I think being able to just turn it off and enjoy a movie or TV show is one of the things that actually keeps my brain working as well as does.
Is Toxic "Star Wars" Fandom Imploding?
- Thread starter Locutus of Bored
- Start date
The difference was more in tone.
Let’s put it this way:
The book ends by cutting to what seems like a thouroughly broken Jim(?) flashing back to the the female lead asking if he loves anyone, and all he can think is ‘a boy loves his dog.’ The sequel has him going mad from guilt, and ends with him committing suicide by letting himself get eaten alive. This has the knock-on effect of also of also killing Blood, and the book isn’t exactly sad about that result.
The movie ends with the protagonist and Blood laughing about the female leads ‘taste,’ and she’s presented as laughably moronic for every assuming that Jim wouldn’t put the dog first.
They’re both bleak. But the change from ‘behold the hopeless monsterousness of man!’ to ‘bros before hos hyuk hyuk’ seems to have struck in Ellison’s craw.
He had a thing for small human victories in the face of an incredibly unforgiving and hateful universe. And leaving it to you to decide if they were really victories at all.
It’s more obvious in his drafts for Trek, one of which had the nominally selfish ‘villain’ of COTEF be the one who attempts to selflessly save Edith. Is it the best or worst thing that character ever did?
The ending of ‘I have no mouth...’ also fits it. Did our main character sacrifice himself to ‘save’ his fellow prisoners, and give the villain his only true defeat...small as it was? Or was it all just futile desperation, and a bad situation just continued to get worse?
Last edited:
I guess. I mean it certainly seems to apply to that story (I forget the title) where the bloke spends his whole life searching for the literal, physical manifestation of happiness.
I guess where these stories tend to trip me up is that they seem to go a *very* long way out of their way, just to end up posing a fairly simple question. To the point that usually around the half-way point I often loose the thread of why we're even here or where we're going with this. Typically followed by an ending that leaves me thinking "Right...OK...soooo, is that it?"
But then I suppose that's what happens when pulp magazines pay authors by the word.
Last edited:
Significantly advanced Technology can be mistaken and likened to magic, simply because the technology behind it or physics is unable to be understood.. So too can the power of the force be misunderstood, hence the rise of the religious orders dedicated to it's facades.. Dark and Light. But what I would love to see, is the franchise take a look at it in a distant future from the science aspect, and show that there are weapons that make use of the force, thus giving a different type of feel and arms race in the future, making a new trilogy even more dangerous, as there would be a new threat.. Weaponizing the force with technology, over organic life form use. Maybe a force sensitive user battery like system that uses force users as it's power source?? ingenious and devious at the same time.
either way, I think that all so called"fantasy" can be explained by science and physics. It's just a matter of finding what can work to explain it. Were I the tenth Doctor, david Tennant, I would say all magic can be quantified by science. What one calls magic words and spells, the other calls the vibrational manipulation of the local space time fabric, and manipulation thru mental energy expenditure.
The problem with that is the films clearly set the force as something accessed and understood through faith/doctrine, not technology. Some (not meaning you) have argued that the PT's midichlorians as being evidence of science entering the beliefs and use of the force, that is a grossly mistaken idea, as a blood test was only that, not the means how one understood//accessed/used the force. Further, science being separated from the force is the very reason Palpatine needed a Death Star as the fist of his authority---not a conduit for his force power, but purely as a mechanical weapon of overwhelming enforcement--and this is after he already controlled an ever-growing galactic fleet, with endless supplies of Clonetroopers on the conveyor belt. While Vader tried to dismiss Motti's belief in that "technological terror", it was clear the emperor disagreed, as he ordered not one, but two as his means of ultimate control.
Having any future film try to shoehorn technology into the force (or weaponize it in that manner) goes against the entire status and reason for the force in Star Wars.Any new film stories should go off in another direction--the galactic aftermath of the Skywalker saga, but not influenced by it.
It was always toxic, it just didn’t have a reason to do much until then. Now social media has allowed to be worse than before. But a specific group of fans have always been this awful, we just hear about it now.
Since at least Ewoks, if not before. It's just easier for individuals to express themselves, for good or ill.
I'm not sure if it's just an issue with fandom as much as it's an issue with society itself. White straight cis males have been taught since birth that they're the default and now we're moving towards a more realistic depiction of society in media and they think they're losing something. You see it in movies, the internet and politics.
.
True enough. My point, however, was to the notion that one franchise was more rooted in science than the other. One was certainly more technobabble-oriented than the other, but both franchises treated "science" as "magic" to get from points "A' to "B" with little true regard for scientific reality. It is a means to an end.
I respectfully disagree. That is what Lucas attempted with the introduction of the "midi-chlorian" fiasco. To try and explain the "magic" has nothing but downside. Mainly because you are never going to satisfy more than a minority of the audience. Folks fill in the blanks with their imagination, and, after 40+ years, that's an applecart best left alone.
No, it's a case of knowing what doesn't require explaining. It's a matter of being minimalist. Do the least you required to tell your story. When folks lend their imagination to a story they connect with it in a personal way, a unique way. Sure, some folks applied a religious meaning to "The Force" while others applied a more naturalist spirituality or druidic explanation. IOW, people had fun with it. Why strip that aspect away with needless detail?
Actually, I think a more accurate question would be a broader one, "At what point does a program's fandom become toxic and a detriment to that which it purports to be in support of" Hopefully we can be honest and self-aware to the fact Star Trek (or any franchise's) fandom at some point can be viewed as being just as "toxic" as this thread's question insinuates regarding "Star Wars."
I remember in the 90s I was thrilled to go on AOL. The first place I went was their Star Trek area. Sadly, it was traumatizing. Folks were flat out cliquish and rude. Everything seemed to start a fight. God forbid you also like other shows as well as Star Trek! So let us in glass starships refrain from throwing stones.
I remember in the 90s I was thrilled to go on AOL. The first place I went was their Star Trek area. Sadly, it was traumatizing. Folks were flat out cliquish and rude. Everything seemed to start a fight. God forbid you also like other shows as well as Star Trek! So let us in glass starships refrain from throwing stones.
Then you have the Steven Universe fandom sending death threats to fan artists or the Rick and Morty fan base rioting in McDonalds over a tie in sauce that was a throw away joke in one episode. I would say it's the internet giving people anonymity but that shows that it's not so true any more as the line between online and off has become blurred.
Well you would hope that (and I actually think that, though I may be behind the times) fans who are really disappointed with something would just stop watching it, which would be detrimental to it in a sense but a much milder sense than is usually invoked in conversations of fandoms being poisonous.
It's not that they're disappointed, it's more a sense of entitlement. They think they deserve something from a show and when they don't get it or get it the way they want, they lash out. I'm disappointed by a lot of shows and movies, but I don't feel the need to attack the cast or crew on Twitter.
I was a fan of the EU, and when DIsney nixed it, I was disappointed, though I could see why they did it. But when they replaced it with a very inferior product, that was it. I saw Ep 8. It wasn't very good. Don't think I'll see 9, unless my wife wants to go. I don't have anything to do with Star Wars fandom now. I'm just not a fan, anymore.