News Captain Pike Has Been Cast

[KirkusOveractus]

Your personal indifference towards the contents of Discovery's tie-in novels means nothing.

The DSC tie-in novels aren't explicitly Canon, but they're also not explicitly Non-Canon, either.

That is a fact.

Um, my indifference means to me that I don't treat the novels as canon, nor are they novels I'm that interested in reading. I personally could care less what you think of that.

And the fact is, and always has been, that anything not shown on screen in any Trek series or movie is not canon.

 

[DigificWriter]

Just an FYI: That literally means the novels are non-canon.
It's the very exact "type" of canonicity novels always had on Trek: They are "true", as long as nothing on screen contradicts them. The most recent novels are therefore usually always pretty in line with the movies. Hell, many one-off old novels are still "valid", as in nothing has contradicted them, and instead there are even on-screen references to some of them.

This is not a slide. It's just what it is, and IMO one of the things Trek got really right (compared to, say, Star Wars, which wants ALL it's material to be "canon", only to run in into a million different contradictions). For the Trek franchise, it's always the same rule: If you read that novel, and nothing contradicts it, you can hold it "true". Just be warned, that 1) if ever anything on screen appears that contradicts the novel, and that can happen decades later(!) - the on-screen version will trump it. And 2) not many people actually read tie-in novels, so when you're discussing "the adventures of Burnham" online, it's an adventure that most people simply won't be aware of them or treat the contents of them as something "official".

That's how it always has been on Trek, and what they basically confirmed. Star Trek novels aren't so much explicitly "non-canon" (only the real old ones that clash real hard with later material), as they all are "semi-canon": They happened for you, as long as you read them, and as long as they don't contradict any on-screen material. Just don't take anything in them as definite.

I've already addressed this elsewhere, but "Nope".

The situation that had heretofore existed up until the cancellation of Enterprise is that the Star Trek novels were required to remain consistent, as much as possible, with the onscreen presentations and that what was happening onscreen unequivocally and automatically cancelled out anything and everything that might happen in said novels in instances where there were contradictions unless otherwise specified/clarified.

What we have here is the opposite scenario: An onscreen Trek presentation remaining consistent, as much as possible, with its tie-in novels and a "mutual importance" policy existing across the board unless otherwise specified/clarified.

 

[Tuskin38]

An onscreen Trek presentation remaining consistent, as much as possible,

Unless the TV story calls for something different to happen.

So the books are essentially non-canon because they will ignore them if they decide to do something different.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

What we have here is the opposite scenario: An onscreen Trek presentation remaining consistent, as much as possible, with tie-in novels and a "mutual importance" policy existing across the board unless otherwise specified/clarified.

That's the same kind of BS Orci and the movie writers tried to sell you about the IDW comics.

What's onscreen is the canon universe. Always is, always will be.

 

[Tuskin38]

That's the same kind of BS Orci and the movie writers tried to sell you about the IDW comics.

Actually they never claimed the Tie-in comics were canon, that quote was taken out of context.

In the full interview he even said it wasn't up to them to decide if the comic stories were canon or not.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

Actually they never claimed the Tie-in comics were canon, that quote was out of context.

In the full interview he even said it wasn't up to them to decide if the stories were canon or not.

My meaning is with the "mutual importance" claim, where they tried to make the comics work hand in hand with the movies to combine the media.

It didn't work.

 

[DigificWriter]

Unless the TV story calls for something different to happen.

So "canon" until it isn't.

Which, as noted, is markedly different from the policy that had previously existed, which was "Tie-in fiction is not Canon EVER", and which is also different from Jeri Taylor's stance on things, which was "My tie-in fiction is Canon specifically in relation to my own individual involvement with the series".

 

[Tuskin38]

Which, as noted, is markedly different from the policy that had previously existed, which was "Tie-in fiction is not Canon EVER", and which is also different from Jeri Taylor's stance on things, which was "My tie-in fiction is Canon specifically in relation to my own individual involvement with the series".

It still isn't canon. It's just made consistent.

 

[Tuskin38]

My meaning is with the "mutual importance" claim, where they tried to make the comics work hand in hand with the movies to combine the media.

It didn't work.

my bad

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Novels can be canon if stated as such by the creators of a franchise.

The Star Wars EU novels were canon, until they were made non-canon by the new owners, then they weren't

Still good books for the most part though, like most Star Trek novels.

 

[DigificWriter]

@Tuskin38 What you are focusing on is the idea that the novels aren't Canon because they could possibly be contradicted at some point by what happens onscreen.

What I am focusing on is Ted Sullivan's statement that an across-the-board effort will be and is consciously being made not to contradict the novels unless doing so becomes narratively and creatively unavoidable.

Previous Canon policy was that onscreen Trek automatically ignored, cancelled out, and superseded tie-in novels (in effect, "what the right hand is doing always overrides what the left hand is doing" ).

What we are now dealing with, though, is, in effect, "What the right and left hands are doing is one and the same unless the left hand is broken".

 

[Ceridwen]

The Star Wars EU novels were canon, until they were made non-canon by the new owners, then they weren't

Well that's just not true.

 

[XCV330]

Bruce Greenwood's Pike didn't have much in common with Jeffrey Hunter's, and I don't expect this version to either.

Unless he's gonna resent Michael for being on the bridge

Pike came off as pretty intensely by-the-book in Desperate Hours, though he ultimately was willing to work with Georgiou.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Problem is, you are speculating like crazy.

Not at all. The proof is in the preproduction material ,production material and early episodes. Get back to me when you've bothered to review the material cited. Roddenberry had a particular type in mind for his captain. That didn't change with a name or an actor. Which isn't to say Shatner didn't help shape Kirk as the series progressed, but early on he was playing the same guy as Hunter.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Star Wars EU novels were canon, until they were made non-canon by the new owners, then they weren't

Yes and no. Before LucasFilm (not Disney) changed the rules, canon had a tiered system. some things were more canon then others, while in the new system everything is equal canon.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon#Canon_and_the_Expanded_Universe

George himself didn't care much for the EU, and contradicted it all the time in Clone Wars.

 

[Galaxy]

That is a very specific litmus test.

True. What I found very interesting in the novel is the interaction between Saru and Una. Essentially Saru almost worships her, and would love to serve together with her, and pities himself for having to serve with the clowns on the Shenzhou. I am curious if that is the route they are going.

I thought the only novel considered semi-canon was the newest one?

I thought that goes for all Disco novels? Do the other Authors have access to all unwritten scrips, and artwork, and access to Disco writers, and producers like David Mack did?

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Yeah. I have a hard time seeing Pike doing any of the TOS comedic episodes. Or banging all the hot aliens Kirk did. It would have been a very, very different show with Pike at the helm.

To be fair, we really don't know how the show would have shaped with Pike. "The Cage" is just one episode. It would be like only watching "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and assuming that's all a Kirk helmed show would have turned out like.

 

[Ceridwen]

Yes and no. Before LucasFilm (not Disney) changed the rules, canon had a tiered system. some things were more canon then others, while in the new system everything is equal canon.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon#Canon_and_the_Expanded_Universe

George himself didn't care much for the EU, and contradicted it all the time in Clone Wars.

"More canon than others" was a gentle way of saying "not canon".

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Kind of like how some folks have a hard time swallowing the idea that some TOS ideas can just be relegated to "early installment weirdness" due to how the rest of Trek shaped up.

 

[eschaton]

Kind of like how some folks have a hard time swallowing the idea that some TOS ideas can just be relegated to "early installment weirdness" due to how the rest of Trek shaped up.

What are you referring to in particular?

I am okay with considering things like "Vulcanian" and referring to the Enterprise as "Earth Vessel" being early installment weirdness (basically, all the weird shit that happened in the first half of Season 1, when they had no idea what they were doing). But not TOS as a whole.