When did canon become such a hot-button issue?

[Damian]

My best guess about the Psycho remake is that they were just too reverent of the original and didn't try hard enough to do something new and different with it.

Psycho is probably a bad example I'll admit. A shot for shot remake seems to serve no purpose. I guess it was just an experiment he was trying. It was a bit surreal hearing Herrmann's original score throughout as well.

But say someone wanted to remake 2001. I'm just not sure what there is about that movie that could be made better. And any director/producer in that situation is already started at an extreme disadvantage. Anything less that an excellent, blow them out of the park effort will be roundly criticized.

But on the other hand remake Halloween...well it was considered the forerunner of slasher films, and actually got decent reviews. But it wasn't a classic like Psycho or 2001. There were things you could do with that. Zombie's remake has mixed reviews, but he made it his own. And he wasn't really criticized in that case for the remake itself.

Sometimes I guess it's risk-reward. The greater the classic, the higher the risk, and in some cases almost insurmountable risk.

 

[fireproof78]

Sometimes I guess it's risk-reward. The greater the classic, the higher the risk, and in some cases almost insurmountable risk.

The nature of art.

 

[Greg Cox]

By coincidence, I just read that they're remaking NIGHTMARE ALLEY, which is a cool old 1947 noir about the seedy side of carnival life. And here's the thing: as good as the 1947 movie is, it's nowhere near as dark and kinky and sexually frank as the classic 1946 cult novel it's based on. The Hays Code being what it was, the movie version had to clean things up considerably, plus tack on a forced happy ending, whereas the book ended on a much more shocking and disturbing note.

So you can make a case for remaking NIGHTMARE ALLEY on the grounds that a modern adaptation will be able to keep in all the stuff the censors forced the 1940s movie to omit. (And, honestly, one can also argue that only hardcore cinephiles remember the 1947 version, so the story will be "new" to probably ninety percent of modern moviegoers.)

Nor is this a unique case. Changing standards and greater freedom are sometimes reasons for remaking material that may have been hobbled by censorship back in the day. For example, director William Wyler had to cut any hint of homosexuality out of THESE THREE in 1936, but was able to do a more faithful adaptation of the original play in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR in 1961. In that case, like Hitchcock, a famous director remade one of his own films--in part because he finally had the freedom to tell the story he wanted to.

 

[Takeru]

Because one of the best ways to explore and understand something is by contrast with something different.

And you can't have contrast among humans with different values living in different societies that have developed differently?

Because the value of science fiction is that it lets you put humans in situations and contexts they can't experience in real life so that you can find new and different ways of testing and challenging human nature. And because storytellers as far back as Aesop have known that it's often easier to make a point about human nature to audiences if you sneak it past their prejudices by disguising it as a story about inhuman creatures like animals or aliens or robots.

There are as many storytellers who didn't try to sneak things past their audience's prejudices but confronted them head on and considering Star Trek prides itself as being progressive and smart (wether that's true or not) taking the not so easy way could be a good idea especially because Star Trek's aliens are already humans with hats for the most part. Klingons are humans who are agressive and itching for war, ferengi are humans who are greedy and sexist, bajorans are religious bordering on fanaticism

Star Trek

's alien characters, from Spock to Data to Quark to Seven to T'Pol, have always been a vital part of its commentary on human nature, because they're able to look at humanity from the outside, to question and challenge it, to learn from humans and to teach them. You can learn a lot about yourself by listening to people different from yourself.

Yeah but you don't need aliens for that, it works just as well with other humans.

 

[Mysterion]

And you can't have contrast among humans with different values living in different societies that have developed differently?

Not in Rodenberry's World, you can't.

 

[Christopher]

See, I don't see them as working from a "Can I improve this?" point of view. I think it's just a desire to be creative with a familiar, perhaps inspiring, work. And, I see no harm in them trying it out.

Yeah. Sometimes a remake is driven by love for the original, not disappointment in it. It's not that you want to replace it or improve on it, just pay homage to it, or introduce its story to a new audience that might not be familiar with it. One thing that remakes or adaptations do is to bring new exposure to the original versions, so they can actually boost interest in the original rather than competing with it.

Maybe it's like... if you really admire a famous race car driver, say, you'd be thrilled at the opportunity to drive their iconic car. You'd know you couldn't drive it as well as they did, but just getting the chance to put your hands on the wheel would be a privilege and a tribute to them in your mind, even if some of their other fans might feel you were defiling the car by even touching it. Or maybe it's like trying to learn something of their mastery by putting yourself in their place, facing the same challenges and decisions that they did.

By coincidence, I just read that they're remaking NIGHTMARE ALLEY, which is a cool old 1947 noir about the seedy side of carnival life. And here's the thing: as good as the 1947 movie is, it's nowhere near as dark and kinky and sexually frank as the classic 1946 cult novel it's based on. The Hays Code being what it was, the movie version had to clean things up considerably, plus tack on a forced happy ending, whereas the book ended on a much more shocking and disturbing note.

So you can make a case for remaking NIGHTMARE ALLEY on the grounds that a modern adaptation will be able to keep in all the stuff the censors forced the 1940s movie to omit. (And, honestly, one can also argue that only hardcore cinephiles remember the 1947 version, so the story will be "new" to probably ninety percent of modern moviegoers.)

Conversely, the post-Hays Code 1941 Spencer Tracy remake of the pre-Code 1931 Fredric March Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is much weaker because the Code forced it to cut out all the sexual themes, so that the chilling story of Hyde sexually terrorizing and abusing his kept prostitute is reduced to a story of Hyde just vaguely being a jerk to his working-class girlfriend. That's a case where, instead of trying to remake that specific script, it would've been better to go back to the original source and devise a new adaptation that played up Hyde's criminal and murderous tendencies from the book rather than the sexual elements emphasized in the '31 movie and forbidden to the '41 version. I wonder why they even tried to remake the '31 version when it relied so heavily on ideas they couldn't touch. I guess it's another case where a remake failed because it was too faithful to its iconic predecessor, because it missed the opportunity to find something new to say and just ended up being an inadequate copy.

Nor is this a unique case. Changing standards and greater freedom are sometimes reasons for remaking material that may have been hobbled by censorship back in the day. For example, director William Wyler had to cut any hint of homosexuality out of THESE THREE in 1936, but was able to do a more faithful adaptation of the original play in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR in 1961. In that case, like Hitchcock, a famous director remade one of his own films--in part because he finally had the freedom to tell the story he wanted to.

On the other hand, sometimes that greater freedom just leads to overindulgence that loses the heart of the original. For instance, the first couple of Psycho sequels that sacrificed the suspense of the original for gratuitous graphic gore. Or the Bo Derek Tarzan: The Ape Man remake, which had far more nudity and frank sexuality than the original Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen O'Sullivan version, but was a less effective love story (and nearly as racist, and just incredibly incompetent all around).

And you can't have contrast among humans with different values living in different societies that have developed differently?

Of course you can, but you can have that in any story about different Earth cultures. As I said, the value of science fiction is that it lets you tell stories in ways you can't in regular Earthbound fiction.

There are as many storytellers who didn't try to sneak things past their audience's prejudices but confronted them head on and considering Star Trek prides itself as being progressive and smart (wether that's true or not) taking the not so easy way could be a good idea especially because Star Trek's aliens are already humans with hats for the most part.

Now, that's just an insulting and ignorant misreading of a perfectly valid literary device, and I'm not going to dignify it with a reply. If you think you're so much smarter than Aesop, get back to me when you've created a series of timeless legends that have endured for thousands of years.

 

[Takeru]

Now, that's just an insulting and ignorant misreading of a perfectly valid literary device, and I'm not going to dignify it with a reply. If you think you're so much smarter than Aesop, get back to me when you've created a series of timeless legends that have endured for thousands of years.

Excuse me? I was quoting you, you said it's easier to sneak it past people's prejudices, that's not my reading of anything. As for not dignifying it with a response, you already did! I was trying to have a conversation, if you are not interested in that you don't have to answer but spare me your arrogant put downs.

 

[1001001]

Let's take a step back from the personal comments, please.

This is why bullies took our lunch money...

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm all for remakes in general, taking a general story and adding a new writer's unique perspective to it.

But one of the things that makes the Star Trek universe special is that it's one universe with expansive lore. I wouldn't want to sacrifice that.

 

[Christopher]

But one of the things that makes the Star Trek universe special is that it's one universe with expansive lore. I wouldn't want to sacrifice that.

I guess to someone like me, who's been reading the novels and comics for decades and seen how often they've been contradicted by later shows/films and by each other, ST doesn't seem so monolithic. Part of the charm of the tie-ins in the first few decades was how different they were from each other, how many intriguing alternative perspectives they offered.

So I don't see why adding alternate continuities would "sacrifice" anything. The big unified whole could still continue and would not be eradicated by the existence of a parallel version, any more than the Marvel Universe in the comics has been erased by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. An alternative is not an existential threat. Heck, that's basically the whole message of Star Trek.

 

[tomalak301]

Star Trek Canon is so complicated that it's hilarious to me that people are so strictly bound by it. I mean how many times has crews gone back in time, changed some kind of history, or did something to violate an established timeline. For example, the Borg in First Contact. One could easily wave away the fact that because the Borg were there, that started an entirely new timeline. Sisko going back and being Gabrial Bell also deviated the timeline, and maybe (But not likely) having George and Gracie in the future also changed the timeline. My point is in a 50+ year franchise, to expect the writers to adhere to so-called "canon" seems like an impossible task, especially doing prequel series. Of course this is why if they did a prequel, I would love it if it was between TUC and TNG because there is so much that happened around that time that we don't know about it would be like giving a blank slate anyway. Still, when I watch Trek, I don't care personally about Canon, but rather the writing and if the characters are relatable.

 

[Christopher]

Star Trek Canon is so complicated that it's hilarious to me that people are so strictly bound by it. I mean how many times has crews gone back in time, changed some kind of history, or did something to violate an established timeline. For example, the Borg in First Contact. One could easily wave away the fact that because the Borg were there, that started an entirely new timeline. Sisko going back and being Gabrial Bell also deviated the timeline, and maybe (But not likely) having George and Gracie in the future also changed the timeline. My point is in a 50+ year franchise, to expect the writers to adhere to so-called "canon" seems like an impossible task, especially doing prequel series.

As I've said, canon does not mean continuity. It just means the overall body of works that pretend to depict a common reality, no matter how much they actually contradict each other in the details. Some canons have more continuity than others, and even the canons that strive most for continuity can have trouble maintaining it the longer they go on.

And time travel works in whatever way storytellers wish it to. Narratively, it only alters the timeline if the story says it does. Otherwise, the presumption is that any damage is fully undone at the end, or that the time travel was part of events all along. The intent in Enterprise, for instance, was that the slight changes in the timeline transformed it into the timeline we knew from the previous series, not away from it.

Anyway, ongoing series often refine their continuity without time travel or any other in-story explanation, like when lithium crystals became dilithium, or when Data was suddenly retconned as not using contractions after he'd been using them routinely all season, or when practically everything about the Trill was retconned from TNG to DS9. The narrative pretense of continuity is about the broad strokes, not the exact details. So a time-travel story in which the timeline is restored except for one or two slight tweaks is no different from that. It doesn't matter to the overall narrative pretense of a consistent reality.

 

[Spot261]

Data was suddenly retconned as not using contractions after he had been

FTFY

 

[tomalak301]

As I've said, canon does not mean continuity. It just means the overall body of works that pretend to depict a common reality, no matter how much they actually contradict each other in the details. Some canons have more continuity than others, and even the canons that strive most for continuity can have trouble maintaining it the longer they go on.

And time travel works in whatever way storytellers wish it to. Narratively, it only alters the timeline if the story says it does. Otherwise, the presumption is that any damage is fully undone at the end, or that the time travel was part of events all along. The intent in Enterprise, for instance, was that the slight changes in the timeline transformed it into the timeline we knew from the previous series, not away from it.

Anyway, ongoing series often refine their continuity without time travel or any other in-story explanation, like when lithium crystals became dilithium, or when Data was suddenly retconned as not using contractions after he'd been using them routinely all season, or when practically everything about the Trill was retconned from TNG to DS9. The narrative pretense of continuity is about the broad strokes, not the exact details. So a time-travel story in which the timeline is restored except for one or two slight tweaks is no different from that. It doesn't matter to the overall narrative pretense of a consistent reality.

But when we talk about Canon in the Star Trek Universe, I see it as Canon and Continuity being treated the same way. What I'm saying is under that premise, it is an impossible task to make the writers adhere to it.

 

[Christopher]

But when we talk about Canon in the Star Trek Universe, I see it as Canon and Continuity being treated the same way.

Which is one of the many, many, many ways in which the fans' understanding of the word "canon" is divorced from its actual meaning.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Sometimes it does seems like the writing was getting close to massacring history, if not canon.

They've inserted so much destruction and attacks on earth, it's full of attacks and wars after initially suggesting it wasn't as bad.

First the Eugenics Wars which was implied by TOS to be WW3 in the 90's. Killed tens of millions. They ignored it in a couple of 90's time travel stories in DS9 and Voyager.

Then it was it replaced with WW3 in the 21st century that killed 600 million.

First Contact suggested humans started eradicating poverty and social problems after the Vulcans came, but years earlier in TNG, it said humans were still desperate and struggling almost 100 years later.

They inserted the Xindi attack out of nowhere after DS9 suggested earth never had a brutal war or attack since the Federation was founded. And the Klingon war from Discovery.

It does come close to a cluster**** of catastrophes at times.

 

[Christopher]

First the Eugenics Wars which was implied by TOS to be WW3 in the 90's. Killed tens of millions. They ignored it in a couple of 90's time travel stories in DS9 and Voyager.

Not really. All that Voyager: "Future's End" showed was that Los Angeles was untouched by the Eugenics Wars while they were happening. But none of the wars of the 20th century were fought on continental US soil, so there's no inconsistency there at all. Indeed, there were a number of major wars in Africa and Asia in the 1990s that Americans were hardly even aware of because they didn't directly involve us, or didn't involve white people, so the US news media couldn't be bothered to cover them. We just have to assume that the Eugenics Wars were another of those conflicts that had little to do with the United States.

First Contact suggested humans started eradicating poverty and social problems after the Vulcans came, but years earlier in TNG, it said humans were still desperate and struggling almost 100 years later.

When was that said? If you're thinking of "Up the Long Ladder," the line there was that Earth was recovering from the war in the early 22nd century, not that anyone was desperate and struggling. A recovery process from such a large global conflict could easily take 6-8 decades to be fully complete.

They inserted the Xindi attack out of nowhere after DS9 suggested earth never had a brutal war or attack since the Federation was founded.

But that was something like 8 years before the Federation was founded, so there's no contradiction there.

And the Klingon war from Discovery.

Yes, that's harder to reconcile with the lines in "The Infinite Vulcan" and The Wrath of Khan that the Federation had been at peace for a hundred years. I wish they'd found a less cataclysmic story to tell. But it is what it is, and complaints after the fact won't change anything.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Not really. All that Voyager: "Future's End" showed was that Los Angeles was untouched by the Eugenics Wars while they were happening. But none of the wars of the 20th century were fought on continental US soil, so there's no inconsistency there at all. Indeed, there were a number of major wars in Africa and Asia in the 1990s that Americans were hardly even aware of because they didn't directly involve us, or didn't involve white people, so the US news media couldn't be bothered to cover them. We just have to assume that the Eugenics Wars were another of those conflicts that had little to do with the United States.




When was that said? If you're thinking of "Up the Long Ladder," the line there was that Earth was recovering from the war in the early 22nd century, not that anyone was desperate and struggling. A recovery process from such a large global conflict could easily take 6-8 decades to be fully complete.




But that was something like 8 years before the Federation was founded, so there's no contradiction there.




Yes, that's harder to reconcile with the lines in "The Infinite Vulcan" and The Wrath of Khan that the Federation had been at peace for a hundred years. I wish they'd found a less cataclysmic story to tell. But it is what it is, and complaints after the fact won't change anything.

True, and good point for the Xindi attack-- it did happened before the Federation was founded. And the humanity still recovering is a good point.


However, the problem is Spock commits it by calling the Eugenics Wars "the last of your so-called world wars". And by saying "the last of it", implies WW3. He calls it both a world war and the last of them.

We know that the Eugenics and WW3 are separate wars, but only because of retconning. The idea that such a war may not affect the USA and the idea that it may not even report it much in the media much just doesn't sound very plausible. A small scale war yes, understandable.

More likely, based on how it is described, the US would have been involved or got drawn in-especially if you're going by real world history of these regions and alliances and pacts etc. 37 million people killed across Europe, Africa, Mid East, and Asia? Leaders that were termed war criminals? More than a quarter of the world occupied by war criminals?

It doesn't sound plausible. It seems likely in Voyager's Future's End, someone, the crew on Voyager, or the Americans they meet on earth would have mentioned it. It's more likely the 90's time setting was ideal for the story, but the eugenics wars was simply forgotten or left out for whatever reason.

They inserted too many wars and disasters and forgot about them in certain episodes. It requires a lot of verbal gymnastics to explain them away.

 

[DanGussin]

For me this question breaks down like this -

With 79 episodes of a weekly series that you have to wait for re runs to see again maintaining a basic integrity is not too difficult. Over time, as novels, films and new weekly series were added , the level of complexity rises and keeping things consistent becomes more difficult so that some errors will creep in. Some of these are relatively simple to explain away and don't affect the overall "Trek Universe" in too serious a way. And of course now we can watch on our computers and phones as often as we want so more gets picked up on.

For myself the real problem is when a Star Trek 5 comes along and attempts to add an element that has never been seen before and does it in a clumsy way. Not only does Spock have a never before mentioned half brother who just shows up, His overall presence and storyline just don't make sense. If Sarek did have a Vulcan wife before his marriage to Amanda I might be OK with that if the movie had a decent storyline to bring him in. In the end we get a new family member for Spock merely for the shock value who really does not make too much sense in universe or to many fans.

IMO - Discovery does the same thing, Spore drive, ship design, the basic look of the Klingons, a dyslexic Spock etc etc are all just not consistent with what we have seen for decades.

And even worse - licensing agreements that insist that a certain percent of the show needs to be different are frankly insane when dealing with a long term franchise and large fan base.

End Rant

 

[Christopher]

However, the problem is Spock commits it by calling the Eugenics Wars "the last of your so-called world wars". And by saying "the last of it", implies WW3. He calls it both a world war and the last of them.

Yeah, they changed it. But it was a change that made sense at the time. In 1967, the 1990s seemed like the remote future. But in 1987, that wouldn't wash anymore, so it made sense to retcon the timeframe of the global war to something more comfortably distant. Honestly, I find it strange that later Trek productions during and after the 1990s were so literal-minded about past canon that they felt the need to re-establish the same Eugenics Wars dates that "Space Seed" had used, rather than updating the timeline to something more plausible to modern audiences, as other series such as Marvel have done with their timelines.

The idea that such a war may not affect the USA and the idea that it may not even report it much in the media much just doesn't sound very plausible. A small scale war yes, understandable.

Okay, then how much can you tell me about the Sierra Leone Civil War, or the Algerian Civil War, or the Burundian Civil War, or the First and Second Congo Wars, or the other African wars of the '90s that killed tens of millions of people? That's hardly small-scale.

And again -- none of the wars in the 20th century, not even the World Wars, had any combat on American soil. Our cities were untouched by the conflicts, except for things like rationing, scrap drives, and propaganda. If Los Angeles remained intact throughout WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc., then it's not even slightly implausible that it was intact during the Eugenics Wars.

With 79 episodes of a weekly series that you have to wait for re runs to see again maintaining a basic integrity is not too difficult.

Or rather, it wasn't too important. Because of the lack of home video and such, there was no guarantee that a given viewer would ever get to see every episode of a series, so the priority was to make every one self-contained and complete with no dependence on any other episode. Plenty of shows in the '60s and '70s had little to no continuity and aspired to an anthology-like approach. Creating a sense of a consistent universe was a low priority, because it was harder to experience a series as a continuous whole than as a series of isolated segments.

And even worse - licensing agreements that insist that a certain percent of the show needs to be different are frankly insane when dealing with a long term franchise and large fan base.

I'm pretty sure that's a myth from those disreputable Midnight's Edge videos. Discovery is made by CBS, the company that out-and-out owns Star Trek. No "licensing agreements" of any kind are involved, because the owners don't need a license to use their own property. And we saw that Discovery directly incorporated footage from "The Cage" into If Memory Serves, so clearly they are free to use the original material.