Written by The Wandering Fox
Stories are as old as time itself. As the years go by there’s stories which have different variants of them told, as is the case of great folklore or tales of heroes or of fairy tales. But in the age of cinema, storytelling with certain franchises has become quite a mess which is alienating to a lot of newer viewers as well as older viewers who are either keen on checking them out or tip toeing back in. Though what franchises have famously buggered their own continuities enough it’s made them hard to invest yourself in? I’m the Wandering Fox and I’m here to tell you which franchises have suffered this and how to best correct it.
The Franchises
The age of cinema saw the birth of iconic franchises including Star Wars, as well as the horror genre with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc. While Friday the 13th has mostly avoided the continuity snarls, its fellow horror franchises Texas and Halloween have a strange continuity in which everything is split up. This isn’t just horror though as even the likes of Star Wars and manga have done so as well.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween have the cases of how another movie comes along to de-canonise the previous movie. With Halloween, it’s first case was the Halloween Twenty Years Later movies which de-canonised the Return, Revenge and Curse of Michael Myers movies, with the first of Twenty Years Later movies having Michael and Laurie face off for what could be the last time. It ended with Laurie decapitating Michael, ending his rampage…
Only for the sequel to that movie reveal Laurie didn’t kill Michael, in fact it was the ambulance driver, the movie revealing Michael swapped clothes with the driver. Doesn’t make sense as he didn’t have the time to do it, and the driver could’ve easily taken the mask off to stop Laurie from killing him. What comes in this film is Michael killing Laurie then goes home only to find a documentary film crew in there, and what comes after is a comedy which doesn’t belong to Halloween.
This film was met with anger from the fan base and so we didn’t get another movie. Until they had Halloween remade with us having a more dramatic take on Michael’s life, why he kills. The remake was mixed at best though it did gain a sequel. Which had Laurie end up as a jerk, Michael is influenced by his mum, and Michael does die along with Laurie.
With this being unkindly received by the fan base, we got a reboot of the original continuity only NOW the second movie was de-canonised and therefore Michael and Laurie weren’t related biologically anymore. This did see the film well received though you can see how the film franchise has made a complete head scratcher of itself, it’s now got one continuity where Halloween, its sequel, and Halloween 20 Years Later. Then you have Return, Revenge and Curse of Michael Myers continuity. Then the remake continuity. Then the Halloween trilogy following from the first movie. Yeah, you try getting invested in this franchise without asking questions, hu!?
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is no different, you have the original movie getting several sequels to it you don’t know which you can call the second movie. You have the sequel in 1986 which ends with Leatherface and his family committing suicide. Then you have the 2010s sequel to the original ending with Leatherface’s cousin helping look after him. Then you have the 2022 sequel in which Leatherface, in his seventies, is killing again. Which is it?
Let’s come out of the horror genre and let’s look at Alita Battle Angel. This isn’t exactly about continuity though more of “did you have to make an alternate ending?” I have the manga, which has the original ending in there. Alita sacrifices herself to save everybody, though years later her friends find her and see she’s now a completely organic human, letting her live her life in peace. The manga writer though wasn’t happy with this and he de-canonised the ending, Alita’s story is going on now and I just think “Uh, why didn’t you just stay with the original ending?”. This has now made another continuity which won’t be ending any second now, hence what happens if an adaptation sticks with the original ending? We going to get another which goes with the other ending?
Black Butler has already got itself in the same mess Texas and Halloween has. The manga is not finished though it didn’t stop the anime adaptation from creating its own original characters and gave Ciel an ending, they then resurrected Ciel and began switching things up with the characters now OOC. It’s confusing enough it’s got to the point in which, once the anime finally adapted the Circus story, there was a list made of which anime episodes are canon.
Despite this you still have viewers asking if season two is canon or not, though as you can see a lot of season one isn’t canon, which just makes trying to get in watching Black Butler bloody harder.
Annoyingly, deliberate disregard for continuity is just as bad as these. Or in this case, retcons. Recently, Doctor Who made a change to the franchise’s past which has now damaged the show going forward and made it laughable. Davros, the creator of the Daleks, turning him from his iconic appearance of half man half Dalek into a generic space Nazi who can walk around. RTD did say this is Davros going forward, to make it harder to take in, this is Davros during the events of Genesis of the Daleks. This now means in that story, Davros is no longer in his life support machine, and doesn’t have a cybernetic eye. You see? What a disregard for the franchise’s own past.
Taking Davros’s iconic appearance away removes a key factor of Davros’s character and the Daleks. Davros created the Daleks in his image after he was injured, Davros’s own willpower to survive and to murder the Thals he fed that in the Daleks, he made them to be like him, the survivors, to kill anything that was weak or nothing like him. RTD did this cos he thought Davros was offensive to disabled people, which backfired on him as disabled Doctor Who fans angrily complained they didn’t want this. Then RTD decided he was gonna be an internet bully about it.
With these in mind, you look and see how badly continuity is treated, which brings me to the whole thing of continuity.
Continuity
Continuity is a very key factor in telling a story, not just through different books or films, but in the very same story it’s set in. It’s like in the same book you’re writing, you introduce a character who has water phobia, only then in the same story you have the character swim without any trouble or fear of the water. You have to make certain you do the right thing in making continuities.
I have noticed a growing trend among modern writers who are that annoyed with continuity they’d throw it aside to tell their own story, which is disrespectful to the works of others who had spent their precious time making those stories and continuities. They feel continuity restricts them from being creative with their work. To this, I would say approach it like you have a small budget. You get your creative juices flowing in telling a story set within the frame you’re in. If you want to be freer with your works, then you shouldn’t take part in a franchise whose continuity is tight. Do your own thing.
It’s why, if Media Man doesn’t mind me saying, The Silverlock Sisters has to keep true to what was set up before and can’t just ignore what it had built on, and thankfully Media Man is sticking as hard to it as he can. Yes, we can make the odd slip up here and there, but you can’t just start blatantly ignoring things which have happened before otherwise it ruins the story.
Therefore my point is this: you make something, stick to it. If you join a franchise with established lore and continuity, you respect it.
I hope you all remember my continuity on this blog. I’m the Wandering Fox and I’ll catch ya later
Well, continuity is sometimes hard to keep if a franchise is massive, but one should always do their best to keep it consistent.
Can't say I can comment much on the examples made here, though.