When Should We Expect Media to Connect?

Published Apr 8, 2026, 1:22 AM

By: Brandon Foley:

We all have our favorite shows, movies, games, and books. Many of them follow characters that do specific actions and go through various arcs. But what about other connected media? Should a prequel, remake, or sequel fit in with the previous story or strike it out on their own?

Now, this isn’t about stories that are very disconnected from where they are just stated to be in the same universe. This is about taking a known intellectual property and story and deciding to go in a direction that may differ from what came before it.

Fans of the original media may not like the changes, but a casual fan may not notice. For example, Jim Carrey’s The Mask is very different from the comics. The Mask by Mike Richardson is very violent and gory, more about the temptations of absolute chaos and evil than chaos and rambunctiousness. Many people seemed to love it despite such changes, similar to how Batman with Adam West gained views while being vastly different from the dark comics that inspired it.

On the flip side, we have films like The Cat in the Hat, which also vastly changed their source material, which received endless scorn. The alteration coin can refer to both the favorable and the despised. But why can The Mask be a goofy comedy while The Cat in the Hat cannot?

To answer this question, it’s worth asking some important questions. For starters, what is the new content meant to be? If it’s borrowing and using material meant to be very dark, trying to force it to be different is a big problem due to an inherent disconnect between what it wants to be and what it is. We can see this in the Australian Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s like trying to listen to a conversation while also playing music. While it can work slightly in the case of Teen Titans Go, it often, at best, does poorly because it’s trying to fit a square into a circular hole.

Another factor is what is the intentions of the additional media. If it’s trying to pretend it is related to what we already saw, if it is incredibly changed, we have a split between the past and the present. We are being told that what is current is the same, and yet it isn’t. If the media is trying to Be its own thing, loosely set in the universe like Andor, there are far fewer critiques because it’s clearly not wanting comparisons with what came before it.

A third issue is what are we told? If the trailers or promotional art sells us a gritty drama and it’s a goofy comedy, we feel baited. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch by Tommy Lee Wallace had the problem of the title. The Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi sold itself as the whole story, so when it ended incompletely, there was anger. We knew there was more based on the canon material, yet it ended earlier.

Fourth, does it betray the core themes of the original? If one game says “War is bad,” but the sequel next glorifies and revels in it, there is concern about reversing course, and if it should be connected. People feel that shows such as The Simpsons or Shrek have fallen into and revel in what they once lampooned.

Fifth, is it good? Sad as it is, if something just isn’t good, fans will refuse it, as will new people.

Given how badly it was received, Pacific Rim Uprising was abandoned as a result of the many problems it had. Despite the continuation of the story, there was no desire to associate it with the earlier movie.

Finally, is it a drastic change out of nowhere? While it could be a new bold direction, even if done well, if it’s already got a well-established audience that has set expectations, it will often not be received well, at least by the fans. If people expect a horror series like Amnesia and the The developer decides to make a kid’s first-person shooter in the vein of Splatoon, even if it’s technically competent and advertised exactly as what would be done, the jarring disassociation will alienate the core base.

So, while there aren’t always hard rules, there are some basic ways to interpret whether or not we should connect our media. Some ideas for how to view TV shows based on games like Fallout, Halo, The Witcher, and likely many more media based on established intellectual properties.