Universes

[sufi]

Next spiderman film is a multiverse sequel, where spidey collides with versions of himself from alternate realities (apparently, i think), they are leaning in to this thing of various series having to create their own back stories and lore etc and becoming a "universe"
So now there quite are a few for example:

• marvel universe, obvs
• star wars universe
• predator universe that has already crossed over with alien universe
• toy story/wall-e pixar universe
• lotr universe
• etc etc

and of course behind them is a deeper set of realities - the irl corporate identities that own the stories which also might determine which characters and story arcs can combine

Is this a new thing - noone used to say how about if frodo went to narnia or batman ate spiderman or moby dick ate lord jim, did they?

how is this playing out? Clearly there are lots of irl attempts at having for instance parallel political realities
i dunno maybe the fantasies are merging onto a big blob while the real life alternate realities are heading off towards opposite extremities

 

[sufi]

who would win smaug vs aslan?

 

[sufi]

leopold bloom vs charlie marlow?

 

[woops]

started with comics companies trying to expand their markets and sell more copies surely
looking back sooner of their sales techniques were pretty mercenary

 

[william_kent]

I would have thought it began with the "monster rallies" ( aka "Monster Mash" ) movies from Universal Studios in the 1940s, which started with "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man" in 1943, according to me, but others say it was "House of Frankenstein" in 1944...

a concept that was revived in the 1960s with Hammer House of Horror as far as I can recall...

 

[william_kent]

although I may be discounting the "Cthulhu Mythos" which predates Universal...

 

[sufi]

started with comics companies trying to expand their markets and sell more copies surely
looking back sooner of their sales techniques were pretty mercenary

yeah but also trying to make sense of decades of sprawling plot lines that needed some sort of epistemological jiggery pokery to continue making sense

https://imgix-media.wbdndc.net/ingest/book/preview/ae042046-debc-4a7e-aeea-31b8b8d9081d/e7385c58-ee72-444c-ba1d-7f0d1b7e4ba0/1.jpg

 

[sufi]

I would have thought it began with the "monster rallies" ( aka "Monster Mash" ) movies from Universal Studios in the 1940s, which started with "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man" in 1943, according to me, but others say it was "House of Frankenstein" in 1944...

a concept that was revived in the 1960s with Hammer House of Horror as far as I can recall...

I guess there must be a range of zombie universes that may or may not cohere

so maybe wwZ could be the back story to the walking dead as well as maybe the dawn of the dead , but lastofus is a different timeline
would be nice to have a family tree

 

[william_kent]

the apex of Universes collide is contained in the Typhonian Trilogies of Kenneth Grant where Fu Manchu meets Austin Spare and entities from Universe B invade the Earth after the veil is ripped asunder by the Manhattan Project

 

[sufi]

although I may be discounting the "Cthulhu Mythos" which predates Universal...

king kong meets chthulu who will overcome?

 

[william_kent]

king kong meets chthulu who will overcome?

need you ask? All hail Cthulhu ( I know which side my bread is buttered.. )

although, according to Kenneth Grant:



from Kenneth Grant's "Nightside of Eden" ( a guide to the reverse of the Tree of Life, the tunnels of Set, the realms of the Qlippoth, etc., )

 

[sufi]

although I may be discounting the "Cthulhu Mythos" which predates Universal...

even regardless of where they began, they are now much more than literary spaces, they have become huge operations employing thousands and spending millions, kinda like states based on national legends

but also occupying entire regions of our cultures - massive empires of shlocky stories and gaudy special effects

 

[sufi]

need you ask? All hail Cthulhu ( I know which side my bread is buttered.. )

although, according to Kenneth Grant:

View attachment 14914

from Kenneth Grant's "Nightside of Eden" ( a guide to the reverse of the Tree of Life, the tunnels of Set, the realms of the Qlippoth, etc., )

kong smush calamari

 

[martin]

Is this a new thing

A few examples in gothic literature and penny dreadfuls. There's a bit in Matthew Lewis' "The Monk" where The Wandering Jew makes a guest appearance. And then, the villian in "The Monk" comes back to possess a London widower in Dion Fortune's "The Goat Foot God".

Think Mick Norman's "Angels From Hell" has someone turn on a radio with a news report about Jerry Cornelius falling overboard his yacht.
Used to also like Richard Allen's bizarre universe where the dominant music weekly was SPINS (which Stewart Home later co-opted).

 

[william_kent]

A few examples in gothic literature and penny dreadfuls. There's a bit in Matthew Lewis' "The Monk" where The Wandering Jew makes a guest appearance. And then, the villian in "The Monk" comes back to possess a London widower in Dion Fortune's "The Goat Foot God".

Think Mick Norman's "Angels From Hell" has someone turn on a radio with a news report about Jerry Cornelius falling overboard his yacht.
Used to also like Richard Allen's bizarre universe where the dominant music weekly was SPINS (which Stewart Home later co-opted).

this sort of backs up my never articulated theory that horror and porn are the "cutting edge of culture"

 

[WashYourHands]

 

[WashYourHands]

drowning in retrograde universe building today, I think we’re at the limits of any understanding of materialism and have reached an impasse, hence the lob any old toss together

creating a timeless universe or a physics of exploration like Primer isn’t easy, the initial Matrix was out cgi’d by Avatar and cgi does has a negative value when it promotes futile blending of tropes and motifs in hope of the new, eg Sherlock Holmes on Mars

 

[martin]

Tell you one universe crossover I'd kill to read, if only I was a millionaire publisher and had the gift of necromancy: Chester Himes bringing Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones up against Jim Thompson's Nick Corey.

 

[version]

The explosion of fanfiction plays a part in all this.

 

[catalog]

this sort of backs up my never articulated theory that horror and porn are the "cutting edge of culture"

Cannot find the exact quote, only a couple of similar ones, but I'm sure Herzog said somewhere that the purest forms of cinema are wrestling and porn

Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film.

I turned on the television at midnight to be confronted by a very stupid, uninspiring documentary, something excruciatingly boring about animals somewhere out there in the Serengeti, all very cute and fluffy. At 2:00 a.m., I turned on the television again and watched something equally bad. But then at 4:00 a.m., I found some hardcore porno and I sat up and said to myself, ‘My God, finally something straightforward, something real, even if it's purely physical.'