of a serialized nature to carry on ad infinitum, and I would love it if there were a NEW Wayward Sun album or a chance to play Proctor’s ghost in “The Crucible 2”.
I even believe in fixing up old things that were never good enough for public consumption, or just came out too different from what you wanted at the time (i.e. The Beatles “Let it be: Naked”, where they took out all the extra production, and just released the cleanedup tapes.) I’m remaking old songs on my new Love Song compilation.. but generally, this rule applies only to stuff that you just never liked but you thought the source material was bad. I kind of do like “reinventions” (Like Joss Whedon making a Buffy TV series so different because he hated the movie).
What I don’t like so much is remaking stuff that worked (Like “The Right of Way”, like “The Texas Chainsaw massacre”, like me doing Proctor in “The Crucible” – heck, I heard they want to do a “Back to the Future” remake). Don’t change things that don’t need to be changed.
But you can improve…
But often, you can improve on the original works. Look at all the folks who have touched up movies so that they are back to better-than-original quality, both in soundtrack and video.
Sure, people think the remakes lack the soul of the original. I’m not one of them.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
however…
greedo
It’s Sad
when corruption and cover-ups extend to places long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. So what if Han Solo had a trigger finger? It made his transformation into hero that much better.
Greedo had it coming. My $.02 Weed
Justin, I will agree wtih
Justin, I will agree wtih you that Greedo was a bad choice.
However, there is a lot of creative good that can come from remaking old favorites. Both the Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven… good movies when they came out, equally good movies the second time around, but the story was refreshed into terms that a different generation could understand.
Or, for a classical spin… how could anyone forget Plutarch’s chilling tale of Hamlet or his heartwrenching Romeo and Juliet? Apparently it was all the rage in Shakespeare’s time, which was why he stole the storylines and used them for his own plays. And let’s not forget his absolute butchery of English history. 🙂
Since we’re talking about the existence of multiple universes, let me suggest this: There are TWO Star Wars universes out there, both of them equally real. In one of them, Han shot first. In another, it was Greedo. One universe for each version of the movie. No one’s forcing us to live in the Greedo-shot-first universe. We can happily remain in the world where Han is a total bad-ass.
—————————– “…yes… I’l bet you have…” Arthur Rowan