Fanboys: Haters Gonna Hate

I was manning the Flicks News Desk earlier this week when a picture of a brand new Decepticon was released. Being a fully trained and qualified journalist I recognise breaking news when I see it, so dutifully and without pause I got reporting. I stuck to the facts. I kept it honest. I did not play fast and loose with the truth. Much…

I said, and I’ll quote if you allow me to paraphrase, that this mysterious Transformer was a “gigantic, flying, cockroach-looking, city destroying robot”. Because that’s clearly what it is. These are the facts and as such cannot be deviated from. Job done I hit “publish” and went and got some coffee.

Upon returning to the News Desk members from the Flicks community had begun posting their thoughts about the picture in the article. Some joked, some took a guess at the identity of the mysterious robot and some mocked. All expected responses. And then one Flicks commenter asked a question that got me thinking…

Flicks commenter Foxboy reckoned the Decepticon could be a part of Unicron, Keri Henare reminded me of the totally awesome Insecticons, Daniel-Robinson cracked a cockroach gag and MikeD remarked that the picture made him want to cry – a sentiment many old school Transformers fans share I’m sure.

And then along came dave (the lower case ‘d’ is his) bringing a well thought out – if grammatically poor – comment with him that got me thinking.

So what was dave’s comment? It was this:

“why are fanboys so against additions to movies? filmmakers decide to put extra/less for whatever reason, (time constraints, producer pressure, artistic vision etc) if you want it to be just like the cartoon or the book then read the freakin book. its got to be different for any number of reasons, but i think the main one should be because its new, you know, like 2011 not 1985.”

I thought dave asked a good question. I also thought dave answered it well enough himself. But, it still got me thinking. Why are fanboys so against additions to movies? Yes, it was a good question and I attempted to answer it at the time but all I could come up with was “haters gonna hate”, which seemed a solid answer then but now… I’m not so sure.

Having thought about this a little more I think the real reason fanboys don’t like additions is mainly because fanboys don’t like seeing stuff they really really like getting screwed, changed and mucked about with. The way to stop the hate is really quite easy:

a) do new stuff right

or

b) leave it alone and go create something new.

Transformers is a bad example for me because my stance on the movie franchise has already been well documented and I was never the biggest fanboy to begin with anyway. Sure I dug the cartoon when I was a kid and have the totally badass animated movie on DVD but that’s about it. I’ve never read any of the comics and as soon as I saw the designs of the new Transformers I immediately knew it wasn’t for me.

And besides, in this case I think the haters got their hate on because the mysterious new Decpticon looks like a giant, flying, robotic cockroach….

Star Wars would be a better, if somewhat  played out, example of me getting my fanboy hate on. And in this I’m not alone. I mean, rants, thought, essays, forum posts and arguments detailing the extreme amount of “bad additions” George Lucas had made to the Star Wars universe over the years fills up half the blimmen internet.

There’s obvious ones like Greedo shooting first, the CGI Jabba inserted into A New Hope, calling it A New Hope instead of it’s real title which was simply Star Wars, the fact that all six films are being prepped to be cinematically released (again)  but this time in 3D even though there’s absolutely no need to do this and absolutely no desire from anyone for this to happen. I mean these films weren’t directed for 3D, the shots were never composed to be viewed in 3D and what, exactly, is having Jar Jar Binks in 3D gonna accomplish anyway?

Congratulations George, you’ve achieved the impossible – you’ve found a way to actually make the prequel trilogy worse than it already was.

That’s just briefly skimming the top of “new additions” that are “bad” to the Star Wars cinematic universe, and I suppose you could argue that this is tinkering with existing films, not creating something new for fanboys to get their hate on about.

Well, let me introduce you to the newish animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, which kicked off with a feature film snappily titled Star Wars: The Clone Wars. A brand new – and canon – addition to the Star Wars universe.

This film was, for me anyway, the point when I was officially done with the galactic space opera and found myself  handing in my fanboy badge. I’m surprised I stuck with it as long as I did.

It didn’t have to be this way but the thing was, I just couldn’t stomach the “new additions” that had been made. I loved the idea of a Star Wars serial to watch, I loved that it would be set during the Clone Wars and I liked the animation style. After the disappointing prequel trilogy I was filled with new hope for the franchise. And then George Lucas pulled a whole lot of “new additions” out of his ass.

Did you know, for instance, that Anakin had his very own Padawan? One that’s never mentioned in any of the films by anyone. Ever.

Did you also know that Jabba has a baby son called Rotta the Huttlet? No? I bet you wish you still didn’t know that… He also has an extremely flamboyant uncle, called Ziro, who speaks English in a Southern accent… And no, I am not making this up…

These were “new additions”, they weren’t for me and I got my fanboy hate on. I’ve since heard that if you can stomach previously unmentioned things popping up all the time then the series is actually quite watchable and I’m kinda tempted to give it another chance… But we’ll have to see how that goes.

Going into the Clone Wars film I didn’t want it to be “just like the film” but I did want it to be good. And just making up stuff out of thin air was, what I would call, “not good”.

There’s a million ways they could have shoehorned Anakin’s sassy female padawan into the story without making her Anakin’s sassy padawan. Then this character would have been a “new addition” that didn’t make you go, “oh, Anakin had a padawan huh? How come we never heard about this? Ever before? Kind of important bit of info for no one to ever mention or even talk about don’t ya think?!?”

And, as an aside, why does everyone in this freaking galaxy need to know each other? Jabba’s son? Puh-lease…

Stop messing with old characters by giving them new made-up stuff. If there had been some genuinely new additions rather than these tenuous links to the films  I would probably have stuck with it. But there was nothing new here, just weak new ideas tacked onto brilliant old ones. This was not the new Star Wars film I was looking for.

So yeah, at the time I hated on The Clone Wars in print and I hated on The Clone Wars in person and it was because something I really really liked had been screwed, changed and mucked about with.

On the other hand that screwing, changing and mucking about with can be a good thing, as anyone who has watched the recent, exceptional, Battlestar Galactica series will attest. That show rates right up there with The Sopranos and The Wire in terms of awesomeness.

Another couple of solid examples of “good additions” to an “artistic vision” were the updates of Star Trek to Star Trek: The Next Generation on the telly and Star Trek: The Motion Picture to Star Trek on the silver screen. You don’t encounter a lot of fanboy hate in the direction of any of these creative properties.

So to properly answer dave’s initial question of “why are fanboys so against additions to movies?” I’d have to answer, we aren’t. We’re against bad additions to movies. Sadly, that seems to be the rule rather than the exception. And that being the case, well, haters gonna hate.

Hmmm, seems I did get it right the first time after all…