For a work or prop InUniverse in a work to count as Retraux, what would qualify to distinguish it from StylisticSuck?

I was considering improving the Retraux page, but would these examples be Retraux or Stylistic Suck and how to avoid confusing them?:

• A drama on The Great Recession is set in 2008, made in 2016, but is filmed to look as if it were made in the Turn of the Millennium.

• A Spin-Off of Dragon Ball Z focusing on Mr. Satan's backstory is designed to look as if it were 1980s animation, yet it's produced in 2017, right down to the Off-Model animation of 1980s studios.

• A series, City Cops (a Documentary about cops on patrol, is made in December 2018 and set in 2018, but feels like it was produced in August 1997 and uses period-relevant effects, and avoids using footage from outside the era. In-Universe, all footage of cops in police pursuits are from 1984 to 1997, and it treats it as if it were a Period Piece.

• In-Universe, there's a 2018 Honda sedan that's an almost similar design to the 1989-1993 Honda Accord sedan◊, but it's obviously different technically.

Could there also be an In-Universe use of Retraux too?

If a work mimics another era - e.g. 2017 work mimicing 1990s era, that's not always Stylistic Suck?

Where would the line be drawn between Retraux and Stylistic Suck, so that they're not Square Peg Round Trope?

I know there can be some overlap, like Alternate Continuity and Alternate Universe is, as has been discussed, but for these tropes, how do you ensure you've got the right one on a work page?

Retroactively fixing edits.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Feb 18th 2019 at 12:58:35 PM

Saying that Retraux and Stylistic Suck are the same implies that things from the past are always bad or worse than newer things, which many would disagree with, especially since Retraux is heavily based on nostalgia for The Good Old Days. Stylistic Suck is made to be humorously bad (i.e. Played for Laughs) Retraux merely imitates a visual style/user experience etc. that is associated with a specific era.

They are most likely to overlap when the Retraux elements involve bad special effects, grainy visuals, etc of an earlier era. But Retraux can also involve color schemes, fonts, genres, fashions, soundtracks, etc., all of which might not be considered bad.

All those are examples of Retraux, although the Off-Model moments might also be considered Stylistic Suck depending on how they're played.

For both cases, in-universe uses of the trope would involve a Show Within a Show.

Edited by naturalironist on Feb 18th 2019 at 7:55:43 AM

Thank you for the clarification. Now to do some more wick-checking...

For the City Cops example, would it be a Period Piece as well as Retraux since it's limiting itself to certain years?

As for the Honda example, that would probably be Retraux anyway if I'm correct?

I was going to add to What Could Have Been on the Doctor Who subpage about a planned episode that featured the Eleventh Doctor (planned for 2012, never got made) which would have had genuine 1980s-style filming a la Garth Marenghis Darkplace but wasn't sure if it fitted the trope.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Feb 18th 2019 at 1:01:21 PM

I wouldn't consider the Honda thing to be an example of Retraux unless the car was specifically designed to be a throwback to the earlier design.

Fair enough. What would the hypothetical City Cops example be?