Do continuity errors/contradictions in TrekLit bother you?

[Paris]

Sci wrote:

---

So I take it that you can't bring yourself to watch film or TV adaptations of comic book superheroes, since those are always contradicted by the canonical source material (i.e., the comic books)?

Characters like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, The X-Men, Iron Man, etc. have all had retcons in the comics at some point or other, so to say that their movies violate the canon established in comic book form, would be in error. Most comic book heores who have been around long enough to have a fan base big enough to support a movie, don't have one "true" canon. Comic fans know that the movies are their own thing, and the comics are their own thing. Superman's origin has been told at least three or four times since John Byrne's Man of Steel origin miniseries from 1986, and it's never been quite the same as the original one was. I can't even count the amount of different Zorro movies Bruce Wayne seemed to see with his parents on that fateful night when they were whacked, not to mention the identity of the shooter has changed a few times....

[Thrawn]

William Leisner wrote:

---

And unfortunately, shit like that is going to happen. Sorry, but the authors and editors are only human.

Of course.

Really, it's a testament to the ability and passion of the current set of authors that there have been so few, because most of the recent fiction has actually been incredibly good at staying consistent.

Still, just because it's inevitably going to happen sometimes doesn't mean we can't wish it didn't

[Jbarney]

Have to say the errors are annoying and fun at the same time. Trying to rationalize everything is something that I tried to do for years, but recently I'm more in the mold of accepting when errors or continuity issues pop up and promoting the "Parallels" viewpoint. If something contradicts something else, it happened in a different reality, which is fine by me. Trying to find all of the discontinuities and counting all of the different trek realities out there would be really cool.

The example that comes to mind for me was the death of Gul Madred by one writer and then the use of Madred in chronologically later story by a different writer. I just don't see why stuff like that has to happen.

If works that deviate from others books are promoted and marketed as a different timeline/reality thats fine, but I always hope and expect everything to fit.

It all doesn't fit, though......so "Parallels" serves as a good foundation for any mistakes/continuity issues/problems that come up.

[KimM]

I'm not bothered by them unless the book is so poor there are no other legs left to hold it up. I have not encountered a book that bad recently though I did give up on a Shatnerverse book once . . .

Usually good pacing and enough well turned phrases and spot-on characterizations are enough to allow me to overlook minutia like continuity. Hearesy you say? I just don't care if the writing is strong enough and the story is compelling enough.

[Sci]

Paris wrote:

---

Characters like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, The X-Men, Iron Man, etc. have all had retcons in the comics at some point or other, so to say that their movies violate the canon established in comic book form, would be in error.

No it wouldn't. I mean, Star Trek has featured a retcon or it in its history -- anti-matter destroying the universe in "The Alternate Factor" and then being the thing they routinely use to travel FTL in the rest of the Trekverse, for instance, or McCoy claiming that Vulcans were conquered by Humans in "The Conscience of the King." And yet that doesn't mean that Trek lacks a canonical continuity.

Those characters have a canonical continuity -- it's whatever the continuity is in the current comics. Period. Any adaptation of the comics that does not adhere to the canonical continuity is therefore a contradiction from the canon, and didn't happen in the canon.

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

The way I see it, especially in regards to the new film:

There are a lot of different universes: If two stories are good, but contradict canon in some way, I consider it part of my 'personal' canon that events just happened in parallel universes.

[Paris]

Sci wrote:

---

No it wouldn't. I mean, Star Trek has featured a retcon or it in its history -- anti-matter destroying the universe in "The Alternate Factor" and then being the thing they routinely use to travel FTL in the rest of the Trekverse, for instance, or McCoy claiming that Vulcans were conquered by Humans in "The Conscience of the King." And yet that doesn't mean that Trek lacks a canonical continuity.

Those characters have a canonical continuity -- it's whatever the continuity is in the current comics. Period. Any adaptation of the comics that does not adhere to the canonical continuity is therefore a contradiction from the canon, and didn't happen in the canon.

OK...what? So canon evolves with these characters over the years...? So we agree then? Canon is what it is, in whatever medium it happens in? Is this right? I'm kind of confused how this is different from what I said in the other half of my post; the part that you didn't include in your quote.

[Sci]

Paris wrote:

---

OK...what? So canon evolves with these characters over the years...? So we agree then? Canon is what it is, in whatever medium it happens in? Is this right? I'm kind of confused how this is different from what I said in the other half of my post; the part that you didn't include in your quote.

You argued that those characters lack a canonical continuity because the comic books have altered their continuities in the past.

I demonstrated that Star Trek has done the same thing, and that this does not mean that Star Trek lacks a canonical continuity. The implication being that characters like Batman still have a canonical continuity.

From there, I argue that films like The Dark Knight or Spider-Man 2 contradict the canonical continuity, and are therefore non-canonical.

From there, I suggest that not being able to enjoy a non-canonical Star Trek novel if the canon contradicts it in some way is like not being able to enjoy The Dark Knight because the Batman canon contradicts it.

[JB2005]

Only one continuity error has ever bugged me...Voyager having Quantum Torpedoes in String Theory...because i just thought that was lazy.

[ronny]

Steve Roby wrote:

---

It bothers me that there's one minute of canonical screen time for Captain Bateson, establishing that he has at least two female bridge officers and is not in the middle of a crisis, and Diane Carey's Ship of the Line ignores that. She just has to be consistent with a tiny little bit of filmed Trek, it's all she's got to build on, and she ignores it, presenting Bateson and his all-male crew frantically fleeing a Klingon attack. But there are plenty of other reasons I dislike that book.

Exactly. It doesn't bother me overly much if something in a book is contradicted by a line of dialogue from episode 36 scene 4 or something like that but when you're basing your book on a minute of film and you get it that wrong, that's just lame. There are so many things wrong with that book it's unbelievable.

That's about the only time I've been annoyed by a contradiction, because it's so obviously just wrong. Usually if I spot a discrepancy I figure "they just got it wrong" and move on since it doesn't happen all that often.

[captcalhoun]

it's when the TV shows get things wrong that annoys me more. i'll let stuff in TOS slide since they were making it as they went along, but when they make cock-ups in the later shows, i get annoyed.

that and doing stupid stuff like making the ship five times bigger and coming out with stupid BS like creating blackholes in the middle of a planet or transporters that can't lock on to moving people when Archer's first time being beamed up was when he was running...

[Lonemagpie]

captcalhoun wrote:

---

transporters that can't lock on to moving people when Archer's first time being beamed up was when he was running...

There's a big speed difference between a middle-aged man running along, and a body falling at terminal velocity...

[Rosalind]

LightningStorm wrote:

---

For me, it all depends.

If the contradictions are within a group of works that are clearly supposed to be in continuity with each other, then yes that annoys the hell out of me and will greatly impact my ability to enjoy the story regardless of how good the rest of the story may be. For example: Things apart of a series like the DS9-R, Voy-R, TNG-R etc if those books start contradicting each other that's a problem. Like Steve Roby, I found Before Dishonor's contradictions of Q&A most egregious.

Then let's not get into contradictions within the same book. If a shuttlecraft was destroyed on page 5 then was seen flying around on page 200 without some sort of time jump or other good explanation I'd have a problem with that.

As for things not specifically set in the same continuity (even if in the same universe) I don't have much issue with that sort of contradiction. All one needs to do is apply the "Myriad Universes" concept. So Federation still *ahem* "happened" as did First Contact, they just occurred in different Universes -- er um, Quantum Realities.

quoted because it saves me typing the whole thing again.

[seigezunt]

I eat continuity errors for breakfast. After all, I'm a Doctor Who fan, too, and they wrote the book on continuity errors.

Seriously, though, I think of ST as more "myth" than "canon," so discrepancies can be glossed over. It also helps to have a piss-poor memory.

[JD]

It does bother me if things in the same series or continuity contradict each other, or if a book contradicts an earlier episode. Now I'm talking about big things here, like saying somebody dying in one book only to have pop up fine in the next with no explanation, I can deal with small things like getting numbers wrong in a stardate.
On the other hand if two things in different continuities contradict each other, or if a later show/move contradicts a book then I just assume it was a parallel reality and I can continue on perfectly happily.