The Artifact: Difference between revisions

Occasionally this ''is'' caught early enough, though in [[Long Runners]] this results in a odd [[Bleached Underpants]] situation ''within'' a series, usually from [[Author Appeal]] tastes.

 

 

This [[Trope]] has nothing to do with magical items or similar ancient objects of power; for that, see [[Ancient Artifact]] or [[Artifact of Doom]].

 

== Advertising ==

* Erin Esurance was still around for awhile despite the fact that Esurance ads ditched the whole espionage/ActionGirl angle in favor of more traditional type spots.

** Now she's been reduced to a poster in the halls of the fictional Esurance offices in which the current campaign takes place.

* Likewise Chrono's very distinctive outfit in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' is back from when he was designed to be a more important lead character -- and a villain -- rather than a side character. There [[Improbably Female Cast|not being much to compare him to]], even Elio's outfit is much less flashy.

** The name of Raising Heart also qualifies, since [[media:Nanoha.jpg|its original design]] was a fairly normal-looking [[Magic Wand]] with a [[Heart Symbol]] on it.

** Played with in the SEED series, where the titular gundams were only called a handful of times (once in the first series, twice in the second) because that's what their OS's acronyms spelled out. The units were almost always refered to by their production names.

* An in-universe example is brought up in the final episode of [[Ghost in The Shell]]:[[Stand Alone Complex]] where a few of [[The Protagonist|the protagonists]] meet in a library. One points out the uselessness of printed media to which another points out that it is just a habit of mankind.

 

== Film ==

** The same principle happened to Cate Blanchett's Galadriel, but to a lesser degree because she is already way more prominent than Arwen. Apart from the Lothlorien chapters (which take up a sizable chunk of ''Fellowship of the Ring''), Galadriel gets mentioned again from time to time, and she shows up at the very end. The appendices give more information about her, including an [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome]] where she (and her husband) led an elven army to destroy one of Sauron's main fortresses in the North while the main characters were fighting their own battles to the East. For the films, Blanchett was given more lines and scenes throughout the trilogy.

** In the books Arwen was a late addition who took Eowyn's place as Aragorn's love interest when Tolkien decided to ship Eowyn with Faramir instead. In the books, she appears in two scenes: a banquet in Rivendell, and then her wedding. She is mentioned on the sly a few times later, but her story is almost exclusively part of Aragorn's backstory, found in the appendices.

* In the ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Film)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' movies, which are PG, they can't exactly show the Ninja Turtles slicing and dicing their opponents. However, Leonardo's katanas are so iconic to him that he can't have any other weapon. For that reason, he will almost exclusively fight with his bare hands, leaving only Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo to use their weapons, which are significantly less bloody.

* [[The Fool|Jar Jar Binks]] in episodes 2 and 3 of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' trilogy (left over from episode 1).

** This may be where the "force ghost" concept came from - as an alternative method of dispensing said advice.

** In the [[Expanded Universe]], [[The Smart Guy|C-3PO]] does this a lot. So does [[Sixth Ranger|Lando]] to a lesser extent.

** He's in the main credits because the actor who plays him is also one of the producers, not because of the importance of his character.

* The patient of the week on ''[[House (TV)|House]]'' has been secondary to the main characters' personal issues since Season 4, whereas the show's original premise was "a medical drama in the style of a cop detective show". The fact that the audience found the characters so engaging is a credit to the writers, but means that more and more frequently the episode will sideline the patient or sometimes not even feature one.

* Same with ''[[American Dreams (TV)|American Dreams]]'': its original gimmick of ''[[American Bandstand]]'' performances (and then modern-day stars doing faux-Bandstand performances) seemed more and more awkwardly included, as the show attempted to become refocused as a serious drama that just happened to take place in the 60s.

* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' ran headlong into this as a result of being adapted from three different [[Super Sentai]] shows. The first season was based solely on ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger]]'', so things worked just fine. But for the second season, rather than adopting Super Sentai's tradition of making a completely new show and storyline every year, Saban chose to take the [[Monsters of the Week|monsters]] and [[Humongous Mecha|robots]] from ''[[Gosei Sentai Dairanger]]'' while retaining the Zyuranger suits for the heroes and keeping the same main villains. The same thing was done for the third season with ''[[Ninja Sentai Kakuranger]]'', though in this instance the Kakuranger suits were used for a another team of Rangers. Overall this results in quite a few oddities, since the motifs of the three Sentai teams did not match: while the animal robots and suits in Zyuranger were based on prehistoric beasts, the ones in Dairanger were based on Chinese mythology and the ones in Kakuranger were based on Japanese mythology. The ranger roster and colors also did not match: while all three teams had their respective red, blue and yellow rangers, Dairanger had a "regular" green ranger instead of black and a white sixth (which resulted in the Black Ranger piloting a green-colored lion robot and Tommy being forced to switch suits and powers in the middle of Season 2), while Kakuranger had a female white ranger instead of pink and no sixth (forcing the White and Pink Rangers to share the same Shogunzord). This also holds true for the villains, as the character of Rita Repulsa and her minions stayed on the show for a total of six seasons despite the fact that their Sentai counterparts (Bandora the Witch and her gang) were sealed away at the end of ''Zyuranger''. The most stand-out case is Finster, who was the villains' monster-maker and [[Mad Scientist]], but had his role greatly reduced in the second and third seasons when [[Always a Bigger Fish|new]] [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] with the power to make their own monsters were introduced.

* The motorcycles in the ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' series. Initially, the hero's character designs were based loosely upon bikers. However as each newer season moved thematically further and further away from this, the bikes are kept in, just to make sense of the "Rider" in the title. They'll sometimes be introduced and never seen again. This gave rise to the fan criticism, "It's caled 'Kamen '''Rider'''', not 'Kamen Walk-All-Over-the-F@$king-place'!"

** More recent series, particularly ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]'' and ''[[Kamen Rider OOO]]'' have tried to avert this by using the bikes much more prominently; Double's bike can convert into a watercraft or jet and is used to fight giant monsters, while his [[Second Rider]] Accel ''turns into'' a motorcycle.

** Some critics have especially noted actor Scott Adsit, arguing his character's role as a producer on the sketch show, and Liz's best friend, was initially to counterpoint Alec Baldwin's executive character, Jack. Jack was initially to be a recurring, villainous executive - kind of like Will Arnett's role on the show - who would [[Executive Meddling|meddle]] with the sketch show. Instead, he became a main character, and evolved into Liz's confidante, support system, and (usually) the voice of reason, thus robbing Adsit's character of its entire purpose. The writers have yet to come up with much alternative work for Adsit, not that they haven't tried.

* Ashley Jensen's character Christina McKinney on ''[[Ugly Betty]]''. In the early days, Christina was Betty's only friend at ''MODE'' with its catty fashionistas. As the show went on, said fashionistas gradually warmed up to Betty, making Christina's role rather pointless. Jensen left the series towards the end of its run.

* Choo-Choo Bear has faded into the shadows of ''[[Something Positive]]''; right now almost all of his appearances are as the snooty Q&A cat. (Randy Milholland was always determined to limit his appearances for fear overusing him, though.) He did become more active for a time as a result of an extended crossover with ''[[Girls With Slingshots]]'', which seems to have run its course.

* Spark from ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' dates back to the strip's early Gag Per Day days. He has adapted better than most artifacts do, but he still feels out of place in the post-[[Cerebus Syndrome]] [[Fan Nickname|Deeganverse]].

* In ''[[Least I Could Do]]'', the character Jon originally served as Rayne's foil, being the [[Only Sane Man]] who reined in Rayne's zanier impulses. The character fell out of use as [[Real Life Writes the Plot|the author found himself growing distant from Jon's inspiration]], and a new character (Noel) took over the role of Rayne's wingman. Eventaully Sohmer acknowledged this by writing a story arc where Rayne and Jon patch up their friendship, and with Noel's marriage and child Jon has started coming back into the forefront.

** Thankfully Noel hasn't really ever suffered from [[Replacement Scrappy]] Syndrome, in that he's notably different from Jon - Jon is the [[Only Sane Man]] who may or may not suffer ulcers from dealing with Rayne; Noel is a [[Deadpan Snarker]] who's more than happy to accompany Rayne on his adventures, and only stops Rayne before he's going to do something TOO stupid.

** Except ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]''. His ears don't adjust with the angle, ever, so we actually see the sides of his ears. The 3D ending to the original ''[[Chain of Memories]]'' Reverse/Rebirth mode also didn't do this.

*** In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', however, we virtually ''only'' see Mickey from the side, and his ears are in their odd position. During an early cutscene, Minnie Mouse turns around and her ears adjust their position; possibly an [[Shout Out|intentional]] nod to this.

** Add in the fact that all his lines are unintelligible. [[Living Prop|Very few episodes feature]] [[The Chew Toy|Kenny]] doing much of anything but basically just standing to one side. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in the "Mr. Jefferson" episode. When [[The Chew Toy|Kenny]], for once unmuffled, complains about taking Blanket's place, [[Straight Man|Stan]] tells him to stop complaining, at least he gets to ''do'' something for once.

*** And nobody called him by his name so the audience didn't get the joke that it was [[The Chew Toy|Kenny]] until he [[Running Gag|died]].

** In some later episodes, Klaus' lack of purpose is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] through Klaus bemoaning his situation, or the other characters making fun of him. One particularly cruel example is "For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls", where the rest of the family is fighting for their lives against Santa Claus and his elves with machine guns and hatchets, and Francine mentions "What's his name?" during a conversation with Hayley; it then cuts to Klaus floating in his bowl with no background noise, and he dispassionately says "My name is Klaus Heissler." Klaus wasn't seen again the entire episode, before or since that scene.

** The show's ''entire premise'' fell under this trope, since politics were almost completely abandoned, and Stan hardly outs himself as a conservative nor display hate for liberals anymore.

** In the third season, this also happened to some extent with many of the first and second season characters who survived the movie, although some of them did get important roles in an episode or two (Blaster and Soundwave in "Carnage in C-Minor", Perceptor in "The Face of the Nijika", etc.).

* In the ''[[Disney]] Sing Along Songs'' VHS series, Professor Owl from the [[Adventures in Music Duology]] was originally the host, with Jimminy Cricket and and Professor Ludwig Von Drake occasionally taking over. In later entries, Professor Owl only appears to say "And now is your host, [Jimminy Cricket / Professor Ludwig Von Drake]!", and [[The Other Darrin|in a completely different voice from the intro and earlier videos]], at that. The most likely reason is that the between-song segments were composed entirely of [[Stock Footage]] of old cartoons, and Cricket and Von Drake -- particularly the latter, who by the end was the only one hosting -- had a good deal more material to draw from.

* Hack and Slash in ''[[Re Boot]]'' fell into this during season 3. While the series got [[Darker and Edgier]], they didn't. For the most part they were ignored unless some comic relief was needed.

* The [[Phineas and Ferb]] theme-song has the titular boys saying that they want to "Drive their sister insane!" However, [[Characterization Marches On]], and now the boys are incredibly nice, and want to help their sister out--she's just too amped up to realise. However, because it rhymes and is so intrinsic, the line stays.

** Then again, you could take the line to mean that the things they do are going to drive her insane as a side effect, even if it's not what they intend to do.