History Main / ContinuityDrift

** The history of Oz during the Wizard's arrival was constantly shifting. In ''The Marvelous Land of Oz'', the Wizard is said to have taken the throne from Pastoria the former king and hidden his daughter Ozma. Then ''Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz'' has Ozma herself state that Mombi imprisoned her father Pastoria and herself before the Wizard's arrival which fits with the Wizard's earlier account. ''Glinda of Oz'' suddenly has Ozma bewilderingly claim she was one of Lurline's fairies who settled in Oz after it became a fairyland.

** The concept of Jedi discouraging attachments and forbidding marriage was only introduced in ''[[Film/StarWarsAttackOfTheClones Attack of the Clones]]'', so prior to that EU works had featured a number of married or romantically involved Jedi in works like ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' and the Bantam books. Editorial ultimately decided that the Jedi Order had only gone hardline on that philosophy in the last thousand years (while it had been around previously in history it had only been sporadically enforced) while explicit Prequel era examples like Nejaa Halcyon and Calista Ming were established as belonging to radical sects of Jedi who went against that philosophy.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** To give you an idea of how deep this issue runs in ''Franchise/StarWars'': it can be found within ''the first few seconds'' of the franchise's existence. The second line of [[Film/ANewHope the original film]]'s opening crawl states that the story begins shortly after the Rebels' "first victory" against the Empire, during which Rebel spies managed to steal [[{{Macguffin}} the plans to the Death Star]]. But basically no ExpandedUniverse stories (either in the old ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' continuity or the new post-Creator/{{Disney}} continuity) hold to this, instead depicting ''numerous'' Rebel victories prior to the Death Star plans being stolen. The film ''Film/RogueOne'' diverges even further, revealing that the Rebels' "victory" wasn't much of a victory at all: apart from the successful theft of the plans, the battle was a ''[[CurbStompBattle disaster]]'' for the Rebels, and they lost most of a fleet to the Empire. And while the famous opening crawl implies that the theft of the plans was a happy accident, ''Rogue One'' also reveals that it was actually the entire point of the battle: it began when a Rebel strike force set out to infiltrate the Imperial weapons research facility where the plans were being held; the Rebel fleet was just on hand to distract the Imperials while the strike force made off with the plans. Amusingly, it also shows that Princess Leia and the crew of the ''Tantive IV'' were personally present at the battle, and just narrowly escaped Darth Vader--making Leia's cover story of being on a "diplomatic mission to Alderaan" a [[BlatantLies hilariously blatant lie]].
** When watching the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy, one gets the impression that the Empire has existed for a long time. The prequel trilogy, however, shows that it's only nineteen years old. For example:
*** Admiral Motti dismisses the Jedi Order as an "ancient religion" and Han Solo sees the Force as superstition, suggesting that they never even saw a Jedi firsthand in their lives. However, 19 years ago they were a major force in the center of the Republic.
*** Tarkin announces the dissolution of the Senate as having swept away the "last remnants of the Old Republic", implying that the Senate had long been a powerless organ of a long-defunct government. Perhaps justified by the fact that the Empire had been declared nineteen years earlier, with the Senate remaining but all power really resting with Palpatine as the Emperor. Nearly twenty years is a fairly long period, after all, enough so that an entire generation of citizens could be born or grow up with it.
*** Also related is Obi-Wan's line in the original movie about the Jedi serving the Republic for over a thousand generations before the dark times of the Empire. However, in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', it's stated that the Republic was formed a thousand ''years'' ago. The continuity wizards at Lucasfilm fixed this by stating that the Republic was [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ruusan_Reformation merely restructured]] around that time. It also coincided with the Republic returning to a position of true Galactic power after being reduced to a rump state by a long series of wars with a Sith empire. The new EU has changed this slightly, claiming the Old Republic ''preceded'' the Galactic Republic, with the latter being formed after the fall of the former. Yet this contradicts references in the films where the late government is clearly called "the Old Republic". However, that could be generic "old" or just lumping them together, since for instance the French Fifth Republic followed the Fourth Republic, though both are called "the French Republic" as well (being two succeeding versions of the same thing).
** When Vader tells Tarkin that Obi-Wan is aboard the Death Star, Tarkin says "Obi-Wan Kenobi? Surely he must be dead by now." Vader replies "Don't underestimate The Force." This implies that if Kenobi weren't a Jedi, he likely would have died of old age by then. The prequels set Kenobi as no older than his 60s during ''A New Hope'', hardly an improbable age.
** Obi-Wan says, in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', "When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot, but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him." It's ''technically'' accurate, but surely he would mention Anakin was already a great pilot ''at the age of nine?'' But that detail didn't exist at the time. Also, in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', Anakin had more interaction between Obi-Wan's master Qui-Gon, who became almost a father figure and was the true impetus behind Anakin learning about the Force. Lucas originally had Obi-Wan take Qui-Gon's role in the final film but decided to age him down and introduce Qui-Gon to show a proper Master-Padawan duo.
** Obi-Wan says in the same instance in ''Return of the Jedi'' that his chief failing was thinking he could train Anakin as well as Yoda. This is nowhere apparent in the prequels and the one pushing for Anakin being trained is Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan merely trains Anakin as a final favor to him, and Yoda seems to focus entirely on foundational training for the youngest students. More significantly, Obi-Wan seems to be implying in ''Jedi'' that it was his [[{{Pride}} hubris]] in believing that he could train Anakin as a Jedi despite lacking Yoda's greater experience and wisdom that caused Anakin to fall to the Dark Side; the prequel trilogy established the idea of the MasterApprenticeChain where a Jedi Knight adopts and trains a Padawan as the normal way of things (and Obi-Wan isn't portrayed as a particularly bad teacher in any meaningful way), making Obi-Wan not really responsible for Anakin's fall at all.
** Obi-Wan addresses Vader as "Darth", having earlier referred to him as "A young Jedi named Darth Vader", implying that "Darth" is his first name. The prequels and [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] show that it's actually a title, akin to Vader calling Obi-Wan "General" or "Master". In retrospect, the scene works very well if we declare that Obi-Wan is making a point out of ''refusing'' to call Vader by his name. ''Series/ObiWanKenobi'' doubles down on this interpretation, with Obi-Wan's last line to Vader very pointedly calling him ''Darth''. But when the first movie was written, "Darth" was really just Vader's first name (and he really ''did'' murder Luke's father, who only became Vader himself for ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'').
** Ben also says in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' that Yoda was the Jedi Master who instructed him. Yet in Episode I, he's the Padawan of Qui-Gon, not Yoda. In Episode II, Yoda is shown teaching a large class of younglings, implying that Yoda gives some training to many or all Jedi, but it's still not appropriate to say that Yoda was ''the'' Jedi Master who trained Kenobi -- maybe he meant "the Jedi Master ''([[PunctuationChangesTheMeaning comma]])'' who instructed me"? A centuries-old Jedi Master will surely have had multiple padawans, but Obi-Wan's words implied they had a special relationship, unlike what is suggested in the prequels (WebVideo/RedLetterMedia said that the scene in Episode II "ruins the uniqueness of being trained by Yoda".). In Episode II it's also revealed that Dooku was Yoda's Padawan, and that Qui-Gon was Dooku's Padawan, meaning that Obi-Wan was trained by Yoda in a very roundabout way, but either way his statement was misleading. Although, it was already established in the original trilogy that Obi-Wan was quite liberal with the truth when talking to Luke.
** In ''Film/ANewHope'', Obi-Wan makes it sound like Anakin Skywalker and Owen Lars had a long history together, saying things like "[Owen] didn't hold with your father's ideals" and "He thought [Anakin] should have stayed here and not gotten involved." Then in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', we learn that the two aren't even blood relatives, and they only met each other once. Briefly, at that. They were originally intended to have been brothers, but this was changed (obviously).
** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' Obi-Wan's ghost thinks Luke is the Jedi's last hope, but Yoda notes "there is another"... who was of course revealed in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' to be Leia who was Luke's sister all along. But Obi-Wan does not seem to be aware that Luke even has a sister in ''Empire''. This is because Leia was ''not'' Luke's sister when ''Empire'' was filmed, and only became so when ''Return'' was being written. ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' complicates things further by having Obi-Wan being present at Luke and Leia's births, even delivering them himself to their respective foster families.
** There's also the fact that Leia explicitly says she remembers what her biological mother was like in ''Return'', only for it to be revealed in ''Revenge'' that Padmé died giving birth to the twins.
** In ''A New Hope'', "Ben Kenobi" wears brown robes and a white tunic, which seem like pretty fitting garb for a mysterious old hermit living in the middle of nowhere. But in the prequels, the brown robes and white tunic were made into the official uniform of the Jedi Order. If Obi-Wan was really trying to pass himself off as an unassuming old hermit while hiding from the Empire in the deserts of Tatooine, [[PaperThinDisguise he apparently wasn't trying very hard]] (he also doesn't even bother to change anything beyond his ''first'' name).
** Overlapping with CharacterizationMarchesOn: when C-3PO first meets Luke's family in ''Film/ANewHope'', Uncle Owen (who's looking for an interpreter) asks him if he can speak Bocce, and Threepio replies "Of course I can, sir! It's like a second language to me!" His word choice can seem a bit odd after you've seen the later movies, which clearly establish that Threepio is an {{omniglot}} "[[RunningGag fluent in over six million forms of communication]]", and that he speaks far more than just ''two'' languages. Of course, it's technically accurate (presumably they're ''all'' "like a second language" to him) and at the time he's very desperate to be bought by Owen. Threepio often makes word flubs when agitated later too, which could explain his phrasing here.
** ''A New Hope'' establishes that the Jedi were hunted to near-extinction by Darth Vader and the Empire, but it never says anything about a full-on [[ThePurge purge]] from within the ranks of the Old Republic's military, and it never makes it clear that Imperial Stormtroopers are all under standing orders to kill Jedi on sight. As Michael from Belated Media points out, this can make it seem odd that Obi-Wan has seemingly no problem with igniting his lightsaber in the middle of a crowded bar in Mos Eisley, knowing full well that there's a squad of Stormtroopers right outside the bar looking for a pair of wanted fugitives.
** It is stated by many background materials that Artoo has never had his memory erased, unlike Threepio. George Lucas has gone so far as to claim that the entire film saga has an unseen FramingDevice wherein Artoo is recounting the events to an alien race after the fact. However, especially given Artoo's extensive involvement in the prequels, this creates the problem of him never demonstrating any knowledge of important background that he ''really'' ought to be telling Luke about. Like the fact that he knew Anakin, Padmé and Obi-Wan for ''years'' and could have given a detailed account of everything that led to Luke's life working out the way that it had!

* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' seems to contradict the films occasionally.
** In the introduction to the novelization of ''Film/ANewHope'' (whose title is just ''Franchise/StarWars'', of course), it is explicitly stated that the Emperor is a powerless weakling who is controlled by his Evil Advisors. According to Wookieepedia, the Whills got the whole story from R2-D2 about 100 years later, so that means every one of the main characters is now an established liar. The novelization, published under Lucas's name but ghostwritten by Creator/AlanDeanFoster, actually came out months before the movie.
** The opening crawl of ''A New Hope'' states that "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." Take a wild guess if the Expanded Universe portrays more than zero Rebel victories taking place before this. So it all starts with the ''second line'' of the first-released film. And that's probably only because "It is a period of civil war." is pretty hard to screw up.
** The lightsaber itself started as a [[ElegantWeaponForAMoreCivilizedAge ceremonial weapon]], mostly used for battles between Jedis and a last resort weapon when diplomacy failed. Twenty years of expanded universe, parodies and video games later, Jedis are facing off entire armies with nothing but a lightsaber.
** In the novelization to ''Return of the Jedi'', it was stated that Darth Vader got his injuries from falling into a lava pit after a duel with Obi-Wan. This was taken for granted for decades until ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' revealed that Obi-Wan cut off his limbs (the remaining ones, anyway) and Vader was burned by his close proximity to the lava, but not actually falling into it Terminator-style. Lucas himself mentioned Vader's fall into a volcanic pit to ''Rolling Stone'' as early as 1977 but in the same interview Vader and Luke's dad are separate characters.
** The ''Return of the Jedi'' novelization follows a draft of the movie in stating Obi-Wan and Uncle Owen were actually brothers. Nothing really contradicted it until ''Attack of the Clones'' where Owen is Anakin's stepbrother. Thus, after ''The Phantom Menace'', a ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'' novel with young Obi-Wan came out which mentioned his brother Owen.
** The Force Ghost technique was implied in the original trilogy to be the standard Jedi afterlife. Even Anakin achieves it when he dies after his HeelFaceTurn. By the time new Expanded Universe material and the prequels came out, it was established that this technique was extremely difficult to perform and that Qui-Gon Jinn was the first to use it, and that Yoda and Obi-Wan learned it from him.
** Taking down an AT-AT walker with the tow cable in ''Empire Strikes Back'' comes across as a crazy last-ditch gamble. In Expanded Universe, especially video games, this is used as a common tactic (probably because players would feel ripped off if they didn't get a chance to duplicate the famous maneuver). This was justified at least once by saying that as much of a crazy gamble as ''trying'' it the first time was, it worked so unexpectedly well as to become standard thereafter.
** The original EU heavily implied that the Clone Wars were fought by the Republic and the Jedi ''against'' clones. Which is arguably true, [[MetaphoricallyTrue from a certain point of view]], but clearly not one shared with Timothy Zahn, who [[Literature/DarkForceRising wrote of the cloning cylinders of the Spaarti clone masters finally falling into imperial hands and being used, in a groundbreaking tactic, to make cloned stormtroopers]].

* Although ''VideoGame/KanColle'' never had much of a lore or continuity, in its early days it was hinted that the Abyssal Fleet were meant to represent the Allied Forces that fought Japan during World War II. Since the idea was rife with UnfortunateImplications, it was quietly dropped as the game grew more popular than expected. The game would later introduce actual Allied ships as playable characters, and TheMovie confirmed that the Abyssals are in fact Fleet Girls who were sunk.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' originally began as a direct sequel to the [=MSX2=] ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' games (''VideoGame/MetalGear1'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'') and many of the plot points were carried over unchanged. However as the prequels were released (namely ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'') many details of the series' backstory (such as Big Boss' age and military career prior to joining FOXHOUND, Frank Jaeger's country of origin, Master Miller's heritage and the fact that there were Metal Gears before the TX-55 in the first [=MSX2=] game) were changed to the point that they no longer sync with the MSX games. ''Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain'' does an admirable job in linking the frayed story threads, though ''Portable Ops'' had to be struck from the 'verse's canon.
** Curiously, if Naked Snake dies at any point during ''Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'', the words "SNAKE IS DEAD" slowly change to "[[TemporalParadox TIME PARADOX]]".
* Although ''VideoGame/KantaiCollection'' never had much of a lore or continuity, in its early days it was hinted that the Abyssal Fleet were meant to represent the Allied Forces that fought Japan during World War II. Since the idea was rife with UnfortunateImplications, it was quietly dropped as the game grew more popular than expected. The game would later introduce actual Allied ships as playable characters, and TheMovie confirmed that the Abyssals are in fact Fleet Girls who were sunk.

** While the existence of past Keyblade wielders was always a plot point in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' (King Triton confirms this in [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI the very first game]]), Keyblades themselves were treated as though they were rare and special. By ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'', this is no longer the case, with one character even lampshading that "it seems like everyone has one of those things these days". Similarly, the original game claims that the Keyblade chooses its master, but ''Birth by Sleep'' shows that people become Keyblade wielders because other Keyblade wielders choose them as successors and make them undertake a rite of passage, though the Keyblade still needs to choose them based on their strength of heart.[[note]]This makes Sora the only character we know of thus far ''literally'' chosen by the Keyblade. When Riku uses the power of darkness at the beginning of ''I'', the Keyblade bequeathed to him by Terra in ''BBS'' basically [[RefusedByTheCall panics]] and [[MissedTheCall jumps from Riku's heart to the next closest vessel]]-- which so happens to be [[TheUnchosenOne Sora]].[[/note]]

** While the existence of past Keyblade wielders was always a plot point in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', Keyblades themselves were treated as though they were rare and special. By ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'', this is no longer the case, with one character even lampshading that "it seems like everyone has one of those things these days". Similarly, the original game claims that the Keyblade chooses its master, but ''Birth by Sleep'' shows that people become Keyblade wielders because other Keyblade wielders choose them as successors and make them undertake a rite of passage though the Keyblade still needs to choose them based on their strength of heart.

** There is also the issue of the Master being so old that his bones have solidified and don't turn to dust when he is staked by Buffy. This issue is made problematic by the appearance of Kakistos, a vampire so old that his hands are now cloven hooves. This implies that he's much older yet than even the Master. [[ForegoneConclusion Do ''you'' think his bones remain once he gets staked?]]

* [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario and Luigi]] were said to be two plumbers from Brooklyn transported from Earth to the Mushroom World (containing the Mushroom Kingdom), in the [[WesternAnimation/SuperMarioBrosDic cartoons]], [[Film/SuperMarioBros1993 movie]], and other supplementary material. Ever since ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'' though, the games have done away with the earlier origin story and made it that they were born in the Mushroom World as natives of the Mushroom Kingdom. However, ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'' returns to the idea that they originate from Brooklyn for that continuity's plot.

* [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario and Luigi]] were said to be two plumbers from Brooklyn transported to Earth, in the [[WesternAnimation/SuperMarioBrosDic cartoons]], [[Film/SuperMarioBros1993 movie]], and other supplementary material. Ever since ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'', the games have done away with the earlier origin story. However, ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'' returns to the idea that they originate from Brooklyn for that continuity's plot.

** Wild magic, introduced in the second quartet, allows for a different kind of magic than the normal Gift -- the ability to talk to animals and eventually shapeshift. [[HandWave Hand waved]] by being subtle enough in most practitioners to be commonly disregarded as folk tale fodder.

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' was set during a real ice age with humans. The sequels have more anthropomorphized animals, dinosaurs, pirate monkeys, Scrat causing continental drift twice -- and no humans. However, as humans were ''extremely'' rare when ''Ice Age'' takes place it's possible they just never crossed paths.

** Some Japanese writing in ''Film/TheKarateKidPartII'' indicates that Mr. Miyagi's first name is Nariyoshi, though this is contradicted in ''Film/TheNextKarateKid'', where it is stated that his name is Kesuke. ''Cobra Kai'' reverts to what was stated in ''Part II'', as Miyagi's gravestone shows that his name is Nariyoshi, though series creator Jon Hurwitz has implied that Kesuke may be his middle name.