Alex Kurtzman on the Fine Line Between Adding to, and Staying True to, Star Trek's Canon

[fireproof78]

But then the story isn’t the most important part of making a show successful if people will turn away from it just because of how the show looks. It sounds more like the window dressing is primary and storytelling is secondary.

As I said, it's a balance. Window dressing is a hook, and story is the reel in.

Do I think TOS style could work? Yeah, of course, but I'm not the only target audience. CBS wants to expand the audience, not just current Trek fans. And production values are part of drawing in new audiences. Keeping them doesn't work on just visuals alone, though. Characters and stories become more important at that point.

 

[Dukhat]

As I said, it's a balance. Window dressing is a hook, and story is the reel in.

Do I think TOS style could work? Yeah, of course, but I'm not the only target audience. CBS wants to expand the audience, not just current Trek fans. And production values are part of drawing in new audiences. Keeping them doesn't work on just visuals alone, though. Characters and stories become more important at that point.

Thats all fine. And I pretty much agree with you. Which is why when people make statements like ‘it doesn’t matter how the show looks, it’s the story that matters,’ I shake my head and laugh because that’s so not true.

 

[fireproof78]

Thats all fine. And I pretty much agree with you. Which is why when people make statements like ‘it doesn’t matter how the show looks, it’s the story that matters,’ I shake my head and laugh because that’s so not true.

I put more weight behind the story than the appearance. So, it isn't that it doesn't matter, it's that it matters far less to me than the characters.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Because that's the point of Star Trek is to tell an entertaining story (I read that somewhere

That's why DSC doesn't bother me as much as others with regards to continuity. Is the technology from DSC to TOS so vastly different as to impact the story being told. Are the phasers on DSC doing something new that would impact TOS? What about the uniforms? Perhaps the starships somehow impact the story more than I realize?

That's my question.

Look at the forcefield tech on the USS Shenzhou, which is on-par with the Enterprise-E in Nemesis. Then think about how that would affect every time someone was running around loose on the classic Enterprise, and how different those events would be if you could erect forcefields wherever needed to contain people.

 

[DaveyNY]

Thinking about the number and type of Aliens that Kirk and crew mostly ran up against, even if they did have those kind of capabilities, it wouldn't have mattered much...

God-Gary
Tralane
The Kelvans
The Metrons
The "Obsession" Alien ... etc...

 

[Lord Garth]

In TNG, they can beam to different parts of the ship. Yet whenever someone tries to escape, Worf never beams straight to their location. No holo-emitters on the Enterprise-E (even though we saw them on the Defiant and DS9) and I'll be surprised if we ever hear of the bio-neural circuitry from Voyager ever again. 20th and 21st Century writers don't always know what to do with 23rd and 24th Century fictional technology.

In fairness, the writers didn't think to add forcefields to the TOS Enterprise in every corridor. But it's not like there isn't precedent for the writers not knowing how to take advantage of the technology that's been established.

 

[Alan Roi]

Thats all fine. And I pretty much agree with you. Which is why when people make statements like ‘it doesn’t matter how the show looks, it’s the story that matters,’ I shake my head and laugh because that’s so not true.

And yet that's exactly what the Orvilles swear blind to when I point out to them that the major reason why they consider their show to be 'Star Trek' is because of its beige sets and color-coded uniforms remind them of their favorite iteration of Star Trek. They too claim it's "the story that matters" and not the staging/costuming that makes the show 'Star Trek'. Why do you think that is?

 

[fireproof78]

Look at the forcefield tech on the USS Shenzhou, which is on-par with the Enterprise-E in Nemesis. Then think about how that would affect every time someone was running around loose on the classic Enterprise, and how different those events would be if you could erect forcefields wherever needed to contain people.

Except even in those stories, in TNG, those rarely impact the actual story. The application of technology is not consistent even when I would expect it to be applied like you described.

So, no, I don't see it impacting the story all that much.

 

[Dukhat]

And yet that's exactly what the Orvilles swear blind to when I point out to them that the major reason why they consider their show to be 'Star Trek' is because of its beige sets and color-coded uniforms remind them of their favorite iteration of Star Trek. They too claim it's "the story that matters" and not the staging/costuming that makes the show 'Star Trek'. Why do you think that is?

I don’t know, because I’ve never seen a single episode of The Orville. Not because of how it looks, and not because of any judgments about its story being good or not. Because the stupid juvenile humor I saw in the commercials for it before it premiered turned me right off to it.

 

[Nightdiamond]

They want us to think Discovery is part of the universe without doing the legwork to make it actually fit with the rest of it.

This is why I sometimes think Trek is pretty bad at world building. It tend to insert things into the history or storyline as it goes along, which makes its history and canon look contradictory and shaky. Sometimes characters just say things that can mess canon up.

Besides its being mostly vague and doesn't show a lot of the canon it does have.

Creating a rich, detailed background and history and sticking to it and it will look and feel more real.

Sure, some things need to be revamped, but constantly changing premises and history does create reactions like what we're seeing now.

Oh, I know. Which is why Kurtzman’s way of “keeping true to canon” by sending the Discovery into the future and classifying the first two years of the show really was just a cop-out to me. If they were having problems with their 23rd century pre-TOS setting, all they had to do was establish that the show takes place in another universe/timeline/whatever, just like the Kelvin timeline, and then continue on with whatever stories they want to tell without the constant need to “keep true to canon.

I think they feel they have to set it in the same timeline/universe as the original, because that's one of its main selling points. They want the connection with the universe and characters that TV made famous.

Then there's probably the fear that if were set in an alternate universe, there would be (eventually) poorer fan interest.

It needs that connection. It's a theory, anyway.

And that's OK. Honestly, I want the show to be future looking and forward in its design. If ignoring the color of the drapes is part of the process so be it.

I guess you have to dump some of those outdated things.
If we took Pre TNG canon too seriously, then we'd see people eating colored cubes all the time, analog clocks, computers and terminals with buttons, switches and sliders, and women with beehives.

 

[Lord Garth]

If we took Pre TNG canon too seriously, then we'd see people eating colored cubes all the time

Everyone is in such good shape considering they eat nothing but Starbursts. Nothing like healthy junk food... contradiction in terms that it is. It's kind of like cleaner engine emissions.

 

[Alan Roi]

This is why I sometimes think Trek is pretty bad at world building. It tend to insert things into the history or storyline as it goes along, which makes its history and canon look contradictory and shaky. Sometimes characters just say things that can mess canon up.

Which makes Star Trek future history behave a whole lot like real history. Isn't the Federation and its copious worlds, dozens of species, hundreds of years of history vast enough to contain a few contradictions open to new interpretations and new information?

 

[Lord Garth]

Which makes Star Trek future history behave a whole lot like real history. Isn't the Federation and its copious worlds, dozens of species, hundreds of years of history vast enough to contain a few contradictions open to new interpretations and new information?

Star Trek must be exactly the same as when Bush Sr. was President, don't you know? Any Star Trek before that or after that "doesn't count" according to the grapevine. Except the stuff from before, when it suddenly becomes important to the point of rigid inflexibility. But only to win an argument.

 

[Dukhat]

Which makes Star Trek future history behave a whole lot like real history. Isn't the Federation and its copious worlds, dozens of species, hundreds of years of history vast enough to contain a few contradictions open to new interpretations and new information?

There’s a difference between “a few contradictions” and totally changing things. The producers of DSC are basically saying that what we saw in TOS isn’t what actually happened, when TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT and all the TOS films all operate under the assumption that it did (the only major difference being the look of the Klingons.)

 

[Alan Roi]

There’s a difference between “a few contradictions” and totally changing things. The producers of DSC are basically saying that what we saw in TOS isn’t what actually happened, when TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT and all the TOS films all operate under the assumption that it did (the only major difference being the look of the Klingons.)

No they aren't. That's just your opinion. Oh, and the shows you mentioned, yes they did operate under the assumption they could change things however they wanted. Let's look at Voyager as an example. Was there a Eugenics war going on in the 90s as per TOS. Nope. It was our 1990s.

 

[fireproof78]

The producers of DSC are basically saying that what we saw in TOS isn’t what actually happened

How are they saying it isn't what happened? I mean, I get changing the look and how that could bother people (see my long ramblings on TMP and TWOK changes) but that doesn't mean the events didn't happen to those characters. Otherwise, TWOK kind of falls apart. Like, a lot.

So,appearance changes=events change?

 

[Dukhat]

How are they saying it isn't what happened? I mean, I get changing the look and how that could bother people (see my long ramblings on TMP and TWOK changes) but that doesn't mean the events didn't happen to those characters. Otherwise, TWOK kind of falls apart. Like, a lot.

So,appearance changes=events change?

Explain to me why Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the Enterprise crew have never heard of tribbles after the events of “The Trouble with Edward.” This has nothing to do with how the shows look.

 

[fireproof78]

Explain to me why Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the Enterprise crew have never heard of tribbles after the events of “The Trouble with Edward.” This has nothing to do with how the shows look.

An embarrassing situation with a whole ship lost? Yeah, I see that being classified.

 

[Alan Roi]

Explain to me why Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the Enterprise crew have never heard of tribbles after the events of “The Trouble with Edward.” This has nothing to do with how the shows look.

Why didn't the DS9 crew know what Klingons looked like during the TOS era? Has that been completely wiped from Federation records? How does that make sense? Why did only one crew member of the TNG crew know about the events of 'The Naked Time' and even then only remember a reference to someone frozen in a shower? Again, why? This also takes place in an era where the Governor of a Federation colony, who executed half his colonists can slip away without anyone knowing what he looks like and perform Shakespeare plays all across the Federation for 20 years with no one the wiser. My understanding based on watching Star Trek for decades: Its been made abundantly clear over that characters in Star Trek don't know everything that's ever happened with regards to the Federation or Starfleet, nor should they be expected to. As well, neither the Federation in general nor Star Fleet, in particular, has ever been shown to offer absolute free flow of information. And then you have Captain's like Kirk who deliberately falsify their reports to pretend certain events never occurred (IE What Little Girls are made of).

 

[WebLurker]

No they aren't. That's just your opinion. Oh, and the shows you mentioned, yes they did operate under the assumption they could change things however they wanted. Let's look at Voyager as an example. Was there a Eugenics war going on in the 90s as per TOS. Nope. It was our 1990s.

No, it wasn't our 1990s; Rain Robinson had a DY-100 model and photo in her office (you know, that ship Khan used to escape Earth after the Eugenics Wars?). While the war wasn't mentioned, the show was set after it ended and there wasn't anything to directly contradict it having ended last Christmas. So, while the filmmakers didn't mention it make it feel more like the present day then an alt-timeline, it does slot into place.