Does it matter?
01/03/2003 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

Reality is for people who don’t have a grip on fantasy.

Hello everyone

The first statement above was a response to an email about why someone was affronted by the ‘Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers’ film adaptation and wanted me to hear his protest in January.

Apart from reminding him that SFCrowsnest has its own letters page where anyone can express their comments for reaction from everyone, I ended up giving one simple but slightly extended reply. A few paragraphs are as follows:-

‘No one says you have to watch them if they infringe on your reality or perception of things. If anything, a lot of these adaptations tend to draw people to the original source material anyway who might not have been in the first place.

‘Expressing an opinion is always going to stir people up. If for no other reason than as a reminder that not everyone is a sheep. I'm vocal but I'm actually standing on the fence here simply cos in many ways, an opinion here doesn't mean anything unless you can verbalize the reasons for your dislike.

Even then, it's not likely to change anything. The films will still exist. There's simply more important things in the world. If you want people to hear your opinion than you have to put it somewhere where you can get a reaction like our accessible letters column & you can put it in yourself.’

Well, apart from plugging using our letters column, my thoughts kept going back to my reply. Not that I disagree with or want to change my own opinion, just that it expresses so much about how insular some SF/fantasy fans live. No matter what is said, once something is created, it won’t just suddenly go away.

I mean, in the long term, does it really matter or likely to change the world if you don’t like a film, TV series or book? Well, only in terms of sales to the writers, publishers and film/TV companies if you don’t view their product.

As to the viewers or readers? Are we so insular or used to living in a closet that that is all we see of the world or what really worries us? Considering how dangerous this world is, disliking the existence of a film would be pretty low on my list not near the top of priorities to worry about.

I’m not entirely convinced that that last statement applies to all you people reading this editorial. I mean, you’ve got other interests like computers and how to use them, haven’t you? Nevertheless, my opinion has some validity. What do we really care about?

Not liking a film isn’t going to change anything. It’s made. It’ll either have an audience or not depending on whether its well made or not. Even when it’s regarded as bad, there will always be an audience out there, if only to mock or point out the errors in it.

With SF/fantasy, there is always elements of love or hate in our tastes. The latter is also a favourite pastime of fantasy fans. Even films that are terrestrially loved - can’t include the universe in this until we have alien critics - are torn to shreds under scrutiny that they were never intended to have in the pre-video age.

We seek perfection in an imperfect world and can cringe when anything is less than one hundred per cent. I doubt if anything can ever be that perfect as taste is all in the eye of the beholder.

OK. The point of this editorial isn’t so much a discussion about one reader’s reaction to a film. It’s more to do with choosing or fighting battles where you or many people acting together have some chance of winning. This isn’t always an impossible battle.

The resurrection of ‘Star Trek’ or even ‘Babylon 5’ or ‘Roswell High’ each season for a while shows decisions can be overturned some times. Whether the campaign in the USA to boycott their Sci-Fi Channel over the demise of ‘Farscape’ and other SF shows is going to cause them problems - see elsewhere on this website for more details - and appease the fans is debatable but does illustrate the power SF fans can have when they act together for some causes.

It’s when we squabble amongst ourselves that we appear as children rather than knowing adults is often our undoing when viewed by outsiders. It’s seen even more so when some wish something never existed as it won’t change the fact that it does. Yes, we have passion for our interest but there is always a need to keep some sort of perspective or we look like we’re loosing the plot.

Science Fiction and fantasy has a level of acceptance in our society now. Not necessarily all for the good but that’s always a different problem. We’re not been seen as being totally at odds with the world any more. Non-readers will see the latest SF or fantasy film blockbuster and maybe understand some of our passion for a little while until the next non-genre film comes along or find something else to do.

Sustained fan interest in any subject can still confuse a lot of people. Acting responsibly with rational arguments puts us all on an even footing that anyone can understand even if they might not necessarily always agree with our taste all the time.

The important lesson to learn from all of this is one very simple lesson: Fight the battles you have a chance of winning with as loud a voice as possible. With that incentive anything is possible. It can’t be won on arguments of just disliking some film’s existence.

The only thing that can be learnt when something is either fait accompli or already lost, is ensuring the same mistake isn’t repeated again.

Be happy. Enjoy the rest of the website.

Thank you and good night

Geoff Willmetts

editor: SFCrowsnest.com

PS For those keeping up with my health. I have a perpetual cold and cough for sale. Price is cheap and only a sneeze away.

(Less Serious) Thought For The Month: I’ve been duly attempting to record the ‘Taken’ TV series to watch at a more convenient time. In the UK, we have two showings. So how come that nearly all first showings to date have the video recorder locking off after about 9 minutes.

A recent showing went on hours after it supposed to have locked off. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen to the second showing. Conspiracy or what?

PPS: For those keeping track, I’m still about 18 months (early June 2001 now if you’re still thinking I’m just repeating the same message every month) behind with going through the ebook samples. Thank you for your patience but let me know if you’ve sold elsewhere so I can reduce my pile or if you’ve changed address.

This isn’t much of a repeat, just to show you’re not forgotten. Those sending in samples, be prepared for a wait and read the Guidelines elsewhere on this website. They are there to help you do some of the right things and reduce the number of times I’m repeating myself over silly grammatical errors.