How A Fandom's Expectations Lead To Disappointment
“What’s in there?”
“Only what you take with you”
As fans, we have to admit that we can all be a little obsessive at times. We are steadfast, tenacious, and loving towards our preoccupations, and we will protect those passions against outsiders with the same ferocity of a sports fan defending their home team, with all the highs and lows that entails.
With the recent conclusion of Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+ Star Wars fans have for the most part been rejoicing in seeing familiar and well-loved characters in new situations and stories. For most, it’s been a welcome return to a galaxy far, far away. And yet, there is a vocal subsection of fans wishing that Disney would just leave Star Wars well alone. They claim that the company has, and I quote, “ruined their childhood”. This group has picked holes in the writing; called out retcons that, to the rest of the audience, don’t exist; with a small minority of individuals (I won’t call them fans) making derogatory comments about the introduction of a new character. It’s brought back unpleasant memories of actors being driven from social media due to harassment after the release of previous entries in the series. But, personal taste aside, just what causes lifelong fans of a franchise to hate the very thing they claim to love?
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Allow me to take a small detour to the past...
Back in the late eighties, I was obsessed with Star Trek. Like Star Wars, Doctor Who, and my comic book collection, it was part of my identity. As it had been since the fateful day my parents sat me in front of the television as a child to watch an episode of The Original Series. My love for the franchise had only grown since then, and by the time of 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, that excitement had reached a fever pitch. I acquired an ex-rental copy of the movie and I played it over and over… and over, again. The tape eventually wore out, but by the time it did, I could recite the thing, word for word. The line that stuck with me the most, however, was the exclamation by the Klingon Ambassador Kamarog, frustrated at Kirk’s apparent evasion of justice in the movie: “Remember this well - there shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives.”
In the years that followed, that dialogue haunted me. And with Star Trek IV being the culmination of the unofficial Spock trilogy, I became more and more convinced that there would be nowhere left for the movies to go, save for down the path that Kamarog’s declaration promised. So when Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was announced, my mind was flooded with scenarios of political intrigue and epic space battles to come. This is it, I thought, this is where that line pays off. This was in the days before the internet, where, aside from the odd trailer, or a magazine feature, there was no way of seeing what a film was actually like before sitting down with your popcorn to watch the thing. And so, expectations at an all-time high for what was sure to be the greatest Star Trek adventure of all time, I sat waiting in the theatre with bated breath for the movie to begin.
Two hours later, I staggered out of the cinema in utter bewilderment. To say I was disappointed would have been an understatement. Where was the epic story my imagination had promised me? How could I have been so wrong?
My opinion of the movie has mellowed somewhat over the years. It’s far from a classic. But even so, my initial reaction to what I watched that day is less to do with the quality of the product itself, and more down to the mismanagement of my own expectations, which I fully accept responsibility for. No matter how good the movie was, It was never going to live up to what I had envisioned. If nothing else came from that particular theatre experience, I learned a lesson that day.
This brings us back to the present… almost.
No longer are we limited by print media and the occasional trailer or ‘making of’ to signify an important movie milestone. We now live in a culture where our obsession with theorising on any given topic has almost reached a point where it outshines the thing we’re theorising about. The public is ravenous for information on upcoming projects. Certain fan websites base their entire revenue stream on circulating speculation and rumour (whether truthful or not); screen stills from trailers are analysed ad absurdum. It’s now become commonplace to have teaser trailers for trailers, such is the appetite for knowledge on our favourite franchises. We have become consumed with the desire to know what’s coming next.
When The Force Awakens was released in 2015, I had a friend that made it his mission to devour every piece of tie-in media he could, so obsessed was he. Over the course of the two years that followed, he read every book, every comic, and every fan theory on the internet in his love for all things Star Wars. When the trailer for The Last Jedi was released, he was utterly convinced of not only who these characters were, and their motivations, but what was going to happen in the movie, and why. He couldn’t wait to see his research pay off and was the first to book tickets when they became available.
He hated the movie with every fibre of his being. For months afterwards, he would not stop talking about why it was the worst film he’d ever seen, how it made no sense, and how Star Wars had been spoiled for him, forever. And yet, when you spoke to him about it, one thing became instantly clear. It’s not that he didn’t like the movie from an artistic standpoint. He hated it because it just didn’t go in the direction he was convinced it would.
Now I’m not going to go into why those who hated the movie were wrong. They’re not. One person’s oscar nominee is another’s MST3K movie. This particular movie, however, is the point in which a certain subsection turned away from these movies, claiming the House of Mouse had ripped away everything that made them love the franchise in the first place. That subsection for the most part all seem to have one thing in common: They are all incredibly vocal on how the movie should have unfolded.
As a result of the backlash, many had already tuned out for Solo: A Star Wars Story movie a few months later. And by the time Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian TV series rolled around in 2019 there was no small sense of apathy in Star Wars fandom. Ironically enough, Episode IX would itself come under fire from both those that loved and hated The Last Jedi, as it attempted to retcon several subplots from that movie. The Mandalorian fared better, perhaps saved by the fact the title character - and to some extent, the novelty of live-action Star Wars as a series - arrived with only a superficial expectation of what was to come.
The Mandalorian proved to be a success, however, and for better or worse, by the time The Book of Boba Fett hit screens in 2021, the hype train had once more left the station, with many fan sites speculating as to just who would cameo in the bounty hunter-led spin-off. While some of those leaks were paid off in the form of Black Krrsantan and Cad Bane, as we rapidly approached the series finale, some corners were adamant that we would see the return of other familiar faces from across the Star Wars universe, with Fett’s fellow Empire Strikes Back bounty hunter, Bossk, a strong contender. Others were preparing their readers for the reveal of Emilia Clark’s Qi’ra as Fett’s ultimate nemesis. When the finale came and went without the appearance of said characters, those initially reporting on such scoops were forced to admit they were wrong, claiming it to be a last-minute removal on Lucasfilm’s part. However, by that point, the damage had been done.
Unfortunately, the audience expectation was not limited to fan-service cameos alone. As with The Last Jedi, their own theories as to the content and tone of the piece weighed many down with baggage before the first episode had aired. Many were expecting the eponymous bounty hunter to pick up right where he left off from the original trilogy - to become the no-nonsense ass-kicker their imaginations had built him to be (with no small help from the no longer canon Expanded Universe material) in the almost forty years since they’d last seen the character onscreen. When he didn’t materialise as that idolised anti-hero, many were disappointed. Social media was awash with “They’ve killed the character”, and “They’ve made him a weak.” comments.
As Jon Favreau explained in a 2021 Vanity Fair article, basing a series around that type of character was just not sustainable.
“You think about Don Corleone, There’s a tremendous amount of restraint because he knows that to be sustainable, there has to be [peace]. You don’t do well unless there’s some political balance, because if you keep going to the mattresses, nobody’s earning.”
Reinventing the character was arguably the only way to keep both older fans and those recently brought into the franchise on board, but for some, it just didn’t work. There is a point to be made that Favreau did not create the character and had George Lucas still been on board he would have done things differently. That there is no way Boba would act in this manner. And yet that is the choice the current producers took. It doesn’t make the theories long-time fans had any less valid, but that insistence in holding onto a belief in which path a franchise should be taken can destroy the thing we claim to love, simply because - as with The Last Jedi, before it - it’s just not personally what we wanted. At that point, our own expectation subverts the creative license taken by those given the enviable task of caretaker.
When it comes to popular franchises, no matter which way a storyline is taken, there will be some that just don’t like it. And while an element of that is down to personal taste - some not liking the American Grafitti aesthetic of the bikers on Tatooine, for example - the tendency we have to transpose our own ideas of which direction something should take can override our enjoyment of what direction it does take. We are no longer the child that watches these tales, with the ability to accept everything that a creator presents to us. Instead, we have obsessed over the initial product so much, that we cannot accept that it was never ours, to begin with.
Each of us, as an individual, brings our own experiences to the table in whatever media content we choose to consume. Part of that is the need to have something make sense to us personally. It’s why we theorise on any given subject, particularly one that fascinates us. We are hardwired to problem solve. It’s why the crime genre is so popular. It’s when those theories - those flights of fancy - do not match reality, that we tend to dismiss that reality. It becomes less enjoyable. Less interactive. Not as much fun to experience. To some, that feels like a personal rejection, and we react as such.
The MCU’s first official in-universe show, WandaVision, granted its audience permission to let loose with their wildest theories. The mystery box nature of the show encouraged it with its countless misdirects, Wanda ‘edits’, and the commercials used in its faux-sitcom premise. Not since Lost had audiences been so all-in on discovering just what lay at the heart of this enigma of a show. Encouraged by years of post-credit reveals, hints, and casual mentions of other properties, Marvel fans were determined to discover the secret of Westview.
By the time the mini-series reached its end, it had done a good enough job of answering the questions it asked from the opening episode, even if some of those answers were less than satisfying. It’s possible that the producers made a rod for their own back by casting the one actor who had portrayed Pietro Maximoff in another studio’s franchise. Though it’s difficult to believe the showrunners were unaware of what reaction such a casting decision should provoke, fans went wild with the thought that Evan’s casting would lead to the inevitable introduction of mutants into the MCU. Theories on the sudden existence of Homo-Superior paled in comparison however to the possibility that the entire town of Westview was an elaborate setup by none other than Mephisto, himself. A section of the fandom latched onto this idea, and from there it snowballed to a point where many had convinced themselves that by the series end, the Marvel version of Satan would be revealed to be the one pulling the strings behind Wanda’s puppet show. When the final episode aired and the red one didn’t make an appearance, it was met with resounding disappointment from that section of fandom.
Ralph Bohner aside, the first Marvel Disney+ series was a success, with its mysteries all given ample time to build to an arguably satisfying - if a little rushed, due to covid - payoff. It set the standard for MCU shows, going forward, and is still looked back on as one of the best shows produced, so far. Though even now, the non-confirmation of two of the most popular theories surrounding the show spoiled the experience for them. And today, when the discussion begins on social media outlets as to where any current MCU series is headed, some joker will invariably post the answer ‘Mephisto’ just for giggles.
The eventual follow-up to Wanda’s arc in WandaVision would open up another can of worms in itself. Not for Mephisto, this time, but for… well, pretty much everything else in the MCU, or out of it.
As an antagonist/possible ally in the Doctor Strange sequel, the newly-introduced Scarlet Witch brought with her the possibility of further expanding on the (forgive the pun) strangeness of the events her own series had given audiences. Coupled with the trippy visuals of the first Benedict Cumberbatch movie, people were expecting a visual equivalent of a rollercoaster ride. The title: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness alone conjured up images in many fans’ minds that this would be a balls-to-the-wall trip through realities, and with Sam Raimi at the helm, the insanity would be turned up to eleven.
When the trailer dropped, many fan and movie sites went over it with a fine-tooth comb, analysing every frame, deconstructing the thing piece by piece with screen captures to prove their own theories as to the content of the production. The movie poster was scrutinised, inch by inch, to glean information on just who could be appearing.
The entire thing was labelled an epic before it even hit screens, with one insider source claiming “There are more big surprises in Doctor Strange 2 than in Infinity War, Endgame, and Spider-Man: No Way Home combined.”, setting the internet ablaze with rumour and speculation. Tom Cruise was apparently lined up to play an alternate earth’s Superior Iron Man; the movie would feature cameos from Loki, Deadpool, and Ghost Rider; The movies end would flow straight into the MCU’s version of the House of M comic book; Chris Evans would be returning as Captain America (albeit the Secret Empire Hydra version) and Johnny Storm; Strange will be crossing paths with the comic book versions of MCU characters… and that’s just a small sample of claims and counter-claims associated with the production. Such speculation wasn’t helped by Bruce Campbell trolling fans on social media by showing script excerpts featuring Strange and Ash from Evil Dead. The entire thing became a circus of hyperbole. By the time the movie arrived in cinemas, audiences - Marvel fans especially - flocked to theatres for what would no doubt be an epic. And while the film, was a good mid-tier MCU entry, it was arguably not without its flaws. Some felt the character development set up by the events in WandaVision had been tossed aside for the most part, while outlandish rumours aside, the cameos the movie did give audiences were to some extent redundant. Superfluous fan service that served as nothing more than a wink to the audience and cannon fodder for the movie’s antagonist. Many felt the title of the movie itself was a misnomer, with a trip through the multiverse restricted to ten seconds of screentime followed by a reality whose main difference was that green and red traffic lights were reversed, and pizza came in balls.
As stated, art is subjective, and what works with one section of the audience will not necessarily work with another- However, that the reception to the final product was so divided and resulted in so many contentious arguments on social media demonstrates how the hype machine once again led to unrealistic expectations on the part of many. Some sites have refused to give up the ghost, continually reporting on things that allegedly were to have been included, but were dropped at the last minute. Relegating themselves to no more than clickbait for what may have been. In another reality, perhaps…
In the end, my own naive musings on what awaited me in the cinema back then eventually paid off, when in 1991 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released in theatres. It finally gave me the movie I’d envisaged. If only I’d shown a little more patience at the time, I could have enjoyed what was originally on offer, instead of ruining it for myself with the weight of my own expectations. Perhaps, going forward, we all need to be a little more open when we’re given more of our favourite thing, instead of dismissing it out of hand based on our own ego. It may remind us just why we fell in love with these stories in the first place.
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Source(s): StarWars.com, Marvel.com, Vanity Fair, Screenrant, LRMOnline