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It's Just Bad Fanfic With a BUDGET (Patreon)

Published:
2025-05-13 13:40:42
Imported:
2026-06
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Recently I have been pondering the history of fanfiction (and also possibly having food poisoning but oh well) and I realised something about the things I have been trying and failing to watch recently...

Comments

Ana (Lariaenl)

It started to get bad some time ago. At that time, it was starting to be easier to find better quality writing on AO3 that in some Hollywood writing rooms. Now the situation has deteriorated to the point that is starting to be hard to find lower quality fanfic in AO3 than what Hollywood is writing. And normally those included apologies from the author explaining he is new to writting/writing in a non native language

Jonathan Campbell

Studios make movies and shows that make money, and that's why they keep going back to existing IPs, especially if they paid a fortune to get a hold of them in the first place (e.g. Disney & Star Wars). They do, in fact, make small budget products all the time- but, they are mainly looking for the ones that make money that they can then turn into a new IP, because otherwise they run out of money and nobody gets their project funded. The real problems have to do with a vastly oversaturated market and tremendous competition from all over the world (which is why the most watched TV shows of all time are from the late 90s / early 00s) and the studios- and often, creators- not really knowing "why" a product is popular in the first place, or how to keep the magic alive in a natural manner, along with sometimes altering the formula to try and appeal to new audiences to avoid Dutch disease. In short- nobody knows "why" a thing works; they just know that it "does".

JillBearup
>>173893083

I think not knowing WHY people like [thing] is honestly a huge problem. Or trying to make [thing], which has a loyal niche audience, into a [BIG THING] which appeals to everyone to make more money, thereby ensuring that nobody likes it XD

Cynthia H Dye

Part of the problem is trying to make more movies about characters who either don’t age in the original episodic IP with actors who inevitably do. But part also comes down to not being able to go to places good fanfic can go, especially on an emotional level, without undermining potential future movies.

Cassandra

I read something (on ff.net) that said it's getting to the point where films are the restaurant food made with a little too much grease and only dollars in view, and fanfics are the homecooked meal served with love. I do tend to watch films now and go "This is designed to make money. As its primary purpose, it's not to entertain, it's not to make us think, it's not to create art, it's to create income."

Michael Witry

The world of IP and sequels and prequels and so forth requires a character to remain largely static, so that the character can keep coming back in a recognizable form—like a recurring character on a sketch comedy show. But that makes for unsatisfying narratives because a good narrative changes the character over the course of the story. Cinderella goes from a household slave to a princess; King Lear goes from a monarch to a raving madman in a thunderstorm. If you were writing either of those stories with an eye to sequels, you'd have to leave Cinderella scrubbing floors and King Lear sitting on his throne.

Sally4th

See also "milk that franchise".

Karl Gallagher
>>173901367

Alas, Hollywood is spending a lot of money on stuff that starts with "Princess Cinderella is scrubbing the flagstones in the kitchen as the cook flogs her" which is guaranteed to annoy the old fans.

Chris Doherty

"Sequels are never as good as the original" has been a thing for as long as there have been sequels. What makes something bad fanfic as opposed to just a mediocre sequel?

Carol Wang
>>173930141

I'm going to preface this comment with the proviso that I enjoyed them, but the Abrams Star Trek films were a Star Wars-ification of Star Trek. Correct me if I'm wrong, but mashups are very fanfic? My understanding is that the upcoming Tron: Ares is being made because Leto is a huge Tron fan. I appreciate that being a huge Tron fan myself, but the other things that Leto has done do not make me optimistic for the end result.

Natalie Arnold

I have a conspiracy theory that the Cruella movie was an original idea about fashion wars and the accompanying drama that got dalmatians tacked on so it could be sold as IP (also it's a pretty entertaining movie don't listen to the haters they havent even watched it).

Ekij

The problem with sequels in any form is that some of the fans want "more of the same" while some want "something new but in the same universe." It's *very* difficult to walk this line. "Aliens" is an example of doing something new (action film vs horror) while staying true to the original. Then there is the problem of character development, if the characters grow then they're not the same character anymore but you can't reset them back to the beginning of their arc for every subsequent movie (apparently you can if it's Thor ... but you really can't).

Sagitta
>>173894253

It was a prescient move to slap tons of makeup on Michael Keaton - not that there's anything wrong with his face, but so he could play Beetlejuice again 36 years later and still look the same. I am often surprised at how a young actor playing an elderly character looks very different from the same actor when they have actually reached old age. For instance, see Derek Jacobi aged up in the opening scene of I, Claudius, and Siân Phillips as Livia on her deathbed, versus how different they both look in Doctor Who 40 to 50 years later.

Winslow

This is probably a nobody cares thing, but I've been lead to believe that a lot of it has to do with changes in US tax law. Exciting I know. What you could write off as a tax loss changed. So who invested in movies changed. Switching from rich individuals writing off much of film to balance out their personal wealth (a financial flop was great for them, take all the risks in the world.) Changing to companies owned by profit driven public trading (and must pander to the largest number of people.) Add to this in the 80s in the US what companies were "for" radically changed thanks to Jack Welch (who really ruined a lot of things. ) From companies "build things that people need" to "companies have a duty to extract maximum value for shareholders." Add together poof "safe proven IP" that has merch gets made for value extraction. Follow the money friend, it just goes weirder places than we generally think.