I blocked out the spoilery stuff, as these are notes about a group of characters in a short story I’m working on, which does directly tie to a major character in the Barbarians of the Storm series. And while I probably shouldn’t share this while the book is in production, I use it as an example to illustrate my point with this post.
This group in the upcoming story Eyes in All Shadows was inspired by a few different things. However, I’ve been thinking about how cool and blown away I was when the Knights of Ren were first shown in 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. Of course, with that, there’s also the feeling of utter disappointment, as the characters were pretty much thrown to the side, never developed, and barely seen again. Were they even in the two other films in that trilogy? I ask because I honestly don’t remember much about those two films, as my brain pushed them out as soon as I was done watching them. I’m not being hyperbolic, I really don’t remember most of those films and I’ve only seen them once.
The point is, those two pages that I jotted down in about fifteen minutes in a small Moleskine, are full of more character development and details than what an elite group of space knights were given in an entire film trilogy, after initially being propped up as something scary and important.
If major corporations in Hollywood have the money to make $300M+ blockbusters, you think they’d at least take fifteen minutes to jot some notes down and then have them handy when it comes time to writing a script and shooting that very, very expensive movie that they need to turn a profit.
The next point is what I’m really driving at here, and that’s the fact that these massive “creative” corporations really don’t care about creativity anymore. That’s fine, they can continue to attack fans and make excuses as their stock prices drop, and they are… rapidly.
The thing is, it doesn’t take much to care about what you create and that’s why I am more invested in creators that do care about what they are making. This isn’t just an attempt at pimping out my current books and my future projects, it’s a call to support independent creators that just want to make good shit and entertain the people that give their work a shot: whether it’s books, comics, manga, film or just about anything else.
It’s about not being a mindless consumer that just consumes product and waits for the next product to consume in an endless, unsatisfying cycle of consumption. Break that cycle. Walk away from these things you loved that don’t love you back. Stop being a consumer and start being a fan again.
There are creators that simply want to create cool shit for people to enjoy. Great stories aren’t simply brand names. In fact, brand names almost guarantee that you’ll get the polar opposite, these days.
For all those who complain about how Hollywood is out of ideas and everything is just sequels, prequels, remakes and reboots… you’re absolutely right! So stop giving that shit money.
Again, stop being a consumer and start being a fan again.