Considering that
Walter White hasn't shown up on Better Call Saul yet,
Poll Is continuity important?
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Of course, but these days it's Evil, apparently. Because reasons.
I don't see the need for leeway. I've always been perfectly fine with the in-universe explanations of "refit" and "it's 70 years later".
Check out that TOS to TMP refit. Every single control on every single station is completely changed, from more fantasy-style blinking lights and unlabelled candy buttons to labelled graphics and buttons laid out entirely differently.
It's in no way plausable as an in-universe upgrade beyond the most superficial levels.
I find it perfectly plausible. C'est la vie.
It wouldn't have even occurred to me that anyone would find that implausible. They were switching from a 15+ year old interface to a new one. Probably just took the old room off and put a new one on top. I change my own computers and peripherals way more frequently than that.
You're going from fantasy blinking coloured squares to something with thought put into it in order to appear (at a glance) realistic. There's a comparison of helm consoles here. Other than the placement on the set and them both featuring buttons, they have nothing in common. It isn't an evolution, it's a replacement. Just because you grew up with it, doesn't make it any more realistic.
As long as there are enough buttons to do the job I'm not seeing how moving them around a bit is a problem. Well, except for Sulu who had to learn them all again, but he's good at that.
Also they tried putting labels on the blinking coloured squares for In a Mirror, Darkly and they didn't show up on camera, so it seems likely to me that (in-universe) they were labelled all along.
Also they tried putting labels on the blinking coloured squares for In a Mirror, Darkly and they didn't show up on camera, so it seems likely to me that (in-universe) they were labelled all along.
Is continuity important? Depends on the type of it.
A detail that doesn't enter the story proper at all? Let's say, the name of the ship Picard got promoted to Lt. Cmdr. on, mentioned in some passing dialogue? I wouldn't care a bit if they said A in one episode and B in another.
A detail that retcons something that actually affects the story? Depends on the type of the retcon and how it affects the story. Say, the Borg first only consuming technology and nothing else, and then going around assimilating people and finally getting this chatty and seductive queen? Bothers me somewhat, though I can live with that and I can understand why they make such retcons.
On the other hand, suppose in a future TNG remake it is revealed that Picard 'really' has been a child molester all along whenever he could get away with it, sanctimoniously preaching about the Prime Directive and all of its moral implications all the time, now that would be a retcon I could never accept.
A detail that doesn't enter the story proper at all? Let's say, the name of the ship Picard got promoted to Lt. Cmdr. on, mentioned in some passing dialogue? I wouldn't care a bit if they said A in one episode and B in another.
A detail that retcons something that actually affects the story? Depends on the type of the retcon and how it affects the story. Say, the Borg first only consuming technology and nothing else, and then going around assimilating people and finally getting this chatty and seductive queen? Bothers me somewhat, though I can live with that and I can understand why they make such retcons.
On the other hand, suppose in a future TNG remake it is revealed that Picard 'really' has been a child molester all along whenever he could get away with it, sanctimoniously preaching about the Prime Directive and all of its moral implications all the time, now that would be a retcon I could never accept.
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It's funny that the US Navy is experiencing something similar where the GUI for their touchscreen helm was too difficult to use and they reverted back to old school controls. TOS helm controls could've been a period where they tried something new but had some problems leading to the TMP controls? Regarding the TOS-TMP helm, they did keep the astrogator though.
https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/na...tles-after-fleet-rejects-touchscreen-controls
I personally liked the TOS controls since the mystery of their operation works in their favor as a futuristic ship. IMHO.
I was being somewhat facetious about the multiverse thing. My point was that previous generations were not as hung up on "canon" and continuity, to the extent that a popular movie series could literally jump ahead fifty years in time, while keeping the same cast at the same age, and movie audiences just took it in stride. There was no attempt to "explain" that these were the grand-children of the original Holmes and Watson and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson (who just happened to look and act exactly like their forebears) or any other contrivance. And, as far as I know, nobody stormed out of SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR in protest. Or fired off angry screeds to their local newspapers.
There's perhaps something to be said for that attitude.
There are still plenty of remakes and reimaginings being made. In fact I doubt there'll ever be a shortage of remakes, and we've had at least three actors playing Sherlock Holmes in movies and TV series over the last decade or so.
But people have had a taste of ongoing shared universes now, thanks in a huge part to the Star Trek franchise itself, and a lot of people have found it to be a more satisfying kind of storytelling for certain stories. We don't have to settle for remakes these days, we can have continuations. We've got it much better than previous generations! Two of my favourite series recently have been WandaVision and The Mandalorian, which build upon years of other stories and push the ongoing story forwards.
I love this stuff, I'm not getting hung up on continuity, I'm taking joy in it! I'm not making lists of nitpicks, I'm feeling it emotionally. When series get it wrong it's like listening to a band playing a wrong note, the dissonance makes me cringe, but when everything's in sync it sounds amazing.
But people have had a taste of ongoing shared universes now, thanks in a huge part to the Star Trek franchise itself, and a lot of people have found it to be a more satisfying kind of storytelling for certain stories. We don't have to settle for remakes these days, we can have continuations. We've got it much better than previous generations! Two of my favourite series recently have been WandaVision and The Mandalorian, which build upon years of other stories and push the ongoing story forwards.
I love this stuff, I'm not getting hung up on continuity, I'm taking joy in it! I'm not making lists of nitpicks, I'm feeling it emotionally. When series get it wrong it's like listening to a band playing a wrong note, the dissonance makes me cringe, but when everything's in sync it sounds amazing.
Interesting analogy.
I don't have the feel for continuity. I feel for characters.
I don't have the feel for continuity. I feel for characters.
As I asked before, why would these previous generations in your examples even consider continuity when the stories have no time-travel or alternate universe plot devices to make them aware of such things?
Again, it's not about the multiverse thing; it's about needing any sort of explanation in general. Audiences in the forties knew the difference between 1888 and 1941; they just didn't let it spoil their enjoyment of the latest Sherlock Holmes movie. And the filmmaker didn't feel obliged to offer an "in-universe" explanation.
Are you saying that, just because modern audiences are more familiar with the whole multiverse gimmick, filmmakers are now required to use it to account for any discrepancies?
Or that audiences can't simply accept such discrepancies, as we did for generations, now that a sci-fi "explanation" is available?
I feel like there needs to be more gradations than, 'Yes', 'No', and 'Fence sitter'.
I guess if forced I'd have to take the middle ground, but I ere toward trying to keep as close to old lore/continuity as possible, whenever possible, unless it is somewhat absurd to do so. I've worked in an industry where people clove religiously to 'must preserve all canon' to the point of having to create duplicates of NPCs and other things in two different time periods, just because two different authors screwed up some dates. I'd rather stuff like that gets fixed, than, 'the same looking guy, with the same name, who did the same kinds of stuff, from the same exact empire, went to the same exact place... but it was two different guys, a few centuries apart... who weren't related at all'. And no, I'm not exaggerating - it was actually worse than that. Thats what happens when you have different authors writing in the same shared universe who don't even bother reading each other's stuff. And rather than fix it, the guys in charge at that time double-downed on it.
But the opposite is even worse, when you get an in-universe reboot, and simply give yourself the ability to rewrite everything that the giants before you created... shear hubris. And Star Trek certainly wasn't the first to get that treatment... its probably not even the 10th... or 20th. They think they're clever when they disguise the reboot by having a universe-changing event occur within the original universe's canon. But at the same time, if they do it right, and actually make changes that are more like 'fixes' to the canon (like Marvel had been doing with their movies, combining similar concepts from the comics to streamline the setting), than I think that's fine. Your making things better, rather than just changing it because you can. So stick hard to canon, unless you have a better way of explaining an event that happened that makes more sense than the canon, in such a way that it doesn't negate the canon. Confusing, I know. But that's called 'additive' design. Simply ignoring canon, or worse, getting rid of it, is 'subtractive design', and that's a piss-poor way to world-build.
I guess if forced I'd have to take the middle ground, but I ere toward trying to keep as close to old lore/continuity as possible, whenever possible, unless it is somewhat absurd to do so. I've worked in an industry where people clove religiously to 'must preserve all canon' to the point of having to create duplicates of NPCs and other things in two different time periods, just because two different authors screwed up some dates. I'd rather stuff like that gets fixed, than, 'the same looking guy, with the same name, who did the same kinds of stuff, from the same exact empire, went to the same exact place... but it was two different guys, a few centuries apart... who weren't related at all'. And no, I'm not exaggerating - it was actually worse than that. Thats what happens when you have different authors writing in the same shared universe who don't even bother reading each other's stuff. And rather than fix it, the guys in charge at that time double-downed on it.
But the opposite is even worse, when you get an in-universe reboot, and simply give yourself the ability to rewrite everything that the giants before you created... shear hubris. And Star Trek certainly wasn't the first to get that treatment... its probably not even the 10th... or 20th. They think they're clever when they disguise the reboot by having a universe-changing event occur within the original universe's canon. But at the same time, if they do it right, and actually make changes that are more like 'fixes' to the canon (like Marvel had been doing with their movies, combining similar concepts from the comics to streamline the setting), than I think that's fine. Your making things better, rather than just changing it because you can. So stick hard to canon, unless you have a better way of explaining an event that happened that makes more sense than the canon, in such a way that it doesn't negate the canon. Confusing, I know. But that's called 'additive' design. Simply ignoring canon, or worse, getting rid of it, is 'subtractive design', and that's a piss-poor way to world-build.
Yet your examples are for stories that have no time-travel/alt universe plots so why would the audience even ask for an explanation to something that isn't in the story?
To answer both questions goes back to your audience example. Star Trek's audience has been exposed to Star Trek's time-travel and alternate universe plots so it would make sense for some continuity to exist in order to make certain stories work. As I've written before, most casual viewers don't care while there are some fans that do. A wise filmmaker will throw in a recap at the beginning of the episode to set expectations and any continuity carried through the series would definitely be appreciated by fans. IMHO.
Forget the time-travel option. I suggested another perfectly mundane "explanation" in terms of, "oh, this is Sherlock Holmes, Jr." that Universal Studios could have resorted to had they felt it necessary. Plain old heredity certainly exists in the mainstream universe of detective stories, so that option was available.
But my point is the audiences didn't demand or expect any sort of explanation, not even a non-SF one, nor did the filmmakers feel obliged to prove any internal explanation -- beyond wartime patriotism. "Even Sherlock Holmes is joining the fight against the Axis. Buy War Bonds!"
And yet the series continued merrily on its way for another 12 movies without anybody worrying about this grievous violation of continuity. Or demanding an "explanation."
So why are modern audiences so much more obsessed with "canon"? To the extent that it sometimes seems to be getting in the way of them, well, actually enjoying this stuff.
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Because we need to know what happened in the past in order to follow the story and have an emotional investment.
WandaVision relies heavily on the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. Once you know that they're all part of the canon then you can understand the backstories of the characters and what's motivating them. When things appear on screen like the beeping toaster you think "oh crap, I know what this means", because it was set up in another movie. And I want to see what happens next for the character I just saw in WandaVision, facing the consequences of her choices and the character growth she went through.
I'm not even sure there is any continuity between the Sherlock Holmes movies. It's just another person playing another Sherlock Holmes with some variation on his established traits and relationships. He solves a mystery.
WandaVision relies heavily on the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. Once you know that they're all part of the canon then you can understand the backstories of the characters and what's motivating them. When things appear on screen like the beeping toaster you think "oh crap, I know what this means", because it was set up in another movie. And I want to see what happens next for the character I just saw in WandaVision, facing the consequences of her choices and the character growth she went through.
I'm not even sure there is any continuity between the Sherlock Holmes movies. It's just another person playing another Sherlock Holmes with some variation on his established traits and relationships. He solves a mystery.