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The movies rely and attempt to stay in line with the show, for sure. But what I'm saying is that, more often than not, the shows DO NOT in fact rely on the movies and therefore the episodic plot usually isn't disrupted by the events that go on there. Exceptions happen of course, but Ghost didn't acknowledge Movie War Genesis at all within the televised storytelling.

I still think the reason Alan as Necrom wasn't established in the movie is because it just wasn't necessary. Alan AS Necrom isn't as important as simply previewing the suit. Just like the appearances in magazines and commercials, they want as many kids to see what the third Rider looks like so that they know who to search for on toy shelves before the suit is actually revealed within the show. The whole thing is supplemental advertising and basically irrelevant to the plot happening on television.

This is frustrating because it's so clear there's a misunderstanding here. We're both right in a way, because as I said earlier, it's all about perspective; point of view. It's obvious that advertising executives wanted to present Necrom's identity as a mystery. What I'm arguing is that the writer for the TV show (a different person than whoever wrote the movie, mind you) didn't intend it to be like that. I'll bet that if we had it THEIR way, we wouldn't have even seen Necrom until the preview at the end of this week's episode, and by then it's obvious who's behind the mask.

From the standpoint of the show's narrative thus far, the surprise was supposed to be: "Alan is now a Rider." From the standpoint of the advertising (including the movie) the surprise was supposed to be: "Necrom is Alan." The issue here is that the two directions conflicted, and in the end nothing is a surprise at all.