It’s a legendary moment in comics history: The original Contest Of Champions pitted heroes working for the elder of the universe known as The Grandmaster versus heroes work for Death incarnate, with the fate of the universe in the balance. And in the final moments, victory is assured thanks to… a hero from the wrong team? It’s a continuity error of legendary proportion, one that I cannot believe got through multiple levels of editing to the final product, leading to today’s mistaken query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is still bugged by the different back stories about Marshall Eriksen’s ability and/or inability to fight, asking: What’s the most unforgivable continuity error in pop-culture history?
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The one that bothers me the most is also, ironically, from How I Met Your Mother. Can Barney drive? There is an episode with Ted trying to teach him to drive, followed a couple of episodes later with him stealing Ted’s van, and then later trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket. I know it is just a sitcom, but they seem to try so hard to avoid the glaring inconsistencies that plagued shows like Friends, and then to have this huge glaring flaw just takes me out of the moment every time I see it.
Yeah, that one is difficult. Thankfully, the narrative introduced the amazing fact that Future Ted is an unreliable narrator (as seen with his “sandwich” retcon, the Blah Blah incident and his birthday goat), so I chalk up all those changes to Bob Saget remembering things wrong.
It’s a great theory…
Midi-Chlorians. Yes, they are an error which should’ve never happened and it doesn’t fit to an explanation Ben gave in the first film, nor how Tarkin and other imperials react to Vader.
I’m a little less disappointed by Midi-Chlorians with the pseudo-retcon that they are something attracted to Force users rather than something that plays a role in the ability to wield The Force, but I’d be even happier if they just wiped it out of canon completely. I don’t know about anyone else, but part of the appeal of Force users to me is the mystery of The Force, and having it explained by pseudo-science kinda ruins some of that mystery. As much as I do enjoy trying to make something rational in some cases, there are just some things that work better with suspension of disbelief.