What does a long-running story owe the people who remember it? Each week answers with one continuity technique, from the retcon to the soft reboot, taught from the MCU, the CW Arrowverse and LEGO Ninjago. No prior study required.
What you will do
Each week you take one continuity technique apart, from the retcon to the soft reboot, using a specific film or episode as the case. Along the way you audit a failure in a franchise you know, write the repair for one it never fixed, and brief your seminar on a decision a studio made and the option it passed over.
You leave with a continuity bible for a small universe of your own, tested by handing it to a stranger and fixing everything they got wrong.
Who it is for
First-year students from any degree. You need no prior study of film or television, and no loyalty to any of the three franchises. You do need to watch them: each seminar lists its set viewing under what to bring, and most weeks ask for one to four hours.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Diagnose a continuity failure in a shared universe: locate it, classify it, and trace the production decision that caused it.
- Evaluate a franchise's continuity strategy against the alternatives it passed over.
- Design a repair (retcon, reboot, multiverse or recast) and argue what it costs.
- Build a continuity bible that lets a stranger write into an original universe without contradicting it.