Do you consider short films an important part of canon?
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:09 am
I guess this should go to the Movies, Music and TV section of the forum, but since this section is the most active one and this topic concerns some Disney movies, I decided to post it here. Mods, if you find this inappropriate, please move it elsewhere. This will be long so please bear with me.
I am somewhat obsessed with making lists, and there’s one I’ve kept for 20 years – a list of all the movies I’ve seen. The list is divided by genres, and movies are listed alphabetically and chronologically if there are more than one movie in a franchise. I’m a completist in the sense that I need to see EVERY entry in a given franchise, regardless of how bad it may be.
(After I’ve seen all three Human Centipede movies, I began to regret this decision).
When I put the movies I've watched on the list, I generally list sequels after original movies, but prequels go two ways: a DTV prequel would follow the sequel rule, but a theatrical prequel is listed before the original movie, technically making it the first movie in a franchise. I’ll give a couple of examples to illustrate this:
DTV prequels:
The Little Mermaid (1989)
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning
Theatrical prequels:
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Other
Insidious
Insidious: Chapter 2
Insidious: Chapter 3 – a theatrical prequel, but the title follows Pt. 2 numerically, so it’s listed after it
Insidious: The Last Key – a theatrical sequel to the theatrical prequel
Which brings us to my question... You see, years ago when I first started the list, I put Barbie and the Rockers/Barbie and the Sensations TV specials as two separate entries, which they technically are. The thing is, they are both 25 minutes long each, not really feature-length, which kind of dilutes the list. That, along with watching The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, a 30-minute interquel, gave me an idea that I should also put any other short film/spin-off related to the main film/franchise on the list. I think I accidentally opened up Pandora’s box, because not all spin-offs are 30 minute specials, some are literally 5 minute shorts and there are a LOT of them, especially for animated films. So my question here is… Would you consider an entry in a franchise shorter than 20-30 minutes significant/canon enough to be listed next to the original films? I mean, I guess stuff like Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is fine, it does continue the narrative from the original film, but what about shorts like Jack-Jack Attack or BURN-E which are basically deleted scenes, yet are still connected to their original films.
Thank you in advance for reading this long post and for your responses!
I am somewhat obsessed with making lists, and there’s one I’ve kept for 20 years – a list of all the movies I’ve seen. The list is divided by genres, and movies are listed alphabetically and chronologically if there are more than one movie in a franchise. I’m a completist in the sense that I need to see EVERY entry in a given franchise, regardless of how bad it may be.
(After I’ve seen all three Human Centipede movies, I began to regret this decision).
When I put the movies I've watched on the list, I generally list sequels after original movies, but prequels go two ways: a DTV prequel would follow the sequel rule, but a theatrical prequel is listed before the original movie, technically making it the first movie in a franchise. I’ll give a couple of examples to illustrate this:
DTV prequels:
The Little Mermaid (1989)
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning
Theatrical prequels:
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Other
Insidious
Insidious: Chapter 2
Insidious: Chapter 3 – a theatrical prequel, but the title follows Pt. 2 numerically, so it’s listed after it
Insidious: The Last Key – a theatrical sequel to the theatrical prequel
Which brings us to my question... You see, years ago when I first started the list, I put Barbie and the Rockers/Barbie and the Sensations TV specials as two separate entries, which they technically are. The thing is, they are both 25 minutes long each, not really feature-length, which kind of dilutes the list. That, along with watching The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, a 30-minute interquel, gave me an idea that I should also put any other short film/spin-off related to the main film/franchise on the list. I think I accidentally opened up Pandora’s box, because not all spin-offs are 30 minute specials, some are literally 5 minute shorts and there are a LOT of them, especially for animated films. So my question here is… Would you consider an entry in a franchise shorter than 20-30 minutes significant/canon enough to be listed next to the original films? I mean, I guess stuff like Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is fine, it does continue the narrative from the original film, but what about shorts like Jack-Jack Attack or BURN-E which are basically deleted scenes, yet are still connected to their original films.
Thank you in advance for reading this long post and for your responses!
DreamWorks Animation has so many of them. As you'll see below, I already started including some shorts before I decided to ask for other people's opinions.
Do you remember watching all of them? I forget I ever watched a lot of films. Do you keep a list to help you keep track of what films you already watched?
. I also don't like when titles are written like, "Princess and the Frog, The". It's annoying lol.