This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Seth: Image Hotlinked
YYZ: Is it worth pointing out that one of the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 wrote about a third of this show's entire output?
Ununnilium: Sure. Which one was it?
YYZ: I believe it was Frank Conniff, a/k/a "TV's Frank" - he also did some writing and acting work on a few other shows MST alumni have been attached to (AFV, which still has Josh Weinstein and Trace Beaulieu as head writers; Sabrina The Teenage Witch, which featured Joel Hodgson as live-SPFX consultant).
Ununnilium: Ahhhhhh, yes. Much awesome.
Skazka; Forgive my ignorance, but... Dib's 13?
Arborean: I think he's about 10 actually.
Tyoria: Per the DVD commentary he's in 5th grade, so give him a birthday early on in the school year (say, September) and he should be 11, which was the approximate age Jhonen mentioned in an interview waaaay back when.
Arborean: Am I the only one who gets the sense that this show effectively has an Unreliable Narrator, but sans the actual Narrator? Continuity is a garbled mess full of Snap Back and Lampshade Hanging most of the time, but occasionally there's this little tidbit that wouldn't crop up if they were just actively ignoring making sense. Plus, things like Mc Meaties, Poop Cola, Vortians, the Invaders (specifically, Sgoodge, Tenn and Larb) and a lot of the planet names are re-used, and background alien designs are recycled just frequently enough to give the impression of a consistent universe, but not enough for it to feel (or be) cheap.
Wack'd: Could you give some examples? The early episodes don't have enough continuity for them to really conflict with each other, and the later ones were pretty consistent...
Ethereal Mutation: Zim accidentally replaces his brain with a rubber piggy, both Zim and Dib turn into bologna, Zim steals the organs of everybody at school while apparently turning Dib into a media target. The city gets destroyed at least four times I can immediately recall (one by giant water balloon, one by giant hamster, one by the slow speed explosion, and one by having the Earth's core drained). Skoodge gets shot out of a cannon during an orbital bombardment to destroy all life on a planet and shows up alive in a later episode (which also ended with Zim locked in a starship about to collide with the sun). Earth itself was dragged far away from its solar system and even ended with a large crater caused by a collision with its moon in one episode, but a later episode involves Mercury and Mars. The list goes on and on...
Stickmeister0: Alright, seriously guys, why didn't we have Black Comedy here at first? I went pro and added it, but I thought that'd be the first thing added. Huh.
Tyoria: Okay, so. Regarding this:
- The Bad Guy Wins: The series was supposed to end with Zim being promoted to a Tallest and Dib trapped on Saturn, but Nick pulled the plug before it could happen.
Now I'm not as fanatic as some, but I was paying a fair amount of attention for the entire run and its bloody aftermath, and I have never ever ever heard this before, and I cannot find a single shred of verification for it. My understanding is that the original idea was to do a big season finale on planet Meekrob — Invader Tenn is captured by the inhabitants, the Irken Empire launches a rescue mission, The Resisty assists the natives and Zim and Dib naturally get involved because that's what they do. It was to then conclude with Dib joining the Resisty and becoming the Ambassador to Earth. This didn't happen because the show got canned before they'd even written scripts that far ahead. But the budget hadn't yet been exhausted when they learned the show was getting the axe, so they had the option of animating one or two episodes of a handful that were already half-completed. It was suggested that the "Ten Minutes to Doom" episode could be written as a true series finale, by simply letting Zim's time run out. He dies; Dib is the victor by default. They would have had to change the script a little, (the voice work was done already, and Zim doesn't die in that version), but it's plausible. They opted to go out with the Christmas episode instead.
I wouldn't be making a big deal about it except that I'd feel rude just zapping it without saying anything, but also because if it turned out to be true that'd be something people would be interested in knowing about. But I feel confident in saying it's wrong, so.... yeah.
Some New Guy: I actually do have proof that that's what happens. Behold Invader Dib
, the planned series finale. (though on looking, I was wrong about Dib being stuck on Saturn. :/)
Tyoria: I appreciate it that you looked it up, but that's a fan wiki with no supporting citations, which means it's no less dubious than the entry I was commenting on in the first place. It's actually a pretty good example of how the internet manages to transform "rumor" into "fact" — you're repeating what you read, assuming that it's true and that the person who wrote it did their homework and verified it. But they got their information doing the exact same thing. Who verified that person's information? You go back and back until you find the origin of the article is actually someone's fanfiction, and somewhere along that chain it was mistranscribed as series canon. Listen. I don't know to say this without sounding arrogant, but I know what I'm talking about here and when I say I'm 99.5% confident that this is wrong, it's not lightly done. Yeah, I don't know everything, and there are fans who know more than me, but I've been fairly heavily invested in Zim from the beginning and I don't buy into rumors that I haven't been personally able to verify through some credible source. I don't have any motive to lie to you here, and I'm telling you this info is bogus.
Some New Guy: Very good point. Guess this'll teach me to add examples based on unverified evidence. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Tyoria: Whoa, no need to be so humble. It wasn't my intention to take your head off, I just wanted to clear something up. If anything I was glad for the opportunity.
