Legal situation concerning the new TV series

[Christopher]

That was the gist of what I said: Baum never explicitly said ANYTHING about whether it was a dream or reality until The Emerald City of Oz, at which point he did come down decisively on the "reality" side. We can speculate all we want to on what was in his head for the first four books (and Dorothy's complete absence from The Land of Oz is certainly suggestive that he was not thinking "dream")

Oh, come on, that's back-projecting an interpretation that didn't come along until later. Before the Judy Garland movie came out, there was no reason why anyone reading these books would even speculate about them possibly being a dream. They were straightforwardly presented as real. You might as well say that there's no proof The Hobbit or A Tale of Two Cities or I, the Jury isn't a dream because the author doesn't say one way or the other. The author didn't have to say, because it wasn't even a question.

And come on, the fact that the sequel is told entirely from the perspective of other characters is "suggestive" that they're real? How is that anything less than absolutely probative?

Then, just over 28 years later, a whole committee of screenwriters tossed Baum's canon out the window with a script that came down decisively on the "dream" side.

No, they didn't toss anything out the window, because the original books still existed and continue to exist. They merely told their own story that was adapted from the existing story and coexisted alongside it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Yes, the original books still exist (and most or all of the truly canonical ones have passed into the Public Domain; I quoted a Project Gutenberg E-text). And Ballantine/DelRey came out with a truly beautiful paperback edition, back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the original Denslow and Neill illustrations, as well as absolutely magnificent cover paintings by Michael Herring.

And nearly everybody who has made any serious attempt to write in Baum's universe (even Maguire and Farmer, both of whom are about as revisionist as they come!) had the decency to acknowledge that Oz is not a dream within its own context.

One (Hugh Pendexter III) even managed to come up with a short story ("Oz and the Three Witches," published in the sixth and final Oz-Story literary magazine) that successfully retcons out the "impedance bump" between The Land of Oz asserting that the Wizard had handed over Ozma to Mombi, and subsequent books welcoming him back to Oz, as Glinda's apprentice, with no thought of treating him as a war criminal. (Baum did that by reader demand, but reader demand is hardly an in-universe explanation.)

Unfortunately, in popular culture, we have the aforementioned "tail wagging the dog" situation, that left the novels sadly neglected, and made far too many subsequent screenwriters feel a need to treat the patently non-canonical MGM movie as if it, rather than Baum's novels, were the canon.

 

[Christopher]

Unfortunately, in popular culture, we have the aforementioned "tail wagging the dog" situation, that left the novels sadly neglected, and made far too many subsequent screenwriters feel a need to treat the patently non-canonical MGM movie as if it, rather than Baum's novels, were the canon.

I don't think "canon" has anything to do with it. It's just natural for a much-adapted work to evolve over time and for elements from early adaptations to feed into later adaptations -- like Sherlock Holmes's wardrobe and pipe from the William Gillette stage play becoming part of the character's iconic image, or the narration and catchphrases from the Superman radio series being referenced in later shows, movies, etc. (not to mention characters and ideas created for radio being added to the comics), or Spider-Man 3 drawing on the '90s animated series's version of the alien symbiote/Venom origin story rather than the comics' version. It's all part of how a franchise -- or a myth -- evolves as it moves through the culture.

I'm not that crazy about the Judy Garland movie myself, but the fact is that if it didn't exist, Oz would be far less well-known and the books would have far fewer readers. Sure, most people who know the film aren't even aware of the books, but the small percentage of people who are inspired by the film to seek out the books is probably enough to multiply the size of the books' reader base considerably. And if you want fans of the movie to seek out the books, it's probably better to encourage them with "Hey, if you loved that, you might love this just as much" than it is to shame them for liking the "wrong" version.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And if you want fans of the movie to seek out the books, it's probably better to encourage them with "Hey, if you loved that, you might love this just as much" than it is to shame them for liking the "wrong" version.

You do have a point there. One can attract more flies with honey than vinegar. But neither would I expect Oz to have faded into obscurity without the MGM movie, any more than I'd expect any other classics to have faded into obscurity.

(I will say, though, that as much of the popular image of Holmes came from the Sidney Paget illustrations as from various stage and screen portrayals. The calabash pipe was certainly a liberty taken by an actor in an early stage production, but the deerstalker cap, contrary to a web page on the "10 Common Misconceptions about Sherlock Holmes," did appear in at least one such illustration, as well as being referred to by Doyle himself.)

 

[Christopher]

^Sure, but many stage and screen adaptations of Holmes have accreted elements of themselves onto the public consciousness and been reflected in later adaptations. Nigel Bruce's bumbling old Watson became the standard model for the character for generations, even though it was highly inaccurate. These days, adaptations like the Downey movies and Sherlock's "The Abominable Bride" pay homage to the Jeremy Brett series.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Now, understand, I like a lot of "old wines in new bottles." In theatre, I seek out local community theatre companies while vacationing, and have longstanding relationships with Runaway Stage Productions in Sacramento, and 42nd Street Moon in San Francisco. When I saw a community production of Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone's 1776 in Boston, it was a major highlight of that vacation. When I was in high school, the drama department put on a performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It, staged as a western, and it was delightful, coming off rather like an answer to the question, "What if the people of Rock Ridge (as in Blazing Saddles) were to put on a community theatre production of a Shakespeare play." Live theatre is by its nature a performing art, and it is expected that any individual performance, let alone any individual production, is going to be a little different, and as long as it's done with respect, there's no wrong answer. In music, I find Wendy Carlos' "Switched-On Bach" delightful, and I also find organist E. Power Biggs' harpsichord-with-pedalier performances of composers from Bach to Joplin delightful. Yet I find Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven," and Louis Clark's "Hooked on Classics" series to be utterly nauseating, because they essentially took bits and pieces that were already well known in pop culture, threw out the rest, and dumbed everything down.

I can at least respect Farmer and Maguire's takes on Oz, even if I have no desire to experience them, because they showed at least some level of respect for the original works upon which they are riffing. The screenwriters responsible for what is sadly the most popular Oz movie ever made failed to do so, by failing to respect Baum's premise, established NO LATER THAN the arrival of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in the Emerald City (and arguably much earlier, depending on whether or not it was a conscious choice on Baum's part to leave that premise unstated in the earlier books), that Oz was NOT all in Dorothy's head.

Now, if I totally rejected the Abramsverse, I would not be planning on seeing ST Beyond within the first month of its release (cf. I waited until almost the end of the theatrical run to see SW7:The Force Awakens), and I would not have spent over $40 (even with subscriber discount) to see the first Abramsverse film at Hollywood Bowl, with the score performed live by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and CSU Fullerton University Singers, with guest conductor David Newman. The fact that the near-reboot was given an in-universe explanation (thereby making it not a true reboot) is a good reason for not rejecting it, but the fact that Abrams decided to kill off most of the population of Vulcan in his timeline, destroyed Romulus in the Prime timeline in order to fork off that timeline, and gave us an Enterprise that was more of a warship than an exploratory ship, is an equally good reason to be less-than-happy with the timeline, and to have a strong preference for the Prime timeline (or even better: for a fork of the Prime timeline in which Spock and the Jellyfish managed to stop the Hobus Hypernova in time to save Romulus).

 

[Christopher]

In music, I find Wendy Carlos' "Switched-On Bach" delightful, and I also find organist E. Power Biggs' harpsichord-with-pedalier performances of composers from Bach to Joplin delightful. Yet I find Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven," and Louis Clark's "Hooked on Classics" series to be utterly nauseating, because they essentially took bits and pieces that were already well known in pop culture, threw out the rest, and dumbed everything down.
...
The fact that the near-reboot was given an in-universe explanation (thereby making it not a true reboot) is a good reason for not rejecting it...

These are contradictory viewpoints. First you acknowledge that the worth of reinvention is about the quality of specific examples, that some are better than others. Then you talk about the entire category of reboots as if it should be automatically rejected. That makes no sense, given your acknowledged awareness that the quality of a reinvention is about the specific execution rather than the entire category.

Anyway, the in-universe explanation is just an excuse. Creatively, it is and always was a reboot, regardless of what continuity handwaves were offered. Given Simon Pegg's announcement that he considers the timeline to have been changed retroactively and that all bets are now off where reinvention is concerned, that makes it even more unambiguously a reboot than before.

As I said in the other thread, concept and continuity are two different things. Continuity is simply a plot device, a tool in service to creativity. Creatively, restarting a universe from scratch with an altered continuity is a reboot, regardless of whether some in-story excuse is concocted. DC Comics has rebooted its continuity many times by positing timeline changes, but from a practical standpoint, the timeline changes were just an excuse to start over creatively. If they'd just started over without bothering to do a time-travel epic to set it up, the end results would've been pretty much the same -- just without the convoluted aftermath of the time-travel epic and its lingering plot holes.

 

[Greg Cox]

As I said in the other thread, concept and continuity are two different things. Continuity is simply a plot device, a tool in service to creativity..

Expanding on your point, the problem comes when you start to think of the continuity as the point of a story, rather than just a means to an end. Maintaining a consistent continuity over the course of a long-running series can have its rewards, but it's just a tool to facilitate the storytelling, and if that tool outlives its use, or becomes more trouble than it's worth, then starting over again with a clean slate has its advantages, too.

It's a trade-off, like any other creative decision.

But STAR TREK is more than just the old continuity. It's a concept, a format, etc.

 

[Christopher]

I've heard that Roddenberry intended TNG to be a soft reboot, keeping the aspects of the premise that he liked and changing or ignoring the parts of TOS and the movies that he found unsatisfying or implausible in retrospect. If he'd retained his health and maintained control of the series longer, we might've been through this kind of debate nearly 30 years ago (except, well, in Starlog letter columns or on Usenet). Instead, his successors reinforced the connections between TNG and TOS, treating them as a single continuity. Which just goes to show what a secondary concern continuity is in terms of the process of creating something new.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Simon Pegg's announcement that he considers the timeline to have been changed retroactively and that all bets are now off where reinvention is concerned

What exactly does that mean?

 

[Paris]

What exactly does that mean?

I think it means that anything pre-2233 in the Kelvin Timeline is now also available for reinvention...even though Sulu was still born after 2233...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think it means that anything pre-2233 in the Kelvin Timeline is now also available for reinvention...

And how does Pegg plan on explaining that?

 

[Greg Cox]

What exactly does that mean?

That we don't have to obsess or split hairs over whether any specific deviation from the original show can be justified by the time-travel gimmick from the 2009 movie?

"But how did the destruction of the Kelvin in 2233 cause the new Gary Mitchell to be a redhead? What about that one line of dialogue in 'The Corbomite Maneuver' that doesn't quite match up with that new plot twist?"

It's a reboot. Don't sweat the small stuff.

 

[Paris]

And how does Pegg plan on explaining that?

I don't know. Him and I don't speak anymore. Why don't you ask him

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

As I recall, there was a lot of talk (when ST09 came out) that the "past" that Nero and Spock Prime emerged into, was in fact the past of an already separate universe. That talk was shouted down in short order, wasn't it? And now it's starting up again? Because that's the thrust of the gist that I'm getting here.

And if this is in fact true, then which universe is Spock "Prime" actually from?

 

[Christopher]

That we don't have to obsess or split hairs over whether any specific deviation from the old show can be justified by the time-travel gimmick from the 2009 movie?

I've realized that the one thing I had the hardest trouble accepting as part of a branched timeline was how much older Pike was. Jeffrey Hunter was about 38 when he did "The Cage," but ST '09 was set just four calendar years later and Bruce Greenwood was maybe 52 when he made it. So there's a discrepancy there of about a decade. Sure, you can fudge it and assume that, say, Pike was five years older than Hunter and five years younger than Greenwood, but it's still a bit of a stretch, and my attempts to gloss it over in my mind never entirely convinced me. Pegg's new "the changes are retroactive" model allows Pike to be older for real, and that fits his surrogate-father version of the character better.

 

[cdgodin]

Yeah, I ascribe all the changes to the butterfly effect: the smallest changes can effect anything in a large way. Just with the butterfly effect reaching backwards in time, too.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Sure, you can fudge it and assume that, say, Pike was five years older than Hunter and five years younger than Greenwood

Or simply say that we have absolutely no idea how old Pike is in "The Cage".

Sure, Greenwood looks older than Hunter, but so what? That's the nature of recasting. Age differences are bound to pop up.

 

[ryan123450]

I never believed the universe the Narada emerged into was the Prime Universe from my first viewing of '09 (nor did I believe old Spock was Spock Prime).

I know that was the intent but too many small details didn't add up. I've been consistantly told I was wrong every time I've mentioned it, even by people in this very thread. It's great to hear that people (including the creators) are finally coming around to this way of seeing it.

It's better for the creators to have this extended freedom, and it's given me a good breaking off point to not follow the books and comics in the rebooted universe. My 'To Read' pile was big enough already before the reboot.

 

[Jinn]

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly ... timey-wimey ... stuff.
- Steven Moffat (2007 CE)

'Nuff said. Although I also agree with ryan