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Re: Why retcons do bother me.
Posted By: Archilen	Date: 5/25/11 11:43 a.m.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c But in all seriousness, I don't think anyone's questioned the official stance that the games are superior to all other material; there's really no denying that. It's just that some people feel cheated when something that's been canon for years is suddenly wiped away. Sure, Reach's canon is superior, but not everyone likes that. I'm not blaming Bungie for wanting to tell their own story. However, is making games all about what the developers want, or what the audience wants? I thought I'd bring up one more point. When you talk about the whole issue, you see Bungie as a singular entity behind the whole thing. I see it as a product of individual people. I guess I might've felt differently had Reach been written by, say, Staten, Jones or McLees. Then I might think, "oh, so this is the way they wanted to tell this story". Instead, it was written by some guy called Peter O'Brien. So, even while it was Bungie behind the game, it wasn't the same person behind the story. Because of this, I'm inclined to I judge the story and its canon consistency by the same standards as if it had been written by an outsider. Along with the writer issue, my gripe with Reach's story is due in no small part to the fact I feel there's a certain discontinuity between Reach and the other games as well. All of the previous Halo games weaved *nearly* seamlessly into each other and the novels. Any canon conflicts were negligible. Reach feels alien in its own universe. When I'm introduced to army cloaking fields, Covenant sneaking into a system undetected, Covenant teleportation, "impulse drives" or a Halcyon-class cruiser flying in atmosphere, I don't feel a sense of continuity or familiarity with the other games. I'm thinking, what are these things doing in Halo? : 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. Okay, just wanted to say I object pretty strongly to Reach's retcons (and the story itself) but I don't see myself as wanting Halo to be CoD in space nor do I subscribe to any of the other stances you mentioned. In fact, I though Reach was too much like CoD in space; a step away from the grand space opera and closer to a typical Hollywood military sci-fi story filled with tedious jargon and awkward worship of military bravado.

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