Telefantasyas as Spec Fic Influences

I’ve been thinking about something. We’ve been experiencing a steady stream of telefantasyas, which I believe is definitely a good thing – especially for very young viewers who have yet to discover their potential for art, writing, directing, acting, etc. It’s also a good thing for aspiring writers, who are finding richer ground in the realm of the imagination.

I confess, the only telefantasya I’ve ever really watched a whole episode of was Encantadia. I was rather impressed, though I could barely understand what was going on (I remember Miao was once kind enough to relay the whole fascinating saga to me. Thanks again, Miao!). The sets and costumes were gorgeous, the acting was good and the dialogue was actually fun. The story itself seemed ambitious and grandiose. Best of all, I found it to be all-original, a serious effort to present Pinoy folklore in a modern light.

I also rather liked the concepts behind Mulawin and Pintados, back when they were still showing. Those were the good old days, actually. I think I have some issues with some of the more recent stream of foreign-inspired telefantasyas.

I haven’t had all that much time to stay up to date on recent TV shows, but I hear things from friends – like this new telefantasya is a not-so-subtle ripoff of Stargate: Atlantis, and that telefantasya is a mishmash of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars, etc.

Those of us who know better can probably still laugh it off. But doesn’t this look like a downward slide, after the progress we’ve made with the advent of original telefantasyas?

The only reason I can think of for big networks to want to finance projects like these, is that their regular scriptwriters have run out of original ideas. But instead of pool new talent, or spend time, money and effort setting up a search for new storylines, they just decided to task the staff they have on hand to hurriedly put something together, even something that borrows heavily from various foreign influences. At any rate, after Kampanerang Kuba, Majika, Mulawin and the rest, ANY telefantasya is bound to sell.

And it leads me to wonder about the future that is in store for speculative fiction in our commercial media. It’s undisputed that a lot of the Philippine-made fantasy works we now regal as “classic” had foreign influences: Darna may have been derived from Wonder Woman. Kapitan Kidlat was based on The Flash. Captain Barbell is a parody of Captain Marvel, and so forth. (At this point, I feel like mentioning that I consider Jim Fernandez’s Zuma an original character, even if he was based on Aztec legend. And yes, I do think he is awesome, even if he’s not a hero per se.)

But that’s all in the past. The kids who used to watch Darna and Ang Panday are now accomplished writers and artists, who make their own fantasy works that inspire and move others. Sure komiks fantasy has helped us build our current TV fantasy traditions, but do we have to perpetuate that? Do we have to take one step forward and two steps back all the time?

What can we look forward to? What can we build from this?

Or is there, in fact, nothing to be afraid of?

Throughout the years, our pop media (and oral traditions, actually) has regarded fantasy highly; we’ve all grown up on a wealth of fantastic fiction, local and foreign. It’s just a damn shame that our biggest TV networks don’t want to risk opening up their creative avenues to their own viewers – otherwise we would probably see a telefantasya revolution even greater than Encantadia.