Does canon really matter?

[Spot261]

Ok, first off there's a strong case I've put this in the wrong forum but I picked here over, say, GTD as it seems appropriate given the current unease in certain quarters about the visual and design directions Discovery seems to be taking, not to mention some rather vague concerns about adhering to canon.

Not to put too fine a point on it there seems a lot of fan discontent (not just here I hasten to add) before the show even airs, with such grave concerns as the klingons foreheads and the design of the ship's consoles sitting alongside questions of the show's place in the timeline and the more (in my view) significant and socially relevant issues and political statements the show might raise.

The question I am putting out here is how much significance do people think we should attach to these things? At what point do mistakes or deliberate deviations from the canonical timeline or shifts in the artistic and thematic directions of the show go from being oddities, minor details to mention in passing, to carrying more significance? At what point do they start impacting on the show's validity to the extent they overshadow it's role as a form of entertainment that asks questions of the viewer?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Nothing so far was as radical as the shift from TOS to TNG. Nothing shown yet from DSC suggests that it will surpass that transition, either. We survived it in '79, we can survive it in '17. That is all.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Canon is the reason I would be watching this, and not another random show. It's not that I wouldn't watch “Captain Burnham: In Search of the Ancient Alien Sarcophagus”, but the reason I'm looking forward to it is because it's Star Trek. With Klingons.

Strict continuity, on the other hand – to fix those wonky laws of physics of past Trek show I've threatened boycott over, you need to break some continuity, folks.

 

[starmike]

It's important if you're going to put out a show with a 50-year arc and NOT say "this is a reboot". Sure, there are gaps, but it keeps the whole, epic story consistent.

 

[Zonker]

Visually I don't care at all as long as it's still recognizable. But as for the storyline I'd rather they stick to canon wherever it would ruin another episode if they didn't.
Take the Balance of Terror for example. There was a line about nuclear weapons and another about having never seen the Romulans face to face. If on Discovery they revealed that nuclear weapons were not used in the Romulan War then that one line would be rendered incorrect but the rest of the episode would be exactly the same.

On the other hand If Discovery established that they had seen the Romulans before then it would change a major plot point for the Balance of Terror and could potentially damage the part of the story that the episode is most known for.

So while I don't mind if they change minor details I would like them to be cognizant of how they could potentially affect other stories.

 

[Mach5]

No.

 

[cultcross]

Not really. ENT didn't fit in at all if we're being honest, and plenty of people liked it. The Kelvin movies don't fit either (the unnecessary in universe explanation doesn't begin to explain all the changes) and they've been very successful. Arguably the TOS Movies are not that consistent with the rest of the canon either.
As long as shows are internally consistent (or consistent where they overlap at the same time, a la TNG/DS9/VOY) I don't really care if they match up with each other.

 

[Mach5]

ENT didn't fit in at all if we're being honest, and plenty of people liked it.

ENT fit in perfectly. In an alternate reality created by the Borg temporal incursion in First Contact.

Which is also the reality from which the Kelvin Universe branched out.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Nope. Look at X-Men: First Class, which takes loads of liberties with the previously-established X-Men movie universe and characters, but all to make a better and more interesting story.

Look at how the TOS crew zipped across the galaxy at a pace that renders the entire premise of DS9 and Voyager moot.

ENT tried this with TOS lore but arguably failed to be good enough for fans to overlook the changes. The Kelvin movies were more successful in that regard.

 

[cultcross]

ENT fit in perfectly. In an alternate reality created by the Borg temporal incursion in First Contact.

Which is also the reality from which the Kelvin Universe branched out.

If we must have in universe explanations for everything, that was a much better one in my view, they would have been sensible to go with that. Two major scientists who would come to shape the formative years of Earth's interstellar programme are exposed to twenty fourth century people and technology essentially unchecked. That's going to have an impact.

Having said that, Trek has never needed to explain things before (like the aforementioned slowdown in warp capabilities, or why TUC seems so anachronistically old fashioned, or until the ENT writers couldn't just leave well enough alone, the Klingon makeup change) and it's got on just fine. I'd rather they just made what they want to make.

 

[CorporalClegg]

"Canon" as some great force that binds the whole franchise together is a false construct. It's never existed. Never. At best, it's a pretense.

Take Space Seed and WOK, for example. We maintain the pretense that WOK is a direct follow up to Seed. But is it? Really? Even beyond the obvious continuity gaffes in WOK, there's all the background stuff that's different. The art design, the tone, and even the implied job description/protocol of the extras. Meyer even went as far as changing the thematic conceit as to the core meaning of "The Starship Enterprise." So much so, that just by changing the names of the characters, one could easily pass WOK off as its own original thing. The characters alone maintain the pretense, but that's all it is.

There isn't even any story elements that directly link the two together. Every event that directly dictate Khan's character and action happens outside both episode and film. and is told solely through backstory. In other words, WOK makes its own canon.

And so it goes for most of the franchise. Very little of the story is directly sequential like, say, Star Wars. The vast majority of the franchise--right down to individual episodes--is divided into separate self-contained units.

The least of which is obviously DS9, but even that isn't nearly as serialized as many make it out to be, and Behr and Moore weren't afraid to sacrifice tidbits of canon that had already been established in the series prior if it meant advancing the plot.

*And obviously assuming DSC is as serialized as has been implied, then the only "canon" it's beholden to is that of its own making.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Not a damned bit

 

[Mach5]

I'd rather they just made what they want to make.

Exactly. Let artists do their own thing. Let those creative juices flow.

Entertain me, tells me new stories, give me characters I'll care about and you'll make a fan out of me.

 

[Refuge]

Yes it matters, otherwise you could compile any random shit and call it 'Star Trek' and that is good enough.

 

[In Thy Image]

I like canon, it makes the Star Trek universe feel more real, a familiar place with its own history. That being said, if Discovery is a reboot (which seems to be the case) I'll survive, as long as it's good.

 

[Mach5]

Yes it matters, otherwise you could compile any random shit and call it 'Star Trek' and that is good enough.

"Canon" isn't some legally binding document, TPTB could "compile random shit" whenever the hell they wanted to. It's not *the canon* that keeps them from doing it.

 

[cultcross]

Star Trek is a very big canvas. What really makes 'Arena', 'I, Borg', 'The Visitor' and 'Living Witness' all Star Trek? Some of the people have arrowheads on their chests, and it's a space show. Other than that, every single character is different, the visuals are different, the messages and meanings in the episodes are very different, the tone is different; in fact it would be far quicker to list similarities. There are some trappings of a shared universe which persist, mostly in background tech, and tropes like 'hierarchical organisation on space ship', the ship interior layouts and certain musical and cinematographic conventions, but almost anything can be written and titled Star Trek at this point and you could find a parallel somewhere in the existing canon. Now I daresay we all have a type of Star Trek story which we prefer, or which defines the franchise for us, but that is not binding on future writers anymore than it has been binding on past ones.

 

[Refuge]

"Canon" isn't some legally binding document, TPTB could "compile random shit" whenever the hell they wanted to. It's not *the canon* that keeps them from doing it.

That's a ringing endorsement. They can do it.. wahoo. They can write Sesame Street Klingons if they want, it's all good.

The question was does it matter? I think it does, it keeps an integrity to the theme.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yes it matters, otherwise you could compile any random shit and call it 'Star Trek' and that is good enough.

Canon =/= good.

Examples:
ENT: "Precious Cargo", pure garbage, 100% canon.

Novel: "Federation", entirely awesome, 0% canon.

 

[Refuge]

Who cares about novels.. yikes.