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2019 gave us three big loud finales of tentpole franchises--or "finales," considering how none of these IPs will ever be allowed to die--which, for a not-insignificant portion of their intended audience, fell flat. All this despite each of these finales trumpeting how thoroughly they were devoted to tying up loose ends, bringing back beloved characters, and honoring the continuity of their respective IPs.
As a writing term, "continuity" describes a state wherein the events of a story progress in a consistent way (i.e. if, during a scene, a character starts smoking a cigarette, then that cigarette should be accounted for throughout the scene in order for it to have continuity). In the context of comic books, television, and other long-running serialized media, it also describes acknowledgment of previous events in the series (i.e. a Marvel comic from the 90s referencing the events of another Marvel comic from the 70s).
There are a lot of people out there who are convinced that devotion to continuity is the reason so many long-running series have been successful. And while audiences sure like to look clever when they notice the last episode of a show has referenced something that happened in the first episode of the show, I'd argue what they really respond to--what makes great finales--is emotional continuity.
To fully explain this, let's use as an example one of my favorite serialized science fiction stories, an iconic and venerable series with true pop culture staying power: Transmetropolitan.
(What, you thought I was going to talk about Star Wars? Fuck off.)
Transmetropolitan is a comic book written by Warren Ellis, published by DC comics' Vertigo imprint from 1997 to 2002 and later collected into 10 volumes. It centers around Spider Jerusalem, a journalist living in a future where advances in technology have affected nearly every aspect of the culture, but all that culture's problems are the same as ours.
Anyone who fancies themselves a scholar of comics will tell you that Transmetropolitan's big main theme is transhumanism. I, having no pretensions of being a scholar of any kind, would argue that Transmetropolitan's big main theme is connection. This is expressed through a variety of the comic's characters, but the one I'd like to talk about is Mary.
Mary is a photojournalist from the 20th century. At the end of her life, she had her brain cryogenically frozen so that, once the technology existed, she could be resurrected. And she was. However, like most revivals, Mary's psyche could not withstand the culture shock of Transmetropolitan's future world. She was reduced to a catatonic state, left to wander the streets alone by day, and stashed in an overcrowded hostel at night.
The people of the future don't hate revivals. They just dismiss them entirely. They don't have the time or energy to care about shellshocked refugees of the past; they've got their own problems to worry about. The only person who sees Mary and connects with her is Spider Jerusalem. He recognizes her as a kindred spirit, a fellow journalist. He writes a sympathetic column about her, foots the bill to get her into an apartment of her own, and--most importantly--gives her a camera so she can be a photographer again.
During Transmetropolitan's finale, all of Spider's connections--his assistants, his friends, and his contacts--come together to help bring down a corrupt president of the United States. This involves proving that the president had his beloved political director, Vita Severn, assassinated for sympathy points during the election. Mary is a key player here; she provides photographic evidence that the president's men had met with the assassin.
There's just one problem: in Transmetropolitan's timeline, Spider gave Mary her camera after the death of Vita Severn. She could not possibly have used it to take pictures of the men plotting Vita's assassination.
Warren Ellis has reportedly admitted that this was an oopsie on his part, a result of having written the story month-by-month over 5 years and not remembering things quite right by the time he got to the finale. The thing is, despite the presence of what obnoxious faux-intellectuals on YouTube would smugly refer to as a "gaping plot hole," Transmetropolitan manages to stick the landing anyway.
Why? Because the emotional through-line is still consistent and satisfying. Spider saw Mary when nobody else did, connected with her when nobody else bothered to. And because of that connection, she had the power to help him when he needed it most, to save this strange new future of hers from the same kind of malevolent dictatorship she had seen overthrown again and again throughout her first lifetime.
That's the power of emotional continuity. That's the kind of culmination you need for a satisfying finale. If you try to tie up all your story's loose ends without acknowledging and crafting its emotional through-line, your finale will fall on its face.
Do the work. Your audience deserves it.
As a writing term, "continuity" describes a state wherein the events of a story progress in a consistent way (i.e. if, during a scene, a character starts smoking a cigarette, then that cigarette should be accounted for throughout the scene in order for it to have continuity). In the context of comic books, television, and other long-running serialized media, it also describes acknowledgment of previous events in the series (i.e. a Marvel comic from the 90s referencing the events of another Marvel comic from the 70s).
There are a lot of people out there who are convinced that devotion to continuity is the reason so many long-running series have been successful. And while audiences sure like to look clever when they notice the last episode of a show has referenced something that happened in the first episode of the show, I'd argue what they really respond to--what makes great finales--is emotional continuity.
To fully explain this, let's use as an example one of my favorite serialized science fiction stories, an iconic and venerable series with true pop culture staying power: Transmetropolitan.
(What, you thought I was going to talk about Star Wars? Fuck off.)
Transmetropolitan is a comic book written by Warren Ellis, published by DC comics' Vertigo imprint from 1997 to 2002 and later collected into 10 volumes. It centers around Spider Jerusalem, a journalist living in a future where advances in technology have affected nearly every aspect of the culture, but all that culture's problems are the same as ours.
Anyone who fancies themselves a scholar of comics will tell you that Transmetropolitan's big main theme is transhumanism. I, having no pretensions of being a scholar of any kind, would argue that Transmetropolitan's big main theme is connection. This is expressed through a variety of the comic's characters, but the one I'd like to talk about is Mary.
Mary is a photojournalist from the 20th century. At the end of her life, she had her brain cryogenically frozen so that, once the technology existed, she could be resurrected. And she was. However, like most revivals, Mary's psyche could not withstand the culture shock of Transmetropolitan's future world. She was reduced to a catatonic state, left to wander the streets alone by day, and stashed in an overcrowded hostel at night.
The people of the future don't hate revivals. They just dismiss them entirely. They don't have the time or energy to care about shellshocked refugees of the past; they've got their own problems to worry about. The only person who sees Mary and connects with her is Spider Jerusalem. He recognizes her as a kindred spirit, a fellow journalist. He writes a sympathetic column about her, foots the bill to get her into an apartment of her own, and--most importantly--gives her a camera so she can be a photographer again.
During Transmetropolitan's finale, all of Spider's connections--his assistants, his friends, and his contacts--come together to help bring down a corrupt president of the United States. This involves proving that the president had his beloved political director, Vita Severn, assassinated for sympathy points during the election. Mary is a key player here; she provides photographic evidence that the president's men had met with the assassin.
There's just one problem: in Transmetropolitan's timeline, Spider gave Mary her camera after the death of Vita Severn. She could not possibly have used it to take pictures of the men plotting Vita's assassination.
Warren Ellis has reportedly admitted that this was an oopsie on his part, a result of having written the story month-by-month over 5 years and not remembering things quite right by the time he got to the finale. The thing is, despite the presence of what obnoxious faux-intellectuals on YouTube would smugly refer to as a "gaping plot hole," Transmetropolitan manages to stick the landing anyway.
Why? Because the emotional through-line is still consistent and satisfying. Spider saw Mary when nobody else did, connected with her when nobody else bothered to. And because of that connection, she had the power to help him when he needed it most, to save this strange new future of hers from the same kind of malevolent dictatorship she had seen overthrown again and again throughout her first lifetime.
That's the power of emotional continuity. That's the kind of culmination you need for a satisfying finale. If you try to tie up all your story's loose ends without acknowledging and crafting its emotional through-line, your finale will fall on its face.
Do the work. Your audience deserves it.
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Date: 2020-01-08 09:58 pm (UTC)Also, on to topic of emotional continuity, though not nearly on the same level as Transmet, part of the reason so many people were bummed about the end of How I Met Your Mother is that it didn't seem true in many ways emotionally to the characters. Yet the end of You're The Worst was very true to the characters.
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Date: 2020-01-09 12:01 am (UTC)Plus, lesbians.
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Date: 2020-01-09 12:38 am (UTC)And so much pretty!