Outside the Beltway

AG Monday

This week Steven and Tom discuss and debate fan service.

Steven L. Taylor
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We’ve mentioned fan service in past episodes. Now, we take it head on.

Tom and Steven have a lot to say about fan service, because it’s a big part of geek culture today. But was it also a major part of our earlier geek lives? How much more of geek culture, especially on the screen, is dominated by it today? Is it always a bad thing, the death of creativity and quality? Or, in the right hands, can it be used for good.

Sequels! Remakes! In-jokes! Deep cuts! Updates! Transmedia! Spirited debate between Steven and Tom! It’s all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

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3 responses to “AG Monday”

  1. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Still have over 55 minutes left to go. presumably you will have discussed de-aging Luke Skywalker and the use of digital puppets to replace other actors.

    IMO, Lower Decks was a lot about fan service, but they also managed to tell their own stories and develop their characters. There was also a fair bit of self-parody of Trek, like the Strange Energies ep.

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  2. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    I think I’ve gone through all my short SciFi jokes. So here’s a long one:

    One fine day several millions of years ago, Ulkesh Naranek called his girlfriend, Kosh Naranek (no relation), to arrange a date. In his haste to contact his beloved, he dialed the wrong number.

    The call rang at a deep warren in Z’ha’dum, where it woke a Shadow up from a short thousand year nap.

    For a second Vorlon and Shadow stared at each other. The former with suspicion, the latter with annoyance. At the same time the Vorlon demanded “Who are you?”, the Shadow said “What do you want?”

    It all went downhill from there.

    3
  3. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Still have some episode left for the drive home.

    Question: are in-jokes, easter eggs, or references fan service?

    I like including one or two, so long as it’s a natural part of a scene. For instance, in a scene reviewing the ship’s log, the captain mentions “Euphrates Sector, Sinclair’s planet.”*

    In another story, I want to include like a couple of lines of Duncan’s The Martian Revolution (I would need his permission), in a scene where the protagonists is listening to a history audiobook (to illustrate history is her hobby).

    *That’s a reference to Babylon 5.

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