Can Anyone Explain this about Halloween2?
 

Can anyone explain this to me?

I read this in wiki about Halloween 2:

"Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which established facts in a fictional work are adjusted, ignored, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which breaks continuity with the former."

I don't get what they're talking about. So Michael was 6 when he kills his older sister (Judith) in the opening of Halloween, then he comes back 15 years later, he's 21, and Laurie is his younger sister. So what had to be changed?

NOTHING.

Wiki says "citation needed" but if I was guessing they mean that the story of the timeline was changed in Halloween 2 to make things work. I recall Carpenter didn't like doing the whole relation thing. I guess we'll see in the new movie. I haven't been watching the trailer or anything much since the announcement.

So in Halloween (1978) they never said Laurie was Michael's sister? Was it even insinuated in some way?

I just reviewed the plot in wiki... a few of related issues:

1. Laurie's last name is Strode, not Myers, the last name of Michael.

2. Michael follows Laurie because Bobby and Laurie dropped off a key at Michael's old house, where Michael observed them.

3. After Laurie gets a strange call from the Wallace house across the street, where Laurie's friend Lynda is babysitting, Laurie goes over to the house where she finds 3 dead bodies, including Lynda on a bed; at the head of the bed is the gravestone of Michael's older sister, Judith Myers, who Michael killed as a child 15 years earlier.

In all cases, there's no direct information that Laurie is Michael's sister...

But still, the film opens with Michael killing his sister; Michael "waits" for a specified time and then goes back home to Haddonfield days before Halloween, the day he killed his sister Judith; Michael follows Laurie around, but not Bobby; Laurie is about the age of Judith when she was killed. I think there is an indirect insinuation that Laurie is a sister or sister-figure of Michael.

If you ask me this whole fucking thing is dumber than hell. Its like they're copying Texas Chainsaw but I somehow see this being even worse than that. There's no reason they couldn't have just made this part 9. Money you say? I know I would be so much more likely to dish out money to go see a public hate rape of my favorite horror series long before I would pay to watch a continuation of a series I grew up with. Aint logic a myth...

I never understood a lot of things about the Halloween films. The plotline pretty much gets made up with every new movie that comes out.

They never even explained WHY he murdered his sister when he was a little boy. Did watching her have sex with her boyfriend and being naked cause him to get his first boner and so he felt he had to kill his sister out of shame and guilt? ::confused::

What horror film topic could we talk about that isn't relatively dumber than hell? ::roll eyes::

Reading your post here, I'm not sure you read my original post... that is to say, I don't know if you know what we're talking about...

We're not talking about the new 2019 Halloween film. (Which I think you're talking about. ???) I was talking about something someone wrote in Wikipedia about Halloween II (1982) (see original post).

Yep, only Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1982) are one story, both scripts written by Carpenter and Debra Hill, and they ended the story. I personally wouldn't even bother thinking about the rest of "the series" which are written by other people. But in the original story I think the "sister thing" is very interesting. I mean, this little independent film, Halloween (1978), sure grabbed the attention of the USA in 1979... seemed to strike a nerve. Most film critics give it 4/4 stars. It has some distinction.

No, I don't think the film ever explains why he killed his sister in the first place. I don't know if Carpenter or Hill have ever explained it.

Sometimes someone makes an art piece, and then people try to figure it out afterward, often looking for subconscious reasoning.

Towards that end, since you asked, I'd go out on a limb and say the 60's-70's brought a "free-love sexual revolution", and there seems to be an instinctive protective nature in fathers and brothers to protect their daughters/sisters in this area... protect them from harm, unmarried pregnancy, their reputation, the family reputation, etc. Maybe "the Shape", as Carpenter artfully calls the murderous supernatural being inhabiting Michael, is a symbol of this male-family protective/punitive instinct against premarital sex of the daughter/sister. I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest this.

I was being half-sarcastic about what I said but I think I might have some kind of point. He was a little boy and it was his own sister he was witnessing having sex, so maybe it was traumatic for him to see his own sister in that situation? Of course I doubt most normal kids would ever murder their own sister just for that so he may have had some kind of underlying psychological problem and the trauma of seeing his own sister in that situation caused him to snap.

Nah ::big grin:: Brothers don't want to see that, it's repulsive, no reason to feel guilty about an accidental walk in. I just don't see it.

Lol I guess you're right that is very absurd. ::big grin::

You know, if you had to kill everyone you walked in on... the new horror cliché... ::big grin::

Well isn't it true that a lot of victims in horror movies get killed while they are in the middle of having sex? ::big grin::

I can read... I am also capable of posting what I wish and if posting my frustration of hearing all things Halloween on a horror message board bothers you, sorry not sorry bro ::cool::

No problem, Mornbro, I just wasn't sure what you were talking about.

Oh ya, I guess that does happen a bit. Happened in Terminator. ::big grin::

At first I thought you were referring to this newer film's production notes which is what prompted me to post but thhen I just left it. Sorry for the confusion

Yep. That's how I see it. Myers as child is wearing an all in one clown suit. As an adult he wears an all in one boiler suit. Showing that he is still a child getting a boner and killing women for it. He only kills Bob because he finds him in the closet.

Well, given the slew of nonsense plot devices, rebooting, rewriting, turning Michael into Jason-ing, and Busta Rhyming that came after, I consider Halloween 2’s sibling plotline the least of offenses committed by the sequels. As for the reasoning behind “ why “ Michael killed his sister, it’s not boner shame or because he snapped ( that’s Rob Zombie’s garbage plot, y’know, the one where he made almost every character some kind of rapist/sex pervert, and all of them less likable than a hulking serial killer ).

The idea of the original film is based around Samhain, and that evil cannot be stopped. The senseless slaughter of innocent people as a sort of blood offering on a night when demons and ghosts roam free.

Michael Myers is not a person, the name and who he was or what he was like before killing his sister is irrelevant, because he doesn’t exist anymore ( maybe never did ). This is why he is referred to as “ The Shape “. He is pure evil in human form, the outline of a man with nothing inside but the urge to repeat the one act that defines him, a soulless husk capable of neither empathy nor remorse. He can’t be reasoned with, can’t be killed, and the only hint of possibly more going on back there, is a slight head tilt at the aftermath of his deeds. We can’t understand his motivations, because he’s not a human being. That’s part of the mystique of the character, and why it’s still speculated on, been retold so many times, and why he endures as a horror icon. There was never a reason, it’s just what he is.

As for your original question Sculpt,
I think it’s referring to the fact that they added the subplot of Michael and Laurie being related and she had repressed it ( hence the flashback of her seeing him in the hospital ), whereas it was before assumed that he simply chose her because she reminded him of his sister, was the first girl around that age he encountered, or for some more abstract reason, like evil wanting to destroy good and she personified that to him, etc. I think they just worded it strangely.

I believe there are a few different versions of the original Halloween. I need to check the wiki. But I recall some edits for TV that also helped tie the movie in with Halloween 2. I think most of the scenes were with Loomis.

Evil has no explanation.

I think what is considered good and evil is for every person to decide for themselves. Maybe stabbing your naked sister to death is completely acceptable in some cultures?

I know right? The horror was the family at the kitchen table.

I see D. Hill says the idea was partially inspired by Samhain, but it's not referenced at all in the org. film.

I like that the film flashes The Shape remembering who he is, in body (Michael Myers) -- the tilt of the head, displaying curiosity, and stopping when the mask is off. And in H2 I think Laurie calls out his name and he stops and thinks.

Well, wiki reads, "The plot twist of Laurie being Michael's sister required a retcon of the timeline between Judith's murder and the events depicted in the first Halloween; while Michael Myers is said to have committed the crime fifteen years ago and to be twenty-one."

I certainly won't argue it's worded poorly, but I think it's clearly saying the timeline (of H1) had to be changed (in H2). I just think that assertion is wrong... or nobody here can figure out what they're referring to.