100 puuchuu points to whomever can tell me what the title above comes from. (50 bonus points if you know what "puuchuu points" comes from--specifically, I mean).
I realized something that's been bugging me: an unwillingness, on the part of people involved in the production of comic-book, SF, and fantasy shows and movies, to let them be the geeky, geeky things they are. Closely associated is a willingness to settle for second-rate work just because the mainstream thinks it's neat. Let's look at each in turn, shall we?
The people behind the new Batman movies, for instance, are unwilling to let them be comic book movies. Ras al-Ghûl is no longer immortal (removing all justification for his character, actually--and he's supposed to be an eco-terrorist); Joker's no longer white, and god forbid he should get any gas (or Harley: why why why couldn't we have had Harley Quinn?!).
Peter Jackson's LOTR movies felt the need to add a bunch of anachronistic "jokes," if that's the word--yet not once does Gimli get to yell, "Barûk Khazâd, Khazâd ai-menu!" (the only sentence in Dwarvish). They cut the Barrow Downs and ruined the whole point of Gandalf the White by letting a Nazgûl--that is, a dead human!--overpower him. As if he couldn't snuff the stupid lich with a thought, this is a Maia we're talking about.
And hell, it's not like Harry Potter isn't essentially mainstream, but after the second movie they brought in a bunch of "edgy" directors, each of whom screwed the story over worse than the hack before. The character development, hell, most of the plot(...the setting? Seriously, what's with Cuaron's hatred of establishing shots)? No, that's none of our business. If we actually told the damn story, people might think we'd read the books (I think that's a prerequisite to adapting a book, reading it, but then I was taught with old books of logic).
Compare, for instance, the Spider-man movies, the Conan films, and the adaptation of Narnia. Sam Raimi felt "like he'd been handed someone's baby," and it shows--those are still the best comic book movies (followed by Hellboy, then Blade). Peter is absolutely Peter Parker, there's no pretense of being more "realistic"...and hey, characters who've shown they'll save the Joker don't leave Ras al-Ghûl to die! Ring any bells?
Why is it Marvel comics are nowhere near as good, but they make better movies?
In the Conan movies, they don't adapt any particular story, but there are certainly elements from several of them, and...frankly, Conan never really had a terribly compelling plot; he made Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser look downright driven. But the films're a very faithful rendering of the feel of the Conan books, and the characters never break out into dwarf-tossing jokes, and there's no @#$%&®© skateboarding, either. It's called "take the material seriously, and stop with the snarky po-mo self-consciousness already."
And then, the Narnia films! Aside from the fact they're better than the source material, not that that's hard, somehow they managed to hit most of the highlights of the plot, and still insert expanded action sequences. Yes, Grasshopper, this comes of killing the Buddha of mainstream approval.
Now for the second issue.
I'd argue that the reason fans put up with bad work is (and I'm not the only one who's said this), they're so glad someone is actually paying attention to them. People that don't have to be embarrassed about their hobbies, are actually paying attention to our hobbies. They're making movies of The Lord of The Rings, and they've got Ian McKellen and the guy that played Agent Smith and Steve Tyler's daughter in them! A Batman movie might actually get nominated for an Oscar--Heath Ledger did not die in vain! ...Not that the academy would pay any attention if he hadn't died, of course. And hey, mainstream critics are talking seriously about a show on SciFi!
"So," they feel, "this is what it's like to sit at the cool table."
That, I think, is what this phenomenon ought to be called. "Cool table" syndrome. Think, stupid high school shows, where people try "to be something they're not" to make the "popular" people like them, before realizing they need to "be themselves." I realize no high school was ever like that, but the trope is of use (anyone uttering the word "meme" should be teleported to a dimension of pure tentacle hentai).
Us geeks, we been kicked around some. We're used to people's eyes glazing over when we talk about our hobbies (hell, I'm geeking on such a level, I can make geeks' eyes glaze over). And seeing the mundanes, the supposed beautiful people, taking an interest, makes us feel loved. This is natural...but it's a weakness, and it can hurt art, if we continue to be so easily satisfied by the attention of the mainstream. One doesn't have to be like Harry "Nothing good can come of being associated with normal people" McDougall, but one needs to remember: these are the people that watch reality TV and Martha Stewart, the people responsible for Rachel Ray having four shows to every one Alton Brown has. These people are the reason Adult Swim barely shows any anime anymore. These are the same people that'll call Farscape a puppet show, the people who stand a very real risk of letting their children see Akira. Are you going to let these Phillistines determine the shape of mass-media SF and Fantasy? Will you let them set the Abomination of Desolation within the Holy of Holies...so to speak?
Ahem. Got a bit worked up there.
But anyway, it may be nice that Battlestar Galactica attracts some cash to SciFi, but that doesn't change the fact that it's essentially a children's show, but with sex. It's nice that the Batman movies are critically acclaimed...but they're not very much like Batman. It's a historic first, but ultimately shameful, that LOTR swept the Oscars, especially when most of the shallow-pates making it seemed to think it was a story about ecology.
Nowadays, there could never be a show like Babylon 5, there could never be another movie like The Labyrinth (and no, Spiderwick doesn't count, DiTerlizzi notwithstanding); there will never be another Batman: The Animated Series. Why? Well, because we've allowed the mainstreamers to think they get to decide how our stuff gets done. They took notice of the quality of some geek stuff--like Batman:TAS--and, rather than saying, "Yes, we are, in fact, this cool; all of our stuff is this awesome," the geeks decided they liked being liked by the mundanes more than they liked their geek-stuff. So they toned down the geekiness, made the plots so simple fans of The West Wing could follow them, and banished all trace of Niven, Lovecraft or Leiber.
Why do I feel like there's actually a spiritual truth contained in this? Apparently, being "unspotted from the world" is not only necessary to salvation; it's apparently also necessary to making any really good creative work. An artist should no more allow the opinions of anyone--especially the critics and art establishment--ruin his work, than a religious person should let the opinions of worldlings keep him from holiness, or a philosopher let the opinions of Socrates-poisoning half-brights keep him from wisdom (or for that matter, than a scientist should let the opinion of his so-called "peers" in the academic establishment keep him from uncovering physical truth).
Or in other word, what we have here is a Buddha in sad need of killing.
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