When it comes (no pun intended) to differences between the movie and the Firefly backstory, I just view it as something that had to be done for the sake of the story and pacing of the movie, and leave it at that.
To me that's the most important thing. "Show don't tell" is one of the basic tenants of good story telling, particularly if you don't have a bunch of time for things to unfold. Opening the film with Simon busting out River (particularly the way they showed it, with the time-shift, which made me happily uneasy with thoughts of "IS this happening or WAS this happening" through the opening of the film) was so hugely dynamic and pulled the audience right into the story. HOW Simon busts out his sister is so much less important than THAT Simon does it. Sure he's a little less prissy now, but he's still a naive rich overly-tidy boy taking on the world that created him and running for his life.
Retcon is an older and less crudely expressed concept, and is distinguished by being actually canonical.
Retcon and fanwank aren't related, though.
A fanwank is something I do to explain something that doesn't make sense. A retcon is something the creator does that messes with our previous (perfectly reasonable) interpretation of canon.
I thought a retcon was something the writers did to explain a previously unexplained continuity error? Still not the same thing as fanwank.
Not related to fanwank nor retcon, there was a long piece in the LA Times today about the effort of keeping productions in the LA. They wrote extensively about Serenity as an example of this. I loved the picture of the cantilevered mule on a truck.
In brighter news:
American BO figures for Saturday- only around a 40% drop from last Saturday, which after Friday's poorer showing is a nice surprise.
I'm trying to get an actual source for that.
ETA: [link]
Oh, and thanks for clearing up the whole fanwank/retcon thing. It's now as clear as mud! ;)
Retcon can do either--it can be for the sake of explaining a continuity error or just to expand the story in a certain direction (sometimes in ways that people feel are screwing with canon). Retcon isn't defined by intention so much as act; it's when a writer inserts something into a canon's past that wasn't an explicit part of that past to begin with.
Retcon isn't defined by intention so much as act; it's when a writer inserts something into a canon's past that wasn't an explicit part of that past to begin with.
Ah, that makes sense (it's "retroactive continuity", after all). Thanks.
And for the exam, define the following:
They jossed my fanwank with their retcon, but it seemed pretty fanwank-y to me.
You have 30 minutes. Keep your eyes on your papers and bring them to the front when you're done.
But what do we do with our papers?
