[Serious question] Why does Dan Slott get more criticism than Straczynski

[boots]

As a Star Wars fan, I always found those claims to be somewhat exaggerated.

well, the only way his point makes sense is if we remove all context from the slott vs jms and the pre-current-past sw comparisons

i imagine that star wars isn't so different to superheroes: there's always someone who is going to hate the current iteration the most and at that point in time, the hate seems to burn brightest.

[Spidercide]

I said "some renown." Not "all the renown."



That's just not possible. JMS' name itself means something.

I do not understand how JMS' name meaning something renders it impossible for him to get more acclaim or popularity. It's certainly not the case the popularity stems from Babylon 5 fanboys or something. In fact I get the very strong impression most Spider-Man fans weren't/aren't all that familiar with his wider work.

I mean there was a fair amount of criticism of JMS' run back in the day too, over the magical elements and Sins Past and the New Avengers.

But essentially critiques were still more praiseworthy of his craftmanship than Slott's.

[Spidercide]

As a Star Wars fan, I always found those claims to be somewhat exaggerated.

I do too but exaggerated means they are are 5/10 problem instead of a 10/10 problem. But a problem all the same

[Kevinroc]

I do not understand how JMS' name meaning something renders it impossible for him to get more acclaim or popularity. It's certainly not the case the popularity stems from Babylon 5 fanboys or something. In fact I get the very strong impression most Spider-Man fans weren't/aren't all that familiar with his wider work.

I mean there was a fair amount of criticism of JMS' run back in the day too, over the magical elements and Sins Past and the New Avengers.

But essentially critiques were still more praiseworthy of his craftmanship than Slott's.

I'm saying they are unequal in fame. More people know JMS' name than Slott's. You can't JUST take that out of the equation. Marvel specifically wanted JMS because they wanted a big name writer on ASM.

[Spidercide]

for everyone who had a problem, there's someone who didn't give a f.

continuity within a run, story arc or issue is something to be concerned about. continuity over a decades long franchise amongst ever changing creative teams and cultural shifts? not so much. it's to be expected and sometimes it's a conscious choice to ignore it

look at the original sherlock holmes series; same writer and a bunch of continuity fluff ups. to the point where readers developed something called "holmesian speculation" where they would come up with head canon-ish explanations for these inconsistencies and holes (sounds familiar...hmmm...no prizes?).

read the LoTR trilogy straight after the hobbit and you'll see course and character adjustments made by tolkein. the entire black library imprint embraces continuity inconsistencies as part of the charm of their publishing. i'm binge re-watching buffy and angel and it becomes obvious in one sitting that they were making things up on the fly and dropping established rules and characterisations as better ideas formed.

continuity is more of a fan hang up than anything else.

Not giving a fuck is irrelevant.

There are people who don’t care that a Big Mac is junk food that is bad for you and that a slow cooked tuna meal is more nutritious and better for you.

Doesn’t make the Big Mac good.

You are essentially saying for every person who cares about you know the plot making sense there are other people who don’t care.

Let them not care. Doesn’t make them right.

The aim for these stories is for them to be GOOD examples of writing.

“continuity within a run, story arc or issue is something to be concerned about. continuity over a decades long franchise amongst ever changing creative teams and cultural shifts? not so much.”

Except soap operas make it a concern all the time.

Except 2000 A.D. and Manga series that run for years on a weekly schedule make it a concern all the time.

Except Doctor Who which is the gordion knot of continuity make it a concern all the time to the point where they have in-universe ways of addressing the inevitable inconsistencies.

Except Marvel made it a concern for at least 35 years and generally speaking kept most of it straight which renders your point crap. They just got lazy and stopped caring which is unacceptable when they have better resources to keep track of this stuff the likes of which older generations of writers lacked...and are charging $4 for the reading experience which is ridiculous by any measure.

But what do you expect from the company who waited until the last minute to not publish a comic book that made real life war profiteers look cool.

“it's to be expected and sometimes it's a conscious choice to ignore it ”

Only under extreme circumstances is ignoring it okay, like ignoring Byrne’s story about Reed and Sue’s first meeting because it was paedophilic.

And whilst the odd lapse is to be expected the examples I listed aren’t an odd lapse. They’re things any Spider-Man writer with even a basic working knowledge of the character should be aware of via just pop culture osmosis. And for the record it also contradicted the continuity within Slott’s own run and the previous few years leading on from BND which had only ended 3 years beforehand.

Shit Slott contradicted his own continuity between ASM #700 and literally the very next issue in Superior #1.

Using Sherlock Holmes as an example is a false equivalency. Sherlock Holmes was not concerned with realism as it was pulp entertainment for the masses and at least in those venues and genres continuity was mostly irrelevant because most adventures were episodic. The writing standards and expectations were simply not in the same place just as they wouldn’t be if you compared Looney Tunes to the Sopranos.

Meanwhile MODERN takes on Holmes make a much greater effort to keep things internally consistent between scenes, stories and seasons.

No Prizes stretch to continuity flubs not colosall fuck ups the likes of which I gave examples of that are directly tied into the status quo and drive of the story. There is a difference between No prizing where Punisher’s gun went between the pages and inventing a reason in your head for why Mantlo’s Punisher was nuclear levels OOC for multiple stories until that got addressed later on.

Tolkein’s work is similar a false example because he made a point of trying to explain the differences away in the Appendixes.

“i'm binge re-watching buffy and angel and it becomes obvious in one sitting that they were making things up on the fly and dropping established rules and characterisations as better ideas formed.”

Then buffy and Angel are being unacdeptably lazy.

“continuity is more of a fan hang up than anything else.”

It’s really not. Tell that to J.K. Rowling and Tolkein.


Like I said, I was listing massive fuck ups by Slott not little nitpick things. We’re talking “this major recurring character is not acting the way they’ve ever acted before and it’s for no apparrant reason”

If you are okay with that fine good for you.

It doesn’t make it okay and if you think it does...I worry about those soaps you worked on.

[Spidercide]

I'm saying they are unequal in fame. More people know JMS' name than Slott's. You can't JUST take that out of the equation. Marvel specifically wanted JMS because they wanted a big name writer on ASM.

And like I said JMS got flack almost immediately for his work. The fans ripped into him when appropriate so his fame was hardly blinding them.

We're not even talking about one being more popular than another in a positve way.

We're not saying "Why do people talk up JMS as awesome more than they talk up Slott. He hasn't done all good stories ya know"

We're not talking about the equivilant of "How comes Speilberg gets more kudos than Tarantino? Some of Steven's movies have sucked ya know"

The OP was specifically talking about why JMS doesn't get as much SHADE thrown at him than Slott. Fame isn't much of a sheild for that stuff and proved as such for JMS. People weren't lenient on him because he wrote a cult hit TV series

We're talking "Why does Tarantino get more shade than Speilberg? Minority Report was bad" The answer of course would be because Speilberg never dismissed the importance of Roots as a TV series is why.

[boots]

Not giving a fuck is irrelevant.

There are people who don’t care that a Big Mac is junk food that is bad for you and that a slow cooked tuna meal is more nutritious and better for you.

Doesn’t make the Big Mac good.

You are essentially saying for every person who cares about you know the plot making sense there are other people who don’t care.

Let them not care. Doesn’t make them right.

The aim for these stories is for them to be GOOD examples of writing.

“continuity within a run, story arc or issue is something to be concerned about. continuity over a decades long franchise amongst ever changing creative teams and cultural shifts? not so much.”

Except soap operas make it a concern all the time.

Except 2000 A.D. and Manga series that run for years on a weekly schedule make it a concern all the time.

Except Doctor Who which is the gordion knot of continuity make it a concern all the time to the point where they have in-universe ways of addressing the inevitable inconsistencies.

Except Marvel made it a concern for at least 35 years and generally speaking kept most of it straight which renders your point crap. They just got lazy and stopped caring which is unacceptable when they have better resources to keep track of this stuff the likes of which older generations of writers lacked...and are charging $4 for the reading experience which is ridiculous by any measure.

But what do you expect from the company who waited until the last minute to not publish a comic book that made real life war profiteers look cool.

“it's to be expected and sometimes it's a conscious choice to ignore it ”

Only under extreme circumstances is ignoring it okay, like ignoring Byrne’s story about Reed and Sue’s first meeting because it was paedophilic.

And whilst the odd lapse is to be expected the examples I listed aren’t an odd lapse. They’re things any Spider-Man writer with even a basic working knowledge of the character should be aware of via just pop culture osmosis. And for the record it also contradicted the continuity within Slott’s own run and the previous few years leading on from BND which had only ended 3 years beforehand.

Shit Slott contradicted his own continuity between ASM #700 and literally the very next issue in Superior #1.

Using Sherlock Holmes as an example is a false equivalency. Sherlock Holmes was not concerned with realism as it was pulp entertainment for the masses and at least in those venues and genres continuity was mostly irrelevant because most adventures were episodic. The writing standards and expectations were simply not in the same place just as they wouldn’t be if you compared Looney Tunes to the Sopranos.

Meanwhile MODERN takes on Holmes make a much greater effort to keep things internally consistent between scenes, stories and seasons.

No Prizes stretch to continuity flubs not colosall fuck ups the likes of which I gave examples of that are directly tied into the status quo and drive of the story. There is a difference between No prizing where Punisher’s gun went between the pages and inventing a reason in your head for why Mantlo’s Punisher was nuclear levels OOC for multiple stories until that got addressed later on.

Tolkein’s work is similar a false example because he made a point of trying to explain the differences away in the Appendixes.

“i'm binge re-watching buffy and angel and it becomes obvious in one sitting that they were making things up on the fly and dropping established rules and characterisations as better ideas formed.”

Then buffy and Angel are being unacdeptably lazy.

“continuity is more of a fan hang up than anything else.”

It’s really not. Tell that to J.K. Rowling and Tolkein.


Like I said, I was listing massive fuck ups by Slott not little nitpick things. We’re talking “this major recurring character is not acting the way they’ve ever acted before and it’s for no apparrant reason”

If you are okay with that fine good for you.

It doesn’t make it okay and if you think it does...I worry about those soaps you worked on.

if you put forward that "people care about x" as proof of your point, i don't think you're allowed to dismiss that "other people don't care about x"

"look at all the people who hate bananas due to banana skin. this is proof bananas are bad"

"plenty of people don't give af about banana skins though"

"those people don't count. only banana skin haters do"

we don't get to decide who is more acceptable.

if you think sherlock was pulp entertainment for the masses and spider-man isn't, then...idk what to say about that really. the statement that modern holmes novelizations have improved in that area and that modern fiction is held to a higher standard is blatantly untrue. kinda crazy gutsy of you to say it though. i like your chutzpah

buffy "the unacceptably lazy" tv show is almost its own discipline in academia and widely acclaimed as one of the best tv series of its time; recognised as helping to usher in the so called golden age of tv. somehow it has gone on to all this acclaim in spite of breaking one of your cardinal sins of "objectively good story telling"

your exact words were "the story internally consistent and the characters" , which all the works including tolkein's have failed to do. are we now moving the goal posts to focus only on character continuity? if that's so, we're in even deeper subjective waters.

it's nice that you remember trivia about me, have we spoken before? in addition to soaps, i've also just finished on the second season of an award winning (for best drama) netflix series... i'll pass on your concerns to the team.

[Tuck]

i'm binge re-watching buffy and angel and it becomes obvious in one sitting that they were making things up on the fly and dropping established rules and characterisations as better ideas formed.

continuity is more of a fan hang up than anything else.

Ronald D Moore was talking about this recently . . . somewhere. That the episodic nature of broadcast television allowed for course corrections when something didn't seem to be working or something better was conceived. He was contrasting it to locking yourself in with no way to course correct with regards to the binge-watch streaming model. (Of course, people have strong views about the back half of BSG, so . . . )

Buffy was all over the place with the lore I suppose. They did do a good job of setting up some long-term ideas though. Dark Willow was planned since season 3 (it was supposed to happen season 5 and at the time it was planned to involve Oz). There's mention of Dawn and one or two other things in season 3 as well. (Some other stuff I'm sure, but those are in the front of my head.)

[boots]

Ronald D Moore was talking about this recently . . . somewhere. That the episodic nature of broadcast television allowed for course corrections when something didn't seem to be working or something better was conceived. He was contrasting it to locking yourself in with no way to course correct with regards to the binge-watch streaming model. (Of course, people have strong views about the back half of BSG, so . . . )

yeah, i was going to make the point that it's a general and accepted approach to long form tv series, but i wanted to keep it located on "acclaimed" programming and buffy seemed like an example that was easy enough for everyone to contribute to.

i'm not that familiar with moore's work, but i have read the battlestar galactica series bible and its one of the best examples of its kind.

the binge model is definitely harder to get away with without the space of a week between episodes and sometimes less than a year between seasons. even then, shorter form shows like vikings and misfits have course corrected between seasons.

Buffy was all over the place with the lore I suppose. They did do a good job of setting up some long-term ideas though. Dark Willow was planned since season 3 (it was supposed to happen season 5 and at the time it was planned to involve Oz). There's mention of Dawn and one or two other things in season 3 as well. (Some other stuff I'm sure, but those are in the front of my head.)

i'd also argue that not being beholden to some of the lore and characterisations (say with how vampire characterisation worked) actually allowed for better stories than if they had been stricter with that stuff.

and no doubts- long term planning in regards to continuity and characterisation can add a whole new dimension to enjoying a show, comic or novel series but it's not an unassailable must. i like that stuff too, particularly the examples you mention. i also really enjoyed the little bits where they would throw back to past episodes in a quip or come back to amy the witch as a rat. that's essentially all you need to keep up the "illusion" of continuity and (i believe) is enough for the majority of audiences.

[Tuck]

i'd also argue that not being beholden to some of the lore and characterisations (say with how vampire characterisation worked) actually allowed for better stories than if they had been stricter with that stuff.

Whedon's said that if he has to choose between not breaking the lore and drama or reaching an emotional truth, he'll break the lore.

Spike is a walking lore-break. His (and Angel's) age changed at some point. He clearly kept aspects of his human personality (which isn't supposed to happen).

[boots]

Whedon's said that if he has to choose between not breaking the lore and drama or reaching an emotional truth, he'll break the lore.

i can't think of many writers who would disagree.

Spike is a walking lore-break. His (and Angel's) age changed at some point. He clearly kept aspects of his human personality (which isn't supposed to happen).

if we accept spike's subsequent characterisation and other vamps like harmony as a rule, then angel's entire schtick falls apart. even his dealings with darla in his own series stop making any sort of sense. so the audience needs to be able to hold and accept two concepts on vampire/soul/humans thingo in order for it to all work.

there was one scene i noticed in buffy where the scooby gang go on vampire patrol with riley, and while he is being all stealthy and super soldierish, the scoobs are talking loudly and eating chips like rank amateurs rather than the seasoned vamp vets they should be (probably way more so than riley). obviously, their characterisation was momentarily suspended for the sake of a joke...but it's not bad writing. and if you want to play along with the writing than against it, you can actually make that apparent ooc moment work (the scoobs have become complacent over the years).

[WebLurker]

well, the only way his point makes sense is if we remove all context from the slott vs jms and the pre-current-past sw comparisons

i imagine that star wars isn't so different to superheroes: there's always someone who is going to hate the current iteration the most and at that point in time, the hate seems to burn brightest.

Sure, makes sense. And times do shift. Way back when, prequel hate was almost "universal," now you got a lot of us who un-ironically love them. The decision to reboot the tie-ins line to fit with the new movies earned a backlash from a subset of the fanbase, now that's died down to a handful of activists. It's suddenly a bad thing that Abrams is doing number nine, despite him hitting it out of the park with TFA (why is TFA uncool all of a sudden?). Bet you anything by this time in two years, that'll all be forgotten.

I do too but exaggerated means they are are 5/10 problem instead of a 10/10 problem. But a problem all the same

Well, there was the problem of Leia remembering her birth mom in ROTJ but being orphaned as a newborn in ROTS (Force impressions maybe?) and Kenobi saying that Yoda had been his master in ESB but us seeing him training under Qui-Gon in TMP (Yoda did teach younglings in AOTC and since Qui-Gon wasn't around anymore, no need to complicate the explanation of Kenobi's connections to Yoda). Beyond a few clues that the original trilogy was made under the assumption that the prequel generation was older than they turned out to be (with Tattootine suns and hard lives making an easy out), I'm not picking up on much. (Granted, the pre-Disney tie-in media had a lot of prequel-era discrepancies, but those being decanonized fixed that in one smack.)

[boots]

Sure, makes sense. And times do shift. Way back when, prequel hate was almost "universal," now you got a lot of us who un-ironically love them. The decision to reboot the tie-ins line to fit with the new movies earned a backlash from a subset of the fanbase, now that's died down to a handful of activists. It's suddenly a bad thing that Abrams is doing number nine, despite him hitting it out of the park with TFA (why is TFA uncool all of a sudden?). Bet you anything by this time in two years, that'll all be forgotten.

i saw a lot of reassessment of the prequels as brave for daring to go into new territory and lucas being hailed as an innovator.

maybe there’s some truth to that in the material, but my feeling is that the favourable reassessment was also partly in reaction to the perception of tfa being too derivative as well as hindsight...which is essentially what you’re saying: you can’t assess the reactions to the work without taking the cultural context on board

[Tuck]

i saw a lot of reassessment of the prequels as brave for daring to go into new territory and lucas being hailed as an innovator.

I don't know. I always liked the prequels. Phantom Menace got good reviews at the time too. People seem to forget that. But a lot of criticisms of the movies are spot on. But they tried things, even if it ended up as a mess.

Of course, I'm one of the ten people who paid to see Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in the theater and really enjoyed it, even while seeing all the movie's failings.

maybe there’s some truth to that in the material, but my feeling is that the favourable reassessment was also partly in reaction to the perception of tfa being too derivative as well as hindsight...which is essentially what you’re saying: you can’t assess the reactions to the work without taking the cultural context on board

It's not just that it's derivative. It relies on the audience bringing some pop culture experience into the film with them in order to achieve it's big moments. Abrams does this a lot (the most blatant case being the dramatic revelation of Khan's name in Into Darkness . . . which makes no sense to be played out as it is to the characters in-universe.)

[Miles To Go]

(why is TFA uncool all of a sudden?).)

Because it does'nt hold up on repeat viewings.