i know that we, as a fandom, talk alot about how great it would be if the dsmp got turned into a tv show, or a movie, or something, but honestly?? i don’t think it would realistically live up to our expectations. i mean, don’t get me wrong — if netflix announced that they were making a series based off the smp, i would be as ecstatic as anyone. but think about it. it would be created by, directed by, and acted in by people who most likely hadn’t been there to watch it firsthand. it’s not impossible that they had been, but probably not. and while i have no doubt that the people who would create it would be extremely talented, how true could it actually be?? because even if they watched all the vods and every character analysis on youtube, the dsmp wasn’t just the story, it was the culture around it. it was the farart, the animatics, the fic, the twitter threads. it was the fans, blurring the line between fanon and canon, and sometimes stepping over it completely. it was some canon events being completely ignored, while some fanon things were accepted as fact. it wasn’t just plot, it was the countless streams of just messing around. it was the bloopers. it was the wild donos in the middle of an intense scene. it was twitch crashing. it was asking for subs, or primes, and being part of the character. if you weren’t there, how could you ever truly understand it? the sheer scope? i think that if the dsmp was turned into a series, we would get the plot, yeah. but not the feel. never the feel.
i think that if we truly wanted to have a film adaptation, the best (or only, really) way to get the soul of the smp would to have it be a low-budget production made by the fans, posted on youtube. like so much fan content before. bad wigs, newbie actors, a stilted script — a bunch of people just goofing off, having fun, and interacting with the content they love. that would capture the feel.