#cfandom is a hot yikes... this is why you gotta stay out of these kind of big fandoms sigh

[syncogon]

critiques of the ftg movie

I will preface this by saying: I strongly dislike pre-biasing people regarding a work; I think that everyone should, and should be allowed to, make judgments about a work after experiencing it themselves. But after watching the movie on Friday, and dipping my toes in the mess of cfandom right now, I felt motivated to write this discussion of where I think the movie falls short, and fighting back against a lot of cfandom sentiment. Will probably write about what I liked about the movie at some point later, because, overall, I did really enjoy watching the movie, and I think it is still worth seeing.

SPOILERS below cut, obviously (although not very detailed):

A lot of early-viewer Chinese fans were complaining about Ye Xiu’s OOC-ness, I think mostly complaining that he came across as too “weak,” but honestly, I disagree. If I come across some rebuttal-worthy argument by some particularly disgruntled and well-spoken cfan, maybe I’ll elaborate on that more. But Butterfly Blue has addressed that complaint on his Weibo, and I agree with him - to paraphrase translate, you need to evaluate whether your so-called “OOC” is in reference to YOUR understanding of and hope for the character, or the character that the novel gives. I, and Butterfly Blue, think ftg!Ye Xiu was within the realm of consistent characterization, and I think that the most intense fans making a fuss about that are too blinded by their love of Ye Xiu that the version of him in their minds is warped.

Regardless of all that, my two biggest issues with the movie boil down to the following: 

1) The Xue Mingkai subplot: Xue Mingkai leaving for half the season, Ye Xiu just allowing that, Excellent Era making it to the finals with 5 players (is someone playing in both individual and group? is the healer playing in those matches? are they really playing all their team rounds with only 5 players??), Ye Xiu just kind of blindly hoping for the best all this time, and Xue Mingkai just randomly returning *in the middle of the team round* and suddenly all their cooperation problems are solved even though they haven’t played together for possibly months. I have pretty good suspension of disbelief in general, but this just didn’t make any sense at all. I would buy that this kind of conflict happened with him leaving, but not dragged out over such a long period of time. Honestly, all they needed to do was to shorten the time Xue Mingkai was gone to like, missing one match – that would keep the significance of the conflict without making it illogical or making Ye Xiu seem dumb. In fact, taking away what makes this illogical, Ye Xiu’s attitude regarding this issue is very similar to his attitude with Qiao Yifan in the beginning, An Wenyi through Season 10, and the other kids of Happy, which is a good nod to character and core value continuity. Therefore, that is now the version of events that I’m accepting. There was no reason they had to make this such a big thing and drag the resolution of this conflict all the way to the finals, especially since we already got good moments of Ye Xiu’s turning him around.

2) The movie’s pacing – in general, things feel too rushed. I think it’s just a problem of time constraints; the movie’s only like an hour and a half long, which is nowhere near enough time for the kind of story they want to tell. The story could have been really good spread out over like 6 or even 12 anime-length episodes. We essentially have 10+ or so new characters each with their own stories, and the movie just didn’t give enough time to develop all of them and make me *really* care about them. I essentially have to rely on headcanons and fic and my own imaginings now to flesh out the versions of them in my head. I do agree that I wish we saw more of Ye Xiu being awesome (not cheesily so) outside of purely game context, and some might argue that as a Ye Xiu OOC issue, but I feel like that comes back more to this issue of lack of time rather than characterization. 

I, personally, can look past these things enough that I appreciate what the movie DID do well – Su Muqiu’s death (you know it’s coming, and yet it still hits you like a skidding car-) and the aftermath, esp w/ Su Mucheng; the general look and feel of the colors, sound, animation etc; the fights; the new character interactions and personalities and roasting (insufficient Wu Xuefeng notwithstanding). I can use my own imagination to augment the parts of the story I really did enjoy. And I will probably write another post elaborating on these good points… and/or lots and lots of fic. This movie was excellent idea fodder.

I do understand the fans’ disappointment. I just think that a lot of the anger is excessive, and misdirected. I would understand if BB never helped create anything relating to QZGS ever again, if only so he wouldn’t have to deal with the inevitably-upset, insane fandom – as happened with Fang Rui, his love exhausted. I hope that doesn’t happen. 

#quan zhi gao shou #qzgs #qzgs commentary #for the glory #mine #cfandom is a hot yikes... this is why you gotta stay out of these kind of big fandoms sigh #god i wish bb would write us more prequel chapters though