Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Frequently Asked Forum Questions | |
|||
|
||||
|
|
|||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Why retcons do bother me. | |
| Posted By: Narcogen <narcogen@rampancy.net> | Date: 5/25/11 8:01 a.m. |
|
[snip] : Also, there's some key differences between Halo and other sci-fi franchises
That seems reasonable, and I've applied the same logic to Halo: the games are canon, and other stuff might be, but isn't necessarily. Expanded
This really needs a citation, as this has never been my understanding. Even in the presence of such a citation, this is going to be complicated to work out because of Halo's provenance. Bungie developed the IP independently, but before releasing a single game became a wholly-owned property of Microsoft, with Bungie Studios becoming part of MGS. It's likely that publically, Bungie would have been required to maintain a consistent line with MGS and the Xbox division. Any public disavowment of properly licensed, official Halo materials approved by Microsoft-- with or without Bungie's knowledge or approval, with a lot of involvement from them or a little-- would have had a negative effect on that material's usefulness. I can easily imagine that Bungie employees would have been restrained from making such statements, whether they personally believed with the idea that everything should have equal canon value or not. After years of reading quotes and interviews with those responsible for Halo's initial creation, I honestly find it difficult to believe that any of those individuals had this kind of "anything goes" approach to what is canon and what isn't. The public equivocation about these materials being canon starts even before the release of Halo 2 with the I Love Bees ARG. Given that now Microsoft owns Halo and Bungie doesn't, I don't think we'll ever get an honest, complete, on-the-record answer to this question. What is and is not canon is no longer up to Bungie, it's up to Microsoft, and it's to Microsoft's benefit to allow as much material as they choose to produce. I don't think they have the luxury of taking the Lucas route and enjoying commercial success and fan support. There were no
I've never actually seen that articulated as a Bungie position, and as I mentioned above, I think it is difficult, if not impossible now, to separate a "Bungie position" from a "Microsoft position". My own personal opinion is that Bungie created Halo, and what they created is canon, along with whatever else is made that doesn't conflict. If it conflicts, I throw it out of my personal canon. In fact, if it doesn't add constructively, I probably also throw it out. My Halo canon firewall is set "default to deny". : But Reach on the other hand is just reprehensible in the utter disregard it
Okay. Let's try this as a hypothetical. Let's say you work at Bungie. Let's say that Halo was your idea. Let's say that selling to Microsoft also seems like a good idea, but that it's understood some creative control will be ceded. Let's say you hate the Halo novels; but they're not entirely your call, and ever letting a peep out about how you feel about them would be a Very, Very Bad Idea, business-wise. Let's say you're obligated to provide material and support to those authors, regardless of how you feel about what they do with it. Let's say that you perhaps approve, provisionally, about some of the generalities, but not the specifics, and that over time, your ideas about what the significance is of the fall of Reach to the story changes, and that if you had a chance to tell that story again, your own way, you'd like the chance. I'm not trying to stir up any wasps between Bungie, 343i or any of the novel authors, but for me, to say that Bungie should be obligated to maintain consistency with spinoff materials they did not exercise direct control over is an unreasonable expectation. It's almost like
To me, that's the beginning and end of the argument. We're
What is and is not canon lies solely within the purview of the creator. To me, it's not a legal right to be handed over contractually-- those rights are different. If there were serious retcons of materials at the same level-- the new games seriously retconning the earlier games-- I could see reason to object. A game retconning the novels or advertising materials-- I just can't summon any bile over that, because I got into Halo because of Bungie and their games, not because of the Haloverse, many of the elements of which are clearly derivative of other works. What is exceptional is Bungie's execution of those elements-- which occurs within the context of their games and nowhere else (with the possible exception of Staten's novel). Everything else is secondhand at best. Besides, it's out of our hands after this." It's obvious to me
: The thing is, while this large-scale retcon was deliberate, it was also
They didn't want to. Who else has the right to make that call if they don't? The game could have taken place
All of the above are miniscule details that don't rise to the level of "egregious". How long the fall took is not relevant to the primary themes of Halo. I more and more get the feeling that those who most strongly object to Reach's retcon of the novels are very close to the camps that objected to Halo 2 for not taking place more on Earth, and who are more interested in the Human-Covenant war than the Forerunner-Flood struggle (which is actually the central story of the Haloverse) and who really, secretly want Call of Duty in Space and not Halo at all. Did Bungie simply give Peter O'Brien free reign to write what he
I think the flow of data from the Halo Bible is one-way: out. I don't think that Bungie saying that, on a secondary level, the novels or other materials can safely be considered "canonical" as long as they don't conflict with the games means that that information then gets transcribed into the Halo Bible and becomes canonical on that level. When O'Brien worked out the scenario, I feel safe in believing that the canon he was told to maintain consistency with was the Bible-- the materials that Bungie developed themselves, that they used as a guide when making the games, and what they gave out to third parties to help them. Giving Nylund the Halo Bible to help him write the novel, and then approving the novel, does not put everything he put into the novel back into the Bible. : Now, I don't mind the occasional minor retcons so long as they actually
Given that the "author" of Halo-- to the extent that any such work or collection of works can have one-- is Bungie LLC, formerly Bungie Studios, formerly Bungie Software Corporation-- and not Microsoft, 343 Industries, or Eric Nylund-- this seems a strange application of the word "apocryphal" which in such a context usually means "of questionable authenticity". Reach is most assuredly and without question authentic. Any thing not created by them is authentic at their approval; I don't see any particular reason why they should be obligated to give it, or, having given it, may be restricted from withdrawing it.
| |
|
| Replies: |
The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33. |