Talk:Flashback (narrative)

Use of Star Trek wiki
Is it really necessary to link to a repository of Star Trek information and trivia to elucidate and expand upon the meaning of "flashback"?

It is a literary device not solely indigenous to the realm of science fiction; far more sensible to link to an external glossary of literary terms, information about narratology, and so forth.

-While Memory-Alpha has a page on flashbacks, the link provided here points to the Voyager episode titled Flashback. Thus, I'll remove it. (Anonymous Idiot)

Cold Case

 * In Cold Case, each episode begins with a flashback scene establishing the year in which it is set.

I'm guessing that the main story is set in the present, and the flashback establishes the time of the original crime. Yes? —Tamfang (talk) 18:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Anyone else sick of flashbacks
In my opinion they are totally overused, for me Lost ruined them completely till they became cliche. Hell, I couldnt even watch Crusoe for more than 5 minutes... the second I saw it was going to based heavily on flashbacks it was like *yawn*. 125.238.20.25 (talk) 09:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Nobody cares what you think, nameless one, unless you have a suggestion to improve the article. —Tamfang (talk) 02:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it is his opinion. If you do not care for it, you shouldn't bother to say anything about it. -Alex Bieser (talk) 17:47, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Your Flashbacks.
Here you will give times were you have had flashbacks.Also you can see if people have had the same flashbacks as you.Good Luck.~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.227.241 (talk) 15:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Move?

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Pages moved and links adjusted  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:59, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Flashback → Flashback (narrative)
 * And Flashback (disambiguation) to Flashback. Is the flashback-in-narrative meaning a dominant meaning, or have more people heard of flashback (psychological phenomenon)? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Anthony, I was going to close this as an unopposed move. One can't check Google to see which page is more important - there will be no way to differentiate, and both WP pages are substantial. However this page has just short of 1000 pages linking to it, if I do both moves, then all those links will be to the dab page. I suggest I do the first move, and I can over the weekend, alter all the inbound links with AWB, once there are no links to Flashback, then I can move the dab page. Sound reasonable? I can't think of any easier way (short of moving the page twice to make them all double redirects, and hope the bots will fix them!)  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It could be that some or many of the links to page Flashback are about the psychological variety. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I can look in AWB, if it's a film article then it's likely to be the "narrative" type  Ron h jones (Talk) 23:14, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * First page moved. As I said I'll fix the links next. I'll protect the Flashback page to prevent anyone causing a problem.  Ron h jones (Talk) 23:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 683 links examined and 669 changed. Now to move dab  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:53, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Improvement?
I know the old adage about fixing it yourself, but does anyone else feel this page would really benefit from a good trim? At the moment it reads like a collection of examples from slightly odd sources, such as "Ice Age: The Meltdown". Wouldn't this be better simply as a shorter explaination of the term than a big collection of crufty examples? I'm going to try a prune, but won't be surprised if it's reverted. Bob talk 09:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
The Racconto article is a stub with very little on it. It would be better served to have that information included as an extra section in the Flashback article to explain the differences between the two. More laypeople know "Flashback" than "Racconto," so it would be more educationally beneficial to have them as a single article. Spidey 104 contribs 19:03, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. Guoguo12  --Talk--   15:19, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Murder, She Wrote
Save for one attempt, every episode of the series had somebody or other winding up dead. Even the one time they didn't die, Jess told how so-and-so did it. What about including the 12-season example of the flashback? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.42.156.69 (talk) 03:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This kind of thing is not useful here?
Quote: This technique is a hallmark of Kannada movie director Upendra whose futuristic flick Super (2010) is set in 2030 and contains multiple flashbacks ranging from 2010 to 2015 depicting a utopian India.

No references, smacks of marketing, I don't see how it is a relevant example. Some other examples are also a little weak but can all be justified as a 'type', a particular film noted for the use of flashback or examples of early uses. There are literally thousands of films made in 2010 all over the world, I don't see the relevance of this, I think unless one is supplied. Can anyone second this by deleting and watching it isn't re-added?Filmmaker2011 (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Just read it again and looked at the history, I think the proof is that there is no good reason why there is such a wordy description of the film (more than any other), that has nothing to add to the generic subject of flashback in film narrative.Filmmaker2011 (talk) 17:05, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Flashback vs. Frame story
I think, some examples, like the Sinbad stories are rather a frame story than a flashback. Flashbacks contribute to the story, while the frame story just gives a frame to the "real" story.--Tocca (talk) 08:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. The example of the Odyssey is also not a flashback, it's just a framed narrative. Odysseus is asked to tell his tale to the court. If that's a flashback, then every speech about past events is a flashback, and the term in meaningless. The key is *flash*--it should be an intrusive, interjected memory, not an act of volition. 66.61.102.203 (talk) 14:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

A 1934 example in Max Ophuls Italian-German "La signora di tutti"
It's by no means a 'first' example, as there are some older examples mentioned in the article already, including the 1931 City Streets, but I think it stands out as it goes through the effort of explaining to the viewer what a flashback is just before employing the narrative device. Fisk0 (talk) 22:51, 5 February 2023 (UTC)