Animated Series
- Thread starter moonman
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Why everyone seems so sure that GR disowned TAS, anyway? I have yet to see any solid proof of this. Did any of you have seen any solid proof?
Not that canon would matter, since we're starting all over anyway.
Not that canon would matter, since we're starting all over anyway.
Its stated pretty explicitly in Okuda's Star Trek Chronology, page vi:
Amen!
An extract of the official Star Trek Office memo to the tie-in licensees is published in DC Comics' Star Trek #1 (Series II), informing them that "the animated series does not cross over with the movies", meaning that they had to remove Arex and M'Ress artwork from their first post-ST V storyline. M'Ress had to be redrawn at the last minute as an antelope-antlered, devil-tailed humanoid.
GR didn't "disown" TAS. He simply decided that the licensed tie-ins should no longer be using TAS as canonical source material. The date of the memo coincides with the winding down of Filmation Studios in 1989, and the ownership of all Filmation product was in a state of flux.
Agreed.
Gene is dead, Richard Arnold is irrelevant, and the Star Trek Office no longer exists. Therefore, TAS is canon.
Now if only we could get things like a reprint of The Cry of the Onlies before Arnold and his gang got their grubby little mitts on it...
The "What is canon?" memo has only ever applied to the ST tie-in licensees anyway. Paula Block (of CBS Consumer Products, formerly Viacom CP) has been allowing back TAS references in the tie-in comics and novels ever since Roddenberry's death in 1991. Starting with a mention of Phylosians (ex "The Infinite Vulcan" and "The Time Trap") in the novelization of "Unification" by Jeri Taylor.
There was never a ban on the writers of canonical Star Trek using TAS references. It only ever applied to the licensed tie-ins.
OK, now that is interesting. So it isn't in fact non-canon, it was simply stuck in "legal limbo" for some time due to Filmation closing?
This sounds more like a hearsay to me. Although it fits quite well with the "let's throw everything away and start again" attitude of 1987-89.
This sounds more like a hearsay to me. Although it fits quite well with the "let's throw everything away and start again" attitude of 1987-89.
"There was never a ban on the writers of canonical Star Trek using TAS references. It only ever applied to the licensed tie-ins."
Shh...you're making sense. Remember this is TrekBBS...
Shh...you're making sense. Remember this is TrekBBS...
It was a combination of several things. That 1989 memo (about tie-in licensees not using TAS) essentially saved a lot of potential red tape. Red tape means extra work for Paramount lawyers. And that means $$$$.
Larry Niven needed full control over the kzinti, Filmation was being wound down, the arrival of TNG was causing Paramount to tighten what freedoms the tie-ins had been enjoying (there was concern they were straying too far from the source), DC Fontana and David Gerrold had legal challenges about TNG pending against Roddenberry - and so on. Numerous "problems" resolved very quickly if "canon" was only live-action, onscreen material.
So suddenly TAS was off limits and would not be adding to Paramount's legal clearances budget for the time being.
But they weren't throwing "everything away". GR was redefining his universe, combining what worked with new ideas, and some recycled ones from "Phase II" and "Questor". He also retained - from TAS! - the second bridge elevator and the holographic recreation deck. Picking and choosing, to make TNG better than TOS.
The other thing to remember: in 1989, with TNG on the verge of becoming a huge hit, TAS hadn't screened widely on TV in years. It was practically unknown to TNG's new fans. TOS was very accessible; TAS was not. And sure, some people in positions of power thought TAS was substandard in places.
Imagine being a writer on TNG and being told, "You can't do that fabulous script; it goes against the storyline of an obscure eleven hours of animated Star Trek that some little kids watched in 1975."
Against the weight of 80-odd hours of TOS, four movies, and the potential juggernaut that the live-action franchise was about to become, TAS was a mere flyspeck. It hadn't even been produced by Paramount (it was NBC & Norway Corp., with Paramount only handling TV distribution).
Forgive me, Therin, but allow me to contest that one part which I've quoted.
During the mid 1980s, Nickelodeon, a children's oriented network, started airing the animated series. While not exactly one of the "Big Three" American networks (ABC, CBS, NBC (FOX did not yet exist, I think)), Nick was appearing in more and more homes.
So, if anything, a new generation (well, a new decade) of viewers had a chance to see it, just a couple of years before TNG debuted. That second round of broadcasts did refresh my memory, as my perceptions had become influenced by the Alan Dean Foster adaptations.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sure, but it was not on, anywhere when TNG was being written, and why should TNG's writers be beholden to 22 brief episodes of a show that so many adults watching TNG claimed not to know anything about?
Don't get me wrong: I hated Peter David having to remove Arex and M'Ress from his TOS movie-era comics, as a result of Richard Arnold's and GR's insistence that TAS was suddenly off-limits. But I do understand why it was a necessary evil at the time.
True, as far as I know, ST:AS was not available anywhere when TNG was being produced. I just wanted to clarify it HAD been broadcast (nationally, as opposed to individual affiliate stations) more recently than its initial 1973-75 NBC run and thus a decade fresher in the viewers' memories.
On a different topic, it was M'ress' appearance in the DC comic that inspired Paul Scott Gibbs to script his novels. Too bad those legal issues doomed any chances of Gibbs had submitting the material to Pocket Books.
Sincerely,
Bill
On a different topic, it was M'ress' appearance in the DC comic that inspired Paul Scott Gibbs to script his novels. Too bad those legal issues doomed any chances of Gibbs had submitting the material to Pocket Books.
Sincerely,
Bill
I know. It was after emailing back and forth with me that Paul reworded the old disclaimer that used to appear on the webpage linking to the stories.
That's not actually true. The week of 2 May 1987 as an example includes the animated Trek being run twice:
http://www.rugratonline.com/nick20b.htm
Anyway, it's hard to say what Animated Series plot points would conflict in any serious way with a proposed Next Generation story.
I mean, heck, they did ``Home Soil'', which spends about two acts diddling over the question of whether silicon-based life forms can be life forms, something that can only be a question if they completely ignore ``The Devil in The Dark'', one of the iconic original series live-action episodes. In that context, running an episode which contradicted or ignored the revelation ... oh ... I don't know, of a way to shrink people and pretend it never happened before would be as easy. (To wit, they'd try to tell an interesting story and if it works, the fans will make excuses; if it doesn't work, who cares all the ways it doesn't work?)
exalted one said:
Why everyone seems so sure that GR disowned TAS, anyway? I have yet to see any solid proof of this. Did any of you have seen any solid proof?
Not that canon would matter, since we're starting all over anyway.
The TRUTH is that GR did not dislike or disowned TAS at all. It was Richard Arnold who took it upon himself to remove TAS from the canon. I spoke to him a number of times back in the '80s at Paramount about TOS and TAS and he would run down TAS every time he had a chance. I asked him straight out if GR liked it and he said that GR did. Still, whenever he did convention appearances he would bad mouth TAS.
For me, TAS is far more canon than any of the later Trek Movies after TMP. Plus many of the names/places/references can been heard/seen in Voyager during the time that Lisa Klink took over as story editor. ["Star Trek: Voyager" (executive story editor) (26 episodes, 1997-1998) (story editor) (22 episodes, 1996-1997)]
best wishes,
wws
*puts on TAS dvd and watches it*
It looks like star trek... it has the voices of the original cast (minus chekov)... it has the enterprise...
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... its probably a duck.
It looks like star trek... it has the voices of the original cast (minus chekov)... it has the enterprise...
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... its probably a duck.
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