Changes in the Fandom

[CameoAmalthea]

We won't be seeing the effects of this anytime soon since the game won't be out for years - but how will this change the fandom?

I imagine the new game will bring in a lot of new fans - possibly making this fandom more active.

I suppose those of you who were here pre compilation have been through this before as Kingdom Hearts brought new interest to the games and Advent Children and Crisis Core brought new fans (although how how new fans followed the plot of Advent Children is beyond me....I say as someone who got into the series through Advent Children and couldn't follow what was happening at all). But this might be on a much larger level...

I'm not sure how I feel...I got into FFVII and KH around 2009/2010. By that point even the KH fandom had pretty much died down and FFVII was very old fandom with even the compilation fandom several years old by that point. So even though these are popular fandoms it was never the same experience as fandoms of things that were happening right now.

Like when I got into Attack On Titan it was a whole other world, a constant stream of new fanart and fan fic and a seemingly endless supply of people who were at least casual fans. In the cosplay scene you can the rise and fall of fandom popularities - and while there are always a few FFVII cosplayers (myself among them) it's never hoards of people like you see with whatever the next big thing is and it's rare to find other fans. It's like meeting someone in a small club, and even more exciting if they like the characters you like or the pairings.

A remake means the nature of this fandom might change.

On the one hand, I'm excited because that means more friends, more fanfic, more fan art, maybe more people who ship the things I ship and can fangirl over it with me (Reno/Rufus - not the most popular ship or if it is - small fandom pool compared to more current fandoms). Then as a creator, it means I'll have a bigger audience. More people reading my fics, more people recognizing my cosplays - more people to cosplay with! (And if the remake leads to an eventual rerelease of BC people will finally recognize some of my cosplays instead of thinking I'm Zelda when what they mean is Link and I'm trying to be Elfe).

On the other hand, it means everything is going to change. It will be less intimate. It won't be the same.

Although overall, I'm excited, because more is better, more fan art and more people who love what you love - though this will probably mean more and renewed shipping wars...

 

[Starling]

It occurs to me the remake might lessen fandom exaggerations of characterization that have become so ingrained in fanfiction over the years that some people still think that's how they're supposed to be. Maybe revisiting the OG in the remake will prompt a shift in popular pairings, which characters get cosplayed as well as trends in FF7 fanart. While the LTD will probably revive itself for a while, I doubt it'd be quite as big as it was before.

 

[Claymore]

It occurs to me the remake might lessen fandom exaggerations of characterization that have become so ingrained in fanfiction over the years that some people still think that's how they're supposed to be.

THIS.

See the 'emo Cloud' threads. Finally, this can be put to rest.

 

[Elisa Maza]

New LTD.

 

[Ite]

But the Compilation already cut the community ten years ago. As long as they keep porting the original, nothing will change.

tl;Dr *shrug* I'm used to it.

(edit: bad attitude removed -- ff7 remake gives me all the feels)

 

[Eerie]

THIS.

See the 'emo Cloud' threads. Finally, this can be put to rest.

My hatred for emo Cloud goes far and beyond. This isn't Cloud. SE better remember that, because the first Advent Children really rubbed me the wrong way about Cloud's characterisation (I thoroughly hated it, while the second expanded on his character and was much more appreciable for me).

New LTD.

Let's not bring doom on ourselves.

As for the change in fandoms, eh, they occur. But it will be a while before we get the remake, so mmh. There's that too. Maybe old ones like me will come back for a while, maybe for longer. FFVII still has a sweet spot, but I haven't had time lately for fandom at all.

 

[Wolf_]

Depending on how well the game sticks to the original I foresee a split as to what people accept as what happened. One one side you're going to the us "oldies" who played it when it came out having to contend with 13 year olds who have completed the new one which could take such a different approach (emo cloud for example). Even if they try to keep it the same it's not going to feel the same. In the original you just mooch about the slums where as the trailer makes it look edgey and dark where you get the feeling that you should be wary of everything around you.

 

[ForceStealer]

They made a point of saying Cloud would be less mopey in the new Dissidia, that could mean even they're feeling the pushback.

And, like I always say, Nojima has not shown Cloud inconsistently. In Crisis Core, Cloud wasn't mopey outside of Nibelheim, where we already knew he was feeling inadequate. And Case of Tifa starts with Cloud being completely normal before descending into depression. So even if you don't like Cloud's direction in Advent Children, Nojima was doing it consciously. And his downtrodden-ness in Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia has nothing to do with Nojima.

 

[Roger]

They made a point of saying Cloud would be less mopey in the new Dissidia, that could mean even they're feeling the pushback.

And, like I always say, Nojima has not shown Cloud inconsistently. In Crisis Core, Cloud wasn't mopey outside of Nibelheim, where we already knew he was feeling inadequate. And Case of Tifa starts with Cloud being completely normal before descending into depression. So even if you don't like Cloud's direction in Advent Children, Nojima was doing it consciously. And his downtrodden-ness in Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia has nothing to do with Nojima.

Nojima's script'll probably be okay. It's the voice direction that I'm worried about. You unlock some of Cloud's voice data in Duodecim and you can see the big difference between Steve Burton's own takes and the sullen voice they made him do.

 

[CameoAmalthea]

Oh God, voice acting...I really didn't like Aerith's voice actress, Mena Suvari - and wish we could have kept Many Moore.

Who knows how voice actor's portrayals will impact characterization and likability...and everyone will be voiced now....

And I like cutscenes - and am excited about some of them - but at the same time I'm worried some of the characters will just sound wrong.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

FFVII is lucky that it's fandom is huge, it's just that not a lot of people are active in it. Which means that it's going to get some great fandom contributions no matter what happens.

Lets just hope that it doesn't become the gaming version of the Harry Potter and Naruto fandoms that are rife with Possession Sues and contain so much canon-bashing that I don't even go looking though those fandoms for fics anymore. Fics that are written in the spirit of the canon material are just too rare to justify slogging though all the bad-fics.

 

[Zee]

New LTD.

if lesbian tumblr is awake when the game drops this problem will be solved in a solid week

 

[Jason Tandro]

The emo Cloud thing irritates the hell out of me. Cloud was emo for a grand total of what? 3 hours of gameplay. Before and after that he was a confident, solid leader who always put the needs of others ahead of himself and made sure he was taking as much of the burden as he could.

This will, hopefully, bring us back to THAT Cloud.

Spoiler

I am aware of the irony of complaining about butcherered characters when I use the not even remotely true "Rufus is a bumbling idiot" trope in most of my fanfics, but that's for comedic effect and he is not that way in my novelization.

 

[Octo]

I'm not too worried, I think the fandom reached critical mass of stupidity a long time ago, so I can't see things getting much worse. I think the old fans are much older and wiser.

TBH I could be wrong, but I don't really see this new version gathering new fans with the same level of obsessiveness we all had with the old version.

 

[ForceStealer]

Nojima's script'll probably be okay. It's the voice direction that I'm worried about. You unlock some of Cloud's voice data in Duodecim and you can see the big difference between Steve Burton's own takes and the sullen voice they made him do.

As I said elsewhere, the voice direction is going to be way more important in this than the actors. And on the whole, Square's voice direction has improved a LOT over the years, but Dissidia was a weird outlier. They did a lousy job on that.
I think (and I know I'm in the minority) that Burton has a fine voice for the role, but the director has to make clear the various emotional and personality states Cloud goes through. He starts out as kind of an unlikable dick. He quickly settles into a more likable, no-nonsense hero, THEN loses himself and becomes much more apprehensive and "emotional." Finally he's true to his dorky self, but actually becomes a better leader because of it.

Oh God, voice acting...I really didn't like Aerith's voice actress, Mena Suvari - and wish we could have kept Many Moore.

Mena Suvari hasn't done Aerith in 10 years. Andrea Bowen has done her ever since and is way better. Watch some Crisis Core scenes.

 

[Roger]

I think (and I know I'm in the minority) that Burton has a fine voice for the role,

I think Burton sounded just right when he was first cast in KH. He does not sound that way anymore. If someone has to do 13, 16 and 21 year old Cloud, I'd rather they got someone new.

 

[ForceStealer]

I thought Crisis Core was his best performance, actually.

 

[SirVival]

New LTD.

Bring it on, my body is ready!

 

[Fangu]

New LTD.

HD LTD

brace yourselves

 

[CameoAmalthea]

Mena Suvari hasn't done Aerith in 10 years. Andrea Bowen has done her ever since and is way better. Watch some Crisis Core scenes.

I still think Mandy Moore was better - in Crisis Core she seems a bit high pitched? But Maybe she's better in Dissidia

I have to say I don't necessarily trust a lot of English VA's - if only because I've gone to a lot of cons and met a lot of VAs and unless the VA is an actor (like the people who do cartoons or do cartoons but also do live action) a lot of them don't seem to care about the characters or performance. This is in contrast to Japanese VAs who always seem very thoughtful about the characters and invested in the performance. Like for instance, I saw Quentin Flynn at a con once and he made it sound like he just read the lines without really giving them or the character much thought - and that he didn't really like video games. Compare that to movie actors who care about their characters and can talk at length about their interpretation of the characters.

The reason I really liked KH1 was they cast celebrities - which I don't think went over well with the fans as much - but everyone who did the voice work there was from a background where they cared about the performance more than just a paycheck.

 

[ForceStealer]

Quinton Flynn is a pretty experienced voice actor and might be relatively old school about it. A lot of the more popular voice actors these days (Blum, Freeman, Hillis, North, Hale, Baker, etc.) seem to get pretty into their characters, no matter how many there are. Blum probably the least so, if only because he's had SO. MANY.

And screen celebrities aren't always necessarily a good choice for voice acting. Theres no denying they've a passion for acting, but they're not used to it. See: Dinklage in Destiny.

Incidentally, I think part of the reason I'm easier on Burton sometimes is because every time he's interviewed about Cloud he seems to like Cloud so much.

 

[CameoAmalthea]

I just thought of something...

So a lot of non-FFVII fans who are fans of the characters thanks to KH are in for a lot of surprises.

I know there are a ton of Reno fans who like Reno because he's like Axel in KH and like the goofy side they see of him in AC - there are fans who don't even know what the Turks are or what happened in Sector 7.

People are going to freak when they see cold blooded killer Reno...

 

[lithiumkatana17]

While I am definitely looking forward to a renewed interest in VII, as well as the compilation and even FF as a whole, I'm not looking forward to the influx of a younger generation that may not appreciate what this game is to the millions of fans out there. And perhaps maybe people (not hardcore fans) who played the original a long time ago will be tempted to delve back into the fandom again.

I think we'll definitely see an increase of FFVII cosplayers at conventions and an increase of merchandise. And if this game does good, we may even see remakes of other entries in the compilation, and if it doesn't the destroy the fandom for good, as real, true, sequel game.

It's like what David Lodge said in the trailer: The reunion at hand may bring joy, it may bring fear. But let us embrace whatever it brings.

 

[AerithLives]

Cloud mopey? His personality was torn to pieces and put back in reverse order by Jenova. His town was burned to the ground and covered up by Shinra, Aeris was killed in front of him. Everything he has ever known or loved (sorry Tifa) has been destroyed. I think he has earned it. There is nothing worse than these faceless computer game characters which dont seem slightly phased by the bloody storylines they have to go through, or are crushed emotionally in one scene then are completely over it in the next lol.

They should stick to what made this game great. I think a lot of the people who complain that Cloud is a punk arse mopey emo do so with affection (usually). I like the balance it gives too, as Cloud has unparalleled power but is absolutely nothing without his friends. Its a winning formula, realistic and quite deep. Keep it!

 

[Roger]

Cloud mopey? His personality was torn to pieces and put back in reverse order by Jenova. His town was burned to the ground and covered up by Shinra, Aeris was killed in front of him. Everything he has ever known or loved (sorry Tifa) has been destroyed. I think he has earned it. There is nothing worse than these faceless computer game characters which dont seem slightly phased by the bloody storylines they have to go through, or are crushed emotionally in one scene then are completely over it in the next lol.

They should stick to what made this game great. I think a lot of the people who complain that Cloud is a punk arse mopey emo do so with affection (usually). I like the balance it gives too, as Cloud has unparalleled power but is absolutely nothing without his friends. Its a winning formula, realistic and quite deep. Keep it!

I can't imagine the guy from AC going to the Golden Saucer for the fun of the bike/snowboard/submarine simulator and betting on Chocobo races. However they deal with Cloud's heartache after the love between him and Tifa brings the real Cloud back for the first time since long before Aerith came into picture, he still needs to be that guy again, as he was in the original game.