When did canon become such a hot-button issue?

[fireproof78]

What I meant to say was that maybe making changes to the set design elements wasn't as high priority for him as we maybe think it was. I'm not saying the movie or the story wasn't a big deal. But everyone has lists of priorities, things that have to be done and then things that might be nice to do but not a priority.

This is probably more accurate in terms of lists of priorities, but I would be surprised if Meyer did not care about the sets and work actively to make sure they appeared as he wanted them, even if he didn't change them physically.

Fans make a bigger deal about all the little details and the like, but Meyer no doubt cared about how it came across visually.

 

[JoeZhang]

Amen.

At times, I vow I'm not going to get sucked into yet another pointless debate about Disco or the reboot movies or "canon," but then somebody will assert--AGAIN--that all of us old-school Trekkies have been "alienated" by the new stuff and I'm "Speak for yourself, please!"

And we're off to the races . . .

Plus people's views change over time - I really liked TNG on first run but now I find a lot of it pretty boring and unwatchable.

 

[BillJ]

Plus people's views change over time...

They really do. I found DS9 pretty unwatchable twenty years ago. While not perfect, I've been enjoying revisiting it recently.

 

[Nightdiamond]

This feels perilously close to the pejorative that "some fans will accept anything with the Trek label on it," and as such smacks of gatekeeping. I doubt you will find anyone who enjoys actually shoddy work, outside of laughing in an MST3K fashion, which is unlikely in this context. I think there are exactly zero people who think, "this is crap, but it's Trek on the label so I like it and must like it." They just are willing to suspend disbelief in a different fashion.

If Star Trek put out a really crappy product at some point, I wouldn't like it just because it said Star Trek though. Now maybe part of me would 'want' to like it, and I might give it an extra chance or two to change my mind. But I'm not going to artificially like something.

I get this point. Gatekeepers types tend to be pretty fanatical. Well, depending on what the genre is.

Sometimes I come across blogs or articles that are reviewing some show or movie. And supposed to be just average fans, but they come off different.
They go way further into strict criticism and using long airy words to describe things. In other words they don't sound like an average fan, they sound like movie critics.

I do think this is a real thing though. There are times when you think the people behind the scenes should take a step back to see if what they're making is going to realistically resonate with as much of their audience as possible.

Take Batman Forever and Batman and Robin--it was so over the top, the style of it was consider camp - except from what I understand, were intended to be a serious action movies.

The costumes were over the top with nipples, bulges, crazy colors, they just kept ramping it up with each movie. Those were the ones that basically sunk the franchise.

The same thing happened with The Terminator series. The first two were great, but it was basically ruined after that.

TBH sometimes I do think studios are targeting the "I'll go see it and like it no matter how bad it is" crowd. And as a result, you get the endless CGI explosions, non stop action, gimmick guest appearances etc.

Because perhaps (IMO) they think that is what their target audience wants. Sometimes there's a big disconnect between the audience and the studios.

 

[Christopher]

There are times when you think the people behind the scenes should take a step back to see if what they're making is going to realistically resonate with as much of their audience as possible.

If you only create based on focus groups and formulas, you'll just create something generic and soulless. A creator's inspiration should come from within. It should be a story they want to tell, done the way they want to tell it, or it won't be done with heart and passion. True, one person's passions won't always resonate with a large audience, but all you can do is try. Better to do something sincere and fail because it's too weird than to do something calculated and mechanical and fail because it's too routine.

 

[Lance]

Take Batman Forever and Batman and Robin--it was so over the top, the style of it was consider camp - except from what I understand, were intended to be a serious action movies.

An aside, the thing that still amuses me all these years later is that, I'm old enough to remember some of the movie critics of the time reacting to the 1989 movie, saying things like, "Where's Robin?', and "Why isn't it colourful and camp like the 1960s classic?", etc etc. But a scant five years later when Warner Brothers more or less gave them what they asked for in '89, everyone pilloried it because they'd all had time to get used to Burton's Batman, and the idea of anything other than that was now a definite step backwards!

First off, those were TV series rather than movies.

My apologies, I actually meant to write the Basil Rathbone movies taking liberties with the source material. Hazard of writing quick form when I've only got a 10 minute break at work.

 

[Christopher]

My apologies, I actually meant to write the Basil Rathbone movies taking liberties with the source material. Hazard of writing quick form when I've only got a 10 minute break at work.

As I think I mentioned, it's a little-known fact these days that before 1950, it was far more common for Sherlock Holmes movies to update the setting to the present day than to set them in Victorian times. After all, the Holmes stories were still being published through 1927, so for the first couple of decades or so of Holmes cinema, it was a contemporary series. And so most films continued to treat it that way for the next couple of decades, the first two Rathbone films being the main exceptions (along with the 1916 silent film adapting William Gillette's stage play). It was only in the '50s onward, when a generation had grown up thinking of Holmes as a character from the past instead of the present, that it became standard for Holmes stories to be period pieces. (It's weird how total the transition was, though -- from mostly contemporary adaptations pre-1950 to exclusively period portrayals of Holmes post-1950, and then Sherlock and Elementary coming along in quick succession in the 2010s.)

So while the Rathbone-Bruce films did take their liberties, especially with Watson, in many ways they were more authentic than their modern reputation would have it. They had lots of neat little nods to ideas and details from the stories, like the paraphernalia found around 221B Baker Street and the bullet holes Holmes fired into the wall there. And Basil Rathbone was a superlative Holmes, aside from being, like Jeremy Brett after him, somewhat too old for the character as described in the stories (who was mid-20s in A Study in Scarlet and in his 30s for the majority of the canon).

 

[fireproof78]

An aside, the thing that still amuses me all these years later is that, I'm old enough to remember some of the movie critics of the time reacting to the 1989 movie, saying things like, "Where's Robin?', and "Why isn't it colourful and camp like the 1960s classic?", etc etc. But a scant five years later when Warner Brothers more or less gave them what they asked for in '89, everyone pilloried it because they'd all had time to get used to Burton's Batman, and the idea of anything other than that was now a definite step backwards!

I take slight comfort in the fact that Star Trek is not the only fandom-if only slight.

 

[Damian]

If you only create based on focus groups and formulas, you'll just create something generic and soulless. A creator's inspiration should come from within. It should be a story they want to tell, done the way they want to tell it, or it won't be done with heart and passion. True, one person's passions won't always resonate with a large audience, but all you can do is try. Better to do something sincere and fail because it's too weird than to do something calculated and mechanical and fail because it's too routine.

I'm not sure nightdiamond is suggesting they go that far necessarily. If I'm reading it right I think she (or he?) is more or less saying is that it's not a bad idea to take a step back from their work and look at it from a fan's perspective. You'll never satisfy all the fans, that's futile. But could the showrunners sometimes be too close to what they are working with. I think, in general with anything in life really, it pays to occasionally step back from what you are working on.

Sort of say to yourself, if I were a fan watching this what would I think? I'm not saying they don't necessarily do that. I mean, I don't know, maybe they do.

 

[Lance]

As I think I mentioned, it's a little-known fact these days that before 1950, it was far more common for Sherlock Holmes movies to update the setting to the present day than to set them in Victorian times. After all, the Holmes stories were still being published through 1927, so for the first couple of decades or so of Holmes cinema, it was a contemporary series. And so most films continued to treat it that way for the next couple of decades, the first two Rathbone films being the main exceptions (along with the 1916 silent film adapting William Gillette's stage play). It was only in the '50s onward, when a generation had grown up thinking of Holmes as a character from the past instead of the present, that it became standard for Holmes stories to be period pieces. (It's weird how total the transition was, though -- from mostly contemporary adaptations pre-1950 to exclusively period portrayals of Holmes post-1950, and then Sherlock and Elementary coming along in quick succession in the 2010s.)

So while the Rathbone-Bruce films did take their liberties, especially with Watson, in many ways they were more authentic than their modern reputation would have it. They had lots of neat little nods to ideas and details from the stories, like the paraphernalia found around 221B Baker Street and the bullet holes Holmes fired into the wall there. And Basil Rathbone was a superlative Holmes, aside from being, like Jeremy Brett after him, somewhat too old for the character as described in the stories (who was mid-20s in A Study in Scarlet and in his 30s for the majority of the canon).

Well, you and I both know that, Mister Bennett. But my point is, I'm sure there were die-hard fanboys complaining about it anyway. We just never heard much from them, because things like the internet didn't exist.

 

[JoeZhang]

In the UK, the most popular version of Poirot was a long running TV show. When Kenneth Branagh did the film a couple of years back, people were claiming the mustache was wrong - except in many respects it's *more* inline with how it is described in the books... but of course most of the viewers have never read the books. Canon as always being "what I am familiar with".

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Actually, Suchet's take on Poirot (particularly the later the dramatizations) was deliberately styled after the original descriptions, including an original Christie sketch reproduced on the cover of one of the anthologies:

Which is backed up by quotes (allegedly) made by Suchet, reproduced on IMDB:

People ask me if I tried to make my Poirot popular. I didn't. All I did was to start to read Agatha Christie's novels. I wanted to be the Poirot that she would be proud of. So out went the funny costume designs and the huge moustaches. And in went everything that she had written. The morning suits. The little gifts of vases of flowers. The perfect moustache.

The worst thing I can do as an actor is to say, 'How shall I play this role?' That can lead to misinterpretation because you'll be doing what/want. So what I do on everything is what I did with Agatha Christie. I started reading - with a huge notebook to write down every single character detail that I could find. Not to determine how I was going to play [Poirot], but just to get to know what she was writing, what eccentricities, how he dressed, what was his past. So having got this dossier, then you have to study the personality and use your imagination, using every piece of creativity within oneself to who "I" may be, to become rather than adapt them to be me. I worked on his dress sense, on how he looked, on the padding underneath to give me the shape that Agatha Christie had designed for him - with his head slightly forward, tilted to one side - 'like a blackbird' she describes him. I started to become his protector - when directors wanted to turn him into a comedy, into a two-dimensional character, and I just wanted to be the Poirot that Christie wrote. I didn't want to be just a comedy cardboard cutout.

To help me, I managed to get hold of a set of Belgian Walloon and French radio recordings from the BBC. Poirot came from Liège in Belgium and would have spoken Belgian French, the language of 30 per cent of the country's population, rather than Walloon, which is very much closer to the ordinary French language. To these I added recordings of English-language stations broadcasting from Belgium, as well as English-language programs from Paris. My principal concern was to give my Poirot a voice that would ring true, and which would also be the voice of the man I heard in my head when I read his stories. I listened for hours, and then gradually started mixing Walloon Belgian with French, while at the same time slowly relocating the sound of his voice in my body, moving it from my chest to my head, making it sound a little more high-pitched, and yes, a little more fastidious. After several weeks, I finally began to believe that I'd captured it: this was what Poirot would have sounded like if I'd met him in the flesh. This was how he would have spoken to me - with that characteristic little bow as we shook hands, and that little nod of the head to the left as he removed his perfectly brushed grey Homburg hat. The more I heard his voice in my head, and added to my own list of his personal characteristics, the more determined I became never to compromise in my portrayal of Poirot.

 

[Christopher]

If I'm reading it right I think she (or he?) is more or less saying is that it's not a bad idea to take a step back from their work and look at it from a fan's perspective.

I find that when creators think like fans, it tends to be to the detriment of the work. Like when Star Trek writers have characters in-universe worship Kirk and the Enterprise as the greatest of all time, when realistically people in-universe would be aware of plenty of other ships and captains that achieved great things. Or when fans of comics characters from decades ago become writers and retcon things to wipe out decades of story and character growth and reset things to the status quo they liked.

One of the most important rules of writing is "kill your darlings" -- don't let sentiment get in the way of good storytelling. But fandom is about embracing your darlings, so it's often contrary to the needs of good writing.

Look at it this way -- athletes and coaches have to make decisions based on what they know is most likely to succeed, not on what will play well for the spectators. It doesn't matter if the audience is booing them, because the audience doesn't know what they know from experience and practice. As long as it gets results, the audience will cheer again soon enough. Professional knowledge and training are a more useful standard to draw on for making decisions than fannish sentiments and impressions. Because fans only know what they like -- professionals know why it works.

 

[JoeZhang]

Actually, Suchet's take on Poirot (particularly the later the dramatizations) was deliberately styled after the original descriptions, including an original Christie sketch reproduced on the cover of one of the anthologies:

Except... that drawing does not match how she actually writes about the Mustache...

Throughout Christie’s stories, his moustache was described as ‘gigantic’, ‘immense’ and ‘amazing’, pointing to the importance of this physical asset. By 1934 Poirot himself was described as ‘a little man with enormous moustaches’ in Murder on the Orient Express.

KB clearly has worked off how the Tache is actually described in Murder on the Orient Express. Suchet's version can be described in lots of ways but gigantic and immense are not what spring to mind.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Interesting...

However, I still feel that Kenneth Branagh would always have had an uphill battle against the vastly more detailed and nuanced portrayal of Poirot that Suchet was able to give the audience over thirteen series totalling seventy episodes (over a hundred hours) spread across twenty-four years, even if some of the visual details of Suchet's portrayal leaned more on early character drafts and RW research that Christie wouldn't have been able to include than the minutia of the published books.

A good comparison might be to Christopher Reeve as the widely regarded "benchmark" Superman, despite not being the first (even on tv/film) and taking some liberities with the character, due to how long he played the character, even if he didn't appear all that often.

 

[Soong-type Android]

The same thing happened with The Terminator series. The first two were great, but it was basically ruined after that.

Arguably the success of T2 was to blame. It turned it from a sci-fi horror into action adventure territory and a series of increasingly dreadful movies tried to replicate T2's formula. I'd like to see a Terminator film closer to the first. Interesting what Dark Fate will be like - can't be any worse than Genesys!

 

[Damian]

I find that when creators think like fans, it tends to be to the detriment of the work.

I agree there is that danger. I'm always a middle of the road kind of guy so I always thought balance is a good rule of thumb. In this case take a step back now and again but don't get carried away. I think you can critique your work from a fan perspective without necessarily thinking like a fan. A lot of them are fans themselves. How do they like their own work.

I mean, I'm sure in some ways they probably do that in some sense.

 

[Christopher]

I think you can critique your work from a fan perspective without necessarily thinking like a fan. A lot of them are fans themselves. How do they like their own work.

I mean, I'm sure in some ways they probably do that in some sense.

Yes, they're fans, but the perspective of a consumer is not that meaningful for a creator. They're opposite ends of the process. Liking food doesn't make you a good cook. Being a sports fan doesn't make you an athlete. You have to learn the technique. You have to know a thousand things that consumers or spectators will never even be aware of as considerations.

 

[Damian]

Yes, they're fans, but the perspective of a consumer is not that meaningful for a creator. They're opposite ends of the process. Liking food doesn't make you a good cook. Being a sports fan doesn't make you an athlete. You have to learn the technique. You have to know a thousand things that consumers or spectators will never even be aware of as considerations.

Yes, of course. I just was saying I understand nightdiamond's point that sometimes it's probably helpful to step back. But it's one of probably a million things to look at when making a show. But certainly the biggest goal is to make something people will like. So you'd probably want to think to yourself 'would I like this as a fan'. Taken from the opposite end if you step back and say 'no, I'd probably hate this' well I think you might have a problem.

In a sense I'm sure that goes for any show anyone makes.

 

[Christopher]

But certainly the biggest goal is to make something people will like. So you'd probably want to think to yourself 'would I like this as a fan'. Taken from the opposite end if you step back and say 'no, I'd probably hate this' well I think you might have a problem.

And the idea that professionals somehow don't already know that and need to have it explained to them by amateurs is naive. Just because a particular fan didn't like the result doesn't mean that the creator wasn't trying to make a satisfying work. It just means that tastes differ and that what is tried isn't always successful.