9 Major Retcons That Saved Iconic Movie Franchises

2. Tokyo Drift Being A Prequel - Fast And Furious

Fast and Furious is one of the few movie franchises to actually get better with each subsequent sequel. It only really kicked into gear with the fifth film, Fast Five, after transforming from a series all about street racing into a bona-fide action phenomenon starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Even better, it fully embraced its weird continuity, bringing back bit characters and turning them into stars, while crafting one of the most charmingly convoluted storylines in action movie history.

But Fast and Furious probably wouldn't have been able to achieve any of that without first deciding after the fact that the third film should be a prequel, rather than a sequel. Tokyo Drift was a damn fine film considering it starred none of the original actors and at one point was even considered to be shipped out straight to DVD. While mostly ignoring the other flicks, it did continue the story in its final scene, which showed Vin Diesel returning to seek justice for the death of one of the movie's major characters, Han.

Because they'd written themselves into a little bit of a corner, the filmmakers jumped back in time from the fourth movie onwards, which allowed them to bring back characters, play with the story and fill in the blanks. Watching all the Fast movies in chronological order becomes a nightmare, but at this point - like with franchises such as Saw - figuring out what happens when is part of the fun.