Trigun movie thoughts
Semi-randomly: Apparently by dint of being het, I am vanilla. Shit, I always preferred chocolate. Though how I can be vanilla and a dirty pervert at the same time kind of confuses me.
Already there's a tiny furor over the quality of the Trigun movie and what it'll mean for the fandom. I expected this; it's what I meant when I said some people would be happy and some would be sad. I maybe didn't think it would happen so fast, but I did see it coming.
Honestly? I can sympathize. There are many ways they might be approaching this thing, and while some of them would be easy to ignore if we don't like it, a sequel or in-canon side story are harder. It can suck to have your fics and ideas trounced. Just ask every Jossfan that ever drew breath. It doesn't make previously written things bad--just pre-Cow Thing--but it can change how you look at things, especially if you draw inspiration from canon events.
So I get the apprehension. I do. I feel a little of it myself--for all that I'd be curious to see their take on a post-series movie, I worry that it couldn't measure up to what we imagine. For all that I would enjoy a mid-series adventure with all of our heroes together again, I worry that it could include some interesting characterization choices that doesn't fit in with the series it's suppose to be inside. So yeah, there are ways it could suck.
But. For me personally, and this is a very subjective thing that varies from person to person, I think it's worth it. It appears that the same or most of the original creative team is on it, so if you liked the anime, there's a decent shot you'll like the movie, too. If you didn't, well, nothing's changed then, has it? And I feel confident that I can erase from my brain anything bad. After the wretched finales of X-Files and any number of bad anime series, I've done the "WTF were they thinking?!" thing enough that I know it's still possible to enjoy the decent part of a series without letting awful additions ruin it. Embrace the personal canon, people, it's a great concept. And you know, even if absolutely everything else sucks (and I doubt that), we should still get some pretty slick animation. That's not a bad thing.
Oh, pairings? Fuck pairings. Every time I see someone get all het up--pardon the expression--over who will end up boinking who, I have to ask: were they watching the same anime I was? I would be surprised if we got any serious emphasis on a pairing in the movie, or the manga, because I hear the same fretting about that--and I mean from BOTH sides, het and slash, and I think they're both...kind of stupid, really, because that is utterly missing the frelling point. Fandom is way too focused on pairings. I don't think there's anything wrong with that; I enjoy that kind of stuff. But in many fandoms but especially in Trigun, pairings have very little to do with what drew us to the series in the first place.
Yes, I like Vash/Meryl. (Among other couples.) Yes, I will grin and think it's fun if there's anything in the movie that can be taken as some kind of subtext. Doesn't matter to me if it's intentional on the part of the animators or not. In a non-romantic series, very little is, and anyone who thinks the animators care as much about pairings of any sort as we do is deluding themselves. So yes, I admit these things, but they are not why I'm excited about the movie. All the things I love about Trigun are things that will still exist even if Nightow takes out a two-page ad in Newtype that says "HAY GUYS VASH AND MERYL SUX0R HAHAHA KTHXDIE." It wouldn't be fun, but I'd deal, and I'd still enjoy Trigun because what I enjoy has not changed.
Honestly, I think people worried about pairings, and I include het fans in this because I have yet to see a guarantee that Vash and Meryl will be making BABIES EVERYWHERE, and that'd actually be kind of ick if they were, are stressing over nothing. I doubt there will be much that changes any pairings, because as much as we care about them, the animators just don't. Our priorities are not their priorities. This is another reason why I think everyone should have started out with X-Files as their first fandom, in MSRville specifically--getting exactly the pairing you want and watching as it CRASHES AND BURNS tends to make you cautious about what you really want to see. After a shitfest like that, you've built up some scar tissue to fandom disappointments.
Me? I just want some deep space planet future gun action. That's all I need.
Already there's a tiny furor over the quality of the Trigun movie and what it'll mean for the fandom. I expected this; it's what I meant when I said some people would be happy and some would be sad. I maybe didn't think it would happen so fast, but I did see it coming.
Honestly? I can sympathize. There are many ways they might be approaching this thing, and while some of them would be easy to ignore if we don't like it, a sequel or in-canon side story are harder. It can suck to have your fics and ideas trounced. Just ask every Jossfan that ever drew breath. It doesn't make previously written things bad--just pre-Cow Thing--but it can change how you look at things, especially if you draw inspiration from canon events.
So I get the apprehension. I do. I feel a little of it myself--for all that I'd be curious to see their take on a post-series movie, I worry that it couldn't measure up to what we imagine. For all that I would enjoy a mid-series adventure with all of our heroes together again, I worry that it could include some interesting characterization choices that doesn't fit in with the series it's suppose to be inside. So yeah, there are ways it could suck.
But. For me personally, and this is a very subjective thing that varies from person to person, I think it's worth it. It appears that the same or most of the original creative team is on it, so if you liked the anime, there's a decent shot you'll like the movie, too. If you didn't, well, nothing's changed then, has it? And I feel confident that I can erase from my brain anything bad. After the wretched finales of X-Files and any number of bad anime series, I've done the "WTF were they thinking?!" thing enough that I know it's still possible to enjoy the decent part of a series without letting awful additions ruin it. Embrace the personal canon, people, it's a great concept. And you know, even if absolutely everything else sucks (and I doubt that), we should still get some pretty slick animation. That's not a bad thing.
Oh, pairings? Fuck pairings. Every time I see someone get all het up--pardon the expression--over who will end up boinking who, I have to ask: were they watching the same anime I was? I would be surprised if we got any serious emphasis on a pairing in the movie, or the manga, because I hear the same fretting about that--and I mean from BOTH sides, het and slash, and I think they're both...kind of stupid, really, because that is utterly missing the frelling point. Fandom is way too focused on pairings. I don't think there's anything wrong with that; I enjoy that kind of stuff. But in many fandoms but especially in Trigun, pairings have very little to do with what drew us to the series in the first place.
Yes, I like Vash/Meryl. (Among other couples.) Yes, I will grin and think it's fun if there's anything in the movie that can be taken as some kind of subtext. Doesn't matter to me if it's intentional on the part of the animators or not. In a non-romantic series, very little is, and anyone who thinks the animators care as much about pairings of any sort as we do is deluding themselves. So yes, I admit these things, but they are not why I'm excited about the movie. All the things I love about Trigun are things that will still exist even if Nightow takes out a two-page ad in Newtype that says "HAY GUYS VASH AND MERYL SUX0R HAHAHA KTHXDIE." It wouldn't be fun, but I'd deal, and I'd still enjoy Trigun because what I enjoy has not changed.
Honestly, I think people worried about pairings, and I include het fans in this because I have yet to see a guarantee that Vash and Meryl will be making BABIES EVERYWHERE, and that'd actually be kind of ick if they were, are stressing over nothing. I doubt there will be much that changes any pairings, because as much as we care about them, the animators just don't. Our priorities are not their priorities. This is another reason why I think everyone should have started out with X-Files as their first fandom, in MSRville specifically--getting exactly the pairing you want and watching as it CRASHES AND BURNS tends to make you cautious about what you really want to see. After a shitfest like that, you've built up some scar tissue to fandom disappointments.
Me? I just want some deep space planet future gun action. That's all I need.