Retcon

"Retcon is retroactive continuity—the science of making stuff fit and getting better stories out of it."

―Karen Traviss

Retroactive continuity—commonly contracted to the portmanteau word retcon—refers to deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is referred to as a retcon, and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called "retconning."

When George Lucas re-edited the original Star Wars trilogy, he made changes directly to the source material, rather than introduce new source material that contradicted the contents of the previous material. However, the Star Wars prequels qualified as "new source material," and many fans have pointed out instances which apparently retcon elements of the original trilogy.

Although the concept is older, the term "retroactive continuity" was popularized in 1983 by DC Comics writer Roy Thomas, and the shortened form "retcon" on Usenet in the late '80s.

Star Wars movies

• In Episode IV, Ben Kenobi told Luke Skywalker that his father was betrayed and murdered by a pupil of his, Darth Vader. Episode V reveals Darth Vader to be Luke Skywalker's father. In Episode VI, Obi-Wan explained to Luke what he meant by telling him that Vader murdered his father, informing what he said was true, "from a certain point of view", since the Anakin that Obi-Wan remembered fondly "was destroyed" when he fell to the dark side of the Force, and therefore no longer considers him "Anakin" (this is supported by Obi-Wan only calling Vader "Darth" in Episode IV and not by his real name). While the in-universe explanation holds up fairly well, whether or not this was actually a retcon out of universe is one of the most hotly debated topics concerning the original trilogy.
• In the original release of Episode IV, Han Solo proceeded to pre-emptively shoot Greedo, while in later re-releases up to the Disney acquisition it was shown that Greedo shot first and missed Han by inches while Han shot back, with Lucas later claiming that Greedo always shot first in spite of the shooting script stating otherwise. This infamously resulted in the "Han shot first" controversy among fans.
• In Episode IV, Ben Kenobi says the Old Republic existed for a thousand generations, which Expanded Universe sources interpreted to mean 25,000 years. However, in Episode II, Palpatine said that the Republic had "stood for a thousand years". This would be rectified in the Legends Expanded Universe with the creation of the Ruusan Reformation. However, after April 2014, the Expanded Universe, now known as Star Wars Legends, is no longer considered canonical. 2020's The Star Wars Book would further establish that the canon Old Republic was indeed founded more than 25,000 years prior to Episode IV.
• In Episode V, Ben Kenobi's assertion that Luke was the last hope could either mean that he was unaware of Luke's and Leia's relation, or that he did not believe Leia could take Luke's place. In Episode III, he was present when Padmé Amidala gave birth to Luke and Leia, and even helped arrange for Bail Organa to adopt Leia. One possible explanation could be that, at the moment, Obi-Wan only saw Luke as their last hope since Leia was being held prisoner by the Empire and the hope that Yoda was referring to was that he sensed a possibility that Leia might be able to escape (which does happen later in the film).
• In Episode VI, Obi-Wan states that he decided to train Anakin to become a Jedi. This would later be reverted in Episode I, where he initially doesn't want to, but does so to fulfill the dying wish of his master, Qui-Gon Jinn.
• In Episode VI, Leia tells Luke that she vaguely remembers how her mother looked, though in Episode III, Padmé Amidala dies soon after giving birth to them. There has been some debate whether Leia was talking about Breha Organa, her foster mother, though StarWars.com stated that Leia was indeed remembering Padmé, though it's now unclear if this is canonical or not. It should be noted that when illustrator Iain McCaig was assigned to draw concept art for Breha, he gave Breha all of Amidala's traits in an attempt to explain how Leia remembered her mother's smile.
• Poe Dameron and Rey met for the first time in Star Wars: The Force Awakens novelization, but then it was retconned that their first meeting was in Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi.
• Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker both stated in Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi that Kylo had intentionally destroyed the Jedi Temple of Luke Skywalker and taken several students with him, while slaughtering the remaining students. However, The Rise of Kylo Ren 1 shows that no students left to join Ben, only to pursue him when he fled.
• In the novelizations of Episode VII and Episode VIII, as well as the visual dictionary for Episode VIII, Snoke is established to be a dark side user with no connections to the Sith, who had previously seen the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire. It was also stated in the novelization for Episode VIII that Darth Sidious had sensed Snoke shortly before his death, coming to believe that Snoke would succeed him as the leader of what would become the First Order. Episode IX instead states that Darth Sidious had created Snoke and had been directly responsible for the events that resulted in the rise of the First Order and the corruption of Ben Solo to the dark side.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The Clone Wars made many retcons to established continuity when it debuted. However, the vast majority of the show's retcons were rendered moot after the April 25, 2014 continuity reboot that shifted all of the media then retconned into the Legends continuity, leaving The Clone Wars film and series in Canon with the original and prequel trilogies.

• In the 2005 Revenge of the Sith novelization, Anakin says that he had only ever read about MagnaGuards before fighting them onboard the Invisible Hand. However, season one episode "Duel of the Droids" has him fighting MagnaGuards to rescue R2-D2.
• Season three episode "Hunt for Ziro" includes Gardulla Besadii the Elder, retconning her death in the video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, which had depicted her being fed to a krayt dragon.
• The tie-in graphic novel Shipyards of Doom involves a Republic strike team which includes Anakin Skywalker carbon-freezing themselves as an infiltration tactic. Third-season episode "The Citadel" involves the same tactic, but has Anakin claiming never to have undergone the procedure before, invalidating the earlier work.
• "Citadel Rescue" retconned the novel Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight by killing off Even Piell, who had first been depicted as dying in that novel, later in the timeline.
• Season four episodes "Kidnapped", "Slaves of the Republic" and "Escape from Kadavo" were adapted from the first story arc of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars monthly comic series. However, in the course of the adaptation, a large number of elements were changed:
  • The comic, coming out around the same time as the first season of the show, was set early in the Clone Wars, with Ahsoka Tano as a young and inexperienced Padawan. The TV series, by season 4, had moved a few years into the war, and Ahsoka was much more experienced. This change also resulted in the removal of several characters: in the TV show, Asajj Ventress had been kicked out of the Separatists' service during season three, and clone trooper Waxer, who made a brief appearance, had been killed off in "Carnage of Krell", the episode immediately before the beginning of the arc.
  • The Separatists' involvement is downplayed, with Separatist forces no longer participating in the Battle of Kadavo, and a plot thread where Count Dooku attempted to frame the Jedi for having murdered the colonists of Kiros being excised.
  • Multiple characters original to the comic strip, including Onyx and his crew and Xerius Ugg, were omitted. They were replaced with TV-series original character Darts D'Nar and his ship, the Tecora.
• "An Old Friend": In her entry on the original Databank, Teckla Minnau was said to have survived the Clone Wars, going on to marry a writer while serving as a handmaiden to Queen Kylantha. This episode retconned that by killing her off during the events on Scipio.
• The "Bad Batch" arc which opened the series' revived seventh season was initially released on StarWars.com as a series of unfinished story reels. The final versions of the four episodes featured multiple changes:
  • The finished versions of all four episodes have different opening morals to the ones in the story reels.
  • "The Bad Batch":
    • The explanation Rex gives to Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu regarding how exactly the Separatists seem to be keeping the upper hand during the Battle of Anaxes has been changed: in the story reel, he is more upfront with his theory that the presumed-dead ARC trooper Echo may still be alive, and about the existence of the strategy algorithm the Separatists are using that has led him to this conclusion. In the finished episode, he instead gives the Jedi Generals a more vague explanation, and only confides his real theory to Cody later in the barracks in a new scene as he feels the Jedi wouldn't have believed him.
    • Kix has his original almost-bald hairstyle in the story reel, but in the finished episode sports a full head of hair. Similarly, Jesse's ARC trooper helmet has a rangefinder in the story reel that is absent in the finished episode.
    • In the reel, Jesse makes a comment while the Bad Batch is fighting the battle droids in the canyon, wondering "Are these guys for real?" The line is gone in the final version.
  • "A Distant Echo":
    • The story reel includes provocative nose art of Padmé Amidala on the Havoc Marauder. The nose art is no longer present in the final release of the episode, nor is it visible in other episodes in which the shuttle makes an appearance. Instead, the scene where Anakin Skywalker objects to the nose art is replaced with a scene where he has a private holo-call with Padmé, while Rex attempts to keep Obi-Wan Kenobi from interrupting.
    • Hunter's dialogue about the Havoc Marauder not being an obviously Republic ship is not present in the final version.
    • The insensitive remarks Crosshair makes on Skako Minor that lead Rex to lose his temper and punch him are, in the story reel, an insinuation that Echo may have willingly gone over to the Separatists after being left for dead. In the final episode, Crosshair instead goads Rex by suggesting Echo's death was Rex's fault.
  • "On the Wings of Keeradaks": The scene where Wat Tambor demonstrates the Decimator on a Poletec test subject is gone from the final episode.
  • "Unfinished Business":
    • In the story reel, Echo says that Trench is unaware of his rescue because Wat Tambor is too afraid of the Harch Admiral to inform him of that crucial fact. In the final episode, he instead frames Trench's ignorance as due to Tambor's greed making him loath to admit the loss.
    • Gold Leader, in the story reel, is wearing the same flight suit and face-revealing helmet as the clone pilots in Revenge of the Sith. In the final version, he is instead wearing the face-concealing helmet and Phase II armour introduced for clone pilots in season 4.
    • The reel version of the episode ends with a medal ceremony. In the final version, the last scene is instead Rex seeing Echo off after the latter decides to take up the Bad Batch's offer to join them.
• The four-part grand finale of The Clone Wars ("Old Friends Not Forgotten", "The Phantom Apprentice", "Shattered", "Victory and Death"), released in 2020, retcons almost all of the details about the Siege of Mandalore and Ahsoka Tano and Rex's survival of and escape from Order 66 given in the 2016 novel Ahsoka.
  • In the novel, Ahsoka's last conversation with Anakin is him warning her about how dangerous Maul is. "Old Friends Not Forgotten" has their last conversation be them wishing each other luck and discussing the changes Anakin made to Ahsoka's lightsabers. In addition, the lightsabers themselves are now blue, whereas the novel has them with their original blade colours, green and yellow-green. Editions of the novel published after the episode's release updated the description of the lightsabers to match the TV show.
  • In the novel, Ahsoka owns a weapons belt that she wore during the Siege and used to hold her lightsabers. The TV series gives Ahsoka a Mandalorian-designed combat outfit that lacks a separate belt and has catches located at her hips for her to carry her weapons.
  • Ahsoka's last duel with Maul during the Siege, in the novel, takes place in a plaza in Sundari. Their conversation is an exchange of insults regarding her departure from the Jedi and him only being "half" a Sith. Maul is captured when Ahsoka lures him into a ray shield that her allies activate. In "The Phantom Apprentice", conversely, their final duel takes place on the support beams of Sundari's bio-dome, and their conversation is about Maul's earlier offer to her to team up so they can defeat Darth Sidious. Ahsoka is disarmed before she captures Maul by knocking him off of a beam and suspending him in mid-air with the Force, whereupon Rex arrives with backup in several gunships. Two Mandalorian warriors then secure Maul with their wrist-cables before Rex shoots him with a stun blast.
  • In the flashback of the Siege, Maul addresses Ahsoka as "Lady Tano", which is what he calls her in Star Wars Rebels episode "Twilight of the Apprentice". The novel states that Maul got the title from the clone troopers, who called Ahsoka that as a form of respect since she was no longer officially part of the Republic Military. In the episodes, conversely, the clones treat Ahsoka as if she never left, addressing her as "Commander" in reference to her former rank of Jedi Commander up until Order 66 happens. The only character referred to as "Lady" in the episodes is Bo-Katan Kryze.
  • While the novel does not show the execution of Order 66 itself, it is implied that it is issued quite soon after the end of the Siege, while Ahsoka, Rex and Maul are still on Mandalore. It is hinted that Maul takes the opportunity to escape in the chaos, and Ahsoka is forced to choose between killing him or saving Rex's life, opting for the latter. While the order is given after the end of the Siege in the TV show, Ahsoka and Rex have already left Mandalore, intending to deliver the captured Maul to the Jedi Council on Coruscant, and as such they are onboard a Star Destroyer in hyperspace when it happens. Maul does not escape his confinement, but is intentionally released by Ahsoka as a diversion for the clones. Ahsoka is indeed forced to make a choice between dealing with Maul or saving Rex at the climax, but the decision with Maul is whether to let him escape in the shuttle he is stealing.
  • Finally, in the novel, after escaping, Ahsoka and Rex fake their deaths to the Empire by burying another clone in Rex's armour, marking the grave with a headstone claiming that they killed each other. Having acquired two starships and having decided to split up, Rex leaves first before Ahsoka, left alone in the night, turns on her lightsabers one last time before kneeling and placing them on the gravesite to seal the deception. She then leaves as well. In the episode, the gravesite is, instead of Mandalore as implied in the novel, on a moon, where the Star Destroyer they were onboard crashed after Maul destroyed its hyperdrive. No attempt is made to create a fake grave for Rex, as he keeps his armor and he and Ahsoka instead bury the bodies of the clones who died in the crash, and no inscribed grave markers are created, as the clones' helmets on poles are used instead. Ahsoka does not abandon her weapons at night, but in the daytime, and does not abandon her lightsabers together, with her only being shown abandoning her primary weapon, not the shoto lightsaber. She does not ignite the blade, instead only briefly hesitating before dropping it on the ground. She and Rex are also implied to leave the moon together, only parting ways afterwards, as they only have one starship.

Star Wars Legends

• In one 1978 series of strips that was later titled The Constancia Affair, Luke Skywalker's parents were called "Master and Mistress Tan Skywalker." At the time, the Expanded Universe was in its early stages, and nobody knew what the name of Luke's father was going to be, save that the two probably shared the surname Skywalker. The given name "Anakin" was only revealed in the 1983 movie Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, five years after the release of The Constantia Affair. The name "Tan" was later retconned into a title-rank that was bestowed to exceptionally skilled pilots.
• Since Episode IV, the Republic was known to have fought the Clone Wars, and the Expanded Universe (EU) added several other conflicts, such as the Great Sith War; but in Episode II, Sio Bibble stated that "there hasn't been a full-scale war since the formation of the Republic." The above-mentioned Ruusan Reformation also handled this discrepancy.
• In the novelization of Episode VI, it's said that Darth Vader fell into a pool of lava. In Episode III, Anakin doesn't actually touch the lava, but the fumes were hot enough to set fire on his clothes. However, more than a retcon, this idea was most likely altered in order to make Anakin's survival more plausible. In addition, it's revealed that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Owen Lars were brothers, though in Episode II it's shown that they were unrelated (coincidentally, in real-world, Nash Edgerton, Joel Edgerton's (young Owen Lars) brother, doubled Ewan McGregor (young Obi-Wan) and that Palpatine was loved by the Coruscanti (which was further supported by the sourcebook Coruscant and the Core Worlds and its statement that the populace specifically viewed Palpatine as a virtual demigod), while in the Special Edition of the film, it's shown that Coruscant celebrated Palpatine's death, even bringing down a statue of his.
• The Imperial capital was originally referred to by writers as "Imperial Center"; when Timothy Zahn introduced the name of Coruscant, the name Imperial Center was retconned to be what the Empire designated Coruscant.
• Likewise, the capital city of Coruscant was originally called Imperial City; when Coruscant was determined to be an ecumenopolis, Imperial City was retconned to be the designation of that part of the city as opposed to the planetwide city as a whole (which was renamed Galactic City).
• The Coruscant Uprising, and the brutality with which the Empire suppressed it, retcons the post-Endor celebrations on Coruscant seen in the special edition of Return of the Jedi with the fact that the planet would not be freed from Imperial rule for another two years.
• The name of the Republic's leader was for many years simply the President of the Senate; when the prequels revealed the title to be the Supreme Chancellor, the term "President of the Senate" was retconned to be one of the Chancellor's several official titles (some say that this was the title before the Reformation).
• In the Jedi Prince series, Kadann and the others were trying to steal power away from Ysanne Isard. Isard is never mentioned in the series—in fact, it's frequently implied there is no Imperial leader other than Trioculus—but this retcon was created to fit the series into the established timeline.
• The EU established that Raith Sienar gave Tarkin the designs for the Death Star, and that Bevel Lemelisk developed the superlaser; after Episode II revealed that the Geonosians gave the plans to Tyranus/Sidious, it was retconned that the Geonosians developed the details based on outlines given to them by Sienar and Lemelisk. Indeed, the history of the Death Star has become so convoluted that a novel was created on this topic. The novel was, in effect, one large retcon.
• The show Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO showed C-3PO and R2-D2 having several adventures in the time between the rise of the Empire and Episode IV; after the release of Episode III showed them to be in the employ of the same people they are with in Episode IV, it has been retconned that the two droids somehow were separated from their owners because of Corla Metonae after Episode III, then returned to them sometime before Episode IV.
• While A-wings are not supposed to exist before the Battle of Yavin, they appear in the Droids series, which happens between the two trilogies. The identical R-22 Spearhead was then "invented" as a predecessor of the A-wing, in order to explain the appearance of such ships in the Droids era.
• The title Darth was supposed to be invented in the period of the New Sith Wars until the game Knights of the Old Republic introduced Darth Revan and Darth Malak, who lived 2,000 years before the beginning of the aforementioned period. It is generally assumed that the title was forgotten sometime between, so the tradition was lost. The first Sith Lord to use the title Darth in the New Sith Wars era also constantly shifted into the past: first it was thought to be Darth Bane, then Darth Rivan, and later Darth Ruin.
• Timothy Zahn, in The Thrawn Trilogy, cast the Clone Masters as the opponents of the Galactic Republic in the Clone Wars, as several authors of the '90s considered that the cloners and their clones were the "villains." However, after Attack of the Clones revealed the clones were on the Republic's side, the Clone Masters were retconned into being renegades who did not attack until after the formation of the Empire.
• The Confederacy of Independent Systems' use of Morgukai clones during the Siege of Saleucami, shown in the Star Wars: Republic storyline of the same name, and a young Gilad Pellaeon's presence among the Republic forces, explains Pellaeon's claim in Heir to the Empire (part one of the aforementioned Thrawn trilogy) to have battled unstable clones during the Clone Wars many years before.
• The BBY system used in many sources to represent dates in the Star Wars timeline is itself a retcon. It originated as an out-of-universe dating system and, after becoming popular, was retconned into an in-universe system used by the New Republic, et al.
• According to their first back-story written in The Star Wars Sourcebook, the Mon Calamari and the Quarren had their first contact with offworlders when the Galactic Empire discovered their world. This generated continuity problems when Quarren appeared as background aliens in Episode I, and when the Mon Calamari Padawan Bant Eerin appeared in the Jedi Apprentice series. The idea that the Mon Calamari's conflict with the Empire was their first experience with offworlders was retconned away when they appeared as loyal members of the Galactic Republic in Star Wars: Clone Wars. Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds explained these previous references as Imperial propaganda.
• Little Kessel was created for The Essential Atlas to confirm that the lush, idyllic "Kessel" seen in The Second Kessel Run and the "regular" Kessel—a desolate, misshapen world unpleasant enough to serve as an in-universe synonym for Hell—are not the same planet.
• Jaster Mereel was originally supposed to be the real name of Boba Fett. However, when Episode II stated that Boba was a clone of his "father" Jango Fett, Jaster Mereel was retconned into a separate character, Jango's mentor and predecessor as Mandalore. It was stated that Boba took the alias in honor of the real Jaster. It was also stated that there were many rumors concerning Boba Fett's identity due to the fact that most people in the galaxy knew very little about him, with Fett having deliberately spread some of them to throw others off his actual background.
• As revealed in the Marvel Star Wars comics series, Boba Fett was believed to have served with a group of supercommandos from the planet Mandalore towards the end of the Clone Wars. According to reports, only three Mandalorians survived: Boba Fett, Tobbi Dala, and Fenn Shysa. However, it was later retconned that this "Boba Fett" was not Boba Fett at all, but a rogue ARC trooper named Spar who had become obsessed with returning the Mandalorians to their former glory.
• The rumor mentioned in The History of the Mandalorians that the renegade clone Spar was in fact Jango Fett's son rationalizes Fenn Shysa's claim that, during the Clone Wars, he and the Mandalorian Protectors had served under Boba Fett - who was later shown to have been only 13 at the end of the conflict.
• Stormtroopers during the Galactic Civil War were rarely indicated to be clones before the prequel films, except in the article Soldiers of the Empire!. Additionally, multiple Expanded Universe sources mentioned normal human stormtroopers (such as Davin Felth and Kyle Katarn) and showed the existence of Imperial academies (such as Carida) which trained normal humans as stormtroopers. Large numbers of clones were later retconned into the stormtrooper ranks. (See also Star Wars: Battlefront II, which established that the 501st Legion was the only stormtrooper unit still made up of Jango clones.)
• The Phase Zero dark troopers—aging and wounded Clone Wars veterans essentially turned into cyborgs—explain how, while the Empire's first use of them did not occur until after the Battle of Yavin, the Battlefront games include "Dark troopers" in the Imperial arsenal as early as 18 BBY.
• The novel I, Jedi places Corran Horn at the Jedi Praxeum during the events of The Jedi Academy Trilogy, and also fine-tunes some of the events of the trilogy to fit later canon.
• In the Return of the Jedi novelization, Obi-Wan Kenobi said that Owen Lars was his brother, and there is a reference to Obi-Wan's brother Owen in Jedi Apprentice: The Hidden Past. With Attack of the Clones depicting Lars as a completely different character, Owen Kenobi became a retcon.
• The Dark Jedi Jerec wears a blindfold, originally because his eyes were destroyed by the dark side of the Force, not because he was a member of a species that lacked eyes. The New Essential Guide to Characters referred to Jerec as a human and the fact that he once had eyes is mentioned in a voice-over in Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. However, sources published more recently have retconned him as a member of the eyeless species Miraluka.
• Although the 2002 video game Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast refers to its Imperial antagonists as the "Imperial Remnant", they were later retconned into in fact being representatives of the Empire Reborn, an Imperial splinter faction first introduced in the 1994 novel The Crystal Star.
• The character of Quinlan Vos was originally written by George Lucas to appear in Episode III as being one of the many Jedi who were killed during Order 66. Star Wars: Republic writers inserted the scene in the film's comic book adaptation in spite of their plans to do more stories with Vos. However, when they became aware that Lucas never filmed Vos' death scene, they retconned Vos' death to just a wound, bringing him back, albeit injured, in Republic 82: Hidden Enemy, Part 2.

External links

• Retcon on Wikipedia

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