7 Stupid Retcons That Ruined Famous Movie Franchises

4. "It Was Me, James. The Author Of All Your Pain..." - Spectre

Spectre is essentially a "tie-up all the loose ends" movie designed to wrap up the Daniel Craig series of Bond movies. Whilst Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall were all loosely linked in a believable fashion, the fourth entry in this rebooted Bond saga makes a terrible mistake in its attempts to link all the movies in the most ridiculous way imaginable. In this case, the retcon in question (essentially the stuff of parody) concerns bad guy Blofeld, who turns out to be Bond's half-brother (sort of), and thus - due to some very unconvincing daddy issues - has spent his life trying to ruin Bond's own, apparently. "It was me, James," Blofeld sniggers in the film's pivotal scene. "The author of all your pain." And this line of dialogue is supposed to account for the fact that - wait for it - all the villains in all the other Craig Bond movies were working for Spectre all along. It's the sort of shameful, pointless retcon the serves only to destroy the continuity of an entire franchise; never mind that it makes no sense in about forty-seven different ways, but that it offers no real narrative purpose. It's supposed to be shocking, and it is - for all the wrong reasons.