Lately things have been getting busy in
real life (not bad, mind you, just busy, like visiting Texas for a
wedding. Not mine.) and a lot of stuff has ground to a halt for
various reasons. In an effort to get some things back on track, I'll
be taking a hiatus from most online spaces in November to try and get
a draft done. Its absolutely doable from the outline I have, and
should've been done in early October if a text file hadn't gotten
corrupted on me, and a break will do me good. I was planning on a "Noirvember" thing again, but oh well. Maybe next year.
But before that, a couple of thoughts
regarding a recent discussion in PulpRev circles.
Brand Zero is an idea posited by Rawle Nyanzi that bounces off of what Jon Del
Arroz discusses here. In short, if you're convinced that the corporations that own and
control all of the major entertainment franchises actively hate their
established audiences, then don't give them attention. At All. About
anything.
Brand Zero is a strong move, and a
manifestation of “Just Don't Look.” Starve the beasts for money,
but also starve them for attention. The last good Terminator movie
was in 1991. Its dead, and the people who own it keep jolting the
corpse to make the legs move so they can squeeze out some more
dollars out of fans of the good old days.
Over the last couple of years, a
cottage industry has arisen for commentary explaining why and how
these once dominant franchise have screwed the pooch, and it was
insightful stuff.
For a while.
Explaining how The Last Jedi is an
abject failure of story structuring and insulting to an audience that
has built up over 40 years is fine once. But there's only so many
ways that you can say “Star Wars Sucks Now” without offering a
practical solution or alternative before it gets old.
Star Wars could
be saved, if ownership at the very top of Disney changed and the new
boss fired everybody in a decision making capacity at
Disney-Lucasfilm, apologized for how badly everything's been handled,
put a hold on on live action movies for a time, produced a 2D
animated version of the Heir to the Empire/Dark Force Rising/Last
Command trilogy, then did a massive time skip forward or backwards
for the next live-action installment.
I have
a better chance of growing a third arm than Star Wars getting fixed.
What George Lucas built up over 37 years only took Disney five years
to destroy. Five.
Its
dead. Might as well treat it that way.
Does that mean I'm going Brand Zero?
Probably not fully. Star Wars was such an influence on my life,
especially creatively, that I don't think I can ever fully shake it
loose, but even so, I'll probably limit those discussions to the
Legends Never Die side project, because for whatever flaws the
Expanded Universe had, it was never as bad as what is out there now.
I've already said my piece about Disney Star Wars on the blog, and
outside of cruising Wookieepedia every now and then, I don't even
consume NuCanon products anymore. I don't have anything else to say
about it at this point (aside from this post, natch'). The same goes
for all of the other major franchises. If I talk about Marvel or DC,
it'll be about the old stuff that was made by competent storytellers.
I didn't even bother to see Endgame. I don't care about the new stuff, so
I'll probably just drift into Brand Zero by default.
The flipside of Brand Zero is promoting
New Hotness instead of the Old & Busted. After the hiatus, I'll
get on that, as well as doing some more classic pulp stuff in the
pipeline.
But here's the thing: Positioning your
work as a counterbalance to converged dinosaur franchises isn't
enough. #StarWarsNotStarWars made sense a couple of years ago, but
right now it doesn't. That old gif of a dog staring blankly ascupcakes are pulled away is more entertaining than Star Wars
is nowadays. Its not a high bar to clear.
I don't care if its a sweeping space
opera that's “like Star Wars, but Good.” I don't care if its an
epic fantasy that reads like a mashup of Beowulf and Harry Dresden. I
don't care if the book is explicitly written to piss off the SJW
Death Cult. (If its a good book, it will automatically piss them
off).
Oppositional marketing isn't going to
get me to buy something. Give me a character I can give a shit about
who faces obstacles that I want to see them overcome. The
PulpRev and related indie fiction scenes have been making tremendous
strides in the last 3-4 years, but the next step is cranking out
characters that you fall in love with enough that you want to talk
about them with complete strangers.
Everything. Boils. Down. To.
Characters.
It doesn't have to be complicated. In
fact, it shouldn't be. One or two sentences should be enough to tickle the amygdala. “Farmboy dreams of leaving the farm
and learns he's the lost son of mighty warrior and is swept up in a
galactic civil war.” "Grim Puritan wanders the earth, driven by a burning desire to hunt injustice." "World War I veteran leverages a network of agents in a crusade against crime."
Just to prove I'm serious about this, here's what I've got: "Air Force washout awakens in the far future to find a Solar System ruled by a tyrannical empire, and his only hope for survival lies with a band of space pirates led by a mysterious masked woman with crimson hair."
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