I’m gonna say it here as I’ve said it elsewhere: if you’re a fan of a thing you want it to be an *active* property, even if the current version sucks. Active properties get another dice roll when this version’s done. Inactive properties don’t get to play. And you want those rolls. 1/
These franchises have had their ups and downs since their inception, most people just choose to ignore that. Anyone remember the Captain America movie with Reb Brown, of Space Mutiny fame? TWO of them, even? Also the revisionist cult-classic status of the Holiday Special that even George hated.
I watched those Reb Brown movies and thought they were godawful *as a child*. I know the YuTub contrarian revisionist/apologist ecosystem will try to convince me otherwise, but some things are just awful versions even if the idea was good.
The franchise is the corpse of art.
I disagree. Even the most dedicated artists explore multiple iterations of a single idea, like Picasso’s bulls or Dürer’s Revelation prints. Are you really saying no artist should be allowed near an idea after its first version? I’m pretty loath to give up 95% of Alan Moore’s entire catalog.
To borrow from Steve Gerber, you don't get art from respawning someone else's work unless, somehow, the result is what the secondary writer genuinely believes. Otherwise it's just extruded franchise product.
I agree that you shouldn’t work on an idea you don’t believe in or think you can add to. But that’s not an argument against franchises, that’s an argument against the motive of pure profit nostalgia farming. Gerber was writing Man-Thing for Marvel, and I can’t say he shouldn’t have been doing that.
When IP holders and their bureaucratic structures aren't paying attention, the likes of Gerber are possible. The rest of the time, Star Trek 2009 type pink slime is the ne plus ultra¹. __ ¹ Tomorrowland joke.
I’ve come to believe the biggest problem is not usually higher execs — although Kotick and Zaslav try to make a liar of me — but appointed managers who decide they’re not mere stewards, but creators. Many series have been derailed by an MBA who decided they were actually a writer.
But honestly, without denigrating the originals, I think other people *have* had better ideas than the creators. I think other writers had better takes on Spider-Man than Ditko, and better takes on Trek than Roddenberry. Without eliminating ownership, how do we get to those and get people paid?
(Pause to be reminded of Tom Holt calling JoKeR the third-best purveyor of Harry Potter fiction. There's two people we need a bat-signal for) Answer: start an imprint, hire them to write expies, hope for the best (they ascend to the real thing), expect the worst (infringment suits).
(not tom holt and joker, the other two)
I think what you’re suggesting is what Dez Skinn’s company Quality Communications attempted in the early 1980s, which awarded partial ownership and continuing royalties for stories. After Quality folded it became a rights nightmare, which is why Miracleman wasn’t reprinted for ~35 years.
Which is fine if the idea is to provide a stage to audition for the Real Thing and maybe a profit.
Frankly almost everyone thinks their own take is a great idea. So with a few exceptions — like Faust being reluctantly talked into MLP:FiM — artist assessment of their direction on a project is still unreliable. Nobody knows if a thing will hit. It is always a dice roll. The dice need to roll.
Chris Claremont took over writing X-Men in 1975, when writer/editor Len Wein gave him the job based on Claremont’s enthusiasm for what was then Marvel’s worst-selling comic. I don’t think a corporation keeping a franchise alive in anticipation of a better version is inherently bad.
At the time, comics were your better quality of cheap junk and you could wrest out the occasional Watts Tower. Probably the best venue for franchised IP: low consequence and low investment.
Most people don’t think about how many attempts it takes to hit on a really successful formula. My Little Pony was a nearly dead 24-year old franchise based on a 29-year old toy line when “Friendship is Magic,” based on its fourth toyline interation, was launched.
I was never much of a TMNT fan, but the 3D CG Nick Turtles finally won me over. That one’s the fourth animated series, unrelated to the two live action movie series. I also liked Rise and Mutant Mayhem. This was *hundreds of episodes* I didn’t care about into various iterations. 2/
My favorite example is Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, often cited as *the best* version of Scooby-Doo (and hard to argue with that). That 2010 show is I believe the *ninth* series depending on how you count, 41 years into the franchise. 3/
As a fan of Filmation, I personally was thrilled when She-Ra and eventually He-Man were dredged up for new series. As far as I knew Filmation’s catalog of IPs had long since vanished into a legal quagmire of bankrupcies, acquisitions and trades. Somebody had found them! They weren’t just gone! 4/
The fact that the shows were actually good was even better! She-Ra was especially excellent. 😸 He-Man was never my favorite series, or Filmation’s best, but that was beside the point. Their dice had started rolling again. 5/
I’m not telling you to watch shows you don’t like, whether it’s Star Trek: Discovery (which I do like), or Transformers Rescue Bots (which is for children) or Ahsoka (even Ray Stephenson couldn’t carry me through that 😑). I’m saying that “kill the franchise” is a bigger wish than you think. 6/
I always hope a show is good. I always hope somebody gambles millions of dollars on some dead franchise or iffy creator and comes up with something I like. I don’t want to stay in the past. I already saw what’s there. I want to see a new cool thing or fresh iteration and tell you about that. 7/
So all of you who don’t like a current version, pass and hope for another dice roll. And any of you who think your work isn’t good enough, just do it. There’s always a chance. You don’t even know. We all want to show people your new cool thing. Just roll the dice. /end
I have one word to say to that: Highlander.
If you’re saying the 1992 TV series was better than the 1991 sequel movie to the 1986 original, I can’t disagree! 😆
In the same way that an ingrown toenail is better than losing a foot. It was still categorically awful and the franchise should have stopped at the first movie.
I saw the 1986 movie in the theater and thought it was… fine. It wasn’t anything like the best movie that year — I’d already seen F/X, THE HITCHER, and PRETTY IN PINK, and ROBOCOP, LABYRINTH, FERRIS BUELLER, THE FLY and ALIENS were still coming. Its subsequent franchising was a surprise to me.
Think of how many years went on between the first My Little Pony episode/toy and G4. Sometimes a property just has to try shit until something goes off.
And you just don’t know when that will be. Pointlesshub did a vid recently about TRANSFORMERS ONE, which (after his savaging of most of the other movies) he says is a really great version… which almost no one watched or even knows about. Hasbro keeps rolling out GI Joe stuff, it never catches.
Hasbro's leadership is clueless. I think GI Joe is really trapped in American jingoism and military might, which isn't very popular in the era of troops in the streets. They'd need to rebrand it, just like they made Joe an adventurer in the 70s in response to the unpopularity if the Vietnam war.
Maybe in the next ten or fifteen years they’ll stumble across another Larry Hama-level creative genius who can just cut loose and fix their biz. It’s unlikely, but it’s happened before! More than once! 😄