Flashback with the Other Darrin

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Above, Claudia Wells. Below, Elisabeth Shue.

It's time for a Flash Back to a previous installment, but wait! That installment was made before you switched to The Other Darrin. What do you do? Why, refilm the old scene with the new actor, of course!

Examples of Flashback with the Other Darrin include:

Anime and Manga

  • The actors remained the same, but because legal issues prevented Weiss Kreuz Gluhen from using the original character designs, flashbacks to the previous series (and two photographs supposedly taken around that time) had to be redone with the new character designs.
  • Rukia's flashback with her days of training with Kaien Shiba in Bleach was first seen in Episode 49. Then Kaien comes back in another form nearly 100 Episodes later, This is all fine and well in the Japanese version where Toshihiko Seki reprises his role as Kaien...but Kaien's original dub voice actor, Kim Strauss had left the show at this point. As a result; Dave Mallow was given the role (Strauss' other role; Sajin Komamura was also recast with J.B.Blanc) and when it came time for the flashbacks, Strauss' dialogue was dubbed over by Mallow.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! dub replaced Mai's voice with one that was rather annoying, and when a flashback came up it too had been redubbed.
    • Although, all flashbacks in the dub are always redubbed. You can tell whenever they redub a flashback of the "Exodia, Obliterate!" scene from Episode 1.
  • The first episode of Tenchi Muyo's 3rd OVA featured a flashback episode explaining events from the previous two OVAs. However, the voice actress for Ryoko had been replaced for the new series. So the flashback clips had been dubbed over with the new voice actress, Mona Marshall.
  • During the English dubbing of Excel Saga, Excel actress Jessica Calvello blew out her voice and had to be replaced for the show's second half. During an episode late in the series, we flash back to the first episode, but Larissa Wolcott has recorded over Calvello's lines.
  • Many anime which go through an Art Evolution will redraw the flashbacks to match the updated art. For example, the Pokémon anime once flashbacks to a scene with Pikachu and Ash's Caterpie. When the scene was first drawn, Caterpie had a green mouth; however, the flashback redrew Caterpie with its now-accepted yellow mouth.
  • An unusual example, partly combined with Orwellian Retcon, comes from Gundam Seed C.E.73 Stargazer. Mamoru Miyano was brought in to play Shams Couza for the third and final episode after Hiroshi Kamiya was injured in a car accident. The DVD release has Miyano playing Shams in all three episodes, having re-recorded Kamiya's dialog for the first two episodes as well.
  • Averted and played straight in the English dub of Ranma ½. There were two respective flashback episodes in the first and fourth seasons. In the first one, Female Ranma's English actress Brigetta Dau had only done her voice for the first six episodes and Venus Terzo had been voicing her since then, but any clips from the episode that took place in episodes 1-6 kept Brigetta's dialogue. During the second one, Richard Ian Cox had recently taken over the role of Male Ranma from Sarah Strange, and this episode featured several flashbacks to the first season, so Male Ranma's dialogue was notably redubbed with Cox.


Film

  • In The Ghost of Frankenstein, there are flashbacks with footage from the original 1931 film with Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, (even though the ghost of Henry is played by a differant actor) yet, as Lon Chaney Jr. played the Monster in this film, new shots of Lon Chaney where inserted into the old footage, replacing Boris Karloff.
  • The ending scene of Back to The Future is also the opening scene of Back to The Future Part II. Since Elisabeth Shue had replaced Claudia Wells as Jennifer, the scene was refilmed for the sequel. The re-shot version is nearly identical, with the only difference being that Doc Brown now hesitates momentarily before responding to Marty asking whether he and Jennifer end up as "assholes". You'll notice that they didn't even bother to match Shue's hairstyle with Wells's. Sure, most people didn't notice at first because of the four-year lag in Real Life, but if you watch the two films back to back it can be pretty jarring.
    • Crispin Glover also didn't return, so in all refilmed 1955 scenes in Part II, George McFly is always seen from behind (except one shot of recycled footage viewed through Marty's binoculars).
    • The Spear Carrier couple ("Who is that guy?" "That's George McFly...") also get replaced in Part II's 1955 scenes, as do most of the other 1955 extras (aside from Strickland, Lorraine's friend Babs, and all of the Starliters).
    • Speaking of 1955 extras, the character Lester ("I think he took his wallet") was played by an unnamed extra in Part I, who could be seen crouching over Biff. Obviously, as Lester became a marginally Ascended Extra thanks to Marty's interference in Part II, he was Other Darrin'd for the sequel.
  • Gidget Goes Hawaiian. The original Gidget featured Sandra Dee in the title role, but she was replaced by Deborah Walley in the sequel. Therefore, Gidget Goes Hawaiian recreated scenes from the first film with the redheaded Walley in place of the blonde Dee.
  • Both the events that concluded Evil Dead 2 and the actress playing Linda changed in the flashback in Army of Darkness. This also applies to the events that concluded the original Evil Dead in the flashback at the beginning of 2.
  • The beginning of Desperado features a flashback to the end of El Mariachi, with Antonio Banderas replacing Carlos Gallardo as the mariachi. It's pretty convincing, unless you've just watched the original film and notice how much the guy playing the villain has aged.
  • The prologue to the second Darkman movie. Technically it's the same footage as the first movie, but Liam Neeson has been replaced with the new actor via trick photography.
  • Godzilla x Megaguirus does an interesting take on this. The beginning uses footage from the first film, Gojira, as part of the film's timeline history, but the original Godzilla is replaced with the modern suit. Justified in that Godzilla wasn't defeated by the Oxygen Destroyer in this timeline, so it is the same Godzilla in both 1954 and 2001.
  • The Phantasm sequels all begin by partially reprising the closing scene of the previous film. Between Phantasm II and Phantasm III Lord of the Dead Michael Baldwin had reclaimed his role of Mike from James Legros, so some shots from Phantasm II were redone and edited into the existing footage.
  • In 2002 sequel "Firestarter 2: Rekindled", Charlie McGee is played by Margeurite Moreau. When she has flashbacks to the experiments that The Shop forced her to do as a child, the scenes were specially-shot new scenes; instead of simply reusing footage of Drew Barrymore playing the 9-year-old Charlie in the original 1984 film. There could be a couple of reasons for this - significantly better special effects in the intervening 18 years, or the higher picture quality of recording all-new scenes over reusing rather old footage.


Live-Action TV

  • The Sarah Connor Chronicles does this with pictures and the occasional flashback to the earlier Terminator films.
  • Daytime soaps, which recast regularly, often reshoot scenes with the new actors. Another method is to crop the flashback scenes to only show the consistent actors. All My Children reshot several old scenes after Rebecca Budig was replaced by Sabine Singh as Greenlee (only to bring back Budig months later and have the same problem again.)
  • The first time John Sheridan's wife Anna appeared on Babylon 5, she was played by Beth Toussaint. In future appearances, she was played by Melissa Gilbert, Bruce Boxleitner's actual wife; in a flashback scene to that original appearance, they reshot with Gilbert. J. Michael Straczynski suggested he'd wanted to edit the original episode, but never did.
  • Borderline example: In Farscape Dargo's appearance changed dramatically at the end of the first season, but the makeup guys couldn't be bothered to recreate the original look for the flashbacks.
  • WKRP in Cincinnati did this in a flashback to the first episode, using the new actress for the station owner's mother. The characters also acted a bit differently to support the Retcon of Venus Flytrap's name being a mistake now, rather than the original intent.
  • Twitch City initially did this when Mark McKinney took Bruce McCulloch's role, only to later have the talk show host character refer to his "on-air cranium transplant".
  • In the Alien Nation TV series, flashbacks to the film replaced James Caan with Gary Graham, who took over the role of Detective Sikes.
    • A very old black dude is whom Sykes saves is scenes are not reshot, but when he comes in later in the episode the old man is now Tim Russ wearing the old man's hat.
  • Averted with Riding With Death, a TV movie edited from episodes of a failed 70's sci-fi series titled Gemini Man, which was later featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000. The first half of the "movie" features a flashback from the show's pilot in which Driscoll (the main character's boss) was played by Richard Dysart instead of William Sylvester (who played Driscoll in every other scene and in the series proper).
    • Also averted with Mystery Science Theater 3000 itself in the Hellcats episode, with Tom Servo (played by Kevin Murphy) having a flashback to an episode from the previous season (played by J. Elvis Weinstein.) Even lampshaded by Servo saying it was before his voice changed.
  • Seinfeld refilmed an entire episode after Frank Costanza was recast. The effect was quite disconcerting considering the fact that the version of the character played by John Randolph was very different to the version played by Jerry Stiller.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer flashed back to the events of The Movie, but with Sarah Michelle Gellar replacing Kristy Swanson and Richard Riehle replacing Donald Sutherland. The spinoff comic book used the TV likenesses of the characters for its adaptation, since the movie is not exactly canon.
  • When Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's Colleen was recast in the 3rd season, they re-shot the opening titles (originally scenes from season 1) with a shot-by-shot redo using the new actress.
  • The second and third installments of the Yang/Yin trilogy on Psych revolve around a picture of young Shawn with Yang. By the time the third episode of the trilogy was filmed, they had recast the young Shawn role due to the previous actor getting too old, so they retook the picture with the new actor for use in that episode.


Videogames

  • Leon is (re)dubbed over in the flashbacks at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II. The flashbacks in the game used the new Final Fantasy-cameo voice cast, most egregiously Aerith's soft, cute voice turning into a hazy stoner voice.
    • Ansem/Xehanort's Heartless were also redubbed with a horrible grating voice in place of the smooth tones of the original game.
      • This was done to match up with the new Big Bad, Xemnas. Odd because despite the two of them being technically the same guy they are also, in fact, two different characters.
    • Very brief, but a small flashback in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days featuring Kairi (the "Be sure to bring it back to me!" scene) was also redubbed to use Alyson Stoner as the character's new portrayer. The clip is particularly jarring because, in the original game, Kairi gave a sarcastic tone to the line, while in the flashback she is dramatically serious.
      • Depending on how you look at it, it could be Fridge Brilliance: Since it's a memory of Sora's, it could mean he took the promise very seriously, so he remembers her as being serious too.
  • The tutorial in the second season of Sam and Max Freelance Police is basically the opening scene of the first episode in the first season. As Max's voice actor had changed since then, Max's voice clips were rerecorded with the new actor.
  • Mega Man Battle Network 5 manages to do this in a visual manner with an entire town. Lan's hometown of ACDC had been identical in the first three games of the series (the only major differences being which rooms and buildings were accessible), but the map changed in the Battle Network 4. Flashbacks in Battle Network 5 from long before the events of the first game show the town exactly as it appears from Battle Network 4 onwards.
  • The flashbacks in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots were made up of about half-and-half dialogue from the PlayStation version of Metal Gear Solid, and the Game Cube version (Twin Snakes). The dialogue from the GameCube version was used for characters whose accents had changed (such as Naomi's Ivy League accent and Mei Ling's pseudo-Chinese accent being dropped for conventional American ones) and the recasting of Rob Paulsen as Gray Fox instead of the original's Greg Eagles.
    • Note that this was a non-issue in the Japanese version due to the lack of accents in the Japanese versions and the fact that the GameCube version never had a Japanese dub (the Japanese version featured subtitled English dialogue), meaning that all the voice clips from the original Metal Gear Solid used in the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 4 are purely from the original PlayStation release.
  • Happens a few times in Xenosaga Episode II, with both the voice cast AND the character models.
  • Voice actress example in StarCraft II: all of Kerrigan's lines in the Battle of Tarsonis cutscene from the original, as recorded by the salvaged Confederate AI, were re-recorded by Tricia Helfer, as opposed to Glynnis Campbell who had provided the original voice; the other characters have kept their actors (or died, in Duke's case), and don't need changing.
  • In the Syphon Filter series, in addition to Mara Aramov's appearance changing with her voice actors, her appearance also changed in the flashbacks of the third game.
  • Happens somewhat regularly in World of Warcraft, in terms of spoken dialogue, owing to the original voice actors from the RTSes not being hired to reprise their role in the MMO. The finest example of this is The Culling of Stratholme, a temporal flashback dungeon that recreates an earlier RTS mission. All of Arthas's lines are lifted directly from Warcraft 3, but have been re-recorded by the new voice artist.
  • Space Channel 5 Part 2's intro shows several scenes from the original Space Channel 5. The dialogue in these scenes has been redone by the new voice cast. (Only applies to the English version, as the Japanese version used the same cast for both games.)
  • Any flashback of a scene previously depicted in [.hack//Roots], in the .hack//G.U. Games, is a case of this; the anime was dubbed in Canada, while the games were dubbed in California.


Western Animation

  • There was an odd Avatar: The Last Airbender segment where we flash back to the Western Air Temple when Zuko has just been banished. It's Iroh's new voice actor, but the scene was jarring, since every other time we saw them like that, it was Mako's voice.
  • Men in Black: The Series has a flashback to the end of the first movie in the episode that features Edgar's brother Edwin. Of course, it'd be really awkward to flash back to a live-action movie in an animated series, so it was an animated version of it, with the series' voice actors of course.
    • Although it's very heavily implied the the Movies as we know them are fictional accounts of the real events of the show. So this may or may not be a true example.
  • A flashback episode of The Raccoons showed scenes from the first season, but replace any of Melissa Raccoon's speaking parts with her then-current voice actress, Susan Roman (Linda Feige was the first actress to portray Melissa on the series).
  • The Chaotic season finale episode before M'arrilion Invasion ended with a Cliff Hanger where hero Tom is accused of cheating and flees to Perim before an investigation can be launched. M'arrilion Invasion sported a completely different art style, and even the "Last time on Chaotic" segment at the beginning was done in the new style. (No change in voice actors, though, which probably just made it more surreal)
  • At least one Popeye Clip Show had the clips from the first few cartoons redubbed with the then-current actors.
  • Averted in ReBoot. During the season 4 flashbacks Bob has his season 1 voice, while outside the flashbacks Bob has his season 3 voice. This is because Bob's original voice actor became available again for season 4 and the writers wanted a justifiable way to get him back in the role. The in-universe explanation for this is that the Web damaged Bob's voice.
  • The Fairly OddParents: In the Lower Deck Episode "The Big Scoop", which is "A Wish Too Far" from Chester's and A.J.'s perpective, they had to redub some scenes with the two boys. This was because in "A Wish Too Far" the original voice actors were Frankie Muniz and Haneef Ibrahim, but by this point in the series run Jason Marsden was the now the voice of Chester and Gary Leroi Gray was the voice of A.J. If one compares the two episodes, the difference between the voices can be pretty jarring.
  • Recess: All Growed Down averted this trope. The DTV movie (released two years after the show ended) consisted of a framing device about the main six captured by the kindergarteners as the framing device, the main parts being three episodes of the main series centered on the kindergarteners, and the main "All Growed Down" scene with the main six as kindergarteners. So we ended up hearing T.J. with three different voices. For the framing device and main kindergarten scene, he was voiced by Myles Jeffrey. For the first episode shown ("The Legend of the Big Kid" from season one), he was voiced by Ross Malinger, and for the other two episodes (from seasons two and three), he's voiced by Andy Lawrence.
    • And subverted with Mikey. His voice broke in between the end of the series and the DTV movies, which led to some odd moments where him in the flashbacks had a higher voice...and he had his lower voice (like the rest of the framing device) for the scene which shows him in kindergarten (As for the other kids, because the creators always wanted T.J. to have a cute, young voice, they replaced him three times, Gus's voice actor was the youngest of the kids voicing the main six, and his voice was only slightly lower in the DTV movie, and Vince's voice broke after the first eight episodes or so). So while not a Flashback with the Other Darrin, it ended up being a flashback with Vocal Evolution.
  • In Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too!, Christopher Robin was voiced by Edan Gross. When the special was presented as a flashback in the Direct to Video movie A Very Merry Pooh Year, Christopher Robin's lines were redubbed by William Green.

Web Originals

  • The Angry Video Game Nerd, in terms of settings: in real life, James Rolfe presumably moved into a family house with his wife, so the room where he does his reviews switched from an apartment to a basement. in one episode, Kyle Justin guest stars in the episode, and there are flashbacks of him writing down parts of the AVGN's rants hiding behind the couch. the rants in question came from reviews filmed in the old apartment, but you can clearly see that it is the basement that Kyle is in.
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