Strange feelings about the new film and fandom

[PennyDreadful]

It seems so strange...

A massive new Dark Shadows film (perhaps only in name and not tone) is on the horizon and it's set to put DS back into the mainstream public consciousness in a big way.

At first I was excited, but now I'm feeling a little "queasy" about it.   Does anyone else feel...weird...about all this?

In the early 80s, I felt like I was alone in my passion for DS.  NOBODY in my school knew about it.  At the time, the show was very rarely mentioned in the media.  DS was like a dark Wonderland into which I could escape for hours on end.  When I discovered DS fandom in '86, this amazing new world opened up to me!  Here, FINALLY, were other people who loved DS as much as I did.  It was awesome!  We shared stories, collected 'zines, and went to Festivals (well, I've only been twice but I loved it both times).  It was like we had our own secret little club.  When the '91 series happened we were excited.  Dan Curtis, Robert Cobert, Sam Hall...creators behind the classic series were back and bringing a new show to television.  It was big, but it still felt like it was "ours" somehow. 

The new film feels different though.  I get this sense that things are changing, and I don't know if it's for the better.  Burton and Depp are a BIG deal, and I have this bad feeling the new DS will imprint the words "Dark Shadows" on the public consciousness in a way we won't like.  I've always said, "at least the new film will bring renewed interest in the classic series." But will it be the kind of attention we want the classic series to get? 

I guess I just get the sense that our "little world" is about to change in a big way and it feels sort of strange.   

[Cousin_Barnabas]

I was jut thinking about this.  However, my interpretation of the events was on a more intimate level.  I was thinking what the new movie was going to do this board.  Will the new fans gravitate over here?  What will happen going forward?  It will be interesting to see what the new fans do, where they gravitate to, and what they will think of the original series. 

[michael c]

penny,

as much as "we" love the series i don't think the film will affect the "public consciousness" of it either way because, unfortunately, as we know it is hardly a highly regarded work.

outside of fandom for even those who recall it with fondness it is widely regarded as a classic piece of high camp. or an old soap opera with a vampire.

i doubt the movie will change the public perception.

[Gothick]

Hi Penny, I keep thinking about the circa 1999 movie "The Avengers" (not to be confused with Marvel comics). It was based on the classic 1960s British series co-starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.  The movie had a huge budget, a cast that included Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, and Sean Connery, and seemed set to usher in a new era for Avengers fandom.

What happened was the movie was a huge flop, widely panned, re-edited at the last minute by the studio so that the narrative made very little sense, and had minimal impact.

Last year in England a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the series' beginning was held.  The classic fandom has continued to thrive even though the series is so far as I am aware no longer being shown on television either in the US or the UK. 

If nothing else, to become a fan of the original series of DS requires quite a commitment of time and energy.   As michael said, I think it will continue to be the preserve of a self-selected few.

What I'm wondering is whether Depp Shadows will signal the death knell for the so-called DS "franchise."  Time will tell..

G.

[Ronny G]

I think most audiences are intelligent, and understand that TV remakes are usually never as good as the original.
They may not be fans of Dark Shadows, but chances are they've seen a remake of a TV show they once liked and know that the film version is much different, and rarely captures the charm of the original.

For example, take the Land of the Lost remake. It was all stupid, gross, fart jokes. The special effects were awesome though, but they missed the heart and soul of the TV show which was the family relationships.
The Bewitched movie sucked, too. went in a very different direction, and was contrived.
Fans who grew up watching 21 Jump Street, know that the show wasn't a comedy.
I guess what I'm saying is I think everybody has once been screwed by a movie remake of their favorite show, not just us DS fans.

I hope the DS movie is good and will be successful, but if it sucks, I hope it goes straight to the used DVD dollar bins.

[Uncle Roger]

The movie will attract a lot of attention, simply because it's an event movie. It will attract a lot of baby boomers, with fond memories of the original series. People who may not have seen anything DS related since 1971. Attracting an audience is one thing. Maintaining it is something else entirely.

This may or may not be a good movie and, in a way, that's almost irrelevant. Whether it will have that "certain something" to make an emotional connection to the audience remains to be seen. It could well develop a fan base of its own, with only a loose connection to the original. The George Reeves Superman TV show is quite different from the Christopher Reeve films. Yet, they both have strong followings. Same with the Adam West Batman and the later films.

And, research and test screenings to the contrary, you can't predict what the general public will embrace and what it will reject.

[MagnusTrask]

I'm concerned in the same way, PD, but more so.   That's one reason I haven't been on the thread about the movie.

The real danger is the new film turning out to be something different from DS and very popular, with its own audience and fandom, who might sweep in and overwhelm the TV series fandom.   The film fans may take a look at the series and laugh.   I'll remember one fan of later Star Trek who called original Trek "unwatchable" because of the lack of CGI.  There's a general tendency to laugh at anything for being old now.

Worse yet, maybe, there may be a big "middle" group of fans who love both the film and series, even if the film is not in the spirit of the series at all, to many others.   Then it becomes impossible to keep the new version of what DS is (now) supposed to be, in people's minds, from shifting the fandom, and sites like this.   

Take Doctor Who, a show and fandom that meant a lot to me for years.   The new series, which keeps shifting more and more away from everything I liked classic DW for, now defines what DW is to people.  The classic 1963-1989 show is just something in the misty dawn of pre-history which led up to new DW.   Staying true to the old show isn't a priority.   All this distorts fandoms.

[David]

I think the film will be great--it won't be the same as the original, but it shouldn't be.
Burton/Depp & Michelle Pfeiffer are original fans & I trust them to do right by it--I also think the film will get the original back on the airwaves.

[PennyDreadful]

I guess we'll all find out soon enough.  It might turn into an Avengers scenario as Gothick describes, but I have this feeling Magnus' version of events might be closer to what will happen.  Burton and Depp are a huge deal and they tend to leave a lasting mark on things.

David, I once thought the same since they said they were fans, but from what I keep hearing they seem more entertained by the idea of injecting real-world scenarios into a gothic setting so that audiences can laugh at the absurdity of the situations.  No, they shouldn't copy the classic DS but they should stay true to the spirit of the series.  DS isn't The Munsters. Yep, it will bring attention to the classic show, but I hope it isn't the kind of attention Magnus describes (snarky teenagers laughing at that "funny" old show).  I was very optimistic about the film up until a couple of days ago, but now I'm a bit put off by what I'm hearing.  We shall see.  We shall see.

[The Doctor and K9]

Take Doctor Who, a show and fandom that meant a lot to me for years.   The new series, which keeps shifting more and more away from everything I liked classic DW for, now defines what DW is to people.  The classic 1963-1989 show is just something in the misty dawn of pre-history which led up to new DW.   Staying true to the old show isn't a priority.   All this distorts fandoms.

I think the spirit of the original show is alive and well at Big Finish. They've been putting out classic Doctor Who since the '90s. In fact, their output of audio dramas alone has exceeded the running time of the original show which produced almost 700 episodes!

[The Doctor and K9]

As long as we get more Big Finish CDs, comics, novels, and a restored Night of Dark Shadows, the success of the Depp film is just a bonus. If it flops, well, I'm sure the original will continue to have it's relatively small but vocal following.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Even though there's been little evidence of them here on the forum (though posts do exist), the DS fans who live for the bloopers and making fun of the series have existed for decades already. They've been heard from in all sorts of DS venues and only more so since the inception of DS message boards on the Internet - and if my experience with Twitter back when I was following it closely is any indication, they tweet there practically every day of the week. And they're not simply snarky teenagers just discovering the show - most, actually, are longtime fans of the original series, and even original fans. The contingent definitely already exists, so the phenomenon of making fun of the show to the exclusion of anything else about it is nothing new, even amongst fans.

[Phil]

The contingent definitely already exists, so the phenomenon of making fun of the show to the exclusion of anything else about it is nothing new, even amongst fans.

That's true, but I consider myself a hybrid of sorts: I'm legitimately charmed by the show, now as when I was a kid, but I also absolutely love the crazy edge of the show's "live on tape" energy, up to and including the bloopers and mishaps. Those elements are inextricable from what I love about the show, and it's why nothing's ever gotten it "right" - not HODS, not the 1991 version, not the 2004 pilot. The original series can never be duplicated, so to me hoping they "get it right" is an exercise in futility.

I don't really care if the new movie does or doesn't bring new fans to the show; all the activity has brought ME back to the show, and for me that's a gift in itself. It's fun to be excited about it again.

[Brandon Collins]

My stance on this topic is still the same: even though the movie is going to bring in a new and different set of fans who are going to have a different idea of what DS is, at least it's helping to keep the brand alive which will always lead people to discovering the original series.

It takes a special type of person to love the original show. Anyone who came into the fandom years after the show had gone off can attest to that. I'm sure that those who were introduced to the show in the 80s and 90s can say that the special effects were laughable. But why did I like it? Because I saw something special there that I wanted to explore.

News fans coming into an existing fandom is always a scary thing, especially when a fandom has existed for so long. And while more people are going to be brought in now than ever before, I still feel comfortable about it and i still think that things will be as they have been: those who love and cherish the original series will continue to do so and those who don't will not.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

That's true, but I consider myself a hybrid of sorts

I should probably point out that I wasn't referring to anyone currently posting when I said that posts from people who love making fun of DS are on the forum.    Those posts are old - mostly from like the first year or so of the forum - though there are probably a few that aren't quite as old. The only point I was trying to make is that whatever the new film turns out to be, it isn't likely to create any group of DS fans that doesn't already exist and hasn't already existed for decades.