Article on Chud about Serenity and its Fans

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

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:09 PM

Bickle? Is that you?

SOKOLOV

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:24 PM

"It’s been interesting, this past week, to watch the Browncoats go through all the stages of grieving as laid out by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross."

I stopped reading after this sentence.

Why? Because there is no such thing as "stages of grieving as laid out by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross."

What Elisabeth (yes, with an 's') did do was set out steps for a person who is APPROACHING DEATH (e.g. terminally ill).

Thus, it originally has nothing to do with grief. The grief idea has been popularized by the same people who thinks the "law of averages" exists. (Altho Elisabeth did admit in her book that she believed it MIGHT be applicable to other instances of loss, such as divorce.)

Ultimately, emotions are so complicated and individual it can hardly be "summarized" into 5 steps that everyone experiences, especially when you extrapolate it to an entire community.

I always find it sad that presumably educated people don't actually know what they are talking about.

THANATUS

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:49 PM

Well stated Sokolov...if not a little harsh. This is a common misconception outside the realm of healthcare, clergy, and hospice among others. In fact, it is co common a misconception that it has, right or wrong, become a part of the vernacular. You might want to read the rest of the article, though. Actually, it's not quite as sweeping a condemnation as one might imagine.

Cheers

OPENNING

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:11 PM

I think what bothered me the most about the article was the thought that, because I'm not an American, there was little I could do. I realize that this probably puts me in the 'overzealous' category, but the only thing I thought as I read this article was "...so the fact that I've seen this movie more than once and have been getting my friends to go see it is pointless?"

NERVOUSPETE

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:14 PM

I agree with Vancouver and want to buy him a lovely pint of beer. A really nice beer as well, a micro-brewery or something, none of your piss Carling or Coors!

I sent a massive email to Devin, long-winded as only mine can be. I tend to try and cover all points of views in my emails, and this gets annoying sometimes as ("Get on with it, fool," - the Ghost of Dorothy Parker)

Erk. Sorry, Dorothy.

I sort of agree with Devin, but it could be because this is the first time I've been with a fan community and I'm always a little freaked out by people saying, "I've been to see it ten times!" and "Ambush people at the entrance, beg them to see this!" But then the only film I've ever seen three times at the cinema before is the genuinely wonderful (and I don't care, I'll fight you all!) 'Master & Commander', so what do I know, eh?

I agree with Devin that I don't like the way companies are beginning to co-opt fans as unpaid marketing tools. I agree with him that a fan's obligation is to go see the film as many times as they want, talk it up as much as they want, and maybe call in dark and terrible Godfatheresque 'favours'. All this guerilla marketing makes me a little wary. At first I was all for it, thinking of enigmatic little flyers here and there and the odd mini-spray painting. A little tribute to a love for all the world to see. Then I began to suspect that what they actually want, and get in some cases, is lots of money and time spent effectively doing their marketing department's job for them.

Which, curiously, Universal's more or less did. They promoted it as much as any other film in that budget bracket, I've seen posters, trailers and TV spots - and not on the internet either. In the UK at least, I don't know about the US. There could have been more TV interviews, but that was down to the TV stations themselves balking at what they saw as unknowns taking up valuable couch space.

Ultimately the fault lies with a long decay of expectation and imagination in the general audience. Anything threatening to be new, original and untested is as much shunned by viewers as by the corporations, tragically. This is why Star Trek trucks on right up until the wreck that was Enterprise, while lovely little things like Eerie Indianna and Wonderfalls explode in salty tears. Or something. That's probably why Serenity was doomed on the big screen. Star Wars is known, people almost have a gorram sense of obligation to see it - even if they aren't fans because it is an institution. Serenity isn't - it's loveingly obscure in its beliefs and charms, and thus is ignored. Believe me, it sends me to bed crying.

I have only been amazed once by a cinematic miracle, and that is over Donnie Darko suddenly exploding and the depresso-ace cover single 'Mad World' hitting Christmas No.1 in the UK. "Touche!" you may say, "this means that Serenity can be exactly such a sleeper with the dedication of her fans!"

But Donnie Darko, like Firefly, didn't have any fans before it existed. It had to grab them by the balls and drag them into its world. As the old adage says, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." Innocent word of mouth succeeds where fannish clawing fails.

I'm afraid I'm going to rant a little here - and it's not aimed just at Browncoats but fandom in general, though the Browncoat phenonomon has brought it to my attention. This is addressed to the real hardcore.

Not that we shouldn't shout its praises - if you love any film, book or show you should do that. But as Devin said, one shouldn't approach it from the angle of a military campaign, or a religious angle - because you can only end up hurting yourself, and perhaps other people.

The main annoyance I have with fandom is its fanatical exclusion of other works. In an ideal world, I believe people would be running all over the place sampling many other wonderful things. There are even greater stories than Firefly out there that deserve attention as well - which is why film novelisations feck me off so much for a start. You should treasure t

UNICORN

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 4:35 AM

Openning, I've been feeling fairly useless and powerless too. I suppose I'm one of the crazies described by the CHUD author, seeing as a great deal of my personal happiness and well-being are tied up in the success of Serenity and in its ability to earn a sequel or sequels or (oh please!) to rekindle the series.

I guess it's crazy that I, usually an extremely anti-corporate soul and on top of that, an anti-proseletizer, have allowed myself "to be a tool of the man," and do as much advertizing as I can for this film. I would ordinarily agree D. of CHUD that being such a tool is a sign of weak brains and weaker wills.

But here's the thing, and I think a lot of you guys reading know what I mean: I'm not doing this for Universal, or even for Joss, though you gotta love him if you love Serenity... I'm doing this for purely selfish reasons, and it's my choice to do so. How often does something this good come along? I'm not one for a stiff upper lip. If I love something and there's anything I can do, I have to try. And yes, we're on the ropes, but when have we ever NOT been? I'm sorry, maybe my hearing's deficient, but I'm not hearing the fat lady just yet, and I'm not giving up. If I'm delusional, pardon me. I'm polite and quiet and not pushy when I talk to people about this movie, but I will continue to try, because if I don't, I'll be wretched.

Vancouver, thank you for your beautiful post.

There is no such thing as a weed.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 5:19 AM

I posted this already, but here it is again.

Serenity was a success from the point of view of firefly, because of the effect it had on the series, kicking the original dvd collection to amazon sales rank #1 for television. This was a phenomenal response by itself.

Secondly, all vote padding aside, it's rocket on to the IMDB top 250 is very clearly justified by the vote distribution. This is also remarkable.

What these say is that interest in the show is alive well and larger than ever, and at the same time, the product is of a quality that can easily compete with big massive scifi efforts such as star wars or terminator, and perhaps more than stng.

What else was shown was that it didn't slay at the box office. So what, neither did 1/2 the movies on the imdb top 250, including shawshank redemption, the #2 film.

Here's some logic, people:

Serenity was a movie which was a continuation of a TV show. Generally no one watches such a movie except those who watched the show. This show had about a million fans before. That would yield it
$7M in BO receipts. Anything above that is a miracle.

Basically it did as well as could be expected and had the desired auxialliary effects. It was a calculated move by Joss to achieve his ends, and revive the series, and I think he did well. Kudos to Joss.

I'm going to kill them all. That oughtta distract 'em

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 5:23 AM

You know whoever owns this site assuming they wrote this code, please go in an add a little barrier or signifier of some sort for the signature.
It comes out as just more text, and it really needs to be auto-distinguished in some way from the regular text.

Quote:

I'm going to kill them all. That oughtta distract 'em

RACEFANZ

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 7:35 AM

jesus christ that article from ANTHONYT was the most bloviated long winded post ive ever had to stop reading, damn

This site is the best for general movie finanical, etc. information. The BDM still hasnt broke even.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=serenity.htm

Those that beat their swords into plowshares will farm for those of us that dont.

Steve from Yuma....OUT

CLJOHNSTON108

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 11:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by StakeTheLurk:
This is the third in a series of articles in which he basically repeats the same ideas.

Kinda like Kenneth Turan's campaign against "Titanic".

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