Peripart
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2005
- Messages
- 6,767
Firstly, a small apology. I've had a quick scan through the forums to see whether we had a thread on this, but either we don't have, or the search function still doesn't like me very much.
I'm intrigued by the idea of shared fictional universes - not necessarily the big obvious ones, but where characters from one book/film/TV series show pop up in another. It's been shown by people with far too much time on their hands that, if taken to its extremes, this idea causes a huge chunk of popular fiction to exist in the same "world". After all, if character A shows up in movies X and Y, and character B appears in Y and Z, there's a good case for saying that fictional worlds X, Y and Z are all essentially the same.
Indeed, some have gone further than this, invoking the "Tommy Westphall Universe", whereby one minor character in St Elsewhere can be conceived of having dreamt up a whole slew of popular TV shows and films. I think this is taking things a bit far (almost making these shows fiction squared), but I can't entirely let go of this theory!
As I say, some of the shared fictional universes are big and obvious - MCU films obviously all inhabit the same fictional "reality" (the "U" in MCU is the giveaway!), Doctor Who and Torchwood also have a fairly straightforward connection, as do X-Files and Millennium.
I'm interested in the more tenuous or left-field connections between shows - was Patrick McGoohan's character in The Prisoner the same one which he played in Danger Man, for instance? Could Gene Hackman be playing the same character in Enemy of the State that he did in The Conversation? I like to think that he could be.
There are far sillier examples, too. A few of us will remember with fondness the obscure British sitcom Chelmsford 123, but how many recall this scene:
Likewise, Clifton James is probably best known to film fans as the rather annoying Sheriff who pops up in Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun. However, he also turns up in Superman 2 as an unnamed, but uncannily similar, Sheriff. Could James Bond be part of the DC Extended Universe?!
I'd love to hear your other examples, the weirder, the better, although I expect really silly ones to be well-argued!
I'm intrigued by the idea of shared fictional universes - not necessarily the big obvious ones, but where characters from one book/film/TV series show pop up in another. It's been shown by people with far too much time on their hands that, if taken to its extremes, this idea causes a huge chunk of popular fiction to exist in the same "world". After all, if character A shows up in movies X and Y, and character B appears in Y and Z, there's a good case for saying that fictional worlds X, Y and Z are all essentially the same.
Indeed, some have gone further than this, invoking the "Tommy Westphall Universe", whereby one minor character in St Elsewhere can be conceived of having dreamt up a whole slew of popular TV shows and films. I think this is taking things a bit far (almost making these shows fiction squared), but I can't entirely let go of this theory!
As I say, some of the shared fictional universes are big and obvious - MCU films obviously all inhabit the same fictional "reality" (the "U" in MCU is the giveaway!), Doctor Who and Torchwood also have a fairly straightforward connection, as do X-Files and Millennium.
I'm interested in the more tenuous or left-field connections between shows - was Patrick McGoohan's character in The Prisoner the same one which he played in Danger Man, for instance? Could Gene Hackman be playing the same character in Enemy of the State that he did in The Conversation? I like to think that he could be.
There are far sillier examples, too. A few of us will remember with fondness the obscure British sitcom Chelmsford 123, but how many recall this scene:
Likewise, Clifton James is probably best known to film fans as the rather annoying Sheriff who pops up in Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun. However, he also turns up in Superman 2 as an unnamed, but uncannily similar, Sheriff. Could James Bond be part of the DC Extended Universe?!
I'd love to hear your other examples, the weirder, the better, although I expect really silly ones to be well-argued!
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