Life is not a zero-sum game: the VERONICA MARS movie and Kickstarter.

I didn't really like Veronica Mars after Season 1 so I did not donate.

HOWEVER ... maybe someone needs to tell Joss Whedon so a few million Browncoats can see some more Firefly love ...

I saw this when Brian Fargo was doing a Kickstarter for wasteland 2. It exceeded goal very quickly, but other people were going on about "Waaah, you should have given money to This Game That I care About More and oh great it failed because you supported Wasteland 2 instead." Thankfully that stopped, but now those of us on the forum are getting the "I just found out about this and paid nothing into it but you should be doing things how *I* say so and why does it have to look old school why can't it be more like Fallout 3?!" people.

I agree with you a million percent and if they had allowed international backers I'd have been there in a nanosecond!

There's drama about this? I must have not been able to hear it over the sound of me shrieking VERONICA MARS MOVIE YAY AHH HYSTERICAL TEARS on an endless loop for the past eighteen hours.

Due to Wicked Girls' "The Ghost of Lilly Kane", I'd already been meaning to watch VM with Scion. Now I have* to so I can watch the movie...

*for values of "have to if I want to understand the references and watch a cool show"

Kickstarter is not a zero-sum game. The money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for Veronica Mars is not the money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for anything else.

Damn straight. The idea I have of Kickstarter is that it's like a farmer's market, where people come and set up a booth to sell what they have, and individuals come, browse, and decide for themselves if they want to buy from John's Homegrown Produce or Jane's Fabulous Pie Emporium, and how much they want to buy. If I want pumpkins, I'm not going to stop at Jane's, regardless of how good her pies are, and if John has the pumpkins I want, I'm going to buy from John. It doesn't matter that he has access to professionals to help him grow great pumpkins and his sign was designed by the best person in the business, he has what I want. Jane doesn't. Neither does Desiree's Handwoven Scarves or Hank's Premium Seafood, so John's professional connections are irrelevant.

I'm not a VM fan, so I won't be kicking in for the movie, but I'm thrilled on behalf of VM fans that it could happen. I'm glad WB is cooperating and allowing the movie to be made. If people don't like the idea of the VM kickstarter, they don't have to give any money. A look at the Kickstarter site shows they've raised a bit over $3 million, which means the awesomeness level is 150% (and growing) of what was originally planned.

Thank you! The idea of entertainment being a zero-sum game is absurd. It's my money. Giving artists and companies money for stuff you want is how capitalism works. I'm going to fund the projects that most interest me. I'm not obligated to give to anyone. It's on the artist/entrepreneur to pitch a project I feel is worth my dollars.

My concern is... is $2M enough? Wikipedia says season 1 episodes averaged $1.7M, and the S1 finale cost $2.1M. I got the impression Rob Thomas is talking a full-length movie, more than double the length of a standard 42-minute episode of Veronica Mars. I know plenty of awesome movies are done on a shoestring, like Beasts of the Southern Wild, which was done for $1.8M, but... I guess I'll just have to sit back and trust that Rob Thomas knows what he's doing. :D

Well it is currently at 3million, with a month left to go. :)

Thank you for saying this! I'm so sick of the judgy "it's selfish to ask for money for a creative project because of X."

I even had someone on my FB mention that she thought it was sinful to donate to something like, say, a fanfilm project instead of charity.

The thing of it is, most kickstarters aren't asking for something for nothing. You are paying in advance for entertainment that you want to see. I really love that this sort of thing has allowed projects to get made that wouldn't otherwise, and what I think a lot of people don't realize is that while it's got a rabid, vocal fanbase, any chance of a Veronica Mars movie or anything else was dead in the water before this. You had the creator and the actors who are very clearly still passionate about the story and characters years later, you have the fans who are passionate about it, and then you have the studio execs who are judging the show by the Nielsen's (which in my opinion are not the best way to judge a show's value, but it is what it is)

As you and many others have said, I'm very happy to be able to vote with my dollars about what sort of entertainment I want to see. I feel like a lot of movies are made without passion nowadays and are instead manufactured based on what the studios believe will appeal to the lowest common denominator. I also feel like we don't have enough movies with unapologetically smart, three-dimensional, flawed lead female characters who aren't overly sexualized. I would be over the moon if studios started to get the hint about that, though I'm not going to hold my breath.

I also hope that other fanbases might get the chance at movies or miniseries in this way!

oh my gosh oh my gosh I hadn't even heard of this but holy shit I had given up all hope! Maybe this is the age when all the series I love get the closure they always deserved?

I've been waiting to be able to pay for the things I love, to count directly with my dollars, not just as a shadow of a Nielsen household, for a long time.

I've been waiting to be able to pay for the things I love, to count directly with my dollars, not just as a shadow of a Nielsen household, for a long time.

Well put. I'm just thrilled that Warner Brothers didn't get to have the final word on this; WE did.

Veronica Mars didn't make it to main free to air tv in Australia so I have no idea what it's all about, but that being said I have no qualms about people giving money to a kickstarter to get their fave tv shows back so they can have some closure.

I have donated to three kickstarters, including Amanda Palmers because I think she is freaking awesome, and also to three Pozible campaigns, which is the australian equiv of kickstarter.

One was to send Australias only Indigenous Opera singer on a 12 week training course to the London Opera, I didn't get anything for that except a whole lot of warm fuzzies when I saw how much better it had made his singing.

Another one to fund a doco about a renegade RC Priest who has so far annoyed the RC church so much that they removed his church from him for being too "socially minded" and caring more about the community than the strict adherence to RC doctrine.

And the last one, one of my favourite australian groups had a dispute with their label and were dumped, so they went the Pozible route to get funding for a new CD, and were overwhelmed by the response. I happily kicked in $55 to that, which is more than the cd would have cost, BUT without me the cd would never have been made, so thats my reward right there. I get new music, and a mention in the liner notes and a signed poster. I'm a happy camper right there.

Wait - you mean the Lilly Kane on your CD is from a TV show? I just assumed she was a character of yours I hadn't met yet.

Yessss. Crowdfunding is becoming incredibly important to me as a concept, and something I am willing to start fights over if I have to. >D I haven't watched VM yet, though it's been on my list for a while now (and this may give me impetus to watch it in the next three weeks so as to hop on the bus going to the fun place), but my goodness, if the creator wants to do it, and the cast is willing to sign on again, and the fans are yelling, "TAKE MY MONEY AND GIVE ME A MOVIE YES YES!" then by god, it needs to happen.

I just did a final project on Kickstarter for one of my classes, and part of that was bringing in a fairly huge stack of comics, GNs, games, etc., that would not exist in the world if crowdfunding didn't work. I keep seeing people being bitter about people like Amanda Palmer and, yes, kvetching about this one crossed my path before your joy did, but what you say is the truth -- money given to these projects doesn't take anything away from anything else. It's all about love and sharing that love in the form of a little currency to help awesome creations reach a finished form. Also, a lot of the people complaining don't seem to register that 8-10% gets eaten by Kickstarter [5%] and Amazon Payments [3-5%], plus another percentage [I think AP said she set 30% aside?] goes to taxes because, oh, yes, this is taxable income, never mind that a small number of credit cards get declined or are otherwise unable to fulfill their promise, so there's a huge chunk that the creators never see at all. So it's actually kind of important that a project like this go vastly over their goal, because that goal is probably too modest. End rant.

ANYWAY! Thank you for sharing your squee. It is much appreciated and agreed with. :D
(Apropos of nothing, I backed a game called Velociraptor Cannibalism and am not afraid to admit I thought of you a little.)
(edited for hilarious grammar)

Well said. I was amused that when I heard about this on NPR driving to work yesterday, my first thought was "I wonder how long before Seanan posts about this, I'm sure she's excited." Looking at the time stamp on your post, the answer is about an hour later. :)

I used to watch Rosswell and Veronica Mars. Good news that VM is coming back.

Word. And *squee* BECAUSE THERE'S GONNA BE A MOVIE OMG.

I love you. :)

So instead of writing my lesson plans for Donne's The Flea or going to sleep or anything productive I went to the VM kickstarter page and read through it all and watched the clip and read other responses to it and got into a big discussion about the entire misuse of kickstart talk with my husband. We agree with you. Your post is great. Good on you ^_^