The Star Trek Encyclopedia getting first update since 1999!
- Thread starter ScottDS
- Start date
We don't know that for sure or else they could've just lifted an image of Robert April from "The Counter-Clock Incident" instead of that weird photoshop of Roddenberry.
But they were involved with TOS Remastered, which incorporated images and designs from TAS. Besides, the responsibility of an archivist is to be objective, and not impose personal biases on a reference work or censor things one doesn't like. (Which is why I'm so annoyed that Chakoteya leaves the Abrams movies off her transcript site.)
That doesn't matter. If there were a ban, they wouldn't have been able to use the character, regardless of the image employed. And -- again -- there is no ban. TAS has been referenced openly in countless published tie-in works, including several I've written myself. If there were a ban, I'd know about it. There ain't no such animal.
Maybe there simply wasn't room. Coming in at two volumes and including a shitload of new entries, the addition of TAS could make the physical books too unwieldy or increase the SRP above a publisher-set threshold.
I'm sure Okuda would include TAS if he could and make this edition as complete as possible, but the realities of niche publishing may not allow him.
I'm sure Okuda would include TAS if he could and make this edition as complete as possible, but the realities of niche publishing may not allow him.
But they're adding material from eight seasons of VGR and ENT and the past three movies. That's basically 208 "hours" of content. Adding the extra 11 "hours" of TAS would add only about 5 percent to the length of the new material. You could easily make up for that just by writing the entries a bit more concisely.
Oh, I know. That's what actually started this pet peeve of mine, D. C. Fontana saying on the DVD extras, "It wasn't a cartoon, it was an animated series." Snobbery, like the comic book/graphic novel distinction.
I assume they'd say they were following "Gene Roddenberry's wishes," though I would find that a horrible argument.
If it were a space issue, I would think it would make more sense to leave out the Abrams movies. Now, I'm a huge fan of both Abrams movies, but they do take place in an alternate universe, and if they had to I would rather see them leave them out if it meant including TAS, which takes place in the Prime timeline.
But it isn't the same. "Graphic novel" is a pretentious way to avoid calling something a comic book, but there is nothing pretentious or fakey about referring to an animated cartoon as animated. That's simply accurate. Animation is the actual name of the medium in question, the creation of simulated motion through a sequence of consecutive still images. It's no more pretentious to call it an animated series than it is to call TOS a live-action series. It's simply descriptive.
That's not it--in the portion of the Introduction to the 1994 and 1997 editions which I previously quoted, they noted that they were adhering to the studio policy of leaving it out, "even though we count ourselves among that show's fans."
Sure, and Watchmen is a book with graphics. It's equally as accurate, and equally as pretentious. Fontana's comment on the cartoon's DVD extras clearly indicates some snobbery going on.
No, it was originally used to refer to a specific format -- longer, self-contained, generally squarebound comics on high-quality paper as opposed to regular monthly issues. There had been some occasional uses of the term to refer to illustrated novels and longform comics stories, but that's the definition that became formalized in the 1980s. For instance, the four volumes of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: The Killing Joke were graphic novels. Marvel did a series of squarebound standalones that were actually called the Marvel Graphic Novel line, including the seminal The Death of Captain Marvel. (In Star Trek comics, Chris Claremont and Adam Hughes's Debt of Honor hardcover was the first Trek graphic novel, followed by Wildstorm's squarebound one-shots like False Colors and Enter the Wolves.) So initially, it referred specifically to those more novel-like or more prestigious stories published in a book-like format. And those were the comics that started to make comics more respectable to the public, so people who valued that kind of respectability started applying the term to all comics, and that's when it became pretentious -- like referring to every car as a limousine, say. It just doesn't make sense to call a 22-page issue of a monthly magazine a "novel."
On Fontana's part, maybe, but why should that define things for the rest of us? I have never before in my life heard anyone refer to the term "animated" as pretentious. I'll grant that "cartoon" is seen by many as connoting something silly, but it's an overreaction to treat the perfectly ordinary, commonplace term "animated" as if it were somehow obnoxious or dishonest to use.
I don't think it's the mere word "animated" that's snobbish. Trying to invent a distinction between "animated" and "cartoon" (when they're obviously the same), THAT is what's snobbish.
TAS is an animated series, yes. It is also a cartoon. That's not an insult, it's reality. Common sense, if you will.
TAS is an animated series, yes. It is also a cartoon. That's not an insult, it's reality. Common sense, if you will.
Technically the 2009 film transcript is included:
http://www.chakoteya.net/Extras/movie2009.html
...which you can find from the note on the Classic Movies page that "You will find the JJ Abrams version of Star Trek on the Extras list." (actually the Misc Trek + Whovian related stuff list)
It was not transcribed by the site owner, however.
If "cartoon" is not an insult, then "animated series" is not overimportant.
Besides, both the original series and the animated series are called Star Trek, so "The Animated Series" is a good way to distinguish what show you're talking about.
Besides, "Star Trek: The Animated Series" is far better than "The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek":
When it comes to pretentious-sounding Trek titles, TAS has got nothing on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 
This is what I meant, I was just totally blanking when I was trying to think of examples.
It might sound pretentious but I tend to prefer animated series when talking about stuff like Star Trek: TAS, or Batman: TAS. I know they are technically cartoons, but when I hear the term cartoon, I tend to think of stuff more geared towards little kids, while animated series tends to bring to mind more sophisticated mature stuff.
Well, they are technically animated cartoons. "Cartoon" means a drawing, e.g. an editorial cartoon in a newspaper, or the following image:
If you're referring specifically to a film made of a series of sequential drawings that simulate movement, then that is, by definition, an animated cartoon. (Such as: 
) Calling it just a cartoon is shorthand for "animated cartoon" -- so calling it animated is no more or less a shorthand. They're complementary ways of abbreviating the proper label. Society may ascribe artificial connotations of maturity or worth to the respective halves of the term, but either one is as technically accurate as the other. They just refer to different aspects of the work: the fact that it's a moving image vs. the fact that it's a drawn image.Similar threads
