A Potentially Terminal Case Of Apathy

So I try to use Monday to get ahead of my writing for the week. I can use the extra time one day this week. I’m sitting here trying to find something to write about. As noted, the only really big news seems to be Jimmy Kimmel’s punishment lasting about a week. Essentially he took a vacation while his supporters praised him for being a conspiracy theorist and showing little concern for a man murdered in broad daylight on a college campus in front of his wife, his one-year-old daughter and her younger sibling, and a good chunk of the world in the hopes of silencing people. See, that’s the problem. So much of what there is to talk about right now is bathed in politics, and this is a story critique blog.

Oh, there’s a trailer for the Mandalorian movie with the creature everyone calls Baby Yoda because that’s all they really see, not “Grogu”. They just want to call him Baby Yoda, despite having no connection to Yoda outside of species. See, I could get this political as well. In this case, it’s not the biggest problem. It’s that I don’t care about this movie. I didn’t watch the streaming show because I don’t have Disney+. I have no investment in Not Boba Fett and Not Yoda. So what do I talk about?

James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn is on HBO Max, which my dad got so he could watch TCM movies and Discovery Network shows. I don’t care about that, either. I made a comic explaining that.

Old stuff is possible, and that’s where I blame just being tired all day, but after watching the latest video by JesterBell on that trailer I realized another reason I don’t want to talk about anything new lately: pure apathy for all of it. Watch her video and I’ll get into it…and why there’s a little conspiracy theorist in my own head saying “maybe that’s the goal”.

I also watched a video by Nerdrotic that filled in a couple of things after deciding on this commentary but I’ll let you watch that if you want. JesterBell’s video states enough of what I’ll be going over. And that’s I’m finding it hard to care about what comes out these days. Of course, all of it gets traced back to SEECA, but that’s the cause of the problem, not the problem itself. A lot of it boils down to “they don’t care, so why should I”?

Right now “geek” brands are in the hands of the snobby rich kid who looks down on fun, silliness, and anything that they don’t consider “meaningful”, sociopolitical agenda or not. In fact, it’s that mind set that is partly responsible for some of their worldview, but that’s for someone else’s blog. Stories have to have “something to say”, and relaxing after a hard day’s work, something the upper class never dealt with or forgot about when they “ascended”, is beneath them. The elitists don’t understand the average person and doesn’t care to, while the snobs look down on anything below a certain level of the media pecking order and the egotists are convinced everyone should love the media they want to make because it’s the only stories that “truly matter”. It’s why the SEECA acronym starts with the snobs, elitists, and egotists. The only reason they’re working on superheroes or sci-fi is that the studios believe that’s what’s popular, and they’re trapped with using the same old brands without paying attention to them. So of course the ego-driven media snob elitists are given free reign to make the stories they want anyway because none of them understand or care about why the brand is popular, and assume every fan is a brand loyalist instead of a character or universe loyalist.

In his video, Gary of Nerdrotic brought up how the font for The Mandalorian And Grogu is a reuse of the Ant-Man & The Wasp font, and I’ve complained about weak fonts for years. DC’s New 52 was loaded with them, like the one to the left. The various Justice League comics used to have this cool shield-inspired design. The New 52 gave us…that, a bunch of letter from the same font stretched out. The logo for Justice League International was even worse. Meanwhile even the DCAU and Snyderverse logos didn’t put a lot of thought into their designs. Gary also notes the movie poster for the first Star Wars theatrical movie in years looks more like an Indiana Jones inspired poster, an action serial rather than a sci-fi serial. This shows they don’t understand the genres they control, and don’t want to because they look down on them. This isn’t what they want to be making but the idea that these make money still dominates.

This is symptomatic of the laziness that we see right now. The people in charge of franchises that existed in most cases before they were born believe they know better and will remake everything in their image, whether it’s their preferred tone, story type/genre, or a warped view of humanity based on broad stereotypes claiming to be representative of an entire group as if being part of that group means no individuality. It takes effort (and talent) to create original good characters or to bring existing characters to life as we know them from the other media and past incarnations, a sense of multiversal continuity–the core ideas that tell me “this is that thing I love under a different interpretation because it’s a different continuity in a different media format and all the natural changes that happen because of that”. Instead we have creators remaking things in their own image and you’re evil if you don’t kiss their rears for “improving” things.

The corporations let them do this believing the brand alone will sell the product. Except more and more it isn’t because more and more people are seeing what they love about the brand absent and will stick with the stories that got it right. That’s what they loved in the first place. So it’s not making them money, and in many cases might be losing them money if not lessening the profit they could have had if it was profitable at all after all expenses are tallied. Now we see some of those very fans just telling them to stop.

And that little conspiracy theorist in my head say “that’s what they want”.

I’m not going to say it actually is a conspiracy. That would require them to care. We know they don’t…though I can point to one or two I know show off their outright hostility (hi, Todd Phillips). However, what if they were trying to tank these “silly childish geeky things” on purpose to convince the studios that it’s “superhero fatigue” rather than their bad writing so the studios will cave and let them make “more important” movies? It’s not unlikely, even if it’s just individuals having the same idea. I’ve seen “woke elements” done well. Both Marvel Rising and Lazarus have had women and minorities in the forefront, as well LGBTQyadayada characters in the case of the latter, but they were written as people. They had individual personalities, struggled, had more interests than their race, gender, and romantic/sexual preferences…in short, they were fleshed out characters, not sounding board stereotypes to lazily get praise and awards to prove how “compassionate” they are. These were storytellers telling a story and in Marvel Rising‘s case tried to something good with the characters and backstories. The Marvel Rivals game and Kingdom Hearts franchise (merging Square Enix’s various game worlds with Disney’s various worlds) also show you can do something different while honoring the source material, pleasing fans and newcomers alike.

And don’t get me started on the nostalgia fails. Actually, do that because I’ve been trying to get myself to write that rant as well.

So when it comes to new stuff, I just have apathy. I see things I love, that helped shape me as a person and a storyteller, drained of those very things I love so the creator can reimagine it to what they like. Whether it’s Zac Snyder or James Gunn, the tone is wrong and the disinterest in the Superman I grew up with and call my favorite superhero is so obvious it’s become my Kryptonite. Except instead of me feeling week, I just feel apathetic. I don’t care about their DC Universe, and that includes what they’re doing in the comics. It includes Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, and everything else they either continue or reboot. There are times I’m not convinced they care about making a good story but I know they don’t care about the things I and many others who aren’t part of the SEECA mindset enjoy, the reason they have a property to make a movie or whatever out of.

Thus comes the rallying cry of the apathetic: if they don’t care, why should I? The things I love are still there. I would love something new, but I can settle for rewatching the old stuff or things I missed, from back when the odds of someone caring was higher.