For what seems like years, comic book fans, as well as fans of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, have had a reputation of being rather obsessive and overly excited about the latest movie to be released. I think this reputation started in 1977 with "Star Wars IV: A New Hope," (at the time, it was just "Star Wars") where thousands of people began camping out in front of theaters to be among the first people to view the most technological film ever released. Ever since then, CBM and sci-fi fans have carried the reputation in question.
Jump ahead about 30 years to 2008 and we see a new phenomenon gripping most females in the nation: the "Twilight" series makes its debut on the big screen. The books created a craze that we haven't seen in some time and we knew it was just a matter of time before the series made the jump to the silver screen and when it did, we all knew it would be big. Here in Utah, the land of Mormons, Meth Labs and Mini-vans, the craze seems to be heightened, mainly due to the fact that the author of the "Twilight" series is a BYU graduate.
As the release of "Twilight: Eclipse" gets closer, I am seeing more and more Twilight festivities in the works: parties, theaters being bought out, people advertising parties on their cars. One might think that things are getting out of hand. But in a recent discussion with a friend, after I was teasing her for attending one of the aforementioned parties, she turned the argument around on me saying that it was no different than me going to a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight" or "Transformers." She had me there...at least for a minute. I happen to catch a clip of the Oprah show a while back (shhh...don't tell anyone...)and it showed a group of women who were gathering to watch last falls uber-hit "Twilight: New Moon." Maybe I'm a bit biased, but it seemed almost ridiculous that this group of grown women were gathering to ogle over men half their age and planning their entire day around these parties.
Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't plan parties around the release of the latest X-Men film. Yes, I will attend the midnight showing of the film, but so do fans from many other walks of life. At least, that's what I've noticed in my local theaters. So, in this CBM fan's humble opinion, I think the time of our reign of being the leader in the "Overly Excited and Rabid Fans" category is over and a new fan has taken the throne. But for fun, as well as evidence, I'd like you to vote on the two polls I have created.
I'd like to know what you all think of both sides of the story. Do we, comic book movie fans, still carry a reputation? IN just about every case that I have been to a midnight showing of a movie, the quality of the film has been rather high as well as critically accepted. I think most would agree that the "Twilight" films, at least so far, have been anything but decent films; some would say they were just down right bad films. My thinking is that at least the films we "obsess" over are worth watching.