beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2009-05-30 11:34 pm
beccatoria) wrote2009-05-30 11:34 pm
Entry tags:
Vague meta on post-BSG-finale production and general rambling.
You guys, it's been like a week since I posted here. That's crazy. But really nothing has happened. I didn't get that cool job I wanted so blah. But at least I have a part-time typing job in the meantime that I don't hate and in this economy I'm lucky to have that.
Also I am SO TIRED and already tried going to bed once, but it didn't work. So instead I'm here. LUCKY YOU.
As to my title, well...
I was mostly just wondering if you guys agreed with me. It...seems to me that in the wake of the finale, fan-production has really slowed down. After the initial flood of post-finale realistic-on-earth fic and stuff I mean. Which is to be expected; canon is closed and all. But...my limited previous experience about ends of fandoms is that there's a longer "OMG NOW WE CAN PLAY EVERYWHERE!" buzz.
I admit that I don't really read much fic so like...I'm not in the best position to judge. It's not like I really pay attention to the_wireless or anything. So...probably I'm crazy. But I do pay slightly more attention to vids.
And I've noticed:
1) vid production was down in general from what it was during seasons two and three that's been true all season and I think probably during season 4 too. It think, sad as it may be to admit it, our fandom just shrunk.
2) the vids that have been published are nowhere near as finale- or whole-journey-centric as I was expecting. Again, this is potentially just my bias and the fact I'm no longer quite as "I'LL WATCH EVERYTHING!" as I once was. And there have been a few, like, Laura vids for instance that are about her whole storyline and I just don't have the heart to watch them. So it's possible again, my sample is biased. But honestly, the couple of times I've geared myself up to watch a vid with spoilers through the finale, the vids themselves seem to be...often very Battlestar-Redactica-compatible. I mean, they aren't. Because often you get the epic shots of people in fields on Earth at an End Point, or Ships Sailing At The Sun. Or Adama Addressing Everyone in the Hangar Deck. But...I find the vids surprisingly consistant in the storylines they choose to not show or not address. It's perhaps less surprising that they don't wallow in the events of Deadlock or Tyrol's murderous Eight Killing Spree. But I have been surprised that inclusion of Daybreak is so limited. Sometimes the included element is Kara jumping the ship. Or maybe it's the five on the catwalk. But...the shots are almost always so...
It's probably my bias but it's almost like the vids are, as a favour to me, performing their own miniature Battlestar Redactica treatment. "Sure, we're ending with the people on Earth because that's a lovely endpoint image, but let's not really spend any time on HOW they get there. They just do and it probably wasn't as lame as it was on the show." Or, "Sure, Kara jumps them SOMEWHERE but let's cut away before we really get into where." Or, "Yeah so the shot of the ships in front of the sun is pretty, but they could totally just be flying past it."
I guess I'm just kind of surprised (and relieved) that even if it's just my bias, I really feel that there's an odd lack of vids that are interested in just generally retelling the story of 4.5 and are oddly self-regulating in just...not mentioning the crap bits? Unlike post Revelations or Crossroads or LDYB when EVERY VID EVER would just be ALL ABOUT the story arc that got them there? Rather than just the final image and a kind of moratorium on spending too much time on what came before?
/craziness.
Anyway, is that just me?
Also I am SO TIRED and already tried going to bed once, but it didn't work. So instead I'm here. LUCKY YOU.
As to my title, well...
I was mostly just wondering if you guys agreed with me. It...seems to me that in the wake of the finale, fan-production has really slowed down. After the initial flood of post-finale realistic-on-earth fic and stuff I mean. Which is to be expected; canon is closed and all. But...my limited previous experience about ends of fandoms is that there's a longer "OMG NOW WE CAN PLAY EVERYWHERE!" buzz.
I admit that I don't really read much fic so like...I'm not in the best position to judge. It's not like I really pay attention to the_wireless or anything. So...probably I'm crazy. But I do pay slightly more attention to vids.
And I've noticed:
1) vid production was down in general from what it was during seasons two and three that's been true all season and I think probably during season 4 too. It think, sad as it may be to admit it, our fandom just shrunk.
2) the vids that have been published are nowhere near as finale- or whole-journey-centric as I was expecting. Again, this is potentially just my bias and the fact I'm no longer quite as "I'LL WATCH EVERYTHING!" as I once was. And there have been a few, like, Laura vids for instance that are about her whole storyline and I just don't have the heart to watch them. So it's possible again, my sample is biased. But honestly, the couple of times I've geared myself up to watch a vid with spoilers through the finale, the vids themselves seem to be...often very Battlestar-Redactica-compatible. I mean, they aren't. Because often you get the epic shots of people in fields on Earth at an End Point, or Ships Sailing At The Sun. Or Adama Addressing Everyone in the Hangar Deck. But...I find the vids surprisingly consistant in the storylines they choose to not show or not address. It's perhaps less surprising that they don't wallow in the events of Deadlock or Tyrol's murderous Eight Killing Spree. But I have been surprised that inclusion of Daybreak is so limited. Sometimes the included element is Kara jumping the ship. Or maybe it's the five on the catwalk. But...the shots are almost always so...
It's probably my bias but it's almost like the vids are, as a favour to me, performing their own miniature Battlestar Redactica treatment. "Sure, we're ending with the people on Earth because that's a lovely endpoint image, but let's not really spend any time on HOW they get there. They just do and it probably wasn't as lame as it was on the show." Or, "Sure, Kara jumps them SOMEWHERE but let's cut away before we really get into where." Or, "Yeah so the shot of the ships in front of the sun is pretty, but they could totally just be flying past it."
I guess I'm just kind of surprised (and relieved) that even if it's just my bias, I really feel that there's an odd lack of vids that are interested in just generally retelling the story of 4.5 and are oddly self-regulating in just...not mentioning the crap bits? Unlike post Revelations or Crossroads or LDYB when EVERY VID EVER would just be ALL ABOUT the story arc that got them there? Rather than just the final image and a kind of moratorium on spending too much time on what came before?
/craziness.
Anyway, is that just me?
no subject
Anyway, point being, this makes me wonder about give and take in fandom relationships. Mythology heavy shows have been trending in television for awhile, but what made some succeed and others fail was often tied to the ratio between what is asked of the audience and what is offered to the audience. It seems to me as though with the closed/lack-of-closure, aside from the A/R fanbase who are generally nuts, they asked a lot without offering anything substantial in return. I mean this extends well beyond usual fan labor and into the realm of fixing their frak ups.
no subject
I really like your differentiation between a closed answer and actual closure. It's a very elegant was of explaining my problems with 4.5 and is about as close as I'm ever likely to come to that mythical and impossible one-line, simple rebuttal of "but you just don't get it!"
Obviously I completely agree with what you're saying about how much work the finale required me to do in order to render it thematically consistant with the rest of the series and not a bandaid out of nowhere that tied everything up in a superficially neat bow but really made no sense. That said, the infuriating problem is how to explain why to people who genuinely do not feel that way and honestly think that the closed answers we received actually answered any of the previously raised questions.
And to that I think there is really no answer.
And perhaps the real reason that there's less fan production is that we're all so tired of having to try and answer that impossible question with everything we produce. Because everything we produce puts us on one side or the other of the divide whether we want it to or not. I mean, I obviously have strong views I wouldn't want my fanstuff to hide, but not everyone feels that way. But it's kind of impossible to avoid.
Probably by now I have stopped making sense. :(