It’s highly geeky, and nothing to do with disability, but a few days ago I was struck by an idea which has been begging to be noted. One of my academic interests is in fans and fan art. Some people see a distinct divide between fan art and professional art, but to me it’s silly to make such a divide. After all, one does not automatically become a professional; every artist – be they a writer, painter, musician or film-maker – started essentially as a fan. Most great directors, for example, started by making what are essentially fan movies. Even the great Godard took inspiration from the great American directors of the forties and fifties. Moreover, as attested by born of hope, fan movies are drawing close to the ‘real’ thing in terms of production values. Thus I think a distinction between professional and fan art is obsolete; both are equally valid.

To me, however, this raises some interesting prospects. What about things like crossovers, when two mainstream texts are merged? This is quite easily achieved in narrative prose, and there are many, many examples online: stories where harry potter goes to middle earth; where james bond fights darth vader, and so on. But what interests me is whether this could be achieved filmicaly: could you somehow merge the aesthetics of two different screen narratives? How would, say, the USS Voyager look landing in Farmer Maggot’s fields? For years I have had an image in my head of a squadron of x-wing fighters providing air support for the rohhirim. Is there a way to combine the mise en scene of two separate texts. Now, I know what you’re thinking: why would you want to? But I’m interested in fiction’s relationship with culture. We live in postmodern times, and it seems that the crossover fan film is the next evolutionary step. A few examples already exist on YouTube, mostly consisting of recut scenes; needles to say they vary in quality, most lying somewhere at the poor end of the scale. Yet, as I said, some fan films are drawing close to professional standards, and I find the prospect of such well-made filmic textual play intriguing. Were would such hybrid fictions take us? What brilliant new images could be made? Time to go back to looking for such things.