Are you Paramount?
Then why should you give a damn what they think? (Or, what you think they think?)
Why Did the DS9 Technical Manual Sell So Poorly?
- Thread starter Dayton3
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Then why should you give a damn what they think? (Or, what you think they think?)
Fiction? Lies?
We have only recently become aware of these concepts. We are beginning to learn at some great cost. But if you are saying that any of you could have traits in common with Sarris...!
Haaah! Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!!!
Agreed. Canonical status is irrelevant to the existence of these works. I do agree that the presence of online resources is likewise irrelevant. They don't exist because someone at Pocket books doesn't think there's enough return to publish more of them, but as others have said the Starship Spotter falls well short of what it could have been and, more importantly, should have been. I got it as a gift and it's nice enough, but with a title like that I would have expected a rundown of every ship that ever appeared in the show -- I don't need new CGI images of them, hell I'd settle for on-screen images. But the book barely scratches the surface and as a consequence it has limited appeal and will not sell as well as something more comprehensive with clear added value.
I don't run Pocket books, but basically most companies will do the minimum effort for the maximum return; I don't expect a book publisher to be any difference from a consumer electronics company or any other company out to make a buck. Doesn't mean I'm not disappointed by it...
I don't run Pocket books, but basically most companies will do the minimum effort for the maximum return; I don't expect a book publisher to be any difference from a consumer electronics company or any other company out to make a buck. Doesn't mean I'm not disappointed by it...
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
He was also, if we're being totally honest, VERY burned out on drugs and the in the initial stages of his final mental/physical breakdown. He also was listening to the entirely WRONG people, like Arnold (as you mention above) and Malzish (sp?), his lawyer, as various people (Gerrald, Fontanna, et al) have said.
The situation wasn't helped by the fact that Paramount had been trying to "window seat" him since the late 70s, when they ruined his relationship with Franz Joseph (as disclosed and documented by his daughter), blamed him for the whole Phase II/draft movie script fiascoes, and effectively turned him into a figurehead by the time WOK was made.
There's no real distinction. If the name Hikaru had never appeared onscreen, it wouldn't matter how consistently it was used offscreen or in how many sources. Nor would it matter that nobody on the staff seemed interested in creating a canonical first name for Sulu. In the absence of the producers paying attention to such a tiny detail, I would say that whatever is used consistently offscreen should count the same. It would be no huge task for the producers to finally decide to use it, as happened in TUC.
If the policy is no longer enforced because Gene is no longer in charge, then why has there been no movement to include non-televised media and have it treated on the same level as episodes? Why have the majority of non-novel Trek books been simply rehashes of existing information, as has been pointed out? It's fair to say that a majority of producers don't slavishly ignore anything non-televised because of Gene's policy, but they haven't made much effort to include it either. It sounds like Abrams is off to a good start, though.
You have to do that if you expect the fans not to continue believing the policy is valid. Even if the memo can be considered a dead letter, that doesn't change the fact that Gene's name still carries a lot of weight in the fanbase. In the absence of a producer saying "we're no longer bound by Gene's old policy. We will be including (insert source here) as canon..." fans will default to what they know as the rule.
I wholeheartedly agree. Wouldn't you agree, though, that the franchise would benefit from making this percentage larger? Shouldn't it make an effort to reach more fans in more ways than just what goes on the screen? Cause that canon media isn't going to be produced on a regular basis forever. What will Paramount fall back on when it reaches a point where it chooses to no longer produce eps and movies?
It could be wrong. I have gotten the impression from various threads on canoncity that it came about earlier, before TNG was produced, and that it was a response to non-canon media that was popular then (such as FJ's famous TM and the Star Fleet Battles game).
What context are you using for "trust" here? I'm a little confused. If you're saying that fans should not be trusted to make reasonable judgments over what they like, or over what should be considered worthy of being official (note I didn't say canon), then I would disagree with that. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean we shouldn't care about the quality of the product.
As I said above, enforcement isn't necessary. All that's necessary is for those in charge to remain indifferent, at best, to the idea of including offscreen material. That in turn reinforces the idea to fans that such materials do no count.
So why not get companies that know what they're doing? That's part of the problem. When a company loses the license, it sends the message they did a bad job. And nobody picks up the trail, cause they're equally afraid of failure. It's not a matter of realism, it's the assumption that because one group fails, the whole concept is bad. It's kind of like how some fans think the concept of a pre-TOS series is bad can't be produced, because the producers of ENT cut corners and didn't do as good of a job as they could have (and should have) done.
Don't get me wrong, I hear what you mean Christopher. I agree the audience is certainly there. But this is another area where the PTB could be doing more. Saying "well, it's just imaginary." is no excuse to pretend one can't make a good Trek game.
^ It's not as simple as "get companies that know what they're doing." There was no reason to assume that either Decipher or LUG fell into that category when the license started, but Decipher went in with a faulty assumption (that RPGs would sell the same as CCGs) and LUG had financial issues nobody foresaw due to nobody having telepathic powers that allow them to see the future. *wry grin*
Unfortunately, when two straight companies fail to do well with a license, it makes other companies gun-shy about shelling out money for the rights. That doesn't mean it won't happen -- after all, two straight comics companies had Star Trek lines that failed financially, and eventually IDW came 'round to give it another shot.
Unfortunately, when two straight companies fail to do well with a license, it makes other companies gun-shy about shelling out money for the rights. That doesn't mean it won't happen -- after all, two straight comics companies had Star Trek lines that failed financially, and eventually IDW came 'round to give it another shot.
It's not so much the external authorization as the works of make-believe actually forming a coherent whole. Yes, the books do become more enjoyable when they add to each other, rather than... well... not.
Yes, but that's exactly the point. They're free to use it if they want. Non-canonical isn't forbidden, just optional.
Because they're not on the same level. Tie-ins are a supplement, a side branch. They're written by freelancers, outsiders hired to do a job, not by insiders. They're read by a tiny fraction of the audience, and contribute a tiny fraction of the franchise's profits. And making a TV show or a movie is a full-time job; TV producers simply do not have time to keep abreast of tie-ins. Nor can tie-ins be produced fast enough for it to be practical. It is simply a logistical impossibility for a TV series to follow the lead of an ongoing book series, because the pace of the publishing business is glacial in comparison to that of the TV business. It has to be the other way around.
Besides, why should the tail wag the dog? Why should the creators of the original work be obligated to conform to the ideas in supplemental literature rather than having the freedom to come up with their own ideas? Tie-ins are supposed to support the original creation, to supplement it, not to pre-empt it.
And you will find no franchise in all of fiction where tie-in material is treated on the same level as the core canon. Sure, Lucasfilm claims that all Star Wars material is canonical, but Lucas doesn't hestitate to contradict it when he wants to do something else in a movie. Functionally, the relationship of canon to tie-ins is no different in Star Wars than it is in Star Trek; the only difference is in the relation of tie-ins to each other (SW tie-ins are required to remain consistent with each other, but for ST tie-ins that's optional).
I don't think that's true at all. You're falsely generalizing what someone said about one book, the DS9 Tech Manual, as it relates to one other book, the TNG Tech Manual. Looking over the "non-novel Trek books" on my shelf, I see an eclectic assortment of them, and those that fall into the "fictional nonfiction" category, such as the tech manuals, Star Charts, and the like, are not mere rehashes of each other at all. Besides, most of those books that have been published in the past couple of decades have been by TV-Trek production staffers such as the Okudas and Geoff Mandel. So it wouldn't make sense to list them as outside ideas that the production staffers are ignoring.
They don't have to. It's their show; they have the right to take it in whatever direction they want. Sure, I'd like it if they acknowledged the stuff I wrote, but I'm fully aware that I'm just visiting in their backyard, borrowing the toys they own. I don't have the right or the inclination to ask them to follow my lead.
There's no such thing as "the fans." People are always expressing their own personal interpretation of things and asserting that "the fans" all feel the same way, but that's crap. There is no opinion that all Trek fans have in common. Sure, there's a faction that takes this whole "canon" nonsense ultra-seriously and doesn't understand how the business works, but that doesn't affect the actual production of the shows or the books. The producers' job is to produce the shows and movies, not to lecture on the definition of canon. Roddenberry felt the need to assert a definition of canon, but that was his particular hang-up.
No, I don't agree. It would be nice if more people read the books, sure, but 1-2% of a decent-sized audience for a TV series is a very, very large audience for a novel series. Everything's relative.
And I reject the notion that there's any correlation between fans' attitudes toward canon and their interest in reading books. Sure, as KRAD mentions, there are a number of people out there who scoff at anything non-canonical as beneath their notice; but I believe that if they were genuinely interested in reading at all, they wouldn't let that attitude stop them. More likely, it's just symptomatic of a broader devaluation of reading as opposed to TV/movie viewing or playing video games. So some kind of official declaration of pseudo-canonical status for the books, even if such a thing could ever be practical or meaningful, wouldn't really have any effect on reading rates.
Trek literature first came into its own in the 1970s, a time when Paramount had already chosen to no longer produce episodes and movies. That lack of new "canonical" material (although nobody would've used that term back then) enhanced the success of Trek literature, because it was the only game in town, the only way to feed the fans' desire for new Trek. So if you think Trek lit is dependent on onscreen Trek for its success, you need to study your history more.What? You were talking about fans' "trust" in the source material. That's what I was responding to, the bizarre notion that there was some kind of "truth" in a work of make-believe and that fans would feel their "trust" in it could be betrayed somehow.
Again, "fans" are not a monolith. The only fans who would react that way are those who are already predisposed to think that way. And if you've participated in any of the eighteen thousand previous TrekBBS debates on this topic, you should be very well aware that there are plenty of fans out there (at least on this forum) who scoff at the notion that definitions of "canon" should have any bearing on their acceptance of the literature.
I never claimed it was an excuse. I'm not making any claims about the viability of video games one way or the other. I just find it a complete non sequitur to talk about definitions of reality when speaking about a video game that depicts a different reality every time it's played.
As long as LUG and Decipher are mentioned, we might as well bring up FASA, who may have been one of the reasons for the 1989 memo in the first place (and possibly part of the "bungled merchandising" argument as well). As a by-product of the intense pushing of TNG at the time, FASA could scarecely get anything past licensing approval to the store shelves (IIRC, a number of novels from that timeframe suffered from similar pressures).
Possibly, that timeframe was unique because of the then-uncertainty of launching TNG, but it also points to the sort of difference that has been noted between how Paramount and Lucasfilm have treated their franchises: do you feed the fans biscuit treats to get them moving in certain directions, or not?
There are only six SW movies. Almost none of the loopy background aliens we see onscreen get named onscreen, and yet the cast list at the end names many and the toy figures are labeled with their personal names, species names and various motivations. But to the average viewer of a Star Wars movie, the tie-in fiction have very little impact on the movies themselves. If the tie-in books and comes are "supposed to count", then there aren't too many times where the movies' writers have had to worry.
With ST, you're talking three seasons of TOS, two of TAS, seven each of TNG, DS9, VOY, four of ENT, plus eleven movies. You expect CBS and Paramount to insist on ST's writers to obey anything written into a ST novel or comic (or an action figure card biography) just so Pocket, IDW and Diamond Direct can sell books, comics and action figures that "count"?
With ST, you're talking three seasons of TOS, two of TAS, seven each of TNG, DS9, VOY, four of ENT, plus eleven movies. You expect CBS and Paramount to insist on ST's writers to obey anything written into a ST novel or comic (or an action figure card biography) just so Pocket, IDW and Diamond Direct can sell books, comics and action figures that "count"?
While I mostly agree, it's also worth noting that such has been the policy since pretty much the beginning, when all there was was TOS (and at a quasi-level, TAS).
Roddenberry's uneasiness with ST tie-ins began when he was doing the convention circuit in the early 80s, and questions on the floor would ask things like why the dreadnought class of warships hadn't been seen in the movies (although the SPFX guys added a reference to one in the barely-heard background voices in TMP), why the movies didn't refer to Romulans as Rihannsu, and why the movies ignored names like Hikaru and Nyota. Some fans got very angry about supposed loopholes in onscreen ST that could have been fixed by tech from the ST tie-ins. Even more frustrating for GR was that he was only acting as a consultant/figurehead anyway and if he wanted the movies to embrace the tie-ins, there was nothing he could do to make Harve Bennett do so anyway. Prior to this, GR had been known to have fun with "non canonical" stuff; for example, there is a footnote gently lampooning "slash" ST fanzines in his novelization of TMP. He (and Richard Arnold) began fending off these complaints by saying that only what was onscreen counted as far as he was concerned. He didn't like that the Franz Joseph Tech Manual had led to a series of semi-licensed war games (as RPGs used to be known) over which Paramount was helpless to change. He also didn't like a convention flier he was sent which called novelist Diane Duane "creator of the Rihannsu" - no fault of Diane's! When TNG opened the floodgates to new interest in ST tie-ins, there was concern about the way that FASA's RPG manuals were jumping to (wrong) conclusions about new onscreen material (eg. Data's inner workings, Betazoids hailing from Haven, etc) that may yet be developed in different ways in the second and subsequent seasons. Also that DC Comics had reintroduced TAS characters into their TOS movie comics at a time when Filmation was winding down. (And at a time when GR was feuding with DC Fontana and David Gerrold.) All tie-in licenses were revoked for renegotiation in the hiatus between TNG Seasons 1 and 2. The infamous 1989 memo to the new licensees clarified and formalized GR/RA's stance on canonicity, and this time TAS was specified as an element that "did not cross over to the movies". This part of the memo is reprinted in the lettercol of DC Comics TOS Series II, issue #1. But Paula Block, of CBS Consumer Products, has been approving licensed material which sometimes breaches the old memo ever since GR passed away in 1991.
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That might also have something to do with their first bungled attempt at a TNG tie-in, which Therin alluded to. The TNG Officer's Manual, as I think it was called, was full of misconceptions (like thinking Betazoids were from Haven) and questionable assertions. (The science was pretty bad too; they claimed, IIRC, that a photon grenade, supposedly the kind of ground-combat weapon used on Cestus III in "Arena," had a payload of something like 1.5 kilograms of antimatter, which would make it more powerful than the biggest nuclear weapon ever built. Talk about overkill...)
This is pretty much the way I've heard it.
It winds down to this:
1) Gene Roddenberry was upset about being push aside in the production of Star Trek.
2) Gene Roddenberry was even more upset that some of the liscensed Trek tie ins were becoming as popular and accepted by fans as the on screen Trek. Especially John Fords Klingons and Diane Duanes Romulans.
FASA used John Fords Klingons as the Klingons for their Role Playing Games.
3) Gene Roddenberry basically retaliated by declaring that the tie ins were "not canon". Thus making the on air Star Trek which he still had some influence over the more important part of the Trek franchise.
I remember Richard Arnold writing letters to Starlog denouncing the "excessive invention" on the part of the Trek liscensees. It was readily apparent that GR and company hated the popularity of the tie ins and saw the coming of ST:TNG as a way to putting the tie in writers in their place once and for all.
Of course Paramount was helpless to change that -- they made a deal that allowed Franz Joseph to independently license the contents of the Star Fleet Technical Manual. Roddenberry may not have liked the existence of Star Fleet Battles, but there wasn't anything he could do about it.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Pretty much squares with other accounts of "vindictive Gene" I've heard out there...and ironic, since 90% of the really GREAT elements of Trek like the Vulcans, Romulans, etc were ALL the creation of OTHER writers.
Even 60s Gene was that way. He never saw an opportunity to weasel credit he didn't try to take.
Then, to make himself LOOK good, he give's "aw shucks" statements like the ones he did in the TNG anniversay specials "Some day I hope they'll look back on what I did and say 'That Roddenberry, he was never THIS good...'"
The Del Rey-published Babylon 5 novels, and the Halo novels (I think). Probably the Myst novels, seeing as how they're coauthored by the creators of the games, but I have to admit that I haven't played beyond the first game in the series so I can't say for sure. Also, the BattleTech novels (even if you consider the "classic" novels as part of the core canon along with the sourcebooks, the MechWarrior: Dark Age subseries is definitely a tie-in, not part of the game).
At the same time, he's bowed to it in multiple places (the name of Coruscant, the appearances of Quinlan Vos and Aayla Secura in AOTC/ROTS); any EU contradictions he's made are less egregious than the contradictions to the first three movies (especially ANH).
I can't speak to the games, but the Del Rey B5 novels only came along after the series was ended and the creator of the series was able to take direct control over them. In a sense, one could consider those more of a direct continuation in another medium than tie-ins, although I admit that's splitting hairs a bit to defend my original phrasing. Perhaps I should've limited my statement only to tie-ins that are contemporaneous with an ongoing TV or movie series -- though I think that's implicit, since a series that's no longer ongoing can't acknowledge tie-in materials anyway.
For that matter, there are also the Whedon-written or -plotted continuations of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly/Serenity in comics form. The Buffyverse shows did not hesitate to contradict those tie-in comics published during the run of the shows, and it's only those that are written after the fact and overseen directly by the series creator that really rise to the level of canon. But, uhh, then there's Fray, which Whedon wrote during the run of Buffy and used elements from in Buffy's final season.
So yeah, there are exceptions to my blanket statement, so mea culpa. However, all those exceptions were created or supervised directly by the series creators, and that's what makes them canon-level. With Trek, we also have Jeri Taylor's Mosaic and Pathways, which were intended to be extensions of the canon, but there we run into the odd situation that Trek doesn't have a single creator/canon arbiter like Straczynski or Whedon, not since Roddenberry died, anyway. It's more of a company property, with control changing hands from time to time, and that makes it harder for materials in other media to be treated as canonical, because successive showrunners may have different views on what should or shouldn't be counted.
Just as onscreen Trek has occasionally borrowed things from the literature. The point is that the screen canon isn't obligated to hew to concepts from the tie-ins, either in SW or in ST. Maybe Lucas has made more of an attempt to do so -- and it's a lot easier for him because there's a lot less screen canon established to compete with the book universe -- but it's still a conceit to claim that SW novels are equally as canonical as the movies.
Although, as you say, the movies have contradicted earlier movies as well, which underlines an important thing to remember about canon: it doesn't mean absolute consistency. Long-running canons often contradict themselves, by accident or by choice. I think it's apropos to quote Emerson here:
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