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Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore
Posted By: Stephen L. (SoundEffect) <soundeffect@hotmail.com>	Date: 5/12/11 4:27 p.m.
: This opinion bothers me coming from someone in tune with the inner workings : such as yourself. : Continuity matters when it comes to telling a good story and developing a : fictional universe. Any other stance on the matter is hard to defend from : a writer's standpoint. I'd have been awful miffed if, say, Serenity : retconned the heck out of Firefly for the sake of making a movie. : Thankfully Joss Whedon owns. : Consistency in fiction, is a big deal. No one dismisses the call for internal : consistency in a story; plot holes are terrible things. Why is it too much : to ask for consistency across multiple stories which claim to be part of a : cohesive universe? : Yes, nitpicking sucks. I don't sweat the small stuff... but Reach changed the : big stuff. : And that you'd lump Reach vs. Fall of Reach with Nicole the spartan really : concerns me. : Anyway, this position you take on canon makes it seem like this goal, to : expertly craft a fictional universe, arbitrarily takes a backseat to : something nebulous like: "having lots of fun." That's how I read : what you said. "Just kick back and enjoy it all! Stop caring about : it! It's just good fun!" : To me, it's another way of saying you're either lazy or you don't care. : I like to think it's the latter, because the impression Bungie constantly : exudes disqualifies the former. : Either way it's stuff like this (and the way continuity has been handled thus : far) that really screams to me that you guys simply don't care as much as : your fans do with respect to crafting a story. I've been a long time fan : of the series, and it really sucks to be so negative about something I : enjoyed for the better part of 10 years... but if you guys don't care, it : makes it hard for me to care. : - This has been an excerpt from Why I Don't Care About Halo Anymore; for : more, poke Hawaiian Pig a bit more with things that make him sad. I agree with your points here. Maybe no one creates something new with the expectation that it will snowball out of control and become hugely successful, but if it were me, I'd take the time to decide the little things up front just in case...or if timelines don't permit that, at least suck it up and treat that fictional canon with respect and work around it instead of changing things because of things like fun-factor or coolness. To me, the biggest killer of a fictional universe is internal inconsistency. It's also the part of it I care about the most. Maybe I'm rather unique in that view. Maybe working in quality assurance has me trained to search out inconsistencies but I derive satisfaction out of everything making sense. I'm taken out of the experience when something doesn't add up, even if it's apparently minor.

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