Talk:Continuity (fiction)

Misc.

Moved in from article:

Another problem in science fiction universes occurs when the backstory begins to conflict with reality. Star Trek provides a good example, as much of the backstory for the universe was written in the 1960's and involves fictional events in the late 20th and early 21st century, which have not occurred.

Don't see what it has to do with continuity per se. Continuity is about the story maintaining consistency with itself, not with reality. -Sean 08:22, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I rewrote and merged in the content from Continuity error (which is now a redirect). I'm going to take this off the cleanup page now. --Starx 03:57, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Sorry 'bout the retconning link removal, Starx. It was accidental. Thanks for fleshing out this topic and folding in the Continuity error text. -- Jeff Q 15:25, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

No problem, thanx for the spell check, I really should start running these once through open office, spelling (as you saw) is a weakness of mine. --Starx 18:20, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Quote from article: "Visual errors are instant discontinuities. These errors only occur in visual media such as film and television. Items of clothing change colors, shadows get longer or shorter, items within a scene change place or disappear...Such errors occur as early as Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, where in "The Miller's Tale" a door is ripped off its hinges only to be slowly closed again in the next scene." Um, this isn't a huge problem, but I'm pretty sure the Canterbury Tales isn't a visual medium. It's a book, right? (Edit) Ok, that's been fixed; thanks.

Cleanup

Why was the cleanup template added? As there is no corresponding rationale on the talk board (how lazy) and - more importantly - the article reads just fine, I'm removing the template. --Urbane legend 10:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Errors

• In "Scooby-doo Where are you?" continuity errors can be seen of epsidoes of:
  • "A Clue for Scooby-doo" when Shaggie accidently opens the secret tunnel-he has Fred Jones's blond hair!!
  • "What the Hex Is going on?" Sharon is shown in Hidden room-how did Scooby Doo Gang find her?; Sharon remarks she knows uncle isn't old when wig blows off-but she is suprized when he is shown a fraud.
  • "Which Witch is Which"; Daphne falls down trapdoor-shoeprints are straight back in dust-yet door opens sideways!
  • "Decoy For a Dognapper" Main criminal is caught-but not his accomplice!! (In later episode criminal and accomplice is caught-but only shown main criminal capture!!}
  • "Bachstage Rage"-Scooby doo gang and criminal are trapped in tunnel after door accidently locks. Scooby doo gang get out via ladder to trapdoor and Criminal tries to block door from outside-how did he get outside??

Why is this important to this talk page? --Chris Griswold 22:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

2001

Arthur Clarke's 2001 series might be a good example of deliberate inconsistencies: he says in the introductions to 2010 and 2061 that he deliberately updated the backstory to match current scientific discoveries. --NE2 15:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts on the article's point-of-view

The article as currently written treats discrepencies in continuity as errors which are inherently undesirable. I would consider this a non-neutral point-of-view, based on a particular view of stories as "fictional histories" - from which it follows that any imperfection in the story's "reality" detracts from its enjoyment. I think many artists hold other views. Some deliberately disregard minor details of continuity as being secondary to elements such as plot and character development. Others go further and view the story an artform to which a real-world concept of continuity can not be meaningfully applied. This is perhaps a symptom of the article being unsourced (and, as unsourced articles tend to, wandering into OR). A more thorough study of the literature available on the topic will probably help broaden the article's POV to be more inclusive.--Trystan (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

An excellent point IMO. Continuity violations are not always errors, particularly between books of a series and TV and radio series episodes. It varies.

Many genres do not insist on strict continuity. The ground-breaking sitcom The Monkees is just one example. The Goon Show is another. The continuity of Biggles is impossible to fabricate.

In the past, loose continuity was more acceptable than in the present; In the future the pendulum may well swing back. Don Rosa created a consistent Donald Duck Universe, but his predecessor Carl Barks worked quite intentionally within far looser continuity. To accuse Barks of carelessness is to completely misunderstand this aspect of his work. The James Bond films are another interesting study. The series has been recently bootstrapped; This possibility was not even a consideration when casting for the early movies. Each stands on its own, and there was no attempt to make Roger Moore look or behave like Sean Connery. In Doctor Who, on the other hand, the changes of Doctor have been explained as part of the plot.

This point is made with respect to Barks' work here: Under Barks, Scrooge always was a malleable character who would take on whatever persona was convenient to the plot. Andrewa (talk) 13:34, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I am particularly interested in this aspect of the understanding of Barks' work. The situation as I see it is that, in this respect, Barks' approach is diametrically opposed to that of his successor Don Rosa. However, there's a tendency to see Barks' work through Rosa's eyes, which is to completely misunderstand it.

That's WP:OR at this stage, but so obvious a point IMO that I'd be surprised if it can't be sourced somewhere.

In the absence of this source, the current position with regard to Wikipedia is just to avoid assuming either approach when discussing Barks' work (or Rosa's for that matter). And it's not as easy as it might sound. The websites from which much of our information comes all seem to use Rosa's approach to Barks' work.

There are similar conmsiderations elsewhere. Asimov didn't at the time of writing regard his Foundation Trilogy as being in the same fictional universe as his earlier work I, Robot and similar; He explicitly says this in several places, the introductions in The Early Asimov is one I think from memory, or the one I'm particularly thinking of may be in an introduction to Nightfall in one of its many republications. Many, perhaps most, writers of this period would have a similar story, but there are notable exceptions. E. E. Smith for example created an early fictional universe for his Lensman series and any departures from it are errors. Again, not to recognise that Smith was doing something significant at the time is to misunderstand the context of his work. Andrewa (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, it's even more complicated... the first book of the Lensman series was retconned into it as it turns out. Never knew that before. Lots going on! Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Or if you like, we are in a period with something of a continuity fetish. This may not last; We can't tell.

The line between OR and POV isn't an easy one here, and the current article is IMO on the POV side. More to follow, watch this space. Andrewa (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Good examples?

I was just thinking that it might be good to have examples of continuities that have worked out really well. What comes to my mind is the Star Wars franchise of the expanded universe. Such tight control is kept over that continuity (By George Lucas) that practicably all media in the franchise is regarded as Canon and great efforts are taken to maintain continuity. Could something like that be added?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.212.77.235 (talk) 22:05, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I Agree, mention what's his face request to comic book writers not to kill off a certain character, aswell as arrested development's amazing continuity, especially for a sitcom. IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 08:10, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

"Editing errors"

The example in this section doesn't quite appear to match the definition given. (How are the two versions different ?)thisisace (talk) 00:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

homeric nod is just a continuity error and hence is part of this topic (WP:NAD)

Since Homeric nod is just a continuity error, then it's part of this topic and should be merged (since it is synonymous and (WP:NAD) synonymous meanings are merged in encyclopedias.)- Wolfkeeper 04:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree - it would do well as a section. It's sufficiently notable as an example of continuity that the content should be retained substantively. -- 69.251.9.26 (talk) 22:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this seems right. 99.107.86.46 (talk) 18:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree - But it's been two years...when will it happen? Argento Surfer (talk) 16:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Done Argento Surfer (talk) 16:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

And the award goes to...

Just wondering if the "dealing with errors" section deserves a mention of Stan Lee's awarding of No-Prizes for catching mistakes... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 19:35, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

It could be a nice addition, if you can find a good source. It should be too detailed though, to avoid giving undo weight to comics and/or Marvel in a topic with much broader reach. 20:02, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Except for recalling reading it, I can't... Maybe I can dig out an issue with an award, if that's enough? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:36, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

You could probably swipe some sources from Marvel No-Prize Argento Surfer (talk) 20:58, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I looked at it (just now); there's really no sourcing for the "catching error era" (the one I recall), & only one good one for the "explaining error era". Unfortunately... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:51, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

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German Link Weird

The german link should really be "Kontinuität (Medien)", not "Anschluss (Film)", for last one is only the movie/film-cutting-technique-continuity and not the narrative fictional stuff. I tried linking from the german and the english article, but got that "link is already used by Q11111RandomNumbers0003933-Error". Thus.. fix the mess yourselves x_x

Continuity v. "Expanded Universe"

I would love to add a sentence at the very top of the article that explains the difference between the concept of "Continuity" in the course of creating a film production (which this article is primarily about), and the concept of a Fictional universe. I think something like "Not to be confused with Fictional universe or Expanded universe" would be sufficient. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:52, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Two different things are conflated.

This article seems to conflate to very distinct things, visual continuity in film and video, with narrative continuity in long running fiction and or franchises. Wouldn't make sense to split these into two articles, the issues of film script supervision has little to do with the business of "a set of contiguous events [...] set in the same [comic book] universe".