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Now it is a curious fact that this is not the story as Bilbo first told it to his companions.
A Ret Con which directly ignores, contradicts or alters information in the Back Story.
The introduction of a Cousin Oliver or Uncle Ned is often a Re Vision, while a Brother Chuck is often a Re Write. Another Darrin may be either or both.
Sometimes a result of Canon Dis Continuity.
Examples:
- Red Dwarf underwent continuous rewrites; or to be more precise showed a cavalier disregard to its own backstory when there was a gag to be made. Most notably, the idea in the early seasons that Lister had barely spoken to Kochanski was contradicted in the novels, where they had a brief relationship before she dumped him. Later episodes would follow that version. Another major one is Rimmer's light bee; it went from being Rimmer's remote projection unit to actually being Rimmer.
- At one point, a TV series was in production that would focus on the nephew of MacGyver, who was an only child in the series.
- Perhaps the most famous (and best handled) example is Tolkien's rewriting of The Hobbit, where Bilbo obtains a ring that confers invisibility in the Misty Mountains. As The Lord Of The Rings reveals this to be the One Ring, Gollum's Back Story could no longer have him offering an Artifact Of Doom as a prize to Bilbo for winning the riddle contest; instead, Gollum would never forgive "Baggins" for stealing his ring. A revised edition of The Hobbit was published, and the prologue to The Lord Of The Rings explained the inconsistency: the original version was the story Bilbo maintained (building on the idea that The Hobbit was actually an autobiographical novel by Bilbo himself), but Gandalf eventually learned the true story by persistent questioning.
- God Of War II does this to the first game's continuity. At the end of the first game, the narrator expounds upon Kratos's retaining the throne of the God of War for all time, explicitly showing flash-forwards to WWII and modern counter-terrorist forces as she talks of his presiding over all armed conflict. At the beginning of the second game, Zeus strips Kratos of his mantle of godhood and boots him from Olympus, and Kratos does not regain his godhood by the ending. It is a cliffhanger ending, so whether this is a true rewrite depends on how God of War III will handle matters.
- The second Jurassic Park book had Ian Malcom very still alive, despite his apparent death in the first one.
- The author hangs a lampshade by explaining that rumors of Ian Malcom's death were exaggerated, and he still suffers ill effects.
- The events of The Terminator 2 are said to take place two years prior to the beginning of The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which took place in 1999), meaning that its time was changed from 1995 to 1997.
- The Final Fantasy VII OVA did this, and then Crisis Core: FF7 did this with both the OVA and FF7
- The creators have said that the OVA has been replaced by CC in canon, however, how much of CC is Revision or Re-Write is arguable. In FF 7, we only saw part of the Nibelheim incident, and only from the perspective of Cloud and what he remembered following the experimentation, mako poisoning, mental breakdown/denial, etc., so much of the changes in CC can be considered Revisions (for example, the fact that Genesis was involved in Nibelheim would seem like a Re-Write, except that Cloud never saw him and Zack never mentioned his appearance to Cloud, so that is likely a Revision).
- Selena in 28 Days Later tells Jim that the infection spread to Paris and New York (at least) after the initial outbreak in Britain, or at least, that the newspapers were printing this as an attempt to keep people from escaping quarantine. 28 Weeks Later completely ignores this, isolating the infection solely to mainland Britain and depicting the rebuilding of society there.
- Although it was heavily implied that it was only Britain even in the first movie. Maybe they just couldn't make up their minds.
- Certainly the fact that the virus seemingly works almost instaneously strongly suggests it could not reach Paris (two hours by plane), let alone New York - any aircraft that somehow had an outbreak would crash before leaving the runway.
- Rocky Balboa completely ignores the events of Rocky V. In the montage of clips shown from previous films, any footage from Rocky V is notably absent. As well, the brain damage Rocky suffered in Rocky V is completely ignored. This is due to Sylvester Stallone being unhappy with Rocky V and creating Rocky Balboa as the "suitable" conclusion to the Rocky saga.
- The Broad Strokes of Rocky V did happen, like him being retired from boxing and virtually broke. Stallone did a Hand Wave in supplimentary material that said the brain damage was exaggerated by the doctors, that it eventually went away in time. Obviously Stallone hated Rocky V as much as the viewers.
- While most of the changes between Metroid: Zero Mission and the original game it's a remake of can be explained away as simple retcons, there's no ignoring the fact that Kraid and Ridley have gone from human-sized to a two-story Godzilla clone and a giant flying dragon respectively.
- Objection! Word Of God states that they were always intended to be the size they were in Metroid Zero Mission. Think Super Metroid.
- The comic book Strangers in Paradise, in Vol. 3 issue #43, presents us with both an actual and a metafictional rewrite: It apparently takes place years later, when Francine and Katchoo are an elderly couple with a daughter named Ashley. Ashley has submitted a novel to a publisher, which turns out to be the story of Strangers in Paradise itself, and the publisher suggests a rewrite to make it flow better. After some minor outrage from Francine and Katchoo, they back the idea of a rewrite to make it more true to the "love story" aspect of their history, and the issue ends with the phrase, "End of Version 1." In the following issues, we see different takes of Francine revealing her first pregnancy, finally resolving in Francine going back to Katchoo, causing the rewrite to morph into a "saving throw" of removing a flash forward plot-thread from the start of volume three of the series where it's revealed that Katchoo and Francine had broken up and not seen each other in years (changed to several months and due to Katchoo being caught in bed with Casey). David's death remains intact however.
- Less overt but still a bit of a major sting, was the issue of Katchoo's step-father's death. Terry Moore had stated in the book's letter page that the step-father, who sexually assaulted Katchoo, was long dead when asked about the character's family. But he later opted to have him die during the middle of the series' third volume, with an issue dedicated to Katchoo (who didn't know about it until after he was dead and buried) racing to his grave in order to vandalize it with the word's "Child Molester" burnt into the tombstone.
- This happens when a new developer takes over the Tomb Raider series. Lara's whole background is changed to make her more developed. Legend also implies that all but the first Tomb Raider game never happened.
- Harvest Moon 64 and the redone version "Harvest Moon Back To Nature",better known for it's ports "Friends of Mineral Town" and "More Friends of Mineral Town",are completely different. Almost everything is rewritten. Personalities,back stories,jobs,some names and even family relations. However,they are in alternate worlds so...
- Smallville does this with character backgrounds and attributes. It's so blatant that it makes one wonder whether the writers/producers are just too damn lazy to go back and re-watch episodes or look up information on their characters on one of the many, many, many online databases documenting every character, in detail, from the main cast to the most throwaway guest star, or they're hoping viewers have poor recollection of the events and they won't go back an look. Or, Viewers Are Morons. In example:
- Chloe's mother: Chloe woke up one morning at age five to find her mother inexplicably gone and her father "trying to make waffles" (Lineage) vs. Chloe, at around eight or nine, comes home to watch her mother get carted off by the Men In White. (Progeny)
- Chloe and Smallville: Chloe moved to Smallville (or any rural place, as she though farmer Clark "was Amish") for the first time when she was thirteen (Obscura) vs. Chloe lived in Smallville early enough to have been affected by the meteors, allowing her meteor-mutant-controlling mother to accidentally control her and leave for Chloe's safety. (Progeny)
- Lex's Mother: Lex's mother was a redhead, as supported by his genetics (Lex has naturally red hair), Lionel's apparent infatuation with redheads (Lillian, Pamela from Crush, Rachel Dunleavy from Lineage, Martha Kent), show creators' confirmation that Lionel likes redheads, and that she appeared as one in Lexmas, vs. Lex's mother was a brunette and Lex dated women based on her. (Bound)
- Clark Leaving Krypton: Clark's parents both sent him off to earth (Memoria) vs. Clark sent himself off to earth via some twist in space and time, and his parents were no where to be seen. (Apocalypse)
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