Ok, kid in the back in the ill-fitting gold command Star Trek TOS shirt...yes, you have something?
(from a distance, an indignant voice..."But I give them money!")
Yes...yes, you do. We all do. For said stories. There. The relationship ends, as far as who owes what.
Wait, girl in the Storm Trooper armor with the bare middrift (attractive, thankfully)...yes?
(But established properties have a legacy. A fanbase going back decades, even generations. Don't they have a responsibility to live up to those fans and to the creators?)
Sigh. Look, I'm a fan of some long lasting franchises as well as new ones. I have some ideas of what I would like to see. And I like to think I understand what the creators intended. But here's the thing. Times change. New creators come along with ideas of their own, and odds are, they are fans, too. The way they can best do their job is know the material, what makes it work, how it FEELS, ie the things that create the emotional ties to it, what makes it familiar and a world worth visiting again and again. What makes those characters worth hanging out with. THAT is what a creator needs to know. They then bring their own talents and spin to it and create something familiar, yet fresh and new. Not only for old fans, but something the new fans can get onboard with.
For example, the new Doctor Who show has revitalized this franchise. There have been two spinoff shows. Most old fans are back on board as well as legions of new ones. The cool thing is, many of those new fans will also go back and check out the old show episodes, now widely available in many different formats. Will all of them appreciate them? No, but many of them will. And they will draw their friends to it.
Why won't all the new fans like the older show? Because even though the core of the show is intact, that being an ancient alien time and space traveler going on adventures and solving problems with a rotating cast of companions, in a wild and wacky universe with new and familiar faces, the way the tales are told is very different. The older show had a far lower production budget and looked much, much cheaper. It is much more talky. It is more about ideas and concepts. The new show, while also having ideas and concepts, is much more about the emotions of the characters, their relationships, and the inner journey. The older show was distant from those, mostly, and more about the outer journey. The new show is MUCH faster paced, with characters zipping about. On the older show, it was often much more leisurely paced. The characters walked everywhere, often even in the midst of disaster.
Two fundamentally different shows, but the new Doctor Who fundamentally captured what made the old show so good, yet updating it to a new generation with different expectations.
We could analyze other franchises, like Star Trek, which has gone through multiple incarnations, always with bitchy detractors. We could talk about Battlestar Galactica, but some of the complainers there are weird and a little scary. We could talk about comic book adaptations ad nauseum. Casting, production, etc. One of the latest is Fantastic Four. The new film is set to be helmed by indie director Josh Trank, who established some promise early with a widely regarded indie superhero effort Chronicle, that came out in 2012 (see it if you haven't yet, it is really good).
The Fantastic Four is an old comic property that has been abused in more than one film. It has a sizeable fanbase, but it hasn't had the success other comic properties have had in bringing it to the silver screen. We can speculate as to why, but bottom line is, the previous attempts have severely lacked.
Well, now it is Josh Trank's turn. Because of the previous films, the fanbase is feeling understandably gun shy. I get that. I even share it. With the release of the official cast playing the team, it has some even more glum. I will ask you...do these guys...
...look a lot like these guys?
The one especially receiving heat is Michael B. Jordan, who was previously in The Wire and was also directed by Josh Trank in Chronicle, which was probably a big part of him being picked for this role. However, Mr. Jordan...
Doesn't match the blond haired, blue eyed Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, the character he has been casted as. Double especially interesting, considering the actress cast to play his sister Sue Storm, The Invisible Woman, Kate Mara, is ethnically and aesthetically closer to her funnybook inspiration...
Yes, there are all kinds of ways this can be gotten around. And this is not the first time the ethnicity of a comic book character has been changed. Samuel L. Jackson, for example, is not the typical ethnic makeup for Nick Fury. And the "It can be the Ultimates!" is a bit of a copout, as fewer people have read the Ultimates. Then, Ving Rhames as the Kingpin in the Daredevil movie. The movie wasn't that great, but Rhames was a good Kingpin.
Now, given the abuse the Fantastic Four franchise has received, I can understand those fans being anxious. This is natural. So many of us have been waiting for a good FF film to take us on their amazing adventures.
BUT...fans are notoriously bad at gauging worthy actors to a role before the film comes out. I could give you a list of fan fails in this regard. But we all know them so no need to recite. I don't think Johnny's ethnicity is that important in this case. It is more important that his character is written well and Mr. Jordan can portray it convincingly. I have a feeling he can.
Here is the deal, fan force. Here is what a creator "owes" you. To know the material and what makes it work and do his or her damdest to establish it faithfully within the medium in which he/she is working. BUT they will bring their understanding to it. THEIR vision. Not yours. They have been hired for a reason, likely several, and they are under no obligation to put out multiple fan force surveys just to make sure that every decision made squares with you.
Not a bit.
You vote at the box office. If they do their job well, it is likely they will be rewarded.
No matter how good it is, some fans will still bitch. It is the way of some fans. They love the drama.
Let's be clear, I'm as disappointed at a bad film/tv/comic whatever involving beloved characters as anyone. It may not suck. It is a little early to surrender to that. But on the off chance that it does...
The world will go on. And rest easy, true believers. You'll have a reboot coming in a few years, probably.
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