History Main / Retcon

* !''Film/TheOmen'':

* ''Film/TheOmen1976'' is clearly set around its release in 1976, as evidenced by the fashions and vehicles. The third film in the series, ''Film/OmenIIITheFinalConflict'', explicitly took place in 1982 and 26 years after the original, retroactively pushing the first movie's events back to 1956 (and those of the first sequel, ''Film/DamienOmenII'', to 1963).

* In ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', Mike and Sulley's backstory was that they had been best friends since grade school, ''WesternAnimation/MonstersUniversity'' retcons this into them meeting in college and becoming friends after starting out as rivals. This isn't too jarring as their history was mostly WordOfGod, the only reference to them growing up together in the movie was a throwaway line where Mike claims Sulley has been jealous of his looks since fourth grade.

** Originally, Aquata was the oldest sister and heir to the throne. This was used in media during the 1990s. In the [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIIArielsBeginning third movie]], Aquata is portrayed as the fourth oldest and Attina is now the oldest.

* Bob and Otto from the ''WesternAnimation/{{Minions}}'' franchise are nowhere to be seen in the ''Franchise/DespicableMe'' franchise. They're not even spoken of! Whatever happened to 'em? Find theories [[Headscratchers/MinionsTheRiseOfGru here]].

* At the end of ''WesternAnimation/{{Minions}}'' which takes place during the mid-1960s, the minions encounter their boss Gru as a child and he takes them in. However, in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe3'', his twin brother Dru says that he was a child during the 1980s.

** At the end of ''Film/{{Rocky}}'', Apollo Creed tells Rocky that he has no desire for a rematch. Cut to the beginning of ''Film/RockyII'' (which takes place that same night), and Apollo is so desperate for a rematch that he tries to get Rocky to fight him in the middle of the ER they were taken to for treatment. Unlike some examples, Rocky lampshades the fact that Apollo apparently changed his mind quickly.

* In [[NunsNRosaries the Catholic Church]], a couple whose marriage is broken beyond repair may request an annulment. (In some places, this also counts as a civil divorce, but in most jurisdictions today, a church annulment and a civil divorce or civil annulment are two completely separate things.) This isn't so much a ''divorce'', however, as a retcon. Essentially, it states that the marriage failed to meet at least one of the requirements for that marriage to be valid. (Namely, free and informed consent, full and permanent commitment to the marriage, and openness to children [[note]] That last one does not apply if one or both halves of the couple are too old to have children at the time of the wedding, or have a medical condition or congenital defect that prevents them from doing so. [[/note]]) Because the marriage was not (in the eyes of the church) valid, an annulment declares that the marriage never ''actually'' took place. This step is necessary for a Catholic who is divorced and wishes to remarry in the church; without this step, [[OopsIForgotIWasMarried they are still considered married (in the eyes of the Church) to their first spouse]], and they will be denied the right to marry in the church. (They ''can'', however, still have a civil wedding ceremony, or a nondenominational religious ceremony, or marry in another faith. However, unless and until they get their first marriage annuled, they cannot receive Communion.)

** ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' set in 1962 shows a brief clip of ComicBook/{{Storm}} as a little girl with her hair already white. ''Film/XMenApocalypse'' is set twenty-one years later and shows her with black hair that only [[DiseaseBleach turns white]] when Apocalypse empowers her. Unless she had been dyeing it black and Apocalypse just made her natural hair come through.

** This happened to Italian power metal band Music/Rhapsody who had to change name into Rhapsody Of Fire.
** Norwegian metal act The Covenant was forced by the Swedish synth pop duo Music/Covenant to change name into Music/TheKovenant.

* TheReveal towards the end of ''Film/LethalWeapon2'' that the death of Riggs' wife was no accident but rather a botched attempt by the villains to kill Riggs himself back when he with Narcotics working at Long Beach.

* ''Website/FamilyGuyFanon'': While Meg was always a Griffin in the original, here she's an adoptive Griffin, with her real father being Stan Thompson, who was originally an unseen character mentioned in an off-hand comment "Screwed the Pooch". And the fanfic makes it very clear Stan exists, with the family constantly mentioning him and even wiping Meg's memory of it, ''Men in Black'' style when Peter finds out he accidentally said it in front of Meg. [[spoiler:This becomes more than a new way to bash on Meg in Season 21, with the season having a story arc where Meg finally finds out the truth and finds her real father, who becomes a recurring character after the arc]].

* ''Film/TheConjuringUniverse'' ''Film/{{Annabelle}}'' heavily implies that [[spoiler:the Higgins' daughter is their biological child, or that they adopted her when she was a baby, due to Mr. Higgins agreeing that children are a blessing before adding "And then they learn to talk." In the final scene of ''Film/AnnabelleCreation'', the Higgins adopt Janice when she's an adolescent. However, it's possible that Mr. Higgins is only joking, or that the Higgins have an older biological or adopted child]].

* WebAnimation/{{Benthelooney}} is a prominent abuser of this since his rants were UnCanceled. From the original dubs to the first half of the "Revival Era", he was fairly consistent for the most part with his opinions and stuck with them. But in the middle of 2012 to this day, he started retconning his original opinions on subjects that were mostly well-established later on (Pixar, and Adventure Time and Regular Show).

[[caption-width-right:350:They're talking about a SpaceElevator. And [[BreakingTheFourthWall smashing the fourth wall to smithereens]] while they're at it.]]

* ContinuitySnarl: In shared universes that undergo changes in management (new generations of creative teams), contemporary writers are less inclined to slavishly adhere to internal consistency with plots, events, or visual styles that were written twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago, especially when those older stories are [[Sandbox/FloatingTimeline now outdated as they were originally presented.]]

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' and its associated franchise have had a number of retcons, thanks in part due to the series' nebulous and infamously complicated magical system. Retcons can easily be explained away by saying the character who delivered exposition earlier just wasn't knowledgeable enough about how magic ''really'' works.

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' has made a number of retcons since it's creation. Femto-tech was removed due to physics problems. The number of people killed by [[AIIsACrapshoot GAIA]] was retconned a number of times in order to adjust the population numbers.

* In the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' series, Nat, Snappy, and Slouchy were never adult Smurfs that became Smurflings to begin with, as they were rewritten to be Smurflings coming straight from Smurfling Island. As a result, a few stories that were adapted from the cartoon show that originally featured the adult Nat Smurf were rewritten to feature [[TheBartender Tapper]] as [[FriendToAllLivingThings a nature-friendly Christian]] who uses the power of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} to influence animal beings such as Azrael and a pack of sharks.

* Bob and Otto from the ''WesternAnimation/{{Minions}}'' franchise are nowhere to be seen in the ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' franchise. They're not even spoken of! Whatever happened to 'em? Find theories [[Headscratchers/MinionsTheRiseOfGru here]].

* At the end of ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', during the final scene which was originally just meant to be a humorous AndTheAdventureContinues, Marty asks Doc if he and Jennifer become assholes in the future. Doc immediately and earnestly responds, "No no no no no, Marty, both you and Jennifer turn out fine. It's your kids, Marty, something has got to be done about your kids." At the time, there was no indication that he wasn't telling the truth. However, when ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' came around and they had to follow up on the ending of the first film, this time during the opening scene (which was the ending scene from the previous film that had to be reshot to accommodate [[FlashbackWithTheOtherDarrin Jennifer's actor change]]) when Marty asks the question, Doc [[HesitationEqualsDishonesty hesitates for a moment]], before hurriedly saying the same line from the original scene. This serves as {{Foreshadowing}} as the film reveals that Marty would end up in a car accident that forced him to give up his music career (with [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII the third film]] revealing that this accident happened the very next day), and he ended up a FutureLoser who got fired from his job after being goaded into participating in illegal activity, never got over his FatalFlaw of overreacting to being called a chicken, and whom Jennifer only married out of pity and is otherwise unhappy in marriage. Thus the context of Doc's line is changed to him contemplating telling Marty the AwfulTruth, before deciding against it.

* At the end of ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', during the final scene which was originally just meant to be a humorous AndTheAdventureContinues, Marty asks Doc if he and Jennifer become assholes in the future. Doc immediately and earnestly responds, "No no no no no, Marty, both you and Jennifer turn out fine. It's your kids, Marty, something has got to be done about your kids." At the time, there was no indication that he wasn't telling the truth. However, when ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' came around and they had to follow up on the ending of the first film, this time during the opening scene (which was the ending scene from the previous film that had to be reshot to accommodate [[FlashbackWithTheOtherDarrin Jennifer's actor change]]) when Marty asks the question, Doc [[HesitationEqualsDishonesty hesitates for a moment]], before hurriedly saying the same line from the original scene. This serves as {{Foreshadowing}} as the film reveals that Marty would end up in a car accident that forced him to give up his music career, and he ended up a FutureLoser who got fired from his job after being goaded into participating in illegal activity, never got over his FatalFlaw of overreacting to being called a chicken, and whom Jennifer only married out of pity and is otherwise unhappy in marriage. Thus the context of Doc's line is changed to him contemplating telling Marty the AwfulTruth, before deciding against it.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'':

** Adella was portrayed as slightly heavier than her siblings in the both first and second films and in [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid the series]] she is much heavier than them. She's since been retconned to being Ariel's size.

* ''Fanfic/FamilyGuyFanon'': While Meg was always a Griffin in the original, here she's an adoptive Griffin, with her real father being Stan Thompson, who was originally an unseen character mentioned in an off-hand comment "Screwed the Pooch". And the fanfic makes it very clear Stan exists, with the family constantly mentioning him and even wiping Meg's memory of it, ''Men in Black'' style when Peter finds out he accidentally said it in front of Meg. [[spoiler:This becomes more than a new way to bash on Meg in Season 21, with the season having a story arc where Meg finally finds out the truth and finds her real father, who becomes a recurring character after the arc]].

* ''WesternAnimation/DisneyFairies'': The fourth film, ''Secret of the Wings'' does this by including a rule in which fairies from warmer seasons are forbidden to enter the Winter Woods due to its low temperature that can affect the warmer fairies wings. The first film don't have these rules at all with the winter fairies appearing in warmer areas and vice versa.