Fantastic Transmedia: Narrative, Play and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds PDF
Preview Fantastic Transmedia: Narrative, Play and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds
Fantastic Transmedia This page intentionally left blank Fantastic Transmedia Narrative, Play and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds Colin B. Harvey King’sCollegeLondon,UK ©ColinB.Harvey2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-30603-6 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6–10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedhisrighttobeidentifiedastheauthorofthiswork inaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2015by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-45500-3 ISBN 978-1-137-30604-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137306043 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Harvey,ColinB.,1971– Fantastictransmedia:narrative,playandmemoryacrosssciencefiction andfantasystoryworlds/ColinB.Harvey;King’sCollegeLondon,UK. pages cm Summary:“InFantasticTransmedia,writerandacademicColinBHarvey exploresthemanifoldwaysinwhichsciencefictionandfantasyfranchises usetransmedialtechniquestocreatecomplexandinvolvingimaginary worlds.FromhighprofilefranchiseslikeStarWars,HaloandtheMarvel CinematicUniversetofarsmaller,micro-budgetedindieprojects,Harvey exploresthewaysinwhichfantasticstoryworldsusenovels,television shows,films,comicbooks,videogames,toysandUser-GeneratedContent toextendanddeepenaudiences’experiences.Throughnumerouscase studiesHarveyidentifiesstory,playandmemoryasthekeymechanisms throughwhichsuchcreatorsdevelop,spread,andemotionally engage”—Providedbypublisher. 1. Narration(Rhetoric) 2. Storytellinginmassmedia. 3. Motion picturesandvideogames. 4. Filmadaptations—Historyandcriticism. 5. Convergence(Telecommunication) I. Title. P96.N35H372015 302.23—dc23 2015001295 Contents Preface vi Acknowledgements x Introduction:FramesofReference 1 1 FantasticTransmedia 12 2 StoriesandWorlds 40 3 OfHobbitsandHulks:AdaptationVersusNarrative Expansion 63 4 Canon-Fodder:HaloandHorizontalRemembering 93 5 ConfiguringMemoryintheBuffyverse 116 6 MaterialMythsandNostalgia-PlayinStarWars 137 7 FantasticallyIndependent 163 8 TransmediaMemory 182 Notes 203 Bibliography 208 Index 232 v Preface Someofmyearliestmemoriesaretransmedial.IgrewupreadingDoctor Who Weekly, a magazine devoted to the long-running British science fantasytelevisionshow,andpublished,atleastinthosedays,byMarvel. Itoriginallycost12penceandfeaturedaregularcomicstriptellingnew storiessetintheDoctorWhouniverse,writtenbycomicluminarieslike Pat Mills and Alan Moore, and boasting extraordinary illustrations by thelikesofDaveGibbonsandSteveMoore. As well as the primary comic strip featuring the Doctor himself, there were various articles detailing the history of the programme, a ‘Photo-File’offeringfactsaboutspecificcharactersintheseries,a‘Crazy Caption’ competition, ‘A Letter from the Doctor’, a second comic strip featuring classic adaptations (beginning with HG Wells’ War of the Worlds) and a third comic strip featuring one of the Doctor’s adver- saries, starting with the Daleks (Doctor Who Weekly 1979). This third comicstripoccasionallyevenbroughttogethertheDoctor’sfoestobat- tle one another, long before the television show itself, such as when the Cybermen and Ice Warriors faced off against each other in Issues 15 and 16 (Doctor Who Weekly 1980). Doctor Who Weekly also con- tainednumeroustoyadvertisementsforthelikesofPalitoyandforother Marvel publications such as Star Wars Weekly, Spiderman, The Hulk and Starburst. EachThursday,IwouldmakethepilgrimagetoMartinsthenewsagent topurchasemycopy,carryingithomereverentlysoasnottodamageit inanyway.IcarryanenduringheartacheassociatedwithmissingIssue 8andtheconclusiontothethrillingIronLegioncomicstrip,writtenby Pat Mills and John Wagner, and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. In those days there was no Internet or eBay to assist in finding a copy of the magazine. Issue 8 had come and gone, and I had missed it, seemingly forever. Though Doctor Who remained a significant facet of my childhood, it didn’t preclude me from other science fiction or fantasy-inflected pur- suits, many of which were similarly transmedial. My youth took place against a backdrop of escapist stories, brightly coloured fantasies that could distract me from the real world of maths tests and PE, from the travails associated with growing up with a perennially ill father and from the grainy news footage showing the political and social turmoil vi Preface vii of a country encountering Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s shock therapy. I consumed these stories voraciously, not caring in what form I imbibed them or where they came from. As well as Doctor Who, there was other British televisual science fiction, like the grimly fascinating Blake’s7andITV’speculiarSapphireandSteel,eachheraldedbystriking, eerie theme tunes. There was children’s television, too, like ITV’s The TomorrowPeopleandtheiradaptationofJohnWyndham’snovelChocky, plusitstwofollow-upseries.Mytastesweren’texclusivelyBritisheither: theoriginalStarTrek,BattlestarGalactica,BuckRogersintheTwenty-Fifth Century and Logan’s Run were as much a part of the tapestry of my childhoodastheirBritishcounterparts. TherewasmytattyanthologyofHansChristianAndersenfairytalesI inheritedfrommysister,andmyTV21andCountdownannualsfrommy brothers,depictingnewstoriesforthelikesofCaptainScarlet,Interna- tionalRescueandthecrewofStingray.Therewerefilms,likeGhostbusters andtheIndianaJonesmovies,andradioplayslikeTheHitch-Hiker’sGuide totheGalaxywhichinitiatedmyenduringfascinationwithradiofantasy and science fiction, not to mention radio comedy. There were Mar- vel’s Tomb of Dracula comics, Planet of the Apes comics and, of course, Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk, on TV and on the page. And there wastheamazingandfaintlyterrifying2000AD,aBritishcomicemerg- ing from the punk tradition and playing fast and loose with science fictionandfantasyconventions. Mostofall,therewasStarWars.Likemanyofmygeneration–bornin 1971–IwasaStarWarskid,andmypassionextendedwellbeyondthe confinesofthecinemascreen.Incommonwithallmypeers,Icollected Kenner’sfigures(packagedanddistributedbyPalitoyintheUK),begin- ning with R5-D4, one of the more minor characters from the original 1977 film to say the least. As my collection of figures grew to incorpo- ratespacevehiclesliketheAT-ATWalker,HothplaysetandBespinCloud Car,IinventednewscenariosmoreorlessconsistentwithwhatI’dseen atthelocalcinema. I read Alan Dean Foster’s 1978 novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the sequel to Star Wars, until it was displaced by the follow-up movie The EmpireStrikesBack.Iplayedvideogamesbasedonhigh-profilefranchises, including Ghostbusters and the adaptation of The Hobbit on my friend Michael Eley’s Commodore 64. In fact, my childhoodwas stuffed with spinoffs and tie-ins, ranging across films, television programmes, toy ranges, videogames and comics. When links between different media weren’tevident,I’dinventthem:forinstance,Iwouldpretendthatthe viii Preface unfoldingstarscapeinthevideogameStarRaiderswasactuallythelong- rangescanneraboardtheEnterprise,andI’dplaywithmyStarTrek:The MotionPicturefiguresinfrontofit. These experiences aren’t unique to me or even unusual, if various online forums are anything to go by. There’s certainly a nostalgia involved, but in terms of those franchises which are still prospering – DoctorWho,StarWars,StarTrek,tonamejustthreeofthemorepromi- nent examples – there’s also a kind of mythical ‘handing down’ of knowledgetoyoungerfans.Infact,asI’llarguethroughoutthisvolume, memory always was central to these crossmedial experiences, provid- ingthemeansbywhichstoriesreferencedoneanotheracrossdifferent media,aswellasacknowledgingthepastofthefictionalmilieuinques- tion.Thesememoriesmightbearticulatedthroughwords,stillimages, audiovisualmaterial,performanceorinteractivity,orindeedacombina- tionofthesedifferentmodes.Theywerethemechanismsbywhichthe ‘storyworld’1 was effectively sewn together, helping create a common diegeticspaceforme–andcountlessothers–toexplore.Icontendthat thisisastruefornewtransmediafranchisesandtechniquesasitwasfor theonesIgrewupwith. In some ways my emphasis on relating contemporary transmedia storytelling to what went before might seem surprising. When I was a kid,digitalitywasunknownorlittleknown,barelyemergentinthecon- text of calculators, digital watches and the first commercially available videogames.Thesedaysit’sverydifferent.TheonlineforumsIreferred to are just one way in which transmedia experiences might be artic- ulated. In the digital age, those of us with access to the appropriate resources can find out about and talk about television shows, feature films,websites,videogamesandcomicseasilyandrapidly.Opportunities for myriad kinds of interaction that didn’t formerly exist have become commonplace, from interacting with fellow fans around the globe to contributing our own stories to the Buffyverse, Whoniverse or Star Wars universe. Nevertheless,Ithinkolder,analogueexamplesofcrossmediaarticula- tion have more in common with contemporary examples than might first meet the eye. What we today call ‘transmedia’ or ‘crossmedia’ storytelling is a diverse sphere, but then it always was. Some of the mediainvolvedisthesame:films,novels,comicbooks,pen-and-paper games,evenvideogamesfromthe1970sonwards.Certainly,thesedays digitalitymeansthereareabunchofnewthingsinvolvedincrossmedia storytelling,fromwebisodes,tosocialmediaandalternaterealitygames, to wide varieties of user-generated content,2 yet the impetus in each Preface ix instance seems very familiar: to tell multiple stories set in a consis- tent diegetic world or worlds, to communicate ideas, perhaps to make money,tochangemindsaboutasocialissue,orindeedtoentertainan audience. Which isn’t to say there aren’t major differences between what hap- pens now, in terms of the conception, development and distribution of storyworlds, and what happened in previous decades. Indeed, there are mammoth differences between the various kinds of transmedia storytelling that currently appear, let alone differences with what pre- cededthem.Fromthemulti-million-dollarHollywoodfranchisesspan- ningfilms,comics,videogamesandtelevisionshowstothesmall-scale, micro-budgeted projects that utilise the web, social media and mobile technologies,candidatesforthedescriptor‘transmediastorytelling’are legion. Nevertheless, I argue that there is a legacy to be acknowl- edged,onewhichcanproveinstructiveinhelpingusmapthedynamic, compellingsphereofcontemporarytransmediastorytelling.
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