Article on Chud about Serenity and its Fans

POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Thursday, October 13, 2005 20:52
VIEWED: 13043
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GIANTEVILHEAD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 6:58 PM

No movies are popular in China, the new Star Wars only made about $9 million in China, less than what it made in South Korea, a country with less than 1/20th the population of China. People in China don't go to the movies. Pirated DVD's of new movies go for about 5 to 10 Yuan per copy, less than an US dollar, and they're available everywhere. Heck, 99% of all the CD's and DVD's in China are pirated, it’s almost impossible to find a place that sells legit CD’s and DVD’s.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

BROWNCOAT1

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:23 PM

Does he have a couple of valid points about how Hollywood operates & the possible estimates for domestic box office for Serenity? Sure. He seems to have some insight into the industry & how movies work. Good for him. Hope his ego can take the stroking.

I agree w/ everything Joss said in the quote that Steve posted from Whedonesque. I don't care for this guy's "I told you so" or "I was right & you guys suck get over it" attitude.

So he reads a couple of things online about some extremist fans & automatically paints the entire fanbase w/ the brush he does the minority. Sounds pretty unreasonable to me.

Does this guy & his constant putting down of the fanbase & our odds rub me the wrong way? You betcha. Am I going to email him? Nope. Why waste my time & effort? This self righteous hwoon dahn can rot for all I care. Nothing any of us can say will make him see anything different than his own narrow minded, self absorbed opinion.

__________________________________________

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

Richmond, VA & surrounding area Firefly Fans:

http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/richmondbrowncoats/

http://www.richmondbrowncoats.org

HOWARD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:40 PM

There are Chinese communities all over the world. Plus an increasing fascination among other audiences.

HOWARD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:42 PM

As I said the THEATRICAL market in Asia is bigger than the DVD market. Do not forget INDONESIA.

SPINLAND

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:45 PM

Well, I did e-mail him my objection to being tarred with the same brush as the no-life backbirths who gave (give) the rest of Browncoats a bad name. Might not do any good at his end, but it made me feel better.

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I don't know what your problem is, but I bet it's hard to pronounce.

GIANTEVILHEAD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:52 PM

Counterfeiting is extremely rampant in China, India, Indonesia, and all the third world countries in Asia. Not only are the counterfeit DVD’s extremely cheap, most of them are high quality, ripped from screeners. Not to mention the fact that movie theaters are almost non-existent in those countries. I’ve been to China, I’ve been to India, I’ve lived in a Chinese city of three million called Taiyuan, there were about four or five movie theaters in the entire city, not multiplexes, single screen movie theaters, dirty and empty single screen theaters.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

SHINY

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 8:37 PM

Sounds to me with all the armchair psychoanalysis, this guy is telling us browncoats to deal with the "fact" that this is the end for these stories.

But browncoats are like Mal. As Fanty (or Mingo?) said, "You fight when you should deal."

There's nothing new about naysayers, nothing special about critics, nothing fulfilling about tearing others down.

Book says he don't care what you believe in, just believe.

I believe in these characters and these stories. And I believe in my fellow browncoats.

We're holding. And we're gonna keep flyin'.

---

Serenity is coming. 9/30/05.

VANCOUVER

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 8:54 PM

I'm kind of a neophyte in all this-well, I'm a total newbie, in point of fact. New enough that my first thought was to reply to Devin himself, so I did. Here's what I said.

Hello there, Devin.

I'll start out by letting you know where I'm positioned in all of this, so you'll have an idea how to process my response. I'm new to the whole Internet-Browncoat scene--just found my first Serenity/Firefly site day before yesterday, as I noodled around trying to see what the outlook for a sequel or TV resurrection was--so I haven't been following your commentary from the start. I happened across Joss Whedon's response to your non-review, and had a lot of the same questions you did about writers vis-a-vis fans. That said, emotionally I'm totally invested: I feel sick at heart at the idea of the movie not doing well enough, and even sicker at the cancellation of the TV show, which was clearly the best venue for the concept. So I'm passionate, even something of a zealot, though perhaps not full-on rabid.

I found your latest CHUD piece well-thought-out and well-written. Thank you for that. (I have no idea what CHUD is, but I'll check it out over the next few days.) Your intrigue about Firefly and its fan base reminds me of my own take on the about Michael Jordan frenzy back in the early '90s. I wrote a lot of thoughtful articles about that--meaning thoughtful in both the amount of thought, and in consideration--so I think I know where you're coming from with this, and I believe that your comments are in good faith, not meant to be malign.

The thing is, do you fully believe your own analysis of the Browncoats' grief? Because if you do, then the question of why they (we) have lost their (our) perspective is self-answering. In a state of grief, people do. I mean, if you go to someone's funeral, and you write up a piece on it that says, "Well, you know, she was a pretty great kid, she had lots of potential, lots of people loved her--but let's face it, she had cystic fibrosis, and it's a miracle that she lived as long as she did, and there have been other kids who deserved life as much or more who also died..."--well, you're going to get some anger, right? That's why they don't ask reporters to funerals. It hurts. It doesn't necessarily mean that we were deluded about that person in life, or that we weren't realistic about their prospects, or even that we don't know that we're distorting their memory. It just hurts, at the time, and there is no way for you or anyone to be sensitive and objective about it at the same time. To charge us, essentially, with having a disproportionate response can only add to the hurt. Ask us again a few years on, when Serenity/Firefly has long since faded, and you might get something more rational. But it's hardly a sign of greater objectivity, or rationality, to be able to comment as someone who didn't love upon the actions of those who did. Do you know what I mean?

You are dealing here, as well, with two things that the fans of other cancelled shows haven't had: hope, and a second death. Firefly's characters were given new hope, and new life, and you must be able to understand that when the specialist has come in and, against all odds, said, "Your child might live", and brought her to a new state of health and activity, it is all that much harder to accept that the death is real. And, if I may say so, no bystander with an iota of human understanding would expect the emotional reality to be, "Well, at least she got a bit more time than she was supposed to." That's the kind of thing people say to cope; it's not how they're really feeling, and it won't be for quite a long time she's dead and buried.

Understanding that "grief is the price we pay for love," as Queen Elizabeth (! of all people) put it, don't you think the question is less why we're in such a state of grief, and more why we felt such an excess of love? I can't agree with you, by the way, that the love, or the fanbase, is "unprecedented"; it's just that the precedents are in different places, namely 1) in sports, especially

SPINLAND

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:03 PM

Wow. That was an incredible piece. Thank you for writing it, for putting Devin in his place so gently yet firmly, and for sharing it with us.

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"That's what governments are for, [to] get in a man's way." -- Malcolm Reynolds

STAKETHELURK

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:03 PM

Please, please, please do not go to his site or respond directly to him. This is the third in a series of articles in which he basically repeats the same ideas. Why is he writing about this for the third time? Because it gets him more hits for his website. Browncoats and browncoat-haters all rush to see what he has to say--which is why he’s been writing three articles saying the same thing (Joss was responding to the first article). He’s just whining for attention at this point, and I say we ignore him.

All three of his articles have been discussed at length over at Whedonesque for the past week. Here’s some relevant points:

Article One:

Quote:
Originally posted by bonzob on Whedonesque:

This makes me angry in many ways. Especially the "it shouldn't be a movie" part. I love when internet critics just ignore a whole boatload of positive reviews to make it sound like their opinion is absolute fact. So according to rottentomatoes, there are 90 critics who would disagree with your assesment. While the box office is not that great, it's also not the end. Joss has always said this will be a word of mouth movie.

Quote:
Originally posted by Odysseus on Whedonesque:

I pretty much disagree with everything the guy said. But having read some of his past articles about Firefly/Serenity I have a lot of trouble even taking him seriously. I'm ok with him having a different opinion. I just don't like the snide tone he takes to express it.

The snide attitude comes in when he says the movie shouldn't have been made - kind of backhands his comment about it deserving to do well. How can a movie that "deserves to do well" not deserve to be made? He says it's lazy writing like it's a fact not an opinion. He acts like he is 100 percent certain there will be fan backlash, saying we will blame Universal. The last paragraph he insults us for our "finger pointing" that I have yet to even see.

Quote:
Originally posted by Unitas:

Oh, does anyone agree with Devin's last comment? Is hardcore fanning (is this a word?) turning people off of some movies? Personally, I don't really see it. Star Trek just seemed to run out of steam (finally). Star Wars is the biggest film of the year. As for Serenity, I have hard time believing that the fan base was so difficult that it literally kept a sizeable number people out of theatres. That seems a little much.

Quote:
Originally posted by eddy on Whedonesque:

Oh and "more than slightly ashamed that they conferred a weird group identity upon themselves." is a total slap in the face to all fandoms IMO. What is wrong with being part of a group? The thing I can take out of all Joss' shows is that its a good thing to be part of a group who have the same goals and interests and that if you work together you can accomplish anything.

Quote:
Originally posted by jenolen on Whedonesque:

His assertation:

"The film will, most likely, make some money overseas (although I tend to think not in non-English markets) and will definitely earn a bunch on DVD, but domestic box office is generally what it’s all about."

... means he is either totally out of touch with the realities of the entertainment business, or has, at best, an amateur-level understanding of the economics of moviemaking.

Some proof? How about this quote, from Variety, courtesy the View Askewniverse:

But as DVD revenues become more important to studios -- in 2003, DVD sales totaled $11.9 billion, according to Variety sibling Video Business, nearly 30% bigger than the $9.2 billion in U.S. box office that year -- studios began to look for talent who could move units at Wal-Mart the same way Cruise fills seats at the multiplex... DVD dollars are worth more to the studios than box office dollars, because they keep the lion's share of homevideo revenues.

Hmm. DVD sales... Anybody here know a franchise launched on the basis of fantastic DVD sales? Not to mention...

Foreign B.O. used to be an afterthought in the movie biz, gravy that could pad studio

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