Are we ruining werewolves?

Dreamer · Post by **Dreamer** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:22 pm

I did a topic on werewolves on another forum, and I got this as one of the responses, and it makes an interesting point:

Savagebelmont wrote:I believe that, even though werewolves are sentient, they should be ravenous, pissed off, savages. Lets not forget what Anne Rice did to vampires...

And, just playing devil's advocate here, but he might be right. Might our benign interpretation of werewolves be destroying the esscence of the creature, the reason people like them in the first place?

Xiroteus · Post by **Xiroteus** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:25 pm

It may for some, and not at all for many others, use both types of werewolves to keep everyone happy.

JoshuaMadoc · Post by **JoshuaMadoc** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:44 pm

I doubt there's really a definite answer. People tell me that i'm ruining werewolves, because apparently replacing the lower forearm bone with a curved retractable piledriving baton is a big no-no.

Silverclaw · Post by **Silverclaw** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:02 am

kitetsu wrote:I doubt there's really a definite answer. People tell me that i'm ruining werewolves, because apparently replacing the lower forearm bone with a curved retractable piledriving baton is a big no-no.

Heh

I don't think we are ruining anything. We all more or less agree on how we would like werewolves to be. Its our opinions. As long as we don't force opinions as fact, then its ok. If filmmakers/writers/whatever agrees with some/all of our views and uses them, then that's great. Would be very nice to see. If we don't like a particular ww movie, we also have a right to talk about why we disliked it. Freedom of speech and all that. Some non-Pack people could see Freeborn and find if a refreshing new way of depicting werewolves. While others will just hate it and hate the thought of non-mindless-bloodthirsty monsters. Cant please everyone.
I personally like both sort of ww types. Killer werewolves like in AAWIL and The Howling. Can be fun to watch. And werewolves that are still able to think when shifted and isnt compelled to kill everything in sight. (though I lean towards that one) The only thing someones ww should be by definition: a human that undergoes a transformation at some point and time into a lupin-like creature.

Kelpten · Post by **Kelpten** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:26 am

Vuldari (may his vulpine soul be joyous where ever he is) took the time to tell us exactly what he thought on this topic and we discussed it thuroghly and with much strife.

You can find it here http://www.thepack.network/thepackboard ... php?t=5313

I miss vuldari

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Silverclaw · Post by **Silverclaw** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:41 am

*nods*
He made a lot of great points. I miss him too.
Can't believe I never posted in that thread. Weird.

Finding a balance between the traditional werewolf, and a shape-shifting furry(heh) would be good.

Aki · Post by **Aki** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:54 am

Pft.

If we're ruining werewolves, well, White Wolf beat us to the punch.

Their Garou (and the more current werewolves who's names I forget) are sentient and capable of not being pissed off bloodthirsty savages. Provided you don't piss them off, anyways. And I've read a couple books where they're using the same concept (most recently I've been reading "Moon Called" and the werewolves there are sentient and not "pissed off bloodthirsty savages" for the most part. Though they do have short tempers and can be kinda dangerous to be around if pissed off and/or injured...)

Zombies used to be Voodoo victims. Then they were slow corpses. Now there's FAST ZOMBIES.

Did this eliminate the other two? No (though, granted, no one really made zombie movies with voodo victims anyways). It added more variety.

Variety is always good - you can just ignore the stuff you don't like.

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:55 am

Well it's not like we could possibly make it worse, could we? The Pack initially grew out of a complete disgust in the way werewolves were being depicted. I have no doubt that Freeborn will be better than most of, if not all the werewolf movies because, frankly, all but one or two of them couldn't possibly have been any worse.

There are people out there that love werewolves because they're so crap and cliche -- they're the ones that will be complaining in the future that "Brownrigg did to werewolves what Rice did to vampires." But lets face it, if werewolves were absolutely perfect the way they were, Freeborn would still be called Devoured and our input would have never mattered in the first place. Werewolf movies were crap already -- that's why the Pack came to be in the first place.

RedEye · Post by **RedEye** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:06 am

If we take the position that Werewolves are:
Sentient,
Self controlled,
Different from Humanity, but with human roots-
Then, they would be probably as individual as anyone else is.

If we are "Ruining" werewolves, by making them less formula and more individualistic; then they were never a viable franchise anyway.
Life is not cookie-cutter. Life is varied and differing in nature within each species.

If anything, by making them more differentiated, we are making them more-not less-realistic.

Midnight · Post by **Midnight** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:25 am

"Freeborn" is just one movie.

If it's a huge success, to the extent that it influences later werewolf movies... then it can hardly be said to have destroyed the genre. Revitalised, maybe. At the very least, its existence in no way consigns other movies such as "Dog Soldiers" to the dustbin of history.

And if it's just a modest success or "cult hit", and history sees the film as just an interesting diversion rather than a turning point... there's even less chance of it "destroying" the genre. Face it... if one movie can destroy a whole genre, then why hasn't something like "Cursed", or "Werewolves on Wheels", or any random "Howling" sequel, done it?

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:22 am

RedEye wrote:If we are "Ruining" werewolves, by making them less formula and more individualistic; then they were never a viable franchise anyway.
Life is not cookie-cutter. Life is varied and differing in nature within each species.

If anything, by making them more differentiated, we are making them more-not less-realistic.

Amen.

Kaebora · Post by **Kaebora** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:47 pm

Our definition of werewolves may be different than that of other communities, but the werewolf still remains to be a mostly undefined creature. Every book series and movie portrays it just a little or a whole lot more differently. It all depends on the universe they are portraying. Even if Freeborn displays them as people rather than monsters, there will STILL be movies out there with fangy drooly bloodlusting werewolves. I like both.

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:25 pm

We've kept the edginess there. We've distinguished werewolves from softer anthropomorphic characters. Yes, we did do the duckie toss. But, that wasn't intended to be taken seriously as part of it.

Did Anne Rice really "ruin" vampires? Come on, let's admit it. She reinvented them and pulled them out of stagnation. Some people didn't like her interpretation, but judging by the popularity of her books and her as a writer, a lot of people loved it. And, as a result, for a decade or so, vampires were everywhere. A generation of Goths were born of her, playing Vampire: the Masquerade and buying music from Cleopatra Records. For everyone who hates her, there's ten more who don't. It's just fashionable to gripe about her versus what "real" vampires are supposed to be like, just like it's fashionable to hate Microsoft or the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Besides, the time was right for vampires to get reinvented. If not her, the movies The Lost Boys and The Hunger (the first a summer blockbuster and the second a more underground movie that was so Goth that Bauhaus appears in it playing the original Goth anthem "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; if it were any more Goth, it would collapse in on itself as a black hole, in which light itself cannot escape) would have inspired someone to come up with the idea of sensationalizing a more emotional, erotic, or sympathetic vampire.

It's only a matter of time before marketing catches on that werewolves can be this next generation's "vampires." Perhaps it should be our duty to get to werewolves before the marketing executives do--that way, we're not ruining werewolves but rescuing them from ruin.

Morkulv · Post by **Morkulv** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:19 pm

A werewolf is just as savage as any human.

RedEye · Post by **RedEye** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:56 am

Morkulv wrote:A werewolf is just as savage as any human.

SO very very right....

Confidential · Post by **Confidential** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 3:03 am

Morkulv wrote:A werewolf is just as savage as any human.

Doesn't it depends on personality, characteristics, or behavior?

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 4:42 am

We aren't ruining anything. I feel that denouncing good werewolves really destroys the potential for a lot of stories, several of them with the possibility of being good. At the same time, I feel the same way about denouncing evil werewolves as well, which is something I've seen on here. I think that might be why I don't post in this section that often. I always get a "nah, let the author do what they want" feeling.

As for Anne Rice, I find her version of vampires interesting (it's not like they aren't evil in some cases... Lestat was a total prick from Louis's perspective) and I really enjoyed the movie version of Interview with a Vampire (didn't finish the book, but it wasn't terrible), with Queen of the Damned pulling out an "okay" (would have preferred an adaptation of The Vampire Lestat first, I enjoyed what I read of that. Heh, I didn't finish that one, either).

JoshuaMadoc · Post by **JoshuaMadoc** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:11 am

I'd enjoy vampires more if they like to promote garlic-ground beverage products and sleep in well-ventilated coffins with built in entertainment systems. Twins Effect showed the latter item anyway, and i thought that was awesome.

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:39 am

Dreamer wrote:I did a topic on werewolves on another forum, and I got this as one of the responses, and it makes an interesting point:
Savagebelmont wrote:I believe that, even though werewolves are sentient, they should be ravenous, pissed off, savages. Lets not forget what Anne Rice did to vampires...
And, just playing devil's advocate here, but he might be right. Might our benign interpretation of werewolves be destroying the esscence of the creature, the reason people like them in the first place?

Let me ask you this.

What if someone or some company puts out a copyright on werewolves a long time ago? Lets say...Universal holds the copyright. That means if werewolves are going to be used elsewhere, you have to ask for thier permission. And you can't change anything about them.

That would suck, right?

Will werewolves still be popular today? Probably not cause there will be so many people that'll hate the old design.

Its a good thing we can do whatever we want with these characters. Each writer/story teller has thier own "tastes." All what they have to worry about is getting an audience to like what he/she did.

Kavik · Post by **Kavik** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 9:02 am

I'll always love werewolf horror movies, even though I also enjoy the more thoughtful takes too. Plenty of room for all varieties of werewolves in film and fiction. Sure, Anne Rice may have her take on vampires, but that didn't stop Tarantino from doing Dusk Till Dawn flicks, or a thousand other vampire movies that don't have swishy vamps bemoaning their fates. Rice may have shifted the focus of the genre, but she didn't ruin it for everyone else; shejust made it a little harder to do your own thing.

MattSullivan · Post by **MattSullivan** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:47 pm

I made Camp Lycanthrope with characters who are definetly good guys, but they act liek wolves, using fighting and violence to solve their disagreements. That's the only way I could see to make werewolves likeable.

RedEye · Post by **RedEye** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:09 pm

That makes perfect sense. There would be crossover in the Were's-partly Human, partly Wolf, which would generate a unique sort of individual.

Wolf cubs play-fight over everything. So would Werewolf cubs/children- they aren't being anti-social by fighting, they're playing. Bet if someone got really hurt in a fight, the one they were fighting with would be the first to try to help them...and feel worst about the damage.

Just like Wolf cubs...

Silent Hunter · Post by **Silent Hunter** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:53 pm

I think this was said somewhere before but i can't remember who said it so i can't quote. But it was along the lines of:

"Werewolves should be smart creatures that are not mindless but when you hurt it or its friends you'll regret ever being born."

Which fits. Unless caught in some heavy blood lust and/or anger they should not go around ripping people limb from limb. They should be smart creatures with the mind of a mix or wolf and human. Imo there needs to be a balance. Not pansies but not total savages.

Blue-eyes in the dark · Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:56 pm

Trust me you have nothing to worry about. Things will sort out in time.

MattSullivan · Post by **MattSullivan** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:29 am

Here's what I hate about werewolves, or rather, how a certain segment of fans have interpreted them. The whole "indian" mythos. Y know...pics of werewolves dressed in Indian garb, playing the flute, getting all tribal talking to rocks and crap. These kinds of pics are drawn mostly by white people who ( I'm guessing ) only have a smidge of indian blood in them ( like myself ) and somehow pretend they're "native American" or they have an affinity for that sort of thing. Whatever ^-^

To me that sort of thing is...well...cheesy. I like the idea werewolves are normal people. Normal non indian people aren't any less noble than an indian ( oops. So sorry NATIVE AMERICAN......................NO....WAIT...i will not fall prey to this political correctness crap. INDIAN! ) Somewhere along the way regular old people became uninteresting to read or talk about, and the fascination with other cultures ( especially japan ) has taken over. FEH! I like all people. Not just one race or culture.

And while we're at it, I want my "stewardesses" back. not these so-called FLIGHT ATTENDANTS!

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