Maybe I have a different idea of what a retcon is.
Those are just new things. They don’t roll back and change anything from the first movie. Luke was always an orphan who didn’t know anything about his original family, so filling in that gap with new information isn’t a retcon.
Well, I mean, that’s the heart of this whole discussion exactly what is the definition of a retcon?
I mean in Star Wars one of the big moments of episode four when it was just Star Wars was that Darth Vader killed Luke’s father.
That was later changed to became when Luke’s father became Darth Luke’s dad died. I mean, that’s a pretty significant alteration of the original story.
But again Luke’s father dying didn’t happen in episode 4. At that point it was just a story Luke was told. Turns out Luke was lied to. That’s completely reasonable.
That’s not an alteration of the original, the original (but isn’t The Empire Strikes Back a part of the original anyway?) was simply Kenobi’s retelling of what happened, not a narratively “objective” instance. Vader telling the story in a different way does not create any fundamental contradiction with the previous narrative.
Anyway, the original SW trilogy is much too homogenously constructed to warrant this sort of criticism in general. It’s like saying Sophocles “retconned” Oedipus’ story by revealing he had killed his father. A more problematic point would be e.g. the introduction of midichlorians in the prequels, which didn’t unambiguously contradict the original trilogy but it sharply differed in spirit from it and had undesirable implications (genetic superiority of the Jedis).
That doesn’t matter too much. He certainly had the intent to build the story beyond the first movie, and, putting aside these external circumstances and focusing on the movie itself, the 1st movie does not form a coherent complete narrative yet, in isolation it barely works.
Compare it with other film trilogies: clearly SW OT is more similar to LOTR and Matrix than to Godfather and Jurassic Park. In the latter cases it makes sense to speak of the original, not so much in the former.
OP writes “retcon the characters progression from the first movie”, which I read as the character being put in front of the same obstacles they had to overcome originally, or regress in whatever way they evolved in the first movie, or something like that.
The family ties thing does nothing like that. Luke still has his force powers. He does get to do the training with Yoda, which is arguably similar to his training with Obi-Wan, but it’s not like he’s starting from from scratch again. He just needs to level up to have a shot at taking on Vader.
The Star Wars movie did.
Luke and Leia being siblings. The father thing
Maybe I have a different idea of what a retcon is.
Those are just new things. They don’t roll back and change anything from the first movie. Luke was always an orphan who didn’t know anything about his original family, so filling in that gap with new information isn’t a retcon.
Well, I mean, that’s the heart of this whole discussion exactly what is the definition of a retcon?
I mean in Star Wars one of the big moments of episode four when it was just Star Wars was that Darth Vader killed Luke’s father.
That was later changed to became when Luke’s father became Darth Luke’s dad died. I mean, that’s a pretty significant alteration of the original story.
But again Luke’s father dying didn’t happen in episode 4. At that point it was just a story Luke was told. Turns out Luke was lied to. That’s completely reasonable.
That’s not an alteration of the original, the original (but isn’t The Empire Strikes Back a part of the original anyway?) was simply Kenobi’s retelling of what happened, not a narratively “objective” instance. Vader telling the story in a different way does not create any fundamental contradiction with the previous narrative.
Anyway, the original SW trilogy is much too homogenously constructed to warrant this sort of criticism in general. It’s like saying Sophocles “retconned” Oedipus’ story by revealing he had killed his father. A more problematic point would be e.g. the introduction of midichlorians in the prequels, which didn’t unambiguously contradict the original trilogy but it sharply differed in spirit from it and had undesirable implications (genetic superiority of the Jedis).
No. One thing that Lucas very firmly illustrated is that he never had a grand vision of an over all storyline. He made it up as he went along.
That doesn’t matter too much. He certainly had the intent to build the story beyond the first movie, and, putting aside these external circumstances and focusing on the movie itself, the 1st movie does not form a coherent complete narrative yet, in isolation it barely works.
Compare it with other film trilogies: clearly SW OT is more similar to LOTR and Matrix than to Godfather and Jurassic Park. In the latter cases it makes sense to speak of the original, not so much in the former.
OP writes “retcon the characters progression from the first movie”, which I read as the character being put in front of the same obstacles they had to overcome originally, or regress in whatever way they evolved in the first movie, or something like that.
The family ties thing does nothing like that. Luke still has his force powers. He does get to do the training with Yoda, which is arguably similar to his training with Obi-Wan, but it’s not like he’s starting from from scratch again. He just needs to level up to have a shot at taking on Vader.
I was gonna say! And don’t forget the prequels. And then the next sequels.
Omg the prequels took it to a whole other level.
Hell I forget to point out that Obi Wan reconned how Luke’s dad died…