Episode 547 - Franchise fail
Sep 2, 2021
There seemed to be a lull for a while after the 1990s and the massive sequel craze of the 80s, but nowadays we're back in full swing again with sequels, reboots and reinvisioning of film and TV franchises. Banes noticed a distinct pattern of behaviour that occurred around bad or failed franchises: The makers would chose to go against what existing fans liked about the property in the fist place, usually in order to appeal to new fans. When both new fans and old ones dislike what they do, they attack the fans and blame the fans for failure of their version. Then they'll search and find a new franchise to mess up. It's rare that people own up to or admit to failures anymore, it's usually always the fault of the fans for being too “toxic”.
Topics and Show Notes
The 2016 Ghostbusters reboot is a great case in point: a film reboot of a hugely popular and successful franchise staring tried and tested popular comedy actors, it turned into a failure. One popular narrative was that it was caused by “toxic” fans and their sexist online campaigns… while those people certainly did exist, a simple viewing of the movie is enough to see the real reasons it failed: They weren't sure what audience it was intended for. The story and storytelling style, the costumes, the sets, effects, lighting, toy-like props, and many of the jokes were specifically aimed at young children, while many of the situations and most of the other jokes were extremely sexual and adult in nature. So what we got was a young kids movie that wasn't for kids- this means adults watching it feel bored or patronised and groan over the childish humour and the kids that could appreciate that content either aren't allowed to watch it, or if they do they're also bombarded with very problematic and gross adult sex jokes: none of this was the fault of the fans.
Compare that to the original 2 films:
They were never intended for a very young audience. Nothing in them was aimed at young children. These were bawdy, young adult comedy fantasy “horror” films. In keeping with the context of the time they had adult humour disguised with double entendres, or hidden with tropes and metaphor. They gained a following from young audiences anyway because the adult content was subtle enough to pass, and the story and style was broad enough that it didn't need to be dumbed down to be understood by younger audiences, in this way they appealed equally to all ages.
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Phantasos: Hot, dry desert. Orange sun. warm winds blowing. Shimmering mirages…. Electric arabesque. This is a gloriously distorted riff filled trip into an exotic world of sand and dunes, with beautiful minarets rising out of the distance, sparkling in the harsh light.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Bane's franchise fail newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/aug/18/franchise-follies/
Featured comic:
Follower - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/aug/31/featured-comic-follower/
Featured music:
Phantasos - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Phantasos/ - by Phantasos by Jslongstreet, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 545 - tipping point to become a fan?
Aug 22, 2021
We're all fans of something, but when does that happen? When do we transition from just following and liking something into being full on fans and is there even a difference? I think there definitely IS a difference. I became a fan of Star Wars after watching the first film but I'm not a fan of The Witcher even after watching the entire show. Henry Cavill as Geralt is super amazing but the show itself is just blah to me. I've seen about 200 or so episodes of One Piece but I don't think of myself as a fan. I became a fan of Ghost in the Shell after seeing a poster from the Manga. I became a fan of Farscape after watching reruns of the series over and over.
Episode 508 - Fan Service
Dec 6, 2020
The Mandalorian on Disney Plus is a very popular series, it's particularly known at the moment because of the “fanservice”, i.e. fan rewards in the second series. a couple of Clone Wars characters are in it now… but we won't spoil that. Tantz, Banes and I chat Fan Service! What IS Fan Service and why is it a thing? When did we first learn about it?
Episode 495 - A fan of fanfiction?
Sep 7, 2020
Fanfiction is a massive subject, there are so many aspects to it, from the bad stuff with the Mary Sues, rampant shipping, author inserts and wish fulfilment etc to homages and great works that extend the story and characters beyond what they were in the original and add interesting and fun aspects to fan favourites. There are many good reasons to do fanfiction: It's fun, you're inspired and want to use that inspiration, all the characteristics of the story are readymade so you don't have to do world building or character development, the work has a built in audience so you're going to have readers no matter what and hopefully some feedback, it can help make you more popular as a creator because of the fans of the original work, and you get to experiment because you can't sell the work or do anything serious with it so you may as well have fun and enjoy it!
Episode 471 - Fantasy
Mar 23, 2020
Today we're having a chat about fantasy fiction! Mainly books and the fantasy writing that inspired us and that we love! Faves like Tolkien, Fritz Leiber and Piers Anthony! Just to define, we're talking swords, elves, armour, dragons etc, in a “medieval” context, generally European. As a subset there's native, Arabian, Asian, Mayan etc, also high fantasy, low fantasy, sword and sorcery, historical fantasy and even mythology…. And then techno fantasy, contemporary fantasy, steampunk, fantasy cyberpunk and so on… but we mainly stick to the mainstream stuff and only just touch on the weird little variations for now.
Episode 429 - Bad ends, not bad fans
Jun 2, 2019
This Quackcast was inspired by the fan reaction to Game of Thrones, a series that I haven't watched but Tantz and Banes have! Specifically it's about poorly written endings and gas-lighting fans rather than admitting to faults.
Episode 412 - Hiatusssss D:
Feb 4, 2019
A huge thank you to the fantastic Amelius, creator of Charby the Vampirate! We mined her great newspost on the topic of the comic hiatus for this Quackcast. When you're reading a comic and it goes on Hiatus it's an awful thing… suddenly all progress stops and you don't know for how long it will be gone for. Some authors are great, they'll reach a point where they can't work anymore for some reason or they'll take a little break, but they will tell you they're going on a hiatus and when their comic will return- and Lo, it comes back exactly when they said it would. Crappy authors will say they're going on a hiatus and never return.
Episode 385 - Drawing the line
Jul 23, 2018
In this Quackcast we talk about where the line is for YOU in your work about what subjects and imagery are too far for you. What is too horrible, too controversial, too extreme for you to approach? Is it blood and gore, something controversial and political, swearing, religious, sexual? Maybe you have other borders… perhaps something is too cute, sickly sweet and saccharine?
