Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[Christopher]

Well, they did note Hasslein's theory in Planet of the Apes as well. While 2000 years had passed for the rest of the universe, only about a year and a half or so had passed for the astronauts, according to the clock on the ship.

That's not Hasslein's theory, it's Einstein's (time dilation). But it's still a completely different thing from a reversible time warp like the third film established.

The TV series is hard to look at in the same continuity of the movies....

It wasn't even trying to be. Like most TV adaptations of movies back then, it was its own separate reality that took elements from the movies and put them together in a new way. Similarly, the Logan's Run series was an overt "reboot" (as we'd call it today) from the movie, retelling the basic plot of the movie in an alternate way in the first 10-15 minutes of the pilot and then going in their own direction from there, as well as changing a ton of stuff about the movie's version of the domed city (like leaving out the sexual hedonism and giving its people more family-friendly 20th-century beliefs about love and relationships). And there were a bunch of other shows that were only loose adaptations/remakes of movies rather than in-continuity sequels, like Alice, M*A*S*H, The Dukes of Hazzard (from Moonrunners), House Calls, The Paper Chase, and so on. It used to be the norm for TV adaptations to be remakes rather than continuations. I find it strange that people today seem to expect the Planet of the Apes TV series to be in the movies' universe.

 

[Damian]

That's not Hasslein's theory, it's Einstein's (time dilation). But it's still a completely different thing from a reversible time warp like the third film established

Taylor mentioned Hasslein's theory in his opening log entry at the start of the film. And then Brent in Beneath...mentioned to his skipper that they must have entered a "Hasslein curve". Escape.. finally established who exactly this Hasslein was and what his theory was (though I found his TV interview explanation a bit confusing at first--the whole artist painting a picture painting a picture and so on). Though he does go into his belief that perhaps a distant start going nova caused the ship carrying the apes to end up in the past. And of course when he mentions the future is like a freeway with an infinite number of lanes (Virgil gives the same explanation in Battle I recall). It's an interesting early look at parallel universes. At that time Sci-Fi usually dealt with time travel as cause-effect. Change something in the past and you change the present...or even the future, that is there is just one timeline. Not too many sci-fi films at the time approached it from a parallel timeline angle. I'll give kudos to Paul Dehn for at least suggesting the idea in the film, even if the ultimate final product went mostly to the cause and effect time travel idea. But how does Hasslein's theory, or the Hasslein curve as it is called differ from Einstein's? That's probably a good question. They seem pretty similar.

I find it strange that people today seem to expect the Planet of the Apes TV series to be in the movies' universe.

That's probably because todays shows feature more in the way of continuity. But I agree the intent was for the TV series to be it's own things. I was just trying to suggest a way that perhaps they could exist in the same continuity...since the TV show was about 1000 years before the films. While some things wouldn't work there are certain ways it could. You could explain some differences being that the original films apparently took place around New York while the TV series was on the other side of the country in California. That could explain some of the differences.

It's not something I spend hours contemplating mind you. Just a little mental exercise if nothing else....are there ways we could fit the TV series in the film continuity. What things fit, what don't. That's mainly how I look at it.

 

[JD]

I was nineteen and had grown up on syndicated reruns of TOS (or, as we called it back then, STAR TREK). As I recall, my response was less "WTF?" and more "Ooh, interesting!"

I raised an eyebrow at the new Klingons, of course, but they didn't bother me because the real-world explanation was plainly obvious: big new movie, bigger makeup budget.

Honestly, that was good enough for me, then and now. I didn't need any sort of "in-universe" explanation because, well, it was just a movie, not a documentary. And this was back in the day before "canon" had become a fannish obsession and every movie in every franchise was expected to fit into some sort of seamless universe. It's not as though PLANET OF THE APES or LOGAN'S RUN or BATMAN had airtight continuity, especially when you compared the movies to the TV versions.

Truth be told, I was more bothered by Lee Meriwether replacing Julie Newmar in the first BATMAN feature film than I ever was by new-and-improved Klingons. "That's not the real Catwoman!"

Mind you, I was six at the time . . . .

I guess part of the reason I'm not as bothered by the TOS-TMP change for the Klinongs is mainly because I was introduced to Star Trek through TNG, so I was already used to the ridged Klingons, and it's also about consistancy. When TMP premiered all we had was a hand full of appearances of the Klingons, so there wasn't quite as much history there. TMP also drastically redesigned everything, to the point that it wasn't even similar to what it had been before, but with Discovery, the stuck pretty close to the designs for most of the stuff we'd seen before, it was updated and tweaked a bit, but nothing else had that done to the same level as the Klingons.

 

[Tuskin38]

I believe I saw somewhere John Eaves is actually on the team as an illustrator, isn't he?

If you mean on Discovery, yes he was. He designed nearly all of the Federation ships in Season 1, including the Enterprise, Discovery and Shenzhou.

I don't know if he worked on Season 2. He's been very quite about Discovery on social media since the the whole 25% incident.

One of his unused STO designs from 2005 showed up on a certificate in the Picard museum at Comic-Con/Vegas. He might be working on Picard and resubmitted it, or CBS just has a collection of concept art lying around anyone can grab from.

 

[Greg Cox]

I guess part of the reason I'm not as bothered by the TOS-TMP change for the Klinongs is mainly because I was introduced to Star Trek through TNG, so I was already used to the ridged Klingons, and it's also about consistancy. When TMP premiered all we had was a hand full of appearances of the Klingons, so there wasn't quite as much history there. TMP also drastically redesigned everything, to the point that it wasn't even similar to what it had been before, but with Discovery, the stuck pretty close to the designs for most of the stuff we'd seen before, it was updated and tweaked a bit, but nothing else had that done to the same level as the Klingons.

Yep. Whereas those of us who grew up watching "those handful of appearances" on TOS over and over for our entire lives, long before TNG was a thing, back when TOS was STAR TREK, just kinda chuckle when modern fans freak out over the Klingons getting yet another makeover because, yes, this is no different from what we coped with back in 1979.

And I'll cop to grumbling a bit when some TNG-era fans insist that this is "completely different" because TNG trumps TOS over whatever.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

the stuck pretty close to the designs for most of the stuff we'd seen before, it was updated and tweaked a bit

Ooof, I wouldn't agree with that. I'd say it's more of a "vaguely, kinda-sorta resembles the older stuff" thing overall (though some props have some pretty obvious callbacks & tie-ins, the small arms of discovery, for example) with comparatively few exceptions.

I'm not overly fond of the new Klingon designs (they just over-power the actors, imo), but I could see them fitting in. That'd especially be the case if we had a more diverse collection of them, rather than have them simply be retconned in as "they've always been this way". I think the "high council" scene in the discovery pilot (or was it episode 2?) would have been great if we had some in the Discovery style, some in TOS style, some in the TMP style, some in the trek 3 onwards style. Mix them all together and they'd look great, imo.

"Adding to" is what's important, imo, not "replacing", especially as Discovery has been set only a couple of years before TOS.


I must be rather strange, because while the first trek I saw was TOS (season 3, "Day of the dove" on an old home taped VHS, as it happens), the first one that really stayed with me was TMP (also on an old VHS tape, dating back from the early 80s iirc). The Klingon changes from then onwards didn't bother me at all.

 

[JD]

And I'll cop to grumbling a bit when some TNG-era fans insist that this is "completely different" because TNG trumps TOS over whatever.

Oh, no I didn't mean to imply that. For me it's not just TNG, it's TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and all of the movies between The Search for Spock and Nemesis. If it was just TNG I wouldn't have been as bothered by it.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

yes, this is no different from what we coped with back in 1979.

No, it is different because back then you had a different precedent, consisting mainly of a) TAS, which had sort of modernized TOS by reducing it to lines that could be reverse-imagined quite differently (I know it because I ran into TNG, TAS, and then a surprisingly low-tech-looking TOS) b) novels, which often went beyond onscreen limitations, featuring impossible alien designs and technology (also in the spirit of TAS). What was TMP in that context if not a third reimagining? Roddenberry wasn’t really breaking with much.

But then we had more movies which generally followed in the footsteps of TMP (budgetary reasons), plus another show which reused many film-era resources (and even vice versa after ST IV, again for budgetary reasons). TNG also maintained continuity even where it didn’t have to, to be followed by explicit, reverent recreations of TOS, not to mention the fact that novels and TAS had both became secondary because of the official canon policy: live-action Star Trek was back. DSC would now be breaking with at least thirty years of very different precedent, and for what, two seasons in a safe sandbox which had to be retrofitted before playtime?

 

[Greg Cox]

Oh, no I didn't mean to imply that. For me it's not just TNG, it's TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and all of the movies between The Search for Spock and Nemesis. If it was just TNG I wouldn't have been as bothered by it.

Oh, that wasn't directed at you. I was just reflecting back on years of debates on this subject.

 

[Christopher]

Taylor mentioned Hasslein's theory in his opening log entry at the start of the film.

Yes, but my point is that it was strange that the writers made up the name "Hasslein" for it instead of just calling it Einstein's theory, which is what it essentially was. It's not like Einstein was still around to sue them or something.

And of course when he mentions the future is like a freeway with an infinite number of lanes (Virgil gives the same explanation in Battle I recall). It's an interesting early look at parallel universes. At that time Sci-Fi usually dealt with time travel as cause-effect. Change something in the past and you change the present...or even the future, that is there is just one timeline. Not too many sci-fi films at the time approached it from a parallel timeline angle.

If that's true, then as always, film lagged decades behind prose SF. Murray Leinster's 1934 story "Sidewise in Time" is often considered the seminal work of parallel-timeline fiction.

Just a little mental exercise if nothing else....are there ways we could fit the TV series in the film continuity. What things fit, what don't. That's mainly how I look at it.

Well, if you assume that Cornelius & Zira's time travel created a different future from the one in the first two films, then theoretically, maybe, the series could be in the timeline glimpsed at the end of Battle, since the humans there were fully sentient and capable of language and civilization like the ones in the TV series. Still, that wasn't what the show was going for, since they included Dr. Zaius (although I guess you could handwave him as a namesake or ancestor) and established that other astronauts had come through time before Verdon and Burke. For that matter, I'm not sure you could reconcile what was established about Verdon & Burke's own time and the subsequent history with the version of the present day and near future shown in Escape and Conquest. I think one episode showed a history book depicting an advanced, futuristic city from generations after V&B's departure and before the fall of civilization, which doesn't fit with the movies' timeline at all.

 

[Damian]

Ooof, I wouldn't agree with that. I'd say it's more of a "vaguely, kinda-sorta resembles the older stuff" thing overall (though some props have some pretty obvious callbacks & tie-ins, the small arms of discovery, for example) with comparatively few exceptions.

I'm not overly fond of the new Klingon designs (they just over-power the actors, imo), but I could see them fitting in. That'd especially be the case if we had a more diverse collection of them, rather than have them simply be retconned in as "they've always been this way". I think the "high council" scene in the discovery pilot (or was it episode 2?) would have been great if we had some in the Discovery style, some in TOS style, some in the TMP style, some in the trek 3 onwards style. Mix them all together and they'd look great, imo.

"Adding to" is what's important, imo, not "replacing", especially as Discovery has been set only a couple of years before TOS.


I must be rather strange, because while the first trek I saw was TOS (season 3, "Day of the dove" on an old home taped VHS, as it happens), the first one that really stayed with me was TMP (also on an old VHS tape, dating back from the early 80s iirc). The Klingon changes from then onwards didn't bother me at all.

TMP for me as well. I saw TWOK and TSFS before but it was TMP that hooked me

 

[JD]

Oh, that wasn't directed at you. I was just reflecting back on years of debates on this subject.

OK, sorry about that.

 

[Greg Cox]

OK, sorry about that.

No need to apologize. We're all good.

 

[Damian]

Yes, but my point is that it was strange that the writers made up the name "Hasslein" for it instead of just calling it Einstein's theory, which is what it essentially was. It's not like Einstein was still around to sue them or something.

Yeah, I always found that odd as well. First they mentioned his 'theory' in Planet of the Apes. But as there were no sequels pre-planned at that point I imagine it was just a throwaway line. But his theory is pretty much Einstein's, unless there was some intent to throw some curveball in the theory to make it unique from Einstein's (though honestly I can't think of any). Then his name popped up again in Beneath when Brent tells the skipper he believes they fell in a Hasslein curve. I guess in Escape they finally decided to put a face to a name, and make him a villain at the same time. But his name popped up twice before when as far as I know no further movies were planned at that point.

If that's true, then as always, film lagged decades behind prose SF.

I was just thinking of films. I'm not surprised it popped up in prose years earlier. It seems in sci-fi things frequently pop up in prose long before films/TV. Now it's possible it came up in some prior film, but it's the earliest film I can recall that discussed time as a multiverse.

since they included Dr. Zaius (although I guess you could handwave him as a namesake or ancestor)

I always assumed it to be a different character. If in the same continuity, then a distant ancestor. But as the TV show was designed to only be inspired by the films and not to be in the same continuity I would guess the show creators threw in the Zaius name just as a nod to the films, and he was a similar character in other ways. In the TV series he never was referred to as Dr. Zaius, only Zaius or Councillor Zaius.

I think one episode showed a history book depicting an advanced, futuristic city from generations after V&B's departure and before the fall of civilization, which doesn't fit with the movies' timeline at all.

Yeah, from the 26th century I believe. That would actually make it more consistent with Cornelius initial history recounted in Escape...since there he talked about it taking centuries for apes to evolve. But the TV series wasn't always internally consistent with things. You have a book with a picture from the 26th century, yet anytime they encountered the remnants of human civilization they appeared 20th century....but then there was some evidence of advanced technology here and there. In "The Trap" we see solar lights still operating and ads for food in pill forms, a nuclear subway car, disposable clothing, and in another episode we see an advanced computer with holography. It was bizarre in some ways. Advanced tech in a city that looks like it's from 1975.

But like I said, it's more just a mental exercise I do sometimes...in what ways could the TV show fit with the movies. Most of it is transitional, humanity was on its descent downward and apes going in the other direction. But you're right that it's a poor fit in many ways. At most I think you could say the show was inspired by the movies, esp. the first movie. The set design was similar and of course the make-up. But it was probably intended to be separate otherwise. And as you noted that was common at the time for TV shows based on earlier movies.

 

[F. King Daniel]

DSC would now be breaking with at least thirty years of very different precedent, and for what, two seasons in a safe sandbox which had to be retrofitted before playtime?

And they got away with it too

 

[Tuskin38]

From the new Short Trek that dropped today

Spoiler

 

[Leto_II]

Soooooo...about that news today....what does everybody think?

Me, I'm pretty excited, honestly. This was pretty much a total no-brainer, but I'm curious as to what the Lit Forum reaction will be. I highly doubt there'll be too much (if any) major continuity-conflicts, at least initially, especially if they move forward from the last place we saw these characters, which is still ample years prior to Kirk.

 

[GaryH]

I love this news and look forward to the book range that will arise.

I have little patience for those who complain about continuity errors from the original series given the five year mission must have been a century long one with the amount of stories that had been told there.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Soooooo...about that news today....what does everybody think?

Me, I'm pretty excited, honestly. This was pretty much a total no-brainer, but I'm curious as to what the Lit Forum reaction will be. I highly doubt there'll be too much (if any) major continuity-conflicts, at least initially, especially if they move forward from the last place we saw these characters, which is still ample years prior to Kirk.

Rumour has it they're looking at Jake Cannavale to play a young James T. Kirk and perhaps being in a new Uhura too. So it'll wipe out all Pike-era and the odd pre-TOS Kirk books.

 

[The Wormhole]

And of course, with another TV series in production which will likely have its own tie-in novel line, that takes up more room on the schedule and makes it increasingly unlikely any novels from the 1966-2005 shows will see the light of day. With the obvious exception of TOS and maybe TNG, though I'm sure TNG will soon go back to TV series era novels.