In Response To: Re: Why retcons do bother me. (Narcogen)
: [snip]
: 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".
: 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
:
: "Halo 'canon' can quite easily be viewed in a similar way as the kind of
: canon system in place with Star Wars. A certain hierarchy of priority. In
: other words, different levels of canon where the higher levels will
: override the lower ones whenever there is a contradiction.
: Everything that Bungie has ever approved is canonical. But even then, certain
: things trump others. In order of canonical influence: - The games rank
: first
: - Published materials (books, comics, soundtrack liner notes etc.) rank
: second
: - Marketing and PR materials third
: --Joe Staten
:
: 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
: 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.
: 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.
I think Reach, the game, would have played nicer with established canon if it wasn't Bungie's last kick at the can.
Bungie's embraced novel-only concepts and events in the past (Stanforth in ODST, Jericho VII in Reach, Dr. Halsey in Reach, Spartan-IIIs in Reach) but Reach doesn't play nice with the others.
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