On Remixing.
Apr. 10th, 2008 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vulgarweedStill working and totally nearly there. I'm going to make it, with everything I originally wanted to do pretty much intact. Yay!
I was thinking last night about Remixing and the attraction/resistance I've always felt towards the idea -- like, who am I to think I can do someone else's story "better", goes the inner critic voice, even though that isn't what Remix is really about, it's still the semi-relevant Issue that my own head kicks up.
It hit me last night because I was watching BSG Razor and, like, duh, how frakkin' obvious is this? I dithered around about not wanting to watch BSG for the first couple years, and why was that? My childhood attachment to the original, of course! I always resent remakes I consider unnecessary (especially ones that are obviously motivated by a desire to make foreign films into American ones or black-and-white period pieces into things with a lot of CGI and oversaturated colors for the benefit of "my generation" - uh, no thanks.) But the current Battlestar Galactica is a total REMIX, and it is AWESOME, and this really hit me when watching the flashback of Young Bill Adama in the First Cylon War, with the centurions that look just like the ones that used to scare me (they really do look like toasters, don't they?) and the suggestions of the original music theme, and there I was, enjoying the negative capability of being in two different interpretations of the same world at once.
Now, is the BSG of 2008 better than the one of 1978? Well, frankly - hell yes, by orders of magnitude. It would be OK if it wasn't, though. Are some fanfic Remixes better than the original story? Yup. Am I worried that the remix some mysterious person is working on of my story will be better than the original? I BLOODY WELL HOPE IT IS! (But it's OK if they're not, as long as they surprise me in some way.) Do I think the remix(es) I'm working on are better than the original? No, but I hope they at least zig where the original author zagged a little, and that she thinks they're recognizable but different enough to give her a fresh, surprising read. (They're longer anyway.)
I was thinking last night about Remixing and the attraction/resistance I've always felt towards the idea -- like, who am I to think I can do someone else's story "better", goes the inner critic voice, even though that isn't what Remix is really about, it's still the semi-relevant Issue that my own head kicks up.
It hit me last night because I was watching BSG Razor and, like, duh, how frakkin' obvious is this? I dithered around about not wanting to watch BSG for the first couple years, and why was that? My childhood attachment to the original, of course! I always resent remakes I consider unnecessary (especially ones that are obviously motivated by a desire to make foreign films into American ones or black-and-white period pieces into things with a lot of CGI and oversaturated colors for the benefit of "my generation" - uh, no thanks.) But the current Battlestar Galactica is a total REMIX, and it is AWESOME, and this really hit me when watching the flashback of Young Bill Adama in the First Cylon War, with the centurions that look just like the ones that used to scare me (they really do look like toasters, don't they?) and the suggestions of the original music theme, and there I was, enjoying the negative capability of being in two different interpretations of the same world at once.
Now, is the BSG of 2008 better than the one of 1978? Well, frankly - hell yes, by orders of magnitude. It would be OK if it wasn't, though. Are some fanfic Remixes better than the original story? Yup. Am I worried that the remix some mysterious person is working on of my story will be better than the original? I BLOODY WELL HOPE IT IS! (But it's OK if they're not, as long as they surprise me in some way.) Do I think the remix(es) I'm working on are better than the original? No, but I hope they at least zig where the original author zagged a little, and that she thinks they're recognizable but different enough to give her a fresh, surprising read. (They're longer anyway.)
