A Star Wars post

My New Year's resolution is to post more often. Specifically, I'm going to try to post something at least once a week. I'm counting my New Year post as day 1 so Jan. 8 is 7 days later, so I have to post today or break my resolution. So today you get a Star Wars-related post.

Actually, what originally got me into this line of thought was a post from Eric Burns on Websnark about comics. If you haven't heard, Marvel has decided that in an upcoming issue, Spider-Man makes a deal with the devil to save Aunt May's life. The deal is that his marriage to Mary Jane will have never happened. This news led to a post on Websnark about ret-conning and the troubles it usually causes. In particular, the post states that it angers the long-time readers, because they've invested emotionally in the characters, watching their stories grow and change over time, and suddenly all of that has gone out the window.

After reading the post, I got to thinking about the Star Wars movies. And I realized that the Special Edition of Episodes IV-VI weren't extended re-releases. They were retcons. Hence, you get stuff like Han shooting first and Hayden Christensen suddenly appearing as Ghost Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi. These are relatively minor, really. Maybe what Eric would call a Category 1 or 2.

Then came the prequels. And these hit Category 3 and higher levels of ret-conning. Suddenly, we're being told that when Vader was still Anakin, he built C-3PO and R2-D2. We're told that the Force, something that Yoda and Obi-Wan told Luke was a mystical energy created by life, is actually the result of having too many microorganisms in your blood. And we're told that Padme, Luke and Leia's mom, never actually "met" the kids, even though when Luke asks Leia if she remembers her mother she says she has vague memories of her (granted she doesn't say it was definitely her birth mom, but it's clearly the intent of that scene).

So basically, for us Star Wars fans, the prequels took most of what we knew about the Star Wars universe and told us that we were wrong and turned it all on its head. Even more so for those of us who got into the Extended Universe made up of the novels, games, and comics that continued the story past Return of the Jedi.

George Lucas ret-conned Star Wars.