Has introducing a multiverse story ever made anything better?

[winb83]

Maybe the Spider-Man multiverse from the Sony animated movies. I can’t really think of anything else even close.

After playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth I’m convinced the multiverse as a story telling concept needs to be given a long rest. Most of the time multiverses are either used to undo a character’s death or muddy the waters of what’s going on.

The infinite worlds theory is especially poor. Maybe the Spider-Man movie works better because the other worlds are different. In one world Miles is Spider-Man and in another world it’s Peter and in another it’s Gwen.

I remember watching Infinity War / Endgame and they literally kill off a character (actually multiple characters) then pluck the same character from another world and drop them in and it’s like they effectively didn’t even die.

 

[Neuromancer]

Crisis on Infinite Earths.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

 

[HoldThisL]

 

[Artificial Intelligence]

I need to finish deadpool and wolverine..

 

[DaSk8D00D]

It’s cool if executed well but in the modern era it definitely feels like it’s being overused as a cheap plot device to milk IPs for spinoffs and reboots

 

[Bryan Danielson]

Yes

 

[Fatboi1]

Judging by everyone else's replies it's fine for fun, non serious games often. In cases like Final Fantasy or other serious stories, multiverse shenanigans can convolute the story and just muddy the water.

 

[JuvenileHell]

multiverse stuff ruined Mortal Kombat

 

[Kaydigi]

fukk no ….

Sony has their Miles Morales voice actors saying they haven’t recorded dialog in two years.,,

 

[Novembruh]

the issue comes down to stakes.
If you introduce a multiversal issue, you immediately neuter it's importance. "so what if things go terrible in this timeline. There are others ' becomes the immediate response, even if it's subconscious.
So, either it becomes a 'save all the universes' in which case the scope gets too big, or it's a big-ass Ye Shrug when stuff starts getting tough because all the important characters can just relocate to a less-bad timeline, since we know they exist now.

It's just better for the telling of a story to keep it grounded in, at least, a singular reality.

this in terms of telling a story with conflict. If it's more of a plot device in the background of a slice-of-life, romance or just an adventure it can be fine. But if you're trying to give it gravitas, quickest way to not do that is to have a multiverse. It's a nihilism dream being told that the whole universe as you know it is 1 of many and yours doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

I’d take KH off this list as the multiverse has completely destroyed the story.

 

[pez]

It's fun when used right. It should be done sparingly. It's cool once in awhile to just bring different characters together and have a moment. It's mostly positive though. Spider-verse with Miles cartoon is amazing.

 

[Primetime]

Not to state the obvious but poor story telling is poor storytelling, and isn't exclusive to any type of genre or concept. Now sure a multiverse story can further magnify the flaws of shyt storytelling, bc it is a fine line of making ppl care for the current characters and timeline when there are conceivably other/better versions who will live on regardless. Also, it can enable creators to be more lazy in execution.

i.e. For those who watched the 2nd season of Arcane,

Spoiler

they did something towards the end to give their two most popular characters a very wholesome ending together via an alternate timeline... but ofc the issue is we had to return to the shyt state of the current timeline in which those same two characters hadn't communicated the entire season and little attempt was shown to bridge that gap. So the multiverse angle felt like a copout to appease the fans with something that the showrunners didn't have any room to naturally include within the core story.

Mortal Kombat game is another example...

Spoiler

they had such a cool plotpoint with Mileena and Kitana (and the assumption that god Liu Kang had to be coy with his affection for her), that immediately became obsolete/irrelevant once they introduced the multiverse versions, including the og Kitana. It undercut the entire storytelling.

 

[winb83]

I’d take KH off this list as the multiverse has completely destroyed the story.

Spider-Man No Way Home was just nostalgia bait. It was cool to watch once but I don't care to see it again because the novelty wore off of seeing old Spider-Men suit back up.