Continuity train-wrecks

[Reply #80 on:]

 

Originally posted by Anzable:
 
I'd like to point out Professor Farnsworth said French poodles were extinct  as well  yet lo and behold Noah's ark  had one for sale. I'm thinking  we can chalk up the extinction stuff  to senility .

Just Poodles. Nothing French about the sentance that he said it in. The poodle-style dog on Noah's ark wasn't for sale either.

Also, I'm willing to bet that that was a rottweiler or some other butch kind of dog that had come out of the closet and was "expressing" itself.

Farnsworth 1. Anzable 0.

[Reply #81 on:]

If the building that housed the cryogenic lab was in New York in 2000, shouldn't it be in old New York in 3000? I know the building was not destroyed...but wouldn't it still be underground along with all the other buildings from 2000?

[Reply #82 on:]

I've acctully pondered this numerous times.  There are a few ways to look at it:
1.  The building survived, & they just built more floors on top of it, with the original ground floor still existing in Old New York.
2.The built a new building & just transported the cryo-lab along with the tubes to the new bilding.

Those are my ideas at least...who knows

[Reply #83 on:]

Well at least you didn't say it was wizards.

[Reply #84 on:]

no offense, but what does it all matter?
why does everything have to be right?
most of the 'mistakes' mentioned here are just jokes
they could easily be explained, but it'd be boring to put those explanations in the episodes, that's why they don't explain em 

[Reply #85 on:]

Atropine you are of course right, but this is a futurama message board and we are nerds.  Remember the episode of the Simpsons when the nerds were asking the actress who plays Xena these kinda questions?  Those nerds are the people on this message board.
Welcome to PEEL 

[Reply #86 on:]

I just thought of this one today.  In SP3K Farnsworth takes the career chips of his old crew out of an envelope that says "Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach", but in "The Sting" he mentions that his old crew died while harvesting Space Honey...& the old ship is still in the hive.

[Reply #87 on:]

Maybe the ship belonged to another crew than those who came just before Fry, Leela and Bender. Farnrworth have admitted to be sending delivery crews to their doom.

Or how about this one: This is spacebees/wasps. In other words, organisms living in space, and obviously very dangerous animals. It's possible the two species are very similar in appearance, and someone simply made a labelling mistake on the envelope. Maybe the expedition who retrieved the career chips didn't include any skilled exo-biologists, and they where too busy fighting for their lifes to take good pictures.

[Reply #88 on:]

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but some people have wondered about why Fry wakes up the afternoon of 12/31/2999 rather than at midnight.  The Gregorian calendar year is 26 seconds shorter than the mean solar year.  Over 1000 years, this adds up to just over 7 hours, so he would wake up a little before 5 pm.

[Reply #89 on:]

That's a good catch, if true (not doubting you, just can't confirm from my own knowledge). Of course, it isn't that hard to explain away. The timer on the tube could have been off by a bit, too. Frankly, I'm surprised it lasted as well as it did, considering how easy it is to set it off. That doesn't speak well for its design.

Or, as a second option, perhaps it was set ahead a few hours manually, so that they would have time to process and release the defrostee before going home for the celebrations. Leela did mention that she wanted to get it done quickly, after all.  Better to thaw a person a few hours in advance then let them wander around the facility until morning (or longer, given as it was a holiday) or, even worse, work late!

Edit: A quick thought. If you go with the second theory, the reason you don't see them set it ahead manually is because it would have been done earlier to give time for the tube to thaw him.  Just in case that came up.

[Reply #90 on:]

A nice theory, just one nit: the tube is instantaneous in it's freezing and thawing proces. Not how Fry simply freezes within a blink of an eye, and the frozen beer doesn't start to sizzle until the very moment the door swings open. So they didn't need time to thaw Fry. Other than that it's a good theory.

[Reply #91 on:]

I'm not too sure about that, as it is possible that it started to thaw Fry before the door opened, but hadn't yet reached above the freezing/melting point of the beer foam.  The sudden change of temp when the door opened caused the beer to melt as quickly as it did. Either that, or I completely forgot about the beer when formulating my theory. One or the other. 

Also, I can change my theory to say that they set the tube ahead earlier for some other reason. Perhaps they didn't want to forget, or it's standard practice to adjust timers at the beginning of the week for convenience sake, to avoid confusion.

[Reply #92 on:]

After listening to the commentary for that episode, they said themselves that they don't know why that one building survived, but it just looked funny to have the stuff going on outside the window.
I have another which is annoying me - In I, Roommate, Bender has to cut off his antenna doesn't he(That is a rhetorical question by the way!), then in The Route Of All Evil, Fry and Leela literally just take it off like a bottle top! What happened there?

[Reply #93 on:]

Script logic!

::Sticks tongue out at whomever it is that usually says that::

[Reply #94 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ranadok:
I'm not too sure about that, as it is possible that it started to thaw Fry before the door opened, but hadn't yet reached above the freezing/melting point of the beer foam.  The sudden change of temp when the door opened caused the beer to melt as quickly as it did. Either that, or I completely forgot about the beer when formulating my theory. One or the other. 

But that would require the fact that he froze instantly, that just wouldn't happen. I think it'd work more like the "Stasis Field" on Red Dwarf (Don't make me quote it all now, someone else can). By removing it from the timeline (or something like that) for 1000 years, it wouldn't seem like anything to Fry or the beer and thus the beer doesn't need to freeze or unfreeze in a weird way.

[Reply #95 on:]

 

I have another which is annoying me - In I, Roommate, Bender has to cut off his antenna doesn't he(That is a rhetorical question by the way!), then in The Route Of All Evil, Fry and Leela literally just take it off like a bottle top! What happened there?

Maybe he didn't reattach it all that tightly.

[Reply #96 on:]

 

I have another which is annoying me - In I, Roommate, Bender has to cut off his antenna doesn't he(That is a rhetorical question by the way!), then in The Route Of All Evil, Fry and Leela literally just take it off like a bottle top! What happened there?

Maybe Bender got an upgrade after "I, Roommate" allowing him to take his antenna off and put it back on when he chose to.

[Reply #97 on:]

Hey, in the beginning of I, Roomate, Bender's antenna also went down into his head (like Fry's alarm clock)...

[Reply #98 on:]

It's multi-functional, not just an expression for a robots manhood. And first and foremost it's an antenna, and does what antenna's do best. Also robots have gold-plated 24-pin connection slot for "interfacing". The antenna is probably something akin to the tail feathers of a peacock.

[Reply #99 on:]

 

Originally posted by Unknown:
I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but some people have wondered about why Fry wakes up the afternoon of 12/31/2999 rather than at midnight.  The Gregorian calendar year is 26 seconds shorter than the mean solar year.  Over 1000 years, this adds up to just over 7 hours, so he would wake up a little before 5 pm.

Maybe they lost track of time by a few hours during the alien attacks?

[Reply #100 on:]

i hell is other robots right after bender is jackhammered off the ship you see him with legs, if you pause it just then you can see a box of bending unit legs. frezzeframe joke. sorry i cant frame grab i dont have the software.     in reponse to ubermod nixorbos comment on hell is other robots.

[Reply #101 on:]

I found a small mistake:

In "Fear of a Bot Planet", after Fry is done "draining coolant", the robot identifies them as human because Leela sneezes. However, in "Fry and the Slurm Factory", Bender sneezes. If robots can sneeze, why does the robot yell when he hear's Leela sneeze?

[Reply #102 on:]

Robot sneezes sound very different from human sneezes.  They may sound alike to us, but to a robot, the difference is obvious.

[Reply #103 on:]

Did they ever get rid of that can opener after Benders "Injury"?

On the subject of Seymour, maybe he died lying down but was buried somehow in the position he was found in.
    I was going to say he was stuffed, but that would have caused even greater confusion!!

[Reply #104 on:]

They probably kept the can opener. Those Kibble 'n Snouts cans aren't gonna open themselves (although with future tech why not?).

[Reply #105 on:]

im surprised no one has mentioned the inconsistencies with zoidberg...if his species dies afer mating, then why dose he meet his uncle in "Thats Lobstertainment"...and for that matter, in "Taste of Freedom" zoidberg flashes back to memories of being lectured by his mom...shouldnt she be dead? 

[Reply #106 on:]

I can't believe I never noticed that. Huh.

[Reply #107 on:]

im surprised no one has mentioned the inconsistencies with zoidberg...if his species dies afer mating, then why dose he meet his uncle in "Thats Lobstertainment"...and for that matter, in "Taste of Freedom" zoidberg flashes back to memories of being lectured by his mom...shouldnt she be dead? 

His uncle could be a virgin. His mother... yeah fair enough - although it's possible that she's an adoptive parent as opposed to his biological mother.

[Reply #108 on:]

Indeed, with what we know of the Decapodians that's the simplest and most rational explanation, Turnip.

There's a theory on homosexuality in humans that states that having a homosexual uncle or aunt is beneficial to the race's survival, as the older relative will be a sort of "extra parent" to their nephew or niece because they typically are less likely to have offspring of their own. Why wouldn't non-reproducing Decapodians raise their closest relatives as parental figures?

Edit - Not that I'm espousing any particular view on homosexuality or couples that cannot or choose not to have children. I'm just making mention of the fact that there's a theory out there that addresses the importance of non-reproducing members of a species.

[Reply #109 on:]

if his species dies afer mating, then why dose he meet his uncle in "Thats Lobstertainment"

They never establish whether or not Harold Zoid has mated. He is indeed depicted as an old loser with no social life. Sounds like somebody who never mated to me!

in "Taste of Freedom" zoidberg flashes back to memories of being lectured by his mom...shouldnt she be dead?  

They never establish that that was his mother. It was just an older female. In fact, later in the episode, he is lectured (possibly by the same woman) and told "If you want your mother to roll over in her grave..."



Also, one of the things I appreciate about Futurama is that it is a show that doesn't take itself too seriously. Of course some things are meant to be permanent (mutants were banished to the sewers until TMAR) while other things are not (Star Trek was banned in WNFHGB but not in any other episode).

[Reply #110 on:]

if his species dies afer mating, then why dose he meet his uncle in "Thats Lobstertainment"

They never establish whether or not Harold Zoid has mated. He is indeed depicted as an old loser with no social life. Sounds like somebody who never mated to me!

One whose career ended because of the invention of smellovision.

[Reply #111 on:]

I do remember Zoidy saying specifically that his parents were the ones who pressured him to be a doctor. Could be wrong, but I'm not sure why else I'd remember it that way. This also puts Zoidy's lifelong dream of being a grandmother into some weird perspective. The Decapodians wouldn't really have the concept of "grandparents" since their grandparents would be long dead upon their birth.

But yeah, I'm not too perturbed by it. Futurama can subscribe to cartoon logic every now and then.

[Reply #112 on:]

You make some very compelling points, spira.

if his species dies afer mating, then why dose he meet his uncle in "Thats Lobstertainment"

They never establish whether or not Harold Zoid has mated. He is indeed depicted as an old loser with no social life. Sounds like somebody who never mated to me!

One whose career ended because of the invention of smellovision.

Oh, whatever, you... with your precious logic and your plot points and whatnot. What of it, I say!

[Reply #113 on:]

I do remember Zoidy saying specifically that his parents were the ones who pressured him to be a doctor. Could be wrong, but I'm not sure why else I'd remember it that way. This also puts Zoidy's lifelong dream of being a grandmother into some weird perspective. The Decapodians wouldn't really have the concept of "grandparents" since their grandparents would be long dead upon their birth.

It would be completely natural for Decapodians to consider the folks who raise them to be their parents, as the biological parents always die in their species and the young are therefore always raised by someone else.

Even among humans, adopted people (especially those adopted at a very young age) often refer to their caretakers as their parents. We describe the original parents as "biological parents", differentiating between those who spawn us and those who raise us. And we're not even a species where the biological parents are dead when the offspring are born!

Also, regarding the idea of grandparents, Zoidberg has certainly been around humans long enough that he has a idea of what grandparents are. The Tip of the Zoidberg shows that he's been interacting with humans for several decades. We don't even need the "those who raise you are considered your parents" argument for this one.

[Reply #114 on:]

Or are the young raised by someone else? Actual lobsters don't care for their young. I don't know how many Decapodian babies spring from one mating, but they could be the sort of species of which many eggs are laid and only very few survive to adulthood.

Your point about grandparents is certainly valid, though.

[Reply #115 on:]

I don't know how many Decapodian babies spring from one mating, but they could be the sort of species of which many eggs are laid and only very few survive to adulthood.

This sounds extremely likely to me. The majority of non-mammalian aquatic life seems to do this - reproduce extremely prolifically because one in a thousand is bound to reach adulthood.

[Reply #116 on:]

All of the time travel in "All the Presidents' Heads" really gets on my nerves. When the show has dealt with Time Travel with such integrity in all of the previous time travel episodes (although BBS was slightly off with some of the continuity, it seemed mostly alright, and the other time travel episodes (RTEW,TWoF,TLPJF) were superb.

To pay next to no attention to the continuity or scientific reasoning in this episode, in addition to some fairly dodgy characterisation and over the top parody in the British segment, makes me wish this episode had never happened. Also, the "Susan the Boil" part of attack of the killer app is very dodgy, and I don't like that episode because of that.

I kind of like to imagine that these things aren't really canon, although I know they are.

[Reply #117 on:]

It did kind of bother me how loosely they handled the time travel as well. It also bothered me that nobody seemed to care that a purple-haired cyclops and a robot were walking around in colonial times. They played off Bender as being seen as different instruments (crockpot, etc.), but it wasn't very believable.

The over the top British thing was actually quite entertaining to me, though. One of my favorite parts of the episode.

I wish they had shown more of the party with the presidents, though. I'm sure those ivy league graduates and doctors in the writer's room could have come up with plenty of great jokes about the many former American presidents in the room. I'm still patiently waiting for them to make fun of G.W. Bush.

[Reply #118 on:]

What about the "puking in the Bushes" joke? That for sure made fun of him...

[Reply #119 on:]

Yeah, to revise that, some of the over the top British stuff was brilliant. Doctor Who jumping from the flying London Bus into his TARDIS was great, along with the "Manhattan United" thing. I also enjoyed the incredibly over the top accents as they were clearly meant to be in jest.

The Queen thing was taking it a bit too far for me though, and the fact that they arrived at the exact point in time that they wanted to was awful, and something that I'd expect Futurama to deal with more integrity. In addition, the premise was flimsy enough to start with, and it seems strange that no-one had noticed these "head trips" before.