Alex Kurtzman on the Fine Line Between Adding to, and Staying True to, Star Trek's Canon
- Thread starter Danja
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Great. Then why isn't it artistic licence? Why is it literal?
Because it was a scene from an episode of TOS (literally, the pilot episode that takes place before DSC) which this show claims to be a prequel of. The entire scene was literally CBS's way of stating that both shows take place in the same universe. So the Xindi changing history 100 years before would have changed the events of 'The Cage.' How the two shows 'look' has no relevance. CBS does not care about visual continuity; therefore there's no reason to think that the Xindi changed anything. Don't blame the Xindi, blame CBS.
Mind you, I'm arguing here about something that I myself do not believe. I think DSC takes place in a different universe/continuity/timeline/whatever from TOS. But CBS says otherwise, even though the producers and writers of DSC seem to make little to no effort to adhere to continuity. So there you go.
Sounds like CBS is trying to have their Cage and eat it, too.
HEY OH!!!
Likewise, I can't stand ENT. So I don't really believe "the Xindi changed everything!" argument either. But it is interesting.
That killed some time.
Sisko (to Dax while laughing): "You would've made a decent Romulan."
That it did. BTW, I try not to take things personally here. If I came across like I was attacking you because you posted that video, I apologize.
I've been at this on boards like these since I was in high school. It's all in good fun.
This time, I was like, "Fuck it. Why not go for broke?"
The easiest solution could be to do what they did in 1987 but do not do what was considered for a movie that came out in 1991:
Just set the show in the future, even by a decade or so. Prequels revolve around filling in holes (that often only make newer and bigger ones) by revisiting a perceived past, and there's a lot more established canon and continuity that can easily be broken because no amount of research will take care of every possible nuance*.
* TNG loosely respected but also made its own universe, though by the mid-1990s when they ditched their own continuity there were fans back then screaming big-time as well. So none of this is new. Apart from being surprised...
Star Wars fans weren't exactly thrilled with the prequels at the time**, using technology and designs that weren't in the original trilogy that weren't explained. So what's next a prequel between the prequels and original trilogy? "Rogue One" decided to replace 2 minutes of dialogue with a 2 hour film to explore the Death Star espionage caper, which only created even bigger in-universe technological problems as a result (by accident, but this just goes back to some of the aforementioned points.)
** and thus are putting ersatz romanticizing to justify the sequel trilogy's failings. Both PT and ST have their failings, each on either extreme whereas the OT*** ends up being balanced by comparison. At least IV and V, anyway****...
*** (which isn't exactly free of plot holes and other things, which these critics also choose to overlook so their narrative is artificially strengthened)
**** VI was the first lame rehash, to the point VII is arguably less gaudy...
So why not just set a new series in present time or in the future and not reference the past too much (or at all) or do so with enough deftness that there's wiggle room so suspension of disbelief can be maintained***** and letting the new material actually gel - then never do a prequel to try to patch the new stuff together since the current evidence is, in a word, "damning", that they cause more issues than they resolve. TNG did that. "Picard" is doing it (set in the future but it's tie-ins with the past...******). ST VI was considering doing an academy with younger actors but that thankfully fell through. (Which may or may have raked in the money, but that excuse always misses the other point... maybe two...)
***** because people who enjoy the show are more likely not going to nitpick at the most pedantic levels and/or create headcanon or fanon to make it all work in their own minds, which is what prequels tend to screw up. Case in point: ENT was the first Trek outing to blork it up...
****** then again, TNG between "Q Who" and "I, Borg" couldn't decide if the Borg was self-containing via making little baby borgs or assimilating others, but they had that assimilation conversion gear ready to go in a jiffy... never mind STFC shows the Borg can't adapt because they keep sending one cube-- "Rule of Drama"(tm), I suppose. Its sibling rule, "Rule of Funny", makes it a heckuva lot easier to get around canon. For more, see the show "Red Dwarf" and YouTube channel "Cyborcat" as she coined that latter term as well as putting out fantastic reviews for the episodes and even some characters (chiefly Cat, in a multi-part special.)
Just set the show in the future, even by a decade or so. Prequels revolve around filling in holes (that often only make newer and bigger ones) by revisiting a perceived past, and there's a lot more established canon and continuity that can easily be broken because no amount of research will take care of every possible nuance*.
* TNG loosely respected but also made its own universe, though by the mid-1990s when they ditched their own continuity there were fans back then screaming big-time as well. So none of this is new. Apart from being surprised...
Star Wars fans weren't exactly thrilled with the prequels at the time**, using technology and designs that weren't in the original trilogy that weren't explained. So what's next a prequel between the prequels and original trilogy? "Rogue One" decided to replace 2 minutes of dialogue with a 2 hour film to explore the Death Star espionage caper, which only created even bigger in-universe technological problems as a result (by accident, but this just goes back to some of the aforementioned points.)
** and thus are putting ersatz romanticizing to justify the sequel trilogy's failings. Both PT and ST have their failings, each on either extreme whereas the OT*** ends up being balanced by comparison. At least IV and V, anyway****...
*** (which isn't exactly free of plot holes and other things, which these critics also choose to overlook so their narrative is artificially strengthened)
**** VI was the first lame rehash, to the point VII is arguably less gaudy...
So why not just set a new series in present time or in the future and not reference the past too much (or at all) or do so with enough deftness that there's wiggle room so suspension of disbelief can be maintained***** and letting the new material actually gel - then never do a prequel to try to patch the new stuff together since the current evidence is, in a word, "damning", that they cause more issues than they resolve. TNG did that. "Picard" is doing it (set in the future but it's tie-ins with the past...******). ST VI was considering doing an academy with younger actors but that thankfully fell through. (Which may or may have raked in the money, but that excuse always misses the other point... maybe two...)
***** because people who enjoy the show are more likely not going to nitpick at the most pedantic levels and/or create headcanon or fanon to make it all work in their own minds, which is what prequels tend to screw up. Case in point: ENT was the first Trek outing to blork it up...
****** then again, TNG between "Q Who" and "I, Borg" couldn't decide if the Borg was self-containing via making little baby borgs or assimilating others, but they had that assimilation conversion gear ready to go in a jiffy... never mind STFC shows the Borg can't adapt because they keep sending one cube-- "Rule of Drama"(tm), I suppose. Its sibling rule, "Rule of Funny", makes it a heckuva lot easier to get around canon. For more, see the show "Red Dwarf" and YouTube channel "Cyborcat" as she coined that latter term as well as putting out fantastic reviews for the episodes and even some characters (chiefly Cat, in a multi-part special.)
Shit canon is still canon
(FWIW, I loved ENT season 3, not so much 1 or 2)
I apologize, but I needed to adumbrate two ways I perceived reading that:
1.
Shit canon is still canon
2.
Shit, canon is still canon
Of course, there are undoubtedly folk who are hoping and bucking for #1 there, but either is okay.
If nothing else, they can do a prequel set between DSC and TOS to explain off all the shiny new inconsistencies they created; the three people who enjoy both DSC and TOS to that level of extensiveness would undoubtedly appreciate it far more. 
They take the children and babies and place them in maturation tanks (that's how Seven of Nine was created -- she was assimilated when she was seven years old).
Pregnant women: they probably do C-sections and place the fetuses in maturation tanks.
They could just teleport them. Honestly that seems like all babies would get beamed out of the womb, in Star Trek, unless you're one of the Luddites or Vulcan or a Human living on Vulcan.They take the children and babies and place them in maturation tanks (that's how Seven of Nine was created -- she was assimilated when she was seven years old).
Pregnant women: they probably do C-sections and place the fetuses in maturation tanks.
They did that in Voyager when Naomi was born. She died, so it's a no-no.
Luckily for them, they got an exact duplicate of her by the end of the episode and never mentioned it again.
When I start to take the idea of canon too seriously, I like to remind myself that "Turnabout Intruder" is canon.
I don't know if I saw that one. Voyager is the one series I am not sure I saw every episode of. But I probably forgot some of them. Star Trek, especially the Berman years was afraid sometimes to embrace just how different culture would be after a couple hundred years of the changes their universe had been through. Another reason I like TOS: It's weird, sometimes. As it ages, it gets stranger. VOY.. well they had the salamanders and Neelix lusting after someone who was less then a few years old, but ultimately they always tried to fall back on the comfortable.
Same with Harry Kim.
That quote actually wasn't from Kurtzman. It was from the author of the article.
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