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Orwellian Retcon: Difference between revisions
italics on work names, pothole texts, added text, changed tense of City of Heroes example
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"I talked to my friend and colleague Seth Schoen about the Ubuntu Software Center selling proprietary software, and he pointed out that it goes directly against the Ubuntu Manifesto. I looked it up and read it, and it sure seemed that way to me. Only now I can’t seem to find a copy of it. The only reference to the manifesto that I can find on ubuntu.com is in some documentation on an old release [...]"''
|'''Micah Lee''', ''[https://micahflee.com/2013/01/why-im-leaving-ubuntu-for-debian/ Why I’m Leaving Ubuntu for Debian]'' (2013)}}
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Lucky Star]]'' has a minor example: Konata was originally portrayed as a cool [[Gamer Chick]], but was soon [[Characterization Marches On|changed]] into an down-to-earth, sort-of-[[Loveable Sex Maniac|pervy]] [[Otaku Surrogate]]. When the [[Yonkoma]] were collected into volumes, Yoshimizu changed Konata's lines in some very early strips to make her image consistent. Because this change was very early on in the series and [[Word of God|Yoshimizu discussed that]] in the [[Omake]], it is not as displeasing.
** Parodied in a later omake, which consists of several "What if"-strips. One of them is "What if episode 1 was drawn today", which is simply a reprint of the strip just as it was published in the first volume.
* The original dubbed airing of the "Dungeon Dice Monsters" mini-arc of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' used the original designs for the Dice Crests. For no adequately explained reason, all subsequent airings used [[Conspicuous CG]] dice with a completely changed set of Crest markings. Fortunately, the American board game version and its [[Game Boy]] Advance adaptation used mostly the original designs, with only the Magic Crest changed to a circle with a lightning bolt in the center.
* ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' gets a ''lot'' of changes and revisions when its chapters get collected into tankobon form. Makes sense, as the manga gets serialized in three different magazines and out of order to boot, not to mention the mangaka often adds new details to incorporate whatever new features that had since been released from the new games.
* A minor one in [[Viz Media]]'s English edition of the ''[[One Piece]]'' manga involves a particular character being called "Zoro" in early printings of the first few volumes, [[Spell My Name with an "S"|later being changed to "Zolo"]] to match [[4Kids! Entertainment]]'s dub of the TV series. However, Zolo stuck for Viz even when [[FUNimation]] later changed his name back to Zoro in their own dub.
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* ''[[X-Men]] Classic'' was a reprint comic of the early adventures of the "All-New" team. Some of the reprints were edited to conform with more recent interpretations of the character. E.g., when Nightcrawler was visiting Banshee's ancestral castle, his ability to (explicitly) turn invisible in darkness was edited so that he's merely very hard to see (i.e., you can no longer see the background through his body).
* The characters in ''Aliens'' were renamed, and the stories retitled, when ''Alien 3'' made them inconsistent with the movie series.
* The ''[[Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' special issue ''Sonic Firsts'' reprinted a few old stories, with Princess Sally recolored to look more like her modern design and all references to "Boomer" replaced with "Rotor" (whose name was changed early on to match the [[Sonic Sat AM|animated series]]).
* [[DC Comics]] has done this a few times in the past. For example, in [[Supergirl]]'s first story with the [[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]], the following dialogue occurred when Supergirl figures out that the Legion who wants to induct her into their club is the same one that inducted [[Superboy]].
{{quote|'''Original printing (from [[Action Comics]] #267):'''
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'''Lightning Lad:''' You're hitting on all cylinders, ''Supergirl!''
'''Saturn Girl:''' We've admired ''Superboy''...and you! That's why we made this trip! }}
** A second example concerns Jonathan and Martha Kent. In ''[[Superman]]'' #161, a story was printed where they go to a remote island and accidentally unleash an incurable centuries-old virus on themselves, explaining how they died. However, when the story was reprinted in ''Superboy'' #165, they were drawn significantly younger. This is because twenty issues prior, a story with a [[Truman Show Plot]] was printed where the producer, concerned with his viewers not accepting an old couple with a teenage son, made the senior citizens of Smallville younger, Pa and Ma Kent among them.
* The original print of ''[[The Night Gwen Stacy Died|The Amazing Spider-Man #125]]'' shows a "snap" sound effect when Spider-Man catches Gwen Stacy with his webbing while falling, implying that the sudden whiplash caused her neck to break, thus killing her. Reprints of the issue in trade collections omitted the "snap" effect, leaving the cause of her death ambiguous.
== [[Fan
* When Durandall wanted to [[Retcon]] something in ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', it was easiest for him just to go back and change the chapters themselves. Usually, this was only applied to character names.
== Film ==
* The ''[[Star Wars]] Special Edition'' included, along with updated special effects, various edits to connect it to the prequel trilogy. Then there was [[The Dog Shot First|Greedo firing at Han Solo]], which was done so that the film could retain its PG rating. (Later reissues further changed it to them [[Take a Third Option|both going for their weapons at the same time]].)
* Director [[Michael Mann]] suppressed copies of the original theatrical cut of ''[[The
* The original showings of ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]'' had dialogue describing the VGER cloud as being "82 A.U. wide". Subsequent prints and the DVD release edited the dialogue slightly so now it is described as being "2 A.U. wide", which better fits with the established canon for how fast the Enterprise travels under impulse power over the timeframe of the movie.
* The phone number in ''[[Bruce Almighty]]'' was not originally an example of the [[555]] trope; Universal digitally altered all releases after the original theatrical print because the original number turned out to actually belong to people in various area codes. Even more confusingly, although the English audio track was overdubbed to match the new number, the French dub on the DVD ''wasn't'', no doubt leaving many Francophones confused as to why the number on screen didn't match the one read out by Bruce.
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** ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'':
*** The opening song describes the Middle East as a place "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face." People understandably got pissed about the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of that line, and the line was later changed to "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense."
*** At one point in the movie, Aladdin gets attacked by the [[Panthera Awesome|tiger]] Rajah and says, "Come on...good kitty, take off and go...". Due to other, simultaneous noises (possibly Rajah snarling), it's hard to understand what he says, and [[Moral Guardians|some]] [[Cloudcuckoolander|people]] said it sounded like "Good teenagers, take off your clothes." The line was later changed to "Down, kitty" in the DVD release, no doubt because it was easier than convincing someone actively ''looking'' for prurient material that they were mistaken.
** ''[[Fantasia]]'': In one scene in the original film, several young black centaurettes with donkey bodies (the one with the most screentime was nicknamed Sunflower) are seen performing menial duties for the beautiful Aryan centaurettes and for Bacchus. Needless to say, later audiences considered this unacceptable, and Sunflower and friends have mysteriously disappeared from all releases after 1969. (A comparison between part of the original and current versions of the ''Pastorale'' segment can be viewed [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMXkRb3klY here]; see 1:00-1:04, 2:12-2:16, 2:19-2:23, 2:56-3:06, and 7:58-8:15.) The two lighter-skinned zebra centaurettes who attend Bacchus got some of their scenes trimmed as well, including a scene where one is trying to help the very drunk Bacchus down from a gazebo. Recent versions have also clipped a few seconds from the ''Night On Bald Mountain'' segment because of brief views of nude demons.
* In the original release of ''[[Traffic]]'', the drug czar's daughter, a teenage drug addict, attends Cincinnati Country Day School, a private prep school in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. Amid [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1112349.stm protests from school administrators who objected to the association of the school with drug use], the reference to the school was scrubbed from the DVD release and TV broadcasts.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[Ender's Game]]'' originally had the main character use the N-word and Russia was depicted in a different light (it was written during the [[Cold War]]). Before Orson released an edited version he told all of his fans that if they sent their copies of ''Ender's Game'' to him he'd send them back free copies another, not yet released, book of his. What did Orson do with the copies he received? [[Old Shame|Destroyed them.]]
* When ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' came out, ''[[The Hobbit]]'' was changed to agree with it about how Bilbo got the ring from Gollum. This was touched on cleverly in the text. It was implied that the version recorded in the first edition of ''[[The Hobbit]]'' was the same as the false account that Bilbo [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|told the Dwarves and recorded in his book]]. Bilbo later confessed the truth to Gandalf, then Frodo learned of this from Gandalf [[Recursive Fiction|and edited his uncle's book]]. Thus the idea Bilbo lied being out-of-character isn't dodged but made meaningful, since Gandalf found the idea of anyone giving up the ring to be very suspicious.
* [[Philip K. Dick]]'s novel ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' was originally set in 1992. After ''[[The Movie|Blade Runner]]'' was released, subsequent printings changed the year to 2019.
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** In the original edition of ''[[Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix]]'', it's a minor plot point that prefects can't take house points. However, this contradicts an earlier scene in ''Chamber Of Secrets'' in which Percy takes points off Ron. Later editions of ''Phoenix'' altered the dialogue so that the rule is that prefects can't take points off other prefects.
* In ''[[Narcissus In Chains]]'' by Laurell K Hamilton, the hardcover version of the book contained a scene where the main character was raped. (It was nonviolent.) All other editions of the book have had edits made so that it's merely questionable as to how willing she was (Mostly dialogue changes so that she's not flat out saying "no I don't want to.")
* The ''[[Nancy Drew]]'' and ''[[Hardy Boys]]'' series underwent a major retcon of their first stories beginning in 1959. Ostensibly to remove dated slang and racist stereotypes, this led to a realization that some stories simply fell apart otherwise, so more than a few of the books were completely new stories with nothing but the title being the same.
* A reissue of ''[[Huckleberry Finn]]'' in 2011... without the n-words. Sigh.
* In ''[[The Lorax]]'' there was originally a line that joked about how polluted Lake Erie was. Some environmentalists pointed out to Dr. Seuss that there were efforts to clean up the lake. So reprints have changed the Lake Erie line. It can still be heard in the [[Animated Adaptation]] however.
* According to [[The Other Wiki]], ''Superfudge'', the second of the "Fudge" books by [[Judy Blume]], was edited in later reprints to, among other things, replace references to ''[[The Muppet Show]]'', ''[[Sesame Street]]'', and ''[[The Electric Company|The (original) Electric Company]]'' with references to the [[Cartoon Network]] and [[Nickelodeon]].
* ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' was slightly edited after ''The Lost World'' was published to remove reference to Dr. Malcolm's death, to support his retcon back into existence for the sequel.
== Live-Action TV ==
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* Averted on ''[[Babylon 5]]''. After Melissa Gilbert played John Sheridan's (Bruce Boxleitner, Gilbert's real-life husband) wife Anna in a pair of fourth-season episodes, J. Michael Straczynski considered doing a reshoot with Gilbert of an earlier second-season scene featuring Anna Sheridan (originally filmed with a different actress), but it never actually happened.
** Interestingly enough, the refilmed footage is clearly visible, as there was a flashback. Also lampshaded in the Director's Commentary.
* At the beginning of
*
* ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]'' inserted a line in a "Previous On..." wherein the character of Cherry who had been explicitly [[Put on a Bus|Put on a Bus to Canada]] is told she will be "safe in Ireland," to set up her [[The Bus Came Back|three episode guest appearance]] while the club goes to [[Oireland]].
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== Video Games ==
* While most content updates in ''[[City of Heroes]]''
** This also
*** Sometimes this
* A couple of changes were made to ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' for
* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' had some changes made by its "Broken Steel" DLC (and by extension the Game of the Year Edition). Mostly to address [[Plot Hole|complaints]] about the ending.<ref>The biggest one being why you couldn't send in one of the several companions you might have following you at the time who were either immune to radiation or blindly loyal/brainwashed enough to obey you {{spoiler|into a radioactive area to save the day (one of which had already used his immunity to radiation to retrieve a [[MacGuffin]] from another radiation flooded area when you first met him)}}</ref> [[Good Is Dumb|Although you still have to do it yourself if you want to be "good"]].
* The later ports of the MSX2 versions of ''[[Metal Gear (video game)|Metal Gear]]'' and ''[[Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake]]'' renamed many of the characters specific to those two games. The re-releases of ''Metal Gear 2'' in particular also changed all of the realistic character portraits into ones that done similarly to the drawing style of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' illustrator Yoji Shinkawa, since some of the portraits in the MSX2 version were trace-overs of real-life celebrities. Even the Virtual Console release of ''Metal Gear 2'', which is otherwise an emulation of the MSX2 game, uses the Shinkawa-style portraits.
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== Web Comics ==
* ''[[8-
* There is a device in ''[[City of Reality]]'' that is made to do ''this and this alone''. It is brought to Reality by a thief who uses it to predict the every move, and later used by Hawk, who uses it to be "perfect" at everything, until it falls back into the thieves hands. Later, it turns out it was [[Artifact of Doom|causing freak storms threatening Reality]].
** The same device is later used by the reader in a dark [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] in Magic World.
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* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' quotes from a book called ''The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries''. Originally, this was ''The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates'', until Franklin-Covey, owners of the actual ''Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'', noticed and sent what can only be described as a very polite [[That Wasn't a Request|cease and desist notice]].
* The print release of early chapters of ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' changed a few things (which were later changed in the archive as well), such as [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-02-17 Grace's reaction to Tedd's invitation] (first version didn't fit her [[Innocent Fanservice Girl]] character), [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-06-27 Susan's reaction to meeting "Ellen" fElliot] (first version sounded ''really'' out-of-character, with Susan calling "Ellen" "cutie") and [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-06-30 a conversation between the same fElliot and Sarah].
* In ''[[Erfworld]]'', Bogroll's special ability was Regeneration and Deletionism was a school of magic for Naughtymancy along the Numbers axis, but was completely changed in the archives and books so that Bogroll now had Fabrication and Naughtymancy/Numbers was now "[[Retconjuration]]". Deletionism and Regeneration now only exist in the memories of fans (and the wiki).
* ''[[Starslip]]'' was originally called ''Starshift Crisis'', but copyright issues with ''StarShift: The Zaran Legacy'' caused the starshift (the in-universe [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|transportation method]]) to be [[retcon]]ned as the "starslip", and all references in the archives were changed.
* The author of ''[[Meaty Yoghurt]]'' had previously written [[YU+ME: dream|another comic]] featuring a character with an odd eye. After feeling that an eye scar in Meaty Yoghurt was too reminiscent of this character, she redrew all the character's appearances with a lip scar instead.
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** Occasionally panels are posted with unintentional errors, which are quietly corrected by the author shortly afterward. For example, when the Bec's Head Base first appeared it had the Sgrub logo. It was quickly changed to the Sburb logo. Another, more recent example was in a flash where {{spoiler|the deceased Nepeta}} was shown without the [[Prophet Eyes]] of dead characters. This was also corrected, dashing hopes of a resurrection.
** Overlapping with [[Cut Song]]: A dispute with a (now former) member of the music team caused a few existing flash animations to be re-done with new music. In another example, a composer had his songs removed from the fifth music album after he was caught plagiarizing.
* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]''{{'}}s "Issue One Half" and "There Is A Raptor In My Office" originally had Doc dealing with a villainous Ronald McDonald and the McDonald's corporate empire. "AWOL MD" has him showing up again as [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Donald McBonald]] - going from [[Enemy Mime]] to straight-up [[Monster Clown]] as a result - and both the previous issues were altered to feature [[Bland-Name Product|"McBonald's"]] references.
* Invoked but averted when Bedivere stops being [[Gender Flip]]ped in ''[[Arthur, King of Time and Space]]''; the characters say it'll only happen as long as no-one expects the management to go back and redraw all the previous strips s/he appeared in.
* John Troutman has been ''very'' careful to remove all trace of his earlier comics (except for ''Vigilante, Ho!'' and the second-incarnation ''Sporkman'' strips) from the Internet, to the point that the FAQ for ''Mary Elizabeth's Sock'' has a question of whether the characters have been seen before, to which he responds that [[Half Truth|some of them have been in ''Lit Brick'' and ''Sporkman'']] (neglecting to mention nearly all were in, and most originated in, ''Basil Flint, P.I.'', ''Andiewear'', ''Felicity Flint, Agent From H.A.R.M.'', ''Flint Again'', and/or ''Flat Feet and High Heels'').
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[My Little Pony:
== Other ==
* The original ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' ride at [[Disney Theme Parks]] was refurbished to include characters from the film adaptations, and even rerecorded dialogue for several of the ride's original characters referencing Jack Sparrow. [[Broken Base|Fan reaction was mixed]].
{{reflist}}
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