Re: Does the Star Wars Disney Era Have a Continuity Lock-Out Problem?
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2022 10:52 pm
This is becoming something of an issue with the current MCU. The idea of different stories set in the same universe with characters that can cross paths with one another, does offer a lot of opportunities for telling larger stories but as a result the stories become less self-contained.
I honestly enjoyed Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness but unless you have seen WandaVision you probably won't be able to understand a lot of the character motivations, especially for the main villain, as they are tied very much to the events of that series.
This is not a new problem with movies, a lot of franchises have films that aren't self contained. Look at The Lord of The Rings; each film does have a story structure (beginning, middle and end) but second and third films pick up right where the previous left off so if you haven't seen them Return of The King can feel like you started a film half way. This is one of the issue with the Rankin Bass version, that it feels like we missed half the story.
So far the MCU has managed to keep this to a minimum while still connecting the different films. One example is Ant-Man and The Wasp, which starts with the hero, Scott Lang, is under house arrest. Why he is under house arrest is because of what happened in another film, but what is important to this film is that Lang has to maintain the illusion of being at home while helping Pym and his daughter. The movie is not exactly self-contained but it is stand-alone, which makes it enjoyable on its own while also connecting it to the wider continuity.
A New Hope is another film that does this beautifully because it sees itself as fitting into a wider continuity while still telling a complete story; Leia says her father and Obi-won fought together in the Clone Wars, Han Solo having worked for Jabba, the recent victory by the Rebel Alliance. These are not vital to the plot itself because the details are unimportant but they do explains elements within the plot; Why does Leia ask Obi-won for help, why is Han so desperate to earn some money, why is the Empire going to such lengths to destroy the alliance?
Disney, sadly, seems to have learned the exact opposite lesson, rather than using little throw away details to build new stories or using small tie ins to explain details or plot holes they are designing large scale stories with plot holes in them so they will have an excuse just to make an entire film which they can market as 'the missing piece.'
I honestly enjoyed Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness but unless you have seen WandaVision you probably won't be able to understand a lot of the character motivations, especially for the main villain, as they are tied very much to the events of that series.
This is not a new problem with movies, a lot of franchises have films that aren't self contained. Look at The Lord of The Rings; each film does have a story structure (beginning, middle and end) but second and third films pick up right where the previous left off so if you haven't seen them Return of The King can feel like you started a film half way. This is one of the issue with the Rankin Bass version, that it feels like we missed half the story.
So far the MCU has managed to keep this to a minimum while still connecting the different films. One example is Ant-Man and The Wasp, which starts with the hero, Scott Lang, is under house arrest. Why he is under house arrest is because of what happened in another film, but what is important to this film is that Lang has to maintain the illusion of being at home while helping Pym and his daughter. The movie is not exactly self-contained but it is stand-alone, which makes it enjoyable on its own while also connecting it to the wider continuity.
A New Hope is another film that does this beautifully because it sees itself as fitting into a wider continuity while still telling a complete story; Leia says her father and Obi-won fought together in the Clone Wars, Han Solo having worked for Jabba, the recent victory by the Rebel Alliance. These are not vital to the plot itself because the details are unimportant but they do explains elements within the plot; Why does Leia ask Obi-won for help, why is Han so desperate to earn some money, why is the Empire going to such lengths to destroy the alliance?
Disney, sadly, seems to have learned the exact opposite lesson, rather than using little throw away details to build new stories or using small tie ins to explain details or plot holes they are designing large scale stories with plot holes in them so they will have an excuse just to make an entire film which they can market as 'the missing piece.'