List of retcons

The following are examples of retcons (retroactive continuities).

Soap operas

• In 2004, Coronation Street retconned the Baldwin family after Mike Baldwin's nephew Danny and wife Frankie moved to the area from Essex, with their two sons Jamie and Warren. Mike had been portrayed as an only child prior to this moment, with his father appearing in the program between 1980 and 1982 to confirm the notion.^[1]
• The Young and the Restless retconned the background story of it's character Cane Ashby several times. After he appeared as son of Jill Abbott, who was switched after his birth, this turned out to be a lie after Maria Arena Bell took over the position as head writer from Lynn Marie Latham. Cane then appeared as someone without a family, who took over the life of Jill's real son in order to have love and stability in his life. Cane's background hit a turn again in 2011, when he turned out to be the son of an Australian mobster, who Cane gave up to the authorities for his crimes.
• Another infamous retcon storyline on The Young and the Restless involves Phillip Chancellor, who returned from the dead in in 2009, after dying in a car accident in 1989. In storyline, Phillip apparently faked his death after he couldn't deal with his homosexuality and the ongoing fights in his family.

Film

In the original Star Wars film, Obi Wan Kenobi states that Luke Skywalker's father Anakin was betrayed and killed by Darth Vader; in The Empire Strikes Back it is famously established (and later confirmed by Kenobi in Return of the Jedi) that Vader is Anakin.^[2] Similarly, Princess Leia Organa, an upper-class romantic interest for the farm boy Luke, is changed to be his sister in Return of the Jedi.^[2] An outline of the series confirms they were not originally part of the story, and were therefore retcons.^[3]

Star Trek in various media

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979, Gene Roddenberry claimed that the radically different appearance of the Klingons in the film was how they were always supposed to have looked, but they did not have the budget for it in the 1960s. In the 1990s, an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featured three Klingon characters from the original series, made to fit the new look. However, the later episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", used footage from the original series with old-look Klingons; Commander Worf acknowledged their different appearance, adding it was "a long story" that Klingons "do not discuss with outsiders."

A 2005, two-episode arc of Star Trek: Enterprise, "Affliction"/"Divergence", indicated that the Klingons that appeared in the 1960s episodes were the product of genetic engineering using augmented human genes. This explanation is used in Shane Johnson's 1989 The Worlds of the Federation: "The 'Klingons' encountered along the Federation border with the Empire were a Klingon-human fusion, genetically created to infiltrate the Federation. The interception of the Amar transmission during the V'Ger incident revealed the true nature of the Imperial Klingon race and stunned Federation science. Before that time, no one had suspected the Klingons were capable of such advanced genetic engineering, and a great deal of rethinking was done concerning the level of Klingon technology."^[4] John M. Ford, in The Final Reflection, suggests that human-Klingon fusions are similar to the human-Vulcan fusion that resulted in Spock's birth.

Video games

• The original Ninja Gaiden trilogy for the NES^[5] was followed years later by a new series of sequels produced by Team Ninja beginning with Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox in 2004. However, the second generation of Ninja Gaiden video games, being prequels to original series^[6][7][8] has many differences from the NES trilogy. The character design of Ryu Hayabusa in the new games is now based on the Dead or Alive incarnation of the character with long hair and green eyes, the character design of Ryu's father, Ken Hayabusa, has been updated as well, the character now being addressed in the English versions by his original name in the Japanese versions (Jo Hayabusa), and producer Tomonobu Itagaki hints at the possibility that Sonia, a character from the new games, might be Irene Lew from the original series.^[9] With the release of Dead or Alive: Dimensions in 2011, it has been revealed that Sonia is indeed Irene Lew.^[10][11]

Ignored sequels in various media

• The film Superman Returns loosely continues the storylines of Superman and Superman II, and disregards the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.^[12]
• The film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later is a direct sequel to Halloween and Halloween II, dismissing the events that take place in the sequels Halloween 4, Halloween 5, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Halloween III was an unrelated story unaffected by the retcon). The subsequent film Halloween: Resurrection follows the new continuity of Halloween H20.^[13]
• The film The Exorcist III is a sequel to The Exorcist, and ignores the events of Exorcist II: The Heretic.^[14]
• Highlander II: The Quickening is ignored by the later films in the series.^[15]
• Casino Royale, the 21st film in the James Bond series, provides a new backstory for the character set in modern times.^[16]

References