What is star trek canon and where is the authorative reference?
- Thread starter erebus
- Start date
Well said.
This is just coming up from the sour grapes croud who want to urinate on the parade of those who enjoyed the hell out of this film.
Exactly. I think the term "canon" is often used in fandom interchangeably with "continuity" when the two aren't necessarily the same thing. The canon is whatever CBS/Paramount requires its licensees to adhere to when creating their spinoffs. Continuity is the consistency a story has with a previous story.
For example, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country are both canon. However, there is discontinuity between the two with regards to Kirk's middle name.
On the other hand, Pocket Books' DS9 relaunch novels all share a continuity, but are not canon.
As licensees, Pocket Books and IDW are expected to avoid contradicting the Star Trek canon, but as far as I know have no obligation to be consistent with each other. (Someone feel free to correct me if you have more information on that than I do.)
I think it's because of the emergence of this strict adherence to what's come before is the reason for the comics and novels to stick as close as possible.
If you look at earlier efforts (Gold Key comics, the novel "Spock Must Die"), there is not much in the way of sticking to some form of continuity.
If you look at earlier efforts (Gold Key comics, the novel "Spock Must Die"), there is not much in the way of sticking to some form of continuity.
Bingo, many tend to get the 2 mixed up. When you hear people shouting, THEY DESTROYED CANON because they blew up Vulcan!, just does not work.
Live-action, on-screen, official release = canon, even if it conflicts with other things that = canon.
Canon is a stupid concept anyway. They're stories, and occasionally in the interest of the story, an idea that conflicts with what has come before is going to be generated and presented within the reality.
Seriously... sit, watch, enjoy, and stop trying to pretend it's real history.
Canon is a stupid concept anyway. They're stories, and occasionally in the interest of the story, an idea that conflicts with what has come before is going to be generated and presented within the reality.
Seriously... sit, watch, enjoy, and stop trying to pretend it's real history.
If fans made NASA bow to their will to rename shuttle Constitution "Enterprise", they can do pretty much anything. If the studio doesn't give what fans want, they just won't have fans anymore. That's paying fans that will go see the movies 4 times, buy the DVD, buy the BlueRay, buy the next format they through at them...
Is anybody interested in the original 6 with special edition bundled packaging in VHS?
I wonder if a tear in the time-space continuum would occur if, in someone's cabin on the Enterprise, you would hear Pachelbel's Canon?
Quoted For Truth.
I'm so glad they made Star Trek appeal to such a large percentage of their fanbase. Almost everbody loves it. If they didn't, I doubt there would have been a sequel. That would've been sad.
So all this talk about canon and fanon, Is there a Star Trek Fanon site?
Yeah but that is for canon, not fanon.
Continuity, to me, is a sort of collective delusion, where we all agree to pretend that the episodes and films are administered by some great arbiter (or arbiters) with encyclopedic knowledge of all the films and episodes, and a watchmaker's attention to detail. This delusion encouraged by Roddenberry, who saw himself as such an arbiter, but even he couldn't keep up with the details of the world he had originated, and which he didn't really control.
Hey, I like the stories to make sense, too. But I have to accept that Star Trek continuity is already a freakin' mess, and has been since TOS. The bottom line is, there isn't any profit in maintaining archival perfect continuity - all it has to do is stay beneath the frustration tolerance of most fans, i.e., "good enough." It's a second tier concern at best.
The best thing we can do as fans, IMO, is to help fill in the gaps where errors are made. I often wish Trek had the equivalent of Marvel Comics old "No Prize", where fans could get a piece of free swag if they came up with a good explanation for what seemed to be a continuity error or plot hole. This would, I think, get more fans thinking constructively.
Hey, I like the stories to make sense, too. But I have to accept that Star Trek continuity is already a freakin' mess, and has been since TOS. The bottom line is, there isn't any profit in maintaining archival perfect continuity - all it has to do is stay beneath the frustration tolerance of most fans, i.e., "good enough." It's a second tier concern at best.
The best thing we can do as fans, IMO, is to help fill in the gaps where errors are made. I often wish Trek had the equivalent of Marvel Comics old "No Prize", where fans could get a piece of free swag if they came up with a good explanation for what seemed to be a continuity error or plot hole. This would, I think, get more fans thinking constructively.
I'll vote for that. They should give out little Starfleet marked cannons written "I helped correct the ST canon"
I'll vote for that. They should give out little Starfleet marked cannons written "I helped correct the ST canon"
Me too. Put every explanation into a book and call it canon. Maybe then all this pointless bickering would stop.
Look at the history of the world's major religions -- putting it in a book and calling it canon only creates massive problems, so let's not do that, okay?
Hmmm... Mental image of geeks crusading on another bunch of geeks... Didn't they do that in the movie "Fanboys" ?
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