Does canon really matter?

[Longinus]

Saavik came this close to being confirmed as half Romulan on screen, and she is generally accepted as such.

No. They didn't include that for a reason.
----
In any case, one of the cool aspects of Star Trek is the bigger shared world. Some people might not care, but personally I like such world building, and considering the amount of effort many fans put in to researching various facets of that setting, I'm hardly alone in this. But it is not like I need every little detail and throwaway line to seamlessly match, but I prefer the whole to remain pretty consistent.

 

[Tuskin38]

If one was to be all technical there is a definition of canon and canonical and as entertaining as other variants are if they are not recognized then they are not popularized as such.

Except I think CBS has said what canon means for Trek, and that is TV show and movie only.
I could be wrong

 

[Refuge]

Except I think CBS has said what canon means for Trek, and that is TV show and movie only.
I could be wrong

That is what I have believed as well..

 

[Tuskin38]

Side note, one of the writers on Discovery is a Star Trek novelist, so someone working on the show must have liked her work.

 

[cultcross]

No. They didn't include that for a reason.

And it wasn't Balance of Terror. Meyer said "I didn't see that it made any difference. There was nothing about her that was Romulan, so let her be Vulcan."

 

[Campe]

In broad strokes, yes, canon matters.

But I have issues when canon becomes an excuse to put way too much fan service in a work (read: Rogue One) or restricts the creators from telling a good story. I don't give a rats ass if it was established in TEH CANON Tavallians only eat meat loaf. If a writer wants to tell a good story that shows they eat fried chicken, more power to them!

 

[Longinus]

And it wasn't Balance of Terror. Meyer said "I didn't see that it made any difference. There was nothing about her that was Romulan, so let her be Vulcan."

Right. So she is Vulcan. I really don't understand why so many fans seem to be obsessed about that piece of pointless deleted script. You said she is 'generally accepted as half Romulan.' I don't think that's true, and if it were, it would be absurd. Should we suddenly start to consider all plot/background elements that were at any point of any Trek production even considered but didn't make it to the final product to be canon? Utter madness.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yeah, I didn't know about the half romulan thing until a few years ago. It wasn't said on screen so not canon to the live action stuff

Discovery is using a fact from a TOS deleted scene for Sarek (Though that could be a coincidence)

 

[cultcross]

Right. So she is Vulcan. I really don't understand why so many fans seem to be obsessed about that piece of pointless deleted script.

I'm not obsessed with that particular fact, I'm showing how violating the holy canon didn't enter into the discussion. It was just a superfluous detail, so like a good editor, it was removed. If the story had required her to, say, show flirtation with David as it originally did, they'd have left in the set-up line. Balance of Terror didn't enter into the discussion - that's the point.

You said she is 'generally accepted as half Romulan.' I don't think that's true, and if it were, it would be absurd.

How is it any more absurd than trying to set out what a show made today can and cannot do based on a pilot episode that wasn't picked up in the mid 60s? I find that ridiculous.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

These threads usually become meaningless after a short while, because we don't have a consistent understanding of what canon even is, so you get people talking about 5 different concepts..... Then it's hardly any wonder they can't agree when one person says fuck canon thinking of something entirely different from from another saying canon is inviolable.....

So first, let me define what I see as canon:

"The in-universe history of the galaxy"

Then, let me answer:

Yes, I do think it is really important. Star Trek is rich in ways few other settings are. It's a setting that people love researching, and has a very consistent and believable history. I think most changes can be made without violating canon at all - it's easy as hell. Want to introduce Goth Romulans? Make them a subculture. Want to have an analogy for nationalism after a period of economic poverty? The Cardassians gave their freedoms away to central command around TOS. Want to have weird new Klingons? They are a diverse race with lots of alien admixture - show the diversity by having classic ones mixed in. Canon isn't a chain - it's an opportunity. Think a technology looks anachronistic? Come up with a way in which it concealed something advanced, without explaining it - just show it in your assumptions moving forward. There is nothing that can't be reinterpreted by a judicious enough writer to allow literally anything, whilst still being faithful/tasteful.

 

[RAMA]

Canon is a guide, not a restriction. If someone personally dislikes with taste, fine, go watch Space:1999. If they come at me with canon, and "not trek", they've automatically lost the argument.

Ok, first off there's a strong case I've put this in the wrong forum but I picked here over, say, GTD as it seems appropriate given the current unease in certain quarters about the visual and design directions Discovery seems to be taking, not to mention some rather vague concerns about adhering to canon.

Not to put too fine a point on it there seems a lot of fan discontent (not just here I hasten to add) before the show even airs, with such grave concerns as the klingons foreheads and the design of the ship's consoles sitting alongside questions of the show's place in the timeline and the more (in my view) significant and socially relevant issues and political statements the show might raise.

The question I am putting out here is how much significance do people think we should attach to these things? At what point do mistakes or deliberate deviations from the canonical timeline or shifts in the artistic and thematic directions of the show go from being oddities, minor details to mention in passing, to carrying more significance? At what point do they start impacting on the show's validity to the extent they overshadow the show's role as a form of entertainment that asks questions of the viewer?

 

[BillJ]

It's important if you're going to put out a show with a 50-year arc and NOT say "this is a reboot". Sure, there are gaps, but it keeps the whole, epic story consistent.

There wasn't and never has been an "epic story" where Star Trek is involved. Hell, we didn't even get the Enterprise-E in the Dominion War.

Right. So she is Vulcan. I really don't understand why so many fans seem to be obsessed about that piece of pointless deleted script. You said she is 'generally accepted as half Romulan.' I don't think that's true, and if it were, it would be absurd. Should we suddenly start to consider all plot/background elements that were at any point of any Trek production even considered but didn't make it to the final product to be canon? Utter madness.

Because there is more too it than just the line. There is the tear at Spock's funeral, her openly lying about General Order 15 and her astonishment at Spock lying about "hours seeming like days". There were elements intentionally placed there to show she wasn't the average Vulcan.

The wife and I were watching TWoK last night, and discussing this very thing.

 

[Cox of Seagulls]

To an extent but it shouldn't be the be all end all. Contradicting one line in episode 114 of TNG isn't a big deal.

Remember when people were crying about Broken Bow because an episode of TNG stated that first contact with the Klingons was disastrous and ENT seemed to contradict that by having first contact not be all that bad? One line from 10 years earlier and people were up in arms. That's ridiculous.

 

[Mach5]

Remember when people were crying about Broken Bow because an episode of TNG stated that first contact with the Klingons was disastrous and ENT seemed to contradict that by having first contact not be all that bad?

That line about the first contact with the Klingons was intriguing and made fans' imagination run wild, and then the "real thing" (Broken Bow) turned out to be rather unimaginative and underwhelming (which can be said for most of season one, tbh).

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Because there is more too it than just the line. There is the tear at Spock's funeral, her openly lying about General Order 15 and her astonishment at Spock lying about "hours seeming like days". There were elements intentionally placed there to show she wasn't the average Vulcan.

I always interpreted Saavik's differences compared to Spock and most other Vulcans we've seen as simply a result of her being a relatively "Young Adult" Vulcan who has not quite had enough time and experience to gain that logical wisdom and quiet stoicism that older Vulcans possess.

We've seen glimpses of how Vulcan children can act impulsive and emotional, and we have certainly seen a lot of older vulcans who display the classic Vulcan demeanor.

So I think it seems quite likely that a young-adult Vulcan (analogous to, say, a 22 or 23-year old human) would fall somewhere in between.

 

[BillJ]

I always interpreted her differences compared to Spock as simply a result of her being a relatively "Young Adult" Vulcan who has not quite had enough tome and experience to gain that logical wisdom and quiet stoicism that older Vulcans possess.

Which wouldn't be a "wrong" conclusion to draw. Neither is it "wrong" for people to embrace the half-Romulan backstory that got cut.

IDIC.

 

[Jedi_Master]

To an extent but it shouldn't be the be all end all. Contradicting one line in episode 114 of TNG isn't a big deal.

Remember when people were crying about Broken Bow because an episode of TNG stated that first contact with the Klingons was disastrous and ENT seemed to contradict that by having first contact not be all that bad? One line from 10 years earlier and people were up in arms. That's ridiculous.

One of the glorious bits about Trek is there is an encyclopedia's worth of contradictory material that can be quoted to fit whatever viewpoint is being espoused.
In all reality, message boards like this wouldn't EXIST if there wasn't so many potential points of internal inconsistency in Trek's "history."

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Which wouldn't be a "wrong" conclusion to draw. Neither is it "wrong" for people to embrace the half-Romulan backstory that got cut.

IDIC.

I think the idea that Saavik acts the way she does because she is young is the logical [no pun intended] conclusion to draw from just using the films and TV shows as a source of information (i.e., "the stuff that actually is on the screen").

Just using the onscreen material as a guide, which is what constitutes canon, there would be no reason to think that her demeanor is due to her being half-Romulan and every reason to believe it's because she has yet to gain that logic-borne wisdom that comes with experience.

If those half-Romulan references were intentionally removed from the film, then the finished characterization of Saavik that the filmmakers intended for the finished film (and the finished film is what matters) did not include her being half-Romulan. Everything she does on screen that seems unlike the average Vulcan we've seen can simply be attributed to her youth.

 

[Ovation]

Actual history, of the real world, is full of contradictions and subject to continual updates owing to new information and new methodologies (I'm an historian, I deal with this on a routine basis). There is one past but there are many histories. No reason why Trek cannot be viewed in the same way. It's not logical to expect a degree of consistency across 50+ years of collaborative creative endeavour that outstrips anything possible in the real world.

It's entertainment, so no one is required to enjoy any particular iteration of Trek. But the whole has held together remarkably well, despite the inconsistencies (many of which are "hearsay" and not "documented"). Rather than quibbling over minutiae, why not enjoy the overall achievement (again, with full allowance for not liking all of it equally)?

 

[JoeCabby]

Visually, the show needs a reboot. It can't look like TOS. Imagine if Christian Bale's batman used the same costume's as Adam West's Batman. Our modern day technology has surpassed a lot of things in TOS, it would be ridiculous to still have a lot of that and claim it's the future.

Storywise canon, I hope it stays the same. Having Harry Mudd and Sarek die in a transporter accident wouldn't really make much sense.