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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Retcons and storytelling - when they make things better or worse

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Charlemagne19, Sep 16, 2013.

  1. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    I'm actually disappointed because I envisioned Lux's father as an absolute zealot that was out in the field with a bunch of droids as the sole organic.
     
  2. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004

    Oh they might not be prominent but they do show up, even in ROTS and AOTC. TCW also has them several times, as do several of the novels, the Video games and of course a lot in the comics.
     
  3. Formthreemaster

    Formthreemaster Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2013

    Revanfan, this is one of the funniest things I've read on here in a long time. I never noticed how much it looks like how Hamner is depicted. I will now never watch the end of ROTJ the same way again. Well done, my friend.
     
    Revanfan1 likes this.
  4. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004

    [​IMG]

    CURSE YOU LUCAS!!!!11one

    [​IMG]
     
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  5. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2000
    Zahns retcons with his OC's are bad and tbh completely unesscary.

    Thrawn goes from clever but ruthless villian for his first books to a the mastermind who is even a step ahead of Palpatine trying to save the galaxy. While Mara goes from ex-assassin who realises she was just a manipulated tool, to suddenly one of the most uber powered and important people ever, who is really Judge Dredd and who gets to punk Vader on a regular basis to boot.

    That and retconning every other work that was not his or Stackpole's too was also pretty bad.
     
  6. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    A retconed that I dislike is that the City of Bone is now a failed amusement park instead of being created from the bones of a mythosaur. Why did Traviss taken away that the Mandolorians have killed KAIJUS?!

    And made any chance of a STAR WARS: Mandalorian Rim comic/game nil:_|


    Also is it a retcon that we se nagai and chriss before "modern" time? If so it is another retcon I dislike
     
  7. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Isn't that a bit like saying "they are nothing without their weapons/tanks/ships/war-material/warriors."?
     
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  8. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Any special reason to why you are partial?




    Another retcon I dislike is that the KOTOR Guide made the culture of TOTJ as a "throwback" - "The Republic prior to the Great Sith War retains trappings of the past, both in fashion and in behavior. Archaic wardrobe is in vogue during a brief revival that spans much of the Republic." - I liked the design and felling of space-fantasy in TOTJ, it did not need to be a throwback! :mad:
     
  9. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    And you believe that? Excellent, quite excellent, the plan is working perfectly, now kindly buy this Brooklyn Bridge, will you? It's one-of-a-kind and going cheap!
     
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  10. Solent

    Solent Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2001
    Problem is, Zahn seemed to believe it. He´s just too in love with Thrawn and Mara, and that shilling hurts the narrative.
    Palpatine would have a good laugh at the idea of Thrawn or anybody else being above him. He´s the guy who can actually see future paths and plan ahead. It´s like playing against somebody who not only knows your cards, but also decides what cards you have.
     
  11. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2000
    I do when the author makes it clear that was his intent
     
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  12. Mia Mesharad

    Mia Mesharad Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    While it's true that the history of the City of Bone was retconned, Traviss acknowledges the Mandalorians' history with the mythosaurs at the same time. And as noted in The Essential Atlas and The Essential Guide to Warfare, the Crusaders' are still noted to have canonically hunted down the mythosaurs to extinction, leaving behind their giant skeletons. It's only the City of Bone itself that is now stated not to be a natural skeleton.
     
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  13. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Screw the author, good intentions alone aren't enough to move Thrawn from the villain to hero column, he was still an amoral, do-anything-for-his-cause type - that's no hero, no matter what anyone says.
     
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  14. Solent

    Solent Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2001
    Thrawn was like ESB Vader but more polite. If you screwed up you were also dead.
     
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  15. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 16, 2007
    But then you have to square that with how no one else who's ever been blasted with lightning has had their face melt, Palpatine's clones in DE and EE end up looking exactly the same just from dark side decay or whatever, and Sithisis shows melted-face Palpatine pre-ROTS performing a ritual to make himself look normal.

    Didn't Lucas change his mind at the last minute (again) and change the explanation from "dark side decay" to "lightning in the face"? I always thought that was why Palpatine looks so much older in AOTC than he does at the beginning of ROTS.
     
  16. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    No one else was fighting Mace Windu and had him throwing back the force power at them. :p

    Permanent damage to the genes? Though could easily be a mix of that, dark side rot and him getting poisoned.

    Not-Canon. [face_not_talking]


    What really just irks me about it that if he could just fix his face using the force, why not do it again, sure one could argue he is simply not that vain or keeps it around to reminding people of what monsters the Jedi were, but as Agent of the Empire makes rather clear in a offhand comment he looks like a monster now which is not good for PR.
     
    Robimus likes this.
  17. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 16, 2007
    Yuh-huh, Leland said!
     
  18. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Yeah I know but the Sith Mask thing is just so... [face_sigh]
     
  19. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    It could be that once you reach 11 on Sith lightning, the face melting level, you died before your face actually melts, but in Sidious' case he's so powerful that his face melts first.
     
  20. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    Or it is, because he is hit with basically his own lightning.

    Things I don't like:
    Greedo shooting first,
    Vergere being a Sith,
    original Viscount shrunk to 3.1 kilometers,
    only three million clones from a planet, whose entire economy is devoted to cloning a Grand Army,
    the travesty, that are the Jedi post-NJO,
    Boba Fett being a Mandalorian or any Mandalorians being around, when according to the TESB-novel he only wears the armour of a group of warriors, that had been whipped out,
    the whole TFU-affair with Starkiller being better than Vader and the Emperor, not to mention the "real" founding of the Rebel-Alliance,
    if I'm honest - any my fellow fleet-junkies will probably crucify me for that - the ever-increasing catalog of Imperial warships and fighters. Every comic or game seems to add a new vehicle to an ever increasing catalog of what should be a streamlined, uniformed, conform military organisation.
     
  21. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    True but it is just not the same thing. It is a bit like saying they have killed Rhedosaurus when the could have taken down Godzilla!
     
  22. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    I haven't been able to stand virtually every retcon I have encountered, because they have a tendency to change establish facts and guarantee I won't accept the retcon. My biggest gripes are the Tantive IV dramatic reversal, Mandalorians (specifically the New Mandalorians and what Traviss did to a certain extent), everything else from TCW, the Viscount-class Star Defender mess, TFU, and the post-NJO. TEA and TEGtW did nothing to fix any of these things for me, because they only had the option to include but not ignore these bad decisions.
     
  23. LightsaberAccident

    LightsaberAccident Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Aug 26, 2013
    I don't think it was an intentional retcon, but I don't like how Z-95 Headhunters, Victory-class Star Destroyers, and Dreadnaught(-class cruisers now I guess) were seemingly written out of the Old Republic era. When I went to see the prequels for the first time I was so psyched to see, what were to me, iconic Star Wars ships we'd never seen on the big screen. I was disappointed when we got the decidedly less impressive Venerators, Y-TIEs and Y-X-Wings. At least we got to see a Juggernaut before it was over, heh.
     
  24. Likewater

    Likewater Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2009
    I don't care about retcons along as they avoid do great damns in my opinion.

    1) Not be done to mark territory, I have read alot of marvel and retcons that exist sole reason for a writer/creator to mark their territory irk the hell out of me.

    The silly things lucas did during the clone wars cartoon series, ripping of Star Treks Balance or Terror, having have human hybrid peoples (like the entire night witch clan of Talzin) rather than simply having DS effects just irritated me.

    2) Retract the universe, anything that expands and pushes the universe forward i can get by, The Vergere ret con has basically turned Luke and his jedi order, Captain Jonathon "Duchess" Archer and his morally myopic crew of the S.S. Enterprise.
     
  25. VanishingReality

    VanishingReality Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 21, 2013
    It's not their droid army. (It if was they wouldn't have given some random sith apprentice sole control of the off-switch thingy.)