And why have time travel challenge the writers to cleverly work inside the previous structures of films people care about when it can instead be used to lazily retcon whatever they like and dump any plot consequences that don't add up into unseen alternate timelines?
You aren't missing much. They hinge the movie on Ant-Man but immediately forget this once they realize Hulk's dialogue can now be written like he's a self-congratulatory stand-up comic.
There was one great magic battle in 8 films and the rest of the time they treated their wands like revolvers in a Western.
Cuaron got something special in the 3rd and Yates in the 6th, but the rest are muddled by trying to please too hard.
The best HP movie is still the 1985 Young Sherlock Holmes.
It all felt so average to me. The dark stuff was played as funny, but the acidity of British humor was dialed back, so nothing felt dark or funny. He just fell into doing well and was saved every film by faculty deus ex machina.
Three words into Frieren's season 1 ED and I'm a wreck every time (milet's 'Anytime Anywhere').
What you hold as common, using Star Trek as one example, isn't even common within the Trek fandom you're using as an example. You hear it, you know it's out there, but it's not the general experience of being in a Trek group these days. That it's taken over isn't evidenced from inside the fandom.
But because they're so loud and obsessive, and media loves to platform the same handful over and over again, they come to define the fandom to outside perspectives, when from inside the fandom they're barely a blip. Engaged sometimes, but usually just ignored or blocked out.
The social media groups and surviving forums where this is normal are multiple times larger than the new, "anti-woke" hate segments. And it's genuinely confusing when people come to a group with tens of thousands of members asking why we hate nuTrek because of what a group of a few hundred said.
Even that doesn't seem representative, though. Inside Star Trek fandom, the anti-nuTrek people are generally seen as a small and non-representative group. The vast majority of people understand that there are so many Treks that we all favor different ones and it's not a big deal.
Doesn't minimize that impact or harm, but I don't know that it can be appended to the first one. In many ways, that's what the exploitative one seeks out, to get the original fandom blamed so it can chase former voices/meanings out and replace both.
Overwriting, but I'm curious about your thoughts.
To my mind that's not a fandom devolving, it's a second, exploitative one that has no relation to the first latching on.
Can't be applied to everything bad in any fandom, but in some cases, an original fandom keeps trucking along while a different one sees it as a medium to exploit and harass.
I do think the nature of the fandom can lend it one way or the other by who it attracts. I also think of some fandoms as splitting. I don't think of LGBTQ fandom and red pillers as being part of the same fandom for The Matrix, for instance. Practically and chronologically, it's not the same fandom.
But inside the fandoms they're often thought of as fanatical and not representative of most people's experience.
A lot of what I've written/spoken about has been how fandoms connect to activism, provide safe spaces, etc. so it could be selection bias on my part.
My experience has been fandoms made of people who consider themselves members of multiple fandoms. Maybe those are just the circles I engage, but the "whole identity" elements usually tend to be a smaller portion. They can be so vocal they popularly define the fandom...
An overlooked series, a great fight scene, and why productions normally avoid choreographing for multi-section weapons.
I've worked in anti-stalking, for as limited as my reach has ever been, I've had my own stalkers. I know even the most niche fandoms have their very dark spots.
That doesn't define everyone who's in one. Fandoms are often communities. They can protect or harm. They aren't solely good or bad.
That's not responsive to anything specific in what I brought up.
It's just dismissive. Yeah, it's pretty for either one of us to think our own opinion is right. Good job us, I guess?
But none of that risks actually talking to or being informed by each other.
Theropods get too much attention. Not everything has to be sharp claws and gnashing teeth inches away from a Jurassic Park actor's foot.
I look for more positive role models now. And who's always being positive, encouraging you with two big thumbs up? Iguanodon, that's who.
Don't fandoms enable people to test being part of different communities. Don't fandoms hide countless coded communities that act as notional spaces to connect over things marginalized people can't necessarily explore about themselves in less safe, physically immediate communities?
Aren't there many fandom spaces that provide safe environments for people to explore representation, find viewpoints and diversity they don't have access to in their immediate community, take forays into crossplay that help them explore who they are, things like that?
I have some huge news! I am making my debut on a Criterion disc for their stunning 4k restoration of Neil Jordan's THE CRYING GAME. I wrote an essay for the booklet and I'm very excited for everyone to check it out.
www.criterion.com/films/33812-...
"My favorite type of comedy is filled with people I would choose to spend time with, because their kindness and acceptance and celebration of each other is something I’ll miss, that I want more of. And if I miss it and want more of it enough, I’ll feel it in myself and express it toward others."
A major new series, new Netflix entries, pair of theatrical releases, and the start of the Spring anime season.
The last two months of what I've written. I notice a lot of new followers, and if you like what I focus on, throw a few bucks toward my Patreon if you can. Thanks!
I don't think a ballerina fight choreo movie needs to be traditional about following an omnisciently set-in-stone tone.
If a ballerinas vs. gangsters action movie can't let its actors run wild and steal scenes, what the hell even can?
It lets everyone perform to their specialty. It doesn't try to rein everyone in the same direction. The tone follows whoever's leading the scene because the acting strength highlighted changes by that lead. It's intentional and consistent by character.
Loved "Pretty Lethal". Don't think it has a tone problem. It knows exactly what it wants to be. It just lets actors run in different directions. Lana Condor's a Mean Girl caricature, Uma Thurman's a camp villain, Maddie Ziegler does even the smallest things with mind-boggling physical commitment.
Dark Forest shouldn't describe a universe where advanced civilizations hide and don't make signals out of fear of something scary finding them. Dark Forest should be named for some exponentially Roddenberry-esque theory about every civilization broadcasting, "Come visit my super sexy planet".
My biggest problem with the Dark Forest Hypothesis is that it was clearly named by someone who'd never been in a forest at night. Everything's making a damn noise. And if there's so much as a puddle of water, 50 different things are going to be making mating calls.
