Hmm!

What would this be in Tron fandom, I wonder? The Tron 2.0 game is the obvious one that comes to mind, but that at least had a storyline that’s detailed enough to make creators feel a need to address the ways it conflicts with the rest of the canon… making the retcon a bit harder, and the inconsequentiality a bit less.

I think the best example of what you’re talking about is the narrative behind the Lightcycle / Run rollercoaster.

I severely doubt that any future canon is going to treat this as something that really happened – Sam recovering Rinzler and then creating a portal to the User world to allow random people to race against him for entertainment?? Ostensibly a “friendly competition” but from what ive heard of the ride, you definitely see voxels of programs around him getting derezzed while you’re on it, so… the narrative seems to be showing that the riders are just lucky not to suffer the same fate?

So what even is this? Rinzler still all feral and locked up for everyone’s safety– we just feed him unsuspecting Users from time to time as… what, enrichment in his enclosure?

Rinz-versus-reader fic. Y/N has been sold to One Deresolution. Happy ending, you escaped with your life. Yay.

But I guess it’s inconsequential enough to any of the things we typically think of as “Tron canon”… no one seems to have felt a need to make any actual statement retconning it. Nah… this one we can just ignore. Pretend this didn’t happen, proceed as if it didn’t. You didn’t see anything.

All for the best really.