Here is why canon is important to Trek.

[Jayson1]

I know the canon debate is a ongoing one and with"Discovery" it seems to have become even more of a issue. To me I think the value of canon is to make the shows feel like they exist in a shared universe, were even if you see alterations, you still feel like it is all taking place in the same universe. To me this adds greater depth to the shows because it helps make your universe feel like a real place. Without it then you basically would just have some 50's style aproach to sci-fi were no real thought is put into the details and everything comes off looking inconsistent. No need to think about the tech or why humans might be on a spaceship. All that matters is the story which in turn also feels unimportant because you don't buy into the premise. A future setting is always going to feel unrealistic no matter what, but things like canon and continuity do help ground the unrealism and make it seem somewhat possible.

Jason

 

[BillJ]

Canon really is unimportant. At least in my view. I don't care if five different series from three eras hang together or not. What's important to me is that the stories are fun and characters act like real people.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I used to think canon mattered in Trek, and fretted endlessly about making it all work as a cohesive whole. Then I realised how much I loved the X-Men films, whose universe holds together in the broadest strokes imaginable only (check out Trask in X-Men: The Last Stand compared to the version of the character in Days of Future Past!), and suddenly it stopped mattering.

Each incarnation of Star Trek succeeds or fails on it's own merits. The whole doesn't work anyway, it's fundamentally broken (how is crossing the galaxy a lifelong journey in Voyager or Deep Space Nine when it's no biggie for Kirk and company?), so why does it matter if you build on it? Let the next Trek establish it's own rules.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Canon is often confused with continuity. Canon is mainly for licensing/merchandising purposes and often includes things that aren't in continuity with one another.

 

[BillJ]

Each incarnation of Star Trek succeeds or fails on it's own merits. The whole doesn't work anyway, it's fundamentally broken (how is crossing the galaxy a lifelong journey in Voyager or Deep Space Nine when it's no biggie for Kirk and company?), so why does it matter if you build on it? Let the next Trek establish it's own rules.

Also remember, it would've taken the Enterprise 300 years to travel from Galaxy M-33 back to the Milky Way, in "Where No One Has Gone Before". They had to travel 2.7 million light years.

PICARD: Position, Mister La Forge.
LAFORGE: Well, sir, according to these calculations, we've not only left our own galaxy, but passed through two others, ending up on the far side of Triangulum. The galaxy known as M Thirty Three.
PICARD: That's not possible. Data, what distance have we travelled?
DATA: Two million seven hundred thousand light years.
PICARD: I can't accept that.
DATA: You must, sir. Our comparisons show it to be completely accurate.
LAFORGE: And I calculate that at maximum warp, sir it would take over three hundred years to get home.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Canon is often confused with continuity. Canon is mainly for licensing/merchandising purposes and often includes things that aren't in continuity with one another.

I think it's become one of those words so widely and so often misused, it's come to mean "continuity". I've given up on that, too

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

This thread has gotten very Christopher-ian...

 

[BillJ]

This thread has gotten very Christopher-ian...

Are the references right or wrong?

 

[Space Coast]

It's hard to care much about canon when timehax and dimension hopping are practically a required type of shenanigan for a Star Trek TV series. And game, with Online.

 

[1001001]

Canon really is unimportant. At least in my view. I don't care if five different series from three eras hang together or not. What's important to me is that the stories are fun and characters act like real people.

/thread.

 

[MacLeod]

With regards to canon isn't that simply the live-action shows and films. As for continuity at the bare minimum a show should be internally consistant within itself. Of course with a shared universe shows as the Trek shows ideally they would all be consistant with each other.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think it's become one of those words so widely and so often misused, it's come to mean "continuity". I've given up on that, too

I think that "continuity" requires too many keystrokes, so people use the easier to type "canon" instead, even though it's the wrong term.

 

[Sci]

Canon is not important.

Canon if it is done well can be important.

Multiple continuities, if they are done well, can be important.

Quality trumps the need for continuity. That's why one of the greatest Batman stories ever made, 2008's The Dark Knight, diverges from the Batman canon so completely. And that's why something like Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones can be completely faithful to canon and yet suck fire ants out of pesticidal fields.

 

[Jayson1]

Canon is not important.

Canon if it is done well can be important.

Multiple continuities, if they are done well, can be important.

Quality trumps the need for continuity. That's why one of the greatest Batman stories ever made, 2008's The Dark Knight, diverges from the Batman canon so completely. And that's why something like Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones can be completely faithful to canon and yet suck fire ants out of pesticidal fields.

The Dark Knight though does fit in well with the Nolan Batmanverse. All of Trek doesn't have to fit together if you want to seperate a show and set it inside a new universe where it can create it's own canon.
To me though if you want a show to fit into something already established then it does become important. DS9,Voyager and Enterprise did need to feel like it was part of the new Trek canon that was created with TNG since they were set in that shared universe. It's easy to do that with things like using the same tech,uniforms,actors and backstory elements. Their is a reason why Worf parents were killed by Romulans on TNG and then they weren't somehow still alive when they used him on DS9.
I do agree that continuity is even more important because a show has to at least feel consistent with itself and canon is only important in how you want to connect all the other shows but I just don't buy into the idea you can make wholesale changes and then say it's the same as everything you have seen before.
I know some will say a show has to stay updated by new changes in technology and also new sensibilities for a modern audience and I agree but I it seems like we want a show to be both the same and completely different at the same time. I'm not sure you can do that with Trek.

Jason

 

[fireproof78]

Then Trek becomes irrelevant. Even GR recognized that someone would eventually come along, technology would advance, and Star Trek would change. The idea that the continuity of Trek is immutable is, in a word, ridiculous.

The shows, within themselves, should feel consistent, which is why things like VOY and ENT don't appeal to me, is the consistency doesn't always feel likes its there, at least with the characters. TOS, for the most part, had actors who fought to have their characters preserved and recognized, especially Nimoy.

The difficulty with continuity is the fact that it can bind the story up in such a way that it becomes an immovable obstacle to storytelling. So, if the options are good stories or continuity, stories are usually going to win out, because that's entertainment.

 

[Sci]

The Dark Knight though does fit in well with the Nolan Batmanverse.

But all three Christopher Nolan films, the entire Dark Knight film trilogy, is non-canonical and violates the comic book canon all willy-nilly. Hell, they don't even have a Robin!

All of Trek doesn't have to fit together if you want to seperate a show and set it inside a new universe where it can create it's own canon.

You can do that. Or, you can do a "broad strokes" continuity thing, where everything fits together in broad strokes and you just don't worry about fitting little things together.

Either way, quality is more important than continuity.

I do agree that continuity is even more important because a show has to at least feel consistent with itself and canon is only important in how you want to connect all the other shows but I just don't buy into the idea you can make wholesale changes and then say it's the same as everything you have seen before.

But they've done that multiple times. Klingon foreheads in TMP? The new Starfleet aesthetic in TMP? The new new Starfleet aesthetic in TWOK? The new new new Starfleet aesthetic in TNG? Etc. It's pretty damn common in Trek history; we're just used to it in the older films/shows.

 

[Jayson1]

Then Trek becomes irrelevant. Even GR recognized that someone would eventually come along, technology would advance, and Star Trek would change. The idea that the continuity of Trek is immutable is, in a word, ridiculous.

The shows, within themselves, should feel consistent, which is why things like VOY and ENT don't appeal to me, is the consistency doesn't always feel likes its there, at least with the characters. TOS, for the most part, had actors who fought to have their characters preserved and recognized, especially Nimoy.

The difficulty with continuity is the fact that it can bind the story up in such a way that it becomes an immovable obstacle to storytelling. So, if the options are good stories or continuity, stories are usually going to win out, because that's entertainment.

I don't see it as Trek becoming irrelevant but more like it's something that can't stay as a whole for to long. Even a canon universe can run it's course and that is what I feel has happened with both TOS and then the Berman Trek. That's one of the reasons why I don't see why "Discovery" wants to be part of the prime universe. That canon universe has run it's course and it's time to move on instead of trying to hold onto it while at the same time making massive changes.
I do think that while a current canon universe is operating it's good for those shows and movies to feel connected so I would say canon is important in that regard but not when you do a reboot.
As for canon hurting a show when you have so much history and details it's hard to find new things to do it can hurt but it also works well in creating rules and restrictions much like it's important to find limits to how advance the tech. Canon is Trek is no different than saying a episode of "Law and Order" can't have a alien show up in a episode and catch the bad guy. A universe needs rules IMO. LIke mentioned above though it isn't so much that canon isn't important but that it has a self life and you can't do it forever and eventually you just got to reboot or remake something completely new with just nods and maybe a few loose connections to what came before.
If "Discovery" is hit and creates it's own spin-off's I would expect the spin-off's to feel very connected to "Discovery" and then this new line of canon would become important until it also runs dry and then you have to yet again do another reboot.

Jason

 

[Jayson1]

But all three Christopher Nolan films, the entire Dark Knight film trilogy, is non-canonical and violates the comic book canon all willy-nilly. Hell, they don't even have a Robin!



You can do that. Or, you can do a "broad strokes" continuity thing, where everything fits together in broad strokes and you just don't worry about fitting little things together.

Either way, quality is more important than continuity.



But they've done that multiple times. Klingon foreheads in TMP? The new Starfleet aesthetic in TMP? The new new Starfleet aesthetic in TWOK? The new new new Starfleet aesthetic in TNG? Etc. It's pretty damn common in Trek history; we're just used to it in the older films/shows.

I know the big debate tends to be on what changes but shouldn't it really be on how much the new stuff feels like it still fits into the old stuff. The fact that Trek has reached the point of were every established character has to be recasted I think is a good indication that anything new will never fully feel like it belongs in the old universe. I know what you are saying about "broad strokes" but ask yourself this? If the show was to do a crossover with any old show would it really feel like the same universe with new people playing KIrk,Spock and McCoy and the Enterprise looks modern and updated? I some point these changes are so big that it's hard to see these changes as all happening in the same universe. It's one thing to change the Trill or recast Dukat's daughter or even make a minor mistake like O'Brien use to have a Ensign rank pip and they switched to a noncom version. To make wholesale changes is another. Unless your going to a time period that is undefined. "Discovery" I think would have fit better with it's look being 20 to 25 years till "TOS" as oposed to just 10. That way it would look more like the universe did in "Enterprise" time as oposed to "TOS." Closer you put your show to previous show the more people are going to what to see similarites in looks unless of course you are doing a reboot which means the broad stroke changes are just fine and in fact you can even go farther than that if you wanted.

Jason

 

[fireproof78]

But all three Christopher Nolan films, the entire Dark Knight film trilogy, is non-canonical and violates the comic book canon all willy-nilly. Hell, they don't even have a Robin!

No Robin ruined those films for me.

 

[E-DUB]

Continuity should be respected, but not blindly worshiped. Diverging from continuity, even in service to plot, sometimes especially in service to plot, can look like a cheat. "Wait a minute, the engines couldn't do that last week."