Major Fannish Events

[thefourthvine]

For various reasons, right now I'm thinking about Major Fannish Events I Wish I Could Have Seen. Now, when I say that, I don't mean the actual events, most of which are available on DVD or at least on some fourth-generation cell phone recording somewhere, but the fannish reaction to those events.

And since I can't discuss this at all without spoilers, I'm just going to say: spoilers in the post for Buffy, Star Trek: TOS, Stargate: SG-1, Star Wars. No spoilers in the post for anything that has aired in, say, the last five years.

ETA: Spoilers in the comments for everything. No, seriously: everything in the WORLD. Television! Movies! Books! Anime! Manga! Horror movies from the 1930s! The Fifth World War! The heat death of the universe! It's pretty awesome, but if you don't like spoilers, maybe the comments section isn't the place for you.



So, like, I remember when I first saw the Angelus arc - specifically, when Buffy and Angel got into bed, and then Angelus got back out again. (Or, okay, I guess technically it was Angel who staggered out, but you know what I mean.) And then again when Jenny Calendar died. I remember thinking what an unimaginable experience this must have been for true believer fans when it was first run. (And for Buffy/Angel shippers, oh my god. Your fondest wish! Followed immediately by your worst nightmare! And this, my friends, is why I would rather my OTPs never ever become canon: canon writers make 'em and break 'em, and then they're harder for us to put back together again.) And then I tried to imagine what my friends list or circle would have looked like if I had a) been in fandom and b) fandom had been on LJ or DW at the time.

I can picture the endless roster of cut-tagged posts - I was there for the last episode of Angel, and I remember being stunned by the reaction - but I can't imagine what would be inside those cut tags. Aside, I assume, from a lot of screaming.

And last night, for various reasons (Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock), I watched Killa's incredible vid Dante's Prayer. Now, let me share with you my progression with that vid:

The first time I watched it, Best Beloved had to narrate the whole thing, including telling me who Spock and Kirk were, precisely. (I had sort of vaguely thought, up to that point, that Leonard Nimoy pretty much played, like, Elrond in Space.) And there's a lot of terrain covered in that vid, including people at different ages, and worse (for me), different outfits. I think it took her about fifteen minutes to give me the shortest possible summary. (Very short version that leaves a lot out: Spock dies tragically. His friends are sad. Kirk looks like someone pithed him. Later, chronologically speaking, they go and get him back.)

I remember being surprised that she teared up at Spock's death scene, largely because if someone in this relationship is going to cry, it's going to be me. (I think that people have a default reaction to emotional excess. Mine is tears.) I cry at the funerals of people I don't know. I cry at death scenes in movies. I cried so hard at Theoden's scene outside his son's grave that Best Beloved asked me if the son was a major character in the book. ("No," I sobbed. She stared at me blankly. "Then why are you crying?" "Theoden is saaaaaad," I said, unable to explain more completely because I was, you know, weeping helplessly. Keep in mind that this was not the first - or the third - time we'd seen the movie.)

So it was a little weird, I thought, that I was the one saying, "Oh. Well, that's sad," and Best Beloved was the one surreptitiously wiping her eyes.

The next time I watched Dante's Prayer, I'd been in fandom longer, so I knew a little more. I'd also had time to process BB's explanations. So I was a little sadder. And so it went.

But this last time - well, in addition to tearing up and sniffling emotionally for some ten minutes after the vid was over (and yet being really kind of touched - OMG, Spock knew Kirk's name), I found myself wondering for the first time what Spock's death was like for the Star Trek fandom. I mean, seriously, that is painful now, and I know what's coming. Then? I think it must have hurt rather a lot. And I wondered what fannish reaction would look like if this was a current fandom - I mean, imagine if, say, Sam died with Dean pressed against the other side of the glass, helpless and bereft, and then - did people even know there would be another movie? I mean, imagine if they didn't. Imagine if that happened with Sam and Dean and everyone thought, hey, maybe that's it; if there's another season, maybe it will just be Dean Gets Revenge. Maybe Sam is gone for good. (Or Rodney. Or Merlin. Or whoever. Insert Very Important Person of your choosing.)

And I guess that did happen with SG1. (I was actually surprised, on my latest viewing, to realize how similar Daniel's temporary death was to Spock's temporary death.) But I wasn't around for it. Was there wailing? Was there gnashing of teeth? Did people go to sleep that night with a hollow pit in their hearts? If fandom had been primarily on LJ at that time (uh, was it?), would every post for days been cut-tagged with just punctuation and contain a lot of incoherent wailing?

And what about the whole "Darth Vader, Luke, and Leia: there's not enough family therapy in the universe for this one" reveal? What was that like? I mean, I can kind of imagine it now - I bet Luke and Leia shippers, should there have been any, would at minimum go off and write an alternate second movie where Darth Vader is Han's father or something. (I...would like to see that, actually. And, no, I don't ship Luke and Leia.) But I can't help but wonder what it was like then.

Does anyone else think like this? What is the big fannish event you wish you could have seen? (Seen the live reaction to, anyway.) But even more important, to help me in my fantasizing - what are the big fannish events you'll never forget? What were they like to live through?

Comments

[melannen]

Well, right now, we're all living through Torchwood: Children of Earth. Don't miss that one: it's been epic!

And of course ST:Reboot.

I got into HP fandom after book four, so I lived through Sirius is Dead in book 5 and Dumbledore is Dead in book 6 and Hedwig is Dead in book 7 (oh, and I guess some other people died in book seven, too.)

I'm waiting kind of breathlessly to see what happens when the next Vorkosigan book comes out! And the next Young Wizards book, which'll hopefully be less faily. I got into both of those in long gaps between books. (In book fandoms, every new book is a major fandom trauma. It's hard to go from that to TV fandoms where things happen! every week! and fandom doesn't explode!)

And of course the entire SW Prequel Saga, though I was never quite in the online fandom for it.

(More interesting is that two fandoms I follow - Highlander and XF - have had new movies come out since I started paying attention, and they were both mere blips in the radar of fandom, who were old hat at ignoring stupid canon by then. See also: all of comic fandom.)

[thefourthvine]

I have not, in fact, missed the COE stuff. I think I am traumatized secondhand. Owwwww.

I am COWERING IN FEAR of the next Vorkosigan book. This is partly because I haven't liked the things Bujold has written lately (do not get me started about the Sharing Knife or whatever the fuck it is, or about Paladin of Souls, which made me want to HURT SOMEONE), and partly just because, as you say, a new book in a beloved series is a GREAT BIG TRAUMA. Even if you're not in the fandom.

More interesting is that two fandoms I follow - Highlander and XF - have had new movies come out since I started paying attention, and they were both mere blips in the radar of fandom, who were old hat at ignoring stupid canon by then. See also: all of comic fandom.

Yeah. Some fandoms are so brutal to their long-time loves that they just learn this instinctive canon rejection that I really quite admire.

[sinensis]

I remember sitting in the theater during Spock's death scene and listening to the choked sobs of people around me (I managed to cry quietly), and the feeling of stunned disbelief. I still hadn't found organized fandom at that point, but it definitely felt like I was with my comrades in grief in that theater.

I would love to have seen "Call of The Wild" hit Due South fandom when it originally aired; I discovered DS later. (Although that would probably have meant a front row seat for the Ray wars, which never sounded like much fun.)

[thefourthvine]

Ohhh. I can picture everyone crying. A sort of alone-together moment. *sniffs just thinking about it*

And, yeah. I am entirely happy to have come to dS late enough to miss the Ray Wars. ENTIRELY HAPPY. I mean, it would have been amazing to be there for Call of the Wild, except I know for Fraser/Vecchio shippers that was the final punch in the gut. I cannot think it would have been pretty.

[pollyanna]

The big event I remembered was in the X-Files when Krycek kissed Mulder. This was before LJ and the lists erupted! Even the non-slashy ones, but they were mostly in denial :-)

[thefourthvine]

He - wait. What now? Krycek kissed Mulder? I. Um. Really?

[cimorene]

The Shat talks about the decision to kill Spock and the fan reaction a great deal in his book Star Trek Movie Memories, which I highly recommend for the entertainment value. He's a hilarious dude, and a glimpse into his brain is pretty awesome. ALSO, the saga of Making Star Trek 5 (aka Shat's On Crack And Wants You To Be Too) is possibly EVEN FUNNIER than the movie itself, which is saying something. (One of the few times I've literally fallen off the couch laughing, dude. It helps having read the book first.)

[thefourthvine]

HOW CAN YOU MAKE ME WANT TO READ A BOOK BY WILLIAM SHATNER? You should be ashamed.

I wonder where I can get a copy.

[concernedlily]

I remember reading a comment that the reveal of Methos' history of being Death in Highlander was a Major Fannish Event (he'd seemed so harmless! I think ther was wailing), but by the time I was reading in the fandom it was common background in the stories and how the Duncan/Methos relationship was written and perceived. I'm not sure I've ever been in a fandom when it had such a big upset, though.

[libitina]

I don't think it was half as traumatic as Duncan cutting his hair. Because Methos admirers were already pre-selected for a fondness for moral ambiguity. So there was shock, but mostly shock full of awesome. As I remember it.

[treewishes]

I remember a year at MediaWest, which happens on Memorial Day and just after a bunch of season finales. It was the year of sidekick deaths - Blair on Sentinel; Daniel on SG1; Gabrielle on Xena, and I think one other? Anyway, they were all cliffhangers and we didn't know how/if they would be resolved.

But also clearly an indication of a trend to rile up your fanbase... I remember it as a transition for me, from starry eyed to a more jaded fan, realizing they were playing us all.

[sanj]

Buffy sent Angel to hell that same summer, IIRC. It was like a fad.

[princessofgeeks]

i have so few fandoms; i'm very serially monogamous and have only been in fandom since 2002 and only discoverd slash in 2003, so i'm such the newbie.... but I have studied the history of SG1 and yes: the fan reaction to Daniel's death in season 5 was immense. It was two pronged because there was the whole drama over the actor's dissatisfaction with how the writers/show runners were using his character, and then the whole way they wrote him out (which was actually pretty awesome, if you like angst! I think that may be why I just basically stopped worrying about character death warnings when I got into SG1. There are so many major character deaths in my canon that the fanfic has to really go dark to be as angsty as the canon.... but I digress...). and of course people knew ahead of time that Daniel was leaving the show and everyone was incredibly sad and there was this huge feud about it and a big write in campaign to bring him back. And given the way the canon is set up they have an actual mechanism for bringing him back!

i wish i could have watched TS by BS, the Sentinel series finale, in real time.

And I am still marveling over how the finale of TPM launched an ENTIRE HUGE FANDOM based on less than five minutes of canon.... amazing.

The only fandom I was lucky enough to participate in in real time was Lotrips, and of course LOTR -- waiting, as a book fan, for the last two movies to come out was so incredible. Seeing the reactions in real time, etc.

I've never managed to follow a tv show in real time. I really tried with LOST, but had to give up because of my chaotic schedule. Closed canons and DVDs, or movie fandoms with long gaps between, are perfect for me. I haven't seen Iron Man I yet -- am looking forward to investigating that.

But reading your highlights and the comments is so fun because it's a tour of fannish history! So many fandoms, so many Big Events. I didn't know that Mulder and Krycek had ever kissed, for example. So that's fun.

Thanks for being here. I always enjoy your posts so much, even when it's a fandom I barely know.

[elspethdixon]

I remember Daniel's death and return even though I wasn't in SG-1 fandom -- the shockwaves were felt as far away as HP and PotC fandoms.

I haven't seen Iron Man I yet -- am looking forward to investigating that.

The movie is awesome, and features a nice possible slash pairing in RDJ and Terrance Howard (also pretty slashy in some of the 70s and 80s comics). Stay far, far away from Matt Fraction's Immortal Iron Man comics title, though -- it's a trainwreck in every way that it's possible for a comics title to suck. Godawful WTF storyline, hideous art, horrible characterization on not just Iron Man but most of the supporting characters as well... and I can't stress the ugly art hard enough.

The Warren Ellis Extremis storyline and the Knaufs' Execute Program and Iron Man: Director of SHIELD are both very well written and prettily drawn, though. And the old school 60s stuff is often unintentionally LOLarious.

[bessemerprocess]

My dad talks about the death of Spock like it was a holy moment. He refuses to go to movie theaters, except for Trek movies, but saw it five or six times in theater.

I would have liked to have had lj for all of the original run of Babylon 5 though especially for Severed Dreams and Endgame, oh, and of course for the death of the station, which still makes me cry, even today.

I actually got an lj in response to the last episode of Farscape. That To Be Continued, it inspired so much @#$!, as to get us a miniseries.

[thefourthvine]

Aw. *pats your dad*

I would have liked to have had lj for all of the original run of Babylon 5 though especially for Severed Dreams and Endgame, oh, and of course for the death of the station, which still makes me cry, even today.

I have never seen B5 and know nothing about it, so I'm surprised at the frequency with which it's being mentioned in these comments. I take it was good TV? (Good TV seems to yield more of these moments overall, although bad shows can, too.)

I actually got an lj in response to the last episode of Farscape. That To Be Continued, it inspired so much @#$!, as to get us a miniseries.

That's another one I'm seeing a lot of. I've only seen a few scattered eps of Farscape, but I remember how intensely people were awaiting that miniseries. Wow.

[ames]

ok, I am totally going to lose any geek cred I may have ever had, but my social circle EXPLODED when Ross kissed Rachel on Friends. And then exploded years later when Monica proposed to Chandler, and YEARS LATER AGAIN when Joey kissed Rachel.

[thefourthvine]

I know nothing at all about Friends, but I can appreciate the EXPLOSION factor. (And since I know nothing about it, I have no idea why this might affect your geek cred! You will always have geek cred with me.)

[yasaman]

Usual lurker popping in to say that I would've loved to have seen Highlander fandom's reaction to the Methos was Death revelation. He'd seemed so cute and harmless, if manipulative! And then, BAM, raped, murdered, and pillaged his way through more than a few centuries. It's one instance of interesting, earned character revelation, imo, so I would have liked to see fandom react to it in meta and fic.

I myself was around in HP after GoF on, so I got to watch/participate in the great fannish mourning of Sirius Black. That was the character death that hit me hardest in the whole HP series (and I'm still not over it!), and I remember feeling terrible about it for a whole week. I couldn't sleep the night I finished OotP.

[thefourthvine]

One other person so far has mentioned the Methos = Death reveal, and I think it's one of the more fascinating suggestions for this topic, because - well, it never occurred to me, coming at the fandom waaaaay late and starting with vids, that it WAS a reveal. And yet it must have been. So fascinating.

It's one instance of interesting, earned character revelation, imo, so I would have liked to see fandom react to it in meta and fic.

Now I really want to see it as well. *yearns*

I couldn't sleep the night I finished OotP.

I wasn't in fandom yet when I read OotP - I was just about to get there, though - and so I reacted to OotP with just my Best Beloved and the other people in RL who were reading it. And I don't remember grieving heavily; I even liked the book and re-read it immediately after I finished it. But that was it - that re-read was the last time I read any of the HP books; I could never muster up the enthusiasm to read 6 or 7. OotP just broke my love, and that's never really happened to me that way before.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Well, besides the Harry Potter books coming out, from five through seven (as I was reading the books but not fandom when four came out), or the Stephanie Plum books back when I was in that minor fandom, the only big fannish moment I've been around for has been the final episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

Which was mostly notable for ticking off every fan who wasn't a fourteen year old boy who was only there to watch Jeri Ryan in a catsuit. Because, instead of providing resolution to any one of three or four possible romantic situations that the writers had been stringing us along for years on, they decided to take two characters with little previous interaction at all and have them tell the fans they meant the world to each other. Which, had they been giving hints or something about it for even a few episodes, would have been functional, if not popular, but as it was, it was clearly an insert to give the pretty blonde in the catsuit a future that included a love life with someone (who wasn't a hologram). So they picked the one guy she had no on-screen chemistry with, who already had plenty of on-screen chemistry with another woman, and gave her to him. Which was very fourteenth century of them.

Fandom exploded in righteous indignation. It would have been fun, if it wasn't so depressing.

[thefourthvine]

Well, besides the Harry Potter books coming out, from five through seven (as I was reading the books but not fandom when four came out),

Oh, yes, HP was a big deal. I missed the boat on five, but I was there for six and seven.

or the Stephanie Plum books back when I was in that minor fandom,

OMG! I inadvertently caused wank on a Plum-related message board in the dark ages by suggesting that Ranger was gay.

the only big fannish moment I've been around for has been the final episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

That does not sound like happytimes, from your description. Ouch ouch ouch. *shakes fist at canon writers everywhere*

[ellie]

I lived through a few, but I don't do well with trauma. A significant plot twist or death of a character can throw me right out of the story unless I'm prepared for it ahead of time.

[thefourthvine]

I am totally with you on this. Spoilers make me happy; I need time to get ready.

[caseylane]

OMG! Let's see. For pure horror it had to be Duncan taking Richie's head on Highlander. I didn't slash them but I jumped out of my chair and screamed WHAT!!! Followed by a lot of wailing. I had this vague idea that Richie was to be the son of Duncan and Methos.

I also remember the double quickening with Methos and Duncan, which was very sexual, and the poo-pooing that the het fans gave. I was on alt.tv.highlander (where a Highlander fan introduced me to slash) and there were a lot of men there disagreeing with some of the female fans.

Later when Peter came out with how sexual it was the slashers felt vindicated. By then I was on a Yahoo Group and it was mostly women.

Lived through the ugly, ugly Ray wars as a Kowalski fan. After Call of the Wild I felt smug for weeks. It was the perfect ending for the show.

When Daniel ascended in SG1 I left the fandom immediately. All of the signs of a war were there and I just didn't have the energy for another go-round. (See the above Ray wars).

Now I pretty much stay on the sidelines of fandom, reading the fic and following a few writers comments but don't really get into the discussions too much. After the clusterfuck that was QAF-US I decided it got too crazy.

Of course DW/LJ make it easier for fans. Instead of big general lists where everyone voices their opinions on the same list, things are smaller and you can just "hang out with your own kind".

What was the topic again?

[jenna_thorn]

Goodness, yes, I'm not sure whether I'm happy or disappointed that I wasn't involved in Highlander fandom for the Ahriman arc. I watched it in a small group on a pirated fuzzy edged copied VHS tape and we were silent as we put the next episode on, then the next, in order to absorb the whole thing at once and get through it.

And that's a very different dynamic than talking it out after each chunk of story.

[stewardess]

I happily remember the release of The Two Towers extended edition. It contained a giant slice of multi-generational Steward family angst, and created a boom in fanfic, vids, and fanart about the characters. I love hearing from fellow fans about how the extended edition of TTT turned them into first-time slashers.

[thefourthvine]

It didn't take the Two Towers to do it for me - I was already there, pretty much from birth - but I really liked the EE all the same. Oh, yes.

The men of Gondor. *sighs*

[stranger]

princessofgeeks has it right about SG-1, that there was active denial and much related hysteria about Daniel's death in some fannish camps. I do wonder if the prospect of not having Jack and Daniel to play with in the, so to speak, flesh, was a factor in the mourning. (At least until Daniel came back, and given Daniel's history as a character, you wonder why they were so sure he wouldn't.)

Back in the distant, distant past, the revelation that Leia and Luke were siblings caused smaller-scale upsets than you'd think, partly because in zine fandom it took a few months, or even years, to produce a good zine or a substantial story. (We're talking, by the way, about a fandom so antiquated that the revelation that "there is another" at the end of the first movie was almost never taken to mean Leia might be a Force-user, but Han Solo was a very popular contender. Leia, you see, was a guuurl. TPTB can be willfully blind on social issues, true, but there are times when fandom has been more so.) SW fanfic hadn't really gained as much traction from the first movie -- it was also impeded by the inevitable ST vs. SW competitive feuding -- as you'd expect from a major and extremely fannish media event today. The second movie, Empire, which proclaimed the siblinghood, also hotted up the romance between Leia and Han, and many fanwriters became really interested at that point instead of with the first-aired movie. Even so, at least one long-lived story series started early and paired Luke and Leia, and the author decided to continue it as planned with multiple SFnal novels based on that first-movie premise.

[thefourthvine]

We're talking, by the way, about a fandom so antiquated that the revelation that "there is another" at the end of the first movie was almost never taken to mean Leia might be a Force-user, but Han Solo was a very popular contender. Leia, you see, was a guuurl. TPTB can be willfully blind on social issues, true, but there are times when fandom has been more so.

I find that so very fascinating, that Leia was not the obvious choice, because I spent most of my first viewings of the movies (many years after their release) thinking how Leia would have done it all so much BETTER than Luke - I kind of wanted to smack him a lot. Not Leia.

But I love the idea of Han, not as the other - that will always be Leia for me - but as a force user. I tend to think of him as having a kind of instinctive ability to manipulate the force, just because of the shit he survives. *Something* is sure with him.

Even so, at least one long-lived story series started early and paired Luke and Leia, and the author decided to continue it as planned with multiple SFnal novels based on that first-movie premise.

Wow. Ballsy. I have no idea what would happen these days if a popular pairing was revealed to be, you know, siblings. Hmmm. Actually, that would probably just attract more people to it. *g*

[libitina]

I wish I'd been there for the fannish reaction to the old Star Trek episode where they Went There with Vulcan sex.

[thefourthvine]

Oh, god, me too.

[azurelunatic]

I'm too young a fan to have been able to do Spock's death in the theatres. I sort of have a wistfulness about it, but nothing near to the bitterness in my heart about never having got to say hello to Robert Heinlein, never letting Isaac Asimov ogle me, never getting to shake Mike Ford's hand. At least I got to tell Janet Kagen how much she meant to me.

[montanaharper]

When I was about sixteen (c. 1985), I got to spend half an hour or so on the phone with Isaac Asimov (whose phone number was listed, a thought that boggled me even then). My father was running a robotics convention and wanted Asimov to be a guest; I was tapped to make the call because of my professional phone manner. *g*

Unfortunately, he had a previous commitment halfway across the country the week before, and that didn't leave enough time for him to travel by train or car to our event—he didn't fly, though I don't remember if it was because he was afraid to or if there was some other reason.

After all this time I don't remember what we talked about, but I do remember that he was smart and funny and incredibly gracious.

[azurelunatic]

And to make up for my tear-soaked missive, this is what it was like for Attack of the Clones.

My high school best friend and I had already seen the re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy in the theatres, and we'd had a blast, and we'd watched tiny children have lightsabre fights in the aisles before the show, and we'd had our own, and we'd waved hello to the TA from our fencing class.

So we were primed for the new movie. I didn't have a TV then either, so I was pretty well insulated from spoilers. We decided to go all out. Shawn (my then best friend) had just had a hair disaster. I helped him shave off the frizzled remains, then he took spray paint to his dome and I helped with the detailing, and soon he became R2D2. We stopped by my parents' house, and I soon became Leia (white gown, black yarn rats to fill up the crazy enormous buns), and Rocki borrowed my Yoda shirt. (For all I know, he still has it.)

There was a news crew there. First they interviewed the guy in a full Darth Maul costume. (I didn't know who Darth Maul was, from not having been spoiled at all.) They had a few words with Shawn, who was notable for being over six feet and having the top of his head painted like R2D2. I was in the background; I hoped they'd ask who did the painting, but no such luck.

We watched the movie. Unless a movie is absolute shit, I am not much for criticism after I've watched it. I came out utterly high and determined that someday I would have enough hair to replicate some of the effects that Queen Amidala had going on.

I got sucked into the Sith Academy after that. Movie was cheesy? Midichlorians? No problem. Let's write crackfic. Let's introduce Miss Lunatic to slash for the first time (and make her like it). Let's make her wish she didn't live in Alaska. Let's contribute to compulsory "SITH LORDS KICK ASS!!" here and there. Let's give a fangirl her wings and teach her to fly.

(The Bujold List was my nest. Sith Academy was my launchpad.)

[ladyvyola]

A Vote for Palpatine is a Vote for Order!

[chosenmortal]

harry potter was my first fandom, i got into it about a year before book 5 came out. i wish i'd been in fandom to participate in the book 4 flailing, because i remember staying up until 3am to finish the book when i had to be up at 6 to go to school-- and something that's really rare for me, being a weepy mess at cedric dying. i did participate in a lot of fan aspects of the reactions to books 5 and 6; by the time 7 came out i was pretty much out of that fandom and therefore processed my reaction mostly among my friends and LJ friends, not the fandom at large.

i actually can't believe no one's mentioned battlestar galactica yet. the reveal of four of the final five cylons at the end of season 3 (in the spring of 2007, i believe) was a huuuuuuuuuuuge deal, so insanely well done and so dramatic, it literally had me leaping off the couch yelling at the television while my friend who'd already seen the episode looked on and laughed at me. that was huge because it changed the entire way we looked at tigh, tyrol and anders who we'd known for two or three whole seasons at that point (and tory who was only there b/c the last cylon was supposed to be billy *shakes fist*)-- really intense and brain-breaking. i wouldn't have said i was a part of bsg fandom, but i had enough fellow bsg fans on my flist that we all sort of took part in the collective "holy shit" together.

[thefourthvine]

Oh, I came one book after you - I got to fandom about three or four months after book 5 came out, and didn't really find HP fandom right away, either. (And I flatly refused to read 6 or 7, so I've never had the experience of reading an HP novel along with my friends list - now I wish I had womaned up and read one of them, just to know what it was like.)

On the LJ thread, people have mentioned BSG! And, yeah. I don't even watch it, and I remember the end of season 3 from the friends list screaming. *g*

[siliconshaman]

Can I just say I feel really bloody OLD now... I was around for when the Star War's movies first came out...

and yes, that was one HELL of a blast!

[mrkinch]

It was. We'd watched Star Trek faithfully from the very first ep, but when that ship rumbled over my head it blew me away.

[eisen]

I wish I'd been in BLEACH fandom when the big reveal of who masterminded the events in the Soul Society arc finally came out. As it is now it's kind of old hat, and if you're just entering fandom it's one of those things everyone just ... kind of expects you to know already, but when it happened? I understand the explosions could be seen from the moon.

There really hasn't been anything close to that in the manga since, but I'm waiting. Oh, I'm waiting. I know Kubo Tite's got it in him.

[thefourthvine]

Huh. I'm totally unspoiled for Bleach, which I keep thinking I should get around to one of these days, and now I'm wondering if I should ask you for spoilers on that or not. *debates*

(I was unspoiled for Sai's disappearance in Hikaru no Go and oh, god, I cried, and even so I was sure he'd come back and then he DIDN'T and - *sniffle*.)

points to previous comment

[stranger]

(points upward to siliconshaman). Oooohh, yeah. D'aaaacoorrd.

After ST changed TV SF forever, in 1977 the first SW movie changed SF movies, and summer movies, and space opera lit, forever. A couple of my fencing-club friends were also SF readers, and they came back from the first night gibbering incoherently ("variable swords... ships the size of a city *over your head*..."), and dragged the rest of us to it. And they were right. We all gibbered incoherently for the whole summer. (Except, of course, that "feeling the Force" has nothing, nothing *whatever*, to do with Western-style fencing. I think most of them speed-bumped that so fast they didn't even notice, but it bothered me for a while as a PR problem.) The concept of an SF movie that wasn't openly and offensively cheesy, of any movie where the special effects were worth watching and also part of the story, not only changed entertainment movies but also marked a changeover in SF overall from obscure and purely genre, to edging into the mainstream.

Fanfic fans (principally ST fans then) immediately picked it up as a new toy, and eventually split into diehard ST-only fans and others to whom it might be one toy of several, or closer to a fannish vocation than toy. It introduced a whole new set of interesting problems in meta, when there was, for the first time, *more than one* fan-written fictional universe that could fairly be described as space opera. For instance, ST had a fairly well-defined background after 73 episodes. SW, in a two-hour movie, even after three two-hour movies, had shown a lot of details in a way TV budgets a decade earlier couldn't, but it was still only 6 hours of story time and screen pictures. SW developed a lot of coherent fan-written AUs fairly quickly, when ST almost hadn't needed them (given canonical Mirror material and whatnot).

So, everything changed. For fans, as well as movies.

Re: points to previous comment

[thefourthvine]

I remember my dad talking about the ships the size of a city OVER YOUR HEAD, and trying to explain why it was such an amazing thing at that time! I think, for me, Star Wars has always been so much *there* - I didn't even see it until I was an adult, but I knew about it - that it's hard to imagine what a sea change it must have been at the time.

So, everything changed. For fans, as well as movies.

I love this line so very much. Now I want to read a series of essays from people about how SW changed their lives.

[msilverstar]

Things I wish I'd seen:

the Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers premieres would have been fantastic.

I didn't get close to fandom until watching the FotR extended DVD (for which we bought a DVD player). I didn't get into Lotrips until a bit later, after TTT came out.

After that, I've enjoyed the hell out of my experiences, have been lucky enough to be at three conventions and the TORn party on Oscar night. Would do it again in a heartbeat!

[stranger]

So much the same. I refused to buy a DVD player, because I was incensed at the separately regions where a standard U.S. player wouldn't do British discs and all. And my sister, who has grown up far better than either of us deserve, gave me one for Christmas, so I could play the DVD of FotR. For over a year, I owned only that one DVD set.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Seeing that Joss Whedon hates joy through the movie Serenity is pretty high on the list.

More personally, the very end of Six Feet Under had me crying for almost a half-hour, with about ten of those minutes being after the episode ended.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I've seen a couple vids for Six Feet Under that had me crying. I don't think I could stand any part of the series.

And I know what happened in Serenity, even though I've never seen the movie - seperis linked to a vid that showed that sequence. I had no idea who those people were. But that woman's (um, I don't remember her name, because I have never seen Firefly and only remember two names, but, you know, Wash's wife) voice, the way it sounded - I ended up crying. *sniffle*

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Becoming 2 - Buffy sending Angel to hell and running away from Sunnydale - is what got me to log onto alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer for the first time. It was pretty intense, from what I recall. I wasn't on the newsgroup for the earlier stuff, though I kind of wish I had seen the reactions live.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, I can see that that one must have been a biggie. I mean, I watched it on DVD, and I knew she came back, but. Still. It was...memorable.