Toggle menu
Toggle preferences menu
Toggle personal menu
Not logged in
Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits.

Retroactive continuity: Difference between revisions

From Battlestar Wiki, the free, open content Battlestar Galactica encyclopedia and episode guide
Spencerian (talk | contribs)
Spencerian (talk | contribs)
Creating redirect.
 
Line 1: Line 1:
On occasion, the writers of ''Battlestar Galactica'' will forget or ignore a critical statistic, plot point, or character development in the development of episodes.
#REDIRECT [[Continuities and continuations]]
 
Two situations can occur in this instance. The writers may acknowledge or ignore the error. Battlestar Wiki keeps track of such mistakes, acknowledged or not, in the articles [[Continuity errors (RDM)]] and [[Continuity errors (TOS)]] for the [[Re-imagined Series]] and [[Original Series]], respectively.
 
Rarely, the writers may adjust the issue in a later episode. As a result, the established facts of the show to-date are changed. This is known as a '''''retcon''''', a [[w:portmanteau|portmanteau]] for '''retroactive continuity'''.
 
Retcons are different from [[Battlestar Wiki:Separate continuity|separate continuities]], a designation used on Battlestar Wiki to allow officially-licensed ''Battlestar Galactica'' stories (Original or Re-imagined universes) from novels, comics and the like to be listed in the wiki without wrecking the canonical aired content of either series.
 
===Additions===
 
The [[Re-imagined Series]] often creates retcons through the use of ''additions'' to the series by way of flashbacks and deleted scenes. Generally these additions don't contradict aired content but add interesting or insightful background to a character or event that was specially created for the episode or outtakes initially removed during editing for various reasons. The flashback scenes of the post-war lives of [[William Adama]] and [[Saul Tigh]] in the episode "[[Scattered]]" is a good example of this. The same is true for a scene, added to the episode, "[[Scar]]", where [[Kara Thrace]] pleads unsuccessfully for a rescue mission to Caprica to the president and Commander Adama.
 
===Alterations===
 
''Alterations'' to the series content are rare, if nonexistent in the Re-imagined Series. An alteration is a scene that basically tells the viewer, "What you saw before didn't really happen." The most famous alteration retcon ever made on TV was the death of the character Bobby Ewing in season 8 of the TV show, ''Dallas''. An entire season was filmed after the supposed death of Ewing until another character awakens in season 9 to find the before-deceased character in the shower, which dismissed the entire previous season as a dream.
 
Small changes made on ''Battlestar Galactica'' include the number of ships in the rag-tag [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]] and the number of prisoners on the ''[[Astral Queen]]'', both of which were increased after the [[Miniseries]]. Other minor examples include changes to the CGI models for the [[Basestar (RDM)|basestar]] ([[The Eye of Jupiter]]) and the [[Viper Mark VII]] ([[Maelstrom]]).
 
The revelation of [[Saul Tigh]] as one of the [[Final Five]] Cylons at the [[Crossroads, Part II|close of Season 3]] of the Re-imagined Series is a great example of the show alluding to a change of the true history of this otherwise well-established veteran of the [[Cylon War]] as a Colonial soldier.
 
===Reboots===
 
''Reboots'', also known as a "subtraction," is a drastic elimination of past storylines through a substantially new storyline. Reboots frequently cause great controversy with the fans of the original work. Comic book publisher DC Comics has done this many times with its superhero comics, eliminating complicated and confusing storylines and characters to reset the [[w:Canon (fiction)|canon]] of the characters.
 
The Re-imagined Series itself is a "reboot" of the [[Original Series]], discarding much of the visual and character elements from the Original Series and recreating new versions and variations of characters, histories, ships and more. One key change in the Re-imagined Series that caused much controversy initially was the change of the male Original Series character known as [[Starbuck (TOS)|Starbuck]] into a female named [[Kara Thrace]], with her pilot callsign as "Starbuck." The second change, which reflected the real-world problems in fighting terrorism (due to the difficulties in distinguishing friend from foe) came with the introduction of the [[Humanoid Cylon]].
 
Reboots may also be done due to licensing advantages or disadvantages of a work of fiction. One example is the "rebooted" version of ''[[w:Bionic Woman (2007 TV series)|Bionic Woman]]'' (produced by Re-imagined Series co-producer [[David Eick]]), which uses some elements from [[w:The Bionic Woman|the 1976 series]] (itself a [[spin-off]] of ''[[w:The Six Million Dollar Man|The Six Million Dollar Man]]''). As with the Re-imagined Series, this new series makes substantial story element changes not only for an improved story, but because the licensing rights of the ''Six Million'' characters cannot be used in the new series, whose characters aren't part of the ''Six Million'' franchise.
 
==See Also==
 
*[[Continuity errors (RDM)]]
*[[Continuity errors (TOS)]]
*[[Battlestar Wiki:Separate continuity]]
*[[Battlestar Wiki:Fanwanking]]
 
[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: Behind the Scenes]]
[[Category: RDM]]
[[Category: TOS]]
{{POV Real}}

Latest revision as of 18:06, 23 July 2007