The Big Picture: Worlds Within Worlds

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Some people have way too much time on their hands. When you ACTUALLY think about all this, it's pure bullshit.

 

[MattValtezzy95]

Ow Brain hurtey!!!

 

[Sovereignty]

Hmm, though this doesn't fit with the countless posts of people saying, "My mind was blown!"

My question is to the topic at hand.

Isn't the chief difference in what you're talking about the fact that Comics have separate continuities? The events of Final Crisis didn't spill into the Marvel-verse, and the whole Civil war thing didn't touch DC's Multi-verse...

So isn't this being blown a bit out of proportion? Comic continuity would be more akin to a something like FOX having a shared TV universe.

Not every TV show ever being in a shared universe. Though I guess it's all in fun or something like that @_@

 

[Guffe]

That was one of the fastest five minutes for a BigPicture episode... Time just flew by trying to hang along and not get too confused.

 

[Aldain]

Actually one character that has a crossover in this show. Doesn't mean the entire show is in that persons head. The person could just have seen / heard about this character and put it in his fantasy. The only thing that would change it is when the crossover is mentioned within the other show.

Example:

Person X has show A in his fantasy.
X sees show B on tv.
X puts character C in show A.
This doesn't imply that show B in is X's fantasy.

(Implication vs Equivalence in logic)

 

[The Great JT]

That to me you have done.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

There is a flaw in the entire theory though. What if Tommy was incorporating stuff into St. Elsewhere from people and places that really existed in his world, not just his imagined world.

Hmmmmmmm, that's a point too. What if all the shows that St. Elsewhere ever did crossovers with were also TV shows in Tommy's world and thus Tommy watched them and incorporated them into the world of St. Elsewhere. Suddenly Tommy's imaginary world shrinks back down to just being St. Elsewhere.

Haven't I just mentioned that?

Oh you're right. Sorry didn't notice your post before. But yeah, if you discount jokes, references, spoofs (like the Simpsons), and the like then the Westphall universe becomes substantially smaller. In any case, I don't think it deserves this much thought. I'm fairly certain the creators of these shows never intended them all to be so interconnected. Any references and such were probably just put there as shout outs to colleagues that they respected and admired. Either that or the creators/producers of the shows that had did the reference were probably fans of the show they were referencing themselves so they threw in the reference as a shout out to what inspired them.

 

[Draconalis]

You know what? I take it back, of course everything is interconnected. Because we have a limited range of writers and talent that all work with each other over the course of time.

I propose a new theory, I'll call it the "All TV is in actuality fake" theory.

 

[kickyourass]

Part of my brain is currently leaking out the back of my head, thank you Bob I really needed that. I mean Jesus, I knew some people had alot of time on their hands but this is ridiculous.

 

[Dr Jones]

There is only one logical conclusion, Westfall is God.

This raises even further questions! :O

 

[DioWallachia]

Isnt this something that i talked about before in another post? the world withing a world? EVERYTHING is the imagination of a SINGLE person/author? the only difference is that i wanted a hypothetical scenario on how would the fictional people would react to this information if they were real

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.380915-The-voices-of-the-discusion-that-we-never-heard-regarding-Artistic-Integrity?page=1

 

[Darkmantle]

I really hope this isn't being taken seriously. I'm pretty sure this "theory" was meant to be a parody, and honestly it fails to function under even basic cross examination...

please guys, just take it for the joke that it is.

I mean seriously, just because two people are played by the same actor, doesn't mean they are the same character. And that's just off the top of my head.

 

[BaseKing95]

That would also mean south park does not exist since Bart Simpson did a cameo on the show, along with Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show and Futurama

 

[SilverHammerMan]

I'd heard of this before (smugly waits for his nerd cred to go up) but I\d never realized how deep it went. That's actually pretty mind blowing.
I strongly support the notion of a Crisis on Infinite TV Shows.

 

[Vault Citizen]

Isnt this something that i talked about before in another post? the world withing a world? EVERYTHING is the imagination of a SINGLE person/author? the only difference is that i wanted a hypothetical scenario on how would the fictional people would react to this information if they were real

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.380915-The-voices-of-the-discusion-that-we-never-heard-regarding-Artistic-Integrity?page=

There is only one logical conclusion, Westfall is God.

This raises even further questions! :O

And I bet the answer to those questions is "Westfall works in mysterious ways"

 

[Twilight_guy]

Meh. Its an interesting little poke at continuity buffs but its taken to a silly extent. If you count references as crossovers then it immediately becomes a stupid experiment because the real world is referenced in TV shows all the time, meaning that literally everything, since the real world produces everything that is real, is part of this continuity which in turn is part of the real world since it exists in a TV show in the real world which is part of the continuity and so on. Its a paradox. The set of all sets belongs to itself and also doesn't belong to itself.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Holy shit
the funny thing is I once made a similar chart connecting Video games, Movie, TV, Literature, Comics and several other universe.
It got so massive that it took over ten sheets of printer paper to map it out.

Everything is connected and everything is cannon

I think that's Grant Morrison's philosophy to writing comic books, and maybe Geoff John's.

So... what about that Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where they insinuated that maybe the entire show was took place inside the head of a girl locked inside a mental institution? That's some Inception sh*t right there ^^

Oh yeah. That was a helluva twist. Maybe Whedon was referencing the Westphall ending?
And yeah, I need some time to process all this. I'll be back.

 

[Vausch]

Now we just need an Infinite Crisis for EVERYTHING.

Surely we'd need to start with Crisis on Infinite Shows. At the very least it'd give TV networks an excuse to do nothing but reboots of old shows. Then we can watch people argue over the internet as to whether or not the pre-crisis Alf was superior to the ludicrous post-crisis retcon, or is the new Fresh Prince's origin story really that fresh?

But don't we need a Zero Hour before Infinite Crisis then a Final Crisis where Walker: Texas Ranger dies followed by a Flashpoint where it turns out the Flash from his 90s TV show goes back and breaks the snowglobe by accident thus releasing all of the kid's memories into reality as their own universes are born?

*twitches*

 

[Vausch]

Holy shit
the funny thing is I once made a similar chart connecting Video games, Movie, TV, Literature, Comics and several other universe.
It got so massive that it took over ten sheets of printer paper to map it out.

Everything is connected and everything is cannon

I think that's Grant Morrison's philosophy to writing comic books, and maybe Geoff John's.

Morrison's maybe. Geoff Johns' philosophy is "I'mma take that plot hole or discontinuity and make it into the most epic story ever to explain it!"

 

[siddif]

One major flaw, I could imagine my own world and have it interact with other real franchises but most would call it fan fiction and not cannon?