History Main / ExecutiveVeto

** The 1994 ''Star Wars'' Style guide imposed several restrictions on writers. Changing the power structure of the galaxy or introducing new technology was a no go. One of the biggest rules imposed in it (before the prequels came about and negated them) was "Do not talk about the past". Specifically, writers were barred from depicting ''anything'' that took place before ''Film/ANewHope'' (i.e. the Clone Wars, specifics of the Old Republic, how the Emperor came to power, how the rebellion stole the X-Wing prototype, the fall of the Republic and the Jedi Knights, the history of the Emperor and Vader, the history of the Mandalorians, and anything about the history of the Jedi Knights).
** For a time, George Lucas forbid the creation of Wookiee Jedi, but later reversed the decision and even had a Wookiee youngling introduced on ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars The Clone Wars]]'' series.

* Pablo Hidalgo revealed in a tweet that people at Creator/JJAbrams's company Bad Robot Productions wanted to show Starkiller Base blow up Coruscant in ''Film/TheForceAwakens''. However, Creator/{{Lucasfilm}} higher-ups refused to let such an important planet in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe be destroyed. The new planet of Hosnian Prime was made the New Republic capital so the First Order could blow it up instead.

* Creator/{{ABC}} prevented the creators of ''Series/{{Lost}}'' from killing Jack in the first episode. The plane's pilot was created and killed instead.

* ''Film/TheMuppets2011'' film would have ended with Kermit announcing that ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' [[{{Uncancelled}} will be brought back]] "this fall on Creator/{{ABC}}!" Disney put an ax to that plan. Then waited four years and [[Series/TheMuppets2015 let it actually happen]].

* Creator/ComedyCentral forbad Creator/TreyParkerAndMattStone from having ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' character Butters being [[AbusiveParents beaten by his parents]] after viewing the notorious ending to "[[Recap/SouthParkS6E1JaredHasAides Jared Has Aides]]".

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Reboot}}'': The writers originally wanted Enzo to age up into a teenager as the series progressed so they could keep Enzo's original voice actor, as they enjoyed his performance but he was becoming unable to voice Enzo due to his voice changing. ABC's executives vetoed this and Enzo was recast. However, once the show switched networks in season 3 one of the first things done is [[spoiler:Enzo aging into an ''adult'' as the result of the YearInsideHourOutside nature of games.]]

* The second ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' originally had an EveryoneDiesEnding, and may not have had a Light Side path at all. One of the few bits of ''good'' executive meddling from Lucasarts was to tell Obsidian to dummy those out. It's also important to remember that the rest of Lucasarts's ExecutiveMeddling resulted in the game being rushed out and losing about 1/4 of its planned content. Unfortunately as a result, the game had no real ending at all.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures'' was originally going to have a plot with strong continuity ties to the rest of the series (cut dialogue suggests it was originally planned to be about the Imprisoning War from the backstory of ''A Link to the Past''), but when Miyamoto saw it he complained that the plot should not be something that confused the player -- at least not with this particular game -- and "upended the teatable" on the project. What's left is a game with strong hints of both ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' but without clear continuity, even retelling Ganondorf's backstory. In the end, the [[AllThereInTheManual official timeline]] dictates that ''Four Swords Adventures'' and ''A Link to the Past'' are in [[AlternateTimeline different timeline branches]] split off from ''Ocarina of Time''. Even so it still raises [[ContinuitySnarl continuity issues]] as it clearly wasn't written with continuity in mind.

** As was first planned for the cancelled ''VideoGame/FalloutVanBuren'', there was originally meant to be a mention of the Enclave destroying San Francisco in the past out of belief that they were the ones who destroyed the oil rig, but publisher Creator/{{Bethesda}} wanted it to be an option to still be explored in future ''Franchise/{{Fallout}} games, so this was scrapped.

* Pablo Hidalgo revealed in a tweet that people at Creator/JJAbrams's company Bad Robot Productions wanted to show Starkiller Base blow up Coruscant in ''Film/TheForceAwakens''. However, Creator/{{Lucasfilm}} higher-ups refused to let such an important planet be destroyed. The new planet of Hosnian Prime was made the New Republic capital so the First Order could blow it up instead.

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'' was originally planned to use Donkey Kong Jr. as the Player 2 character. Nintendo's veto of this idea led to the creation of Diddy Kong.