> Will, here's a little history lesson that may shed some light on the
> feelings of many people in this newsgroup. It is precisely because
> of history that the majority of people in this newsgroup are fans of
> the original series. And it was a series that did not just have
> fans. Oh no. BGC ORIG was a series that created Very Devoted Fans.
> They carried the original series well after its demise and continue
> to do so today. They helped spread the word that has kept BGC Orig
> selling all these years. Consider that it is over 10 years since
> the series was released and people here are all still coming up with
> new things to discuss about it. I may be a bit out of line here,
> being a relative newcomer to the group (about 5 years now I think),
> but if people hadn't continued to discuss BGC in a newsgroup like
> this I wonder if BGC2040 would ever have been made?
>
> So anyway, along comes a new series, which has very thin ties to the
> old series. The VDF's (Very Devoted Fans) are very disappointed.
> Why? What's the big deal? First remember that the old fans are
> VDFs. This is an important fact. Music comes and goes, movies come
> and go, but if a movie or a band or any other creative effort
> manages to acquire VDFs, the potential to sustain popularity beyond
> the usual run increases tenfold. My favorite band Rush has been
> around since the early seventies and yet they continue to put out
> music and sell out concerts. Why is this? Because they have
> managed to convince their fans that they have integrity, that they
> will not compromise on their music or their vision, and that they
> will do their very best to entertain us. And to Rush fans, they
> keep putting out interesting music. They have always kept their
> fans in their minds and they have always been sensitive to what the
> fans like and don't like. Not so much that they would alter course
> drastically if a small faction demanded it, but when the fans
> complained about particular songs missing off their last live CD,
> they changed the CD. This kind of devotion to the fans is what
> makes them popular and keeps them there.
>
> Along comes BGC2040. I remember watching AIC's Rumors website page
> very carefully for many months as the series was announced, and as
> it went into production. There were many promises made about what
> the VDFs could expect. They reassured us that "this would be no BG
> Crash!"
>
> Well it wasn't. But it certainly isn't the BGC that the VDFs were
> expecting based on AIC's Rumors page. When I think back to all the
> discussion that took place over the new series while we all waited
> for it, there was a good deal of optimism here, that AIC would get
> it right. That they would make up for how badly BG Crash was
> received. But that didn't happen. In fact if anything, they seemed
> to ignore almost all of the promises they had made. The story had
> changed, characters had changed (and not just minor aspects), the
> music had changed, the settings had changed. Just about everything
> had changed.
>
> That may sell anime to the new generation of fans, who haven't got
> any preconceived notions of what characters should look like or what
> hardsuits should look like. But to the VDFs, who have kept the
> memory of BGC alive all this time, it doesn't sell very well at all.
> It just says to them that they weren't really part of the equation,
> and yet AIC quite clearly stated on their Rumors page that they were
> thinking about the fans of the original series.
>
> "This will not be BG Crash!"
>
> Whatever.
>
> So Will, that is what once was, and I hope it helps explain why your
> views are meeting with so much negativity. You are up against
> history here, and while you certainly have the right to discuss your
> views on BGC 2040 here (it's alt.fan.bgcrisis after all) you should
> be aware that a precedent has been set, and 2040 is the new kid in
> town. New kids tend to get bumped around a lot. Put a new kid in a
> school full of VDFs... there's gonna be a few "Out back behind the
> school. 3 o'clock! BE THERE!" gatherings ;)
>
> I feel a little sorry for BGC 2040 actually. It had a lot to live
> up to and didn't. I imagine there was a lot of pressure on the
> creators to please the old fans as well as create something new for
> a new generation of fans. They weren't just starting from scratch
> with a blank page. That's not an easy task. But the result was not
> even a compromise. The only thing I saw that tied the old series to
> the new were the first hardsuit designs. And even those have
> changed radically as we have seen now. It is this feeling of being
> ignored that I think most fans are upset about, myself included.
>
> But despite the threat of any behind the school gatherings or strong
> feelings from the VDFs of this newsgroup (to be fair most people
> here are offering solid reasons for their opinions), if you like
> what you see in BGC2040 then that's cool. The story has that same
> spirit of mystery (that I didn't think it had at first) as the
> original and it does attempt to challenge our thinking about the
> co-existence of machines and humans. If the story grabs you and
> makes you think, then it can't be a bad thing. It may never be as
> popular and self-sustaining as the original, but hey, that's usually
> the way it is with most new and old things anyway ;)
>
> Like what you like.

> After alt.config discussion for a while, here it is. The new group
> name (originally alt.fan.bgc) has been changed due to the
> discussion.
>
> For your newsgroups file:
> alt.fan.bgcrisis The Bubblegum Crisis series and related material.