Litverse & Star Trek '09
- Thread starter Christopher
- Start date
I can see that happening. When nuWho came about the BBC only granted a lisence to their books division to use nuWho elements, but now Big Finish (who make the classic audio adventures), have been producing stories with David Tennant now that his TV tenure is over.
I do not see how you cannot have a throwaway line that Spock has gone missing. Hobus destroyed large number of planets and civilizations . That has to impact the balance of power in the Typhoon Pact. No need to mention Nero or Red matter or the JJverse.
A memorial for Spock who's "no longer with us" or something like that I can see, but how do you talk about Hobus without mentioning it?
Besides which, Titan and Enterprise are back on exploration duty, DS9's mostly been dealing with Cardassia, Bajor, and/or its own problems, and Voyager's still about 5 years behind everybody else. The Typhon Pact aren't that busy these days.
I suppose you could have a Romulan character mention "the new homeworld" or "the new capital" or something similar. Just imply that Romulus is gone, but don't say how.
However if the FL's won't even allow THIS, then we're stuck. They'd pretty much have to leave out all mentions of the Romulans, were that to be the case.
Huh? You do know that the size of the moviegoing audience is maybe 100 times the size of the book-reading audience, right?
Besides, it's just how licenses work -- sometimes a licensor doesn't get to mention every part of the original work. Does Batman somehow not matter because he's never overtly mentioned in the Arrowverse? Do the X-Men not matter because the Marvel Cinematic Universe can't use them? How does the verb "to matter" even apply to this topic?
Exactly. When I wrote my TERMINATOR: SALVATION novel, I couldn't reference THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES because of rights issues. Didn't mean that the TV show didn't matter to its fans or that the movie "mattered" more than the TV series. And when I edited a line of ZORRO novels for Tor, I had to use "Don Diego" from the original novels, not the new guy in the then-current Antonio Banderas movies . . . again, because of rights issues. Ditto for John Steel and Emma Peel; I got the rights to publish a book based on the original TV series, not the (unsuccessful) movie remake.
And don't get me started on Red Sonja versus Red Sonya.
Doesn't mean that one version "matters" more than another. Just that some franchises splinter into different versions, controlled by different licenses.
And don't get me started on Red Sonja versus Red Sonya.
Doesn't mean that one version "matters" more than another. Just that some franchises splinter into different versions, controlled by different licenses.
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I still think it's weird that RoboCop: The Series was able to use the character of RoboCop/Alex Murphy and the overall premise, place and brand names, and backstory from the original movie, but couldn't use any of its other character names, so the other characters (with the sole exception of Murphy's son Jimmy, for some reason) had to be either renamed or replaced with equivalents. Although I liked the show's replacement characters better than the originals, once they got to develop in their own directions.
It still seems odd to me that everybody but the adult novels are allowed to reference the Kelvin movies. I know you guys have explained before that it might just be because of the longer times novels take compared to other media, but it's still a bit annoying that they are the only ones the restriction applies to.
Another example: the recent Planet of the Apes anthology. We were allowed to work with concepts established in the classic films and television series, and even the 2001 remake, but the newer films (Rise of the.../Dawn of the.../War for the...) were off limits.
It has nothing to do with canon or anything like that, and everything to do with the scope of a licensing agreement.
It has nothing to do with canon or anything like that, and everything to do with the scope of a licensing agreement.
Hell, I was just trying to explain to an confused fan that, no, the latest MUMMY remake is not supposed to fit in with Brendan Fraser movies, any more than the 1990 version fit in with the earlier MUMMY movies starring Boris Karloff, or Lon Chaney Jr, or Christopher Lee . . . .
There doesn't need to be one definitive version of any of this stuff. All Mummies Matter.
There doesn't need to be one definitive version of any of this stuff. All Mummies Matter.
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I might be in the minority here, but I actually like the idea that IDW is the only source of non film Kelvin Universe material.
Understand some of this might be admiring from a distance.....I am only now starting to accumulate the IDW comics, really haven't read many of them. So I guess part of my appreciation for their status might be related to trying to "collect" all of them.
Also, I am still so far behind on my trek reading, that for the most part I am totally satisfied with the direction of stuff in the Prime Universe.
Don't get me wrong, if Kelvin novels eventually appear I'll buy them like any other trek story.....
Understand some of this might be admiring from a distance.....I am only now starting to accumulate the IDW comics, really haven't read many of them. So I guess part of my appreciation for their status might be related to trying to "collect" all of them.
Also, I am still so far behind on my trek reading, that for the most part I am totally satisfied with the direction of stuff in the Prime Universe.
Don't get me wrong, if Kelvin novels eventually appear I'll buy them like any other trek story.....
I remember Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer's character) actually got referred to onscreen a couple of times, too (and also in the later RoboCop: Prime Directives miniseries). But yeah, it's strange how some characters from the first movie were allowed to be referenced, and yet others weren't. From what I've read, certain rights were split up amongst various folks involved with the film -- for example, ED-209 was originally going to be featured too, but Phil Tippett wouldn't allow it.
Speaking of, I remember when '09 came out there was originally a few novels set during Kirk's time at the Academy that were meant to be released, but never published. Was this all due to lisencing as well?
Dammit Phil, turns out you had TWO jobs!
The Starfleet Academy YA novels were published (except maybe the last one?), it was the 4 novels set post-ST'09 that were scheduled for release in summer 2010 that were cancelled at the last minute. I presume for the same reason Pocket's novelverse line cannot reference the Kelvin timeline.
http://trekmovie.com/2010/01/14/poc...vie-tie-ins-4-novels-pulled-from-summer-2010/
I've seen RoboCop: The Series a bunch of times -- it's my favorite incarnation of RoboCop by a huge margin -- and I don't remember Morton ever being namedropped. The dreadful Prime Directives was a completely unrelated production, despite reusing a few bits of stock footage from R:TS, so I think its rights status with regard to the movie characters was different.
Are you possibly thinking of the sequel to Shatner's last Star Trek novel, Collision Course, which was about Kirk and Spock at the Academy and ended with a "To Be Continued..."?
As I understand it, that was the last book on Shatner's book contract with Pocket. It ended that way with the intention of continuing the story, but a contract didn't happen and the series was left unfinished.
Gotcha.
It's possible that the final book in the YA series went unpublished because of sales -- the return didn't justify the expense. This wouldn't be the first time a Star Trek project was cancelled for that reason; Marvel's comics line in the 1990s was cancelled because it was a money-losing proposition for the House of Ideas. (Marvel made a really bad deal at a really bad time.) Or, for that matter, Activision suing to get out of their video game contract about fifteen years ago.
It's possible that the final book in the YA series went unpublished because of sales -- the return didn't justify the expense. This wouldn't be the first time a Star Trek project was cancelled for that reason; Marvel's comics line in the 1990s was cancelled because it was a money-losing proposition for the House of Ideas. (Marvel made a really bad deal at a really bad time.) Or, for that matter, Activision suing to get out of their video game contract about fifteen years ago.
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