Continuity Errors In Film & Television

[Judge]

Every year I binge watch "Battlestar Gallactica". Don't get me wrong, I love this television series.

However. This is about an advanced society that has mastered interstellar travel and faster than light speed. You'd think such advanced minds would excel in many societal endeavors, and not merely transportation technology.

Yet this is a society that still wears eyeglasses, use blade razors with shaving soap, smokes tobacco, uses internal combustion vehicles, union problems with strikes, an inability to hold foolproof elections and has sexual harassment. And a multitude of non-networked computers because of hacking. With so many internal spacecraft bulkheads that peculiarly resemble pegboard. Even the torture by drowning of prisoners and the use of gas-operated firearms that discharge bullets. Perhaps worst of all, they haven't found a total cure for cancer. Really?

One word comes to mind to the writers. -"Oops".

Though it is kind of funny to ponder the notion that entertainment of the distant future may still grapple with budget limitations. Ironic to know that Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry elected for people to beam down to the planets to save money by not depicting smaller spacecraft having to make sometimes difficult landings.

Little errors from one scene or episode to another might be par for the course, but it's those ones that permeate an entire series that irk me the most.

What other inconsistencies or mistakes can you think of which irk you with any show?

 

[Crossbreed]

Every year I binge watch "Battlestar Gallactica".

Is that the Lorne Greene version or the later version?

 

[Wolfnox]

Loved the theme song.

 

[tlc]

We were just talking about stuff like this today at work. I just remember this cartoon I watched when I was 8 years old in the hospital. This little character hopped way up onto a big wheel bike. But since he was so small, this big wheel bike had a small set of pedals by the seat, turning a small tire that contacted the big front tire. So of course you would have to pedal the small tire backwards to make the big one turn forwards. Nope, he pedaled the small one forward and the big one went forward too. That irritated me to no end. Had it been a chain connecting the two, it would have been just fine.

 

[Mia]

I could go on forever about the Lord of the Rings movies as well as the Hobbit, yet they were also excellent movies which I greatly enjoyed. The books were complicated so they did have to pick and choose what to leave out in the movies. Things that I thought were important to the continuity of the story, were not included, such as the history of the wizards, the magical weapons, the beginnings of the the first Dark Lord known as Melkor and then as Morgoth. The second and lesser Dark Lord and former lieutenant of Morgoth known as Sauron. Given that the dark lord simply seemed to spring out of nowhere, evil returned, without any real explanation. Only that Radagast the brown found an old castle fortress and there was evil there after it had been originally been eradicated, puzzled me. It should have been concretely established, as it was the basis for the battles and fighting and the quest.

There was less focus on the battles in the books, which were given precedence in the films. There was also much more character development and song and stories and legends that I enjoyed in the books. The historical background of the elves and wizards and hobbits would have helped to explain the films to people who had not read the books. As well the female roles of Galadriel, Eowyn and Arwen, which were expanded and were quite minimal in the books. I liked that they were more extensive in the movies. Yet, Tolkien did not write all that much about the females in his books.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I would justify the incontinuities as "the future is never what you think." We tend to take what we value the most and project it forward. Remember what we thought the future would be like 40 years ago? No one pictured computer screens everywhere. It was all about flying cars, paper clothes, and domed cities. Even Star Trek has had to be updated a ton because our vision of the future in 1969 isn't the same as our vision of the future now.

 

[Judge]

Is that the Lorne Greene version or the later version?

All of the questionable aspects of the show I itemized above all pertained to the remake of this series broadcast in the early 2000s. Not the original short-lived show of the late 70s.

The good news? The original show didn't have all this detail. However that was the bad news as well. The original series was pretty lame in comparison. No deep character development, and stories that seemed to wander far outside their prime mission to find a mythical place called "Earth". It lacked so much sophistication of the remake. Yet the remake had so many inconsistencies relative to some incredible scientific achievements.

 

[Aeolienne]

In Shallow Grave it takes three flatmates equipped with a cartload of DIY tools to dispose of a body, whereas in Morvern Callar the titular heroine does the job single-handed with kitchen utensils and a trowel.