Retcon thoughts

[Sarevok]

Whenever series runs long enough it starts to contradict itself. A popular way to deal with new material conflicting with old stories is retcons. Authors try to explain "no this is how it really happened we just forgot to mention it!". Usually it is lame as seen in attempts to shoe horn Star Wars prequel story into the Originals.

But I was wondering if there could be a way to make retcons actually useful rather than self admission of poor consistency. Coming back to example of Star Wars again one thing George Lucas does is very unique compared to other authors. He updates his previous work to fit in with his new vision. So when he changed Anakins character he went back and edited ROTJ. He has made numerous other small edits as well.

Now many people have strong feelings about the integrity of the original triology so let's leave that merely as an example only. The point I am making is that we live in the 21st century. We have the technology to make changes because with computer archiving nothing released is necessarily set in stone. A long running popular series can be treated as like a wikis that can be constantly edited to stay consistent. Publishing a new book or releasing a movie may be impossible due to financial reasons. But the written word is cheap. What if major franchises maintained a constantly updated official time line of events ? A timeline that would be followed whenever old material was rereleased (say Star Trek TOS on blueray) ?

[Purple]

Personally, I find the whole idea abhorrent. I even find what Lucas does disgusting. The moment you release something to the public that is it. What's done is done and you should not change it. Imagine if our world had some magical god, and one day that god decided that Napoleon was boring so he went back and edited in some Tiger tanks for both sides on Waterloo. Or imagine if Tolkien was to stand up from the grave and publish a new and improved LOTR where the dark lord won and Frodo was an elf.


Worse yet, the act of changing things only underscores your failing as an author. After all, what kind of author can't keep track of his own work and timeline? Lucas is a special case thou since he did his timeline in reverse but it still does not excuse the other edits. Seriously, its just lame.

Now, I am not going to argue to support this becouse it is purely a function of my personal opinion. But I personally find it jarring when I find a retcon in a series. So you might well say that really, really dislike what you are proposing.

[Imperial528]

I don't like the idea of it in general, except under certain circumstances. For example, if the original work was done when the author/creator had less skill, and he publishes a new version where there are less plot holes, or its just generally better written, or more consistent as a story, I find that good. Retconning just because the author's idea of the series has changed is not the kind of thing I'm okay with though, at least in the case of published works, as that's what sequels are for. (And I also think that's why the prequels feel so different from the original movies in SW's case.)

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that an author's ability to do a good job of revising their own work can be limited. To quote George Bernard Shaw:

I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self. In the case of a work which is a mere exhibition of skill in conventional art, there may be some excuse for the delusion that the longer the artist works on it the nearer he will bring it to perfection. Yet even the victims of this delusion must see that there is an age limit to the process, and that though a man of forty-five may improve the workmanship of a man of thirty-five, it does not follow that a man of fifty-five can do the same.

This is a common problem with retcons- someone comes back and changes things that ought not have been changed, because they are not a better artist than the one who created the original.

Outright continuity "reboots" are, in my opinion, preferable to this, because they at least leave the original story 'somewhere out there' rather than trying to say it never happened.

[Captain Seafort]

Or imagine if Tolkien was to stand up from the grave and publish a new and improved LOTR where the dark lord won and Frodo was an elf.

Tolkien's got a track record of doing exactly the same as George Lucas when it comes to modifying previous works to make them fit - in his case changing the whole story of how Bilbo originally got hold of the Ring, as the original version didn't fit with the Ring's corruptive powers.

[Batman]

I don't recall much in the way of difference in the way Bilbo got the ring as told in LotR as compared to The Hobbit?

[Ahriman238]

No matter how smooth or clever you think your retcon is, any fans are far more likely to support soldiering on, even if the beginning is a little spotty. Certainly the ending of say, the Dark Tower doesn't much resemble the begining (well...) but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the books.

And the longest running series, and thus most "needing" of a fix will have the most entrenched fanbase. Doctor Who, Star Trek, Perry Rhodan, all legends. Inconsistent legends, but it gives something to debate.

If you're starting out, my advice to you is: make yourself a Writer's Bible. Put together a book, or just a document with a timeline of events, your physics and/or magic system, every character, their personalties, quirks, backstories, their planned character arcs, and any motifs you want to include. That way, you have a plan, you have an easy reference for when you're about to contradict some arcane lore from your first book/film/episode, so it will be consistent. It won't be perfect, but any flaws that slip through should be minor. Plan on never needing to retcon, even if your series goes on for thirty years.

[AniThyng]

Even with real history there will be discrepency in accounts, and even depictions and characterisations. As long as broad continuity is maintained, I can live with minor discrepencies that can be handwaved as viewer bias/pov.

That being said, I think this is much easier in one man works such as LOTR or say, the SW movies alone. In a vast shared universe like SW or ST, which are basically monstrous mishmashes it'll be impossible without a lot of rewriting and purging

[Metahive]

I don't recall much in the way of difference in the way Bilbo got the ring as told in LotR as compared to The Hobbit?

The very first edition of The Hobbit didn't have Gollum try to murder Bilbo after he won the riddle contest but had him hand over the ring as prize, it was changed in the subsequent ones. The change is even commented upon in LoTR when it's said that Bilbo lied in his own book when writing about this event, driven by the power of the Ring of course.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I am trying to think of some examples of "good" retcons, because IMHO, a retcon isn't a bad thing as long as it makes sense within a universe, or makes clear something.
I mean using the Hobbit example, as the story of the Hobbit grew into the War of the Ring series, changing the original story makes sense in the light of latter events, but at the same time DOESN'T Detract from already established events.

A Retcon, like Lucas and his "midiclorian" nonsense does seem out of place, because it clashes with a key aspect already laid out, that the force "permeates all things, the tree, the rock, the ground" And then we are told "the force" is just a bunch of microbes only found in living things.

[Captain Seafort]

A Retcon, like Lucas and his "midiclorian" nonsense does seem out of place, because it clashes with a key aspect already laid out, that the force "permeates all things, the tree, the rock, the ground" And then we are told "the force" is just a bunch of microbes only found in living things.

Hardly. All that was implied was that there was a correlation between Force-sensitivity and midiclorian count. There was no indication whether the midiclorians were cause or effect, or whether they were even present in non-Force-sensitives.

[jollyreaper]

In the course of a single novel, the rough draft will have many mistakes to rectify before reaching the final draft. Many are obvious mistakes such as introducing characters that ultimately went nowhere and should have been removed or accidentally ending a scene in the middle because the author was interrupted, etc. There's also the case of discovering that certain things the author thought were clear were not so for the readers. Or maybe he feels that a theme is insufficiently supported.

While I know he's making up a story, the whole thing should hold up. I ultimately find it sloppy for an author to retcon published works. King's edits with the Dark Tower are annoying in that regard. I really, really, really hate "twists" he damn well didn't know about when he wrote the scene. Benedict Arnold had the character of a traitor the whole time he was alive. If no one suspected, then he was a very skillful traitor. Betraying his allies was always in his character; so was the way he would justify it to himself. You're not going to find out at the last minute that George Washington raped his sister and he's harbored a lifelong resentment or that he's been secretly in the employ of Cornwallis the entire time. If either of those things were the case, we'd have fucking known about them! Lampshaded by Ausin Powers. "My girlfriend from the first movie was a killer fembot?" "Yes. We've known all along." WTF? lol

The fact of the matter is that writers are always making things up as they go and will often be surprised by the turns the story takes. The skillful ones work the new ideas into the existing story so that it looks organic and like it was intended all along.

Honestly, I don't know how writers managed serials so effectively. The whole damn story is a first draft with no chance of fixing it.