The Confusion of Transmedia Storytelling

This is more of a discussion orientated video exploring some of the strengths and weaknesses of big franchises and their universes expanding their content across multiple means like books, games, comics and tv.
I'll be looking in particular at Doctor Who, Star Trek, Mass Effect and Star Wars and how they approach this.

Star Trek Online developed by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World.
Star Trek, Star Trek Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine/Discovery/Picard and The Next Generation are all owned and distributed by CBS.
Mass Effect is produced by BioWare and published by EA, Microsoft Game Studios.
Doctor Who, BBC logo, and all assets are property of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Star Wars Rebels/Clone Wars produced by Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm Animation, distributed by Disney and ABC Domestic.
Star Wars, Rebels, Clone Wars and other affiliated works including soundtrack and logos are created and owned by Lucasfilm and Distributed by Disney.
This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

[riakm]

I personally believe the holy grail of a transmedia story, is one that manages to entirely maintain consistency. While unfortunately this usually proves to be to lofty a goal, it should nonetheless be striven for. For any fictional endeavor, internal consistency is the greatest single pillar supporting the vault that is verisimilitude!

[SnazBrigade]

the most egregious example to me personally was actually in Halo 5. It was small, but it felt much worse.
Master Chief, the main character, who we have followed basically on his own for 4 games, is given a team, on that team, are 3 people from the books. Outside of the books, we are given no explanation of who they are and where their previous relationship to the Chief is, but we are somehow supposed to understand that they are old friends and, to an extant, equals. This is especially jarring due to the fact that, up until Halo 5, the general consensus of the games seemed to be that MC was the LAST Spartan 2, to the point that Halo 2's soundtrack had a song called 'The Last Spartan'.
If you read the books, however, this would've been a lot easier to swallow, as the characters are ALL featured prominently, and you get a more in depth look at their relationships.
I have no problem with Transmedia works, in fact, I endorse them greatly. I think expanding the works of a universe through means beyond one medium is generally a good thing, but I feel like there's a difference between expanding a series like that, and requiring all of the viewers to also intake every part of it.

[d.b.]

Fans, 1990: Wait, that doesn't fit with the existing canon.
Studio, 1990: Canon is a fan construct, we don't care.

Studio, 2020: We own the IP, so this is canon now.
Fans, 2020: Canon is a fan construct, we can choose not to care.

[blackphoenix]

I don't like how Doctor Who's expanded media rarely impacts the television series, and I REALLY hate when the TV series contradicts something really good in the comics/books.

[KarSevak]

Misspelled “Transmedia” missing the r.

[Robin_Glader]

I think the Star Wars approach is a good idea. There are times it has worked out great like with Saw Gerrerra apparing is pretty much every medium. Mauls apparence in Solo is a bit iffy, I defenetly see the citicims but for me who's in the know I loved that. There are times they've broken their own rules though. They said everything released after 2014 would be canon but Rey and Poe meet for the first time in the TFA novelization and then again in TLJ.

[csehszlovakze]

And then there's The Expanse, where the book series and the TV series are both canon, *but not the same canon.* One of the writers said that both forms are different tellings of the same base story.


I personally prefer Trek's approach, though, especially considering all the stupid Borg origin stories that popped up over the decades, while Alpha Canon still won't define it cause it's best left a mystery.

[redshirt]

Personally I prefer the Trek approach overall. Easy to understand continuity, clear critical path to keep new viewers from being overwhelmed, and truly important elements are very unlikely to be left out. Plus, there's nothing wrong with dipping into your own EU for elements/inspiration, it's no different than being inspired by another work and wanting to integrate elements of it into your own work and see if you can improve upon them. Expanded Universes as testing grounds just make sense to me, figure out what works somewhere that can't do a lot of damage and just ignore what failed epically.

And it's not like them not being canon diminishes my enjoyment of them, a well written story is a well written story no matter it's canonicity. It's like reading licensed fan-fiction but with generally better storytelling and writing technique.

[KingOfMadCows]

Just do what comics do, establish an "Elseworld" or "What If" line. It's super easy for Star Trek, which has already established infinite parallel universes and timelines. Heck, the Abrams movies already take place in an alternate timeline.

[ArchOfWinter]

Halo (after 343 took over) is an example of how NOT to do a transmedia initiative.
My stance is any individual story line and elements in them should stand on its own and must be contained in the same medium.
If I have to read a book to understand what happens in a game, then it failed. If I watch a movie and certain element was explained without intrusion, but it peaked my interest in a different story in a comic book, then it succeeded.

[JeghedderThomas]

I just love a good romp - especially the lose approach of Doctor Who - love it.

[froklsnt]

Gonna be a Thrawn stand here. Read the old books, they are AMAZING.

[SchneeflockeMonsoon]

Sometimes, there’s value in stories that don’t exist anymore, and from different context. For example:

The old Thrawn books show him doing amazing things, actually commanding fleets and controlling a whole war from the background. However, we’re mostly left in the dark as to how he does these things, what and who he truly is, and spend the majority of our time with the OT heroes and have Thrawn built into this legendary figure he can’t possibly live up to, and yet sometimes still does anyways.

Meanwhile, the canon books show his philosophy, long-term planning, and the how of his work. However, they don’t show him doing things as awesome as he should. Being bound by the Rebels show, we have his long-awaited rise through the empire in Thrawn (excellent), followed by two books of “what Thrawn did that one time he was gone for the weekend and wasn’t in Rebels” (less excellent).

[SamaritanPrime]

I think that DC Comics managed to get around this issue of primary mediums and continuity and precedence by just spamming the alternate universe button. Yes, it's main series of comics takes place on one Earth, and all that is canon, but there's also an Earth next door where things are slightly different.

The Elseworlds stories are part of this idea, and something like it can be applied to other mediums.

Star Wars may have already done this with the Legends content. It's not in strict continuity with the films, but they're still there, and there's still some good stuff to pull from them, like Thrawn and the capital world of the Republic and the Empire being called Coruscant, apparently. Were Lucasfilm to start putting Star Wars: Legends content onscreen, then things might be smoothed over among diehard pre-Disney fans. (FYI: I'm reading the Heir to the Empire right now. Good stuff.)

Star Trek could do the same with its many, many books. Just add a "Memory Alpha" or "Memory Beta" label to each book, and voila! You have cleaned up your continuity.

[avalentova]

IMO Star Trek Online story line is far far better then what we've got in Picard, but then again I have been playing the game for 7 years and have been part of it's developing story as player, which gave me much more than just staring at the TV.

[Anarchristk]

I look to the Dragonball franchise. In particular, the movies predating Battle of the Gods. All of these films gave us fun romps which explored the characters, but included deliberate continuity problems to let us know they were just fun romps. This particular franchise has always been peculiar in that the manga and the anime each have their own unique stories, and it is left to the reader/viewer to determine their own personal canon.

[vladimirtepis]

Its is the biggest problem of the Storytelling of the World of Warcraft, not only because our nameless hero on the canon don't even exist, but with the fact that good chunk of important narrative is on the comic or the books. So like every expansion or even patch we are like: WTF?

[DStrormer]

Personally, I feel like Trek has 4 cannons.
Alpha: offical cannon
Beta: soft cannon (not directly contradicted by alpha)
Beta 2: expansion material contradicted at this point by alpha
Fannon: the fans opinions, wildly diverse and often pointing their cannon at our own ship!

[TheInternetHelpdeskPlays]

Let's not forget one major plot point for Rise of Skywalker was only accessible in Fortnite. I have many years of star wars knowledge but never played fortnite.

[yuzzem]

It's actually every story published since Disney bought starwars that is canon with very few exceptions namely anything "Lego" as someone who feels the expanded whole of these franchises is the best part of them I prefer continuity to be as inclusive as possible just remember to explain anything someone needs to know beforehand within the story you are telling (for example you didn't need to see the prequels before the original trilogy but both are still canon and it isn't confusing because everything you need to know in explained within the story) and that anything contradictory is an alternate universe (as trek has referenced a few times such as with the online version of agent Dulmer experiencing memories from both the "destiny" and "Kelvin" timelines) and how Marvel DC and Rick and Morty have it so literally every story told is canon "from a certain point of view" just in another universe