Hindsight Cleanup

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/AmericanBeauty

Hilarious in Hindsight:

• Thora Birch goes topless at the age of 16. In her next project after this—The Hole—her co-star Keira Knightley would do the same. And she was only 15, also playing an Angela-like character.

Hahaha! Minors getting naked!

That was sarcasm. I wanna nuke this example from orbit. Can I? Pretty Please?

Even if the characters were portrayed as adults, it'd still be misuse on the grounds of it just being "actor who did this thing in work X did a similar thing in work Y," so you're free to cut it.

You are doing God's Work. Thank you!

Bringing up examples from Pokémon 2000:

• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The premise and opening theme of the movie's Pikachu Short, Pikachu's Rescue Adventure, will no doubt bring to mind a certain spin-off series that started six years later.
  Could use more context, but otherwise fine.
  • Long-time fans are disturbing the harmony of fire, ice, and lightning all over again.
  No, they are not. They are joining teams that are themed after each of the elements, not causing widespread destruction like this movie's villain.
  • Tobias's festival costume somewhat resembles Tapu Koko. Not to mention that his name would later be used for the infamous Darkrai-owning trainer who comes out of nowhere to beat Ash in the semi-finals of the Sinnoh League.
  Shoehorn. Not seeing any similarities between Tobias◊, Tapu Koko◊ or the Darkrai trainer◊.
  • Given the movie's many similarities to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, it's fitting that the ocarina wielder, Melody, initially has a bratty personality and casual wear that resembles Zelda herself in her The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild incarnation.
  By "many similarities", I think this person meant "There is an ocarina in both works". Zelda◊ looks nothing like Melody◊.
  • The Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and even Lugia that appear in the film seem rather more powerful than the other anime specimens, who didn't take so long to take down nor were as destructive. Perhaps they were all alphas?
  No, they are just adaptational badasses.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet gave Slowking the exclusive move Chilly Reception, a move that summons a snowstorm in response to the user telling a bad joke. Someone at Game Freak must have hated "I could use pants" enough to condemn it to Joke's End.
  I watched this film. I played Superstar Saga. I have no idea what the heck this entry is talking about.

The joke about Pokémon GO has some merit to it. People did make jokes about the movie during its heyday, and there was a popular fancomic about it named after the prophecy.

Well, the similarity referred to is the name being the same, so it wouldn't be visual. But that's just that when the franchise is this long-running, and introduces new characters almost every week, you're gonna run into the One-Steve Limit.

It is nonsense, but Joke's End (the Slippy-Slidey Ice World of Superstar Saga) and Chilly Reception's snow summoning effect are both in reference to cold winds and such being used in Japanese media to show a joke got a "chilly reception", akin to crickets in western media. That seems to be the logic, but the Superstar Saga bit is Fan Myopia and saying that one joke is the kind of thing that move is referring to is a huge reach.

Ok, then I'll keep the first two examples and cut everything else.

Edit: Done. Also reworded the entries to add a little more context. Feel free to make any changes.

Edited by TantaMonty on Feb 20th 2023 at 3:10:37 AM

From YMMV.Dinosaurs:

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In the episode "And the Winner Is..." Earl has a nightmare where the world ends as a result of him being elected as Chief Elder. In the Grand Finale, Earl causes the end of the world (albeit inadvertently).
  • "The Last Temptation of Ethyl" deals with her temporary Near Death Experiences in "The Afterlife." After the Grand Finale, it's safe to say that she and everyone else have gone there for good. Even worse, during her second near death experience in "Last Temptation," her husband Louie's spirit assures her that she'll be with him forever "soon enough." It ends up being sooner than anyone expected.
  • Any episode with the Framing Device of future paleontologists finding the Sinclairs' stuff and (wrongly) guessing what happened becomes this after you guessed it, that ending. Now you know why their stuff was all found in the same places where it was used in the show's present day - this world died both suddenly and soon!
  • At the end of "And the Winner Is..." Baby is officially named Baby Sinclair. The name is all too fitting, since as of the Grand Finale, he's not going to live past infancy.
  • "Nuts to War" treats the idea of countries going to war over something like pistachios as inherently ridiculous. But pistachios have been the source of real-life geopolitical conflicts, particularly between the United States, China and Iran.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In one episode where Earl becomes a TV executive in charge of producing new shows, he creates a Diabetes-Flavored mindrot called "Box Full of Puppies". These days "Box Full of Puppies" comes in the form of overly-cute YouTube videos featuring kittens and puppies, as well as the Animal Planet series Too Cute. A few years after the show concluded, there was also a short-lived "Puppy Channel" in America, a cable channel that broadcast footage of puppies playing 24 hours a day, with relaxing instrumental music as the only sound.
  • The Shallow Parody The Simpsons did in one episode accuses Robbie of being a rip-off of Bart. If anything Robbie's personality is closer to the one Lisa would evolve into after this show was cancelled.
  • The episode "Georgie Must Die" begins with Earl being driven crazy by Baby's Georgie videotape, to the point of ripping the tape out of the player and preparing to destroy it. When Fran demands to know what Earl is doing, the latter exclaims, "Morning, noon and night, it's Georgie, Georgie, Georgie! Georgie on the Farm, Georgie at the Zoo, Georgie at the Beach!" By the turn of the century, the character of which Georgie is a blatant parody would release the home video titles Let's Go to the Farm, Let's Go to the Zoo, and Let's Go to the Beach.

Which ones should we keep and which ones should we remove?

Edited by gjjones on Feb 21st 2023 at 5:09:34 AM

I don't see glaring problems with any of them, other than the bad indentation on Hilarious in Hindsight.

Idk if I posted these before, but I decided to ask if these are valid (plus my own opinions)

From YMMV.Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean

Any other thoughts?

Edited by Ayumi-chan on Feb 22nd 2023 at 1:18:05 AM

Bump.

Regarding Asterix and the Chariot Race:

• Harsher in Hindsight: The name of Coronavirus became a bit less funny in 2020 (the comic book was published in 2017) due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a bonus, the book centers around a race in Italy, the first country outside of Asia to have an outbreak of the virus and one of the countries in Europe hit hardest by it. And then Albert Uderzo died in the middle of the pandemic, though not from the virus.

Should the last sentence about Uderzo be removed? As said in the example itself, his dead is unrelated to Covid-19.

Def remove the last sentence. The rest is maybe valid, but coronavirus existed before then (just not to this extent).

Despite having a couple of different connections, I think they're both too tenuous.

From Seinfeld

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In "The Contest", Elaine finds out John F. Kennedy Jr. is interested in her, and gushes over possibly becoming "Elaine Benes Kennedy Jr." Now you can't help but feel she was pretty darn lucky it didn't work out, as seven years later John would crash his plane, killing himself and his wife. No similarity to JFK Jr's death, just "famous person who later passed away" shoehorn
  • In "The Andrea Doria", Kramer suffers from a chronic cough as a result of inhaling a hot dog. He resorts to taking dog pills to deal with it, but it doesn't help. By the end of the episode, his cough has gotten so bad that he becomes near-incomprehensible, having to literally force words through the coughing to warn two police officers about needing help. Come the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, and seeing a man in his 30s walking around coughing freely, especially right in people's faces, becomes a whole lot less funny. "Coughing = COVID" shoehorn
  • In "The Label Maker", Kramer and Newman are playing Risk in a subway with the later reduced to armies in Ukraine. Kramer mocks Newman's armies as weak and feeble within earshot of a passenger from Ukraine, much to the passenger's anger and defiance. The armies of Ukraine are experiencing Risk in real life since the Russian invasion in February 2022. This is at least the third time this has been added. It's not an example
    Ukrainian Passenger: Ukraine is game to you??!! How about I take your game and SMASH!
    • Less significantly but still worth mention, Kramer refers to the nation as "the" Ukraine, usage which is now heavily disfavoured in the English language as it implies the nation to be part of something larger (i.e. the Soviet Union). Irrelevant. People use incorrect terminology all the time
  • The episode "The Blood" deals with Elaine's friend Vivian's ongoing health problems which prompt her to ask Kramer, Elaine, and ultimately George to babysit her son often (in the latter case potentially raising him altogether if she doesn't survive). The actress who played her, Kellie Waymire, indeed had a heart condition known as mitral valve prolapse since she was a teenager and ultimately died from it six years after this episode aired, at the young age of 36. Actor mortality. She makes a vague mention of medical problems at the end when she asks Elaine to be a godmother. The babysitting was unrelated

Your reasoning seems solid. I agree with all cuts.

(x6) Any thoughts on Stone Ocean?

I think the idea of Elaine wanting to be JFK Jr's wife when his real life wife died in a horrible accident could be keepworthy, if it's something people point out.

I agree with mightymewtron. I think the idea of Elaine dying like JFK's Jr's wife did gives the needed connection to qualify.

Bringing up examples from Pokémon: Spell of the Unown:

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Illusion Entei's fire attacks look a lot like Shadow Fire, from Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, which would come out 3 years later. With that in mind, you get a new appreciation for Molly's emotional state.
    Could use more context. Proposed rewrite: "Illusion Entei's main attack is a sphere of purplish fire, which he projects in front of his mouth for a few seconds before shooting at his opponents. Though it was unlike any Pokémon move at the time, the animation would later be reused for Shadow Fire in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. Since Shadow moves can only be used by Pokémon who have been turned into soulless fighting machines, this has retroactively made the film more depressing, as it highlights the fact Entei is just an illusion, mindlessly following the commands of a sorrowful little girl".
  • While the Japanese guidebooks state that Molly's mother was hospitalized before the film's events, the English dub states that she disappeared while looking for the Unown. So basically, in the English dub at least, Spencer Hale lost his beloved spouse to a realm of interdimensional Pokémon, and intensively researched them in order to bring her back. Sounds a lot like a certain villain who appeared much later in the franchise...We should at least be happy that Hale never went insane during his research and that the Unown do not release dangerous neurotoxins.
    Unsure about this one. I feel like it could fit Recycled Script better, especially considering the similarities between plots is also noted in Hilarious in Hindsight (see below).
    • Molly herself, on the other hand, shows similarities to that later villain as well. Everyone in her family ends up disappearing from her life and leaving her alone, so she isolates herself in a world of her own making created by interdimensional Pokémon and sustained by their power, which is a world where she surrounds herself only by what she desires to have with her.
    Same as the above.
    • To make it even more extra hilarious, when that villain and her story got an adaptation in the anime, there were very notable similarities to this movie by the time the climax came, complete with Lusamine (due to being Brainwashed and Crazy by Nihilego toxin) acting very childishly not unlike Molly herself.
    Same as the above.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In a bizarre case of Life Imitates Art, a 30-year-old Brazilian man saw Entei as a guardian spirit in the same vein as Molly. "Tá Tudo Bem Agora" (It's Alright Now), from his forum post, became a meme in Brazil for a while.
    Leaning towards a keep. Or would Memetic Mutation be better?
  • Aside from the similarities in plots, many fans have also noted similarities between the Unown's film depictions and the Ultra Beasts from Pokémon Sun and Moon, such as creating wormholes that can give amnesia to those who pass through them. As an added bonus, Molly's book of Legendary Pokémon shows a living sun that bears a striking resemblance to Solgaleo, above a vaguely Hawaiian landscape. Afterwards, the same book shows a girl riding a spiky...thing that resembles a Xurkitree. This is to the point that some believe that Unown may actually be an Ultra Beast, and that the games were partially inspired by the movie (or, as certain Pokémon ideas have bounced around unfinished for years, possibly even vice versa).
    This is what I meant. It also has Speculative Troping.
  • Years later, Super Mario Sunshine would also feature a woman related to the main character (Delia Ketchum, Peach) get abducted while a child (Molly, Bowser Jr.) believes said woman to be their mother, implying an Interspecies Romance relationship (with either Entei or Bowser). Fittingly, Sunshine comes off as a Denser and Wackier retelling of this movie.
    Fan Myopia. Bowser Jr doesn't really think Peach is his mother; and Peach & Mario's relationship does not mirror Ash & Delia's.

Edited by TantaMonty on Feb 25th 2023 at 2:28:32 AM

I'm pretty sure the Brazilian Entei thing is already listed as Memetic Mutation somewhere.

From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Among Wonka's many products are sugar-coated pencils for sucking in class. Could they be the predecessors to Honeydukes Sugar Quills?
  Possible Fan Myopia
  • Mike Teavee, during his musical number, ends up in a parody of Psycho. Freddie Highmore later played Norman Bates in Bates Motel.
    It's trivia about the actor's career, but I'm actually leaning towards a keep. This particular gag does sound more amusing now that the actor scored the main role in the work it's parodying.
  • Mike’s tangents involving science count as his actor would go on to play the super kid genius inventor Lewis.
    This, on the other hand, should probably be cut.
  • A lot of reviewers compared Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willy Wonka to Michael Jackson, who in 2005 was in his molestation trail that had massive media coverage and public attention. Cut to 17 years later, and Depp was involved in a defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard that had similar levels of media coverage and public attention, with Depp even receiving similar levels of public support to Jackson.
    Shoehorn.
  • Douglas Hodge has since played another brilliant high-tech inventor whose inventions have ugly downsides: Rolo Haynes, proprietor of Black Mirror's titular "Black Museum"...
    Actor nonsense.

Thoughts?

I agree with your assessment, though I'll hold off on the Harry Potter one until someone can verify if the quills are more well known than the pencils.

Edit: Misread lol

IDK if the quills are more famous, I didn't remember the candy-coated pencils at all though.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 26th 2023 at 7:45:09 AM

Bumping this, since it's getting kinds burried.

• I'd cut both the example about the plane crash and the earthquake, since they fall under "common disaster" misuse, as explained at the top of this thread: It doesn't count "unless they are closely similar, such as the event happening to the same area in both reality and fiction around the same time".
• The Taylor Hawkins example lacks context. As written, it appears to be mortality misuse.
• The Spider-Man example is definitely Fan Myopia.