Can someone explain GR canon to me as it relates to the film?

[JoeZhang]

Let me see if I get this straight -

If it happened on screen, it should be honoured? That's relatively straight forward.

It's the next bit I'm confused about - If Gene Roddenbery wrote about it, but it didn't appear on screen it still happened or is real and should be honoured? is that right?

Please somebody explain it to me.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Writings of Roddenberry have status above Canon. I thought everyone knew that. Therefore Robert April exists and starships must have nacelles in even numbers.

 

[datas_cat_spot]

I thought GR had decanonized TAS.

 

[ST-One]

I thought GR had decanonized TAS.

Indeed.

 

[The Wormhole]

But Roddenberry is Robert April, therefore he remains in Canon.

 

[JoeZhang]

The Writings of Roddenberry have status above Canon. I thought everyone knew that. Therefore Robert April exists and starships must have nacelles in even numbers.

I see I see... so Captain Kirk has a communicator built into his head?

 

[datas_cat_spot]

What?

 

[The Wormhole]

The Writings of Roddenberry have status above Canon. I thought everyone knew that. Therefore Robert April exists and starships must have nacelles in even numbers.

I see I see... so Captain Kirk has a communicator built into his head?

If that's what Roddenberry wrote, then yes. But show your proof that he did write that.

 

[ST-One]

But Roddenberry is Robert April, therefore he remains in Canon.

No. The Chronology is (like every other Trek-literature) not part of the canon. And that includes the photoshopped image of Gene Roddenberry.

 

[Eric Cheung]

No one person is above canon. Even Roddenberry is not above canon. The premise of the question is what consists of Roddenberry canon, and how it relates to this film. In that context it's a separate canon from official Trek canon. Official Trek canon is what has been broadcast in film and television. With the release of TAS on DVD Paramount officially overruled Roddenberry's decanonization of TAS. But since a lot more of that has been contradicted than even the other shows, I tend to believe that TAS still doesn't rise to the level of canon either.

 

[JoeZhang]

The Writings of Roddenberry have status above Canon. I thought everyone knew that. Therefore Robert April exists and starships must have nacelles in even numbers.

I see I see... so Captain Kirk has a communicator built into his head?

If that's what Roddenberry wrote, then yes. But show your proof that he did write that.

He felt a strange tingling coming from somewhere inside his head. It was as if some intricate mechanical pattern had started to form there. Then that pattern became a memory, and he realized that he was receiving a Starfleet command alert signal. He did not like the feeling of it—and knowing that it came from a device implanted inside his brain made it even more annoying. As was the custom in Starfleet—indeed, it was a requirement—he had been implanted with a senceiver on receiving his first command.

Kirk found himself seeing three Klingon cruisers which appeared to be moving at warp velocity and in battle formation. The images became more detailed, increasingly real.

Then with the images firmly established in his mind, Kirk’s senceiver implant began to filter the command alert message into his thoughts.

From Gene Roddenberry's TMP novelization.

I'll be back later, I just need to confer with Admiral Ackbar about something...

 

[The Wormhole]

Very well, I accept that Kirk has a communicator in his head.

 

[Therin of Andor]

If that's what Roddenberry wrote, then yes. But show your proof that he did write that.

The novelization of ST:TMP. Unless you hold to the incorrect old fan rumour that the book was ghost-written.

"The Making of ST:TMP" is full of references to GR not being on set during much of the filming because "he was home working on the novelization".

I recently had a chance to see a copy of the numbered hardcover slipcase edition - and it's dedicated to Majel Barrett.

But as for ST canon, even GR and Richard Arnold maintained that simply being written by GR was not instant acceptance into canon. Not dropped scenes, not scripts, not licensed tie-ins (including TAS) and not live-action footage created for tie-in games and rides. In the memo of 1989, canon was described as all live-action, as screened, Star Trek.

In later years, he allowed references to April, and TAS's ShiKahr and Spock's childhood, into the Okudas' reference books. GR also declared parts of ST V as "apocryphal". He passed away before he could do the same to parts of ST VI, although he had "reservations" about the script.

 

[SonicRanger]

If Gene Roddenbery wrote about it, but it didn't appear on screen it still happened or is real and should be honoured? is that right?

No... because where do you stop? Contradictory script drafts? Scribbles on napkins? Whispered promises to willing young actresses on his casting couch?

 

[gastrof]

Let me see if I get this straight -

If it happened on screen, it should be honoured? That's relatively straight forward.

It's the next bit I'm confused about - If Gene Roddenbery wrote about it, but it didn't appear on screen it still happened or is real and should be honoured? is that right?

Please somebody explain it to me.

I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but here goes with an attempt.

My take on it is that since JJ has absolutely violated both the visual appearance of things and the historical happenings we know were established ON SCREEN (which has been, up to this point, absolute canon), then this new movie has broken away from the existing STAR TREK universe, and has become a something else. a "nu" STAR TREK universe or "reality".

Of course, we'll have to wait and see exactly what reasons are given for Kirk's entire crew being under Pike's command and the red/blue/gold uniforms being in place when the Enterprise passes from Kirk to Pike (since WNMHGB) shows none of that to have been the case.

There's also the very look of the Enterprise itself, inside and out.

If the ship's looking different and the crew/uniform thing are somehow a result of the Romulans messing with history prior to Kirk getting aboard Pike's ship, then we might be able to say this is "sort of" the same universe, but forever altered...at least for now. (Maybe as time passes, things will "iron out" and much of what came later will still be in place.)

In either case, prior "canon" has been trashed by this movie. We can't be sure of ANYTHING from this point on, and will have to accept the fact that STAR TREK is actually starting all over again. (And as said above, maybe as of TNG things might be back on track, but for Kirk's era, the canon change has been made.)

 

[captcalhoun]

GR canon = "it's what i say it is"

so, since he's dead, he's got no say.

simple.

 

[gastrof]

GR canon = "it's what i say it is"

so, since he's dead, he's got no say.

simple.

And yet there's stuff onscreen (as in live action) that he didn't really like, and yet there it was.

Plus, there's been a lot of other Trek produced since his death that's also been "onscreen" and thus canon.

It all has been one whole package, and yet this movie alters what came before. It absolutely does violate/change "onscreen" stuff.

It hasn't been Gene, really. It HAS been live action onscreen...

As for May '09 and later...

See my post above.

 

[Cyke101]

Very well, I accept that Kirk has a communicator in his head.

He is, after all, a Priceline Negotiator.

 

[Baldus885]

The Writings of Roddenberry have status above Canon. I thought everyone knew that. Therefore Robert April exists and starships must have nacelles in even numbers.

Is anyone else embarrassed reading this? It sounds like a quote from Futurama.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

No... because where do you stop? Contradictory script drafts? Scribbles on napkins? Whispered promises to willing young actresses on his casting couch?

I humbly submit that GR's Bible - which states, incidentally, that the Enterprise was constructed in space and is not designed to land on planetary surfaces - possesses a slightly higher official cachet than your (typically bullshit) examples, especially when one considers that every writer who wished to submit a script or treatment to TOS was obliged to write within its exceedingly generous constraints. Why couldn't Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci have done the same if they truly respect the source material?

TGT