Links and Updates

I know I say this every time I do one of these posts, but DAMN THERE’S A LOT OF STUFF HAPPENING. It almost feels like they’ve left everything I have a specific interest in till the second half of the year, and I still have to get to The Umbrella Academy, Westworld and Russian Doll. And the latest seasons of Star Trek Discovery, Nancy Drew and Evil, plus the last four of The Handmaid’s Tale (I have a co-worker who loves it and is constantly telling me to catch up; ironic since I’m the one that introduced her to it).

And so much of what’s coming is fantasy/horror/sci-fi. The Midnight Club, The Sandman, Willow, The Dragon Prince, Interview with the Vampire, Wednesday (I wasn’t that interested, then I read a synopsis, and suddenly it has my attention). The Big Three are back, with She-Hulk, House of the Dragon and Andor ticking off the MCU, Game of Thrones and Star Wars boxes, plus The Rings of Power for The Lord of the Rings fans (that latest trailer has got me back on board).

You guys, there is so much stuff.

I’ve decided to make August a period piece month, so I’m going to watch the second Downton Abbey movie, Mr Malcolm’s List and (brace yourself) Netflix’s Persuasion. Also, I’ve got Kate Beckinsale’s Love and Friendship stashed away somewhere, and the second season of the miraculously-resurrected Sanditon as well. I’ve also had the recent urge to rewatch North and South with Richard Armitage, and maybe I can squeeze in a season of Larkrise to Candleford as well, which I’ve never actually seen.

And when is Miss Scarlet and the Duke back on? And the next season of The Crown?? And Enola Holmes 2??? I thought in that last case we would at least get an airdate after Stranger Things wrapped up.

I have no intention of watching House of the Dragon, but I have to say I’m curious about how it’s going to be received after the final season of Game of Thrones. I’m sure it will bring in a large audience (as fandom is completely delusional about the amount of sway it has over viewing figures) but at the same time, Game of Thrones disappeared so profoundly from the zeitgeist so quickly after its conclusion that I’m not sure it will be the runaway hit its predecessor was either.

And George R.R. Martin’s quote that there are no sympathetic characters for the viewer to root for does absolutely nothing for me. I think people in general are tired of these grimdark storylines in which people are greedy and sordid and nothing ever gets any better, and the fact they’re centring Rhaenyra as the protagonist (or at least seem to be) is laughable considering her ultimate fate. They’re just doing Daenerys’s arc all over again, which is the epitome of believing you’re going to get a better outcome the second time you do the exact same thing.

(Furthermore, it looks like the rivalry between Rhaenyra and Alicent is also going to be the focus, which means fandom is going to be absolutely unbearable. If there’s one thing fandom can’t handle, it’s two complicated women – neither one wholly good or bad – at war with each other. One will be upheld as a virtuous heroine who never did anything wrong, and the other will be the evillest monster to ever walk the earth, regardless of whatever complexity actually plays out on the screen).

Airing more or less at the same time is The Rings of Power, and I have to admit that the latest trailer got me back on board (it’s getting rather exhausting jumping on and off the bandwagon). At the very least, Cynthia Addai-Robinson looks absolutely phenomenal, and I’ll tune in just to see her swanning around in those amazing costumes.

Fandom still has its knickers in a bunch over the whole project, and though I can sympathize with that considering some of the questionable creative decisions on display, I’m ready at this point to let it surprise me. And honestly, the most entertaining thing on the internet at the moment is the fraught debate on whether or not Sauron is hot enough.

He’s not, but he’s also a creepy-looking white guy who’s going to murder a lot of people, so you can understand why fandom might be a little confused.

In less snarky news, the best thing to come out of Comic Con is not the latest deluge of superhero trailers, but news that the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender animated film is going to centre on Aang as a young adult, and that Greg Weisman is writing more Gargoyles comics!

On the first point, a part of me wishes Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko had decided to delve further back into the history/mythology of their invented world, since there is so much potential to be mined there – how about a pre-Yangchen Avatar? Or an adaptation of the Kyoshi novels? Or Kuruk’s story? (We still don’t have all the details of what went down between him and Koh the Face Stealer).

But Aang and the rest of the gang post-show (and pre-Korra) has a lot of potential too – we might get to meet Lin’s father at the very least! It’ll be interesting to see if the film remains canon with the graphic novels though, as I can’t help but feel that the search for Zuko’s mother might be too enticing a hook to resist, even though it was covered in The Search. And will they bring back the original (mainly white) cast after the recent discourse about race-appropriate voice acting?

As for Gargoyles... it’s not as exciting as a continuation of the animated show, but I can live with that. Creator Greg Weisman already continued the show in comic book form back in 2006 – 2009 (and yes, I have all the issues) only for it to get cancelled due to Disney raising its licensing fees. But it was obvious that he had complex and far-reaching plans for the storylines that got jettisoned all too soon, as can be seen on his Ask Greg blog which has been running for some years now.

Let’s hope Disney doesn’t screw him over this time. And while they’re at it, let him write all the spin-offs as well! According to his website he had plans for a TimeDancer story-arc (Brooklyn gets hold of the Phoenix Gate and starts journeying through time) and another called Pendragon (Arthur and Griff start searching for Merlin and Excalibur in the present-day). Not to mention more of Bad Guys (Robyn, Dingo, Fang and Yama form a team), The New Olympians (fairly self-explanatory if you’ve seen that episode) and Gargoyles 2198 (again, self-explanatory, but based on the alien invasion that was seeded in the Easter Island episode and set over two hundred years after the original series).

In short: very excited!

Though my Star Wars hiatus will probably continue, the Andor trailer looks pretty good:

As with Rogue One, the thing that interests me is that it’s not about Jedi or Skywalkers, but rather the people on the ground having to deal with the day-to-day injustices of the Empire encroaching on their homes and lives. I’m especially interested to see the political side of things, with Mon Mothma apparently going about espionage “in plain sight” as it were.

(On that note, what a strange journey Genevieve Reilly has been on. Cut out of The Revenge of the Sith, brought back for a cameo role in Rogue One, and now – judging from her placement on the poster – taking a central role).

Like the music. Love that they’re on location. Strange there’s no sign of Kaytoo, as my headcanon was that Cassian had reprogrammed him at a very young age. Was that another member of Maz Katana’s species? It also sounds like this is going to unfold over a much longer period of time, which gets me excited about the work they can do in establishing the growth of the Rebellion.

Also, the poster is an eye-opener: 6:4 in favour of the women (not even counting Fiona Shaw, who we also know is in it). And is that Faye Marsay? It sure looks like her, though I haven’t seen her in ages.

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It’s hard to believe it’s been three (three!) years since the last season of The Dragon Prince, but the hiatus is nearly over... even if I’m probably going to have to rewatch the series just to remind myself about what exactly went on. But we’ve got a very brief teaser and clip to tide us over until November, the latter of which reveals that two whole years have passed since the conclusion of the third season.

HBO Max (or Warner Brothers, or whatever – I don’t know these things) has gone and cancelled Batgirl. It’s a bummer since by all accounts the film was nearly finished, and it had some big names attached to it. Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to parse through all the reasoning behind it, but it’s a big disappointment and means that it’s probably time to bid farewell to the DC Cinematic Universe as a whole. It’s clear nobody has any idea what they’re doing.

Hocus Pocus 2 is definitely a thing now. This was a staple component of my childhood, so I’m sure I’ll at least read the reviews when it’s released, but as one of these long-distant sequels that capitalize on my generation’s insatiable need for nostalgia, I’m not really seeing the point of it. The witches were obliterated at the end of the first movie, the cat-dude went to Heaven with his little sister, and the rest of the kids lived happily ever after. I don’t see how they can go forward from there.

(I do like the colouring on this poster though).

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In other fandom news, I’ve been watching the fandom reaction to Taika Waititi and the Duffer Brothers in the wake of Thor: Love and Thunder and the last two episodes of Stranger Things: Season 4 with fascination.

Waititi’s last project was Our Flag Means Death, which had everyone in rapturous praise; now Love and Thunder apparently wasn’t fantastic and it’s game over. Watching him fall off the pedestal so damn quickly is almost cause for whiplash, and there was a whole article in my local paper called “Falling Out of Love with Taika Waititi” that documented the seemingly overnight phenomenon. I mean, FFS!

All you have to do is take a step back and look at the way the baton has been passed across the most well-known MCU directors: Joss Whedon was on top of the world with the first Avengers, and then everyone hated him after Age of Ultron (and this was before the big blow-up with Charisma Carpenter, Ray Fisher and Justice League). I distinctly remember comments within fandom – especially regarding the ill-advised Black Widow/Hulk romance – that assured people the Russo Brothers would fix his mistakes, who were beloved after Winter Soldier and Civil War.

But despite Infinity War and Endgame being huge financial successes, there were elements that certain fans didn’t like, and I recall Loki stans, Steve/Bucky shippers, and even Thor fans being angry with the creative choices that were made. That meme involving the air hostess snatching a ticket and tersely saying “thank you” made the rounds, with her identified as Waititi taking Thor back from the Russos.

And now this.

I mean, these men are extremely wealthy and will go on being extremely successful (well, maybe not Whedon) but I’m just fascinated by the way fandom raises them up and tears them down so quickly. I guarantee Dave Filoni is just one bad decision away from being regarded as the saviour of Star Wars to a totally reprehensible human being.

In many ways, something similar is happening with the Duffer Brothers in the wake of the latest season of Stranger Things, though to a far lesser extent. The important difference is that the fourth season of their show was well-received by the majority (despite rumblings that it cost too much, was too excessive, too self-indulgent, etc) and even if you were fairly lukewarm about it, you also can’t deny that – at the very least – it delivered a solid story.

Art is incredibly subjective, yet there are basic rules concerning setup and payoff, consistent characterization, and building to a climax that generally make a story good or bad. Like Avatar: The Last Airbender or the original Star Wars trilogy, Stranger Things followed these rules. You could get away with calling it mediocre, but not bad.

But some people are really desperate to convince people it’s bad in order to justify their anger over certain elements not living up to the version of the story they dreamed up in their heads, and as far as I can tell the drama is centred on the death of Eddie Munson and the slow-burn of Will’s sexuality. Which... fine. It’s okay to be disappointed that a popular character got killed off and that they’re still being coy about the fact Will is obviously gay.

But the level of vitriol and rage on display is rather terrifying, not to mention the widespread use of the now-mainstream tactic of hitching your grievances to the language of social justice. It’s not just annoying that Will isn’t out of the closet (even though he’s a pre-teen who lives in the American Midwest in the eighties) it has to be pernicious queerbaiting. Billy’s death is offensive to abuse victims (because he was one) but Max’s sorrow over his death is also offensive to abuse victims (because he was abusive to her). Eddie was queer-coded, so his death is homophobic. What happened to Max was misogynistic, and since they’re already predicting that she’ll regain her sight, it’s ableist too.

And then there’s actual crazy stuff like how the actors probably hate the Duffers, how there are more fanfictions of Mike/Will than Mike/Eleven so that’s the ship they should make canon, and the ever popular “straight white men shouldn’t make things” line of reasoning.

Now look, I’ve made my share of snarky comments over the years about how that particular demographic gets away with all sorts of terrible creative decisions, but when it comes to guys like the Duffer Brothers (and Greg Weisman and Neil Gaiman and Rick Riordan and Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who seem by all accounts to be decent human beings that are aware of social injustice and have an honest interest in exploring such issues in their stories) it’s exhausting to watch as fandom gleefully eviscerates them for the crime of... not telling their story in the way fandom wants them to?  

No, these guys aren’t tragic victims, and yes, in a better world women and non-white creators would get as much publicity and money and opportunities as these aforementioned names, but it’s disturbing to witness the way people can warp their personal preferences into grand moral gestures, while at the same time leeching attention and engagement away from genuine criticisms regarding the representation of gender, race and sexual orientation in pop-culture.

TLDR: Fandom is a fickle bitch, you guys. Neither you or I will ever know the success or fame that these directors/creators have experienced in their lives, but anyone that’s ever had any sort of creative ambition will find it a downer to realize the truth of this guy’s words: