No, we’re not talking about that kind of fanservice. Sorry. Maybe next time.
Ever since I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness this idea has been rolling around in my head. I considered writing a full review of the movie, but honestly io9 covered my thoughts much better than I could articulate here. And my issue with the film is a much deeper one that extends beyond just the film itself.
So, naturally, spoiler alert.
There’s a common piece of advice that is often given to new writers: know your audience. It’s good advice: it’s important for an author to know who exactly their work is being seen by, and what is and isn’t appropriate or wanted by that audience. If I write for children, I’m not going to include gratuitous violence in the story, instead opting for some fluffy animals or something. If I become successful enough, I might add a reference or two to my fans so that they know I’m paying attention to them. Stuff like that.
The thing is, one’s work should not be reliant completely on fanservice. The main thing I’ve seen Trekkies compliment the new film on is that it “felt like a Star Trek movie.” I don’t know how a Star Trek movie is supposed to feel, exactly, but if it felt like one it was because the entire film was a by-the-numbers appeal to the fans. Why is the villain Khan? Because that’s what fans were asking for, as Wrath of Khan was one of the most memorable and beloved entries in the franchise. Why was Carol Marcus in the movie? Because she was in Wrath of Khan. Why was there a scene in which Kirk sacrifices his life in order to save the crew while Spock watches him die of radiation poisoning through a glass door? Because it was in effing Wrath of Khan.The film is driven entirely by fanservice.
It’s one thing to listen to fan complaints and address them if they make sense. For example, many people complained that Scotty didn’t have much screen time in the previous film, and his role was expanded to a full subplot in this one. And it mostly worked. I could list a bunch of examples in which fan complaints and suggestions actually improved a piece of fiction once implemented. But it’s one thing to address concerns and another to be dictated by them.
And this is, to a degree, a huge problem in modern fiction. So much of what is published and released now is done so mostly because that’s what the audiences expect. Why do we see so much of what Pyrotra calls Lang’s Syndrome? Because writers keep throwing in vampires and werewolves for no other reason than that it’s what people expect to find in stories of the paranormal.
Look at a show like Supernatural. The entire premise of the show is that supernatural urban legends and mythology are true (except Bigfoot; he’s obviously a hoax), and in the first season we find out that vampires are mainly thought to be extinct—Dean and Sam tell their dad that they’ve never even heard of real vampires before then. Given that they’ve been hunting monsters their entire lives, this is a big deal.
But guess what? Vampires keep showing up throughout the series, repeatedly. Besides demons, it seems to be one of the default monsters the show turns to when it needs something to be a threat. And it’s absurd, because this is a show that includes shapeshifters, witches, skinwalkers, wendigo, ghouls, djinn, daevas, tulpas, sirens, wraiths, and a crapload more that I’m not going to go through the effort of listing, the default creature is a vampire. Need a short clip of Dean killing something? Vampire. Need a lesson about hate crimes against non-humans? Vampire nest that only kills cattle. A character goes to the monster underworld and befriends a monster there? Naturally it’s got to be a vampire. I’m not saying that the show is irredeemable, or even awful, but I think the show would greatly benefit from branching out to different myths instead of sticking solely with the ones we’re comfortable with.
This is extended further when the fanservice permeates the narrative, rather than just the elements of it. For instance, almost everyone I’ve talked to on the subject seems to agree that the first Pirates of the Caribbean film was the best of the series. After seeing just how popular the character of Jack Sparrow—excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow—was the rest of the films in the series focused quite a bit more on his antics, and suffered for it. It would have been fine to learn more of his backstory, but most of that is pushed aside so that we can watch Jack run from cannibals and have hallucinations. Why? Because fans liked wacky Jack scenes, so we get scenes of nothing but wacky Jack.
Or perhaps we could just examine Iron Man 2. The first film became popular in part because of witty dialogue and the bonus after-the-credits scene which showed that the film was part of a bigger world. The sequel forgot, though, that it was all tied together with a predictable-yet-lovable story, and made a movie which was about as unmemorable as a cereal breakfast.
Listening to the opinions of fans and appealing to them isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, either: the 2009 Star Trek held many nods to the original Star Trek and fans that worked in context. Was it necessary to see Kirk cheat on the Kobayashi Maru test? No, but it was a nice way to please fans while simultaneously furthering an original story and firmly establish his character.
Or, going back to Supernatural, the character of Crowley was quickly a fan favorite, and has been developed into his own unique villain who is still fun to watch on screen. Or Iron Man 3, which kept the witty dialogue but dialed back the Avengers content in order to keep the film on track. Or Pirates of the Caribbean …
…okay, I don’t really have anything on that.
My point being that fanservice isn’t always bad, but too much of it is. To be fair it can be difficult to create a balance that works. The telltale sign seems to be when the piece of fiction relies on the fanservice, rather than using it as a device to further a story that has its own original ideas. So yes, know your audience, but you can’t use them as a crutch to hold up your story. Then it’s just lazy.
Maxie on 7 June 2013, 16:45 said:
I definitely agree with this article. There are a lot of times in fiction (not just TV and movies but books too) where it feels as if the author chooses a certain element not because it’s appropriate but because it was common at the time when the book was written.
This gets jarring especially when it’s dated (How many stories with vampires that clearly reference <i>Twilight</i> are going to look silly when they are published 4-5 years from now?) and it often feel shoehorned in.
I don’t really think that the <i>Supernatural</i> example works too well though. I think that they use vampires not because the fans like vampires that much but because the episode is focused less on the actual monster and more on some other plot or character element. It’s still a lazy choice, but I think they’re doing it not to please the fans but because vampires are already familiar. They don’t have to use valuable screentime establishing what they are and what their powers are the way they would have to if they selected something more obscure like an striga or a rugaru.
(I do agree that the show would be better if they did branch out more though; it doesn’t take <i>that</i> long to have someone go on Wikipedia and give a 20-second overview of what the monster of the day is for variety’s sake.)
Durandalski on 7 June 2013, 18:50 said:
This is amusing because I seem to remember hearing from trekkies that the 2009 star trek movie was and I quote- “rape” of the series. I think that in the case of Star trek a good argument could be made that they succeeded beyond (my) expectation in making a movie that appealed to trekkies and new viewers (me) alike. I would never watch a star trek show, too much treknobabble and camp, and reference to its bloated backstory. But I enjoyed both of the new movies as their own stand alone works of art.
Of course even as I say that, in our modern world such fantastic flights of science fiction are no longer the “in” thing. Look at the grimy and/or dystopian future depicted in most sci-fi over the past few years. The sleek, shiny star trek world would be out of place if it had never existed before and it showed up on the scene now; and lets face it, who believes in total boy-scout heroes these days. Edgy heroes are in thing, even the star trek characters have been “edgified”. But because of its place in popular culture star trek is widely accepted, even by those who were never fans of the shows.
Pryotra on 7 June 2013, 18:56 said:
This this so much this.
I’d agree. I’ve thought that a lot of franchises were hurt by their tendency to avoid new things or keep other things that made the show work well because a certain part of the show was popular.
I wouldn’t mind an article on the other fanservice either.
Trent on 7 June 2013, 21:09 said:
Irony, irony. The reason Trekkies can compliment Into Darkness for feeling like a proper Star Trek movie is because they recognize it’s not a “by-the-numbers appeal to the fans”.
Apep on 7 June 2013, 21:49 said:
I’m a Trekkie and I hated Into Darkness specifically because of all the forced, obvious fanservice. It’s especially bad because, since Abrams isn’t a fan, it all comes across as pandering, which it probably was. And of course it comes across as a “real” Trek film, because it is a real Trek film – it’s Wrath of Khan, only flashier.
And here’s what really pisses me off about Abrams entries into the franchise – in the first one, there’s a scene where Spock almost literally turns to the audience and goes, “This is a whole different timeline, so not everything’s going to end up being the same.” And then everything ends up being exactly the same, except everyone’s younger and prettier. Nothing’s changed.
And as for the Pirates franchise… ugh. The fourth one was the absolute worst – we don’t even get other characters to give us a break from Jack. That whole romance sub-plot was so tacked-on that the characters it concerned literally swam out of the movie without any kind of resolution, never to be seen again. And no, I don’t care if that was in the book it was based off of, if I was supposed to care about those two, maybe they should have gotten a bit more screen time.
Trent on 7 June 2013, 22:47 said:
And then everything ends up being exactly the same, except everyone’s younger and prettier. Nothing’s changed.
Except it has. You’re filtering everything through a mega filter. Heck, I could assume you’re basing that solely off the trailers. Not doing anything different. I don’t see anyone complaining about the entire original crew being present and accounted for. In fact, I’m seeing more complaints about things being too different. Khan’s not the same, Kirk wouldn’t do that, Chekov doesn’t work in Engineering, and this and that. Speaking of which…
…it’s Wrath of Khan, only flashier.
No. It isn’t. Khan isn’t the focal antagonist, his plight isn’t the major challenge. You say that only because they put Khan in the movie. There’s no genesis device, in fact nothing hinges on any particular device apart from the torpedoes. Kirk and Co. had to deal with the threat of what could have become a militarized Starfleet. They were unwitting pawns, meant to serve as sacrificial figures in a scheme to jump start war with the Klingons.
I must have missed all that in Wrath of Khan.
Juracan on 8 June 2013, 03:38 said:
I suppose I see your point, though I somewhat disagree. I kind of imagined the show as a chance to explore new ideas with horror and urban legends, and sticking with vampires was a shut down to all of that. I guess this one’s less about appealing to more audiences rather than something the fans were asking for.
I was considering mentioning the treatment of female characters, but I think Misha Collins already covered that one.
But sometimes they don’t even do that much. I looked up ‘rugaru’ after seeing their episode on it and was kind of surprised how little it matched up.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying “These movies and examples I’m listing are irredeemable and you suck if you like them”; I could, to a degree, enjoy Into Darkness (Cumberbatch’s performance was amazing), I just didn’t think it was as brilliant as many reviewers stated because of the above mentioned reasons. I don’t think the new Trek was an awful movie, just not a great one.
Er… I’ll put it under consideration.
Um, could you elaborate on that point?
Like Trent above, I disagree— it’s not just a repainted Wrath of Khan. It is, however, a blatant attempt to cash in on that movie’s popularity by using elements from that film. Like you said, Abrams wasn’t originally a fan of Trek, and wasn’t until after he was appointed to work on the 2009 film. I’m more forgiving of Abrams than some, but given everything he’s said… yes, it very much comes across as pandering to the fanbase, and not even particularly creatively.
Shy on 8 June 2013, 08:36 said:
I have to say that I’m a Trekkie who thought that both the 2009 movie and this one did not feel like Star Trek movies. I tolerated the 2009 one because at least for all it’s flaws, it was still new and exciting. I absolutely loathe Into Darkness because this one was simply insulting to me as a Trekkie. I felt like Abrams was trying to pander to the Trek fanbase by dropping references all over the place and ripping off TWOK, but even as he did all this he simply did not understand the material, so that all those names and references and bits of Trek trivia that Trekkies know and love, ended up feeling hollow and empty because there was nothing behind them. Besides lens flare.
The problem with the fan-service of Into Darkness was that there was no substance to it. Just names and bits of Trek trivia and Easter eggs, but nothing behind them and nothing that made sense in the movie. To use an example, so we see Abrams bring in Khan and copy chunks of the plot and lines from TWOK. Why, because it is as you said, one of the top Trek movies (there are some Trekkies who did think it’s over-rated). But why is this movie so loved? Part of the appeal of TWOK was watching Kirk deal with a ghost of his past, while at the same time struggling with his place as someone who is growing old. The themes of aging and rebirth are constant through this movie. And then there is revenge, the appeal of Khan and his fight against Kirk is that there is a history between them, something we know and something that fuels the plot and story.
With Into Darkness all we have is…Khan. There is no history between him and Kirk, he adds nothing to the plot. Any other villain from TOS could’ve been substituted without changing much to the movie. Having Spock scream ‘Khan’ was both unnecessary and confusing as Admiral Robocop was the one who had damaged the Enterprise, Admiral Robocop was pretty much behind everything in this movie making me think that it would’ve been a better movie if he had been the only villain.
The fact of the matter is as you say, too much fan-service can ruin a movie, particularly when used as a ploy to simply gain more money. But may I add that in addition to too much fan-service, the problem also lies in that the fan-service was basically an empty gesture by a man who understands little to nothing about the fandom he was trying to appeal too.
Tim on 9 June 2013, 13:25 said:
I think you’re one step away from the truth here: I’ve never liked the term “fanservice” because it tries to offload responsibility for mistakes among the people who made the movie to the fans who watched it.
Creators like using the “fanservice” excuse because it means they can blame others for their own mistakes. Fans like it because it makes us feel like far from not being listened to, our voices are so influential we need to keep ourselves in check to avoid accidentally mind-controlling the production crew of our favourite shows.
The problem is far more likely to crop up in the pitch stage where the producers are securing funding. You want your pitch to be snappy and to assure your investors that they’ll get their money back and then some. The investors don’t care if it’s a good movie as a rule, they care about returns (this is why Michael Bay has a career). This tends to result in trying to boil the pitch down into bullet point lists of elements with explanations why they’ll make a successful movie. So for Pirates of the Caribbean they’d say “exit polls showed that people liked this Jack Sparrow character, so we’ll feature him more heavily.”
Probably the best example of this is the Star Wars prequels, where Boba Fett, a background character only notable for his interesting costume, is suddenly important, and all the focus is on Darth Vader who is suddenly space Jesus. Nobody wanted that, it’s just a case of fixating on something the fans liked and forgetting they liked it because it was part of something bigger.
It’s the same logic that would watch someone putting milk and sugar in their coffee and assume that next time they wanted a cup of sugared milk. Telling them you thought they were a big milk and sugar fan doesn’t change that you’re the one who screwed up there.
To be honest I don’t like that scene; he’s so flippant that any instructor should have flunked him because he learned nothing from it. I always figured he’d have reprogrammed it so he just barely scraped a win rather than effectively playing with all the cheats on.
I mean, it’s a pretty Gary Stu-ism at best (protagonist is rewarded for breaking the rules) but I can see them being impressed by his resourcefulness and desire to win if he’s at least somewhat subtle about it. But the new Kirk just comes off as a smug cheater.
Thea on 9 June 2013, 15:49 said:
What I didn’t like about the Wrath of Khan scenes were that they seemed to undermine what theme/story Darkness had going for itself.
I agree about that last Pirates movie.. Sparrow was never a character so a whole story about him was just painful for me to watch.
Lex Hair on 10 June 2013, 01:32 said:
I agree with everything in this article.
I’m not really a Trekkie, though I’ve watched a lot of the movies and the various series. I will say, though, that even though I kind of enjoyed the latest installment, there were some moments that were far too blatantly fanservice, even for a casual viewer, or one who was mostly there for Simon Pegg. cough The biggest and most blatant one was “KHAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!” I just kept thinking what a huge mistake that was, because everyone I went with burst into giggles. And I don’t think that’s what the moment was meant to achieve.
There were some other mistakes, too. I mean, I didn’t realize just how funny a Vulcan mind-meld could be, until Into Darkness.
Nothing involving Simon Pegg was a mistake, though. Nothing involving Simon Pegg could ever really be a mistake.