Cult Status

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 8:02 am

well mainstream things can have a cult following. Star Trek is mainstream and that has a cult for it? or something.

satanisgreat · Post by **satanisgreat** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 8:12 am

Well yeah, Star Trek has a cult that follows it, but that doesn't make it a cult TV show. Cult shows or movies or games or whatever are obscure things that people discover by accident or by word of mouth. By the purest definiton.There were ads for the new Star Trek movie during the last Super Bowl.

Now the movie Vulgar is a cult movie. It's about a clown that gets raped.

Hammer · Post by **Hammer** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 8:15 am

If it has rape in it I'm gonna watch it!

satanisgreat · Post by **satanisgreat** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 8:17 am

See what I mean? Another one is Irresistable. It has like a ten minute ass raping scene. It's with a girl, though, so I don't know if Hammer will approve.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 3:32 pm

I'm not arguing that Matrix and Metallica don't have cult followings as well. I'm just saying that Fallout has a very hardcore, devoted fanbase, and that means it's cult.

satanisgreat · Post by **satanisgreat** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:32 am

Well I guess the very, very hardcore Fallout fans could be concidered a cult, but I wouldn't call the game itself a cult video game. When I bought it it was the first PC game I ever bought, and it was in the
"duel jewel", and I just remembered seeing an ad from a magizine and thinking the concept just seemed really cool.

Evil Natured Robot · Post by **Evil Natured Robot** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 1:29 pm

People making and marketing movies, games, etc. only like cult status after the fact. Sure, it means that you'll pretty much always have people buying your stuff, but generally one would think they want to sell as many copies as possible right off the bat.

Killa-Killa · Post by **Killa-Killa** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:07 pm

Three things (IMO) that make something have cult status are:

Small, ultra-devoted fan-base that will not stray from the origonal concepts.
Not main-stream. The matrix does not have cult status.
Relatively old. For movies generally more that 20 yrs, for games about 5.

Well... maybe. Set numbers don't really work on a subject like this.

the guardian · Post by **the guardian** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 8:35 am

The Matrix doesn't have a cult status? Wana bet on that one?

Evil Natured Robot · Post by **Evil Natured Robot** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 4:12 pm

I'd bet on that. If the majority of the world likes something, it doesn't have a cult following.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 4:18 pm

Matrix has wide appeal (think of the box office numbers) but there's a select few who absolutely adore it, and who know everything Matrix. I have a word for these people, swell guy, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a select cult following among this mass appeal.

satanisgreat · Post by **satanisgreat** » Mon Sep 01, 2003 8:40 pm

atoga wrote:Matrix has wide appeal (think of the box office numbers) but there's a select few who absolutely adore it, and who know everything Matrix. I have a word for these people, swell guy, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a select cult following among this mass appeal.

Hardcore fans, or swell guy if you will, aren't called "cult followers", they're just hardcore fans that behave like the movie's a religion. "Cult status", or a "cult movie" or game or whatever, isn't taken from the definition of cult like in the Manson family or Heaven's Gate. It's just a movie that has a small following, it's underground. It can't go both ways, being both mainstream and cult.

the guardian · Post by **the guardian** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 11:37 am

What do you call the Starwars "hardcore" fans then? Last I heard they requested it to become an official religion in Britian.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 1:06 pm

Well that's true SIG, but then again these 'hardcore matrix fans' would no doubt have seen a lot of matrix-related things that normal fans would not. Special edition DVD(s), all the books on it, internet philosophy, lame theological discussions about OMG dual worlds lol how cerebral, random rumors, photos of Keanu Reeves having sex with a donkey etc. It doesn't the operate same way as say, a Rocky Horror Picture Show cult, but I think fans that hardcore deserve to be called 'cult'.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 8:03 pm

atoga wrote:It doesn't the operate same way as say, a Rocky Horror Picture Show cult, but I think fans that hardcore deserve to be called 'cult'.

I'm with atoga here. Star Wars, Star Trek, et al do have hardcore followings, but they are very much mainstream. You can walk up to the "average Joe" on the street and ask him about these things and he's heard of them, and most likely seen them. A movie like Soylent Green, on the other hand has been popular w/a small number of people and yet most people haven't heard of it, or if they have they really don't know anything about it. It is not a staple of pop culture.

BTW, speaking of "jedi", I heard of an interesting possibility as to where this term came from the other day. The term for period/costume films that semi-/pseudo-historical samurai movies fall into is jidai geki. "Jidai" is supposedly what Lucas based the word "jedi" on, as he was a great fan of Akira Kurosawa's period films, especially Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress.

Cheers,

OTB

Gameshark · Post by **Gameshark** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 9:07 pm

the guardian wrote:What do you call the Starwars "hardcore" fans then? Last I heard they requested it to become an official religion in Britian.

Im not sure it was requested i think quite alot of people put it down as a religion in the "other" box and someone joked about it that if enough people put it down the guys would have to put it as an option in those questionaire thingies.
C'mon how cool would a eal lightsabre be........heheh......

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Jidal geki? Do you suppose that's where "geek" came from, too?

satanisgreat · Post by **satanisgreat** » Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:07 am

the guardian wrote:What do you call the Starwars "hardcore" fans then?

Hardcore fans. Or a Star Wars cult. It doesn't make Star Wars a cult movie, though. Anyone who wants to argue about that is just plain wrong.

satanisgreat · Post by **satanisgreat** » Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:10 am

atoga wrote:Well that's true SIG, but then again these 'hardcore matrix fans' would no doubt have seen a lot of matrix-related things that normal fans would not. Special edition DVD(s), all the books on it, internet philosophy, lame theological discussions about OMG dual worlds lol how cerebral, random rumors, photos of Keanu Reeves having sex with a donkey etc.

Then those particular products would be cult, not the Matrix name itself.

Tank · Post by **Tank** » Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:43 pm

I do not care about your crappy ideas onm this subject, you keep saying we are not a cult. Well, fine! But I'm still keeping your money you payed at the entrance, I'm still building my time-machine and when it is done, I will go back in time and make FO hppen. The end. No more duscussion. shut up. Don't say it ain't right! _For I am hard-core, leader of the Fallout-fanatics, the ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¼ber-cult of the Fallout world. Yup.