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Are the NuAbrams movies the only canon ?

To me, it's also forgivable to mess with factual continuity in order to evolve a character and create more depth and interest, as with Dukhat's example of Hawkeye in M*A*S*H. Indeed, that show is a perfect example of blowing up a timeline and throwing out continuity, and it worked because they kept the characters' arcs and situations interesting and realistic. (Try to create any kind of continuity -- timeline and event -- canon in M*A*S*H and your head will explode. It can't be done, and producers, frankly, more or less stopped trying. They had to.)



The episode that really screws up the M*A*S*H chronology is "A War For All Seasons".


Well, when your show lasts 11 years and the real world conflict only lasted 3 years, there are going to be some difficulties ;)
 
Well, when your show lasts 11 years and the real world conflict only lasted 3 years, there are going to be some difficulties ;)

Right. At first, they had no idea they'd last that long, so they tended toward dates in the '52 range and eventually up to '53. Then, when it became evident they weren't going anywhere, they did that New Year's episode rolling the time frame back to '50-'51 to give themselves more room going forward.

Of course, that's got nothing on Marvel Comics, where all the older stories clearly set in the '60s or '70s are still considered to have happened, but with the period details glossed over or changed in retellings.
 
Except for the episode where they passed an entire year (52-53 I think) in one episode, pushing everything prior and past that to just two years at most.
 
To me, it's also forgivable to mess with factual continuity in order to evolve a character and create more depth and interest, as with Dukhat's example of Hawkeye in M*A*S*H. Indeed, that show is a perfect example of blowing up a timeline and throwing out continuity, and it worked because they kept the characters' arcs and situations interesting and realistic. (Try to create any kind of continuity -- timeline and event -- canon in M*A*S*H and your head will explode. It can't be done, and producers, frankly, more or less stopped trying. They had to.)

The episode that really screws up the M*A*S*H chronology is "A War For All Seasons".


Well, when your show lasts 11 years and the real world conflict only lasted 3 years, there are going to be some difficulties ;)

True. Having debuted and become popular during the last years of the Vietnam War, the show was also a commentary on all war and military life with Korea simply the backdrop.
It was also too well done for people to care about faithfulness to a timeline or canon. (Imagine if in an early TOS episode it was established that Kirk has a sister and mother, only to change several episodes later, and he's now an only child who lost his mom while a child. Or, Spock's mom's name goes from Mildred to Lorraine. Or, McCoy goes from being from Nebraska to Ohio to finally Missouri.)
 
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Except for the episode where they passed an entire year (52-53 I think) in one episode, pushing everything prior and past that to just two years at most.

No, that is the New Year's episode we were referring to, "A War for All Seasons" (see Maurice's post above for the Wiki link, with a discussion of the timeline anomalies). It began on New Year's Eve 1950 and ended on New Year's Day 1952. Even though it was in the 9th of 11 seasons.
 
Except for the episode where they passed an entire year (52-53 I think) in one episode, pushing everything prior and past that to just two years at most.

Pardon the double post. That was the "A War for All Seasons" episode mentioned above (1980, I think it aired). It began on December 31 1950 and ended on New Years Day, 1952. In a way, it was a reset button, because it meant the entire pre-Potter time had to happen in just the first three to five months of the war (which was impossible).

M*A*S*H stands as an interesting juxtaposition to Trek when it comes to canon.

Edited to add: Christopher types faster than I do.
 
Also, in "A War For All Seasons", one of the major plots involves following the pennant race between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers throughout 1951, culminating in Bobby Thomson's pennant winning home run in the final game of the year.
However, in a previous episode, "War Correspondent", the character Aggie O'Shay refers to Thomson's home run as a past event.
 
Sorry, they skipped two years, my mistake.

Basically we were either seeing multiple universe variations of long periods of time within the series or it was charting an alternate Earth Korean war altogether, the series cannot physically happen otherwise.
 
Sorry, they skipped two years, my mistake.

December 31, 1950 to January 1, 1952 is a year and a day.

Basically we were either seeing multiple universe variations of long periods of time within the series or it was charting an alternate Earth Korean war altogether, the series cannot physically happen otherwise.

I don't think M*A*S*H was meant to be analyzed in these particular terms. ;)

Kor
 
Yes, it has long been my theory that MASH takes place in an alternate universe where US involvement in the Korean War lasted for years longer than it did in our universe. This would also explain various anachronisms and historical inconsistencies with our universe that repeatedly occur throughout the series. Such as Spider Man and Avengers comic books existing in the 1950's. Also, in the episode about the Army-Navy game, the game is said to be the 53rd edition of the contest (which would place the episode in 1952). However, the final score given (Navy 42, Army 36) is different from our universe's final score of Navy 7, Army 0.
This universe may also be repeatedly retconning itself, possibly through timeline meddling, explaining Hawkeye's changing familial situations.
 
Or the version of MASH as we know it is the corrupted version from the Temporal Cold War and it's never been cleaned up.

Daniels! *shakes fist*
 
Yes, it has long been my theory that MASH takes place in an alternate universe where US involvement in the Korean War lasted for years longer than it did in our universe. This would also explain various anachronisms and historical inconsistencies with our universe that repeatedly occur throughout the series. Such as Spider Man and Avengers comic books existing in the 1950's. Also, in the episode about the Army-Navy game, the game is said to be the 53rd edition of the contest (which would place the episode in 1952). However, the final score given (Navy 42, Army 36) is different from our universe's final score of Navy 7, Army 0.
This universe may also be repeatedly retconning itself, possibly through timeline meddling, explaining Hawkeye's changing familial situations.
Is this the same universe where American involvement in WWII lasts six years? (Hogan's Heroes)
 
For this NuTrek universe is these two and upcoming there films the only canon ? I've read about some lame videogame and IDW comics as being possibly canon but I can't dismiss this feeling that the film writers don't ultimately care or even know what occurred in these and will probably only stay true to the films and upcoming series/films as canon. What do you guys think ?

no they are not the only cannon and where did you get the idea they could be. It seems to me that a lot of trek fans pre the 2009 film dont even want to acknowledge the new films as canon
 
^The question wasn't about whether the films were the only canon for all of Star Trek, but specifically for the Abramsverse. I.e. do the comics and game and young-adult books count as canonical information for the Abramsverse? The answer to that is no. While Bad Robot has tried to keep close creative control over the comics, game, etc. with an eye toward maintaining consistency, those works are not actually canonical, any more than Prime-universe tie-ins are. So the entire Abramsverse canon at this point is limited to two movies.
 
For this NuTrek universe is these two and upcoming there films the only canon ? I've read about some lame videogame and IDW comics as being possibly canon but I can't dismiss this feeling that the film writers don't ultimately care or even know what occurred in these and will probably only stay true to the films and upcoming series/films as canon. What do you guys think ?

no they are not the only cannon and where did you get the idea they could be.
That's not quanchi's idea, though; that's you leaping to conclusions - again - due to having misread a post in your haste to put someone in their place. I've asked you several times to be more careful about that.

It seems to me that a lot of trek fans pre the 2009 film dont even want to acknowledge the new films as canon
I've also asked you to refrain from posting comments concerning what fans want or don't want to do, or what they need to do. You're just not very adept or tactful at making this kind of observation - even with broad statements such as the one here - so it would be better if you avoided talking about fans altogether and stuck to talking just about the movies.
 
^The question wasn't about whether the films were the only canon for all of Star Trek, but specifically for the Abramsverse. I.e. do the comics and game and young-adult books count as canonical information for the Abramsverse? The answer to that is no. While Bad Robot has tried to keep close creative control over the comics, game, etc. with an eye toward maintaining consistency, those works are not actually canonical, any more than Prime-universe tie-ins are. So the entire Abramsverse canon at this point is limited to two movies.

It is interesting, surely something being canon is like someone being pregnant: it either is or it is not. But my reading of Orci's quote:

"We get asked that a lot, and it’s our understanding that canon is that which is filmed. As a strict Constitutionalist, I don’t support a change in the definition of canon during my tenure. Perhaps future courts can take up the issue, but in the meantime the comics are as close to canon as you can get without being on film." http://www.startrek.com/article/orci-johnson-talk-countdown-to-darkness

Was that out of all the non-canon stories, games, deleted scenes, books etc, the Comics were the 'closest' to canon and so to those of us wondering about the fates of Picard, B4, Geordi et al they had the truest answer.

Which leads us onto the idea that just eight years after the events of Nemesis, B4 is Captain of the Enterprise, Picard has had enough of the old exploration game, ignoring Kirk's advice from Generations, and has become an Ambassador of all things.

Preposterous, but a debate for a different thread perhaps.
 
But my reading of Orci's quote...

Was that out of all the non-canon stories, games, deleted scenes, books etc, the Comics were the 'closest' to canon and so to those of us wondering about the fates of Picard, B4, Geordi et al they had the truest answer.

Canon has nothing to do with "true." It's all imaginary stories anyway, so it's kind of crazy to try to apply concepts like "true" to any of it. Canon just means the story as told by its original creators, or by the people hired by the copyright owner to do the official continuation. All Orci actually meant was that since the comics were under the supervision of himself, one of the writers of the new movies, that meant they reflected the inside knowledge and intentions of the screenwriters more closely than an ordinary tie-in might. He was speaking in terms of the tie-ins' consistency with the moviemakers' ideas, that's all.

But they'd hardly be the first tie-ins to have that kind of insider connection, or more. Jeri Taylor wrote two Voyager novels while she was that series' showrunner. She considered them canon at the time, and incorporated ideas from her novel Mosaic into the episode "Coda." But once she was no longer the showrunner, her successors ignored her novels and contradicted them in a number of ways. Again, it's not about "truth," it's about the original storytellers' intentions and ideas about the series. Once Taylor was not in charge of the series anymore, her intentions and ideas ceased to be binding on it. (Note that Orci is in the same boat now -- he's no longer directly involved with the series, so his ideas about its continuity are no longer binding on either the canon or tie-in creators. If the makers of the next movie or series wanted to establish something that contradicted Countdown, they'd be perfectly free to do so.)

Heck, before that, Gene Roddenberry himself novelized Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so the ideas it contains no doubt represent his vision of the Trek universe very faithfully. But by the time he created ST:TMP, he disregarded a lot of the ideas he put into the novelization. Because fiction is not truth. The difference between them is that fiction is an evolving creation and the creators' view of a given world is subject to change and refinement over time. The same creator may have different ideas about the universe now than they had five years ago, because they've had time to think about it more and have new ideas and change their mind about a lot of things.
 
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