So I was doing some err cultural research for a project I’m set to get started on and I came across this term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon
Retcon is shorthand for retroactive continuity. So just when I thought it was tough enough to get anything reliable and consistent in terms of historical information for real stuff I go and find that inconsistencies in my precious fictional ‘verses are so prevalent that there is a term for it. Scrolling down on the link I found a few that were quite entertaining but still I think this is a bad thing. Most good stories have an arch there are sarafices and developments of characters. There is change in environments and themes are developed and deconstructed. Once the world is opened up to being retroactively rewritten it yeilds a great amount of confusion and in many cases ruins what would have been a good story. When one rewrites a movie or adapts a work for the screen or stage there are changes for sure and this is accepted I think because it is a different world. But when a new writer takes over a story and changes it retroactively it seems to negate the previous work and throws the earned emotional connection with the characters into a general disarray (1 more day for more South Park (still written by the same 2 guys no retcon there)). Also once this practice of retcon is accepted it negates all of the work for who is to say that the next writer won’t just throw out the work of his predecessors? I guess I feel that the practice of retcon is the ultimate in lazy writing and a serious cop out in terms of a storytelling device. If a writer wants to tell a story about bounty hunting aliens fighting in giant space robots within the constraints of a previously established world that’s all well and good but if he* wants to make it his own then I think he should do the work and write his own from scratch.
* I’m saying “he” here not to be sexist but simply put women don’t write BHAFiGSR stories . . . if anybody knows one I’d like to meet her.
Well, this is taking place in commercial storytelling, ie storytelling that is only there to make a buck. So I’m not surprised at all, nor do I think it is any sadder than the crappy original stories.
I do understand your displeasure, and I’m sure there are other diehard fans of certain series who also don’t appreciate retrofitting. But you know, if one person has already stopped producing a series, and that was a series you enjoyed, then that series is dead to you already, so why begrudge someone for picking it up and carrying it on? No one’s making you read/watch it.
Commercial is as commercial does.
I’d like to see someone start retrofitting literary works. Won’t happen.
It’s not that they are “retrofiting” they are retroactively rewriting the material. For example let’s take a “crappy original story” like I don’t know . . . Invader Zim (see what I did there) and ummm since Nickelodeon no doubt owns it “commercial is as commercial does” they start making new episodes only these ones take place about 7 years after the end of the previous show. They are teenagers the Gaz character has beeen rewritten (retoractively) as a teen hottie love interest for teen Zim. Gur is now Zim’s idiot preteen brother (retoractively he’s always been that). Zim’s new mission (old mission retroactive . . .) is to study humans in an attempt to broker some kind of peace agreement. So the show is now a teen comedy about an alien (fish out of water horray) trying to understand huuuManns (what is this emotion you call love?) So there you go. Too bad they didn’t just write a different show instead of screwing up the crappy original one.
But I don’t see that as screwing up the original: i see it as a different, crappy show and keep watching my 6 discs of zim til they burn out. i’d roll my eyes just like i did with the preteen rugrats and x-men cartoons, but i don’t take it as a smudge on the originals.