Assignment: Earth and its Status in Canon?

[uniderth]

That's my bug. I have no interest in the current PTB rewriting TOS to fit whatever they want to do now. They weren't there, they had no hand in the creation of those stories. If they want to do new stories with established characters and set pieces, do it in a new continuity.

But even then I have no interest in watching alternative versions of our heroes. I want to watch the REAL(yes, they're fictional) ones. There's a reason why Mirror Mirror primarily followed the original crew and wasn't completely about the parallel universe crew.

So why can't it start? Again, how is this hostility to trying anything new reconcilable with Star Trek's spirit of actively seeking out the strange and new?

Multiple continuities are not an evil to be condemned. Variations on a theme are the essence of creativity. They're fun and interesting to explore.

See below.

Don't you dare claim you speak for all Trek fans. I've been a passionate Trek fan for over 45 years, I write Trek fiction professionally, and I don't share your fear of experimentation. I would love to see a version of Trek that reinvented it from the ground up, because variations on a theme are fascinating and enriching. I love it that Batman fiction includes Adam West, Kevin Conroy, and Christian Bale. I love it that there are nine canonical Godzilla continuities in Japan alone. That diversity is good, just as Star Trek has always taught that diversity is good. Your kneejerk rejection of the new does not make you a better Trek fan than I am.

I didn't claim to speak for all Trek fans. That's why I said "Trek fans" instead of "all Trek fans." You don't need to flash your credentials I know who you are. i was simply explaining why certain segments of the Trek fan population feel the way they do. And just becasue we disagree on the desire to maintain continuity without endlessly retconning or creating alternative continuities doesn't mean that my/our view is kneejerk.

I'm just not interested in alternative continuities or retconning established Star Trek (4 series, 10 movies). I never watched the JJ Films. I haven't watched most of Discovery. I regard them with the same degree of canonicity as the books. Yeah, they're out there, but I frankly just don't care about them.

So I, and many other Star Trek fans, have been sitting here waiting since 2002 for more Star Trek(same continuity as the 4 series, 10 movies) to come out. And again just becasue something is different doesn't make it good or better. There is still plenty of room in the universe of the 4 series and 10 movies for an infinite diversity and infinite combinations of Star Trek stories.

It's the same reason that so many people reject the idea of a Star Trek Andromeda series. Because you don't need to go to another galaxy to tell good stories. We don't need a new continuity to tell good Star Trek stories.

 

[BillJ]

So I, and many other Star Trek fans, have been sitting here waiting since 2002 for more Star Trek(same continuity as the 4 series, 10 movies) to come out.

You have it then, with Star Trek: Discovery. The writers and producers have time and again said the show takes place in the "Prime" timeline (though I treat it as an alternate timeline). You also had it with Enterprise, which I imagine is the series that you aren't counting.

While I prefer a reboot of the whole thing, the Discovery folks were/are damned any way they slice it. I don't want yet another show set farther in the future where the ships are a little faster, the weapons a little stronger, the transporters capable of beaming a little further. I don't think there was any real life in the franchise by going that route.

 

[Poltargyst]

I am protective of the original Star Trek continuity. I am happy to watch continuations of that continuity, but I am annoyed when new writers come along and change/muck with the established continuity. ENT annoyed me greatly doing that. And so I was happy when Abrams let us know that his NuTrek was a different continuity. That meant that that the new writers could not screw up established original Trek continuity. The original continuity was protected, and I was happy to let them do whatever they wanted with their new continuity.

So either write stories in the original continuity and DON'T SCREW IT UP or create a new continuity. I'm good either way.

 

[Greg Cox]

But even then I have no interest in watching alternative versions of our heroes. I want to watch the REAL(yes, they're fictional) ones. There's a reason why Mirror Mirror primarily followed the original crew and wasn't completely about the parallel universe crew.

See, I don't get that. Why would one version be the "real" version and the other "an alternative" version? Unless, I guess, we're hung up on maintaining some sort of in-universe explanation for different takes on the same characters, as opposed to just accepting different versions of the same property as equally valid. Who says we have to regard one fiction as more "real" than any other?

Take King Kong for instance. The giant ape in the 1933 movie is Kong, the ape in the 1970s remake is also Kong, the ape in the Peter Jackson movie is Kong, the ape in SKULL ISLAND and its upcoming sequels is Kong, etc. None of those films are in the same continuity, but they're all about King Kong. When I watch the movies, I'm watching a King Kong movie, period. Who care whether it's "canon" or what "timeline" it's in as long as it captures the essence of a Kong movie.

By the same measure, a new version of Kirk is just "Kirk" for the purposes of any new movie or TV series. Not an "alternate" Kirk, just this show's Kirk.

And, yes, I get that some fans are all about the world-building and the continuity, sometimes to a fastidious degree, but if other properties can manage umpteen different variations on the same theme, I don't see why we should apply a different set of rules to Star Trek.

If it's good enough for King Kong, it's good enough for Spock.

 

[johnnybear]

Ethan Peck is NO Leonard Nimoy though!
JB

 

[BillJ]

Ethan Peck is NO Leonard Nimoy though!

I don't need him to be. I just need him to be a good actor that understands the character he is portraying. Right now? I think he has hit the ball out of the park. Same with Anson Mount. I'm still not sold on Rebecca Romijn.

 

[YLu]

See, I don't get that. Why would one version be the "real" version and the other "an alternative" version? Unless, I guess, we're hung up on maintaining some sort of in-universe explanation for different takes on the same characters, as opposed to just accepting different versions of the same property as equally valid. Who says we have to regard one fiction as more "real" than any other?

I think this comes down to the difference between writers' perspective and the audience's. As a professional writer, you're never not acutely aware that these are just stories, just words on paper someone wrote down, because your job demands and requires that perspective.

But for myself, and I'd guess many other non-writers, the magic of fiction is that we can genuinely "forget" that perspective, that we can get pulled along by our suspension of disbelief and for the duration of an episode or novel, we can on some level convince ourselves it really is real. Not *literally* -- we're not delusional -- but you get what I mean. We don't want to see the puppet strings.

Seeing alternate versions of the same characters gets in the way of that suspension of disbelief. It draws attention to the artificiality of the whole affair. It reminds us of the puppet strings. Our ability to worry about a character's fate is hindered when we're reminded that even if he dies, at any moment at the whim of some writer, a different version of the character could be created who lives.

This is why, while I don't begrudge any creative types for doing reboots, I personally find it very hard to muster interest in them.

Now, all that said, for the exact same reasons, I have zero problems with Discovery-style modernization and stuff like moving back the date of the Eugenics War. Because again, surely the fun of fiction is being able to pretend it's really happening. Or in the case of Star Trek, really will happen. Inconsistency with our own reality, like genetic superman rampant across the 90s, gets in the way of that in an ugly way. Just as surely as a character breaking the fourth wall and going, "Boy, humanoid aliens are so scientifically ridiculous, aren't they?" would get in the way. I mean, yeah they are, but I don't want the stories to *remind* me of that.

 

[Christopher]

I think this comes down to the difference between writers' perspective and the audience's. As a professional writer, you're never not acutely aware that these are just stories, just words on paper someone wrote down, because your job demands and requires that perspective.

But for myself, and I'd guess many other non-writers, the magic of fiction is that we can genuinely "forget" that perspective, that we can get pulled along by our suspension of disbelief and for the duration of an episode or novel, we can on some level convince ourselves it really is real. Not *literally* -- we're not delusional -- but you get what I mean. We don't want to see the puppet strings.

And yet, as we've discussed, there are many franchises whose audiences have no problem accepting multiple continuities -- Batman, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, Transformers, etc. This is something that many fictional franchises do all the time, and it doesn't confuse or drive away their audiences. So it's got nothing to do with writer perspective vs. audience perspective. Many audiences are perfectly fine with a franchise having different coexisting continuities. If they want to pretend it's "real," they just shrug and say "multiverse."

Besides, nobody's born a writer. I was an audience member for over a quarter-century before I became a professional writer, and I never had a problem understanding that different versions of a work of fiction could be set in incompatible realities, because I was raised at a time when I could see The Brady Bunch or Happy Days in prime time and its much goofier cartoon interpretation on Saturday mornings, or see TV series like Planet of the Apes or Logan's Run that were clearly not in the same reality as the movies they were based on.

I mean, seriously, any child can understand how imagination works, can easily accept the existence of two or more contradictory realities without difficulty. When I was playing with my neighbors and pretending my front porch was a starship bridge and the front yard was an alien planet, I knew it was really just my front porch, but I equally knew that it was really a starship bridge at the same time, because that's how a child's mind works. That kind of flexibility, that ability to fully believe in two contradictory realities at the same time, is a native ability of the human brain. The problem is that as we grow up, society beats that mental flexibility out of us and conditions us to think that we're only allowed to believe in one reality at a time.

I've always believed that the only difference between me as a writer and other people who aren't writers is that I never forgot how to think like a child. That imagination and flexibility is inherent in every human being. You just have to allow yourself to rediscover it.

 

[Henoch]

And yet, as we've discussed, there are many franchises whose audiences have no problem accepting multiple continuities -- Batman, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, Transformers, etc. This is something that many fictional franchises do all the time, and it doesn't confuse or drive away their audiences. So it's got nothing to do with writer perspective vs. audience perspective. Many audiences are perfectly fine with a franchise having different coexisting continuities. If they want to pretend it's "real," they just shrug and say "multiverse."

I just happy there's Star Trek in any form.

 

[uniderth]

The difference I see between super hero movies, king kong, Sherlock Holmes, etc. is that the premise of those shows is based on specific characters. Batman inherently has a limited number of stories to be told. The premise of the show must be centered on a certain character. You can't have a show about another crime fighter in San Fransisco and have it still be Batman. This means that reinterpreting the existing stories is going to be a natural extension of that premise. Star Trek on the other hand is NOT, for example, "The Captain Kirk Show". The premise of Star Trek is a galaxy full of potential stories and adventures. It is completely unnecessary to rehash existing stories, because you can always just expand the universe by creating new stories and new characters with to look at the issues you want.

 

[Christopher]

It is completely unnecessary to rehash existing stories, because you can always just expand the universe by creating new stories and new characters with to look at the issues you want.

I never understand why people use "necessity" to argue against telling certain kinds of stories. Strictly speaking, none of this is necessary; it's entertainment. And the only thing that determines whether a story is worth telling is whether it's enjoyable. Often, the mark of a great story is that it does something nobody expected would be worth doing. Great fiction demolishes people's preconceptions. So it's a failure of imagination to say that something shouldn't even be tried. Ruling things out does not create greatness.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

It treats time travel casually (Enterprise was given as assignment to study history!?).

I think my biggest sticking point is Starfleet sending the Enterprise on a mission to study the past. Not save it, not chase down a criminal who fled into the past.

But this supposedly nonchalant "historical research" mission was surely just a cover story fed to Kirk initially by Command in order to place him exactly where, and when, they knew he needed to be in order to intercept Gary Seven's transporter beam to begin with.

At the story's conclusion, it is made a point of emphasis that the Enterprise was always "supposed" to be there on that very specific day in 1968, rather than her participation being a case of "accidental interference" averted or corrected. It is further revealed that, in direct contrast to their ostensible orders at the outset—"to find out how our planet survived desperate problems in the year 1968"—they have in fact been in possession of documentation as to the precise circumstances of both the trouble in question and its ultimate resolution (and moreover of Seven and Roberta's future escapades) all along. These records had simply not been "generally revealed" thereto. (In other words, they were classified.)

SEVEN: [dictating report] "...and in spite of the accidental interference with history by the Earth ship from the future, the mission was completed."
SPOCK: Correction, Mister Seven. It appears we did not interfere. Rather, the Enterprise was simply part of what was supposed to happen on this day in 1968.
KIRK: Yes, our record tapes show—although never generally revealed—that on this date, a malfunctioning suborbital warhead was exploded exactly 104 miles above the Earth.
SEVEN: Oh, so everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to?
SPOCK: And you'll be pleased our records show that it resulted in a new and stronger international agreement against the use of such weapons.
[...]
SEVEN: What else do your record tapes show?
KIRK: I'm afraid we can't reveal...everything we know, Mister Seven.
SPOCK: Captain, we could say that Mister Seven and Miss Lincoln have some...interesting experiences in store for them.​

Command had specific foreknowledge of what was to transpire—quite probably from Seven's own reports of the incident, and the subsequent ones to which Spock alludes—and withheld the true nature of Kirk's mission from him so that he could carry out his unwitting part in it as predestined. They included a second set of sealed orders to be opened only at the mission's conclusion, so as to fill him in after the fact.

-MMoM

 

[YLu]

And yet, as we've discussed, there are many franchises whose audiences have no problem accepting multiple continuities -- Batman, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, Transformers, etc. This is something that many fictional franchises do all the time, and it doesn't confuse or drive away their audiences. So it's got nothing to do with writer perspective vs. audience perspective. Many audiences are perfectly fine with a franchise having different coexisting continuities. If they want to pretend it's "real," they just shrug and say "multiverse."

I enjoy some of those franchises myself. I'm not talking some binary "can enjoy/cannot enjoy" but *preference.* All else being equal, if given a choice between a story where some inner voice is doing a running commentary pointing out all the differences from the original version and one where no such voice exists, I want the latter. Because that running commentary gets in the way of immersion.

The voice isn't even saying "the older version's better." Or "the old version's worse," for that matter. It's just tallying differences, but that in itself pulls me out of the story.

When I get invested in a story, I'm not invested in the franchise, the intellectual property, the modern myth, the archetype, or anything like that. I'm invested in that specific world and those specific characters. I don't think this is strange notion. If you surveyed fans of Stranger Things or The Good Place or whatever and asked them whether they'd prefer the next season to be further stories in the same world or a brand new continuity, we all know what the winning answer would be.

Besides, nobody's born a writer. I was an audience member for over a quarter-century before I became a professional writer, and I never had a problem understanding that different versions of a work of fiction could be set in incompatible realities, because I was raised at a time when I could see The Brady Bunch or Happy Days in prime time and its much goofier cartoon interpretation on Saturday mornings, or see TV series like Planet of the Apes or Logan's Run that were clearly not in the same reality as the movies they were based on.

Sure, but perhaps you already had the writer's predilections and mindset, and that's why you ended up drawn to the profession.

And why are you making this about issues of 'understanding' or confusion? Nobody here's saying different versions are confusing.

I mean, seriously, any child can understand how imagination works, can easily accept the existence of two or more contradictory realities without difficulty. When I was playing with my neighbors and pretending my front porch was a starship bridge and the front yard was an alien planet, I knew it was really just my front porch, but I equally knew that it was really a starship bridge at the same time, because that's how a child's mind works. That kind of flexibility, that ability to fully believe in two contradictory realities at the same time, is a native ability of the human brain. The problem is that as we grow up, society beats that mental flexibility out of us and conditions us to think that we're only allowed to believe in one reality at a time.

I've always believed that the only difference between me as a writer and other people who aren't writers is that I never forgot how to think like a child. That imagination and flexibility is inherent in every human being. You just have to allow yourself to rediscover it.

See, even as a child, I preferred other people's stories to making my own. The former felt more 'real' precisely because it wasn't multiple choice.

 

[Shawnster]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having multiple completely separate continuities, like Batman has, like Sherlock Holmes has, like so many franchises are free to embrace and enjoy and experiment with. Star Trek would be richer if it had the freedom to experiment in the same way. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, remember?

Then it either needs to fish or cut bait. Star Trek seems to want it both ways at once and the result is conflict among the fans. Too much time is spent bending over backwards trying to shoehorn later incarnations into preexisting continuity. Instead of continuing the supposition that all Star Trek is the same, single, continuous universe or continuity, just come out and admit they are separate.

Using Batman as an example, Chris Nolan stories will never reference events from "Gotham by Gaslight." The Batam universe can create stories ignoring Jason Todd as Robin. They are all treated as their own work and not a continuous string of events.

The problem is Trek is not being treated like Batman.

The powers that be and the fans in general will have an easier time if they stop trying to eat their cake and have it, too. Do people want Star Trek stories where Klingons are reinterpreted? Great! Have at it. Don't bother trying to connect the reinterpretation to what has come before. Let them do their own thing and have their stories stand on their own merit.

Sherlock doesn't try to be in the same universe as Elementary or the original books.

People just need to stop worrying how to fit square pegs in round holes.

 

[BillJ]

The powers that be and the fans in general will have an easier time if they stop trying to eat their cake and have it, too.

I agree. It has caused Discovery to feel disjointed at best.

 

[Christopher]

I enjoy some of those franchises myself. I'm not talking some binary "can enjoy/cannot enjoy" but *preference.* All else being equal, if given a choice between a story where some inner voice is doing a running commentary pointing out all the differences from the original version and one where no such voice exists, I want the latter. Because that running commentary gets in the way of immersion.

But this conversation shouldn't be about any one person. It shouldn't be about your tastes, or about my tastes. What I'm talking about is what makes a franchise endure in the long run, for generations -- how it attracts new audiences after the original audience is long gone.

Not everyone likes every single version of Batman or Sherlock Holmes or whatever. Nobody should have to. The reason to have multiple incarnations of a franchise is to have something for different audiences, different tastes. To broaden your appeal beyond what any single person likes or prefers. It doesn't matter if the newest version of your franchise appeals to people who like a previous version, because they already have something that they like. They're already on board. Doing a different version is about appealing to new audiences, people who maybe didn't like the original version but could be brought on board by a different one. Not everyone has to agree. They're not supposed to. This is about casting a wide net and appealing to multiple different tastes, because that's a smart thing to do if you want your franchise to have a long life.

So what you want is not the topic here. What I want is not the topic. The topic is what will happen to Star Trek after you and I are both gone. I think that eventually, future audiences will lose interest in a franchise saddled with 1960s baggage unless its creators reinvent it. Or else it will come to be seen merely as a quaint piece of retrofuturistic nostalgia like Flash Gordon, and it will completely lose the forward-looking, cutting-edge spirit it was originally meant to have.

Then it either needs to fish or cut bait. Star Trek seems to want it both ways at once and the result is conflict among the fans.

That's kind of what I'm saying. It'd be easier to do a fresh, modernized take on Star Trek if you didn't have to reconcile it with stuff from 50 years ago. It would be more liberating to make a clean break and start from scratch.

 

[YLu]

But this conversation shouldn't be about any one person. It shouldn't be about your tastes, or about my tastes. What I'm talking about is what makes a franchise endure in the long run, for generations -- how it attracts new audiences after the original audience is long gone.

I was never attempting to debate how CBS should handle things. I have no interest in playing backseat showrunner. I was just explaining why I -- and presumably others like me -- aren't interested in reboots, not issuing some manifesto. As I said at the start, I don't begrudge anyone doing a continuity reset. It holds no interest for me, but plenty of stuff gets broadcast that holds no interest for me.

So what you want is not the topic here. What I want is not the topic. The topic is what will happen to Star Trek after you and I are both gone. I think that eventually, future audiences will lose interest in a franchise saddled with 1960s baggage unless its creators reinvent it.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think it'd be that big a deal if that came to pass. Star Trek's already been around for 50 years. That's a proud, healthy run. It seems particular to television/film that the default attitude is franchise, franchise, franchise, and into eternity. Whereas if you look at other media, some perpetual franchises do exist but at the same time nobody thinks it's a shame that there isn't anyone publishing further prose stories of Middle-Earth or whatever.

 

[Christopher]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think it'd be that big a deal if that came to pass.

I just find it troubling to hear people say "I don't care if the entire franchise dies because the only person whose opinions or tastes I'm capable of caring about is myself." Fandom at its best is a shared experience, a community we build together and invite others to join, even when they don't share the same exact tastes as ourselves.

 

[YLu]

I just find it troubling to hear people say "I don't care if the entire franchise dies because the only person whose opinions or tastes I'm capable of caring about is myself." Fandom at its best is a shared experience, a community we build together and invite others to join, even when they don't share the same exact tastes as ourselves.

Except in the scenario you're describing, where Star Trek has faded out of popularity to the point where it's no longer sustainable, it wouldn't be just my opinion, but the populace's in general. It's not about what I personally want. Heck, I'm posting on this board; it's safe to say I'm a fan and want more Star Trek. It's looking beyond my own tastes and realizing that if future generations aren't into Star Trek and it's instead other, newer SF franchises that are capturing that spirit of progress... that's perfectly fine. Maybe even healthier.

 

[Christopher]

Except in the scenario you're describing, where Star Trek has faded out of popularity to the point where it's no longer sustainable, it wouldn't be just my opinion, but the populace's in general. It's not about what I personally want. Heck, I'm posting on this board; it's safe to say I'm a fan and want more Star Trek. It's looking beyond my own tastes and realizing that if future generations aren't into Star Trek and it's instead other, newer SF franchises that are capturing that spirit of progress... that's perfectly fine. Maybe even healthier.

But it doesn't have to be a binary choice between those two options. It's the arbitrary rejection of the idea of a continuity reboot that artificially limits the choice to those options, and that's unrealistic because it's letting personal bias blind one from considering the full range of options. This is just not how human creativity works. Exploring variations on a theme is the foundation of creativity, so your premise that it could ever be left permanently off the table is simply not realistic.

It's the nature of human creativity that people look back at past ideas and think of new ways to do them. Even franchises that are believed to be dead and gone get reinvented in unexpected ways by the next generation. I mean, look at today's media landscape. Whoever expected 20 years ago that there would now be critically acclaimed reinventions of My Little Pony, Voltron, and She-Ra? It's just a failure of imagination to believe that nobody for the entirety of future history will look at a hugely successful, influential franchise like Star Trek and not have an idea for how to reboot it for modern times. Someday this will happen. And that is not a bad thing.