History Main / EvolutionaryRetCon

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* Speaking of ''Return of the King'' adaptations, the glimpses of Legolas (who has been DemotedToExtra) in the Rankin & Bass version of ''WesternAnimation/TheReturnOfTheKing'' reveals an appearance retcon for the Elves compared to their appearance in ''WesternAnimation/TheHobbit''. Aside from the StockFootage of Thranduil from ''WesternAnimation/TheHobbit'', the appearance of the Elves has been revised to have them looking much more like humans (as one can tell from Legolas' few appearances).

** The Cybermen are famous for their repeated redesigns, which is again fairly plausible in a species whose whole concept is ruthless self-augmentation. The major shifts are from the original "Tenth Planet" look with visible human body parts to the all-metal appearance of their second story "The Moonbase"; the shift to the "square-headed" silhouette in "The Invasion"; and the "baggy" eighties look from "Earthshock". But practically every story saw some tweaking to the design. The 21st-century series introduced another, even more robot-like look, and there was then a further redesign in the Moffat era to remove the "Cybus" branding that marked the Davies-era Cybermen as alternate-universe. The Moffat-era design was stated by the designers to be a CallBack to this: the Cybermen never remain the same for too long. [[CatchPhrase Upgrade in progress]]!

With leather pants and frizzy hair and lobsters on their heads"''

* Practically every memorable demon in the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' series was completely redesigned for ''VideoGame/{{Doom 3}}''. Most of these redesigns made the demons appear much scarier and more formidable opponents for the player. The original imp, for example, was a large, brown creature with spikes on its shoulders that would slowly advance towards the player while hurling fireballs at them. The new imp is a slimmer grey creature with no spikes and ten eyes on its head that is capable of climbing walls and has incredible jumping ability that allows it to clear the distance across an entire room in a single leap and generally attacks with a much more aggressive style.

* In the first ''{{VideoGame/Metroid}}'', due to graphical limitations, Kraid and Ridley are both the same size as Samus. By the time ''Super Metroid'' came around, Kraid was two rooms high, and Ridley was at least three times the size of Samus. ''VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission'' retcons the ''Super'' design into canon.

* Generally, early characters costumes will be retconned to be more realistic and sensible in favor of the bright colored spandex and cuffed buccaneer-style boots look. Superhero costumes historically appeared to draw inspiration from the form-fitting costumes worn by gymnasts, circus strongmen, and acrobats. While such outfits are sound for strictly athletic purposes, they provide little in the form of body protection. In more modern times, costumes will be more functional and less like costumes. Footwear will be sturdy and made for rough use. The actual reason that comic book characters wore so much spandex is that artists found the human figure easier to draw nude than with clothes. Drawing the nude figure is a basic skill drilled into the artists early on. Drawing clothing and folds in cloth may take much longer to master and render. These points are especially significant since comic book artists often had to produce completed art much faster than they do now. They simply did not have the time or resources to create elaborate highly detailed costumes, especially when they knew that much of their fine detail would be lost during image reduction as well as in the cheap printing processes of the time. The reason for the bright colors, of course, was that until recently, comic books were printed in four colors (the CYMK color model). Also, in most cases, black was necessarily substituted with blue; black would appear too flat in print. Franchise/SpiderMan's costume, for instance, was originally intended to be red and black, not red and blue.
** The Franchise/XMen costumes have undergone numerous changes when retelling stories set in the early years of the yellow and black outfits. The film ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', for example, retcons those costumes as military flight suits and the yellow is somewhat understated.
** ComicBook/CaptainAmerica's original costume was what appeared to be the traditional spandex tights with buccaneer boots. Retcons of his 1940s adventures have reimagined the costume as a more sturdy military-style outfit with pouches and hard protective headwear in place of a cowl and sensible combat boots in place of red buccaneer boots.
** Franchise/{{Batman}} started as the spandex clad caped crusader. Starting with TheNineties, artists and writers have experimented with making his costume more plausible and sensible given the beatings that Batman takes in the course of his adventures. This evolution ultimately resulted in realizing Batman's outfit as a heavily armored, high tech suit that employs military issue polymers created by Wayne-Tech. Even the cape is now actually functional and allows limited gliding.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'''s qunari now sport horns in order to differentiate them from the other races. The official explanation as to why the qunari seen in ''Origins'' don't have horns is that the qunari who are naturally born hornless, such as Sten and the members of his squad, are considered special and are given special tasks, such as scouting foreign lands, while the other qunari seen in ''Origins'' are [[DefectorFromDecadence Tal-Vashoth]] mercenaries who typically remove their horns when they leave the qunari.

** Interestingly, WordOfGod is that almost every Covenant phenotype and armor design seen throughout the franchise are equally canon, the former explained as different subspecies/racial groups and the latter as differences in manufacturer; this means it's perfectly fine lore-wise to depict, for example, ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}''- and ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}''-style Elites standing side by side.

** Interestingly, WordOfGod is that almost every Covenant phenotype and armor design seen throughout the franchise are equally canon; this means it's perfectly fine lore-wise to depict, for example, ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}''- and ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}''-style Elites standing side by side.

** Another ''Series/DoctorWho'' example: the Macra. Old series Macra look like [[http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q55/ashtonlamont/mo_ma01_Macra_400.jpg this.]] New series Macra look like [[http://www.sylvestermccoy.com/newdoctorwho/gridlock/macra.jpg this.]] This is explained by there being 5 billion years between them, during which time they have evolved from intelligent beings with a huge empire into mindless creatures living on the poisonous fumes of the New New York motorway.

** Trills are kind of a reverse example by ''Star Trek'' standards: they first appeared in the TNG episode ''The Host'' as a [[RubberForeheadAliens Rubber Forehead Alien]]. By the time they reappeared in [=DS9=], they lost the forehead and had spots, being less complicated and arguably something TOS could have done (all done because they had StatuesqueStunner Terry Farrell play the Trill in question and thought the original make-up took away from her looks).

** Trills are kind of a reverse example by ''Star Trek'' standards: they first appeared in the TNG episode ''The Chase'' as a [[RubberForeheadAliens Rubber Forehead Alien]]. By the time they reappeared in [=DS9=], they lost the forehead and had spots, being less complicated and arguably something TOS could have done (all done because they had StatuesqueStunner Terry Farrell play the Trill in question and thought the original make-up took away from her looks).

** Romulans had the same make-up as Vulcans in TOS and some early TNG. In later seasons of TNG and all following series, they have a distinctive V-shaped ridge on their foreheads. However it seems that this retcon did not apply to all: there are later examples of Vulcans and Romulans passing as each other, suggesting there are minorities among both who look like the other. Which makes sense, since biologically they're the same race. ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' would later establish that the ridged-forehead Romulans are "Northerners" their homeworld.