The problem with retconning anything is that messing with the continuity of a story is an issue considering that it breaks up something that might otherwise be a great tale that can be remembered for years to come. But then one looks back at history and it’s easy to realize that the facts and the legends that have been documented side by side gave rise to retconning before cinema ever existed. But there’s another issue with retconning history, and as silly as it sounds, it’s because people will actually come to believe in the fantasy and think that the actual history is a conspiracy put together by those who don’t want to admit the truth of how things were. Yeah, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but strangely it sounds a bit sensible given that people choose what they want to believe. With the advent of Google and the fact that there are still those curious, rectangular things called books that can be checked for historical facts, people are still willing to state that history is not what it appears to be.
Stating that people believe that legends are real just the way they are sounds absolutely ludicrous, doesn’t it? But the unfortunate fact is that it’s been heard and seen that many upon many people, who still have the technological advantages to find out the truth, tend to believe that history is as it’s seen in the movies. Some folks have even wondered if movies like Braveheart and Rocky are real stories. While they’re based on actual events, it’s been understood for quite a while that historical representation in the movies has been flawed for years. The reason for this is pretty simple, people don’t find actual history to be nearly as exciting as the legends that have been built around them by those that have used faulty memory, or the need to tell the story in their own way that allows them to embrace the fantasy. And it is kind of hard to figure out how anyone would think that the movies could be as realistic as it gets when actual history has been handed down from generation to generation.
Retconning history isn’t a bad thing to be fair since it does allow filmmakers to tell very entertaining stories, especially those that might not have been insanely interesting in the first place. Great stories are what people want, but history is still important since it’s what society is built upon and why things are the way they are today, no matter how good or negative that might be. The movies that have depicted historical events have wowed and amazed people for years, but the fact that some folks still believe that history has been represented by the movies that are based around the facts is kind of, well, disappointing. It’s either a general lack of education, common sense, or something else that has various people believing in the sanctity of the words ‘based on a true story’. The true events that such movies are focused on are often seen to be far more drawn-out and not nearly as capable of being captured in a screenplay due to the nature of how history plays out.
It’s usually a lot of fun to watch movies that are based on history since some of them do handle the facts quite well and don’t deviate too much to get the kind of reaction they want from the fans. But there are moments when historical reenactments veer hard to one side or the other and end up becoming tales that look to have been drawn up by someone that took such ideas and allowed their imagination to run loose at the wrong times. All in all, historical movies aren’t a bad thing, but there are times when people are a little too gullible and tend to believe that what they’re seeing was as close to historical fact as it’s going to get. In truth, many historical movies swing wide of the mark from the get-go and end up becoming fanciful tales based on something that might have been handed down by those that claimed to have been there but weren’t within a hundred miles of the historical happenings that took place.
Historical movies tend to require a great deal of research if one is bound to get anything right, and in this vein, it’s fair to say that the more historically accurate something is, the less likely it’s bound to be a favorite of the audience. Movies such as Braveheart often get far more attention than something like, say, Kingdom of Heaven, for several reasons. While the former was a bloody affair that mixed drama, action, and politics in a way that made sense to people, the latter followed history quite a bit closer and thus slowed down quite a bit more. Retconning is a problem simply because of what people choose to believe, but offering up the truth is better than condemning it entirely.
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