On Retcons

A few months back, I learned a new word: Retcon. It's short for "Retroactive Continuity." For the non-geeks in my readership (although I think both my readers count as "geeks," retcon refers to the resetting of a long-time series. For example, the new James Bond flim essentially starts the series over. All of the previous movies were wedded to the mythology of the films that came before, and while the new one acknowledges its history it is still essentially starting it's own series. We saw the same thing with Batman Begins a couple years back - taking an established series that Jerry Bruckheimer and Co. had run to it's ultimate conclusion with the bionic nipple installment and starting over. Getting back to basics.
Back to Bond - that's what this was all about - getting back to basics. The last couple Bond films had become all about the gadgets - invisible ice-skating cars, etc - and lost all connection with reality and comprehensibility. Daniel Craig re-grounds the whole thing and gives them a starting point to make another run at excellence. Granted, I put watching people play poker just behind watching golf on my list of "most boring things ever," and I think the whole poker craze ran it's course about two years ago, and nevermind that in the original Casion Royale book and subsequent Bond movies, the agent's game was Baccarat. Fine, we'll take them trying to spruce it up. It was still the best Bond movie made in my lifetime, and so i'm ok with that.
Tomorrow, back to to Happy Feet! Or, maybe, Stranger than Fiction. Still not sure. And right now, off to a social. g'night.