Damn. Just...damn. I begin this rant with this phrase because, in the last two weeks, it seems like a million geeky things happened that either made fans extremely happy or pissed them off to no end. Geeky shows like "Sherlock," "Community," "Arrow" and "Agents of SHIELD" all returned, with trailers for the upcoming "Walking Dead" and "Game of Thrones" seasons making the rounds as well. The Oscar nods were released, to their usual predictability and surprising snubs (no Tom Hanks nods or "Pacific Rim" for best VFX? For shame.) Seeing the reactions to the Oscar nods, the return of these geeky shows, and all the recent film development news got me thinking about something. In this information age, the fan dominates. All these passionate fan reactions prove this. It made me think: exactly how much power does the fan hold in forging creative content, versus the creators?
Using these recent film and TV announcements, I plan to answer this query. But how exactly to proceed? Well, let's start with the franchise that quite possibly has the largest (if not one of the largest) fandoms in recent memory: "Star Wars." I've waxed poetic on the Disney merger and sequel trilogy before, but these recent announcements have been very interesting. Several news sites, including The Hollywood Reporter, have said that former screenwriter Michael Arndt left Episode VII because he wanted to focus more on Luke, Han and Leia's children. Abrams, on the other hand, wished to focus more on the original heroes, to give them a proper sendoff.
Lawrence Kasdan, who worked on Episode V, is also said to be working on a Boba Fett spinoff film, which has a bounty hunter kill the Jango Fett clone and take his armor and name, all in an attempt to wipe away the prequel backstory and make the character cool again. These developments seem motivated purely from a desire to please fanboys who have waited a lifetime to see the OT heroes back, and to get the stench of the prequels out of their heads. I admit, these ideas are very intriguing as a long-time fan. But I'm wondering if they are motivated from a creative standpoint, or just to cater to existing fanboys.
Like it or not, an entire generation grew up with the prequels (myself included), and they may not enjoy Abrams favoring the OT generation over theirs. "Star Wars" has a wide-reaching fandom that spans multiple generations, and any new films should find a way of honoring the previous generations while presenting enough new ideas to rope in new audiences. It seems like a no-brainer to say that, but right now the decisions behind these sequels and spinoffs seem more like fan service, or outright fan fiction, than a legitimate attempt to carry the series forward.
Then there's the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even a blind man could see that, despite having a solid plan in place going forward, a lot of Marvel's decisions with their films and TV shows have been motivated by fan reaction. Loki becomes a breakout character in "Avengers"? Re-shoot some "Thor: The Dark World" scenes to increase his role and screen time. There's a huge backlash from Trevor Slattery's Mandarin in "Iron Man 3"? Make a One Shot with Slattery to correct the problem. Fans make Phil Coulson a fan favorite by praising his role in the films and One Shots? Devote an entire show to him and bring him back from death.
The show itself isn't any good? Start by getting writers to expand the popular "Agent Carter" One Shot into a show, while also distributing more mature shows on Netflix. Then, for good measure, add Bill Paxton, Stan Lee and Jamie Alexander's Lady Sif into the back half of "SHIELD"'s first season. Clearly, Marvel has seen that their latest creative decisions have pissed fans off, so they're trying to course correct. What I find interesting, though, is the handling of Coulson's resurrection. Let's compare it to another beloved character who just cheated death-Sherlock Holmes, as played by Benedict Cumberbatch. I love the show, and like many couldn't wait for season 3. The two year gap between seasons allowed the show to gain a massive following on Tumblr and Twitter.
When it returned, the first episode, "The Empty Hearse", presented multiple scenarios for Sherlock's survival. None of them were exactly real. In the show, the last scenario is given by Sherlock himself to a fanboy, Anderson. Despite this scenario being the most realistic, Anderson rejects it and calls it disappointing. This seems to be a sort of meta commentary on the nature of the "Sherlock" fandom, and why a single reason wasn't given. No matter what scenario the writers came up with, none of them would satisfy the rapid fans. Hence, multiple ones were given so the fans could make up their own minds. In other words, the creative integrity of the show was somewhat compromised to satiate the fandom.
The following two episodes were also unique in their relationship with the fans. "The Signs of Three" focused more on characterization and comedy instead of the show's trademark mystery. Then "His Last Vow", while a thrilling return to form, ended on another cliffhanger that brings back Moriarty, the fan-favorite villain from the first two seasons. This came at the cost of sacrificing an amazing new villain in Charles Augustus Magnussen, all for the sake of renewing the conflict that hooked fans on the show in the first place. Now from my writing, it may seem like I hated the new season. On the contrary, I loved it. But even I admit that a lot of the decisions made here, including scenes like Sherlock and Watson getting drunk, were more like shout outs to the fans than ways of honoring the integrity of the show.
Contrast this with what Marvel's done with "Agents of SHIELD." The mid-season premiere, "The Magical Place," showed that Agent Coulson was dead for days after "Avengers" and was brought back on Fury's orders through a series of painstaking surgeries. That's all well and good, but there's still the underlying question of why he was brought back. It's interesting that in "Sherlock," when John tells Sherlock he doesn't care how he came back but why he faked his death, the show lingers on that when we already know Sherlock did it to protect John. We know the why, but not the how, in a detective show that thrives off providing explanations.
"SHIELD", meanwhile, exists in a universe where I could personally think of several ways to resurrect someone. Magic, cloning, robots, alien tech, what have you. It doesn't really matter. I want to know with Coulson why he came back. The show hints that Coulson's incredibly important. This seems like meta-commentary too, since Coulson is incredibly popular with the fanbase. But why was he resurrected in-universe? He's not a superhero, just another agent. Therefore, there needs to be a reason why this particular agent was resurrected. It's just interesting that Coulson and Sherlock were both resurrected, but the most interesting aspects of their returns were glossed over, since the creators thought their immense popularity meant the fans wouldn't bat an eye.
It's the perfect case of how the fans of a genre film or show can effect the quality of the storytelling. Fans don't really know what they want, so content dictated by them often comes across as poor fan fiction than actual creativity. There are other examples I could use, of course. J.J. Abrams includes Kahn in "Star Trek Into Darkness" for the Trekkies, but they get upset that he's remaking their favorite film. Peter Jackson includes more Tolkein lore for the die hard fans in "The Hobbit", but expands the story into a trilogy with an inconsistent tone, made up characters, and a lack of focus on lead character Bilbo.
Sony puts fan-favorite Venom into "Spider-Man 3," dooming the film's narrative. WB makes a boring, action-less "Superman Returns" as a homage to the popular Donner films. "Batman & Robin" exists due to the perceived popularity of "Batman Forever." The fans hated them all, so the listening studios made reboots. "Amazing Spider-Man" and "Batman Begins" were hits, but fans complained about "Man of Steel" due to having too much action and being too un-Supermanlike. Its upcoming sequel aims not only to correct those problems, but add Batman and Wonder Woman to sweeten the deal.
But Warner Bros. haven't stopped at just that for the sequel. I've heard rumors of Brian Cranston, Denzel Washington, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa, and Josh Holloway being courted for roles. Lex Luthor, Metallo, Doomsday, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter are the roles that are, apparently, up for contention. Isn't that a tad bit overcrowded? We already have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the latter two being played by controversial actors. There was a huge fan backlash with Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot's casting, and all these rumored actors won't help calm the fans down. You could easily say that WB felt Superman just isn't popular on his own, so they're adding the entire Justice League to compensate. But now the film's been delayed until May 2016. This, I think, is where things get interesting.
Here's where my complaints of the studios basically making poor fan fiction find a nice counter-argument. The controversial casting decisions thus far, coupled with the former 2015 release, led many to think this was being rushed to compete with "Avengers 2" that same year. But with the delay, Warner Brothers can do this right. The film may exist, in part, to placate the negative "Man of Steel" reception. But this delay means WB has time to get the casting right, while making sure the story is up to par. They may be building their own cinematic universe formula, using "Batman vs. Superman" to introduce the JL members in cameos before their big break in "Justice League." More time is needed to do this properly, and that means WB is thinking of the long haul like Marvel, wanting to honor fans and audiences without sacrificing artistic integrity.
Marvel hasn't forgotten that either. While I just wrote of their attempts to course-correct their recent failures, at least they're still willing to take risks. We recently got a huge amount of information on "Ant-Man." Michael Douglas was recently cast as Hank Pym, confirming Paul Rudd as Scott Lang. The film, then, is an adaptation of "To Steal an Ant-Man", with a "Tales to Astonish"-style prologue in a '60s Cold War setting to show Pym inventing the Ant-Man tech. I've seen a lot of fans complain that this ruins the chances of a younger Pym joining the Avengers.
But this also establishes Pym as an important MCU figure, possibly a founding SHIELD scientist. He could even still help invent Ultron, maybe work with Howard Stark to forge the A.I. tech that leads to the robot's present-day creation. The Wasp could easily be handled by having Hank marry Janet in the '60s, leading to a modern daughter also named Janet who has mutant powers similar to the Ultimate version.
That's just me speculating, but that's already showing how this change could fit in the established MCU, honor the fans, and make for a thrilling film. And I'm speaking as a fan myself and someone who just wants to see a good film. The mentor-student dynamic between Hank and Scott and the generational aspect alone is exciting. It makes a B-list hero like Ant-Man interesting, and gives something new to the MCU that we haven't seen before. Isn't that a little more important than doing everything just like the comics, just for the fans' sake?
Even though Marvel may be trying to course-correct their mistakes with "SHIELD" and "Iron Man 3", they're still making decisions for creative, instead of monetary, purposes. This makes for a balance between respecting the fans that made these works famous, while also creating better shows and films. With adaptations, there should always be a balance between respect for the source and creative integrity. The first "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" are excellent examples of this. And should a work piss fans off, the examples I've listed above show that fans can forgive, and trust the creators to do better since they love the material enough.
We do live in an age of social media, where the fandom reigns. But it's important that a fandom shouldn't dictate a work's creative decisions. If a film or TV show is well-made, people will love it regardless. It's the artistic integrity that allows these works, and their fans, to succeed. Don't sacrifice a work for the fans, but don't ignore them either. Often a fan backlash will turn people off a work altogether. A balance needs to be struck, and as long as creators realize this, this golden age of geekery we're seeing will last for a long time.
