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STAR WAAAAARS
Aside from the things in the previous post, everything else is Star Wars right now. I've fallen back into it hard.
The interesting thing is that I'm not really feeling like writing fanfic about it. I did spend some time plotting out an enormous post-movie epic, and then realized I'm not entirely sure if I want to write it. I've thought about some small missing scenes (for the new movie as well as the previous movies) but I'm not sure if I want to write those either. I don't really feel that way about it, even though in other ways I am doing that same kind of obsession thing I typically do with things I end up writing fanfic about. And I wouldn't be surprised if I end up writing a few small things ...
But right now I'm just having epic amounts of feelings about it, most of which I want to translate into other fiction. Like ... it's not so much I want to write about these specific characters, even though I am absolutely loving these characters right now -- the old and new ones both; it's more that I want to take all the things I'm feeling right now, and make original fic that makes me feel the same way, basically. I want to take the shiniest things from the movie, the most intense feelings and the tropes that slay me in the best possible ways, and write my own versions. Which is how I typically used to relate to things when I was a teenager, but I fell away from that once I started writing fanfic, and began to compartmentalize things a bit more. I definitely still do the "I want to write my own version of this" thing, but usually not for things that I'm having massive fandom feelings about; at some point it became, I'll either write about this specific thing, or I'll write something totally different. I think it's interesting that as I've fallen back into one of my old teenage fandoms, I've also fallen into what used to be my old style of loving things like this.
... I think the real issue is that most of what I'd want to write about the new movie involves fixing things that, narratively, don't need to be fixed, or reworking stuff backstage when I'd really rather leave it alone. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this very well, but I guess the thing is, I'm narratively satisfied enough with the new movie that I don't really want to do much to it. Everything that didn't work about it, for me, are things that are probably not fixable without writing a whole new movie and/or ignoring large chunks of actual canon, and really I just want to enjoy the movie as it is, and then go out and work on epic space opera for a while. SPACE OPERA WITH FEELS.
Incidentally, I bought the prequel novel for the new movie and it's really great! Much better than typical movie tie-ins; more on the level of good fanfic. (Which is a compliment, coming from me.) It has short novellas with each of the three members of the new main trio in the movie, and I really enjoyed them.
One other thing I wanted to say about the new movie, which I said in a comment somewhere else, is that in a lot of ways, the new movie seems to have ... the best way I can put it is that it redeemed the original trilogy for me, or maybe just made it possible for me to enjoy it wholeheartedly and uncritically again, in a way I'm not quite sure I'd be able to (anymore) if we didn't have a new movie that is all about a female Luke and is full of nonwhite, international actors. I don't even feel that put off by the lack of those things in the original trilogy -- it is what it is -- but I think the new movie made me feel really good about the whole franchise, and the direction it's moving in. I love the old movies and I love the new movie, and the franchise as a whole is something that I feel very happy to be a fan of right now.
(Okay, I cannot lie: it literally brings tears of happiness to my eyes sometimes when I think about the fact that the leading protagonist in the current trilogy is cut from the cloth of my adolescent self-insert fantasies. I feel included in the new movies, and from the way I've seen fandom reacting to Rey, and to Finn and Poe, a lot of other people feel included as well, where the original movies didn't do that. I still love the original movies just as much, but the new movie has made me fall in warm fuzzy love with the whole franchise, and feel like it's something I can really say I'm a fan of, as opposed to merely enjoying the movies but not really feeling fannish about it ... if that is a meaningful distinction.)
The interesting thing is that I'm not really feeling like writing fanfic about it. I did spend some time plotting out an enormous post-movie epic, and then realized I'm not entirely sure if I want to write it. I've thought about some small missing scenes (for the new movie as well as the previous movies) but I'm not sure if I want to write those either. I don't really feel that way about it, even though in other ways I am doing that same kind of obsession thing I typically do with things I end up writing fanfic about. And I wouldn't be surprised if I end up writing a few small things ...
But right now I'm just having epic amounts of feelings about it, most of which I want to translate into other fiction. Like ... it's not so much I want to write about these specific characters, even though I am absolutely loving these characters right now -- the old and new ones both; it's more that I want to take all the things I'm feeling right now, and make original fic that makes me feel the same way, basically. I want to take the shiniest things from the movie, the most intense feelings and the tropes that slay me in the best possible ways, and write my own versions. Which is how I typically used to relate to things when I was a teenager, but I fell away from that once I started writing fanfic, and began to compartmentalize things a bit more. I definitely still do the "I want to write my own version of this" thing, but usually not for things that I'm having massive fandom feelings about; at some point it became, I'll either write about this specific thing, or I'll write something totally different. I think it's interesting that as I've fallen back into one of my old teenage fandoms, I've also fallen into what used to be my old style of loving things like this.
... I think the real issue is that most of what I'd want to write about the new movie involves fixing things that, narratively, don't need to be fixed, or reworking stuff backstage when I'd really rather leave it alone. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this very well, but I guess the thing is, I'm narratively satisfied enough with the new movie that I don't really want to do much to it. Everything that didn't work about it, for me, are things that are probably not fixable without writing a whole new movie and/or ignoring large chunks of actual canon, and really I just want to enjoy the movie as it is, and then go out and work on epic space opera for a while. SPACE OPERA WITH FEELS.
Incidentally, I bought the prequel novel for the new movie and it's really great! Much better than typical movie tie-ins; more on the level of good fanfic. (Which is a compliment, coming from me.) It has short novellas with each of the three members of the new main trio in the movie, and I really enjoyed them.
One other thing I wanted to say about the new movie, which I said in a comment somewhere else, is that in a lot of ways, the new movie seems to have ... the best way I can put it is that it redeemed the original trilogy for me, or maybe just made it possible for me to enjoy it wholeheartedly and uncritically again, in a way I'm not quite sure I'd be able to (anymore) if we didn't have a new movie that is all about a female Luke and is full of nonwhite, international actors. I don't even feel that put off by the lack of those things in the original trilogy -- it is what it is -- but I think the new movie made me feel really good about the whole franchise, and the direction it's moving in. I love the old movies and I love the new movie, and the franchise as a whole is something that I feel very happy to be a fan of right now.
(Okay, I cannot lie: it literally brings tears of happiness to my eyes sometimes when I think about the fact that the leading protagonist in the current trilogy is cut from the cloth of my adolescent self-insert fantasies. I feel included in the new movies, and from the way I've seen fandom reacting to Rey, and to Finn and Poe, a lot of other people feel included as well, where the original movies didn't do that. I still love the original movies just as much, but the new movie has made me fall in warm fuzzy love with the whole franchise, and feel like it's something I can really say I'm a fan of, as opposed to merely enjoying the movies but not really feeling fannish about it ... if that is a meaningful distinction.)
no subject
Yes, this. Exactly. Rey is validating in just the way the usual white male self-insert protagonist is, only *more* so: because we're not used to it, it's not what we (or anyone else) expects, for the protag to be a girl who has Dad's old helmet, but who also has a doll.
no subject
no subject
ETA:
If I quote you in my Obsidian Wings SW:TFA review post, do you want me to link here? Or should I call you Lauren Esker? Or would you prefer to be "a fan"?
no subject
The rest of it ... I think this doesn't fit, quite, for me. I mean, what you're saying here is perfectly valid, it just doesn't fit my own fannish experience. That's not an accurate description of how I relate to things, or what I'm getting out of Rey as a character. But then, I've never done self-insertion the way most people in fandom do, and when I said self-insert above, what I meant was not my OCs in Star Wars (I never had any) but rather, my original characters in my own post-apocalyptic landscapes.
This doesn't make your point invalid; it's just that my reaction to this comment was a pretty hard knee-jerk "No", but I had to stop and think about it for a little while to figure out why that was. I don't think any female character would have done it for me in the same way this particular archetype did, and I never had the feeling of having to "put myself" in Star Wars because I had no trouble empathizing with, and relating to, Luke and Han et al. I never felt alienated by it, and I still don't, and no, this doesn't feel like my-fanfic-on-the-screen to me, though I've heard other people describe it that way, because that's not the kind of fanfic I would ever have written about it. But there is definitely a part of me that is very deeply satisfied by having Rey in there, so I guess I get what people get out of self-inserts a little better now. (I mean, not that it was ever incomprehensible to me; it's just that it wasn't something I usually felt compelled to do. Although my use of the word self-insert above is very confusing, I know. I knew what I meant when I wrote it, I guess ...?)