I think the first time I really thought about this sort of thing was with the Trek movies. I've always ignored 1 and 5, real easy.
Star Trek might be the epitome of this with different timelines and so on. I can't decide if I want to track down Picard for instance, and I eventually gave up on Voyager and Enterprise after a season or two. I think I would keep all the TOS films (I like 1, especially with the effects cleaned up) along with TOS, then add TNG (not sure about the films, I think All Good Things ended that series fine) and DS9. After that... not sure
I'm with you, but except I watched none of Enterprise, and maybe half a season of Voyager. I was a serious DS9 fan though. I haven't watched any paramount shows at all, and didn't see Trek Beyond yet.
The sequels...I was a defender of 7 and 8 (I understand the ire against 8 but thought it was building to something worthwhile...silly me), but 9 pretty much retroactively made me want them all gone. Again, interesting characters utilized in a poorly thought out waste. And not putting the original gang back together in the same room was frankly an absolute bitch move, made all the more tragic by Carrie Fisher's death.
Yep, I thought 7 was OK at first - although from the get-go I thought not starting out with Han, Luke and Leia in a good place was a huge mistake, and then show us in the first 40 minutes how it all falls apart due to Ben and the First Order and so on. Because then as an audience member I would HATE them for pushing Luke into guilt ridden seclusion, causing a rift between Han and Leia, Leia seeing the New Republic fail, etc. Instead, my anger was directed to the writers for making me try to accept that these best friends who held together against the Empire would have their lives ruined and never see each other again...for event we heard about and in service of a mystery-box.
Much of 8 would have been good if it was random episodes of season 2 of an ongoing series, but not as the midpoint of a trilogy. But it like 7 had its moments. Although I still dislike the idea that Luke was even considering killing Ben.
I agree that 9 actually made me dislike the prior films. Almost nothing worked in that film.
Yeah the plot between 6 and 7 probably would make a better trilogy. But speaking of Mystery Box, TFA reeeeally gave me Lost vibes as far as JJ Abrams starting a project he had no intention of finishing but set up a bunch of mysteries and questions for someone else to stress out. So the best thing to come from the ST for me was JJ having to answer stuff himself for once, which of course was not good.
But I absolutely agree that 8 would have been a good season two. I remember when they were limping along to escape the star destroyer, I was thinking ".... Is this it? This is what this movie is about?" Just didn't feel like a star wars movie, but making it some episodes would make way more sense. And I guess throw the ST on the big pile of Disney movies that should have been shows/shows that should have been movies.
I'm with you, but except I watched none of Enterprise, and maybe half a season of Voyager. I was a serious DS9 fan though. I haven't watched any paramount shows at all, and didn't see Trek Beyond yet.
I really liked Enterprise. The finale was a great disservice to the show, but the rest was a pretty fun exploration of humanity feeling their way around the galaxy with more restrictive technology. Voyager also hit that same feel for me back in the day. Even DS9, which broke away from preferred starship out exploring the unknown, was really *about* having to deal with a bunch of alien cultures that weren't commonplace to the setting.
In general, though, I lose interest as the franchise moves into the future with its more homogenized aliens and magical technology. It's not as recognizable as humanity's future. I haven't bothered to watch Picard, fer instance, but I've really enjoyed Strange New Worlds despite its hit-or-miss episode structure.
DS9 grabbed me more than any other Trek, which makes me think I'm not much of a Trek fan heh. The cast, the Defiant, the conflict. I was totally into it.
I think this entire conversation sucks... - it's your head canon... keep it in YOUR head. 😆
Conversations about the relative worthiness of this story or that story to be included in the overall tapestry are rarely productive.
And here's the thing - sometimes a new creator can go back and find a kernel of something in a story or chapter that was previously viewed as bad that suddenly makes it valuable again. Or at least appreciated differently.
If the creatives involved say the story is connected to the other existing stories then it is - whether we ignore it or not.
I've been a comic book fan a loooooong time. And there are stretches of continuity that were not my favorite - but it doesn't mean I think it's good when a creator just flat out contradicts it as if it didn't exist. Write around it - sure. Invalidate it by recontextualizing, OK. But just blatantly contradicting doesn't work for me.
Movies get to be a little bit different in that franchises get rebooted in their entirety without being narratively connected to their predecessors. The new Planet of the Apes series of films is in no way connected to the original series of Planet of the Apes films - both of which I like - and neither of which claim connection with the 2001 Tim Burton film that appropriated the concept.
But if a film universe claims to be a single narrative construct, then it simply is.
I think the Brian Herbert Dune novels are pretty terrible. I decided not to read more of them. But just because the writing was bad and the stories pedestrian doesn't mean I erase the facts or pretend I didn't read them
As for Star Wars there is not a single bit of it that I would ignore or snip out of my personal canon. All of it is welcome, even if some of it isn't as good as other bits.
Even entries I can't finish in franchises I enjoy, I will still read what happens so i guess I'm still maintaining the continuity for myself. Secret Invasion was more compelling as a Wiki article for me, but I had to know heh.
I think this entire conversation sucks... - it's your head canon... keep it in YOUR head. 😆
See, now I don't feel so bad I didn't include Man-Ape in my Avengers top-10...
I think the Brian Herbert Dune novels are pretty terrible. I decided not to read more of them.
That's basically what the point is though, just because a series continues doesn't mean we, as fans of the earlier pieces, are required to follow along forever.
Really that was what I was curious about - is there a point when some may decide "enough" or "this is no longer for me" and feel it is time to move on? I think with franchises going on for 50 or 60 years, meaning the people who first created it are long past being involved, then I think it is fair to pick and choose what parts of that represents the story that resonates with us individually,..
I think the Brian Herbert Dune novels are pretty terrible. I decided not to read more of them. But just because the writing was bad and the stories pedestrian doesn't mean I erase the facts or pretend I didn't read them
Why not? What are you gaining by respecting bad work when none of this is truly relevant to anything important? None of these creators know your name to thank you for respecting their poor craftsmanship.
I think the Brian Herbert Dune novels are pretty terrible. I decided not to read more of them. But just because the writing was bad and the stories pedestrian doesn't mean I erase the facts or pretend I didn't read themWhy not? What are you gaining by respecting bad work when none of this is truly relevant to anything important? None of these creators know your name to thank you for respecting their poor craftsmanship.
I suppose it's because if, 10 years from now, some truly excellent author is given the reigns to do official Dune books and writes something really compelling using names, dates and events invented for those books - then they are meaningful to the canon, even if poorly described.
Like I said before, I think it comes from growing up a comic book fan. Those are shared universes with a lot of people involved in telling stories about the same characters over a long period of time where, for the most part - those writers were expected to acknowledge everything that had come previously and write around it. Some of those pre-existing stories were silly, some were bad, but the creators (usually) didn't just act like they never happened.
Obviously people can have their own head canon. How could anyone stop that from happening.
But personal head canon isn't very useful as soon as you begin communicating with another fan. Because it's highly unlikely someone else's head canon is the same as yours and thus to have a shared discussion you have to discuss and acknowledge the works you've chosen to leave out. Which sort of defeats the purpose of leaving them out in the first place.
@panthercult, I kept waiting for the punchline reveal, but no. That really was you jumping into a conversation just to tell people they shouldn't talk about things you don't want to talk about. Cool.
Well there's a lot of that happening anymore. In Star Wars land, plenty of people are excited for a show they didn't like not getting renewed when they could have simply not watched it. Things like that seem to make the 'personal head canon' concept pretty relevant.
@panthercult, I kept waiting for the punchline reveal, but no. That really was you jumping into a conversation just to tell people they shouldn't talk about things you don't want to talk about. Cool.
I mean - the smiley face should have suggested that part was a joke.
If it's fun to discuss where you all are putting up your personal fence posts around an idea or property, I'm certainly not stopping you.
At the end of the day though I do think it's kind of a weird space to occupy conversationally because by definition it has to belong just to you and ultimately can't be shared very well because everyone's personal boundary lines will likely be slightly different.
That's all. There's no problem having a conversation about where you've strung the barbwire in your personal head canon. Sorry if my thoughts on the matter weren't welcome.
I mean - the smiley face should have suggested that part was a joke.
Is that what that was? It looks like an angry face to me.
Sooo...nevermind.
Is that what that was? It looks like an angry face to me.
Sooo...nevermind.
It's actually a laughing emoji... so maybe just the big grin would have been better
Latest Post: Masters of the Universe Origins Our newest member: Count von Curdles Recent Posts Unread Posts
