Continuity train-wrecks

[on:]

 Maybe it's just me, but Futurama seems to have more than its share of story gaffs. I usually don't get too bothered by them but some of them are really jarring. I wish they had paid more attention to continuity when they were in production.

Three that come to mind are;

In an Xmas Story we are told that pine trees are extinct even though many of the characters had skiied through conifers earlier in the episode. (Admittedly the hinged trees could be fake but....)

Jurrasic Bark: Seymour the fossil is in a natural standing position (which is strange enough) but at his last moment we see that he is lying down.

The whole point of Fishfull of Dollars was that sardines were extinct. A few episodes later in the Deep South Hermes has a bucket of the for bait.

I am sure there are more...   

[Reply #1 on:]

Anchovies are extinct, not sardines.

One that bothered me was in Xmas story when Leela was looking through her photo album you see a pic of her as a baby ditched on a pile of abandoned property at the end of an ally indicating that she was thrown out like trash, but then in Leela's homeworld we see her lovingly placed on the orphanarium doorstep in a basket. There's a bit of a contrast there.

[Reply #2 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ol'coot:
 In an Xmas Story we are told that pine trees are extinct even though many of the characters had skiied through conifers earlier in the episode. (Admittedly the hinged trees could be fake but....)

True, the hinged trees could have easily been fake, but that whole forest in 'Spanish Fry' sure wasn't...

[Reply #3 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
One that bothered me was in Xmas story when Leela was looking through her photo album you see a pic of her as a baby ditched on a pile of abandoned property at the end of an ally indicating that she was thrown out like trash, but then in Leela's homeworld we see her lovingly placed on the orphanarium doorstep in a basket. There's a bit of a contrast there.

It could've been some sort of joke that the kids at the orphanarium did, right?

[Reply #4 on:]

Artificial, the pine trees of the future are.

[Reply #5 on:]

perhaps a joke, leela looked very young and easily advantagable in the photo.

[Reply #6 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
One that bothered me was in Xmas story when Leela was looking through her photo album you see a pic of her as a baby ditched on a pile of abandoned property at the end of an ally indicating that she was thrown out like trash, but then in Leela's homeworld we see her lovingly placed on the orphanarium doorstep in a basket. There's a bit of a contrast there.

The picture in "Xmas Story" might not be from the day she was given to the orphanarium (lthough that certainly is the intention in "Xmas Story", I'm just coming up with an explanation here  ), maybe it's from a later stage where Leela ran away from the orphanarium (it's a minimum-security one, afterall  ) or maybe Vogel have a abandoned porperty shelf in his office, where he took the picture.

Speaking of Leela's Happiest Moments, if that prom dress is made by carpet remnants she deserve some kind of award. It's impossible to tell.

[Reply #7 on:]

 

Originally posted by Atticus:


Artificial, the pine trees of the future are.

Not necessarily, perhaps they’re just genetically modified.

[Reply #8 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ol'coot:
 Maybe it's just me, but Futurama seems to have more than its share of story gaffs. I usually don't get too bothered by them but some of them are really jarring. I wish they had paid more attention to continuity when they were in production.

Watch the Star Trek: Voyager episode Counterpoint.  Your head will spin.

 

In an Xmas Story we are told that pine trees are extinct even though many of the characters had skiied through conifers earlier in the episode. (Admittedly the hinged trees could be fake but....)

As we all know, there's no such thing as a fake pine tree...

 

Jurrasic Bark: Seymour the fossil is in a natural standing position (which is strange enough) but at his last moment we see that he is lying down.

Continuity blip, but not one that's gonna make me lose sleep.

 

The whole point of Fishfull of Dollars was that sardines were extinct. A few episodes later in the Deep South Hermes has a bucket of the for bait.

What someone said in a previous post.

 

I am sure there are more...   

Especially if you make a point of looking for them... 

[Reply #9 on:]

Who said that the last we see of Seymour is actually his last moments? He might have lived on a while. I just think it's unusual to die standing up like that. AND to be fossilized without the burying and sediment stuff. But maybe Panucci's was the only plave in NNY that was actually buried... hmmmmm. I dunno.

[Reply #10 on:]

 

Originally posted by Pikka Bird:
Who said that the last we see of Seymour is actually his last moments? He might have lived on a while.

I never thought of that actually....the final shot might just have been him sleeping....because he did go on to live for a while....

[Reply #11 on:]

There aren't actually any major blips in Futurama continuity, except for ONE, and it REALLY pisses me off... so much that I refuse to watch the episode.

At the end of "The Cryonic Woman" Fry is ditched froma  moving spaceship, and told that he can never have his job back. How, then, does he come to be alive and well, and a Delivery Boy for PX in the very next episode???

[Reply #12 on:]

 

Originally posted by Teral:
 The picture in "Xmas Story" might not be from the day she was given to the orphanarium (lthough that certainly is the intention in "Xmas Story", I'm just coming up with an explanation here    ), maybe it's from a later stage where Leela ran away from the orphanarium (it's a minimum-security one, afterall   )

Considering it's a baby picture, wouldn't she be a little young to even understand the concept of 'running away' besides, even if she did manage to crawl away how would she have been able to climb up onto that table?

[Reply #13 on:]

Maybe Farnsworth realized nobody else would like to have such a degrading, humiliating job when they are 25, so he was forced to re-hire him? Maybe the next time Zoidberg was asked to deliver a package he ate it.

[Reply #14 on:]

But we never saw any of that! We were never offered any explanation!

Grr!

:: beats self to death with own severed leg ::

[Reply #15 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
At the end of "The Cryonic Woman" Fry is ditched froma  moving spaceship, and told that he can never have his job back. How, then, does he come to be alive and well, and a Delivery Boy for PX in the very next episode???

The Professor is senile.  By the next episode he had completely forgotten about firing Fry in the first place.

[Reply #16 on:]

Bender was pretty happy to remind Farnsworth at the end about what Fry had done, you'd think he'd have done it again if he forgot.

[Reply #17 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
 Considering it's a baby picture, wouldn't she be a little young to even understand the concept of 'running away' besides, even if she did manage to crawl away how would she have been able to climb up onto that table?

Maybe somebody found her after she had crawled off on her own and handed her over to some sort of "Lost and found" where she was later reclaimed?

[Reply #18 on:]

Bendin' In The Wind.  One long continuity error. 

[Reply #19 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
There aren't actually any major blips in Futurama continuity, except for ONE, and it REALLY pisses me off... so much that I refuse to watch the episode.

At the end of "The Cryonic Woman" Fry is ditched froma  moving spaceship, and told that he can never have his job back. How, then, does he come to be alive and well, and a Delivery Boy for PX in the very next episode???

Fry woke up and realised that "The Cryonic Woman" had in fact been a horrible, horrible nightmare.  Just like me the morning after watching it.

[Reply #20 on:]

 

Originally posted by Mercapto:
 
Maybe somebody found her after she had crawled off on her own and handed her over to some sort of "Lost and found" where she was later reclaimed?

But the nursery wasn't on the first floor how would she have gotten away to begin with?

[Reply #21 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
 Considering it's a baby picture, wouldn't she be a little young to even understand the concept of 'running away' besides, even if she did manage to crawl away how would she have been able to climb up onto that table?

She did seem awfully happy about crawling around in "Leela's Homeworld", and Morris have to sleep at some point. She probably took off sometime during the night when she couldn't sleep. I don't think she was so much "running away" as just curios about new stuff. Once she got outside she would se an entirely new world, and would just keep on crawling until someone found her and handed her over to the police. And she does seem like a bright baby, afterall she kicks Vogel on the chin when he mentions her big eye. Maybe part of her mutant background (much like her super-strenght, which would help get down the stairs).

[Reply #22 on:]

She nearly fell down those stairs, that's why Morris had to save her, he wasn't preventing her from running away, he was preventing her from breaking her neck and since i'm assuming she slept in a crib, as babies generally do, she wouldn't have been able to just get out of bed in the night. And even then how would she have gotten out of the front door, it may have been a minimum security orphanarium, but it still had front doors. I could see an 8 year old escaping in the middle of the night, but not a baby that can't even walk yet.

[Reply #23 on:]

 

Originally posted by PCC Fred:
 Fry woke up and realised that "The Cryonic Woman" had in fact been a horrible, horrible nightmare.  Just like me the morning after watching it.

Brother!

[Reply #24 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
She nearly fell down those stairs, that's why Morris had to save her, he wasn't preventing her from running away, he was preventing her from breaking her neck and since i'm assuming she slept in a crib, as babies generally do, she wouldn't have been able to just get out of bed in the night. And even then how would she have gotten out of the front door, it may have been a minimum security orphanarium, but it still had front doors. I could see an 8 year old escaping in the middle of the night, but not a baby that can't even walk yet.

Ever watched "Rugrats"?

[Reply #25 on:]

yeah. they use tools, talk to each other, work in groups, and have parents that don't seem to pay that much attantion. But sense the Futurama universe is supposed to be taken as "real" then that explination really doesn't work for this.

[Reply #26 on:]

The pine trees are collapsable.
Trees down!

[Reply #27 on:]

What do you say when you want the trees up?
TREES UP!

[Reply #28 on:]

 

Originally posted by Nixorbo:
Bendin' In The Wind.  One long continuity error. 

Explain.

[Reply #29 on:]

 

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Nixorbo:
Bendin' In The Wind. One long continuity error.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Explain.

A robot would NEVER want to become a folk singer!

[Reply #30 on:]

In episode 2F09, when Fry plays Bender's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a [the three nerds giggle] magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

[Reply #31 on:]

 

Originally posted by Mouse On Venus:
 Explain.

Fry and the Slurm Factory: Bender has a hole drilled though his chest cavity.  He walks just fine.
Hell is Other Robots: Bender is half-melted into the ship, in the next scene he's perfectly fine.
Raging Bender: Bender gets squashed flatter than a pancake.  No problems with hydraulics afterwards.
War is the H-Word:  Bender gets exploded twice, and is able to walk afterwards.

Bender has suffered much more devastating injuries and has emerged each time none the worse for wear.  There is no reason he should have been left paralyzed, the way he sustained and the extent of the injury.

And don't even get me started on the whole "Oh crap it's a miracle" part.

 

Originally posted by VoVat:
 A robot would have to be crazy to want to be a folk singer!

FIXED.

[Reply #32 on:]

At the very least, they should be able to pop his head onto a new body (as they did with his legs in Hell is Other Robots).

[Reply #33 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ol'coot:
Jurrasic Bark: Seymour the fossil is in a natural standing position (which is strange enough) but at his last moment we see that he is lying down.

Farnsworth says that Seymore was "Fast fossilized." this implies that something sudden happened that quickly fosssilized him. it's possible that whatever was so sudden made him jump up suddenly. we don't know that those were his last moments, after all.

 

Originally posted by Nixorbo:
Hell is Other Robots: Bender is half-melted into the ship, in the next scene he's perfectly fine.

If you look carefully, there's a box in the background that is labelled something like "Robot arms and legs"
they pointed this out in the commentary.

[Reply #34 on:]

Does it have to have that much continuity? It's an animated show for chrissake, isn't it the lack of continuity (among other things) that makes it so great?

[Reply #35 on:]

 

Originally posted by Nixorbo:
Bender has suffered much more devastating injuries and has emerged each time none the worse for wear. There is no reason he should have been left paralyzed, the way he sustained and the extent of the injury.

And don't even get me started on the whole "Oh crap it's a miracle" part.

I hadn't thought about that actually. I was so used to what people had said in reviews about Bender taking an apparently sudden worship of Beck that I thought that was what you meant. But that Bender injury was indeed a bit of a weak plot device, compounded by his unexplained recovery. 

[Reply #36 on:]

That's probabaly because it's an episode written around a guest star...

[Reply #37 on:]

Yeah, the two episodes centred around guest stars weren't the strongest, plotwise, even though at least one of them had the potential to be.

[Reply #38 on:]

 

Originally posted by futuramamama:
Does it have to have that much continuity? It's an animated show for chrissake, isn't it the lack of continuity (among other things) that makes it so great?

That's the way I look at it. If they beat themselves up about absolute perfection then they would never have let the show move in all the directions that it did. Consider the space ship being on the bottom of the ocean in The Deep South or how Fry mentions he never went to school in the Cryonic Woman but he mentions his addiction to soda while in high school as an aside in Fry and the Slurm Factory. It's just supposed to be funny before it's supposed to be serious or intricately structured. I know that probably frustrates some people, but consider the twenty-two-ish minutes they had to work with for each episode. I'm amazed that they could even produce what they did.

However, I'm sure I mentioned a wrong episode or something else to completely discredit myself. Since I'm new to the Futurama universe the most times I've seen any episode is probably four times (most only once). But it's my two cents (for what it's worth).

[Reply #39 on:]

My guess would be that Fry attended high school until he reached the age when he was legally allowed to drop out, at which time his parents forced him to do so.  I could be wrong, though.

As for Bender's hydraulics, maybe it's similar to how he can't get up when flat on his back, but can when he's slightly on his side, as explained in "Crimes of the Hot."  Those other injuries didn't hit the exact portion of Bender's hydraulic system that would paralyze him.

That said, I agree that it was a rather ridiculous plot device.