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Old January 22nd, 2005, 09:19 PM   #4
Eric Paddon
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Morristown, NJ
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"Just remember when you make disparaging criticisms about TNS there is now a loyal fandom that feels a bit of a personal attack."

In the absence of any comment made about an indvidual who happens to like TNS, I do not see how any negative comments about TNS can be seen as "personal attack."

Maybe this analogy can best explain things. We TNS fans are like the Cleveland Browns fans in 1995 who loyally supported their team through some tough times over many years waiting for the hope of one day seeing their support rewarded in a Super Bowl. Universal is like Art Modell, the Cleveland owner, in this case the one with the money and the ability to do things that can help make our hope come true some day.

Art Modell then one day betrayed his loyal fanbase and moved his team to Baltimore without warning, just in the same way that Universal and Sci-Fi abruptly pulled the rug out from under us and "reinvented" Galactica into something none of us ever thought we'd see, and in the process to do this derailed what was looking like a promising opportunity to see a real continuation in the DeSanto project.

Cleveland fans naturally got upset and still are to this day.

TNS fans then are like the Baltimore Ravens fans who are enjoying something and being rewarded as the Ravens did in 2000 by giving them a Super Bowl that Cleveland is still waiting for. But ultimately, the things that the Ravens fans are enjoying are the result of some very unfair things that happened to the Cleveland fans (just as the LA Dodger fans are enjoying their team as a result of unfair things that happened to the Brooklyn Dodger fans in an earlier era). And for TNS fans, what they enjoy now is the result of some unfair things that happened to TOS fans over a period of some 25 years starting with ABC's unfair cancellation of the show, the indiginity of Galactica 1980, repeated false hopes of a revival through the years, the 15 Yahren Convention debacle and the less than stellar Richard Hatch novels and now ending with this.

So is it any surprise that a Cleveland Browns fan and a Baltimore Ravens fan are the kind of people who are going to have some inevitable clashes at some point?

Now of course the analogy isn't perfect, I admit, but it still I think hits on many of the same themes. A loyal fanbase that suffered patiently for decades waiting to see their patience rewarded saw something happen that strikes so many as unfair and the ultimate indignity is to see something "reimagined" succeed in a context where I am sorry to say, the original series is being run down by many of the boosters of TNS in media critic circles, from Ron Moore, and by Universal in the DVD packaging. And now it looks like TNS fans, like the Baltimore Ravens fans and their Super Bowl, are seeing more good things happen for them, while the diehard TOS fan who waited so long has an even worse counterpart than the replacement Cleveland Browns team at this point.

I mention this analogy only to tell TNS fans that if they wish to see themselves a fully integrated part of a big Galactica tent of fandom, they have to be prepared to understand why this attitude exists in a sizable contingent of TOS fandom (I know it doesn't apply to all of them). But to me, I have already seen the precedent of how some BG fans like Hatch's books and some don't, some liked certain comic versions of Galactica and some didn't, and yes, there were even some people who believe it or not actually liked Galactica 1980. But in those instances there was a willingness to accept things when people posted their views on those areas of disagreement, and it only seems to me that the same rules we use for those components of a large Galactica universe of properties has to apply ultimately to TNS as well where there is going to be criticism of it from some quarters (and I am not talking about criticism that attacks personally those who are TNS fans. That's out of line in ALL situations) unless we take the ultimate position that TNS and TOS fanbases should be permanently segregated like Baltimore and Cleveland fans, which is not what I think any of us want.

My two cubits.
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