The Choose Your Own Retcon Game

You ever see a tv show, or series of movies, or book series and think "You know, if it weren't for xxxx, that series would go down as my favorite series of all time...or at least I'd love it more."

I call it the "Choose your own retcon."

Like for me, I'd love the X-Men movies much more if X3 didn't exist. And if they were to make new movies, I would much prefer THEM to pretend X3 didn't exist either. I like the Star Wars movies, even the prequels, but I want to retcon out two things:

1. Padme's annoying death from a broken heart. Hello! You have things to live for! Your kids! Your planet?! Using your influence to help seed the rebellion! And I liked her so much in Attack of the Clones! (Err, bad romance aside.)

2. Anakin and Owen Lars as (step)-brothers. I know that not everyone saw the version of ROTJ I did, since apparently tv versions sometimes have odd added/omitted scenes. But the one I taped off USA in 1994 or so clearly had Obi-Wan call Owen Lars HIS brother. And that makes sense! What better place to hide a child then with the brother no one knows you had, who you have very little connection to thanks to your raising, and has a different name!

It makes NO SENSE to me to hide the kid on his father's home planet, with his father's step brother, in the same place where the kid's grandmother lived until her death. It just seems like it'd be really easy for someone in the Empire to think about poking around there. (Even if not for the baby, then maybe for a weapon against Vader if his origin was discovered by anyone, or as a hunt for an unaccounted for Jedi, if someone didn't know. Or Vader, who seems mopey enough after RotS, just deciding to see and/or lay additional waste to the place where his mother died.)

Bookwise, well, I always liked Margaret Weis's Death Gate Cycle. I thought it was nifty and the character dynamics intrigued me. Until the last book, with the oddly contrived scenario and the never-before-seen love interest. (Tip: If you want me to care, said love interest should probably be featured prominently some time before book SEVEN of a seven book cycle!) Or maybe Sarah Monette's Corambis. Which wasn't a bad book, but it felt oddly lackluster and anti-climactic to me after the intensity of the first three books in the series. That intensity's what got me reading the series in spite of so many plot elements that would normally have annoyed the hell out of me, but I somehow found compelling. The last book had all the annoying qualities but none of the energy. I find it's even killing my urge to reread the previous books.

Comics...it's hard to retcon out comics for me since eventually it'll be fixed anyway. I'd like to get rid of some of those unexpected pregnancy storylines in Marvel though. It seems like there are a lot of them. Do superheroes not use condoms? I'll keep the Sharon Carter one because I found that compelling and, as my friend pointed out, she could have been brainwashed into poking holes.

Though as Cyclops shows, you can be fairly responsible with birth control and STILL end up with stray kids from across the cosmos!

Oh, I know, I'd un-retcon Vulcan. I normally love Brubaker and all, but the entire thing still doesn't make any sense to me. The Krakoa story as it was was silly, but it at least made sense. The new version doesn't work for me. And besides, while I'm accustomed to wanting to smack the crap out of anyone with the last name of "Summers" once in a while, I just want to drop kick him into a volcano.

I might just be bitter about Corsair.

For DC, hmmm, it's hard. I don't want to undo a death that may end up a plot point in Blackest Night. Oh, I know, I'd take out that gratuitous Jade-was-almost-molested as a child storyline from Green Lantern which didn't fit with any of her previous backstory and never made an ounce of difference to her overall characterization or plot that I could see. I appreciate the desire to show survivors who have emerged from their traumatic experience, but it just seemed so very arbitrary and instantly forgotten.

Actually, I always thought the flashback would have been more interesting from KYLE. Boys suffer too, after all. Granted, he wouldn't have had powers. But maybe it could have gone differently. Like an acquaintance of Maura's getting ideas, and then her diving in like a banshee with a pair of sewing scissors and sending the would-be perpetrator packing. I'm not sure that it would have had any more of a lasting effect on either character or plot, but it wouldn't require as much tweaking of the pre-existing backstory, and might have added another element to consider while rereading issues with Kyle's pre-occupation with finding his father, or that entire Oblivion mess in Circle of Fire. And I like seeing "normal" characters show moments of badassery saving people they love. Also, I've always wanted to see a kindly Irish woman attack someone with sewing scissors. I might be a little odd.

Granted, my version's probably equally as bad. But I like it better because I thought of it. :-P

So what would you like to retcon? Any medium is fine.