Are the changes to TOS lore here to stay?

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by albion432, May 4, 2014.

  1. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    The new movies also retroactively "canonized" Uhura's first name of Nyota, which had never been used onscreen before, despite having been introduced in the novels years earlier. I imagine that will stick around . . . unless Uhura gets turned into a man at some point. :)

    I can also see later incarnations picking up on the idea of Chekov being some sort of youthful prodigy . . ..
     
  2. CrazyMatt

    CrazyMatt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I suppose I could live with that.

    Of course, I almost never watch(ed) Voyager... it is canon, and it's also booorrrrriiiiiiinnnnnngggggg.
     
  3. drt

    drt Commodore Commodore

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    Shoot, TMP is also a soft reboot. I'd say the Bennett films are arguably as well...


    Back to the topic: I think Uhura's elevation in status to "main three/four" is here to stay. Some others: the idea of Kirk being born in space during some kind of catastrophy ("I only grew up in Iowa"), the Kirk/Pine mentor relationship, perhaps as an adjunct to that, Kirk being Enterprise's first officer and rising to command during a crisis* (not the '09 lieutenant to captain jump, but a more normal progression).

    * = which comes from Picard's biography, which I guess is full circle since he was originally derived from the idea of elder-statesmen Kirk.


    I think what will be more interesting, is when they pull characters and situations from the TNG-era and incorporate them into a future retelling. For instance, as I mentioned in another thread, the idea of Mr. Worf (Klingon child raised by humans) would work in a TOS-setting, and be more interesting in a time when Klingons are actual enemies of the Federation (maybe providing a contrast where Worf is "raised" Klingon based on historical texts, etc., but have the actual Klingons only pay that lip service and be their original TOS schemey selves). And as Greg Cox mentioned, the Borg are too good of an idea to leave on the shelf, particularly in light of providing story-telling opportunities to explore/comment on the increasing use of nanotechnology in today's world.
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I have that show in my Netflix queue but haven't reached it yet. I'm curious, what elements did it add to the mythos? You mention it starting the trend of including a "Saracen" or similarly ethnic character to the cast, but what else? I recall reading that it featured some supernatural elements, but I haven't seen those in subsequent Robin Hood films and shows.


    The films also canonized Uhura's first name and those of Kirk's parents, which originally came from the novels. But then, The Undiscovered Country canonized Sulu's first name from the novels too, so it's happened before.


    Actually I've recently been listening to the Superman radio series on the Internet Archive, and the original version of Superman's origin story was totally bizarre. Episode 1 tells the story of Jor-L (as his name was originally spelled) and the death of Krypton just as you'd expect, ending with the baby Kal-L being launched in a rocket from the dying planet -- but then episode 2 opens with an adult Superman arriving in that selfsame rocket in his full costume, somehow with a full knowledge of 1940s American English. He leaves the rocket, flies around for a bit, then rescues a random professor and his son on a runaway bus. When they ask what they can do to repay him, he asks where a guy can go to learn about crises as soon as possible, and the professor suggests getting a job at a newspaper -- along with adopting Earth clothes and a secret identity. The boy suggests the name "Clark Kent" on the spur of the moment. And that's his entire origin. It's odd that they went that route, given that the comics had already established in 1939 that he'd arrived as an infant and been raised by adoptive parents.

    A couple of years later, in 1942, the series went on hiatus for 6 months and then returned in a slightly new format, and they took the opportunity to reboot the origin. The second episode of that series is titled "Eben Kent Dies in Fire; Clark Goes to Metropolis." Unfortunately, that episode, like many episodes of the restarted series, has been lost, but it's evident from the title that it used the same version of the origin story given in the 1942 novel The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther, who was the director of the radio series (an origin also used in the Kirk Alyn serials and George Reeves TV series). Lowther's novel also introduced the spelling Jor-El for Superman's birth father.

    And yes, the radio series did introduce kryptonite, though there was an earlier unpublished comics story called "The K-Metal from Krypton" that may have been an inspiration.
     
  5. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Another example of the way new "lore" is acquired over time can be seen in most modern versions of Dracula. The idea that Mina (or maybe Lucy) is the reincarnation of Vlad's lost-lost love is practically a cliche these days, seen most recently in the new NBC tv series, but it's nowhere to be found in Bram Stoker's original novel. As nearly I can tell, it first appeared in a 1974 TV-movie adaptation scripted by Richard Matheson, long before it was recycled in the Coppola movie.

    Similarly, the idea that Dracula disintegrates in the sunlight seems to come from the original 1922 silent version of Nosferatu, not the novel.

    "Canon" is always a work-in-progress . . . and subject to revision.
     
  6. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    A lot of this stuff is discussed in the Future of Trek forum.

    I know if I were rebooting TOS there are quite a few things I'd keep albeit updated, but there are also some things I'd pass over. I probably might borrow some ideas from the films or other series if I felt it worked for a TOS reboot.

    That said there's nothing in JJtrek I consider worth salvaging and perpetuating.
     
  7. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Not even Pike as Kirk's mentor? Or Spock/Uhura?
     
  8. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

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    The Pike/Kirk relationship in nuTrek is something that will almost certainly remain part of the canon from here on out. It's too attractive dramatically for writers to want to abandon.

    Probably the same is true for the details of Kirk's birth - there really was nothing much established prior to nuTrek, anyway, except for one reference in the fourth ST movie to Kirk being "from Iowa" (not necessarily born in Iowa).
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Heck, the idea of Dracula as a romantic figure is more from the movies too, isn't it? In the book, he's more of a sexual predator, with vampirism as a metaphor for sex.


    But we're not talking about you, are we? We're talking about future generations of filmmakers and TV producers, the people who aren't us. And that will eventually include people who grew up on the Abrams films, who discovered Trek through them, or who just plain liked them. After all, the enormous box-office success and high critical ratings of the Abrams films make it pretty clear that their supporters outnumber their detractors. There's no doubt that the films will have an influence on future audiences and creators, no matter what the older generation thinks of them.

    So since we're talking about future generations, this is a subject that calls for stepping outside our subjective points of view and trying to imagine what other people would be influenced by.


    I agree. It moves Pike to a more important role in the mythos than just that mopey guy who ends up in the beep-beep chair.


    Not all the details -- not the time-travel stuff that was introduced as an excuse to tie the new continuity to the old one, which is a bit too specific. And I don't see Nero being a character that later reinventors will feel a great need to revisit. But George Kirk of the Kelvin sacrificing himself to save his wife and newborn son? That's something that might be kept. Or at least the names and Starfleet backstories of the characters.
     
  10. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's very interesting watching/listening to this kind of thing in hindsight isn't it? Easy to pick out the early-instalment-weirdness. :) I remember now where my recollection of Superman's origin including growing up in an orphanage came from: the Fleischer cartoon shorts. For some reason they bypassed Ma and Pa Kent entirely (although to be fair Superman's origin in those was never 'made flesh' as an actual story in itself, but simply told in part of a recap at the start of each cartoon, though it still doesn't quite explain why "Grew up in an orphanage" is any easier to condense into twenty-five seconds than "Found by two Earth people, who raised him as their own son").
     
  11. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    No and no.

    Too bad, it's my opinion anyway.
     
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Of course it is, but that doesn't apply to the discussion we're trying to have here. As I said, the goal here is to try to imagine other people's perspectives rather than just asserting our own. It's a speculative exercise, not a movie review.
     
  13. TheLongEarth

    TheLongEarth Cadet Newbie

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    And why is his view that nothing is worth taking from Jar Jar's Trek films not a valid speculation?

    There is every chance that any future production team will find the films as dire as some of us do. Why not try imagining someone else's perspective, instead of just asserting that he's not contributing?
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Purists have been denouncing the new incarnations of Trek for decades, but their rejection has never stuck, except arguably for TAS. In 1982, there were fans screaming that TWOK was a terrible travesty that got Trek totally wrong. In 1987, fans were screaming that about TNG. And so on. History shows that they do not have a good track record for predicting how the audience as a whole will respond do novelty.
     
  15. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Long-running pop cultural institutions tend to evolve and mutate over time, shedding old bits of "lore" and accreting new bits from each new retelling. I'm sure future creators will cherry pick from every version of Trek, including the latest reboot.

    On the other hand, nuTrek has yet to give us the Trek version of Harley Quinn or Jimmy Olsen--a new breakout character who will be incorporated into future versions. Maybe next movie?
     
  16. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    Jar Jar Trek. Wow, what an original joke. I can't believe that the Abrams films have been out now for over five years and this is the very first time I've ever heard this. Thanks cadet, for making me laugh so damn hard at such originality. A career in stand up is just waiting for you.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Good point. So far, the movies are basically just reworking existing ideas, whether from canon or from the tie-ins. Robau comes closest to being a potential breakout character, I think, but nothing's been done with him yet.
     
  18. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    I would pay good money to see Leonard Nimoy in that....

    That'd be a tricky one to pull off onscreen, given that the original lacked that oh-so-convenient character identification tool known as a name....
     
  19. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Star Trek is no stranger to this "mutation". The first season of TOS was constantly "mutating", so much that one might want to check for a radiation leak.
     
  20. ZapBrannigan

    ZapBrannigan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, be fair: they can save the hat. But the lens flares have got to go.

    [​IMG]




    You're in luck. Leonard ran into a financial rough patch and agreed to model the hat for a modest fee:

    [​IMG]

    Not really. :)

    But this happened:
    [​IMG]