There are a lot of different nerdclinations out there. Nerds can find their niche in any number of different fantasy or science fiction worlds. I prefer Star Trek and Star Wars but there are nerds who are wholeheartedly committed to shows like Babylon 5 and Stargate. It’s great to have so many different nerdclinations because nerds can branch out and find the specific area that really gets their nerd blood flowing.
While there are a number of awesome and original nerdclinations, there are also some nerdy knock-offs. These nerdclinations attempt to copy more successful ideas but just end up as a cheap replica. Here are some of those nerdy knock-offs.
Mighty Morphing Power Rangers
When Power Rangers first debuted I was too old to openly watch it. My friends and I and everyone else in the seventh grade were forced to be closet Power Rangers fans. No one talked about the Power Rangers but I knew everyone else was asking themselves the same questions.
Why doesn’t the Yellow Ranger have a skirt like the Pink Ranger?
Isn’t it a bit on the nose to have the Black Ranger played by an African-American actor?
Where can I get some sweet Zubaz like Zack, the Black Ranger?
Why won’t Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, respond to any of my letters?
Even though I secretly liked the Power Rangers, I knew that it was nothing more than a cheap knock-off of Voltron. Voltron was a cartoon about a group of people who piloted robotic cats which formed the giant, fighting robot, Voltron. The Power Rangers did the same thing but swapped out cats for dinosaurs. Unfortunately, Power Rangers has had a much longer life than Voltron, which I fully contribute to pre-adolescent boys’ love of the Pink Ranger.
Gobots
Gobots actually showed up on the scene before Transformers but Gobots were still the knock-off. Transformers were just so much cooler than Gobots. The toys were cooler, the cartoon was cooler and Optimus Prime was way better than Leader-1. Not only were Transformers cooler than Gobots, but social status also played into the rivalry. Gobots were for people who didn’t have as much money; I should know because I had Gobots instead of Transformers. I also had a Huffy bike instead of a Schwinn. The kids who lived in the bigger houses and had the Nintendos also had Transformers. And I was stuck at home with my Gobots and a Tonka truck painted red and blue.
The Golden Compass and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
I never saw The Golden Compass or Percy Jackson but I know that they were attempting to knock-off Lord of the Rings. After LOTR became a phenomenon and grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide, Hollywood executives were dying to find the next super successful fantasy epic. Those executives turned to other series of books and decided upon The Golden Compass and Percy Jackson. Unfortunately for those executives, they weren’t as good as LOTR and not even remotely as successful. I don’t know anything about Percy Jackson but I did read The Golden Compass and the other two books of the series. I read those books because Christians were in an uproar because the focus of The Golden Compass series is to kill God. Some Christians might think that The Golden Compass movies failed because of divine influence. I think it failed because the source material wasn’t that great and people want to see Gandalf busting up goblins, not voicing a fighting polar bear.
As I learned from Mr. Drummond and Sly and the Family Stone, there are different strokes for different folks. Different nerds will like different nerdclinations. It’s best, though, to obsess over the best and the most original nerdclinations. No one wants to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Gobots and not know who Starscream is. So choose your nerdclinations wisely and check to make sure they are the authentic and genuine original.
What knock-off nerdclinations do you enjoy?
I remember finding out about Voltron, in recent years, and being shocked that it came before Power Rangers. A little part of my heart stripped away.
However, I want to comment about your last point. I completely disagree that LOTR is the reason all those films have been made. I see your LOTR and raise you Harry Potter. Both first films came out in 2001 so really the year has nothing on it, but HP has more to go with these films in particular.
Children’s fantasy literature is what they’re always trying to do here. HP is the highest grossing franchise of all time and they want to cash in. But they do terrible jobs with it. Percy Jackson was actually a pretty good adaptation but they neglected things that foreshadow the future. It was almost as if they didn’t want to even bother assuming they could continue. Yet their WHOLE ad campaign always repeated the fact that they had the director from the first two Harry Potter movies, in my opinion the best two adaptation or that was until the last one blew all of them out the water with pretty much being the novel and now the actors are adults and amazing.
Along with that you have to look at the ages. Most protagonists in these films match Harry in the beginning. So if they’re adapting children’s literature which Harry Potter (or least the first three before the larger sized book and dark tones featuring a ton of death) is and the protagonists are either late age children or early teens as Harry Potter was in the beginning, and if they’re using HP in the advertising you have to realize that HP is the cause here. Admit it, those characters have more to do with Harry then Frodo.
Long live my first nerdclination!
P.S. I love LOTR but it doesn’t have my heart in the way that Joanne Rowling’s world does
Yeah, Voltron. Now your talking my generation. I wanted to be a millionair so I could afford to build the robotic lions for my brothers and I. I worried about my youngest brother because he would pretend to be the girl when we would role play.
How about G-force. Not the new gerbal movie (lame, but dont tell my kids i said that). When I was a kid I would get up at 6am to watch G-force before school.
Better yet, Robotech. Ahhh Robotech. Poor Rick had to choose between Lisa and MinMe. I netflixed it but my kids werent interested. Thats OK, I probably wouldnt be interested in my dads old shows. I wonder if they had TV back then?