I think there's a passing reference to "Threshold" in Christie Golden's Marooned. Just a throwaway sentence.
Has TrekLit retconned any REALLY bad canon?
- Thread starter Danoz
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I remember the framing story of "Best Destiny"-- a book I otherwise really enjoyed-- did a very ham-handed attempt to retcon the end of Star Trek VI. Where at the end of the movie they received word that the Enterprise-A would be decommissioned, and then the framing story (set immediately after the movie) has some emergency happen, and the Ent-A saves the day, so Starfleet decides not to decommission the ship.
^Yeah, I was always amazed that Paramount let Diane Carey get away with reversing the ending of the movie like that.
I 2nd that. I thought the post enterprise material has been fantastic.
My figuring is that at the time the book came out, no one knew exactly how the next movie would take shape or the time frame of the movie. If memory serves, Star Trek Generations starts about six months after the end of Star Trek VI. Maybe someone thought that the Enterprise-A might still last for some years yet. Kirk's final log entry seems to indicate that the ship is being passed onto another crew. They could very easily have had the opening sequence of Generations on the Enterprise-A instead of the B and the sequence still work. In fact, while I understand the desire to at least let the Enterprise-B be seen on screen at least once, it might have worked better for the ship to be still the A being a ship Kirk, Scotty and Chekov knew so well for the crisis at the Nexus. Not to mention more of a sentimental tug for Kirk at seeing someone else commanding "his" ship and not a brand new ship that had his ship's name and has never left dock yet and certainly had no business doing so in the movie.
I thought that the retcon in TGTMD was just fine. It's not the authors' fault that the Enterprise writers thought it would be a good idea to kill off a major series character in a dumb way. The producers have even said now that the episode was a mistake (at least for the way it used TNG characters). I was also glad that the Enterprise-Relaunch (or whatever it's called) decided to move forward to the eventual Earth/Romulan War, which is the last major undocumented event in Trek lore that I can recall (except maybe the Federation/Tzenkethi war).
No, but it was their decision to write a book in which that death is reversed in a dumb way. They had the option of not trying to "right" the original "wrong" at all. Which was my point.
It had nothing to do with Diane, it just happened to be in her book. Pocket wanted to be able to do post-TUC stories with the main crew, hence putting that bit in.
Interesting. Except nine months later, Shadows on the Sun came along and had the E-A coming home for decommissioning right on schedule. But then seven months after that, Sarek came along and had the E-A still active post-TUC without any mention of the decommissioning one way or the other. So there doesn't seem to have been a consistent policy on the issue.
Actually, my entire SNW V story ("On the Rocks") was BASED around that episode. The kits were quite real (there were four and one died), and Janeway and Paris sent a holographic farewell and explanation to them.
So ... I guess I'm guilty of the exact opposite.
--Ted
I found the cure worse than the disease. Explaining her irrationality by prolonged stress, depression and guilt (actual character building!) would have been preferable to brain damage.
She's not a complex character, just a mentally disabled one! *shudders*
^ Hey, I'm right there with you.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
either that story is some how 1000x better than the premise suggests or standards really slipped at the end to allow that story in.
Agreed, TGTMD may have it's own problems, but they felt more like regular Trek writing problems than that ham-fisted disaster that was TATV.
That reminds me of another character change that just seemed like a total kick in the teeth to me, on The Cosby Show, when Theo was revealed to have a learning disability to explain why he wasn't as smart as his two brilliant parents instead of just admitting that he wasn't as smart as his parents, but they loved him anyways. I loved watching that show as a kid, but watching it now as an adult, the whole thing just comes off as smarmy and cliched.
^^^If memory serves, Theo had the learning disability because Bill Cosby's son Ennis really did have a learning disability and so it was another Cosby/Huxtable parallel.
And what disease are we talking about? Is this about Janeway? I don't remember her having some kind of disease in the latter half of Voyager.
And what disease are we talking about? Is this about Janeway? I don't remember her having some kind of disease in the latter half of Voyager.
And what disease are we talking about? Is this about Janeway? I don't remember her having some kind of disease in the latter half of Voyager.
It was decided that supposed inconsistencies in Janeway's characterization over the last three years of the show would be due to brain damage suffered in an encounter with the Caretaker's species, between seasons 4 and 5, causing mood swings, imbalance, etc. The reason it was never mentioned is because the half-assed 'fix' to her brain was such that the events of the String Theory trilogy could never again be mentioned or her brain would implode entirely.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
hey, Janeway, you remember that time we met the Caretaker's species?
uh, no..*splat*
uh, no..*splat*
Which is why we're smart enough just to ignore it.If the very people who wrote "Threshold" say it never happened, then that's good enough for me. If you like, maybe it was a holonovel Tom Paris wrote.
If that were the case, wouldn't Janeway have thrown Tom in the brig for daring to suggest that they could get it on?
I remember finding the ending to said story quite touching, where (if I recall correctly) Ben Sisko transports both versions of Lazarus to their home reality's version of Bajor. It ends with one Lazarus (possibly both) finding peace and happiness in their new home, which is what the character(s) deserved after such a long and terrible struggle.
