Endgame Thoughts- NO SPOILERS
May. 4th, 2019 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boogiewoogiebuglegalOkay, I saw the film last Sunday. What I've been seeing since, online, is...some really bizarre shit.
I'm going out of my way to avoid spoilers. But regardless of what happened (or didn't happen) in the film? It's absolutely ridiculous to tag the actors in your complaints. It's ludicrous and embarrassing. Don't like the film? Either ignore it altogether or write a fanfic that fixes it. Blaming the actor(s) is just cheap and utterly lacking in class.
I am a Fandom Old. By which I mean, I'm on the high side of 40, and I've been in and out of various fandoms since I was in my early teens, before there was an internet even. (Yes. Really.) Here's the thing. All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. I liked Endgame, even as I absolutely agree with the perspective that if you have to explain your McGuffin over and over, you've failed at some level as a writer. I would have loved to see more with [redacted ] and [redacted] because they're my faves and I love the actors and how they portray them. But if I didn't? If their portrayal was something I didn't like? I wouldn't tell them, because at the end of the day, they don't owe me jack. They're given a script, and they do their best with what they're given. How that all comes together at the end of the day is not really up to them.
(I can, and will, blame TPTB, because they richly deserve it.)
Thirty years ago, I was part of a fandom that split and went to war with itself over the direction of the series. Some of the people who were involved STILL won't talk to each other. On many levels, none of that had to happen then, and none of this has to happen now.
Accept that canon is what you make of it. Accept that fanfic and fanart have never existed in a vacuum. And also accept that showrunners and TPTB are infamous for losing control and/or perspective of their own characters (George Lucas, anyone?) But for goodness' sake-- leave the actors out of it.
I'm going out of my way to avoid spoilers. But regardless of what happened (or didn't happen) in the film? It's absolutely ridiculous to tag the actors in your complaints. It's ludicrous and embarrassing. Don't like the film? Either ignore it altogether or write a fanfic that fixes it. Blaming the actor(s) is just cheap and utterly lacking in class.
I am a Fandom Old. By which I mean, I'm on the high side of 40, and I've been in and out of various fandoms since I was in my early teens, before there was an internet even. (Yes. Really.) Here's the thing. All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. I liked Endgame, even as I absolutely agree with the perspective that if you have to explain your McGuffin over and over, you've failed at some level as a writer. I would have loved to see more with [redacted ] and [redacted] because they're my faves and I love the actors and how they portray them. But if I didn't? If their portrayal was something I didn't like? I wouldn't tell them, because at the end of the day, they don't owe me jack. They're given a script, and they do their best with what they're given. How that all comes together at the end of the day is not really up to them.
(I can, and will, blame TPTB, because they richly deserve it.)
Thirty years ago, I was part of a fandom that split and went to war with itself over the direction of the series. Some of the people who were involved STILL won't talk to each other. On many levels, none of that had to happen then, and none of this has to happen now.
Accept that canon is what you make of it. Accept that fanfic and fanart have never existed in a vacuum. And also accept that showrunners and TPTB are infamous for losing control and/or perspective of their own characters (George Lucas, anyone?) But for goodness' sake-- leave the actors out of it.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-05 03:53 pm (UTC)Showrunners and writers make their decisions and we have no influence over that (and in the few cases where we have, it hasn't necessarily turned out well). The movie/tv show/comic/book is never going to perfectly align with our own personal headcanon and desires. It's just not. And if you can't accept that, they you really shouldn't be consuming someone else's product and just go off and create your own world where you have control over every single thing.
And FFS no one should be blaming the actors. They have almost as little control over the characters as we do. They are given a script. They may be able to ad lib a few lines and bring their own internal backstory to the character, but they're paid to say the lines that they're given. That's their job. Harassment of actors just makes all fans look bad and I haaaaaaaaaate that.
It's one thing to say to the writers, geez, I really wish this had happened or I wish this hadn't happened or this is how I would have done things differently, and another to threaten and harass them. This is never okay. I've read some really great debates about a particular character - a thing that didn't bother me in the moment but upon reflection, yeah, you're right. But that's exactly what you should do - let folks know, I didn't like this and this is why. Even contacting the writers about to say, if you'd done this a little differently it would have played the way you wanted it to, instead of pissing people off. Dialog, folks. Reasoned discussion.
Yeah, I'm a fandom old. I've lived through so many different schisms and wankage and general insanity. I've found that I'm much happier letting go of the idea that I can control canon and instead, find absolute joy in taking that canon and shaping it into whatever the hell I want. Well, okay, letting others do the shaping while I do the admiring because I'm not much of a creator. ;)
no subject
Date: 2019-05-06 06:31 pm (UTC)Like, my personal fanfic canon (i.e., the fanfic I write in, not what I'll read) stops at TWS, and I cherry pick what I like from the rest. As Girlbookwrm put it on one her posts on this issue (I'm paraphrasing) "Endgame" was basically telling everyone---here, go play. Because all our AUs, all our coffee shops and florists and "they live happily ever after in Wakanda"? Those are now CANON. What's not to like about that?
But yeah, PLEASE leave the actors alone. Whatever you don't like? It's not their fault.