When did canon become such a hot-button issue?

[Christopher]

James Bond must be one of the only franchises that doesn't have to worry about continuity and canon. They can just cast a new Bond, ignore everything that happened in the previous movies and create a new status quo from scratch.

No, if anything, the majority of film franchises in history have been similarly lax about canon. The way the Bond films do it is the same way earlier long-running film franchises like Tarzan did it, recasting the lead role multiple times over decades and only vaguely pretending to have a continuity. The Universal Monsters films would shuffle the cast around from film to film -- for instance, one film had Lon Chaney, Jr. playing Frankenstein's Monster and Bela Lugosi playing Ygor, and the next had Chaney playing the Wolf Man and Lugosi the Monster -- and played really fast and loose with the continuity and geography, changing the location of Dr. Frankenstein's lab or the geography of the series's events from film to film.

Then there's something like the Pink Panther/Inspector Clouseau films. A recurring character who turned evil and was unambiguously killed at the end of one film was back to life and (relative) sanity in the next with zero explanation, and of course the third film in the series, made without Blake Edwards or Peter Sellers (Inspector Clouseau starring Alan Arkin), was totally ignored by the later Edwards-made films.

Heck, even today, we still see film series that take a relaxed approach to continuity, like the X-Men films, which have a habit of ignoring poorly-received treatments of minor characters and redoing them in completely incompatible ways in later films (e.g. Angel, Trask, Emma Frost, Deadpool, etc.). Or the upcoming new Terminator film that ignores all previous sequels since T2, or the recent Halloween film that ignored every sequel since the first one. Even in today's film series, continuity is a choice, not a mandate.

 

[Damian]

James Bond must be one of the only franchises that doesn't have to worry about continuity and canon. They can just cast a new Bond, ignore everything that happened in the previous movies and create a new status quo from scratch.

As much as I talk about continuity with Star Trek I got used to the lack of it in Bond films and kind of like that the films don't have much continuity. Occasionally something will crop up like Bond's being married in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". And the current Craig films are more continuity driven then previous films (I actually kind of hope the next film is more or less a standalone Bond battles a megalomaniac without a personal vendetta against Bond movie).

 

[Damian]

Or the upcoming new Terminator film that ignores all previous sequels since T2, or the recent Halloween film that ignored every sequel since the first one. Even in today's film series, continuity is a choice, not a mandate.

Yeah, I have to agree with you there. Continuity can be hit or miss. Some franchises are more continuity driven than others. Even Planet of the Apes played a bit fast and loose with continuity. Changing the future date from the 3970s to 3950s, then in Escape from the Planet of the Apes when Cornelius was outlining future history he noted it took centuries for Apes to develop the powers of speech and yet by Conquest of the Planet of the Apes it was only about 20 years (though I guess you could argue Caesar changed the original timeline---I never really knew for sure was the history in Conquest what it was originally or was it changed history, and the end of Battle for the Planet of the Apes indicates history may be changed).

Halloween is an excellent example in the sense that there are multiple continuities in that series. Even the Exorcist. The Exorcist III ignores II (though it technically doesn't outright contradict it--II focused on Fr. Merrin and Regan and III was devoted wholly to Fr. Karras) and then the Exorcist prequels do contradict II's depiction of Fr. Merrin's backstory. So there is a long history of films contradicting prior films. I guess one thing I liked about Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street is they actually had a fairly decent continuity. Most of the sequels pretty much picked up where the last left off, sometimes even having a 'last time on Friday the 13th' scenes from the prior film to catch you up to speed.

 

[Christopher]

Even Planet of the Apes played a bit fast and loose with continuity. Changing the future date from the 3970s to 3950s, then in Escape from the Planet of the Apes when Cornelius was outlining future history he noted it took centuries for Apes to develop the powers of speech and yet by Conquest of the Planet of the Apes it was only about 20 years (though I guess you could argue Caesar changed the original timeline---I never really knew for sure was the history in Conquest what it was originally or was it changed history, and the end of Battle for the Planet of the Apes indicates history may be changed).

Oh, PotA had only the loosest pretense of continuity. None of the first four films was made to allow for a sequel, so every sequel had to rewrite the reality to justify its existence. The first film explicitly portrayed Taylor's ship drifting in space for 2000 years with the crew in cryogenic suspension (and one crew member's cryo unit failing so only a long-mummified corpse was left), but the sequels retconned it into a "time warp" so they could justify a second expedition and then a reverse trip. The second film showed Earth being destroyed, but the third film postulated that a preindustrial culture had somehow managed to recover one of the space capsules and launch it back into space without the necessary technology or infrastructure to build a Saturn booster or a launching facility or a sufficient amount of rocket fuel. None of the films fit together remotely as well as they pretended to.

Halloween is an excellent example in the sense that there are multiple continuities in that series. Even the Exorcist. The Exorcist III ignores II (though it technically doesn't outright contradict it--II focused on Fr. Merrin and Regan and III was devoted wholly to Fr. Karras) and then the Exorcist prequels do contradict II's depiction of Fr. Merrin's backstory. So there is a long history of films contradicting prior films.

Yeah, it seems pretty common in horror franchises. But for most of the history of motion pictures, cavalier or nonexistent continuity has been more the norm than the exception.

 

[Damian]

Oh, PotA had only the loosest pretense of continuity. None of the first four films was made to allow for a sequel, so every sequel had to rewrite the reality to justify its existence.

The second film showed Earth being destroyed, but the third film postulated that a preindustrial culture had somehow managed to recover one of the space capsules and launch it back into space without the necessary technology or infrastructure to build a Saturn booster or a launching facility or a sufficient amount of rocket fuel.

Yeah I have to admit I was having a hard time buying the Apes managed the launch their spaceship into space in Escape from the Planet of the Apes. First, how did they get it out of the water. A heavy spaceship isn't likely to get beached. Then how did they launch it. They made some token attempt at an explanation by saying Milo, the 3rd ape, was some sort of ape genius who was ahead of his time. But you have to really adopt a suspension of disbelief to buy what they were selling.

I guess it helped that Escape from the Planet of the Apes was a decent enough film that allowed you to not dwell on the whole how did they launch the ship issue too much.

Then of course the TV series largely ignored the film series. And even the TV series wasn't really internally consistent. In the first episode they see a picture of a city in the 27th century, but then they encounter the ruins of human cities that look like mid 20th century--then in a later episode they encounter advanced technology with a holographic recording.

 

[Greg Cox]

No, if anything, the majority of film franchises in history have been similarly lax about canon. The way the Bond films do it is the same way earlier long-running film franchises like Tarzan did it, recasting the lead role multiple times over decades and only vaguely pretending to have a continuity. The Universal Monsters films would shuffle the cast around from film to film -- for instance, one film had Lon Chaney, Jr. playing Frankenstein's Monster and Bela Lugosi playing Ygor, and the next had Chaney playing the Wolf Man and Lugosi the Monster -- and played really fast and loose with the continuity and geography, changing the location of Dr. Frankenstein's lab or the geography of the series's events from film to film.

Yep, you basically had the same repertory company of actors playing different roles in the same series. For example, Lionel Atwill plays a one-armed police inspector in the third FRANKENSTEIN movie, a mad scientist in the fourth one, and a completely different police inspector (with two arms) in the sixth one. Can you imagine a modern movie franchise doing something like that today? Fans' heads would explode.

My favorite example, though, is in the original MUMMY movies, when a small town in New England in THE MUMMY'S TOMB is suddenly relocated to the Louisiana bayous in the next movie, THE MUMMY'S GHOST. And, yes, it's supposed to be the same town. ("Twenty years ago, a mummy murdered six people in this town. We thought he was destroyed, but--")

Heck, Lon Chaney Jr. played the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Dracula, and the Frankenstein monster in the same overlapping movie series, depending on what movie it was.

Take that, James Bond.

 

[Christopher]

Then of course the TV series largely ignored the film series.

The Planet of the Apes TV series was more what we'd now call a reboot than a sequel or prequel. It took ideas and characters from the film series but put them together in a distinct, alternate way that served its own storytelling needs. People tended to assume they were linked because they used the same makeup, costume, and set/architecture designs, but they were two different remixes of the same ideas. For instance, Dr. Zaius was in the show, but he lived in a world where humans were fully sentient, verbal, and civilized rather than being mute animals, and he described previous human visits as something that had happened long before, even though the date was earlier than that of the film series. And Roddy McDowall played a new character named Galen instead of Cornelius or Caesar.

Historically, most TV adaptations of movies have been soft reboots, altering continuity details to serve the needs of an ongoing series. The Logan's Run TV series, for instance, started with an alternate telling of the movie's plot, so it was a reboot from the start. But some series pretend to be sequels to the movies while still contradicting/rewriting their details. For instance, the 1986 Starman TV series retconned the 1984 movie's events to have taken place a dozen or more years earlier so that the title character could have a teenage son in the present day. War of the Worlds: The Series retconned the aliens from Martian to Mor-Taxian, made them larger and more humanoid, gave them the ability to possess human bodies, and posited some kind of weird global amnesia about the 1953 invasion. Men in Black: The Series ignored the ending of the movie so that Agents J & K were still partners. Alien Nation actually used stock footage from the movie in flashbacks, but still retconned elements of the aliens' anatomy and history and ignored key plot revelations from the movie. Stargate SG-1 retconned the location of Stargate Command, changed Catherine Langford from British to American, changed the entire nature of the evil aliens, and even changed the spelling of the lead character's name.

 

[fireproof78]

Stargate SG-1 retconned the location of Stargate Command, changed Catherine Langford from British to American, changed the entire nature of the evil aliens, and even changed the spelling of the lead character's name.

Fun fact-Stargate fandom tried to retcon the retcon by saying Ra had taken possession of an Asgard body before taking the human form.

Yeah, I didn't buy it either.

 

[Christopher]

Fun fact-Stargate fandom tried to retcon the retcon by saying Ra had taken possession of an Asgard body before taking the human form.

Yeah, I didn't buy it either.

There's a novel from Fandemonium Books that tries to reconcile the two by portraying Ra as some kind of variant/offshoot version of the Goa'uld, but it didn't really work for me.

 

[seigezunt]

The Planet of the Apes TV series was more what we'd now call a reboot than a sequel or prequel. It took ideas and characters from the film series but put them together in a distinct, alternate way that served its own storytelling needs. People tended to assume they were linked because they used the same makeup, costume, and set/architecture designs, but they were two different remixes of the same ideas. For instance, Dr. Zaius was in the show, but he lived in a world where humans were fully sentient, verbal, and civilized rather than being mute animals, and he described previous human visits as something that had happened long before, even though the date was earlier than that of the film series. And Roddy McDowall played a new character named Galen instead of Cornelius or Caesar.

Back in the day, the old Planet of the Apes Magazine that Marvel published compiled a chronology that included the five films, the TV series, and their own independent stories. It was, by my recollection, a masterpiece in fannish continuity-wrangling.

 

[Damian]

The Planet of the Apes TV series was more what we'd now call a reboot than a sequel or prequel. It took ideas and characters from the film series but put them together in a distinct, alternate way that served its own storytelling needs. People tended to assume they were linked because they used the same makeup, costume, and set/architecture designs, but they were two different remixes of the same ideas.

Yeah true. The only thing you might take away that might link the two is Dr Zaius in the first movie said the ancients once kept humans as pets. Now while humans in the TV series were hardly treated as pets, it could be inferred that they co-existed more at one time in the past, which would be the TV series. It's possible that as apes became more intelligent humanity was slowly becoming less intelligent to what we see in the movies. It's about 1000 years different so you could argue they could co-exist just because of the huge time frame involved.

But it's still not a great fit. For instance no mention was made of the Lawgiver in the TV series, an important element in the films. And the TV series takes place on the west coast of the former United States while at least the first two movies were in and around New York City. Obviously Escape takes place in and around LA and I never really was able to figure out where Conquest takes place--is it even the United States--some mention is made of Armando's circuses travelling in the provinces--does he mean Canada or is North America arranged in a different structure?

Well, I'm getting off topic. But I think the TV series was definitely meant to be its own entity, just inspired by the movies mostly. I had read someone from the movies, I believe Paul Dehn, initially came up with the idea of doing a TV series but died before he could take it any further.

I did like Mark Lenard as Urko---and I'll never forget one scene that reminded me just a bit of Sarek when he said to one of his gorillas "Logical....if they were logical they wouldn't be human!" ---was it just a coincidence, or were the writers subtly paying homage to Sarek (of course at that time Sarek was only seen twice--"Journey to Babel" and "Yesteryear).

 

[Greg Cox]

Back in the day, the old Planet of the Apes Magazine that Marvel published compiled a chronology that included the five films, the TV series, and their own independent stories. It was, by my recollection, a masterpiece in fannish continuity-wrangling.

I still have that issue. And, yes, it was quite an impressive feat!

 

[Christopher]

Yeah true. The only thing you might take away that might link the two is Dr Zaius in the first movie said the ancients once kept humans as pets. Now while humans in the TV series were hardly treated as pets, it could be inferred that they co-existed more at one time in the past, which would be the TV series. It's possible that as apes became more intelligent humanity was slowly becoming less intelligent to what we see in the movies. It's about 1000 years different so you could argue they could co-exist just because of the huge time frame involved.

Yeah, but the TV series has its own version of Dr. Zaius living in that totally different century and context -- and he refers to human astronauts having visited his world at some time in the past. Maybe you could handwave something about one Zaius being the ancestor of the other and there being some other unchronicled astronaut visits, but it's a stretch and clearly wasn't the intent.

 

[Greg Cox]

Historically, most TV adaptations of movies have been soft reboots, altering continuity details to serve the needs of an ongoing series.

Ditto for non-genre adaptations like MASH, THE ODD COUPLE, ALICE, etc. I wonder: do MASH fans argue about whether the original movie is "canon" or is that just a geeky thing?

 

[Ovation]

Ditto for non-genre adaptations like MASH, THE ODD COUPLE, ALICE, etc. I wonder: do MASH fans argue about whether the original movie is "canon" or is that just a geeky thing?

I vaguely recall continuity arguments about the film, the show and Trapper John, M. D. but nothing specific stands out.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yeah I have to admit I was having a hard time buying the Apes managed the launch their spaceship into space in Escape from the Planet of the Apes. First, how did they get it out of the water. A heavy spaceship isn't likely to get beached. Then how did they launch it. They made some token attempt at an explanation by saying Milo, the 3rd ape, was some sort of ape genius who was ahead of his time. But you have to really adopt a suspension of disbelief to buy what they were selling..

Especially since Zira and Cornelius were shocked by a paper airplane in the first movie.

But, yeah, ESCAPE is such a clever and entertaining film that one just goes with it.

 

[Damian]

Yeah, but the TV series has its own version of Dr. Zaius living in that totally different century and context -- and he refers to human astronauts having visited his world at some time in the past. Maybe you could handwave something about one Zaius being the ancestor of the other and there being some other unchronicled astronaut visits, but it's a stretch and clearly wasn't the intent.

Well, in all honesty I don't really try to connect the two. I never equated the astronaut visits Zaius mentioned in the TV series to being a nod to the movies though. I just figured it was a separate incident. Some of what Zaius described about those visits didn't really jive with the movies. And the TV Zaius was never actually cited to be a doctor like the movies.

Though thinking about it as loose as the continuity was for the movies, I guess the TV series is no more or less loose than the movies are too each other. It's not impossible to envision them being part of the same continuity. Them being 1000 years apart does allow for a bit more handwaving away inconsistencies.

 

[seigezunt]

ESCAPE is such a clever and entertaining film that one just goes with it.

And this is the crux of my problem with canon-worship. People can get so hung up on continuity or canon ('but did it really happen") that it gets in the way of their ability to just go with it and enjoy clever and entertaining works. I stupidly avoided a fair amount of decent Trek-related works when I was younger because "it didn't really happen," and that's just sad.

 

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, the original PLANET OF THE APES falls apart the minute you ask yourself why Taylor doesn't notice that the Apes are speaking English.

Doesn't matter. Still probably my favorite science fiction movie.

 

[Damian]

Honestly, the original PLANET OF THE APES falls apart the minute you ask yourself why Taylor doesn't notice that the Apes are speaking English.

Doesn't matter. Still probably my favorite science fiction movie.

That is something that was sort of brought up in Escape from the Planet of the Apes when they ask about Cornelius speaking English and he asks them what is English, that it is simply the language he learned from his fathers, who learned from their fathers and so on. I guess in story it's probably the language apes learned from humans and passed down (in a remarkably uncorrupted form I might say over 2000 years). Obviously from the 'real world' it was done for simplicity sake. Having a language barrier between Taylor and the apes probably was not something the writers wanted to tackle in their story. Pretty much the same reason for the UT in Star Trek. On the one hand you don't want to spend half of every episode trying to learn new languages, and they probably didn't want to subject the audience to reading subtitles in almost every episode (I'll admit, I prefer the convenience of hearing English--reading subtitles is fine here and there, but it can be distracting if done too much).

But yeah, when it comes to Planet of the Apes it's probably best not to ask too many questions and just sit back and enjoy the film.

I still remember the first time I saw them. A local TV station was showing the first 3 movies during a "Planet of the Apes" week (this was back in the late 80s I believe). I never heard of the movie before that. I decided to watch the first just for the hell of it. I thought it would be some b-rated sci-fi film. Within the first few minutes I realized it was clearly much, much more. And I loved Goldsmith's music for that film. It fit perfectly. And when I saw the end I was like OH MY GOD, THEY WERE ON EARTH THE WHOLE TIME!!!! I was floored . I couldn't wait to see the next two. Beneath the Planet of the Apes lost a little of the magic, but it was ok. Escape was a good movie though, despite some of the um, credibility issues.

Unfortunately it would be a few years before I saw Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. For whatever reason they didn't show the last 2 films (I guess the TV station I saw the first 3 on didn't have the films to show). It became a mission. None of the local video stores had them for rent, and at the time to buy them was I believe $79 (this was before people bought movies on VHS on a regular basis). Finally a different station showed Conquest (but later I learned they cut almost 15 to 20 minutes from it). But no luck on Battle for another year or two when finally Fox released the films in a mass market VHS tape and I was able to buy them. That was the first time I saw Conquest's theatrical version and Battle altogether. They had an almost mythical quality as a result of my mission to see them without success for a few years.

I didn't even know there was a TV series until I saw the telemovies they put together. I was rather confused at first---I thought there were just 5 movies. Eventually I found out they were pieced together from the TV series. Back then there was no Wikipedia so I had to figure things out based on empirical evidence