Teaser: Musings on Fandom

Nostalgia colors our perception of beloved franchises, sometimes more powerfully than any objective quality measurement could. We dive deep into how childhood memories shape our connection to stories like Star Wars and Star Trek, and why it's perfectly valid for people to hold differing opinions about which iterations of these franchises succeed or fail.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, I mean our lens that we're viewing it from is
wholly different, the same waythat someone who saw episode one
as their first Star Wars youknow.
I know people who, yeah, part ofit.
I mean, you'd like to thinkthat once you see a better
version of that story, that youthen gravitate towards that,

(00:21):
because we all have this ideathat cream will rise to the top,
but that's not always the case.
A lot of it it's what you bringto it, it's what you hold to
your heart.
You know, in childhood memories.
It's a much more complicatedthing than like the best wills
out.
That's not always the case, andI think part of my personal

(00:43):
journey is understanding that.
I guess that's okay.
You know, yeah, that I don'tagree, but that's fine.
You know, I think there aresome hills I still will choose
to die on and that, just becauseyour opinion is vastly
different than mine, you know,doesn't mean it's not valid or

(01:03):
worthy.
I think if we try and have adebate about that, I can bring
that up.
And if you want to have adiscussion about which one is
better, for what reason, I thinkyou then open yourself up to
evisceration with your what Iwould consider bad take.
But you are completely validand allowed to have your take,
however good or bad, I deem itand that's.

(01:26):
That's fine, I think,especially when the star wars
land, when you start to reclaimwhat was good and then alter it
to make it worse, in the vein oflucas redoing his original
films.
I think that's where I have abig problem, but that's that's
again a whole nother.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's where I have a big problem, but that's again a
whole other.
That's funny, too, because Iwas thinking.
I was literally thinking aboutthat right before we started
this.
Have you seen any of the EugeneRoddenberry stuff that they've
put out?
They put out a bunch of likehigh production value, no Sort
of like fan film stuff.

(02:03):
Yes, but like by theRoddenberries Like, yes, but
like by the roddenberries, likelike in canon by the rod, like
it's officially star trek is.
Is anything they put outofficially star trek?
Well, I mean technically, yes,because they still have all the
copyright.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
I just don't know, I mean who.
Who then makes that, you know?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I mean contract mean contractually, yes, it is Okay.
So they put out a bunch ofstuff that like is technically
in canon and bridges certainthings in the movies and TV
shows that was never addressed,and so, like they put out one
well, they put out several, butlike they have a bunch of of

(02:44):
like really high productionvalue but very short videos,
sort of little vignettes thattalk about what happened in
between certain things.
They did one that it's the onlytime that Shatner ever came
back to Star Trek.
He wouldn't come back under anyother conditions other than

(03:07):
this that he did.
It's called reunification.
And he comes back but they do awhole, like he does his whole,
whole shtick.
Like he does his whole, like heacts in the scene and what have
you.
But then they have anotheractor come in and then they
digitally, sort of likesuperimpose shatner on the dude

(03:29):
which is crashed down by the wayfrom battlestar random.
So they do a whole thing wherethey explain 15 different
unanswered Star Trek plots inone small vignette and Shatner
himself comes back and does it,and it's this big thing and it's

(03:50):
actually I hate to say itreally good.
It made me cry every time I sawit, but it's one of those
things where, like it's like,okay, another example of where
Star Trek gets how to do thesethings.
Like how to, if you're going todo this, if you're going to,
like, revisit your oldproperties and then redo them,

(04:11):
star Trek figured it out somehow.
Star Wars can't.
They just don't seem to, youknow, like the special editions
are terrible.
The Star Trek special editionssomehow work because they don't
overthink it.
They don't overdo it.
There's no ego there.
When the Star Trek SpecialEditions came out, they had

(04:31):
Arena, where now the Gordon canblink.
Okay, great, awesome.
The fucking Star Wars SpecialEdition comes out and they
introduce some gremlin that doesa fucking thing in Jabba's
palace.
What the fuck is that?