I'm the opposite. For me, Lower Decks is far exceeding a lot of other Trek in being "Trek". Fan films are that, fan films and don't belong in a canon discussion.
So how important is canon, then?
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I'm the opposite. For me, Lower Decks is far exceeding a lot of other Trek in being "Trek". Fan films are that, fan films and don't belong in a canon discussion.
Hmm. Not really. I consider the fan films "Trek", but, they aren't canon and shouldn't be treated as such. Just like the Spaceflight Chronology is Trek, but isn't canon.
Until it's not. James R. Kirk was overwritten. UESPA and the Enterprise as an Earth vessel was overwritten. Who knows what happened to Kirk's other nephews. Fiction is mutable. Continuity is mutable.
Canon may be mutable, except insofar as it involves continuity. Continuity is not mutable. If A then ~B; if B then ~A.
That said, I value the art of being able to come up with a reasonable, believable way of explaining inconsistencies. One of the first times I was ever published was an article inspired by Admiral Morrow's comment that the Enterprise was 20 years old. I wanted to come up with an explanation of how he could make such a mistake. Others have spent tons of time on similar pursuits.
There are things which become inexplicable, or at least inexplicable in a believable way. Most of the time, I look at those situations and say "That could have been very easily fixed."
He was speaking of the Enterprise in its refit configuration.
You mean like transporters, God-like beings, the Mirror Universe and all the other stuff Trek expects us to buy. An inconsistent timeline is the least of Trek's believability issues. And honestly can be simply explained as constantly shifting due to all the interference that has been done in the timeline. If one chooses the single-timeline way of looking at things.
Oh,it is 100% mutable. It's been mutable since we were telling stories in caves.
That's a fannish thing. It has nothing to do with canon and continuity.
Depends. What is the plot of the episode?
Kronos is about 350 light years from Earth, which the NX-01 is supposed to be able to cover in four days, while Voyager can only cover about three lights years per day with traditional warp drive.
The TOS Enterprise is the real winner, being able to cover 990 light years in 12 hours. See: "That Which Survives"
"Punch it!"
If you had been around for me 40 years ago I wouldn't have had to write the article
Didn't Khan say, however, that it had been 15 years?Disagree almost completely. Transporters are probably the hinkiest idea of all, in that we don't have a real, ethical solution to disposing of the original. I have no problem in believing that god-like beings exist; YMMV. As I understand physics, alternate universes are highly possible, and in some models likely. Warp drive? Alcubierre seems to have developed a pretty workable theory that's waiting for engineering to catch up to it.
On the other hand, and returning to one of my go-tos...so we're supposed to believe that Spock had at least two siblings. OK, sure. He never talked about them. OK, maybe, he a reserved kind of guy. One never mentions the other. That's...weird, but possible. Their parents never mentioned them either; wouldn't it have been a natural for Amanda to say, in Journey to Babel, "Your father struggled with losing you to Star Fleet, especially after your half-brother ran off to join that cult"? It's getting weirder. No mention of them when Spock discusses his father with Picard? Burnham doesn't discuss Sybok with Spock or Sarek.
Each one by itself might be believable. Two or three of them together, they might be able to get away with. Put them all together, and I find warp drive much more believable than the bevy of extreme coincidences necessary to explain everything we've seen. After a while, it becomes pretty likely that TOS, TFF and STD take place in different universes.
I have a difficult time picturing Ogg the Caveman telling a story to his tribe and Crogg the Caveman saying "No, that's not the way it happened." Could have been, I suppose.
It is a fannish attempt to make up for the shortcomings of the production staff in producing a canon that maintains continuity.
Well the TOS Enterprise also causally went to the edge and centre of the Galaxy, something that would take years and years in in all subsequent incarnations of the franchise, if I'm not mistaken.
But continues to be exactly the same as another universe (to the point that the same exact stain on a desk exists in both universes), except everyone we know is evil? It is a silly concept, that should've been dropped after "Mirror, Mirror".
By the time of "Unification", Star Trek V already existed. Though I don't understand why Sybok or Burnham would be brought up in that context. Spock and Picard were united by their relationships to Sarek. Not the others.
If anything, Burnham or Sybok should've probably come up during the mind meld scene in "Sarek". For the record, I'm with Dorothy Fontana, TOS Spock had no siblings.
Was there a reason Sybok needed to be brought up in the conversation? Other than as a checkbox for the obsessed?
Why is that difficult to imagine? Stories are always being updated and revised for the audience. I've no problem imagining Crogg leaning over to Ugha and whispering "That's not how I heard it".
That's a bit insulting the the folks who been producing this stuff for decades. Their priorities are different than fans/consumers.
Not even freaking Tolkien managed to stay 100% consistent with his Middle Earth canon. Even within the Lord of the Rings there are contradictions. And that was one, very dedicated (one might say a little bit obsessed) person who created it all.
If he couldn't maintain "continuity" within his personal universe, how is a Franchise like Star Trek, that was shaped by scopres of people over decades supposed to maintain 100% continuity?
Not that I think strict continuity is necessary... Good stories and characters are necessary.
I can shorten the whole thing by saying it begs belief that neither of them is brought up in any way before they're needed to tell their own story, and then never heard about again. Do you have siblings? Do you ever mention them to your friends?
I concern myself with whether they're insulted only to the extent that I perceive them as having a love of the franchise, as opposed to the money and prestige being involved with the franchise brings. As I've said many times upstream, clever, talented writers can solve, say, 80% of their issues with just a little thought and creativity.
They want to call it Star Trek because, let's be honest, it has a built in audience. As much as I dislike Orville, I give MacFarlane credit for not going to CBS/Paramount and begging them to make it a Trek comedy show. Instead, he said "I'm going to do my own thing."
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