VOY Fans and Janeway in the VOY relaunch books (spoilers)

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by david g, Feb 25, 2012.

  1. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I agree on the Stargate example. That series went down when O'Neill (Anderson) left. The replacement character Mitchell was OK but it was never the same without O'Neill. However, they did at least have the decency to not kill off or ruin O'Neill in any way. :bolian:

    Not to mention that Stargate SG1 never became as bad as Stargate Universe (yawn!).

    As for changes, I prefer the Voyager crew as they were in seasons 1-3 of the series and in the books. That's why I rather re-read "The Black Shore" for the umpteenth time than spend money on the relaunch books.
     
  2. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Actually most people think it was very badly done. Even those happy to never see her return and those who weren't Janeway fans. I thought the writing was terrible, much of it didn't sound like the characters at all.. there was no drama or build up. A very poor book which I think contributed to the anger over her death in the first place.
     
  3. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Untrue. There are plenty of people who enjoyed the Peter David novel - and the death did exactly what it was supposed to do: give the neglected VOY Relaunch a good shakeup, free publicity and greatly improved sales.

    The OP, david g needs to read this thread:
    http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=144651
     
  4. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    And Therin there are PLENTY of people who think otherwise. Even if people are thrilled she is dead and thrilled with what happened afterwards this was not a book highly rated for literary qualities.

    Amazon reviews offer a fairly divided opinion:

    http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dishon...7427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330937003&sr=8-1

    First review by P.Taylor kind of sums up the silliness, without any Janeway grinding axes either.
     
  5. JanewayRulz!

    JanewayRulz! Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Whew! So I guess we weren't the only ones who didn't like that book. This guy summed it up pretty well for me...

    Oh well... :rolleyes:

    Novels aren't canon. :vulcan:

    She lives in my heart and fanfic throughout the universe! :bolian:
     
  6. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    They may as well be - there's no more ongoing Trek outside the JJverse and it's incredibly unlikely that there will ever be any more.

    The novels won't be contradicted.
     
  7. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I get the impression that many of those who like the current direction of the books are those who didn't like the TV series and didn't like Janeway either.

    As for books being canon or not, for a very long time I stated in several debates that I regarded the books as canon.

    And look what I got for that! :(
     
  8. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Relayer1 is right. You can either say Voyager ended with "Endgame" in 2277 and a Janeway cameo in Nemesis in 2379 and that's it. Or, you can read the novels and find out what happened next. The last Voyager book was set at the end of 2381 and the last Next Gen book ended in 2383. The galaxy's moved on.
     
  9. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    Well, I can only speak for myself, but I didn't like Voyager anywhere near as much as other Trek, but I did like it - it just could have been so much better. Any Trek is better than no Trek.

    Guilty as charged with Janeway though, and yes, I like the current books...I don't know if I am a representative sample though !

    :)
     
  10. Lindley

    Lindley Moderator with a Soul Premium Member

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    Not necessarily. Personally, I thought the manner in which Janeway was killed off was supremely lame and did nothing for the character. Surprising, since Peter David is usually a reliable author, but that book was simply poor.

    However.....now that the deed is done, I have to acknowledge that it has opened up a fascinating range of stories, and the subsequent books have been very good at dealing with the consequences of that event.

    So I do like the current direction of the books even though I felt Janeway deserved better as a character.
     
  11. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    :(

    Nothing in the books is canon until mentioned on screen. If Prime Spock drops some tidbit in a future movie or series about the prime timeline that confirms something in a relaunch book than that's canon but otherwise, it's all just stories. And yes I know Nimoy isn't going to be in anything else but someone in the JJ verse may quote something Prime Spock wrote some day that gives us something canonical about the prime universe that takes place post what we have seen on the screen so far.
     
  12. Lindley

    Lindley Moderator with a Soul Premium Member

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    The word "canon" is misused anyway. It doesn't really mean anything, except to the writers, since it's just a constraint on what previous events they are obliged to avoid contradicting. Some novel lines impose additional constraints within themselves beyond canon.

    The question should not be, Is it Canon? The question should be, is it a well-told story worthy of further exploration?
     
  13. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    We got it easy in Trek land, canon is simple with only a couple grey areas thanks to Roddenberry's apocrypha pronouncements. In SW there are canon layers.
     
  14. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Balderdash! Janeway was my favourite VOY character. But I also had no problem with her death creating a stronger, higher-profile relaunch.

    I was more annoyed by Data's canonical demise, since his death did little/nothing to invigorate TNG.

    So... "fairly divided" is not "most".
     
  15. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    George Lucas himself considers only the Star Wars movies and the Clone Wars cartoons to be canon. The Star Wars EU canon appears to be a marketing ploy, and in reality no more binding on the tv/movie SW canon than in Trek.

     
  16. JanewayRulz!

    JanewayRulz! Vice Admiral Admiral

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    :klingon:

    Its YOUR fault!

    :lol:
     
  17. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    I've been thinking about it. Kirsten will probably do at least another couple of Voyagers, and there could be another one or two in the current mission - we are probably covered for the next few years but I'd expect Janeway back then...
     
  18. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The fans have made it considerably more complicated than that:

    http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon#Canon_in_the_Holocron_continuity_database

    Synopsis:

    G-canon: The latest versions of the six movies
    T-canon: The CGI Clone Wars movie and TV series and the unproduced live-action TV series
    C-canon: most of the modern (i.e. 1991 onwards) EU
    S-canon: older EU that may be ignored by current authors
    N-canon: non-canon, including deliberately hypothetical stories, etc.

    Now that Treklit is cohesive there is the expectation that it will be a canon within itself. If someone writes a novel in which Janeway is alive set post B.D. with no reference to how this came to be it will cause a Treklit canon problem. Fans won't expect the novels to be taken into account if there is another tv show though, unlike the Clone Wars debates.

    A quote from a SW friend of mine:

    "The biggest problem is that fans get invested in details in the EU which are part of C-canon (but not T- or G-canon) and so technically are part of the SW continuity, at least from an EU POV. When T-canon alters a bit of EU continuity (such as the nature of the planet Ryloth) suddenly a fact in C-canon that has existed since the late '80s (IIRC) gets retconned away, causing much distress.

    The truth is that C-canon is pretty unstable ATM, given that over seven hours of new superior-canon material is being produced per year, which is about 10 times more than when the prequels were in full swing. The EU voluntarily gives The Clone Wars unilateral power to alter EU continuity as it sees fit, but EU fans place the onus on Lucas and Filoni to refrain from using that power--it's totally backwards. In any case, the EU continuity is now in the position of being totally untrustworthy even in respect to itself, since anything could be rewritten from above at any moment, shattering the illusion of a cohesive universe."

    Lucas also drew a direct parallel to Roddenberry's simple solution of if it's on screen it's canon and if it's in a book it's not canon, see this Lucas quote:

    ""There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, 'OK, go ahead.'""

    But it seems fans have a deeply vested interest in EU.

    JJ really set himself free of it ever ending up like that in Trekland in bypassing the timeline of both onscreen and in books, LOL.

    Anyway sorry for this SW interruption, hope someone found it interesting.
     
  19. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well, sometimes I do believe that. Born under a bad sign, you know. ;)
     
  20. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Sorry, but I can't see how killing of the main character of the show and omitting three others will create "a stronger, higher-profile relaunch".

    As for the opinion about the assasination of Janeway, I do think that those who want Janeway alive and well are in the majority among the Voyager fans.