Why retcons don't bother me anymore





Frequently Asked Forum Questions

Search the HBO News Archives Any All Exact	Search the Halo Updates DBs Halo Halo2	Bungie Webcam HBO XBL Gamertags *Ar's Simple HTML Guide Shishka's Guide for Newcomers The Lowdown on Download Accelerators Red Loser's Anti-Spamming Guide Egg FAQ \| More Egg Stuff c0ld's Movie Starter Guide Shishka's HaloPC Pre-Release FAQ 3.1 AutoMagic 117 StripzMaker



Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum \| Archived Posts

Why retcons don't bother me anymore

Posted By: Cody Miller Date: 5/11/11 11:11 p.m.

HP and I started a website you guys might have heard of called Halo Reach in Not Canon. The idea was that we were both dissatisfied that Reach decided to retcon previous works for no good reason. I still think the writing in Reach is still poor, but now I'm not so much bothered with retcons.
When I was growing up, I loved Ren & Stimpy. One thing that always bothered me though was that they never lived in the same house. In one episode they'd live in a trailer, another a house in the suburbs, and in another they'd live in a birdhouse. It didn't make sense to me since there was no continuity there, and I remember asking my dad why they always keep moving. My dad kind of found it amusing that this bothered me, and explained that they kept moving because it was funny and when I was older I'd understand. I'm older and I do understand now.
Obviously in a show like Ren & Stimpy where there's no continuity and each episode is simply its own self contained story, you can do things like have them move from house to house, or press the history eraser button and erase all existence, or implode into nothingness, or even have them die.
Even in stories that are meant to have continuity between their installments can have retcons and still work. Probably one of the best examples of this is Star Wars. In reading The Secret History of Star Wars, the one thing that was made very clear was that Lucas did NOT have the entire arc laid out in advance. He was making it up as he went along.
In Star Wars (now Ep. 4 A new Hope), Darth Vader was not Luke's father. Examining the script revisions reveals Anakin and Vader as always being separate characters. At one point Luke fights along side his father. As the drafts progress, Luke's father is pushed more and more out of the story, until eventually he dies before the story begins. He's still a separate character though. At the time of Star Wars' release, when Obi Wan said Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Luke's father, he meant it literally.
In the third draft of Empire though Lucas decided to make Vader into Luke's father. This was quite the retcon! This new revelation obviously overwrote what happened in Star Wars, but at the same time completely changed Obi Wan's character. Instead of the noble Jedi knight that he was in Star Wars, by Return of the Jedi we learn he is a tragic figure, whose arrogance in thinking he could train Anakin as well as Yoda essentially led to the Empire's rule of the galaxy.
Later on Lucas would do the same thing by making Luke and Leia related. This didn't happen until he wrote Return of the Jedi. The line in Empire "No there is another" was not meant at the time to refer to Leia. Lucas admitted it was supposed to cast doubt on whether Luke would succeed. If Luke was the only hope, then he couldn't very well fail could he? The line as originally written was "Well then we'll find another".
The prequels themselves had their fair share of retcons, too many of which to discuss here (but which are discussed quite well in Secret History).
So you look at Star Wars, and one of the greatest moments in film, and you realize it was a retcon.
I think one can enjoy the films (and possibly the prequels if you're daft) regardless of the contradictions that arise (even just within the original trilogy they are numerous). In the end you get drawn in by the story, the characters, and the emotion, not the little details.
So when Reach retconed Fall of Reach, I don't really see it as that disastrous. It's not like they are dropping a retcon to the lines of 'MASTER CHIEF NEVER WENT TO HALO". They're small details. Who cares. When focusing on the Fall of Reach story, I'll focus on it. When focusing on Reach's 'story' I'll focus on it. They're both right because they are meant to be experienced independently. They overlap enough that they bind together in the Halo universe, but I kind of just see them now as two different houses in Ren & Stimpy. They don't have to match up exactly.
The fact of the matter is, there would be no Reach if Bungie didn't retcon Fall of Reach. Fall of Reach leaves nothing for noble team to do that's important. That would be a boring game. You'd really have nothing meaningful to fight for. So, retcon, and now we have something players can care about (but don't because it was executed badly).
I'm a Star Trek fan (haha start the jokes), and if you were concerned about perfect continuity then pretty much nothing would make sense. Just take each episode as a self contained adventure, and if parts tie in to other episodes then accept the ones that don't conflict, and the ones that do conflict just either ignore, or accept the established version, or if there's no established version accept the version that you prefer.
The retcons I think were an easy way to vent my frustration about how much the story sucked. IT wasn't the retcons that made the story suck though, and I'd like to come clean and say I have no beef with them now. I don't care if Bungie's next IP has retcons; I care that they just do the story well.
Of course if it's an MMO it won't matter to me because I won't be playing it. Haha!

Message Index

Replies:

The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33.

Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Cody Miller	5/11/11 11:11 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Frankie	5/11/11 11:16 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Cody Miller	5/11/11 11:20 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Phoenix_9286	5/11/11 11:54 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Quirel	5/12/11 4:21 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Phoenix_9286	5/12/11 5:19 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Lurono	5/12/11 4:21 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	General Vagueness	5/12/11 6:09 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Quirel	5/12/11 6:20 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	General Vagueness	5/12/11 8:24 p.m.
i somewhat agree	nomis78	5/16/11 9:21 p.m.
oh and marty on music NM	nomis78	5/16/11 9:59 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	padraig08	5/11/11 11:22 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Azo 'Galvat	5/12/11 2:54 a.m.
tl;dr: "I grew up, and I like Ren & Stimpy" NM	Pkmnrulz240	5/11/11 11:24 p.m.
Are those really retcons?	General Battuta	5/11/11 11:25 p.m.
Re: Are those really retcons?	Cody Miller	5/11/11 11:31 p.m.
Re: Are those really retcons?	General Battuta	5/11/11 11:44 p.m.
Re: No, they're not.	Ranger15S	5/12/11 12:15 a.m.
Re: Are those really retcons?	General Vagueness	5/12/11 2:15 a.m.
Re: Are those really retcons?	General Battuta	5/12/11 3:12 a.m.
Nope, it isn't.	Narcogen	5/12/11 7:13 a.m.
Retcons are Art NM	NartFOpc	5/11/11 11:26 p.m.
Ren and Stimpy why you should not care about canon NM	ZaneZavin	5/11/11 11:31 p.m.
Thank God NM	RC Master	5/11/11 11:47 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/11/11 11:58 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	General Vagueness	5/12/11 2:25 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	DarkS7G	5/12/11 12:36 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/12/11 2:32 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	padraig08	5/12/11 3:08 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/12/11 11:07 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	DEEP NNN	5/12/11 11:30 a.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/12/11 4:01 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	DEEP NNN	5/12/11 4:57 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/12/11 7:54 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Revenant1988	5/12/11 12:41 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	DMFanella	5/12/11 1:46 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	Revenant1988	5/12/11 2:08 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	padraig08	5/12/11 6:41 p.m.
Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore	DMFanella	5/12/11 1:37 p.m.