Top 5 Most Convoluted Continuities In TV & Movie History

Ben Lahnger · 02-12-2010, 08:15 AM

I saw this article and thought I'd link to it here:

THE TOP 5 MOST CONVOLUTED CONTINUITIES

In this column, 3 different writers each pick their 5 "worst offenders" of TV series or movies with convoluted continuities.

I'm with the writer who picks on The Matrix. As much as I love those movies, the changes and additions they made to the mythology in the second film and then abandoned in the third film frustrated me with thoughts of what might have been.

I've been glued to my TV set for every episode of LOST, but I'm with the writer who says no one could keep track of what's going on. With the current, final season of 16 episodes unwinding with an apparent simultaneous reveal of differing plot lines in parallel time lines, I have my doubts about whether this thing could possibly be resolved to anyone's satisfaction at the end of this run.

And after reading this article I'm darned glad I've only ever seen the first Highlander film. But I always knew the Terminator timeline was screwed up from film one - you can't send your dad back in time to make your mom pregnant so you'll get born. That's just the mother of all logical impossibilities.

What do you think? Agree with anything on their list? Got a convoluted storyline that isn't mentioned that would be in your 5?

(heartofflames) · 02-12-2010, 06:21 PM

Saw. Every time I saw that they'd made another one I groan in exasperation. I've only seen the first and second ones, and then read the synopses for the rest, but I think I needed to read them over 5 times.

Random Havoc · 02-12-2010, 06:47 PM

Saw isn't that bad, but it's more like a serial than a single movie.. You almost have to watch them all in sequence to really understand what's going on in the later ones.

Lochnar · 02-12-2010, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

But I always knew the Terminator timeline was screwed up from film one - you can't send your dad back in time to make your mom pregnant so you'll get born.

I'd be glad to explain it to you. Time travel theory is a hobby of mine : )

Charts and graphs can be used if you like.

Ben Lahnger · 02-13-2010, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

But I always knew the Terminator timeline was screwed up from film one - you can't send your dad back in time to make your mom pregnant so you'll get born.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lochnar

I'd be glad to explain it to you. Time travel theory is a hobby of mine : )

Charts and graphs can be used if you like.

Um, nooooooooooooo. You may have convinced yourself that it makes sense, but I'm going to have to insist that the original timeline had no one in it to tell Kyle he had to go back in time.

And I am as close to a friend as you can have in this. I love the Back To The Future films (which somehow do a pretty good job of not conflicting themselves too badly) and Doctor Who (which conflicted itself all the time.)

Nobody can convince me that time is just "a big ball of wibley wobley timey wimey stuff!"

But the charts and graphs would good for a laugh, eh?

KontanKarite · 02-13-2010, 04:28 PM

Simple. Kyle Reese isn't John Connor's original father. In fact, as soon as the Terminator showed up in the 80s, it changed Sarah Connor in such a way mentally, that just surviving the attack w/o getting fucked later on would ensure that John Connor never existed. Before the time travel, John Connor was just the result of Sarah Connor and some guy... probably named Steve.

Ben Lahnger · 02-13-2010, 11:34 PM

So before the time travel John Connor (the begotten son of Sarah and "Steve") had the genetic makeup to be a great leader of the resistance, but then he sent Kyle Reese back to replace Steve and alter his own fundamental being on a chromosome level?

Nobody convinces me at this point that Steve and Kyle are interchangeable when it comes to siring the leader of the human resistance! It's extremely rare to find someone with the "right stuff" to lead people through dangerous times, and that doesn't just happen as a result of nurturing or environment.

Pineapple_Juice · 02-17-2010, 12:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

you can't send your dad back in time to make your mom pregnant so you'll get born. That's just the mother of all logical impossibilities.

Here's my problem with that: since he was obviously born and exists already, then it means that no matter what happens and whether or not he sends his dad back or he doesn't, he's still going to be born. Because it's already happened. So he could sit back and do nothing and everything would still work out.

That's what I didn't like about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Same principle.

Ben Lahnger · 02-17-2010, 09:20 AM

This ^^^^^^^

cultistofvertigo · 02-24-2010, 01:52 PM

I will never understand why time travel is so hard for writers to understand.

First off, if you're writing a fiction story where travel backwards is possible, it just gets easier and easier. Travel to the future is a problem when you skip large gaps, because it's impossible to predict which possible future you end up in. You could say that "it's the one without you in it until you reappear," but what about what everyone else did? You can't know until you get there.

But the past is easy. The problem is when people add extra rules that don't make any sense. Like, if you change your past to create an alternate future where you became the president in the present, no problem right? Now the only question is whether, if you travel back to the year you left, whether it's in your original home line or the new one you just created.

But that isn't good enough for some. Sometimes, an idiot writer will come up with this idea that your home line has somehow been canceled out. I don't know how this conclusion was reached, but I've seen it in more than a few situations.

As a G-Fan, the most common gripes I hear about this are from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. In it, people from the 2200's go back in time to 1992 Japan (where else) and tell them that they can go back in time to 1945, teleport the un-mutated Godzilla off the island that got nuked, thereby erasing Godzilla the giant monster from history. Of course, it doesn't work, because if Godzilla didn't exist, he wouldn't have existed. This causes headaches in some G-fans.

But it shouldn't! GvKG is the fourth film in the heisei continuity, and it actually sets up why the heisei films are different in the first place! Apparently, a lot of fans forgot that in 1984, Toho decided the last 14 Godzilla movies "didn't count" and started over. All GvKG does is provide an in-universe rationale for the change. That's all. It perfectly explains how Godzilla jumped from 50 to 80 to 100 meters tall over the course of the series as well.

If you want to hear about convoluted timelines... well, Zelda. I don't even play those games, but the timeline drama is addicting.