\n<\/p>\n
Once a film franchise gets to be a certain length, things may start to get a little wonky. We\u2019re firmly in the age of movie multiverses, where everything is made up and the deaths don\u2019t matter, but even before our current era of timeline sandwiches and prequel\/sequel\/reboot fudging, there was some funny business going on. There\u2019s nothing like a retcon to set a wayward film series back on track\u2014or derail it permanently forevermore.<\/p>\n
Movies usually try to be a little elegant with their retcons, changing a detail here and there and acting like things have always been this way. A retcon, or \u201cretroactive continuity,\u201d is a way for a series to say, yeah, we know we did one thing before, but let\u2019s just pretend like something else happened instead. Some of these work\u2014Darth Vader revealing himself to be Luke Skywalker\u2019s father is a retcon that works like a well-timed twist, and everything after it confirms that it\u2019s thematically appropriate. Some of them are a little less elegant.<\/p>\n
What we love most are the retcons that are so obvious it\u2019s like the movies themselves are winking and nodding to their audience, saying, Yeah, yeah, we know you\u2019re not stupid, just play along, okay? These retcons are sloppy, obvious, and often utterly hilarious, like the filmmakers threw up their hands and gave up on trying to make something fit within an established continuity. Who cares?? Well, we care\u2014enough to make an entire list of these sloppy retcons, after which we\u2019ll never look at a franchise\u2019s timeline the same way again.<\/p>\n
It’s not an elegant solution, but it’s a solution!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky<\/p>\n<\/div>\n