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It's more like...the character only appeared once. A long, long time ago. So it's okay to recast him with an actor who looks nothing like the animated character.
Indeed. Recasting is something that is very much a part of Hollywood and life in these shows. Same with using the same background actor, which happened a lot in TOS and I believe one actor (Mr. Leslie, I think) appeared again after he died.
It must be a tolerance thing in terms of levels of silliness. Star Trek is, for me, an inherently silly thing. It is fun, colorful, adventurous, and reflective at times. It has fun characters, boring characters, and annoying characters. But, until I did this whole internet fandom thing I never got the idea that somehow it wasn't supposed to all hang together in some way, or some stuff counted more than other stuff. It was all just Star Trek, all canon, warts and all. I guess my threshold for canon is rather low...
Consistency doesn't mean canon though. That's the point of my question. If I want consistency then I really will stop watching TV shows. My wife and I have rewatched several shows all the way through and each has a point of inconsistency that distracts me.
"Playing" with no consistency creates the kind of discussions seen here. Content creators are dealing with an audience and one who knows what they are watching Its not fanfic never intended to be seen by / sold to the public as part of a franchise with alleged continuity throughout hundreds of episodes and a stack of movies.
"Alleged" is the key point. It's not as consistent as fans like to pretend, or hell, even are willing to create their own theories around. But, none of which has a damn thing to do with canon.
I love hyperbole quite a bit but this is the greatest thing Strange New Worlds could do? Not do anything strange or new but reference back to the old? O_o
Canon is based on what we like? If we're playing that game, then I'm removing all of these from Canon:
A handful of episodes from TOS
A couple episodes of TAS
Half of TNG Season 1
At least a few episodes per season from the rest of TNG, DS9, and VOY
A slim majority of ENT
Every TNG Movie except for First Contact
Into Darkness
But canon isn't based on what I like. It's not based on what anyone else likes either. Canon isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship. Paramount says what's Canon and that's the end of it. They can't say what we like, but they can say what's Canon. Until or unless some other entity acquires the rights to The Franchise.
Here’s a question. Is the young Asian-American actor playing Lt. Kyle in SNW supposed to be the same guy as John Winston’s white blonde British Lt. Kyle from TOS? Because that’s a bit more of a change from making Robert April black.
I still think the greatest thing Strange New Worlds could do is have one episode set in the TOS aesthetic from the sets, to the costumes, to the ships. As for the reason behind it - historical records, alien hallucinogens, or alternate universe....who cares? It would at least be fun to see.
We have purple haired individuals in Star Trek but bleached hair? Perish the thought! That is beyond our technological understanding and could never be replicated...
Consistency doesn't mean canon though. That's the point of my question. If I want consistency then I really will stop watching TV shows. My wife and I have rewatched several shows all the way through and each has a point of inconsistency that distracts me.
New productions in fiction--especially fiction that is part of a series with continuing history and characters should work to be consistent with its own history. An occasional mistake is one things, but major rejection of what came before, laziness or revisionist history may as well lead the creation of an entirely new production not trading on a franchise name, particularly if the very thing which started it all / is the best-known representation of the franchise is being ignored or put through the revisionist filter.
In the Batman case, that lack of consistency with a main villain from one actress to another could not be hand-waved away or ignored, when so much of the popularity and strength of the Newmar Catwoman was due to the dynamic specifically written for her relationship / feelings toward Batman. Come season three, and Kitt is supposed to be the same Catwoman, but is truly an entirely different character, with a hard shift in her dynamic with Batman as if they had no history as seen in all previous CW episodes. It was a mess just adding to a universe of problems with that final season.
They would have been better off simply using a comic book trope of different people taking on the role of a villain (e.g., the Red Skull, et al.), which--with less than a sentence of dialogue-- would have explained the character behavior change / no reference to her history with Batman, since should would have been the next in line to take on the Catwoman identity.
"Alleged" is the key point. It's not as consistent as fans like to pretend, or hell, even are willing to create their own theories around. But, none of which has a damn thing to do with canon.
They're related in that the consistency of character, plots and world-building say, from TOS to TAS represented internal consistency, which was canonical and due to that status, accepted and/or referred to in other ST productions to follow. One supports the use of the other.
New productions in fiction--especially fiction that is part of a series with continuing history and characters should work to be consistent with its own history. An occasional mistake is one things, but major rejection of what came before, laziness or revisionist history may as well lead the creation of an entirely new production not trading on a franchise name, particularly if the very ting which started it all / is the best-known representation of the franchise is being ignored or put through the revisionist filter.
No, not necessarily. That might be preferred but there is no obligation to maintain that. Even TNG or TMP didn't try to maintain that. Star Trek is not that way. Other franchises maybe but not with Trek, in my experience, especially moving from TOS to everything else.
They're related in that the consistency of character, plots and world-building say, from TOS to TAS represented internal consistency, which was canonical and due to that status, accepted and/or referred to in other ST productions to follow. One supports the use of the other.
Well, that's good because I don't see a difference from TOS to SNW, aside from cultural attitudes of the day, in character and plots and world-building.
I think It does when it's crap and totally screws up what has been established.
it would be a difference if it was well done and with an explanation why a ship in a pre-TOS series looks more like a ship from the 24th century than a ship from the 23th century.
I guess the only real problem I have here is how blasé we're all being about throwing away TAS. Yeah, it may be a cheap Saturday morning cartoon, but is it not still important? Why are we supposed to ignore it? What makes TAS so deserving of being tossed aside?
Oh well. Like I said, I'm OK with throwing out the TAS Bonnie, so I guess April is OK too. Whatever.
Here’s a question. Is the young Asian-American actor playing Lt. Kyle in SNW supposed to be the same guy as John Winston’s white blonde British Lt. Kyle from TOS? Because that’s a bit more of a change from making Robert April black.
The fact that there's an in-universe explanation for why Khan became a white guy in Into Darkness does not make the decision to cast a white guy to play a Sikh role any less offensive.
No. They are canon whether you like them or not. You do not own Star Trek and therefore you do not have the authority to declare that something is or is not canonical.
Or more correctly: The storylines in Enterprise, Discovery and the NuTrek movies are just crap.
And it never has been! Star Trek has been full of contradictions since episode 2. Fandom has always pretended that it's a seamless, consistent continuity, but it's really not and never has been.
Nope! "The Alternate Factor" was crap and completely contradicted what came before, but it's still canon. "Canon" in the context of modern I.P. just means "the body of work upon which derivative works is based." If it's an episode of television or a film entitled Star Trek produced by Paramount, then it's canonical. Period.
Simple recasting is nothing. That happens all the time. Hell, I've seen a part recast in the same episode - in the first episode of HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon", astronaut Pete Conrad is played by two different actors (Peter Scolari and Paul McCrane).
This is...different. Logically speaking, how can any individual character be two completely different races? Wouldn't you have to pick one? It's either one or the other.
Logically speaking, how can Spock have ear lobes sometimes but not others? Is skin color really that much more important than ear lobes, or the shape of someone's eyebrows, or height, or whatever other differences can exist between actors?
We suspend our disbelief when it's recasting within the same race. I see no reason why we can't extend that suspension of disbelief when it's recasting to a different race.
I guess the only real problem I have here is how blasé we're all being about throwing away TAS. Yeah, it may be a cheap Saturday morning cartoon, but is it not still important? Why are we supposed to ignore it? What makes TAS so deserving of being tossed aside?
Here’s a question. Is the young Asian-American actor playing Lt. Kyle in SNW supposed to be the same guy as John Winston’s white blonde British Lt. Kyle from TOS? Because that’s a bit more of a change from making Robert April black.
If you want them to be the same character, that's fine. If you want them to be separate characters, I see no reason not to assume they're separate characters. I think this is the sort of thing where both interpretations are equally valid.
I still think the greatest thing Strange New Worlds could do is have one episode set in the TOS aesthetic from the sets, to the costumes, to the ships. As for the reason behind it - historical records, alien hallucinogens, or alternate universe....who cares? It would at least be fun to see.
But canon isn't based on what I like. It's not based on what anyone else likes either. Canon isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship. Paramount says what's Canon and that's the end of it. They can't say what we like, but they can say what's Canon. Until or unless some other entity acquires the rights to The Franchise.
100% this. The canon of a series is determined by the author. Paramount is the author of Star Trek. Just as Stephen King, as the author, has the right to declare that It is part of the Dark Tower canon but Jim down the street does not have the authority to remove It from the Dark Tower canon, so too does Paramount have the right to declare that Star Trek: Discovery is part of the Star Trek canon, and none of us have the right to remove it from the Star Trek canon.
New productions in fiction--especially fiction that is part of a series with continuing history and characters should work to be consistent with its own history.
That is a valid artistic goal, but it is not universally true. There are plenty of stories where breaking continuity was the right decision to make. For instance: Is the depiction of Gallifrey and the Time Lord military high command on the last day of the Time War in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" really consistent with the depiction of Gallifrey, the Lord President, and the High Council in "The End of Time, Part Two?" No, it's not. There's an attempt at a brief handwave, but realistically the two depictions contradict one another. But fuck it: "The Day of the Doctor" is an amazing story that requires contradicting part of "The End of Time, Part Two" to work, so as far as I'm concerned the writer made the correct decision in breaking continuity.
I would say so, but that doesn't mean TAS was "thrown out." To the best of my knowledge, there's no reason to assume that the events of "The Counter-Clock Incident" aren't part of Star Trek continuity just because one element of it has been retconned. Next time you watch "The Counter-Clock Incident," just mentally replace the model they use for April with this guy instead:
Nope! "The Alternate Factor" was crap and completely contradicted what came before, but it's still canon. "Canon" in the context of modern I.P. just means "the body of work upon which derivative works is based." If it's an episode of television or a film entitled Star Trek produced by Paramount, then it's canonical. Period.
Nope! "The Alternate Factor" was crap and completely contradicted what came before, but it's still canon. "Canon" in the context of modern I.P. just means "the body of work upon which derivative works is based." If it's an episode of television or a film entitled Star Trek produced by Paramount, then it's canonical. Period.
No. They are canon whether you like them or not. You do not own Star Trek and therefore you do not have the authority to declare that something is or is not canonical.
So if I became a Star Trek producer and created a pre-TOS series in which Vulcan was destroyed, thus eliminating the possibility for Spock, Tuvok and other Vulcans to even exist, would that be considered "canon" despite the fact that it contradicts what we have seen in TOS, TNG and VOY?
In that case, the whole thing with "canon" is silly.
So if I became a Star Trek producer and created a pre-TOS series in which Vulcan was destroyed, thus eloiminating the possibility for Spock, Tuvok and other Vulcans to even exist, would that be considered "canon"?
In that case, the whole thing with "canon" is silly.
Welcome to canon and why it is rather useless as a measuring point for fan purposes. Simply put, state that you don't like something, not these elaborate contortions of why this particular story doesn't count.
