Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

So I thought that the screening on Tuesday was really interesting. It struck me as very different from Trekkies, although that might be because I’ve never been a Star Trek fan. The film blurred the boundaries between the fans and the producers in a much more obvious way, where you had interviews with people who were almost professional fans, who were also producers of books about Tolkien and about the LOTR movies. Having Dominic Monaghan (who played Merry in the films) do the narration also created a really strong link in my mind between the officially sanctioned movie and the fan produced Ringers. Many of the interviews with the actors strongly reminded me of the interview extras on the DVDs to the extent that I almost felt during the movie that I *was* watching an extra. Also, if I remember correctly the company that distributed Ringers is also somehow linked to one of the companies involved in LOTR?

However, the film clearly also had roots in online fandoms and places outside the official domain of the film. It was produced by the TORN people, and had a detailed section on The Very Secret Diaries, which was a huge internet phenomenon. There was talk about Lord of the Peeps (also in the reading), and many of the fans interviewed mentioned the importance of the internet to their fannish activity. I personally spent a lot of the film looking at the watercolor art work, being sure that I recognized it from somewhere, and tracked it down to Anke Katrin Eissmann. The mild, though surprising, criticism of the materialism surrounding the LOTR films is not something that I think would have appeared in the actual films.

I wonder if part of the differences between the two movies can be traced to the emergence of the large internet fandoms between Trekkies (1997) and Ringers (2005). Do we think that the two movies would have looked more alike if they were made closer together? Or is it simply that they were investigating different fan bases? Is there even a significant difference between the two fandoms (remember that one guy dressed up in Trek costume, and I’m pretty sure one costume was supposed to be Obi-Wan Kenobi)? Does anyone else feel like there’s an important differences between the two films? Random other things about Ringers that I should have talked about but didn’t?

I think it is worth continuing the discussion about the merits of franchises that span TV, movies, comic books, action figures, McDonalds Happy Meals, etc. Previously criticisms were raised about its destruction of traditional narrative techniques — completeness, comprehensibility, enjoyability, etc.

I briefly mentioned Star Wars in relation to this, and I’d like to outline its cross-media tradition and give my opinion about it, but there are many series worth discussing here. Professor Rehak, for example, focused on The Matrix, and made the insightful comment that the series has not really “stuck around” like Star Wars or Star Trek.

1. The original Star Wars trilogy made reference to many elements not explained in the context of the movies. What are the Clone Wars? How did the emperor seize power? How did Darth Vader become who he is? Many places and technologies were also only mentioned in passing. Most of these “comprehensibility” complaints were not raised by viewers of the Trilogy. My opinion is that it’s because the movie followed archetypal narratives — a war is a war, and we can imagine the details of the Clone Wars. An evil dictator is an evil dictator. The plot could be understood without understanding the details. Many fans would later find enjoyment in these details, however, with publications similar to those shown by Professor Rehak about Star Trek. Of course these details also left room for the new trilogy.

2. The new trilogy in my opinion followed the same techniques in many ways as the original trilogy. Yet there was a negative response about most aspects of the new movies. Plot holes were declared marketing ploys for more action figures, video games, etc. However, the difference is that in the original trilogy, the details truly were unexplained. In the time between the two trilogies, cross-media story telling had taken over and, for example, in novels and comic books many of the “plot holes” in the new trilogy had already been explained. The villains in the new trilogy, for example, were not brand-new creations, but had complex backstories already published.

So the question is whether one could understand the new trilogy without reading all these other cross-media sources, and whether one should have to. I know that after watching Ep.1-3 the first time, going back again had them make a lot more sense, even without resorting to extra-textual information.

so i’m not sure why i didn’t just do this before but i reserved the family viewing room (3rd floor mccabe) for the rest of the semester.

so now alternate screenings will take place each wednesday and will start at 7:45 (please get there early so we can start AT 7:45)…

thanks and see you there!