Fighteer
Lost in Space
from The Time Vortex
(Time Abyss)
Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#2: Apr 21st 2011 at 6:25:57 AM
I like the idea but do remember that you're supposed to pitch trope concepts on YKTTW.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
KJMackley
Since: Jan, 2001
#3: Apr 21st 2011 at 12:26:06 PM
Not trying to propose a trope (although I did briefly consider it), I try to avoid proposing Real Life tropes and I think it would likely devolve into complaining about people not being "True Fans."
Total posts: 4

I was just thinking about several times where a long running franchise brings in people who have had no prior experience or familiarity with it. The reason may vary but it often ends up being that they want a fresh perspective and not someone tainted with wide-eyed fanboy dreams. This is basically an inversion of a Promoted Fanboy (they become a fan of the project as they are working on it) and inherently avoids Running the Asylum and Armed with Canon.
For example when Nicholas Meyer was hired to direct Star Trek II he set down and watched every episode, which is why Khan was chosen as the villain because Meyer felt that he had a cinematic quality about him. This evidently worked very well as Meyer tapped into the core of the series and was able to ignore idolizing the characters, which is why Kirk was given glasses and they acknowledge their advancing age. Something similar was attempted with Star Trek Nemesis by hiring Stuart Baird, but he admitted he avoided learning about the franchise because he wanted the movie to stand on its own. This, evidently, did not work out as well.
Another example is that Michael Bay said that he has become a big Transformers fan as, in his own words, no one has been thinking more about giant robots in the last several years. He originally had little desire because he saw it as a mere toy line, but "you don't refuse an offer from Steven Spielberg" and when he went to a crash course on the franchse at Hasbro he was inspired by some of the images of the robots. He realized he had an opportunity to make something very unique.
Any other thoughts or examples?
edited 21st Apr '11 2:44:19 AM by KJMackley