u/AporiaParadox

TV shows usually have ensemble casts that interact with each other all of time, especially if they're all in the same friend group. But sometimes there are individual characters that even though they hang out with the whole group quite often, there are certain other individual characters they rarely if ever interact one-on-one with. As such, they don't really have a clear dynamic and it's unclear to the viewers what these characters think of each other.

For example, in Friends Chandler didn't really interact one-on-one with Rachel or Phoebe much. This was actually pointed out by Abed in Community when he was comparing to how he rarely interacted with Annie (although this would change later).

Or how in Boy Meets World, there was a clear divide between the characters introduced introduced in the first few seasons with those introduced later, which actually became a plot point in season 7. Cory rarely interacted with Jack or Rachel for instance, and Angela never interacted with Mr. Feeny.

Or how Toph never got a "life-changing field trip" with Zuko.

So what other characters in an ensemble cast rarely interacted?

When movies get sequels, you usually expect plot elements introduced in one installment to be followed up on in a later installment. But sometimes either because said plot element or character was badly received, the creators want to do something else, or because they just want to be more accessible to audiences that didn't see the sequels, the events from the previous sequel aren't acknowledged, to the point that you could have skipped installments and not have missed much.

For example, the Jurassic World movies only really follow-up on the events of the first Jurassic Park movie. They don't explicitly decanonize Jurassic Park II and III, but none of the events of those movies are acknowledged. This is understandable since the original Jurassic Park is a beloved classic most people have seen, but the sequels were not, so most audiences probably wouldn't get any references to II and III anyway.

Another interesting example is the Halloween series. The original Halloween movie got many sequels, and they got increasingly convoluted (one of them had nothing to do with Michael Myers because they wanted Halloween to be an anthology series of horror movies). For the seventh installment "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later" they decided to just ignore everything except the first 2 movies, with it being ambiguous whether the last 3 movies were canon to that movie (but probably not). After another sequel, a remake/reboot of the original, and a sequel to the remake, it was decided to make another sequel to the original Halloween, but unlike H20 it ignored Halloween 2 and explicitly decanonized everything but the original.

So what other notable examples are there of the events of previous sequels being ignored if not outright retconned out of existence?

Old movies usually reflect the morals of their time, as such many older movies have messages that don't really fly nowadays. But sometimes, old movies despite being made in a time of different morals will go against the grain and impart morals that were unusual or even controversial for their time, but as time went on became widely accepted.

For example, To Kill a Mockingbird was made in 1962, still in the Jim Crow era, and condemned the blatantly racist attitudes and systems that were commonplace in much of America.

Charlie Chaplin's movie The Great Dictator was made in 1940, before the United States entered WWII and there were still many people in the United States and other countries who sympathized with the Nazis. The movie condeming the Nazis and Hitler specifically was quite controversial at the time, leading to bans and Chaplin being accused of being a communist. Although one should note that the movie was made before the true extent of the attrocities committed by the Nazis was known, so the depiction of Nazi Germany seems quite tame.

So what other movies had morals that went against the established order of the time and are now still relevant?

In the shared universes of Marvel and DC, usually when something happens to a character in his solo book, this will be reflected in their appearances in other books published around the same time. If a character gets a new costume, they'll use that costume in other books. If a character gains new powers, they'll use those new powers. If a character "dies", others will mourn their death.

But sometimes, a status quo change that lasts a long time in a solo book will not be acknowledged by other books also featuring the character at the same time. This can be due to a lack of coordination, wanting to avoid spoilers, or simply because nobody wants to deal with that stuff and would just rather use a character without dealing with their solo book baggage.

For example, near the end of the New 52, Bruce Wayne had been replaced by Commissioner Gordon in a robot suit as Batman, and Superman had been massively depowered. Yet Bruce and Clark kept showing up in the Justice League and other books like normal.

Or how in Coates' Captain America run, Steve Rogers became a fugitive (again) and gave up the Captain America mantle for a bit (again). But he still kept showing up in Avengers books and crossovers published at the same time like nothing happened. So presumably all of the events of the year-long storyline happened in a relatively short period of time and then he went back to hanging out with the Avengers and nobody ever brought it up again.

So what other status quo changes in a character's solo book weren't really acknowledged by other books also using the character?

The introduction of new cultural trends and new technologies sometimes takes a while to be depicted accurately in TV shows. Creators often want to rely on what they're familiar with from their own experiences and other existing media, and what they expect their audiences to be familiar with.

For example, people are used to the trope of adopting someone from an orphanage, so even though orphanages aren't really a thing anymore in most countries, we still see them in TV shows. Depictions of psychiatry and psychiatric institutions are also quite often horribly out of date, helped by people's general lack of awareness of the topic.

Another factor is how pretty much any movie or TV show written by older people that shows young people talking in slang will often sound wrong to actual young people. The writers are old and aren't as aware of how young people of that time actually talk or behave, so they either rely on slang they remember from their own youth and give off "how do you do fellow kids?" energy, use internet buzzwords they've read in the wrong context, or just make stuff up and hope nobody will notice.

Videogames are also often portrayed anachronistically. Games in TV shows would often use Pac-Man sound effects, still use the concept of "levels" to indicate progression, care about "high scores" and button mashing while wildly flailing the controller is a valid strategy, because that's what the creators vaguely remembered about the games from their youth. It's gotten better lately due to newer creators being of a generation that not only played games when they were young, but continue to play them.

So what other things do TV shows often depict in an out of date way?

The introduction of new cultural trends and new technologies sometimes takes a while to be depicted accurately in movies. Creators often want to rely on what they're familiar with from their own experiences and other existing media, and what they expect their audiences to be familiar with.

For example, people are used to the trope of adopting someone from an orphanage, so even though orphanages aren't really a thing anymore, we still see them in movies. Depictions of psychiatry and psychiatric institutions are also quite often horribly out of date, helped by people's general lack of awareness of the topic.

Another factor is how pretty much any movie or TV show written by older people that shows young people talking in slang will often sound wrong to actual young people. The writers are old and aren't as aware of how young people of that time actually talk or behave, so they either rely on slang they remember from their own youth and give off "how do you do fellow kids?" energy, use internet buzzwords they've read in the wrong context, or just make stuff up and hope nobody will notice.

Videogames are also often portrayed anachronistically. Games in movies would often use Pac-Man sound effects, still use the concept of "levels" to indicate progression, care about "high scores" and button mashing while wildly flailing the controller is a valid strategy, because that's what the creators vaguely remembered about the games from their youth. It's gotten better lately due to newer creators being of a generation that not only played games when they were young, but continue to play them.

So what other things do movies often depict in an out of date way?

TV shows get cancelled all the time, usually due to low ratings and budget reasons. Once a show is cancelled, it stays cancelled, and the execs who cancelled it are fine with that. But sometimes they realize that they made a mistake and shouldn't have done that. This could lead to the show later being brought back, but often it's too late.

For example, the original Star Trek series was cancelled due to perceived low ratings, but not only did it later become a huge hit in syndication, it turned out that if they had paid attention to demographics they would have realized that the show had very good ratings among young middle class audiences, the demographic that advertisers care the most about. They actually considered bringing the show back for a fourth season, but by then rebuilding the sets and negotiating with all the actors proved too expensive, so the franchise went in a different direction.

So what other shows did the network later realize they made a mistake in cancelling?

Pretty much every movie ever has deleted scenes, but sometimes even though the scene is deleted, lines or scenes referencing ultimately cut material remain in the final movie. Sometimes the references remain due to an oversight, but it could also because the reference is part of a longer piece of dialogue or plot and it would be impractical to edit it out without reshoots.

For example, in The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West tells her monkeys that Dorothy's friends won't be any trouble because she's "sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them." This is a reference to a scene that was ultimately cut where the Jitterbug would sting the main characters and force them to dance the jitterbug (this is also where they were going to lose their weapons).

Storm's infamous "what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning" line from the first X-Men movie was originally meant to be the payoff to a running gag where Toad would keep boasting about "what happens to a toad when..." but all of those lines were cut so we're just left with a weird scene.

So what other movies have lines or scenes referencing deleted material?

We all know about Deus Ex Machina, moments when the main characters are about to lose, but the plot requires they win anyway so ass pulls and contrivances happen to save them. But the bad guys also often benefit from this, the Diabolus Ex Machina. This is especially common when the bad guy is an overarching villain of a season/series, so they aren't allowed to truly lose until the season/series finale.

In Game of Thrones for example, Euron Greyjoy somehow builds a massive fleet out of nowhere even though the Iron Islands have no wood, then somehow manages to ambush Daenerys and kill one of her dragons from an absurd distance.

So what other instances are there of the bad guy only winning/getting away because plot?