Alex Kurtzman on the Fine Line Between Adding to, and Staying True to, Star Trek's Canon

The linked article in the first post is nine months old (dating to prior to the release of Season 2) - thus containing no new information.

 

Ah, like Godwin’s Law, Roddenberry had to be cited.

Know what else he hated and thought untrue to what he wanted? DS9, The Trouble with Tribbles and The Undiscovered Country, for starters.

Not to mention that his own vision changed so much over the years that it’s pretty hard to state what he would have wanted decades down the track.

 

It's so easy to do too. The dead can't speak for themselves. And they can't change their stance passed whatever it was when they died. It's likely Gene Roddenberry wouldn't like DSC, but I wouldn't call it a deal-breaker. He also didn't like the TOS Movies after TMP. To the point where he contacted his lawyer regarding the militaristic content in TUC.

It's also likely he wouldn't have liked DS9 because of the Dominion War or VOY because of Captain Janeway since he was a misogynist and became an even worse one later on in his life.

But who knows? Maybe he might've had yet another epiphany if he hadn't died, and 2019 Gene wouldn't be like 1987 Gene, the same as he wasn't like 1966 Gene. Who's to really say?

 

I guess I don’t see ‘retconning’ in the situations you describe.

I’m not crucifying them. I’m pointing out the illogic of making a prequel to a show that looks nothing like it. I think DSC’s production values are just fine for a standalone show.

Well, I can’t speak for any of those people.

 

Yes, he and Harve Bennet butted heads and Bennet was just trying to be faithful to TOS. I'm talking about what Roddenberry wanted from TOS when he was making it, not later. And While he got TNG off to a new start, I seriously doubt he would have been happy with some of their later choices. But I'm speakign of this optimistic view of the future. That humans will grow and be better. I feel Discovery and the new movies fail to address that part of Star Trek. It feels like it is missing. And that really goes along with the text of the interview. They wanted to do their own thing and call it star trek. Probably to tie into the fan base. But they didn't want to be true to the original.

And I'm sure there are Roddenberry purists out there who hold ever word he uttered sacred. I don't. I think his vision for Star Trek was flawed and it took NBC to provide the force to inject what Star Trek needed. Roddenberry had a lot of issues that led to some of his statements. His rules for starship design are directly contrary to Franz Joseph, mostly likely because he couldn't control it. He came up with some silly ideas between TOS and TNG. Some TNG was able to pull off, but as time went on, they pulled more from TOS. I always thought it sad that the best DS9 episode was Trials and Tribbleations - they had to revisit TOS to have a great story. I stopped watching shortly after. But I consider the magic formula of Star Trek to be Gene's optimistic vision of the future and his desire to tell stories where they address modern issues with the action that NBC forced him to infuse the series with. Some stories are all Gene and some are all NBC, but most are the mix. I consider Star Trek movies 2, 4, and 6 to be the pinnacle of that. formula. The new ones are all on the NBC side of the mix (funny since it is actually CBS who now has it).

 

I agree with your points entirely.

 

Still waiting for the “good story”.

 

I don’t know? It looks like they are trying a lot harder to stay faithful to the source material in Picard.

 

I know I'll lose it if we get to actually see the display consoles in action, rather than always being blocked by an actor or camera angle.

 

Yeah, Kurtzman Trek's continuity is ultra broad strokes like the X-Men movieverse. The Enterprise has maybe two or seven shuttles in TOS, it has a fleet of 100 fighters and shuttles and drones in Disco. Bolivar Trask is a tall black man in The Last Stand but a diminutive white guy in Days of Future Past. Spock has a sister in Disco, Wolverine has a brother in X-Men Origins. The Klingons had cloaking devices prior to TOS in Disco, Xavier is standing and walking in X-Men Origins at a time he should be wheelchair bound.

"About a third of it happened, and not like that." - Logan.

It did! Two of the most successful (and IMHO best) Trek movies of all.

 

GR was only interested uin TWO things:
1) $$
2) (.)(.) on a casting couch.

GR was all over thbe place when it came to Star Trek. He often said he didn't want to do something/no Kirk wouldn't do X EVER; and then all of a sudden you'dd have Kirk doing X in a script he'd written or rewritten.

I disliked TNG from day one (eventually I grew to accept it for what it was) but TNG was Star Trek retconned by GR because he was upset Paramount had turned Star Trek into a money making property (he was offered the chance to buy the rights, but declined because based on the ratings he figured Star Trek was dead; and HAD he bought the rights, it probably would be because Paramount originally did a syndication package to recoup costs on it - and even they didn't think it would do what it did in syndication); now to old to get (.)(.) on a casting couch.

TNG was going to be his 'new' take on Star trek, and he poriginally wanted original Trek to be forgotten. Yes, he did want to remake at least one 'classic' TOS episode a season (because hey, the 'new' version would obviously eclipse the old) - but the reaction to "The Naked Now" was so bad; Paramount said they didn't want to see him redoing any further TOS era scripts fr TNG. Even fpr the 1987-88 writers strike they used scipts that had been finished but not filmed for the aborted Star Trek Phase II series.

GR was VERY upset the original Star Trek remained so popular even after TNG found its footing.

QUOTE="yotsuya, post: 13123268, member: 14203"]Yes... and if you take in all of the old canon (TOS through ENT) that is explained. [/QUOTE]
So, let me get this strauight - You have no issue (and want to claim Star Trek (TOS) is 'visually consistent' with the Klingon visual changes EVEN THOUGH they were first done iin 1979 - and not explained until 2004? .

By that token don't go claiming ST: D is visually inconsistent until 2042.

 

That’s what all these debates really come down to, isn’t it? Do you like the show.

In general, fans will overlook significant changes in tone, visuals and established facts if they like the product. If they don’t, they’re more likely to pick holes in it.

Romulans suddenly have head ridges, in direct contradiction of both visuals and a plot point? Trill have spots instead of ridges because they make Terry Farrell look hotter? The Koss’moran becomes the Kosst Amojan because the writers thought it sounded like “moron”? The Bajorans are an occupied people, rather than the Bajora being displaced? The Borg Queen was in BoBW all along? Nobody gives a stuff, as long as they liked the product.

Same way that people will go on about plot holes in Nemesis or the Kelvin films, while the gaping ones in WoK are handwaved, and same way most don’t care that Starfleet suddenly has far more overt military trappings and goes around blowing up villains in the films.

For all the back and forth, so much of it comes down to whether you like it.

Unfortunately, where once that was the substance of the argument - Voyager sucks, Enterprise sucks, etc - now purported changes are weaponised to delegitimise a series, and thus its fans. It’s not real Trek. Therefore those who like it must not be real fans.

It’s caused the fanbase to become ever more unpleasant.

 

I see Discovery as “real” Star Trek. Unfortunately, it has rarely risen above mediocre Star Trek. All the money, all the tech and it mostly has come across as very stale. More dependent on what came before than forging its own identity.

Of course, YMMV.

 

Like : "Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet"?

Okay, real talk, am I going crazy? Because I thought that if it wasnt explicitly stated it was at least strongly implied that the fighters were a result of the precautions Pike asked Number One to take, instead of the normal amount of craft stored on the Enterprise. Or is that a fake memory?

 

While they did mention Una picking up experimental fighters, there's also the issue of space:

 

I don’t think the Enterprise/Discovery were ever in a position to onload hundreds of craft.

 

I think as the fleets increased, Starfleet became less dependent on drones.

At the very least, that could be the rationale going from Discovery to Picard.

 

It really does bust the illusion of them being the same ship/universe. At least for me.

 

Okay, that just makes me laugh, because of how tiny the shuttle in the first one makes the Enterprise look.

 

Whereas I don't think they want us to think of events that specifically. "There was a big battle with Control" is about all you can apply from Discovery S2 to TOS and the rest without asking big awkward questions about not deploying hundreds of drones and fighters in situations like "Balance of Terror" to "Wrath of Khan". All the way to Wolf 359.