Could we adopt a Star Wars style of canon?

[USS Triumphant]

Star Wars fans have a hierarchy of canon that allows them to consider, for example, the novelizations of the onscreen stuff as canon unless it contradicts other onscreen stuff. And then, to consider other Expanded Universe stuff as canon unless it contradicts either of those. I mostly like this, because it provides a way to recognise the good writings without tying the hands of the screenwriters, and also provides some neat opportunities for ideas from the books that are very well liked to move into "higher" canon. (Like Mara Jade ending up in the Special Edition version of Jabba's Palace.)

Trek has always held that what's onscreen is canon, and regardless of the quality of the writing and depth of thought in the novels, they may as well be Harlequin romances, because they mean nothing. That, in my humble opinion, kinda sucks - especially when you have people like Peter David and Diane Duane turning out stuff that is frequently better than what has made it onscreen.

Nothing to do about it for the past - it is probably too late. But if ST:XI is going to establish a new canon (yes, I know that's arguable, but play along for the purposes of this thread), then can we have the better system of canon that the Star Wars fans use, now? Who do we ask?

 

[Sci]

The only difference between Trek canon and Trek apocrypha is that when Trek canon is contradicted by later Trek canon, we still pretend it all exists in one continuity that is internally self-consistent, but when Trek apocrypha is contradicted by later canon, we don't.

In other words, there is no relevant difference between canon and apocrypha, so who cares?

Star Wars fans have a hierarchy of canon that allows them to consider, for example, the novelizations of the onscreen stuff as canon unless it contradicts other onscreen stuff.

The short term for that is "non-canon."

And then, to consider other Expanded Universe stuff as canon unless it contradicts either of those. I mostly like this, because it provides a way to recognise the good writings without tying the hands of the screenwriters, and also provides some neat opportunities for ideas from the books that are very well liked to move into "higher" canon. (Like Mara Jade ending up in the Special Edition version of Jabba's Palace.)

Plenty of things have moved from Trek novels to Trek canon. In TOS Remastered, for instance, the starbase in "The Ultimate Computer" was re-designed to look like Starbase Vanguard from the Star Trek: Vanguard novels. The depiction of Andoria and Andorian culture in ENT Season 4 was based on the RPG manual Andoria: Among the Clans. The names of Captain Kirk's parents in the new movie are going to be taken from the novels. Sulu's first name was taken from the novels. The Day of Honor from the VOY episode of the same name originated from a novel miniseries. Etc.

Trek has always held that what's onscreen is canon, and regardless of the quality of the writing and depth of thought in the novels, they may as well be Harlequin romances, because they mean nothing.

No. FANS have always held that if something's non-canonical, it means nothing. The creators have held no such stance, as evidenced by the instances where elements from the novels have been incorporated into the canon.

Again, the only difference between the canon and the apocrypha is not even that canon cannot be contradicted -- it's that we don't pretend that contradicted apocrypha exists in the same internally consistent continuity as the canon.

Nothing to do about it for the past - it is probably too late. But if ST:XI is going to establish a new canon

No, it's going to establish a new continuity. There is a difference between canon and continuity. Canon is the body of work upon which derivative works (apocrypha) are based. A canon may possess an internally consistent shared continuity, or it may not. Or it may possess multiple internally consistent continuities.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Star Wars fans have a hierarchy of canon that allows them to consider, for example, the novelizations of the onscreen stuff as canon unless it contradicts other onscreen stuff. And then, to consider other Expanded Universe stuff as canon unless it contradicts either of those. I mostly like this, because it provides a way to recognise the good writings without tying the hands of the screenwriters, and also provides some neat opportunities for ideas from the books that are very well liked to move into "higher" canon. (Like Mara Jade ending up in the Special Edition version of Jabba's Palace.)

The thing is, fans don't get to consider what is and isn't "canon." That's not what "canon" is about in any way, shape, or form. "Canon" is what the property owners consider "official backstory" for the purposes of creating new films, TV episodes, etc. That's really all it is. For Trek, it's the movies and the TV shows. For Star Wars, it's.....the movies and the TV shows, and sometimes not even all of that).

(For further reference on this as it relates to Star Wars, see Clone Wars, The.)

As fans, "canon" as a concept shouldn't have any bearing on our enjoyment of our particular fandom. We're free to consider whatever we want has having "really happened" in our favorite made-up universe. We don't need the permission of someone at a film studio to offer us an official blessing.

 

[USS Triumphant]

"Canon" is what the property owners consider "official backstory" for the purposes of creating new films, TV episodes, etc.

I get that. That's why the last sentence in my post was, "Who do we ask?"

 

[Sci]

"Canon" is what the property owners consider "official backstory" for the purposes of creating new films, TV episodes, etc.

I get that. That's why the last sentence in my post was, "Who do we ask?"

At the moment? JJ Abrams and his people.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Trek has always held that what's onscreen is canon, and regardless of the quality of the writing and depth of thought in the novels, they may as well be Harlequin romances, because they mean nothing.

Mean nothing to who?

The writers of ST XI have already said they know several classic ST novels very well ("Final Frontier", "Best Destiny", "Prime Directive" to name three), and the new film has numerous references to them: Kirk's parents' first names for starters.

Past films and ST TV series have also made plenty of references to ST tie-in publications: deck plans, ship numbers and names from Franz Joseph's works in TMP, ST II and ST III; wall charts inspired by "Star Trek Maps" in TNG; alien creature drawings from "ST Medical Reference Manual" in DS9; Hikaru Sulu from "The Entropy Effect" in ST VI, plus Andorian duels and Ushaan weaponry, and the climate of Andor, from "The Andorians: Among the Clans" (Last Unicorn Games' RPG manual) in ENT's fourth season... To name a few.

The screenwriters are always free to cherrypick what they like from the licensed tie-ins. But why should they forced to embrace certain novels? Either they wish to investigate them for story/character ideas, or they don't. It should always be their choice as to which ones they want to reference. Because "the fans" will never agree which books are "the best".

Remember that the licensed tie-ins are known by less than 5% of the viewing audience - and screenwriters are usually too busy to have to read all licensed tie-ins when they're writing big budget movies.

I might add, a friend of mine writes Harlequin, Silhouette and Mills & Boon romances and they mean a lot to a lot of people, and she puts a great deal of care and research into writing them - even a few Star Trek references. She's made heaps of money out of something you believe means nothing.

 

[Dayton Ward]

I get that. That's why the last sentence in my post was, "Who do we ask?"

Abrams and Company, but what are you going to ask? "Can we have a better system of canon?" Their answer is going to be something along the lines of "Do whatever the hell you want, but the system we have already works pretty well for us, thanks."

People make too big a deal out of the "Trek Canon," when it doesn't really mean anything unless you're actually involved with making a movie or TV episode. That's how Lucas handles it; he just doesn't come out and say it that way, which is why Star Wars fans still walk around in this state of pseudo-denial. Instead, they have this G-Canon, C-Canon, and/or whatever canon, when for Lucas, it all boils down to "My stuff, and that other shit."

 

[FordSVT]

Trek canon is the stuff new writers have to pay attention to and try not to contradict too badly when they creating new material. TV shows, Movies for Trek, those are canon. Some writers may take ideas from a novel, for instance, but that idea doesn't make the novel canon, it makes the idea show in the new TV show or movie canon.

It's hard enough to scrutinize hundreds of hours of TV and movies, let alone hundreds of books with even more detail, few of which were ever planned to be consistent. The new series are, but they can be contradicted by future on screen events as readily as any other novel.

 

[Smiley]

I would agree that the relationship between top canon/canon and lower canon/noncanon materials is very similar in the ST and SW franchises. Where they differ considerably is that new lower canon material in the SW universe is not going to easily contradict prior lower canon material. For example, we are not going to see Chewbacca walking around in books set in the Millennium Falcon time period. Trek books, on the other hand, can use Shakaar in the post-Nemesis time period if the story calls for it. The Trek editorial policy has been to remain voluntarily consistent with novels of the past decade or so as a default, however, so the results are not vastly different from what they would be if Trek had a SW-type canon system.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I might add, a friend of mine writes Harlequin, Silhouette and Mills & Boon romances and they mean a lot to a lot of people, and she puts a great deal of care and research into writing them - even a few Star Trek references. She's made heaps of money out of something you believe means nothing.

To clarify, I meant that they mean nothing as regards official Trek continuity - just as Harlequin romances mean nothing as regards official Trek continuity. It really wasn't a dig at Harlequins - they aren't my bag, but I have friends who read them and enjoy them, and that's fine. They were just the farthest thing from Trek (save maybe some of the slashfic stuff ) that came to mind.

And really, to put a fine point on it, my beef is really that they ignored Diane Duane's excellent Vulcan and Romulan books to present vastly inferior pap on Enterprise and in Nemesis.

 

[Therin of Andor]

my beef is really that they ignored Diane Duane's excellent Vulcan and Romulan books to present vastly inferior pap on Enterprise and in Nemesis.

Well, as someone who followed the unfolding of events at that time, I can recall it was Diane Duane's Rihannsu that caused some of the problems that led to Richard Arnold and Gene Roddenberry taking a public stance on what constituted canonical Star Trek.

When Roddenberry appeared at conventions, people would often criticise aspects of ST and give examples of "better ways to do it" from the licensed tie-ins. For example, why didn't Kirk order up some dreadnoughts (from the "ST Tech Manual") and just blast those pesky Klingons? What do you think of a Klingon (Konom, DC Comics) being in Starfleet? And why don't the Romulans of TOS have a better, more alien, name for themselves like Diane Duane gave them?

Then, a Star Trek convention put out a flier - "Diane Duane: creator of the Rihannsu" (not Ms Duane's fault) - but this made Gene R very angry at the time. During the movies, he'd already been deposed as Executive Producer, and now someone else was being hailed as a "creator" of a part of Star Trek. Richard Arnold often quoted the "We are Romulans" statement in TOS as the best/canonical reason for why they weren't Rihannsu. It hadn't come from TOS, and Duane was writing about TOS Romulans.

I'm sure if a ST screenwriter thought highly enough of the name "Rihannsu" it would turn up in a canonical production.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I'm sure if a ST screenwriter thought highly enough of the name "Rihannsu" it would turn up in a canonical production.

I don't really care that they don't go around calling Romulans Rihannsu. It's really pretty obvious on the face of it, if you think about it, that Romulan wouldn't just happen to be their race name, any more than Vulcans are Vulcans or Binars are Binars - these are all names from Earth cultures, and the accepted rendering of their race names in English (Standard, whatever).

It's the awesome and fully fleshed-out background story that D.D. developed. It really seems like a waste for it to be passed over for inferior work just because The Great Bird got his knickers in a twist once upon a time. I mean, heck, Roddenberry was long gone by the time those decisions were made for Enterprise and Nemesis.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It really seems like a waste for it to be passed over for inferior work just because The Great Bird got his knickers in a twist once upon a time. I mean, heck, Roddenberry was long gone by the time those decisions were made for Enterprise and Nemesis.

The chance for Romulans to be more fully-developed was lost at the rewrite stage of ST III. Romulans became Klingons at the stroke of a pen (so as not to confuse general audiences as to why some Vulcans, like Saavik, Sarek and Young Spock, were good and others, on the Bird of Prey, were evil). Thus Kruge assassinates his own partner out of duty, and talks to his men of honor, things once attributed to TOS Romulans.

TNG Klingons took their lead from ST III, and when Romulans were finally reintroduced in "The Neutral Zone", there wasn't much left for them to do.

Actually, I don't see that much difference between ENT and NEM Romulans and the Rihannsu of the novels. ENT and NEM had to take their leads from the Romulans of TNG, ST VI, DS9 and VOY. Duane brought the whole thing full circle in "The Empty Chair" finale anway, so any big differences are attributable to the opposing factions of political power. The politicking and scheming of Romulans are the themes that ultimately stuck in all versions, and it continues in the post-NEM novels for TNG and "Titan".

 

[Finn]

Why should we care about canon or what kind of canon we have? It's just a show...

 

[Mordock]

When Roddenberry appeared at conventions, people would often criticise aspects of ST and give examples of "better ways to do it" from the licensed tie-ins. For example, why didn't Kirk order up some dreadnoughts (from the "ST Tech Manual") and just blast those pesky Klingons? What do you think of a Klingon (Konom, DC Comics) being in Starfleet? And why don't the Romulans of TOS have a better, more alien, name for themselves like Diane Duane gave them?

Wait a minute-fans would needle Roddenberry about elements of the licensed material in person? Wow. Did you ever get to see this? How did Roddenberry react?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Why should we care about canon or what kind of canon we have? It's just a show...

Oh, my. Don't invoke reality, it might cause a riot.

 

[Steve Roby]

Star Wars fans have a hierarchy of canon that allows them to consider, for example, the novelizations of the onscreen stuff as canon unless it contradicts other onscreen stuff. And then, to consider other Expanded Universe stuff as canon unless it contradicts either of those. I mostly like this, because it provides a way to recognise the good writings without tying the hands of the screenwriters, and also provides some neat opportunities for ideas from the books that are very well liked to move into "higher" canon. (Like Mara Jade ending up in the Special Edition version of Jabba's Palace.)

Did you read the other thread? As far as George Lucas is concerned, his movies are canon, and the other stuff isn't. Period. The idea that Star Wars tie-ins are more "canon" than Star Trek tie-ins is a fan myth, fueled by the fact that some continuity guru at Lucasfilm uses the word "canon" followed by a letter for different levels of apocryphal continuity that are not actually canon. Splinter of the Mind's Eye is Star Wars canon in exactly the same way My Enemy, My Ally is Star Trek canon: not at all.

Trek has always held that what's onscreen is canon, and regardless of the quality of the writing and depth of thought in the novels, they may as well be Harlequin romances, because they mean nothing.

Says who? They have to go through a CBS licensing approval process, they can't do just anything. Just like the Star Wars books. They do mean something, to the people who approve them, the people who edit and publish them, the people who write them, and the people who read them. Just like the Star Wars books. And if someone wants to make a movie or TV episode that contradicts one of them, they will. Just like the Star Wars books.

But if ST:XI is going to establish a new canon (yes, I know that's arguable, but play along for the purposes of this thread), then can we have the better system of canon that the Star Wars fans use, now? Who do we ask?

First, prove that the Star Wars canon system is better.

Star Wars has one guy to ask: George Lucas. He says only his stuff is canon. Star Trek doesn't have anyone to ask. JJ Abrams isn't going to say, hmm, let me think about whether the DS9 relaunch should count as canon -- he almost certainly doesn't know or care what it is, and it's entirely possible that he may move on after this movie and never have anything to do with Star Trek again. There is no Lucas equivalent. There is no one who can declare a canon policy for all of Star Trek. It won't happen.

 

[HRHTheKING]

For me, in SW, only the six movies are canon.

All else isn't. Of course, even the movie canon changes with Lucas' tinkering.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Better still, can we forget about canon, fanon, and cannons, and enjoy the stories for what they are -- stories.

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ Well, now you're just making with the crazy talk.