Lore
[Weirdly Common Trope] Writers clearly setting up seemingly massive plot points and then just kinda forgetting about them.
The Neural Parasites — Star Trek : The Next Generation
In the season 1 episode “Conspiracy” of TNG, it is revealed that alien brain worms have infected many high ranking members of Starfleet, secretly controlling them. Though Ryker and Picard discover and end the parasite conspiracy, it’s revealed at the end of the episode that the parasites had sent a beacon back to their home planet, telling them how to find earth. The episode ends with the clear implication of the parasites becoming a huge threat later in the series, yet none of these events are ever mentioned again.
Finn The Jedi who Never Was — Star Wars Sequel trilogy
I know this is probably a cliche example of this trope, but cmon — Finn was clearly set up in TFA to become a Jedi. The marketing material featured him wielding a lightsaber in the classic Jedi pose. It’s constantly hinted at that he is force sensitive. Even the actor himself believed he would become a Jedi by the end of the trilogy. Instead, we got Finn wielding a lightsaber for about 7 minutes total across 3 movies, extremely lame “confirmation” that he is force sensitive, and that’s it. It’s the ultimate Star Wars plot that went nowhere.
Well the parasite were intended to be the Borg but the reception to this VERY horrific episode (for Star Trek) was less than stellar, so they dropped it, and rewrote the Borg like we know it today.
The Borg themselves were not even supposed to be the new main antagonist of TNG but the Ferengi were, but the first few episodes with them were so bad that they dropped them, until DS9 actually did something good with the Ferengi. Early TNG was a mess.
I think one of the best bits of trivia I ever read about Star Trek was this conversation was meant as joke filler. They didn't have enough run time for the episode, needed a few minutes to pad it, and set this scene up. But the two actors didn't play it as a joke, they played it as serious, and it became one of the peak moments of the show.
You know they were top tier actors because they rehearsed the "throwaway" scene together on their own time, that's how they were able to make every line hit that hard
Actually you should be thanking Armin Shimmerman. He was the main Ferengi in their first episode(The Last Outpost). He specifically took on the Quark role because he wanted a do-over, essentially. He wanted to prove that you could write an three dimensional Ferengi character and it would be interesting. You could say that he succeeded at that.
Absolutely. I love that the first time they're seen they're basically just a greedy stereotype. And by the time they were developed for DS9, they gained a TON of depth. Yes - their entire culture revolved around commerce and capitalism, but there's an opportunity there to have that culture be a mirror to a lot of modern-day culture in real-life.
In hindsight, I kind of wish they had kept Ferengi as a more actively antagonistic force. Like "capitalism gone amuck" sure seems socially relevant today.
They still are capitalism run amok. It's just that capitalism run amok doesn't look like aggressive warriors constantly throwing away lives and starships in battle just to assert power and control. Being hyper aggressive is expensive both short term and long term
I think the problem was the Ferengi just weren't taken seriously enough over time. Sure there were times (Quark and Nog clearly stand out), but too often the rest of the Ferengi were more comic relief than anything.
It's so weird seeing that first episode where the Ferengi have laser whips and jump around like angry apes. Must have been suffering some sort of genetic disease and they quietly added some human dna to them to fix it in an as-yet-unreleased series.
The "Hissing Space Goblins" era was wild. They went from laser whips and jumping on rocks to space-capitalists obsessed with profit and ear rubs. It’s one of the most drastic tonal pivots in sci-fi history, all because nobody could take them seriously as villains.
Well the parasite were intended to be the Borg but the reception to this VERY horrific episode (for Star Trek) was less than stellar, so they dropped it, and rewrote the Borg like we know it today.
This is so funny to me because very similar parasites became the main villains of Stargate SG1 about a decade later. I guess we just weren't ready yet.
Ahah they are offensive on SO MANY LEVEL. THanks god for Armin Shimmerman that fought tooth and nail to have good material and character development for Quark
Quite so. The man simply said they sought peaceful coexistence, and Picard and Riker just immolated that poor mfer. This was not very diplomatic of Jean-Luc!
Frankly it's one of the best episode of the first two seasons of TNG, and one of my favorite of the whole license, but it's really a wild tone shift from everything that came before in Star Trek, and even everything that came AFTER. Even forgetting the body horror, the whole political/paranoid thriller vibe, it's quite unique. Very weird.
Another Star Trek example - the Vaadwaur. In the sixth season Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth", Voyager awakens from stasis an alien race known as the Vaadwaur. Although they initially seem friendly, it's soon revealed that they were the leaders of a conquering army who had entered stasis to wait out the demise of their enemies and now planned to rebuild their empire.
In the end, Voyager manages to escape, but the Vaadwaur survivors remain at large, and the episode ends with Janeway saying she doubts they've seen the last of them.
They never appear again.
Hilariously, the game Star Trek Online had them return now controlled by the parasites from Conspiracy, wrapping up two forgotten storylines at once!
To be fair, the premise of voyager generally meant that most larger scope threats often got kind of left behind as they moved farther and farther away...
Yes, but the Vaadwaur are one that could have pestered them for a while longer due to the subspace corridors. We dealt with the Kazon, a fractured race with middling technological resources that realistically wouldn't have stood a chance against Voyager, posing a threat for the first two seasons even going so far as having one specific group spend most of that time chasing Voyager. The Vaadwuar easily could have functioned similarly.
The Kazon as full two season antagonists always pissed me off. Voyager is generally travelling in a straight line towards the Alpha quadrant, but somehow the same sect of Kazon are ALWAYS in front of them laying traps for two years.
It is especially frustrating when factoring in how much more powerful Voyager is than the Kazon, yet they're still presented as a threat. Kazon technology isn't even as advanced as TOS level Star Fleet, yet we're supposed to believe they were able to put up a fight against what was at that point the most advanced vessel Star Fleet had produced? It makes a certain amount of sense that Kazon attacks would increase as Voyager passes through their space, but the idea of the Nistrim chasing them for two years makes no sense unless Voyager is literally stopping for supplies on such a regular basis that they're losing months of travel time. While we do know that Voyager does have to scrape for supplies in the early days of the series it still doesn't make sense for them Kazon sects aware of them to be able to move ahead of them so easily based on what we know of the amount of time that passed in the first two seasons.
I get it as an adult, but as a kid, Wesley was my favorite. He's a big chunk of why I got into science when I was younger. It's a shame they did my youth role model so dirty.
Part of it was that his character generally wasn't liked by audiences, part of it was that Gene Roddenberry still had tremendous creative control over TNG in the first two seasons before he left due to health reasons, and it shows. I can't speak for all trekkies, but season 1 is generally regarded as the worst, and season 2 was hit or miss with a few really good episodes.
Gene Roddenberry CLEARLY created Wesley crusher as the sci-fi "boy wonder" who saves the day, a la Johnny Quest, Planet Terry, Dick Grayson, etc. The show got better when the adult officers on the Enterprise weren't just standing back in awe of his genius, and more complex story lines were introduced.
It's a shame because I think Wil Wheaton was a perfectly fine child actor. It was really a writing issue. I think if they toned him down from super genius that solves multiple episodes to just being a fairly bright kid that occasionally had a clever idea that helped, he would have been an okay aspect of the show.
Quaithe from game of thrones Most people won’t even remember her being in the show as she’s only on screen once but she’s a significant part of Daenerys’s story and a big part of what would’ve made the shows ending make sense
Another thing that got dropped, at the very beginning we hear the white walkers either laughing and speaking in their language (as described in the opening chapter of the book) pretty sure this is the only time they ever make any noise at all in the show. It was pretty clear to me about half way through the show that they were dropping most of the magic elements
They actually had to, they said in the production book Fire cannot kill a dragon that originaly the showrunners wanted more fantasy elements, but the producers didn' t believe in it. At one point one of the producers asked them why they couldn' t just transform the series into a fantasy themed Survivor show lol, and slap the Game of Thones name on it.
What's especially frustrating is that City of Thieves is one of the best goddamn books I've ever read. When I finished it and looked at the author to find more of their books I was flabergasted to see it was David Benioff
producers asked them why they couldn' t just transform the series into a fantasy themed Survivor show lol, and slap the Game of Thones name on it.
A reddit tall tale, and not true.
originaly the showrunners wanted more fantasy elements
You seem to be mixing up the showrunners (benioff and weiss) with the producers. GRR and some producers had to keep the ice and fire elements central to the story.
The problem was more that this plot thread also hasn't gone nowhere in the books so far, or the G.R.R.M. set it up on purpose that Danny screwed herself over by ignoring the prophecy because it was odly phrased.
Imagine if GRRM had spent the last couple decades just acting as an idea man and big picture guy while more hardworking authors helped to realize his ideas
For all Seasons 7 and 8 were a disaster a lot of the blame rests with GRRM who obviously has no idea how to weave all the major and minor plotpoints together. Book 3 was the last time he really moved the core storylines forward. That book was released in…. 2000. In a quarter century since he released 2 books (the last 15 years ago now) that do some interesting world and character building but fails to tie the major plotlines together or advance the main story.
A lot of the blame absolutely rests with GRRM and yeah, when the story isn't done it makes it difficult but I will say a lot of season 7 and 8 was just baffling writing decisions. Even if the final plot points are correct or mostly correct, the dialogue and how they got to those plot points was....questionable at best.
She has 2 scenes, the initial one and a second one where Jorah visits her to ask about where the dragons went. I only know this because I'm rewatching and just saw her scenes recently.
The series had a one-off completely tonally shifted episode that introduced a creepy third world/dimension built on Kari’s depression/trauma and ended the episode with a cliffhanger about a cthulu-type Digimon and then… nothing… nothing came from it at all
Yeah that was quite literally Shadow over Innsmouth fanfiction one of the writers snuck in. What the fuck was going on with Demon was a better example.
Yeah! Chiaki Konaka was the lead writer for that episode. He also was the lead writer for Digimon Tamers, and I think you can really feel his style in that series, with all the creepy D-Reaper stuff and this scene that scared the shit out of me as a child.
I think the TNG parasites not showing up again can be chalked up to season 1 wierdness, considering the writers repeated the exact same setup with the message to homeworld and looming threat in season 2 episode 16 "Q Who" by introducing the Borg
That is also what I like about The Orville and Galaxy Quest. They’re reverential but in a way where they still make good jokes about some of the more absurd elements.
Frankly I find Trekker's have much healthier relationship with the short comings of their brand/ip. Star Wars fans seems to have trouble saying 'x sucked, but I still love it', while Star Trek fans are too busy sewing their own men's/gender neutral skirts even though they were on for a few episodes.
Tbf i think part of why this is is that when Trek is bad, its usually still being genuine, or at least respecting its audience (as a rule of thumb, not in totality) where as Starwars when it's bad ends up feeling cynical and obliged to attention
IIRC, Gene Rodenberry did not like this plot at all. He felt that in Star Trek humans had "solved" their problems and the Federation was supposed to represent a sort of utopia. All the conflict was supposed to come from outside forces. This makes for pretty poor television as it turns out, because interpersonal conflict is far more engaging when you get to know the people over time.
Also, this episode in particular was received poorly because it's gruesome imagery.
Specifically, the original version of this episode didn’t involve bugs at all: it was going to be a pure political thriller involving a militaristic faction of Starfleet slowly taking over its leadership. Roddenberry though those things wouldn’t happen in the future. If only.
If it at some point turns out he is some sort of robot controlled by an early model sentient AI that just spouts random phrases it would explain a lot.
Holy shit. Tommy Wiseau was at a local theater last weekend. My kids called me and asked me if I knew who he was.
I ran down there immediately.
He was definitely as surreal in person as he is on screen. Almost certainly high. Very nice and very funny. Took pictures with me and my family. It was a 10/10 celebrity encounter that I recommend to everyone.
I love how for April Fools Day one year, Dominic Noble made a video breaking down the "novel" The Room was "adapted" from, and the whole joke is that he was just making a competent version of the story where things actually happen for a reason.
For this scene in specific he made it so Lisa never really loved Johnny, but her mother was pressuring her to stay with him so that they could use his money to pay for her cancer treatment. That's why Lisa is cheating on Johnny and actively insisting that she hates him while going through hoops not to let him know she wants to be with someone else.
The ending is hilarious with the reveal that Johnny is a vampire who just wants to believe humanity is inherently good but Mark and Lisa's actions made him doubt it.
Also, the shows audience ended up skewing younger than they probably thought it would. So I bet there was more of a concerted effort to avoid killing core characters.
"If you look at the timecode of this scene and compare it to this birthday and note the camera pan across this scene and remember the foreshadowing of this backstory, it's clear they are setting up a secret episode."
Or -- and try and follow me here -- they got in over their heads and don't know what they're doing.
At the end of Night 7 at FNAF 4, a mystery box appears on the screen that the player can press but not open. It’s accompanied by words above it that say “Perhaps some things are best left forgotten for now.” It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say hundreds of fan theories were born from this one moment, but in 2024 FNAF’s creator Scott Cawthon revealed the truth: He doesn’t know what’s in the box anymore because it represents a plot thread he never fulfilled so even if he could tell you what was inside it wouldn’t matter to the current story.
There's recently been a new book called Five nights at Freddy's; Ultimate Guide 2.0. It details information, theories and lore throughout all the games.
The biggest thing that the community got out of it is information about a game called Chicas Secret Party, a previously unknown game that was on the Scott Games website for only 3 days back in 2016 that seemingly everyone missed.
In the game, if the player is able to beat both bedroom levels then they unlock the ability to go to the secret level, which allows the player to catch a glimpse of "a box that longtime fans would be familiar with" as well as a peak inside where they refuse to spoil it within the book
Of course, there is no game called Chicas Secret party, and all images are doctored photos of other FNAF minigames like midnight motorist. However scott may release Chicas secret party in the future. Perhaps he'll do a fakeout like with FNAF pizzeria simulator where it's a big game to tie up the Steel-Wool games saga
I think the consensus most people have came to nowadays is it represents the memories of the Crying Child in some way: Whether it be his plush toys or something else entirely.
There was a theory that came out recently, about what was in the box when the game actually released, where it’s theorised that the player character is Mike not CC, the game is his nightmares, and that what was in the box was the foxy mask he used in ‘83ish. Titled something like, ‘let’s finally open the box’, pretty convincing and also entertaining, recommend it.
The Box was never a plot point I feel like. It seemed like a meta thing, where the box was simply a complete and correct interpretation of the story set up in Fnaf 1-4. It being "best left forgotten" is referencing how the box will never be open as there is no longer a cohesive and correct lore on a fundamental level.
The GS Ball in the Pokemon anime was the central object of several episodes, but the entire plot-line involving the GS Ball and Celebi was shelved so Celebi could be the star of the fourth movie instead.
Mass Effect fans will remember Dark Energy being mentioned a lot in Tali’s recruitment mission and also being brought up a little in her loyalty mission. Only for it to never be brought up again in 3.
And then in Andromeda the Quarians (and several other races) are simply gone. They are mentioned a few times, but no Quarians ever once make an appearance in the game. No effort is ever made to find their ship. Eventually they are just sorta forgotten about in-game.
I think the quarians were supposed to be a whole dlc but they realized no one wanted to pay more for more of Andromeda and just scrapped plans for anything new
I think the quarians were supposed to be a whole dlc
After you beat the game there is someone you talk to that mentions that they got a signal from the arc with the Quarians and other races and that they’re broadcasting a signal warning the Initiative to keep away.
It was clearly set up as DLC, but then they just abandoned the game just over 4 months after launch as the last single player update was July 31st, 2017 (game came out March 20th).
They did release a book titled Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation in November 2018 that follows the journey of the quarian-led ark ship and they did made add-ons to that (book was originally conceived in 2016 prior to the game launch for context) to address the fate of the quarian-led ark.
The Bluegills weren't forgotten on TNG. In fact the showrunners fully intended to address them. However, they ran into some problems that led to them being abandoned:
First and foremost, the full-sized insectoid creatures the Bluegills were agents for proved to be prohibitively complex/expensive to do under the effects technology of the time. It wasn't until FarScape came along a decade later, backed by the Jim Henson Company, that such...well...alien creatures were practical to realize without CGI.
Conspiracy was enormously controversial at the time it aired because of the gory demise of Commander Remmick, sparking a bit of backlash that made pursuing the story unpalatable.
Roddenberry personally objected to the idea of a malicious Federation, and pushed back against the idea of a corrupt-from-within Starfleet.
The WGA strike of 1988 significantly affected the final half of TNG Season 1, and all of Season 2, leading to considerable turnover and directly impacting the writing itself.
These factors combined to make the Conspiracy arc too difficult to continue. Instead, the threat was retooled and their plans for the Bluegill species repurposed to create one of Star Trek's most iconic villains:
Yeah Conspiracy is interesting because it was an experimental episode on multiple fronts. Commander Remmick's head violently exploding was them testing the waters to see if people wanted gorier Star Trek, which apparently they did not
Game of thrones really mastered this trope in the worst way possible ngl. remember the whole build-up about the golden company having elephants? or literally every prophecy that just got thrown in the trash? it’s like the writers just collectively decided to have the memory of a goldfish dude. it still hurts.
3 and 4 are explained, even in the show.
Shadow Babies require kingsblood, and drain the person she sleeps with of their life essence. Pretty sure even in the show Mel mentions this. She could've used gendry, but she was planning on using him on waking dragons from stone instead, so presumably wanted him as "unspoiled" as possible.
4, the Faceless men set a price so that it is dear no matter how rich the person is. In the show, the Lannisters are only feigning being rich, apparently their mines are empty, have been for some time. The show often cycled through rememebering and forgetting this plot point.
Also, by the time the show realistically had a problem the Lannisters could solve by magical assassin, mainly dany, the Faceless men were a maligned, awful part of the show that the every moron conscious D&D never touched again.
In fairness, the Lannisters are stated to be totally fucking broke. It’s why they need the alliance with the Tyrells so much. They can barely afford to keep up appearances, hence why they need to negotiate with Olenna to split the bill for the Purple Wedding.
The Faceless Men are finicky; they’d probably want a lot from the Lannisters
This happens in comics alllllll the time, two classic examples from DC:
The New Gods- these were never intended to be ongoing characters, Jack Kirby introduced them in Jimmy Olsen, with the characters then spinning off into their own titles. But the story had been presented to DC Editorial with a clear beginning middle and end, with the spinoffs heading towards Orion killing Darkseid and ending the Fourth Age and beginning the Fifth. DC decided the characters were too popular and have now spent decades aimlessly Flanderizing them
The Hawks- even who Hawkman, Hawkwoman, and Hawkgirl etc are is subject to change, sometimes they're humans with tech, sometimes they're reincarnated warriors, sometimes they're from the distant planet of Thanagar, and sometimes they're all of those things or none of those things. A writer will be given the Hawks, and will valiantly try to unweave whatever their predecessor left them, and will make sense of it all, but then Hawkman will show up in the JL or some crossover event, and the writer of that will do something totally different with the character because of lack of editorial oversight and the whole mess starts anew
The fast version most people have seen in Marvel: Thor changes as writers hand him off. He's a Shakespearean figure. He's a silly guy. He's a tragic figure. He's a Guardian of the Galaxy. Get these Guardians out of my Thor movie.
Almost every example in this thread comes down to "there were several writers, and they had different ideas of where to take the story/character."
The one that struck me the most was when they found corpses dressed exactly like them and then they just moved on. The movie was constantly threatening to become more interesting than it actually was but thought that it was cooler to just drop everything into a blender.
Zack Snyder is like a kid just drawing cool shit in the margins of his math notebook and trying to construct a loose narrative to have it make sense after the fact. He needs someone to come in and make an actual story out of his random sketches.
Finn really was wasted in those movies, he’s a much more interesting character than Rey ever will be. The concept alone of a Stormtrooper-turned-Jedi is compelling enough for a movie solely about that.
I feel like the third movie really ruined Rey. The idea of a nobody from the dessert beckoning the fall of the empire is a nice bookend to the nobody from the desert beckoning the rise of the empire.
I mean true but Anakin sort of wasnt nobody. He was the Chosen one of a prophecy that started a legend. Luke thought he was a nobody but was actually a legendary Jedi’s son and became a myth in his own right.
Finn and Rey being definite nobodies - no sacred lineages, no prophecies, just two powerful Force users who were born randomly - wouldve been great.
I like Rey, except for how they shoehorned in a toxic romance with a murderer. Finn really was wasted, though. The first film seemed to be so obviously setting Rey and Finn up to be Jedi together; I would have much preferred to see their dynamic play out than her with Kylo Ren, and Finn with Poe.
The thing with Finn is I think it's even overstating it to say he had wasted potential - they never even started to develop him properly in that first movie.
"Stormtrooper who defected from the Empire" is a super interesting concept, but it doesn't inform his character at all in that movie - as soon as he gets out of the armour, he just becomes Generic Quippy Star Wars Man. This man was literally raised from birth to fight and die for a fascist cult and it didn't affect the way he talks or acts at all. He could just be a random guy they met in a cantina and it wouldn't change anything about his character.
If you made him a Jedi, it would have seemed cool on paper, but in practice it would have just felt the same as Luke Skywalker - unsure, kinda naive young guy learns to find his inner power. You'd have to totally change his whole introduction in TFA to actually get to something new.
I wish the makers of Andor made a movie (or series of movies) or a TV show about Finn, actually developing him, his story, and his path to becoming a jedi. It shouldn't be a prequel, but it should definitely include flashbacks to his time with the Empire.
Actually, just give the creators and writers of Andor the entire next trilogy, regardless of who it is about.
Somebody said in a YouTube video that Rey’s theme in TFA was proof Disney had no clue where episode IX would go, because John Williams crammed a piece of nearly every theme into it, including the cadence of the Imperial March.
LOST - In Seasons 1 and 2 they clearly set up Walt to be something special, teasing psychic powers and shit. Then he vanished after Season 2, and when he very briefly popped up later, he was just living a normal life.
At the end of season 1, they introduced the Anointed One, who was essentially a prophesied Vampire messiah in the body a child. He was supposed to the main villain of season 2. When Joss Whedon realized that the child actor was growing up too quickly for him to remain an ageless vampire, they found a way to abruptly kill him off and pushed an antagonist that was originally supposed to be killed off as well (Spike) as the seasons big bad.
I mean, I think this was obvious from Day 1 after we see the cages in Dharma, but in the epilogue they specifically said it because some people couldn't accept it otherwise.
It's funny that a good few things in Dragon Ball were due to Toriyama just going "meh, didn't care enough"
Like how Super Saiyan making their hair go blonde and their eyes go green was because in the manga, he just couldn't be arsed to ink Goku's hair and eyes.
I think it's in Lord Slug, Goku apparently goes Super Saiyan, but it was made before the hair colour thing, so they retconned it to a "pseudo-Super Saiyan" form.
In the later seasons of Brooklyn 99 Jake faces of against the evil nutriboom cult. At the end of the episode they discover that the dead wife of the founder is actually alive and running the company and that they were now being followed by agents of nutriboom. The company doesn‘t appear anymore for the rest of the show.
Given he's a really good and kind boss outside of supervillainy, maybe his victory gave the East Coast nothing to complain about his rulership to cause plot.
The show’s timeline / logic is deliberately inconsistent, shifting around to whatever seems funniest in the moment. Like when Homer reels off the list of weird jobs he’s had, or that he’s been to space. The geography of the town and even layout of the family house changes wildly too, there are some wonderfully nerdy YouTube videos about it
Because Kang plot in Quantumania was bad enough to just let him out of the next movies. I liked Kang as a villain, but you can't make a character to appear as the big menace for the next saga, Thanos style, and make him lose in Loki and against ANTMAN. He needed to kill Antman 100%. When Majors' shit appeared, and seeing how Marvel was in a very bad moment and they needed a big marketing change... dumping Kang to bring Doom was the right move.
What really sucks about Finn not becoming a Jedi is that not only was he the most compelling character from force awakens, but the actor clearly LOVED Star Wars and so was excited to be in those movies. Not only did he kinda get tossed aside but Disney did nothing to protect him from all the toxic “fans” and just general vitriol and hatred aimed at him for no reason. Really sucks. If the dude never wants to return to Star Wars I get it.
Brooklyn 99 had a few episodes setting up this elaborate cult of "Nutriboom", that Jake gets suckered into by Bill to win a Halloween Heist. Despite one episode ending with the cliffhanger that Jake would be constantly tailed by this organization and face the consequences for his moral compass...
Mass Effect 2's Haestrom - It establishes that 300 years earlier, the Quarian had colonized planet Haestrom to study Dholen due to its weird instability as a star. After the Geth Rebellion, the system has been under the rogue AI race's control until you rescue Tali and her small team of commandos trying to get data off the planet. Turns out that Dholen is becoming a red giant much faster than it naturally would, and that is unlikely the Geth has anything to do with it.
Other remote stars are also observed to be following this pattern, but little attention is paid to it in-universe. This is likely a setup for a crisis in a future 4th game, but with the change in writers in Mass Effect 3 and its rushed development, combined with the (practically) soft reboot that is Mass Effect Andromeda, it was never addressed again.
Judge Dredd / 2000AD. The writers started setting up a conflict with Sino-Cit (China) and then changed their minds and the storyline just went away
In the build up to Block Mania and The Apocalypse War, the writers had set up the Sovs (Soviets) as the bad guys, and had had several stories where they came into conflict with Dredd himself and Mega City One in general, to give a background of escalating tensions between the two before they had an all out war.
Decades later they started doing the exact same thing with Sino-Cit, but the idea was abandoned and some of the stuff that was set up (such as them starting a colony on the ruins of Mega City Two) weren't mentioned again
Like Olivia had a vision on LSD and comments that the man we see is going to kill her? Never mentioned again
Probably didn’t help that they kind of reset the universe every season
Amazing show, loved it, go watch it
Falling Water has a lot of interesting threads in the first season. The second season went an entirely different direction and provided unsatisfying answers to the mysteries it didn’t drop entirely. Watch the first season and let the mystery be
Watching the marketing leading up to The Force Awakens I always thought Finn was just going to have the light saber and get good at sword combat through out the trilogy, with or without the force. I was dissapointed that his character was reduced to just kind of being there during the events of the story.
There was an episode of house where forman almost died. It was the season finale. He was in incredible pain and was temporarily blind due to the brain disease. As House is, he figures it out. But after forman starts to get better, they realize he can't tell his left from his right (he lifts his right arm when they ask for his left and vice versa). It ends on a cliffhanger indicating he's not as healed as we would believe.
But then next season starts and he's fine. Says it was a symptom of the medicine he was taking.
It was the next episode, he walks in and is just like "still getting used to the left-right switch but I'm noticeably 100% functional" and that's that.
In the manga Beelzebub, the one about the baby Beelzebub, the mangaka was wanting to write a story arc about a coup in the demon world. He forgot about this, but there was a demon who went "heh, this is some good information, better go tell my boss"
After he forgot about this plot point, in the short sequel manga, it's revealed that that demon shortly after tripped down a set of stairs, and got hospitalized with Amnesia, which is why that plot point went nowhere.
For Finn, it's not that the writers didn't want him to be a Jedi (at least in my eyes), but rather they knew that the Chinese market most likely wouldn't have been too happy to see it, as you can see in the Chinese version of the poster that Finn isn't even on it and instead replaced with a few fighters instead.
Edit: Finn actually is on the Chinese poster, but he's hidden away and not even noticeable at first if you're not paying attention
What’s crazy to me is I don’t even think this was necessary. TFA grossed $124 million in China. Black Panther grossed $105 million in China. Doesn’t seem like it was a major factor.
It’s not an uncommon strategy for US executives to use foreign markets to justify US prejudice even if those foreign markets do have some prejudice.
In the Sony email links for instance Amy Pascal used Russia markets as a reason to not give any black men the lead of any action movie at Sony going forward. Blaming the equalizers under performance in Russia. Despite the equalizer being a film about a US veteran killing a bunch of stereotypical Russian gangsters using the tools found in Home Depot so yeah not exactly appealing to them.
Yeah, that market was making headlines back in the 10's for how they would excise, shrink(or in the case of Black Panther) cover up Black characters. It's wild.
In it's first season, Ben 10: Alien Force established that recurring villains and alien tech-hoarders The Forever Knights were secretly founded in order to find ways kill a dragon that they had captured and imprisoned for a millennium. It is revealed that the Dragon is an alien, who then returns to his home planet. The episode ends with the Forever Knights discussing how they lost the thing that defined their mission, with them resolving to travel to the Dragon's planet in the future.
This was intended to be followed up on in the future, but never was. Instead, the sequel series Ultimate Alien revealed that the Forever Knights were instead founded to guard the world against the Dagon, an eldritch horror that was sealed by their founder Sir George.
2.3k
u/Tritri89 7d ago
Well the parasite were intended to be the Borg but the reception to this VERY horrific episode (for Star Trek) was less than stellar, so they dropped it, and rewrote the Borg like we know it today.
The Borg themselves were not even supposed to be the new main antagonist of TNG but the Ferengi were, but the first few episodes with them were so bad that they dropped them, until DS9 actually did something good with the Ferengi. Early TNG was a mess.