How can these episodes (from TNG, DS9, and ENT) be canon any longer?

Not to get too political but I think that Yelp, Facebook, Yahoo, and Twitter have all become far more powerful with social impact upon businesses. From personal experience, I recently had a poor interaction with a real estate agent and a suggestion by a family member was to write up a poor review on such platforms. China has gone to a whole social currency through more analytical platforms.

The idea that individuals do not have social resources for recourse is odd to me, to say the least. But, that's a bit of a derail.

 

This is true in certain areas -- and it's also a good thing.

The thing that ages TOS is the most, you see, is not the visual effects or the film grade or the aesthetics. It's the misogyny that permeates the whole thing from beginning to end -- from Vina believing it's better to live a life in illusory exile because she's ugly (as though women have no value in human society if they're not attractive to men) in "The Cage," to the casual declaration that a woman could never command a starship in "Turnabout Intruder," and every casually sexist remark ("Women are more easily frightened," "Vulcan is the only planet who can say its women are logical" etc) and sexist portrayal of women as irrational or in need of male guidance and protection ("Captain, I'm frightened!") in between.

So, yes, the general social attitudes in DIS aren't totally consistent with those of TOS. DIS's more feminist storytelling reflects real-world cultural evolution away from misogyny. It is a discontinuity, true. And that's a good thing.

This is true, and I wish they hadn't done that. But ST has done that plenty of times before -- how many androids did they run into on TOS but then we're told no one's ever seen anything like Data? How many times have intestellar transporters magically worked for one episode and then never again? How much advanced alien tech was discovered that could have revolutionized Federation science but then ignored? The Federation literally figures out how to bring the dead back to life in ST3 but then never again? They can travel to the edge of the galaxy and back in a couple of days in TOS and to the center of the galaxy and back in a couple of hours in ST5 but Voyager is gonna take 70 years to get home? The Genesis Device is huge for two movies and then ignored forever? How many times have we seen the canon go back and forth on whether or not cloaking devices are impenetrable? He'll, we already saw cloaking devices used in ENT when TOS established no one had ever seen one before.

Bottom line: wildly inconsistent depictions of technological evolutions is nothing new to ST and DIS is not special for it.

Fair Use requires a transformative element -- e.g., it's Fair Use to edit in a clip from a copyrighted movie in a video essay because the clip is being used to illustrate an argument, not to merely reproduce the copyrighted work. Or it's Fair Use to do a parody called Captain Quirk of the starship Enterforaprize because the effect is to mock (and implicitly make an argument about) the original work. Merely writing a new story with someone else's intellectual property is not Fair Use.

Dude, Reddit had an entire forum dedicated to posting pictures of underage girls as long as they weren't naked, and it took Anderson fuckin Cooper yelling at them about it on national television for several days in a row before they bothered banning it. Hell, YouTube's entire business model relies on people violating copyright law and then them going in and enforcing a copyright claim just enough times that I.P. owners decide not to bother to sue. So, no, I do not think that such companies are terribly afraid of violating the law.

I.P. owners have generally made it clear that they'll tolerate fan fic as long as they don't think it threatens their income. But being de facto legal is not the same thing as being de jure legal. And if CBS ever decides fan fic threatens their income, they'll go after sites that publish fan fic just as surely as they went after Axanar.

I've written and published fan fic too. It's still technically illegal.

This.

 

Not to cherry pick (as I agree with all your points) but this one needs to be made.

No, such companies are not afraid of violating the law. Neither is the person who is streaming, speeding, running stop lights or any number of things. Yes, those are all legal violations and people don't care about it. It is criminal, even if IP owners have decided it's not worth their money to pursue it, but they could at any time.

Fan fiction and art and productions are not protected under fair use. The sooner this is learned the less shocking it will be for fan bases.

 

I thought of something ya'll.

Remember how the Borg looked in TNG? Well, the First Contact movie retconned their look and from that point on (as we saw in VOY and ENT) the Borg looked how they did in First Contact. So basically, the Borg in TNG were always meant to look like how they did in First Contact.

So I guess this helps me in dealing with the fact that Discovery looks the way that it does and from Discovery on, the time before TNG was ALWAYS meant to look that way.

 

I think one of the main reasons for the Klingons looking different was to hide Ash's identity from viewers.

I don't think the Borg are any different looking besides having the little tubes come out of their hands

 

And surgical alternation of Klingons to look human was specifically noted in Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9) - one of 'gold standard of respect' episodes frequently refered to by the DSC-haters as the 'better' way of doing things:


[Mess hall]

WORF: His real name is Arne Darvin. He is a Klingon altered to look human.
DAX: His surgeon does nice work.
ODO: We're assuming that he came aboard the Defiant for the express purpose of gaining access to the Orb.
O'BRIEN: Any idea why he brought us back to this point in time?
WORF: We have a theory. This is Darvin as he appeared during that time period. At this moment he is aboard space station K-seven, posing as a Federation official.
BASHIR: So you're saying he's a spy?
ODO: The younger Darvin's mission was to derail Federation colonisation efforts by poisoning a shipment of grain which was, which is being stored aboard the station. However, eighteen hours from now, James Kirk will expose him and he will be arrested.

 

It's a little like Trek Doublethink, but in a good way.
See that Enterprise bridge on Discovery? That IS the same bridge that was in The Cage
and the entire TOS series. It just is.
Accept that, and you will get a solid 8 hours each night and be happy in all that you do.
And your loved ones will be happier also.

 

But why engage in doublethink if you know that’s not what DSC would do? Suppose they needed to time-travel to the early TNG era, where they couldn’t just use the original cast. The ship would be bigger to fit the lineup with a 442m original Enterprise. So all you have to do is reimagine most of the universe if you’re tying into DSC. For example, if you’re reading a DSC novel, it makes sense not to visualize TOS-era Kirk as Shatner because realistically, another actor would be interacting with Peck.

Whatever you want to call it, in the end it has to be something like a DSC universe as opposed to the original universe where period is period and you update technology and society by sweeping the past under the carpet and moving someplace without a safety net (which DSC may or may not follow in S3).

 

Because it is a set of works of fiction that don't need to be internally consistent and you are capable of using your imagination.

1) Seyz who?

2) I sincerely doubt the exact size of the ship would be relevant to the plot.

 

Yup. Welcome to fiction. GR did too and it's ok.

 

Yes, to visualize a tie-in according to the rules of the parent production.

Anyone who can see that an Enterprise lineup going from 225m to 442m to 305m to 467m needs adjustment.

Has Star Trek suddenly been reduced to novels? Size comparison charts must be maintained in more technical tie-ins. Since it is unlikely that anyone would get around to discofying the entire universe, it is more likely that DSC‘s Enterprise will be the one left out conveniently, and we‘ll keep seeing the Jefferies Enterprise at 289m most of the time.

 

No, they don't have to be maintained. Size charts have zero bearing on enjoyment or personal imagination with regards to the ships in tie in materials. I like the technical manuals for what they add but I they do not impact how I view the tech in the show.

 

I’m not sure how you mean “they don’t”. Size charts are maintained regardless because if you‘re Eaglemoss, your customers will want to know their model scales and if they try to insert the DSC Enterprise next to legacy ships of the same scale, they‘ll notice it doesn‘t quite fit the period or design style. We can’t pretend these decisions won‘t have to be made and appropriate disambiguation invented (one word in this case: Discovery). Star Trek fans just aren‘t merely viewers who watch the show for stories.

 

They are also not a monolithic mass with one opinion on these matters.

I'm not Eaglemoss and know they don't "have to be" maintained. They are maintained because business, but I won't pretend that impacts how I view the ships on the screen.

Mileage will vary, but there is no "need" here.

 

But it’s not up to you to assert there is no need. Mileage does vary, and if some people feel they can visualize Star Trek as they see fit, others will be interested in the exact official visions and how they fit together.

 

That's not a need though. That's a desire. A distinction perhaps, but one that I think is important.

Need, to me, indicates that if I don't have this I cannot enjoy the series. And while I really like have the technical information, I don't think individuals (at least that I have read) would enjoy Discovery more if they knew exactly how all the technical stuff fits together. I could be wrong, but that's why I push back against "need."

I don't need ancillary materials to enjoy a show.

 

And that's cool, but the creators of DIS have no obligation to cater to that desire.

 

Let's be fair here-if DSC does it it is bad.

 

Whoever said that “magical” surgical alteration was unprecedented? Let’s not invent prevailing criticism. The issue was with Fuller’s need to radically reimagine a mostly settled makeup and costume design while still insisting it’s the same continuity. The precedent had been that TMP’s reimagining was one that needed a two-parter on ENT to explain, so naturally, if DSC throws a wrench into the works, what’s the explanation now? An entire “orthodox Klingon” subculture that was prominent only in the 2250s, but otherwise well-hidden in the depths of the Empire?

(Of course, once the Enterprise was reimagined also, there was no longer any need to think this way: it can just be the way DSC visualizes Klingons as opposed to TOS.)