Will Revelation incorporate Harry Mason's SH1 experience?

[CrypticIdentity]

Just for clarification (and because I've been looking for the exact quote) on the whole "is it a direct sequel?" question, here it is straight from the Silent Hill Comments page of Michael J. Bassett's blog. Here are several of his replies to comments on the page :

I think I have figured a way out that doesn’t undo anything from the first film but carries it on, reconnects with the game story and develops it’s own narrative too. Nov 7, 2010
--
I think I’ve found a way to – more or less – make it and the game world join together again. Nov 7, 2010

And most definitively:

One of the reasons it was tricky to write a story for SH2 is because it has three jobs: to be logically consistent with the first movie as a sequel, then to work as part of the SH game world and finally is [sic] also has to be a stand alone film that is a fully realised story for an audience without familiarity with either of the former. That was tough to do, I can tell ya.
I think I managed it, though only time will tell. Nov 9, 2010

So yeah. There ya go.

[Lafayette_Reynolds]

I really like J's theory, the Rose vs. Christabella and Chris/Harry vs. Leonard seems so symbolic to me, and it would just make me like the DaSilva's alot more now if that ends up being the case in the final movie.

I remember the line from the first movie "Only the dark one opens and closes the doors to Silent Hill". My theory is that Alessa didnt want to be apart from her mother, it was just her and Rose and no one else to break them apart. Maybe this happened:

Alessa felt she was ready to leave the surreal world alongside Rose and Chris finds them finally. A while later, Rose dies from a fatal disease and leaves Sharon with Chris. A cult member stalks/attacks them (I remember reading a journal in SH3 involving a freak pulling a gun on Harry and causing them to be on the run), maybe something similar happens and they have to change their identities > Harry and Heather Mason.

[capillaries]

Oh, yes.. I've been thinking about that quote too. It just reconnects to the other film's ending to be so ambigous. Why would Alessa let Christopher into Silent Hill? Why would she leave that world and so on. I wish I understood exactly what happened in the movies ending, then I could more easily speculate about how they would reunite, haha.. I understand that Alessa wanted to keep Rose with her so.. (how did the fogworld get to their house anyways? .. i guess Alessa could bring that reality with her. but it just sounds so uncalled for that she would just make it stop and waltz into the real world because she wanted to hang out with her Dad.)

OH WELL, I do have faith in Mr. Bassettt, I'm not worried that he'll come up with bad solutions for all this crap, but I just like to theorize so much - and I myself can't come up with answers for these issues. Hope I'm not ranting. <3

[Lafayette_Reynolds]

You're not, just speculating, its fun when it comes to Silent Hill

[capillaries]

yes, no you're right! i love this forum.

[VenusDoom]

Maybe Alessa was somehow captured and forced to combine with a Claudia like character, then the Claudia character needs to combine with Heather to birth god, as for why the cult suddenly wants to birth god, they realized that the demon they thought was in Alessa, was really a god, and as for how Harry/Christopher got in Silent Hill, Alessa saw that her other half was unhappy, and let a hole from the real world into the otherworld for christopher to find, but made Rose stay for some reason or another, (If you've seen the Ring 2, like how Sahara wants Rachel to be her mother or something,) then Christopher helps them change their names and lvies, then eventually the cut/claudia-alessa merger tries to find her and all. I just REALLY hope there's a Vincent-ish character, call me crazy, but Nicholas Cage would do a great Vincent, But then again I doubt they'd choe an unknown for a main char then a mainstream star for a supporting char.

[Trauma_]

What do you want to bet that they'll totally ret-con it and make Dahlia the villian after all, and the reason Alessa was burned was because Dahlia preformed the impregnation ritual on her (I know that's not how it worked in 1 but still), and she was carrying the god. Thus her psychic abilities (Again, I know that's not how it happened in the game), the cult knew she was carrying god and wanted to stop it from being born, and thus burned her. And that's why Dahlia was such an outcast...

Kind of a lame way to tie the movie in with the games, but I can see them doing that.It's been stated that Rose, and Dahlia are both coming back on the official Silent Hill page on Facebook, so it could go either way.

[jdnation]

Well it wouldn't be a retcon if they portray Dahlia as a villian in a role similar to SH1. I guess retcon being 'contradictory change' to details mentioned prior. That aspect of Dahlia's pregnancy was kept a secret in the first film. It's implied that Sharon was burned because she was a bastard child out of wedlock and that Christabella was just some zealous lunatic. But we are never directly told. In fact, maybe the details of what Alessa told Rose could not have totally been the entire truth of the matter...

But it'll be an interesting twist if Christabella was in fact privy to the fact that Dahlia did something and that the child was really carrying a demon within her, so she resorted to extreme measures to destroy it. The dilemma behind how to best handle the situation will really mess with the audience's head!

[Trauma_]

Well it wouldn't be a retcon if they portray Dahlia as a villian in a role similar to SH1. I guess retcon being 'contradictory change' to details mentioned prior. That aspect of Dahlia's pregnancy was kept a secret in the first film. It's implied that Sharon was burned because she was a bastard child out of wedlock and that Christabella was just some zealous lunatic. But we are never directly told. In fact, maybe the details of what Alessa told Rose could not have totally been the entire truth of the matter...

That's a good point you raise. Also, what I mentioned earlier, I don't subscribe to it, I just pulled it out of my ass. But one thing, explain exactly how it would be a contradictory change? I always figured the cult burned Alessa because of her special abilities, but I might be wrong... I never said portray Dahlia as the villian, what I meant was, in some shocking "twist" it turns out Dahlia was the evil one after all. Carrying out the ritual blah blah blah... Of course it wouldn't be to birth the cults god, perhaps just to summon some demon of some kind for her own deeds.

You'll have to forgive my incoherency, I've had a little too much to drink at the show tonight and I'll try and organize it a little more later.

[jdnation]

Well the term retcon usually applies to a situation where something was established clearly before, and then completely contradicted for the sake of plot later.

This does not apply to something that is a twist on previously established facts and expectations but is still in conformity with previously established facts.

For example...

A retcon would be if:

Movie 1 states clearly that Dahlia is the biological mother of Alessa

Movie 2 states that Rose was the biological mother of Alessa all along and Dahlia was lying and Christabella was fooled.

^ This is a retcon because it completely contradicts previous information and invalidating everything concerning it.


An example of a twist that is not a retcon is:

Movie 1 states Christabella burns Alessa because she is suspicious of the details surrounding Alessas birth, asking who is the father?

^ There are all the clues the film gives us. It is the audience who fills in the gap that the film implies that the reasons are because Christabella sees an out-of-wedlock child as a grevious sin demanding a severe and warped punishment.

Movie 2 states that Christabella burnt Alessa because she was afraid that Dahlia was involved in some satanic scheme to birth a demon as her own child and is afraid of what would happen if that demon became fully aware.

^ This overturns the audience's previous interpretation of events in the first film, but is still in conformity with what the first film states, thus there is no contradiction, hence it does not retcon information clearly established in the previous film.

[Trauma_]

Ah ok, That makes much more sense now, thank you.

I'll have to watch the movie, I never picked up anything that implied that she was burned because she was an out of wedlock child. Other than the fact that it says nothing of the sort about Alessa's biological father. But really, the reason I didn't pick it up is because the dialogue made me cringe one half of the time, and the other half I was too busy taking in the visuals.

I do recall Anna saying "Sinners deserve to lose their spawn". Would she perhaps be reffering to that? It wouldn't surprise me as the cult is pretty much paralell with a lot of christian fundamentalists, and they ted to look down on pre-marital sex, or pregnancy.

[jdnation]

We are never really told, but it 'seems' implied.

The cult in the film portrays a stereotyped hollywood religious fundamentalist, closer to the puritans, a sect of Protestanism who burnt those accused of being witches. Though their beliefs aren't those of mainstream Christians, look closer at the film and you will see clues that they see their god as being explicitly female amongst other things. Apparently some fans here have pointed out that the cult is closer to the Manicheans based on the original script and also that Christabella refers to Alessa explicitly as Samael, and apparently there's also some dialogue where she mocks Christianity as being patriarchial or too soft and too forgiving or something...

You can find some info in this thread:
http://silenthillforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=19269

I feel that a lot was left unsaid in the first film that no doubt, Basset who's been in touch with Gans will be aware of and will pick up from there. Hopefully there will be far less studio interference this time and they have the time and money to get the important details in without having to rush.

[Trauma_]

Ah, I actually read somewhere that the cult in the movie was based on an actual religion but haven't been able to find that since. Thanks. I'll take a look at the thread now.