DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '12 I => Topic started by: PennyDreadful on March 15, 2012, 04:21:19 AM
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. [snow_smiley] 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.
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I should also probably mention that the two DS fans that I referred to who had posted on Twitter about liking what they had seen of the DS film during the test screening don't fall into the group I've observed on Twitter who live to make fun of the show. From what I've seen of their tweets, they seem to be like many of us and love the original show in similar ways to how we do.
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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.
Oh, I know about them. However, I'd argue that they are in the minority. I suspect most fans "get" the series in the way it was meant to be perceived, but yes, there have always been the fans who liked it purely for laughs. If Burton's film is a big hit, his comical take might become the predominant way people perceive DS. It doesn't sit well with me.
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The thing is, for better or worse, it's already the predominant way people in the media perceive DS. And while the existing group of fans who live to make fun may be in the minority, we shouldn't kid ourselves that they're a small group because I'm not exagerrating when I say I've encountered hundreds of them during my time spent at many DS Fests.
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I don't particularly care about people laughing at the show, not for the purposes of this thread and my point. I meant that the influx of new fans on boards and fandom, fans who reject the old show and think the film(s) is obviously superior in every way because it's new and state-of-the-art... they might start predominating.
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That's a possibility. Though as others have pointed out at various times, that didn't happen with the '91 Series and its superior state-of-the-art SFX. So that sort of fear could also be unfounded with respect to the new DS film. Though, of course, many more people are likely to see the new film - probably even more than have seen the '91 Series and the original series combined...
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If Burton's film is a big hit, his comical take might become the predominant way people perceive DS.
But it won't change the way you perceive DS, so it shouldn't matter I don't think. Even if it did the... I hesitate to use the word damage - whatever it did to the public's notion, it would die down in a few years anyway and hardly anyone would think about it or remember it. If it spawns a horde of raving fangirls who disdain everything but the JDTB version, well, they'll move onto something else soon enough more often then not.
I'm sure lots of people thought the 91 series was going to ruin DS' image, but that's how I came across the show and it was the memory of that and hearing my Mom's acclaim for the original that made me tune in when I came across it on SciFi nearly a decade later.
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You guys are right of course. Whatever happens with this new film, no one is going to really pay much attention in the coming years. I do cringe in horror when I think that this is how the general public will view Dark Shadows but maybe...JUST maybe it will lead them to the original/revival series and then they will like those better than the Burton film.
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I believe the new movie and the resulting interest in the original series will stir things up a bit, but to me, that's a good thing. I am not certain of how much the film will directly impact fandom activity, especially online, but I am curious to see.
I did resign myself to the fact there will be unwelcomed scrutiny of the original series because of the gaffes and other obvious mistakes. I know many original fans find that endearing but others new to the whole thing will likely see that as a reason to not take the show that seriously. We've already witnessed people new to DS focusing on the gaffes and making a joke of it all rather than look past the sloppy production values. DS is not, in my view, a highly regarding work to begin so there isn't anything worse new comers can say about it. We've been down that road before many times over the past few decades. The hope that I always hold is that newbies appreciate the show for the ambitious wonder that it is and especially was back in the day, and look past the gaffes.
I think our online world is going to change. It will feel strange, certainly.
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Nancy, turns out you agree more than I thought on first reading, but no time to edit the following much:
I'm not really talking about gaffes and lack of effects. Old DS could have been pulled off without mistakes and had reasonable effects, and it would still seem "dated", in acting, pacing, etc., to any influx of younger mainstream film viewers. It happened with Trek and Dr Who. There could end up being a competition between the tatty old show (supposedly), and the state-of-the-art, modern one. How many new Battlestar Galactica fans went on to embrace the original BSG, I wonder? That's hardly a similar situation, really, but I'll bet it would appear that way at first to many. The new one would have that surface veneer of being just so much "better".
MB, I didn't see the 1991 series, but I think it didn't do DS in a vastly different, "updated", "re-imagined" way, to have it conform to contemporary Hollywood product, and what they think mainstream tastes are. It wasn't altered to make DS mainstream, in style and content. So it didn't redefine what DS is. It wasn't a huge hit, so it couldn't have. For what I'm talking about, the new thing has to be a hit.
As far as the way we personally perceive DS, that can change too. I'm having a harder and harder time getting what I did out of old Dr Who now, after new DW has done so much to redefine it.
It matters how other, new DS fans perceive DS, if the result of the new fan influx is that I don't have the same fandom to inhabit, anymore.
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I understand your concerns, Magnus. Back when the 1991 Revival was on and even afterwards, new DS fans came into the fandom many only knowing the 1991 series. They, in turn, checked out the original especially after hearing OS fans online talk about how much they loved the OS. The new fans, many considerably younger than us older folks, blended into the fandom just fine. There were new "faces" and perceptions introduced to the long established DS forums and it worked out fine.
Some 1991 fans have created their own 1991 Revival discussion boards so they could focus on their main DS interest. I'm sure if it warrants new fans who wind up preferring the movie over all else will do the same. There will be some adjustment period as it is whenever you move into a new house and have to remember how to get around. [snow_cheesy]
It matters how other, new DS fans perceive DS, if the result of the new fan influx is that I don't have the same fandom to inhabit, anymore.
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After seeing the trailer I'm afraid of feeling that I'll have to explain to people when they see me in a DS t-shirt, no not THAT Dark Shadows.
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Just viewed the DS trailer for the fifth time and NOW I understand why the original DS is being released on DVD in it's entirety next month - it's to soothe the battered souls of stalwart DS fans who were so turned off by the movie that they'll gladly shell out hundreds of bucks to rid the image of Johnny Depp's disco Barnabas from their psyche for all eternity. It's all about making a buck, not paying homage to a classic gothic soap opera. Much of the suspense on DS centered on maintaining Barnabas' secret...so in this version he freely admits to being a vampire? Where the hell is the suspense in that? But I'll see the Depp/Burton version - when Amazon offers it as a $.99 weekend special.
Countess
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After seeing the trailer I'm afraid of feeling that I'll have to explain to people when they see me in a DS t-shirt, no not THAT Dark Shadows.
borgosi, after watching the Barnabas/Angelique scene in the last 15 seconds of the trailer, I wanted to hide all of my DS pictures and shirts to avoid being associated with the movie. [sick2]
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 guess I just get the sense that our "little world" is about to change in a big way and it feels sort of strange.
Penny, that was always my fear from the beginning, both when this movie and the WB series were announced. I'm not comfortable with a new interpretation skewing the image of DS. People who are exposed to the movie will develop a very limited idea of what the show is about and will fixate on those aspects. I foresee this creating a culture clash between old and new fans as we will be discussing totally different things when we discuss "Dark Shadows." As I said above, I don't want to be associated with the new movie, and like borgosi, I will now have to qualify myself as "an original series DS fan" and have to explain myself when talking about my hobby.
Elsewhere on this board, people have referred to Internet confrontations over who is a "real fan." The downside to having multiple interpretations of a property is the risk of each faction trying to champion its own version. Whereas I could expect "Star Trek" and "Dr. Who" fans to remain amicable because the new series incorporate the continuity of the original series, DS fandom is based on unrelated, contradictory versions. The tone of the movie seems so different from the original series that I wouldn't expect people who see it to be interested in the original DS anymore than I would expect Springtime for Hitler to draw viewers to the History Channel.
ProfStokes