From the point of view of the production team, "Sybok who?" Again, to me, not very believable.
So how important is canon, then?
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From the point of view of the production team, "Sybok who?" Again, to me, not very believable.
It was tense, but probably the most interesting story arc of the sesaon. The laughing Vulcan and the stoic human with poor Spock caught in the middle. Sarek on the sidelines projecting disapproval. Amanda offering comfort. Casting Andy Samberg as Sybok was controversial, but I think he nailed it.
This would've been better than what we ended up with.
I knew someone would say that
That the family pariah doesn't show up?
I won books going back to "Mission to Horatius", the Starfleet Technical Manual and so on. But Star Trek is, first and foremost, entertainment. If it doesn't survive as that, then it is ultimately meaningless.
If canon is the only way to appreciate a story, then the writer failed at their job of engaging the audience.
Yet, through a thousand retcons, here we are.
That, over a chunk of a season with Spock and Burnham, including flashbacks to Burnham's childhood, there's nary a mention of him.
Sometimes you don't need the kitchen sink.
It is an entertainment. It's also more than just an entertainment. People understand that on some level, and that's why there's so much energy devoted to it, and to its canon.
Alternatively, if a writer is incapable of telling a compelling story within canon, he or she might need to brush up on his or her writing skills.
Indeed we are here, with a broken canon.
Canon is just the body of work. It can't be "broken". Both James R. and James T. Kirk are canon. Data being part of the Class of '78 is canon.
I don't think Sybok would have added anything to Discovery. In fact, I think he's an awful character. That said, I just don't believe that in the situations in which they find themselves, there would not be even a passing mention of him.
No,because all three stories are done in one. They rely on the development with in each episode for emotional impact. The idea being that someone dropping in to Star Trek for the first time would get the impact.
Just imagine that there was a mention off screen. It you can forge a mythical connection between Kirk's emotional state and his dead girlfriends, you can do that too.
As the Vulcan ambassador to the Federation, it is logical to explore all aspects of sexuality practiced by sentient beings.
Or he read the T'Pol version of The Logic of Sex
On some level I agree. People (myself included) keep debating the differences between "canon" and "continuity". That said, I'll go on record as saying that on some level, canon implies continuity.
I've seen no mention in this thread of the religious background of the term "canon." There's obviously a lot of nuance to the term in that context, but it could be whittled down to "what is true", at least within the context of that belief structure. Someone else mentioned the apocrypha, which can similarly be whittled down to "what is not true." So on same level, when we say something is part of a canon like Trek, we're saying that we can rely on it to be true in the context of the fictional universe in which it is presented. When elements contradict one another, then one element or another cannot be true.
Yet I have no issue enjoying The Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and the Star Trek Chronology: A History of the Future. They massively contradict each other, but both are great peeks into the Star Trek universe.
There are many great episodes/movies/books/comics out there that contradict each other, but are entertaining. Personally, I'd rather have Trek contradictory with lots of room for various takes on people/events than a single uncontradicted timeline.
One of my favorite storylines in all of Trek is the work DC did between Star Trek III and IV, where Kirk was in command of the Excelsior and Spock commanded the science vessel Surak, ending in "The Doomsday Bug".
And this is why people keep debating canon and its value and asking questions like that which started this thread.
Don't get me wrong; I'm glad you can enjoy what you enjoy. I will continue to try to hold the creators to what I consider to be a higher standard, and like Quixote and the windmills (more of the great conversation) I will continue to fail.
My highest standard is an entertaining story. Which is where a lot of the All-Access stuff fails for me. Besides, it is easy to break this stuff down into multiple timelines and simply treat Trek as a multiverse.
Timeline A- TOS, TAS, TMP
Timeline B- Star Trek II-VI, TNG, DS9, VOY, TNG films...
Timeline C- First Contact, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard
Timeline D- The Abrams universe.
I think we're starting to go in circles, which is almost inevitable.
An entertaining story is actually the lowest thing that I will accept. I want to see compelling, believable, consistent characters, and yes, I do want to see it fit into what has come before; as I said upstream, if the writer can't work all of that out, that writer should write whatever he or she wants, but don't call it Star Trek.
Point of fact, I think the biggest problem with canon is that so many of the production staff either just want to be a part of Trek, or worse yet they want to put "their stamp" on it, regardless of what came before. What they're really doing is using the work other people have done in creating characters and a universe, going all the way back to TOS, and deciding that A fits their story but B doesn't. When I say "don't call it Trek", part of me is also saying "If you're not good enough to write your own original material that's part of the same universe."
Agreed. I've said this many times elsewhere. I consider each series to have no real connection to any of the others aside from some casual coincidences. At that point, however, all that remains of Star Trek is TOS, and possibly TAS, and the rest becomes Trek-inspired material with those casual coincidences. For the most part, I'm more inclined to consider Star Trek Continues and the New Voyages material as canon that I am, say, Lower Decks.
An entertaining story is actually the lowest thing that I will accept. I want to see compelling, believable, consistent characters, and yes, I do want to see it fit into what has come before; as I said upstream, if the writer can't work all of that out, that writer should write whatever he or she wants, but don't call it Star Trek.
Point of fact, I think the biggest problem with canon is that so many of the production staff either just want to be a part of Trek, or worse yet they want to put "their stamp" on it, regardless of what came before. What they're really doing is using the work other people have done in creating characters and a universe, going all the way back to TOS, and deciding that A fits their story but B doesn't. When I say "don't call it Trek", part of me is also saying "If you're not good enough to write your own original material that's part of the same universe."
Agreed. I've said this many times elsewhere. I consider each series to have no real connection to any of the others aside from some casual coincidences. At that point, however, all that remains of Star Trek is TOS, and possibly TAS, and the rest becomes Trek-inspired material with those casual coincidences. For the most part, I'm more inclined to consider Star Trek Continues and the New Voyages material as canon that I am, say, Lower Decks.
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