A safe place for those among us...

[Robert Maxwell]

Count me in as someone who doesn't care about canon, as long as the movie/show is good.

People who worry about things like what color the phaser beams are, what the transporter effect looks like, etc. really need a new hobby.

But it seems to me this thread exists because there's a notion going around that XI craps all over the canon, and even that is kind of a silly idea. What, it's not canon because the phasers shoot faster, the ages are inconsistent, and warp drive goes "boom" now?

I feel bad for people who miss the forest for the trees when it comes to things like this.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Hmm...that would be like the aliens from Andromeda who fix a starship so that it can do warp 300, but it's totally forgotten about by the next episode. Or the starship that discovers spores that can restore any human being to perfect health, including regrowing their organs, but when the first officer of said ship wants to help his crippled former commander he decides that it's better to commit a death penalty offense rather than just exposing him to the SPORES THEY'VE FORGOTTEN ABOUT?

Yeah, those episodes suck.

Well, okay. You make a valid point.

Maybe it's just that, when an episode isn't good entertainment, it is harder to define why it isn't than to bitch about technical issues.

 

[theenglish]

Once a writer or a group of writers creates a fictional universe, you need to live by the rules of that universe. People here keep referring to visual effects as canon, which they are not, but if you want to write a story within an existing universe you need to follow the established rules/facts of that universe.

Star Trek 2009 fails to do this a number of times (beaming into a ship that is light years away and travelling at warp drive, for example--or ignoring the original series two part episode The Menagerie).

These things would be okay if the movie were a simple reboot (like Mission Impossible or Battlestar Galactica) but Abrams goes to great lengths to say it is not and this is where the trouble lies. If Abrams wants to set the film in the same universe as previous series then he needs to play by those rules otherwise don't even bother.

 

[USS Triumphant]

(beaming into a ship that is light years away and travelling at warp drive, for example--or ignoring the original series two part episode The Menagerie).

The first is the result of future tech being inserted into a timeline already established as divergent from the original, and the second isn't ignored - it still happens (will have happened) in the timeline that was diverged from.

Your failure to understand the quantum or temporal plot points used doesn't make them canon violations.

 

[theenglish]

(beaming into a ship that is light years away and travelling at warp drive, for example--or ignoring the original series two part episode The Menagerie).

The first is the result of future tech being inserted into a timeline already established as divergent from the original, and the second isn't ignored - it still happens (will have happened) in the timeline that was diverged from.

Your failure to understand the quantum or temporal plot points used doesn't make them canon violations.

I understand them fine; it was just shoddy writing to compensate for ignorance or laziness on the part of Abrams and company.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I understand them fine; it was just shoddy writing to compensate for ignorance or laziness on the part of Abrams and company.

I'd bet that somewhere Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, and company are reading comments from people who complain about things like "oh, noes, now The Menagerie can't happen" and "how could the Enterprise be built in Iowa" and laughing their tails off as the same fans completely give a pass to ships emerging intact from black holes.

I'll argue for canon awareness as a means of not insulting your viewers intelligence, but at some point we really do have to just sit back and enjoy the show.

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts,
Repeat to yourself, "It's just a show. I should really just re-lax."
- MST3K Theme

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

A much better example is that if the crew of a distant, stranded starship discovers that they can go Transwarp and get home instantly..THAT shouldn't be forgotten by the next episode, dammit!

Hmm...that would be like the aliens from Andromeda who fix a starship so that it can do warp 300, but it's totally forgotten about by the next episode. Or the starship that discovers spores that can restore any human being to perfect health, including regrowing their organs, but when the first officer of said ship wants to help his crippled former commander he decides that it's better to commit a death penalty offense rather than just exposing him to the SPORES THEY'VE FORGOTTEN ABOUT?

Yeah, those episodes suck.

Whilst I'll give you the By Any Other Name one, in both production and air-date order The Menagerie preceeds This Side Of Paradise, so Spock wouldn't know about the spores when Pike was injured.

 

[Greg Cox]

Absolutely. I often think that the real reason people don't like individual movies or tv episodes has very little to do with why they think they don't like it.

When you're bored and vaguely dissatisfied with what you're watching, because, for whatever reason, the characters and story don't engage you, it's easy to start nitpicking the thing to death and fretting about plot holes--because your mind needs something to do. And then, later, when you emerge from the theater, it's easy to think that the movie sucks because "they messed up the continuity" or "they got the science wrong."

Even though we never notice this stuff when we're watching something like THE WRATH OF KHAN or ALIENS or TOS. Because we were having too good a time to worry about minutiae. Or if we think of it later, we tend it give it a pass or rationalize it away somehow.

But the real reason a movie sucks--lackluster editing, directorial lapses, uninspired acting, flat camera work--tend to go unmentioned because they're harder to put your finger on. It's easiers just to say "XXX sucks because the stupid writers don't understand about gravity or physics! And they forgot about that one line in that one episode!"

 

[theenglish]

I understand them fine; it was just shoddy writing to compensate for ignorance or laziness on the part of Abrams and company.

I'd bet that somewhere Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, and company are reading comments from people who complain about things like "oh, noes, now The Menagerie can't happen" and "how could the Enterprise be built in Iowa" and laughing their tails off as the same fans completely give a pass to ships emerging intact from black holes.

I'll argue for canon awareness as a means of not insulting your viewers intelligence, but at some point we really do have to just sit back and enjoy the show.

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts,
Repeat to yourself, "It's just a show. I should really just re-lax."
- MST3K Theme

No, it is a matter of respect, or lack thereof, for the source material. I already said if Abrams had chosen a reboot of the franchise then I would accept readily the new rules of the universe, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

As I have said I really enjoyed the movie as a popcorn Star Warsey style space opera, but not as a Trek film because it wasn't. The characters had the same names and used similar styles of speech, but there was no intelligence to the script, no sense of the epic to the themes that were explored, no feeling of grandeur that characterizes Star Trek for me and millions of others.

And I didn't like the Dark Knight either, but I really believe that time will be on my side in this one. I remember everyone raving about Spider-Man when it first came out and insulting anybody who had a contrary opinion.

 

[JewelsNeeJulian]

You know....I still have the old Captains Logs of the TAS stuff and some of the early novels. they seemed more interesting. and Canon? Well several authors were consistant in the mini canon's they created in the books.

But show canon? I gave up on that after 1st season of TNG

 

[mredom]

I understand them fine; it was just shoddy writing to compensate for ignorance or laziness on the part of Abrams and company.

I'd bet that somewhere Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, and company are reading comments from people who complain about things like "oh, noes, now The Menagerie can't happen" and "how could the Enterprise be built in Iowa" and laughing their tails off as the same fans completely give a pass to ships emerging intact from black holes.

I'll argue for canon awareness as a means of not insulting your viewers intelligence, but at some point we really do have to just sit back and enjoy the show.

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts,
Repeat to yourself, "It's just a show. I should really just re-lax."
- MST3K Theme

No, it is a matter of respect, or lack thereof, for the source material. I already said if Abrams had chosen a reboot of the franchise then I would accept readily the new rules of the universe, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

As I have said I really enjoyed the movie as a popcorn Star Warsey style space opera, but not as a Trek film because it wasn't. The characters had the same names and used similar styles of speech, but there was no intelligence to the script, no sense of the epic to the themes that were explored, no feeling of grandeur that characterizes Star Trek for me and millions of others.

And I didn't like the Dark Knight either, but I really believe that time will be on my side in this one. I remember everyone raving about Spider-Man when it first came out and insulting anybody who had a contrary opinion.

Spider Man is STILL a great movie, 3 was marginal but the first one...please!

and obviously if you disagree with me you're a cretin!

(please note the sarcasm-just pokin' fun!)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I already said if Abrams had chosen a reboot of the franchise then I would accept readily the new rules of the universe, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

And yet they have, to thunderous applause.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Once a writer or a group of writers creates a fictional universe, you need to live by the rules of that universe. People here keep referring to visual effects as canon, which they are not, but if you want to write a story within an existing universe you need to follow the established rules/facts of that universe.

That's okay for a one-shot novel or movie, but all TV shows evolve over time. If you're going to mandate that a show's creators can't tinker with their own rules as the story progresses, you're asking that they be satisfied with a product that is less than they wanted it to be.

Thus "Happy Days" was trimmed of Chuck; Martin the Saurian Visitor got a twin brother, Phillip, with the same rubber face as Martin in "V: The Series"; Khan knows Chekov; Ferengis got less animalistic; and bumpy-headed Trills of TNG, who couldn't go through transporters, got spots instead in DS9.

 

[theenglish]

I already said if Abrams had chosen a reboot of the franchise then I would accept readily the new rules of the universe, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

And yet they have, to thunderous applause.

Sorry, I don't equate financial success with artistic success.

 

[theenglish]

Thus "Happy Days" was trimmed of Chuck; Martin the Saurian Visitor got a twin brother, Phillip, with the same rubber face as Martin in "V: The Series"; Khan knows Chekov; Ferengis got less animalistic; and bumpy-headed Trills of TNG, who couldn't go through transporters, got spots instead in DS9.

These are just evolutionary changes to the story, with the exception of Khan knowing Chekov which was a mistake. In nearly every case it serves the plot and story development in a positive way; they were conscious decisions to do so.

The mistakes in Star Trek could easily have been fixed quite simply. A simple line mentioning that Spock had served with Pike aboard the Enterprise for 12 years, showing the Enterprise undergoing a refit in Space rather than having it just being constructed as Kirk enters the academy, designing different insignia for members of Starfleet who do not serve aboard the Enterprise.

 

[Borgminister]

I already said if Abrams had chosen a reboot of the franchise then I would accept readily the new rules of the universe, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

And yet they have, to thunderous applause.

Sorry, I don't equate financial success with artistic success.

Neither do I; but it is nice when both happen, as they did in Star Trek...

 

[theenglish]

And yet they have, to thunderous applause.

Sorry, I don't equate financial success with artistic success.

Neither do I; but it is nice when both happen, as they did in Star Trek...

That is highly a matter of opinion. I do think that the new Trek film is better than Nemesis and The Final Frontier, but falls short of Insurrection.

 

[Rackon]

Lordy, I agree with you about TDK (I thought it was a mess) but I can't agree about XI. It's way better than Insurrection. ;-)

 

[theenglish]

Lordy, I agree with you about TDK (I thought it was a mess) but I can't agree about XI. It's way better than Insurrection. ;-)

I am being sort of humorous when I say that about Insurrection, but Trek 2009 IS WAY down there on the list of ST Movies, for me anyway. And none of that has to do with continuity or canon issues.

 

[Greg Cox]

The mistakes in Star Trek could easily have been fixed quite simply. A simple line mentioning that Spock had served with Pike aboard the Enterprise for 12 years, showing the Enterprise undergoing a refit in Space rather than having it just being constructed as Kirk enters the academy, designing different insignia for members of Starfleet who do not serve aboard the Enterprise.

But none of those would have improved the movie. The Pike line would have just been a clunky bit of exposition that slowed the story down and had nothing to do with the story at hand. Building the Enterprise in space would deprive the movie of a dramatic visual that affects young Kirk emotionally.

And the insignia? Seriously? That's pretty much the definition of a minor cosmetic detail that nobody but a handful of hardcore fans are even going to notice. Who even looks at the insignia besides the art director and the costume department?