Retcon / Star Wars

Over the years, Star Wars has been retconned numerous times to accommodate the changes made to specific characters or plot details.

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The films retconning earlier films

• Darth Vader being Luke's father was, in fact, a retcon. Indeed, they were still treated as separate characters in Leigh Brackett's original draft of The Empire Strikes Back. The retcon turns Obi-Wan Kenobi into a liar, which Return of the Jedi addressed with the explanation that Obi-Wan's story had been Metaphorically True. By coincidence, Alec Guinness's performance in A New Hope included some significant looks that retroactively sell the idea that he was holding back the truth about Anakin.
• It was also not originally planned that Luke and Leia were siblings, let alone that Leia had intuitively "always known" it, hence the non-sisterly kisses she shares with Luke in the first two installments of the original trilogy. And before Lucas decided they would be siblings, he approved the sequel novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which features Luke and Leia sharing a huge amount of Unresolved Sexual Tension.
• Anakin being Vader meant that it didn't really make sense anymore that "Uncle Owen" was actually Luke's uncle. This managed to get retconned twice. The original retcon, included in the script for Return of the Jedi, was that Owen was actually Obi-Wan's brother. While cut from the actual movie, this line made it into the novelization, and from there, the old Expanded Universe. It was accepted EU canon up until Attack of the Clones introduced a second retcon: Owen was now Anakin's stepbrother and no relation to Obi-Wan.
• In A New Hope, Obi-Wan mentions that Anakin wanted Luke to have his lightsaber when he was old enough. However, the script and novelization of Return of the Jedi claims that Anakin didn't even know his wife was pregnant, which would seem to eliminate any possibility of that happening, unless he was talking about some child he might hypothetically have someday. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin does know that Padmé was pregnant (another retcon, naturally), but he still never expresses any wish for his unborn child to inherit his lightsaber. While it could have happened off-screen (Revenge of the Sith does have a baby-planning scene), it still leaves the question of how Obi-Wan could have learned about it.
• The changes introduced in the Special Editions slightly alter the story of the original films, adding Han's conversation with Jabba, the presence of extra droids, Dewbacks, and Stormtroopers, the Max Rebo Band performing "Jedi Rocks" at Jabba's palace, and a number of visual updates that approach Orwellian Retcon.
• In The Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan referred to Yoda as "The Jedi Master who instructed me". The Phantom Menace shows Obi-Wan as the apprentice of Qui-Gon Jinn. However, there was a line early in the film hinting that Obi-Wan had been taught by Yoda at some point before Qui-Gon became his Master, and Attack of the Clones features a scene of Yoda teaching Jedi Younglings, implying that all Jedi children are taught by Yoda until they become Padawans and are assigned individual masters.
• R2-D2 flying. Apparently, they decided that was too cool an ability and removed it sometime between III and IV. Though it's easy to assume that R2 possessed the ability to fly in the original trilogy, but never did because he didn't have to.
• In Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Leia if she remembers her real mother and Leia says that she died when she was very young, but she has some memories: "She was very beautiful. Kind, but sad." Revenge of the Sith reveals that Leia's mother died within minutes of giving birth to her.
• The Rise of Skywalker implies Leia already knew Rey was the descendant of Palpatine and was training her due to being strong with the force. Poe has an added backstory as a Spice Runner. The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary claims Luke's X-Wing on Ahch-To is non-functional, but now it is functional. The Jedi texts are not just concerned with Jedi teachings, but contain information on the Wayfinder and how to get to Exegol in the Unknown Regions. Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter rather than being just the descendant of worthless junk traders. The novelization goes further; Palpatine was a clone, and Rey's father was a defective clone of Palpatine, and the kiss Rey and Kylo shared was strictly platonic.

The films retconning other Star Wars media

• The novelization of A New Hope describes the Emperor as a Puppet King. This idea was probably abandoned by The Empire Strikes Back, and it was definitely abandoned by Return of the Jedi.
• Pre-1983 depictions of Jabba the Hutt, seen in the novelization of A New Hope and in Marvel comics, are wildly at odds with the giant slug-like creature that he turned out to be in Return of the Jedi.
• Tales of the Bounty Hunters gives Boba Fett a backstory in which he was once a lawman known as Jaster Mereel. This would later be retconned away by Attack of the Clones, in which "Boba Fett" is his birth name, and he's the clone son of the bounty hunter Jango Fett. The name Jaster Mereel was used for Jango Fett's mentor.
• Back in the day, EU writers were forbidden from depicting the Clone Wars so that there wouldn't be contradictions with the then-upcoming prequel trilogy. However, some EU works got away with using the Clone Wars for backstory, and as vague as they kept the details, contradictions with the eventual prequels emerged nonetheless. Most obviously, it was overwhelmingly assumed that the clones fought against the Republic rather than for it. The timeline was also different, with the Clone Wars typically pegged as taking place sometime around 30 BBY or even 40 BBY. The Prequel Trilogy and The Clone Wars would ultimately place the Clone Wars much later, in the years 22 - 19 BBY.
• In The Thrawn Trilogy, Mara Jade claims that Darth Vader lost his right hand courtesy of the Emperor, as punishment for failing to prevent the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope. Attack of the Clones would instead have a teenage Anakin lose the hand in a duel with Count Dooku.
• When The Phantom Menace originally came out, supplementary materials stated that the Neimoidians designed the battle droids to resemble Neimoidian skeletons. This was retconned by Attack of the Clones, which established the Geonosians as the creators of the battle droids and the in-universe basis for their design.
• In the novelization of Return of the Jedi, the reason for Vader's reliance on his trademark life support armor was that he fell into a pit of lava following a duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi. In Revenge of the Sith, Vader and Obi-Wan duel on the volcanic planet Mustafar with Obi-Wan defeating Vader on a bank next to a lava river. Vader never actually touches the lava, but he's close enough that the hot fumes set his clothes on fire and he burns to a crisp. Probably justified, since it's a bit more likely that he'd survive this way.
• Droids portrays R2-D2 and C-3PO drifting through a series of different masters during the years prior to the original trilogy. However, Revenge of the Sith ends with the droids being given to Captain Antilles, who was their master at the start of A New Hope. This would seem to suggest that they were with Antilles for the entire period between Sith and Hope, leaving no room for the adventures of Droids to take place. This was later given the Hand Wave that they were accidentally separated from Antilles at some point and then returned to him years later.
• In 2014, Disney retconned the old EU into not existing anymore. Or more precisely, it was rebranded as Star Wars Legends and declared to be an Alternate Continuity. This was to give themselves a blank slate for making new Star Wars movies, and indeed the sequel trilogy happily overwrites the events that Legends portrayed as taking place after Return of the Jedi. Likewise, Legends had preexisting backstories for the stolen Death Star plans and Han Solo, which were overwritten by Rogue One and Solo respectively.

Star Wars Legends

• Many retcons are almost something of a butterfly effect - a fairly small and seemingly insignificant thing that ends up causing lots of Fridge Logic in other works (or even the same one). In many cases, this is more due to a build-up of lots of these little inconsistencies that magnify each other when combined. Of note is the retcon that Palpatine and Thrawn knew the Vong were coming and told no-one.
• The countless species used to have this happen to them on a fairly regular basis. Retcons would include everything from a character formerly established to be one species being retconned into another one or a subspecies, to the appearance of a race changing from one work to another. Like◊ the◊ Cathar◊.
• Bothans, for various reasons, have had their appearance change somewhat frequently. They originally looked like humans with fur, then like bipedal orangutans, but now look something like a cross between a lion and a kangaroo, with humanoid build. And half-Bothans, for some reason, have hooves.
• The character Admiral Wullf Yularen came to prominence through the Expanded Universe/Legends and then The Clone Wars and Rebels, but technically debuted in A New Hope—an unnamed Imperial officer on the Death Star was eventually assigned the name "Wullf Yularen" and his character was fleshed-out from there.
• When the Star Wars: Ewok Adventures films were made, it was presumed that they took place after Return of the Jedi, hence there being no issue in Wicket learning to speak Galactic Basic. This became a plot hole when it was later established that the Ewok movies took place before Jedi.

Star Wars Expanded Universe

• At Celebration 2017, Dave Filoni confirmed that a popular fan theory that Captain Rex of The Clone Wars and Rebels was a member of the Rebel strike team in Return of the Jedi would be canonized, thus retconning that particular soldier's previous name and identity away.
• The old EU backstory flip-flops on Greedo's backstory. At first, it was intended that the Rodian that Anakin fought in the deleted scene in The Phantom Menace is the same character that Han shot and killed in Mos Eisley Cantina. Later development changes this and said that the one Anakin fought was Greedo the Elder, father of the Greedo Han killed. The Clone Wars backpedaled on this turned the Greedo from The Phantom Menace and the one from A New Hope back into the same character.
• In the Rebels episode "The Lost Commanders", it is heavily implied with the statement by Rex, "There are a few spots I never bothered to report to the Empire." that Captain Rex was at service to the Empire before. The Clone Wars (Season 7) and The Bad Batch directly show that this was never the case. Captain Rex quite quickly after Order 66 began fighting to free his brothers, not giving any reasonable time that he would be "reporting" or not reporting potential secret base locations to the imperials.