Details, details

[gwyn]

Most of my friends who know me well know that I am canon girl. I prefer to write within the universe of whatever fandom I'm in, and only veer away from it in terms of small what-if scenarios that fanfic provides. A lot of people call any what-if scenario AUs, but I don't, really, since fanfic is primarily about writing around the known universe. I've done a couple of what do seem to be more intensive what-if AUs (Somniloquy and Assumption are probably the two biggest, just in terms of how far I took the essential story and characters); most of the rest of the time, I try to squeeze what I can in between something that's already there, or tweak things around so that it's canon plus.

But the details of the universe? Those are canonical. Buffy is never gonna be called Elizabeth in my fic. Chris wears a black hat and duster, and Vin wears a cavalry hat and carries a sawn-off rifle; no one ever calls Ezra "Ez." Mulder, Scully, and Skinner work for the FBI and solve paranormal cases, not do criminal profiling and catching generic run of the mill serial killers.

So for little miss follow-the-details, F&F is an insane-making fandom. The details are all missing. Or corrupted. Stuff that is making me crazy:

1. No one outside of the main characters and for some reason, the Trans (Nguyens), have full names. Everyone is either known by their last names (Tanner, Bilkins) or first names (all of Dom's team, Hector, Edwin, and so on). Grrrr. Characters in fiction are often helped in definition by names -- it's one of the more important aspects of creating original characters. Yet almost no one has full names here.

2. Brian has a name that apparently can be spelled however we want it to be spelled. In the original's subtitles and end credits, and IMDB listing, it's spelled O'Conner. Apparently, in 2F2F it's spelled O'Connor, the more traditional way. Most of fanfic has O'Connor, and I certainly assumed that was correct in the first two things I wrote. A little consistency -- is it too much to ask for?

3. Even the subtitlers get stuff wrong. Dom clearly says "Got that right" when he tells Jesse to take his make-out session upstairs, but the subtitles have it as "Can't even get that right", and so their ability to spell Brian's name correctly? I'm not so confident of. They have other high-larious goofs in there, too. Subtitles are often helpful in getting good background details, but these are annoying.

4. Why the freaking hell did I have to find out about the Baja tag by accident? This should be required information about the fandom. Better organization and mobilization is needed! I even checked with movies_michelle about this -- we always, always stay for end credts in theatres, in fact we were the only people who stayed for the alternate ending at 28 Days Later -- and we remember the five middle-aged guys in the theatre that day, we remember the credits, but we never saw this. The projectionist didn't keep the film running and we never saw this! I feel like I've been cheated all these years! I'm bitter, people.

5. Why aren't there places to go, I wonder, for canonical backround? If the movie became that big of a hit and has such cult status, how come there's no guide for fans? I find this weird. Most of my fandoms have such detailed resources, even poor ol' Mag 7, and yet there's nada for this. At least then we might fin out how to spell Brian's freaking name. ;-)

6. In doing research for ideas that I could rip off for my new fic, I watched some of my favorite old Miami Vice episodes. F&F's director, Rob Cohen, directed one of those eps, which was about... two different sets of guys (one set cops, one set stupid criminals) of unnaturally close status who work on busting a stolen electronics ring (all the high-end stuff at that time). I was deeply amused by this. Apparently he has one good story in him.

Comments

[maggiesox.livejournal.com]

Baja Tag?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yes! At the very end of the credits, there's a small sequence featuring Dom driving through Baja. Canonical proof that he does go to Mexico, rather than a fanon assumption. Not one person ever mentioned this to me, and clearly the time I saw it in the theatre, we were cheated! I suppose three years is too late to go back and ask for my money back.

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

You've pimped me. I broke down, rented the movie, am devouring fic, love your vid, am free basing the testosterone and thinking about learning to do trick driving moves... heh.

The Baja tag. How can this be? Is it on the dvd versions? Ack! I've got one version here, and I scoured it. Either it's not on this dvd or else I'm (typically) blind and should be bit by a snake...

The other crazy-making stuff you mention? So true!

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

You've pimped me. I broke down, rented the movie, am devouring fic, love your vid, am free basing the testosterone and thinking about learning to do trick driving moves... heh.

Haha! Two down, Gwyn.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay! Pimpage! Yay!

The Baja tag should be on all the DVDs -- apparently it was on the damn theatrical release except that they never bloody showed it in our theatre even if they showed it for everyone else in the world. Not that I'm, you know, even a little bitter about this. FF through the whole credits to the end, when you get the copyright date and studio logo. Right after that, there's a tiny little tag.

Also something I never noticed the first time I saw the sequel -- on one of the setups, there's a mini-movie about Brian's run to Miami after letting Dom go in the first movie.

OTOH, Christy pointed out to me that we're getting all these nuggets later in the game, so it's like keeping the new discovery feeling alive for a fandom that is essentially closed. So that's cool. When I'm not, you know, bitter. ;-)

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

You all are pimps supreme, but once you break down and watch the film, pimping becomes unnecessary. Phew! You can barely breathe 'cause the slashocity is so thick. Must go and breathe deeply...and catch that tag!

[amerella.livejournal.com]

Chris wears a black hat and duster, and Vin wears a cavalry hat and carries a sawn-off rifle; no one ever calls Ezra "Ez."

I don't know which fandom you're referring to, but I find the nickname "Ez" really amusing. Heh.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's Magnificent 7. Fanon has everyone calling the gambler character, Ezra, as Ez, which is a) not appropriate because no one ever, ever does on the show, and b) he's a very elegant, articulate man who really does not seem like an Ez. To me, that's some guy with a long ratty beard and missing teeth. ;-)

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

Why aren't there places to go, I wonder, for canonical backround? If the movie became that big of a hit and has such cult status, how come there's no guide for fans? I find this weird. Most of my fandoms have such detailed resources, even poor ol' Mag 7, and yet there's nada for this. At least then we might fin out how to spell Brian's freaking name.

Well, it's never too late to get it right. The recent influx of incredible new talent is proof of that. And if there is going to be a third movie (anyone got any up-to-date info?), then there are going to be more fans and hopefully more writers.

I, for one, have absolutely no talent for creating web sites (hell, it took me a year to get my lj up and running) but I'd sure be more than happy to go on a fact finding mission and gather all the minutiae that I can. It just never occurred to me that people didn't know about the Baja tag after the credits.

There are a couple of sites that are more or less exclusively devoted to tF&tF, maybe one of them would include a canon vs fanon section. Any ideas?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Your icon just cracks me the fuck up. Every time.

You know, that's probably not a bad idea. Me, I'm insanely lazy and tend to put all my fannish egss in the vidding and writing basket, but if someone was willing to do the research or gather the info and give it to me, I'd totally be willing to set up a page. I'm not much of a coder, but I have a little WYSIWYG program that I can take the code from, and open it up for someone to update as they please, or whatever.

And if someone has the web space, we could put it up there. I have some, just not a ton, so if it's graphics heavy, that could be a problem. But I mean, there's lots of people who have web space they don't use (not looking at my fellow drizzle friends), so it might be possible to rustle someone up.

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

Your icon just cracks me the fuck up. Every time.

All kudos go to khal. She decided I needed more icons. I love this one. Brian looks nekkid and fresh out of bed.

I love your icon and I'm insanely jealous of it. My first fanfic ever was a F&F one called Gravity.

And as I said, I'll be thrilled to start gathering info about the movie. Drat! I guess that means I'll have to watch it again! I guess I could start with character profiles. Doesn't have to be graphics heavy. Doesn't really have to have graphics at all. There are plenty of pics out on the wed and they're easy to find (unlike stats). Guess I'll get busy!

Thanks for volunteering a little time. Where do you want the info sent?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Aha! You wrote Gravity? It's the big one on the list of fics to read that I've been given since I fell into this (a whole two months ago, yeesh). My big problem is that I almost never read while I'm writing, except small things that I can grab quickly, and I'm almost always writing, so trying to catch up on everything I need to read is killing me!

There's actually a story behind the icon: I asked khaleesian if every story in the universe had the word gravity in the title, because I was so ignorant of the fic published on the lists. She told me that really yours was the only one, and so I felt relatively secure with Testing Gravity. But when I sent the file to m'lyn for editing, she thought the file name (gravity.doc) was the title name, and so she made me the icon even though the title of the story was different. She was afraid it was too "my hed is pastede on yay" but I still like it.

If you want to share it, I'm totally game, and I imagine m'lyn would be too!

Send me stuff at gwyneth at drizzle dot com. Hopefully we can figure something out -- I wonder if Cohen and Co. ever did plot out names and such, ages, experience. Did they ever create any back story?

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

Y'know, when the movie first came out there was a novelization of the screenplay. I remember seeing it at the bookstore. It would probably have some juicy details in it. I wonder if it would be possible to get my hands on a copy? Must Google and see.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

If you want to share it, I'm totally game, and I imagine m'lyn would be too!

Yah, no problemo. I'm honored any time someone wants to grab one of my icons...even if Dom looks like he has blue stubble in this one.

I did a second version if anyone likes it better. I should put up an icon site or something.

And I can offer webspace for this potential project.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

no one ever calls Ezra "Ez."

*ROTF*

Brian has a name that apparently can be spelled however we want it to be spelled.

It's BriEn, you know.





Just kidding.

Apparently he has one good story in him.

And it's not xXx.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think we should spell it Brion O'Conner.

Apparently he has one good story in him.

And it's not xXx.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!!! ROTFLMAO

[khaleesian.livejournal.com]

Seconding the ROTFLMAO. Brion O'Conner. Bryan Oconnur. Or something.

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

The truly scary thing?
The xXx sequel (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329774/) is in current production.

Without neither Cohen nor Vin involved.

The howling laughter can now commence!

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I knew that already. Someone said that the only good xXx sequel would be about Agent Toby Lee Shavers. *Laughs and shudders*

[thisisbone.livejournal.com]

::ears perking up::

Baja? Baja tag????

I never saw no stinkin' Baja tag...

Dang, now I have to watch it again.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a hardship!

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

::hugs from a fellow canon lover::