If you’ve ever watched the Star Wars sequels, you know the feeling of a frustrating retcon. You thought the story had a clear ending with Anakin redeemed, the Emperor defeated, balance restored. But then you discover in The Rise of Skywalker that Palpatine was somehow alive the whole time. Suddenly the heroic sacrifices of the original trilogy feel smaller, the victory less final, and the story seems like it’s stumbling over itself to justify a new chapter.
In Hollywood, retcons are a rewrite or addition that changes the meaning of the original story. Retcons are not always bad—sometimes they bring fresh vitality to a story. But far more often they undermine the original intent, undo key events, or cheapen the climax of the original.
That’s how I’ve come to see the Latter-day Saint “Restoration.”
The Bible tells a story with a clear and climactic ending: Christ’s death and resurrection fulfill the law, defeat sin and death, and inaugurate the new covenant once and for all. With John’s vision of the New Heavens and the New Earth, the curtain comes down on a completed redemptive narrative. But Joseph Smith’s revelations act like a theological retcon or reboot. Indeed, it seems like Joseph Smith rewrote the prequel (Adam had the “fullness of the gospel”) and launched a sequel where the story of Christ’s finished work wasn’t really finished after all. These changes undermine the finality of Christ’s sacrifice and draw into question the trustworthiness of God Himself.
Why Stories Get Retconned—And How the LDS “Restoration” Mirrors Them
As I thought about the reasons that Hollywood studios reboot or retcon movies, I realized that many of them have parallels in the Latter-day Saint Restoration
- The Creators Want to Modernize the Story
Many reboots happen because filmmakers worry that the original story doesn’t connect with modern audiences. They add diverse characters or discuss contemporary political or social issues to keep the show “relevant.” An infamous example would be the Ghostbusters reboot which was panned for its effort to stay relevant with its all-female cast.
LDS Parallels The Book of Mormon rewrote the biblical story for a 19th‑century American audience—adding Native American tribes, buried gold, Masonic‑style secret conspiracies, and debates over issues like infant baptism.
2.The Writers Think They Know Better Than the Original Storytellers
Many reboots, prequels or sequels attempt to fix the perceived weaknesses of the original story. This often involves smoothing over things that may have seemed inconsistent or unclear. The Star Wars sequels are also notorious for this, with Rise of Skywalker “fixing” the unpopular twist regarding Rey’s origins in The Last Jedi and smoothing over her backstory.
LDS Parallels:
Joseph Smith’s translation regularly smoothed over what he perceived as the Bible’s rough edges. But in doing so, he often introduced new and even more problematic stories. For instance, Joseph Smith seemed uncomfortable with the idea that Abraham decided to lie about Sarah, and so he had God command Abraham to lie, something that God cannot do. And Joseph Smith was uncomfortable with how David was redeemed despite his sins and so he undid that and took away David’s exaltation. These changes introduce significant problems as they attempt to “fix” what was never broken in the first place.
3. The Writers want to explain things that were mysterious or open-ended
The tendency of prequels, reboots, and sequels is to want to explain away things that are mysterious in the original. One infamous example is in Star Wars where the mysterious and spiritual power of the Force is given a scientific explanation of Midichlorians. This reveal takes away the wonder and the mystery of the original and replaces it with sterile pseudoscience.
LDS Parallels: Joseph Smith attempted to “explain” mysteries that the Bible intentionally left to the realm of wonder and faith. In doing so, he cheapened their beauty and power. One of the most glaring examples of this is how LDS theology replaced the mystery of divine transcendence with a materialistic, almost mechanical cosmology. Another example would be how Latter-day Saints transformed the awe inspiring, mysterious, and sometimes terrifying angelic beings that surround God’s throne into resurrected humans or spirits of the dead.
4. The Studio Wants to keep the Franchise Going (Even if the Story Was Complete)
Some of the most infamous retcons exist because studios can’t resist making sequels. But these sequels often are required to undo the beautifully crafted original endings. This might be a hot take, but one of my least favorite examples of this was how Toy Story 4 undid the beautiful ending and lessons of a nearly-perfect trilogy.
LDS Parallels:
The Bible’s story climaxes in the cross and resurrection. Christ inaugurates the new and everlasting covenant with His blood, declaring “It is finished.” But the LDS Church is built on the idea that this was not enough. Instead, the promise was new and better revelation, even things that “never have been revealed from the foundation of the world.” D&C 128:8. But the problem is that adding more is not always better. Extending the franchise with new covenants, temple ordinances, and convoluted priesthood hierarchies cheapens what made the Biblical story so special and so powerful.
5. To Shake Things Up
While good stories contain twists and turns, retcons and reboots will often rely on the introduction of unexpected twists in order to generate buzz and get fans talking. But the result of these twists is often whiplash undermining trust in the filmmakers commitment to their narrative and weakening connection to the characters. The return of Palpatine perhaps fits into this category as does the reveal of Kahn in Star Trek Into Darkness or the death of John Connor in Terminator: Dark Fate.
LDS Parallels:
The LDS Church has experienced a whiplash of twists and turns that have a similar effect. For instance, new revelations introduced polygamy, declared that it was an eternal doctrine and required for exaltation, and then abandoned it. The priesthood ban came out of left field and was abandoned as soon as it became unpopular. The 2015 LGBT policy announced as revelation, then reversed in 2019. These twists often feel like plot whiplash, undermining confidence in the story’s consistency and integrity.
Conclusion –
In the end, retcons in movies can frustrate or disappoint us—but retcons in God’s story do something far more serious. The Bible is not a human franchise that we can reboot, change, or update for modern times. When we add sequels and reboots to God’s Word, we aren’t just tinkering with a story—we’re calling into question the finality of Christ’s sacrifice, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the very trustworthiness of God Himself.
The Bible is God’s true story of creation, fall, and redemption in Christ. It offers the only hope of salvation and rescue from sin, misery, and death—and it already has the perfect ending. The good news of the gospel is that we don’t need a retcon.