It's not a retcon if there wasn't anything contradicting it beforehand. It's a savig grace for the Planet as a whole, frankly. It's one thing for the entire world to fall under the dominion of an incompetent businessman in 40 years flat, but at least now this guy wasn't the first to think "hey, let's try to use this green light as energy." Rather his greatgreatgrandfather made landfall on this planet with that idea in mind specifically.