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silveradept[O hai. It's December Days time, and this year, I'm taking requests, since it's been a while and I have new people on the list and it's 2020, the year where everyone is both closer to and more distant from their friends and family. So if you have a thought you'd like me to talk about on one of these days, let me know and I'll work it into the schedule. That includes things like further asks about anything in a previous December Days tag, if you have any questions on that regard.]
A question elsewhere, similar to one I answered early on, but examining a different aspect of media wishes.
I always feel like people who want a sequel to something, or more of it, and that aren't satisfied with (or aware of) transformative fandom had something happen in the original story that they feel either went completely sideways, or in a terrible direction, or they feel like some part of it was done without understanding of what made the piece of canon good. I think a lot of people would love to have a sequel to Chrono Trigger that isn't Radical Dreamers or Chrono Cross (and there are even some Opinions about the choices made in a remaster of the original that tie it in to the sequel work more firmly), because they feel like Chrono Cross didn't do a particularly good job of being a sequel to the really excellent story in Chrono Trigger. Part of that, I think, was because instead of being a time-hopping adventure with people all across time, it was a dimension-warping adventure where recruitment was about showing how your choices had actions. It had only a loose tie to the previous story and their characters, which wasn't really made clear until the end of the storyline, even if some of the locations were familiar or items named similarly. I also think there are a lot of people who want sequels to their very beloved franchises, like Star Wars, that kept what they really liked about the original movies, rather than the prequels, or the "special editions", and especially not the sequel trilogy. There's a lot of the Star Wars fandom that is locked into a specific timeline or universe version of the franchise where anything that changes that, or worse, takes an entire expanded universe and declares it not to have happened, is going to create a significant amount of frission and desire for sequels that were like the thing they fell in love with.
And sometimes you realize that there's something completely missing from a story that really should have been there. One that was even presaged in the thing itself. Now that I've seen it as well as heard it, I'm almost certain that Hamilton needs either a sequel work or a third act. Because, as Angelica said, women need to be written into the sequel. Or into the thing itself right from the beginning, because the Schuyler Sisters are only on the periphery of the narrative for the whole time, and so is Maria, the only other woman in the entire show that's so focused on the Great Men. And Eliza talks about taking herself out of the narrative, and then putting herself back in at the end, but it's the epilogue, the end, because Hamilton's already dead at that point and apparently, the only thing that's left is to tell his story by collecting accounts from the people that knew him. Oh, and also, she founds an orphanage that's still running to the present day. There's clearly a lot more to Eliza's life than just being the wife of someone who's non-stop. She doesn't seem to have done a lot of stopping herself. And then, there's Angelica, who probably wasn't much of a slouch herself, even after she gets married and goes elsewhere. So it really feels like, if we want to tell the full story of Alexander Hamilton, we need to not only go through "Burr" and "Alexander", but also "Eliza".
What other things in my media consumption could use sequels? Well, that's a little on the tricky side, because a lot of them have been getting second (or more) seasons or sequel games or remakes that are meant to tell the story another way around. Because there's almost always a drive to take something that already worked and had an audience the first time around and make it so that there's a second go at it to attract all the people who loved it the first time and hopefully a big bunch of people who will be interested in seeing it for a new time and/or who heard about the original and want to know if the new thing is going to be as good or better than the original they've heard so much about. Animaniacs would have been a go-to on that, on the assumption that they keep up with making smart fun of the life and times of the people who are there, while also poking fun at the people who were kids the first time around and are now adults. Because the Warners would have no trouble adjusting to the new reality, even if the people around them might have also completely changed. But now there's a sequel (which I haven't watched yet), and so that goes off the list of things that might do well with a sequel.
Although, truthfully, one of the reasons I would watch the sequel Animaniacs is for more Pinky and the Brain, because twenty more years of technological advancements would only provide even more ways of Brain to try and take over the world, which might provide for some very pointed commentary on how technology has changed. And possibly a couple of episodes where Brain might have a little bit of an initial struggle in trying to figure out how to wrest control from the people who have already done a fair amount of taking over the world themselves. (I think it would be potentially really funny to have Brain decide to become an influencer to the point where people would give him control of the world. First, perhaps, with some TikToks, then possibly by trying to rise to the top of the K-pop charts, or trying to hijack Facebook, only to get drawn into flamewars or other such things. Mostly to give Maurice LaMarche the chance at deadpanning some remarkably ridiculous-sounding lines.)
And then there are the series and things where a sequel would be helpful, but it would have to be at the helm of someone other than the original creator, or it might have to have a different lead, because in the interim time, they've proven themselves to be inequal to the task of making the show they want. Whedon shows without Whedon at the helm, or a Potter production that doesn't make an absolute hash of so many things that are important to the people who are still waiting for their letters and would have confidence about where the Hat would have placed them. Or who would be expecting an education system in the States that would be more respectful of the spirituality of the first people, or that would function less as a boarding school with houses and more like a public school, possibly the Platonic ideal of a public school that can keep itself funded, have good student-teacher ratios, a staff that has the tools and the authority to effectively deal with discrimination issues and to make all of the classes accessible. And so forth.
I'm not fully all the way through all of the Pern books yet, as I have one more author to evaluate, but based on what the first two authors did, it's a low bar to clear to approach something passable. Pern, as a setting, is the sort of place where a sequel work that has basically nothing to do with the original authors but can use all of the official places and people they created, and has free license to change things as necessary to make it less of a crapsack world with cool dragons into a more functional society that has figured out how the dragons and ther riders fit into their lives, and then are significantly less Randite Libertarian about everything. Which, again, the sort of thing that the fic community can do just fine, finding those pockets of making things better and more manageable. And the original author left us with the reality that, hey, the last Threadfall will happen at the end of this particular Pass, meaning there's a big social upheaval that's happening right around the corner. That's plenty of space for a sequel work to go into, either in the middle of the thing where everything is going different, or after all of the dramatic social change and there's a new order of things. Which could be good and could be less good - it's not like the place has to turn utopic, but there would definitely be the opportunity to tell a different story involving the dragons, their riders, and all of the other people involved and how things changed or are changing.
So, yes, it's mostly "works that could use a sequel are generally ones where the fandom (or me) feel like there's something amiss, or done wrong, or the person in charge turned out to be terrible," and very occasionally something where it would be fun to bring them forward and have them do the same sorts of things, but updated for the environment they are in. (Because, come on, if DuckTales did this well, surely they can bring back Darkwing Duck and update it for the current times.)
A question elsewhere, similar to one I answered early on, but examining a different aspect of media wishes.
If you could ask a wish-granter for a sequel to any piece of media, which one would you choose, and what should it look like? Or would you let yourself be surprised?
I always feel like people who want a sequel to something, or more of it, and that aren't satisfied with (or aware of) transformative fandom had something happen in the original story that they feel either went completely sideways, or in a terrible direction, or they feel like some part of it was done without understanding of what made the piece of canon good. I think a lot of people would love to have a sequel to Chrono Trigger that isn't Radical Dreamers or Chrono Cross (and there are even some Opinions about the choices made in a remaster of the original that tie it in to the sequel work more firmly), because they feel like Chrono Cross didn't do a particularly good job of being a sequel to the really excellent story in Chrono Trigger. Part of that, I think, was because instead of being a time-hopping adventure with people all across time, it was a dimension-warping adventure where recruitment was about showing how your choices had actions. It had only a loose tie to the previous story and their characters, which wasn't really made clear until the end of the storyline, even if some of the locations were familiar or items named similarly. I also think there are a lot of people who want sequels to their very beloved franchises, like Star Wars, that kept what they really liked about the original movies, rather than the prequels, or the "special editions", and especially not the sequel trilogy. There's a lot of the Star Wars fandom that is locked into a specific timeline or universe version of the franchise where anything that changes that, or worse, takes an entire expanded universe and declares it not to have happened, is going to create a significant amount of frission and desire for sequels that were like the thing they fell in love with.
And sometimes you realize that there's something completely missing from a story that really should have been there. One that was even presaged in the thing itself. Now that I've seen it as well as heard it, I'm almost certain that Hamilton needs either a sequel work or a third act. Because, as Angelica said, women need to be written into the sequel. Or into the thing itself right from the beginning, because the Schuyler Sisters are only on the periphery of the narrative for the whole time, and so is Maria, the only other woman in the entire show that's so focused on the Great Men. And Eliza talks about taking herself out of the narrative, and then putting herself back in at the end, but it's the epilogue, the end, because Hamilton's already dead at that point and apparently, the only thing that's left is to tell his story by collecting accounts from the people that knew him. Oh, and also, she founds an orphanage that's still running to the present day. There's clearly a lot more to Eliza's life than just being the wife of someone who's non-stop. She doesn't seem to have done a lot of stopping herself. And then, there's Angelica, who probably wasn't much of a slouch herself, even after she gets married and goes elsewhere. So it really feels like, if we want to tell the full story of Alexander Hamilton, we need to not only go through "Burr" and "Alexander", but also "Eliza".
What other things in my media consumption could use sequels? Well, that's a little on the tricky side, because a lot of them have been getting second (or more) seasons or sequel games or remakes that are meant to tell the story another way around. Because there's almost always a drive to take something that already worked and had an audience the first time around and make it so that there's a second go at it to attract all the people who loved it the first time and hopefully a big bunch of people who will be interested in seeing it for a new time and/or who heard about the original and want to know if the new thing is going to be as good or better than the original they've heard so much about. Animaniacs would have been a go-to on that, on the assumption that they keep up with making smart fun of the life and times of the people who are there, while also poking fun at the people who were kids the first time around and are now adults. Because the Warners would have no trouble adjusting to the new reality, even if the people around them might have also completely changed. But now there's a sequel (which I haven't watched yet), and so that goes off the list of things that might do well with a sequel.
Although, truthfully, one of the reasons I would watch the sequel Animaniacs is for more Pinky and the Brain, because twenty more years of technological advancements would only provide even more ways of Brain to try and take over the world, which might provide for some very pointed commentary on how technology has changed. And possibly a couple of episodes where Brain might have a little bit of an initial struggle in trying to figure out how to wrest control from the people who have already done a fair amount of taking over the world themselves. (I think it would be potentially really funny to have Brain decide to become an influencer to the point where people would give him control of the world. First, perhaps, with some TikToks, then possibly by trying to rise to the top of the K-pop charts, or trying to hijack Facebook, only to get drawn into flamewars or other such things. Mostly to give Maurice LaMarche the chance at deadpanning some remarkably ridiculous-sounding lines.)
And then there are the series and things where a sequel would be helpful, but it would have to be at the helm of someone other than the original creator, or it might have to have a different lead, because in the interim time, they've proven themselves to be inequal to the task of making the show they want. Whedon shows without Whedon at the helm, or a Potter production that doesn't make an absolute hash of so many things that are important to the people who are still waiting for their letters and would have confidence about where the Hat would have placed them. Or who would be expecting an education system in the States that would be more respectful of the spirituality of the first people, or that would function less as a boarding school with houses and more like a public school, possibly the Platonic ideal of a public school that can keep itself funded, have good student-teacher ratios, a staff that has the tools and the authority to effectively deal with discrimination issues and to make all of the classes accessible. And so forth.
I'm not fully all the way through all of the Pern books yet, as I have one more author to evaluate, but based on what the first two authors did, it's a low bar to clear to approach something passable. Pern, as a setting, is the sort of place where a sequel work that has basically nothing to do with the original authors but can use all of the official places and people they created, and has free license to change things as necessary to make it less of a crapsack world with cool dragons into a more functional society that has figured out how the dragons and ther riders fit into their lives, and then are significantly less Randite Libertarian about everything. Which, again, the sort of thing that the fic community can do just fine, finding those pockets of making things better and more manageable. And the original author left us with the reality that, hey, the last Threadfall will happen at the end of this particular Pass, meaning there's a big social upheaval that's happening right around the corner. That's plenty of space for a sequel work to go into, either in the middle of the thing where everything is going different, or after all of the dramatic social change and there's a new order of things. Which could be good and could be less good - it's not like the place has to turn utopic, but there would definitely be the opportunity to tell a different story involving the dragons, their riders, and all of the other people involved and how things changed or are changing.
So, yes, it's mostly "works that could use a sequel are generally ones where the fandom (or me) feel like there's something amiss, or done wrong, or the person in charge turned out to be terrible," and very occasionally something where it would be fun to bring them forward and have them do the same sorts of things, but updated for the environment they are in. (Because, come on, if DuckTales did this well, surely they can bring back Darkwing Duck and update it for the current times.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-25 07:45 am (UTC)with 300% less fandom and creators being racist to John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Kelly Marie Tran if she's along for any part of the ride, and their characters
no subject
Date: 2020-12-25 03:07 pm (UTC)