Don't like that Anakin Skywalker building C3PO and hating sand is now part of Star Wars canon.
When did canon become such a hot-button issue?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
Completely agree with this.
Maybe they can do a remastered version of Discovery with 1966 effects, like an inverse "Trials and Tribbleations," as a love letter to the hate-watchers.
This made my mind flash back to when reading the novels involved trying to figure out when they took place. "is this during the five-year mission? But they have TMP uniforms on the cover. But ... but ... "
I can't really blame them. It must be nerve-wracking to try an toe that balance. There's no way to win with this fandom.
THIS. THIS.
I just read through these threads about canon, and how it's been "damaged," and how it could be "fixed," and I just find it exhausting sometimes. I feel so bad for the state of things, I feel so sorry for people who are so angry about a pretend universe, and wish I could just put people in a time machine and plop them in front of a TV in 1976, and just watch Star Trek again, with no checklists, no requirements, no theories about what happens at the corporate level, about what the franchise owners are "trying to get away with" or "move the brand."
Just where we're people watching stories. Exploring. Having fun.
This made my mind flash back to when reading the novels involved trying to figure out when they took place. "is this during the five-year mission? But they have TMP uniforms on the cover. But ... but ... "
I can't really blame them. It must be nerve-wracking to try an toe that balance. There's no way to win with this fandom.
THIS. THIS.
I just read through these threads about canon, and how it's been "damaged," and how it could be "fixed," and I just find it exhausting sometimes. I feel so bad for the state of things, I feel so sorry for people who are so angry about a pretend universe, and wish I could just put people in a time machine and plop them in front of a TV in 1976, and just watch Star Trek again, with no checklists, no requirements, no theories about what happens at the corporate level, about what the franchise owners are "trying to get away with" or "move the brand."
Just where we're people watching stories. Exploring. Having fun.
You could usually tell by the ranks of Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov, and whether Chekov was navigator or security chief (although a lot of post-TMP novels ignored that bit, and so did the later movies). The covers were a poor guide.
This is why arguments about canon are so confusing to me. It's so strange to have this intense desire to make it all make sense and that if the production teams don't then they have betrayed the brand. It gets to a point where I am concerned for individual's mental health. Not because I don't take Star Trek seriously, or telling them to "Get over it! It's just a TV show!" but looking past that and saying why is Star Trek so important that it inspires such passion? And, how can we still allow enjoyment in even with these changes?
I think "canon" is an important part of the illusion. That what you're watching actually is a coherent story.
Now we Trekkies might be especially anal when it comes about the technicalities. But overall - this applies to ALL of fiction, and every single individual has a different threshold. I, for example, have problems accepting Brendan Fraser's 3rd Mummy movie, because the actresss playing his wife (Winona Ryder Rachel Weisz) changed. That little detail deligitimized pretty much all of the family drama of this movie (which was a BIG part of the movie!) - because it broke the immersion for me.
As I said already before: I think writers should NEVER address "canon" concerns directly in their story. Whenever that itself invades the plot (ST09, DIS season 2 finale) - it both doesn't really work (because it breaks the immersion), and is usually always the most divisive part of the whole story. What the writers SHOULD do is treat past events like backstory. Like you would with any other story as well. You can update it, even tweak it - Batman's parents get killed in an alley every single decade, and slightly different each time - but you also should try to stay as close to it as possible and not do something stupid and change the basics of the original event.
Now we Trekkies might be especially anal when it comes about the technicalities. But overall - this applies to ALL of fiction, and every single individual has a different threshold. I, for example, have problems accepting Brendan Fraser's 3rd Mummy movie, because the actresss playing his wife (
As I said already before: I think writers should NEVER address "canon" concerns directly in their story. Whenever that itself invades the plot (ST09, DIS season 2 finale) - it both doesn't really work (because it breaks the immersion), and is usually always the most divisive part of the whole story. What the writers SHOULD do is treat past events like backstory. Like you would with any other story as well. You can update it, even tweak it - Batman's parents get killed in an alley every single decade, and slightly different each time - but you also should try to stay as close to it as possible and not do something stupid and change the basics of the original event.
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Nitpick: You mean Rachel Weisz, not Winona Ryder.
But, yes, I imagine we all have our own individual lines in the sand here. Recasting tends not bother me unless the subsequent actor is a noticeable step down from the previous one. In Bride of Frankenstein, Valerie Hobson replaced Mae Clarke as Dr. Frankenstein's fiancee. Doesn't hurt that classic movie one bit, even though the two actresses look nothing alike. (Clarke is a blonde; Hobson has flowing black curls.). Granted, that may be partly because nobody really cares about Elizabeth anyway, but I can't say it's ever damaged my "immersion" or interfered with my enjoyment of the movie, which I have watched many, many times.
For me, it's never about maintaining some illusion of "reality." Movies and TV and stage plays are make-believe; you're expected to suspend your disbelief for the duration of the show.
But, yes, I imagine we all have our own individual lines in the sand here. Recasting tends not bother me unless the subsequent actor is a noticeable step down from the previous one. In Bride of Frankenstein, Valerie Hobson replaced Mae Clarke as Dr. Frankenstein's fiancee. Doesn't hurt that classic movie one bit, even though the two actresses look nothing alike. (Clarke is a blonde; Hobson has flowing black curls.). Granted, that may be partly because nobody really cares about Elizabeth anyway, but I can't say it's ever damaged my "immersion" or interfered with my enjoyment of the movie, which I have watched many, many times.
For me, it's never about maintaining some illusion of "reality." Movies and TV and stage plays are make-believe; you're expected to suspend your disbelief for the duration of the show.
Curious if Saavik's recasting had similar impact?
Usually, I have no problems with re-castings. Saavik, Chris Pine, Ethan Peck, whatever. I don't really like it. But it happens.
The one place where I really can't stand it is when it's the romantic lead. Beause a whole lot of that depends on the chemistry between the actors. If you swap out one of the actors there, it breaks my immersion. In such cases, I even prefer the dreaded "dumped before the sequel", where the couple breaks up between the movies, and a new character enters the picture.
Elsa Frankenstein was played by the (I think) English-accented brunette Evelyn Ankers in The Ghost of Frankenstein, but the Hungarian-accented blonde Ilona Massey in the subsequent Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man -- perhaps because Ankers had also played Lon Chaney, Jr.'s love interest in The Wolf Man. The same pair of films also goes from having Chaney as Frankenstein's Monster, Bela Lugosi as Ygor, and Lionel Atwill as a villainous doctor to having Chaney as Lawrence Talbot, Lugosi as the Monster, and Atwill as a mayor.
"Canon" is simply the body of work. The term in and of itself does not imply perfect consistency or harmony among all the individual works within that canon.
Just look at any other field where the word "canon" is used.
Kor
It became a hot button issue in the failed series ENT and the J.J. Abrams garbage, which managed to make Star Trek: Enterprise look like a Star Trek Sistine Chapel (or should I say Christine Chapel, lol?) masterpiece by comparison. Both of these Treks obnoxiously violated the general Star Trek timeline in so many different lazy, unbelievably STUPID ways, they quite simply had no respect for their source material whatsoever. And both of these monstrosities of Star Trek were deliberately STUPID and treated their audiences as if they were as STUPID as all the 21st-century detritus into which Trek degenerated. It's shameful so see what Star Trek is now, versus decades past when it had....oh, I would say....a FUCKING BRAIN!
And people wonder why I don't get bent out of shape about recasting modern series.
People back then took recastings more in stride because people still went to the theater back then. A theater troupe might have the same actors play various different roles in consecutive plays, or a given role in one play might be taken over by the understudy now and then, or whatever. So seeing a role recast was just a casual thing.
I have yet to hear a good argument that ENT broke canon (maybe the number of Starships Enterprise, but that's really scraping the barrel). Not really a fan of the Abrams movies and I will concede that I think they were written primarily as a reboot with considerations of how they would fit into the larger franchise secondary, at best. That said, I think most of their problems are narrative-based and have come to the opinion that much of their issues with canon are superficial or of a minor enough nature that I don't think it's a strike against them. (Delta Vega was an awfully annoying issue, but it's not the first time the same name has been reused, nor is it something impossible to happen IRL.)
Someone's bringing their 2009 problems into 2019.
*wondering what happened to all the TNG haters in the late 80's/early 90's and if they're still angry*
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