Here is why canon is important to Trek.

[The Old Mixer]

The thing to keep in mind is that where there's canon, there's apocrypha. Once they've got the canon of a particular aspect of the series worked out (e.g., warp speeds), earlier references that don't agree with the canon can be considered apocryphal (e.g., the TOS Enterprise occasionally traveling hundreds of parsecs in the time of a commercial break).

 

[BillJ]

The thing to keep in mind is that where there's canon, there's apocrypha. Once they've got the canon of a particular aspect of the series worked out (e.g., warp speeds), earlier references that don't agree with the canon can be considered apocryphal (e.g., the TOS Enterprise occasionally traveling hundreds of parsecs in the time of a commercial break).

So Deep Space Nine and Voyager should now be considered apocryphal? And we should be back to the very fast warp speeds of TOS as the Abrams films use those as opposed to what was used in those series.

Which is why it is silly to obey canon like it is some kind of religious text.

 

[urbandefault]

Here's what I'd like to see:

• No season arcs, just good stories. Bottle shows. Reset button. Start fresh every episode.
• No references to previous series or movies.
• No actors from previous series or movies.

"Canon" has been an anchor around Trek's neck for decades. It's time to let it go.

 

[The Wormhole]

No season arcs, just good stories. Bottle shows. Reset button. Start fresh every episode.

That just isn't the modern world. Even anthology shows are done as season arcs now.

 

[suarezguy]

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.

Absolutely. Some discrepancies are inevitable and a few retcons maybe for the better but generally maintaining consistency is pretty helpful to increasing depth and making the general setting and a lot of stories more interesting. I think generally having less continuity tends to make the stories blander and/or more sensationalistic.

 

[The Old Mixer]

• No season arcs, just good stories. Bottle shows. Reset button. Start fresh every episode.

Been there, done that, 700+ times.

 

[CRM-114]

As Jordan Hoffman succinctly said in the Engage podcast when he reviewed the Discovery trailer, "Lore and mythos have to take a backseat to reality, to a degree." His point being, it's not really reasonable to expect a modern series to be totally beholden to an aesthetic or production style that's a half-century old.

Could they make things look/feel like they belong to the TOS era? Yes, but that doesn't mean they must or even should. Real life comes into play, and a modern audience isn't going to care if the aesthetic doesn't match 60s Trek.

 

[suarezguy]

Star Trek sure didn't care that Spock was previously grinning over vibrating plants and screaming over the disappearance of THE WOMEN when they established he was unemotional.

That episode hadn't established he was unemotional and while those scenes were I believe kept in "The Menagerie" after the series had, the chararacter would be a lot less interesting and compelling if those kind of contradictions had been frequent.

I think the Stadi sustainable speed line from "Caretaker" is an example of playing too fast and loose with canon just to sound really cool, it doesn't make much sense that a new advanced ship could travel that much faster than the Enterprise-D about a decade later.

 

[Jayson1]

As Jordan Hoffman succinctly said in the Engage podcast when he reviewed the Discovery trailer, "Lore and mythos have to take a backseat to reality, to a degree." His point being, it's not really reasonable to expect a modern series to be totally beholden to an aesthetic or production style that's a half-century old.

Could they make things look/feel like they belong to the TOS era? Yes, but that doesn't mean they must or even should. Real life comes into play, and a modern audience isn't going to care if the aesthetic doesn't match 60s Trek.

I agree that a new show can't look like "TOS" which is why IMO it was a mistake to set it so close to "TOS" if you really want to say it's in the prime universe. They should have at least gone back 20 or 30 years before "TOS" IMO because that gives you something similiar to the 80 year difference between "TOS" and "TNG." What I saw didn't look all that more advanced from "Enterprise" so I could easier buy into the look being expanded from that timeframe than I can see it being almost at the same time as "TOS."
One other added thing about canon is the issue of them saying the show would be about something hinted at in the other shows but we have never seen. Wouldn't this be something from canon as well? If you have shows that don't respect canon why even bother with doing a show set in the Trek universe? Isn't part of the fun of Trek in being able to revist familiar aliens and a universe that has been part of our lives for many years now. I think some things like Trek,Stargate,Star Wars,etc sometimes get to a point were some of the fun isn't just in the individual stories but the entire world of that franchise.
Granted I also think things do have to do the comic book thing and reboot and start over and I think that is were I think people think Trek needs to go from here but any new version will establish it's own mythology as well so it will have to over time play by the same rules of canon as old Trek.
Jason

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Is Scotty from Linlithgow or Aberdeen?

Okay, I know that Scotty refers to himself as "an old Aberdeen pub-crawler" in "Wolf in the Fold," but where does the theory that he's from Linlithgow come from?

 

[MANT!]

Canon..always important to me..

Primarily in music..

 

[Refuge]

Canon and continuity respects the outline and overriding theme.. or in Trek speak, the Galaxy. There's plenty of scope for fiction in the setting alone. You are asking the audience to become invested in something as a reference. There's plenty of flexibility there for growth and technology, even moving goal posts regards beginning and end. However once a basic foundation or premise - character/species or setting is radically changed within that Galaxy for no plausible reason it's bad story telling lacking sense and believable form. You can write any old crap you want and just say it is 'organic' or I felt like throwing an extra head on human beings.. who cares.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Okay, I know that Scotty refers to himself as "an old Aberdeen pub-crawler" in "Wolf in the Fold," but where does the theory that he's from Linlithgow come from?

Seems to based on something DC Fontana said or wrote and not something from the series.

 

[The Wormhole]

Okay, I know that Scotty refers to himself as "an old Aberdeen pub-crawler" in "Wolf in the Fold," but where does the theory that he's from Linlithgow come from?

It originate from scripts and production material, and was supported by Doohan himself and continues to be by his family.

 

[CRM-114]

I agree that a new show can't look like "TOS" which is why IMO it was a mistake to set it so close to "TOS" if you really want to say it's in the prime universe. They should have at least gone back 20 or 30 years before "TOS" IMO because that gives you something similiar to the 80 year difference between "TOS" and "TNG." What I saw didn't look all that more advanced from "Enterprise" so I could easier buy into the look being expanded from that timeframe than I can see it being almost at the same time as "TOS."
One other added thing about canon is the issue of them saying the show would be about something hinted at in the other shows but we have never seen. Wouldn't this be something from canon as well? If you have shows that don't respect canon why even bother with doing a show set in the Trek universe? Isn't part of the fun of Trek in being able to revist familiar aliens and a universe that has been part of our lives for many years now. I think some things like Trek,Stargate,Star Wars,etc sometimes get to a point were some of the fun isn't just in the individual stories but the entire world of that franchise.
Granted I also think things do have to do the comic book thing and reboot and start over and I think that is were I think people think Trek needs to go from here but any new version will establish it's own mythology as well so it will have to over time play by the same rules of canon as old Trek.
Jason

In the end, all the Prime Universe talk, I think, is just an attempt to placate fans they knew would make a big deal of it. Most of their potential viewers (which will hopefully for CBS extend beyond just us) aren't going to care a bit about the stuff we as fans quibble over. Yes, CBS is taking it for granted that we'll tune in, but of course they know we will. We're not the audience they're trying to capture.

 

[Jayson1]

In the end, all the Prime Universe talk, I think, is just an attempt to placate fans they knew would make a big deal of it. Most of their potential viewers (which will hopefully for CBS extend beyond just us) aren't going to care a bit about the stuff we as fans quibble over. Yes, CBS is taking it for granted that we'll tune in, but of course they know we will. We're not the audience they're trying to capture.

I do wonder about it's target audience. I figure that they are going after younger fans who were introduced by the Kelvin Universe or those who caught up on old Trek via things like Netflix. Which means are they counting on the fact that new fans have been created in the years since "Voyager" ended much how "TOS" fandom grew in reruns in the 70's after that show ended? If that is the case then aren't these younger fans going to have some of the same expectations that older fans of the shows do since they also liked the older shows and maybe even became fans because of them?
If that is true then maybe canon is a issue just as important to them as it is the older crowd? If you look at "Star Wars" I wonder how many younger fans were just as excited to see Leia/Han Solo etc as fans who were their from day 1?

Jason

 

[CRM-114]

I do wonder about it's target audience. I figure that they are going after younger fans who were introduced by the Kelvin Universe or those who caught up on old Trek via things like Netflix. Which means are they counting on the fact that new fans have been created in the years since "Voyager" ended much how "TOS" fandom grew in reruns in the 70's after that show ended? If that is the case then aren't these younger fans going to have some of the same expectations that older fans of the shows do since they also liked the older shows and maybe even became fans because of them?
If that is true then maybe canon is a issue just as important to them as it is the older crowd? If you look at "Star Wars" I wonder how many younger fans were just as excited to see Leia/Han Solo etc as fans who were their from day 1?

Jason

I don't think they're that interested in pursuing preexisting fans, at least not any more than they feel they have to. I think they're going after people who aren't necessary fans yet, but might become fans through this show. I'm thinking along the lines of Game of Thrones/The Walking Dead viewers who like those shows but whose familiarity with Star Trek may begin and end with the Kelvin movies.

Since the bulk of Star Trek's fans are largely situated in the English-speaking world and Germany, there would have to be a major push outside those centers to create the kind of success that Netflix/CBS seem to believe is possible.

 

[mos6507]

Canon is ultimately a product of the mind. It is suspension of disbelief. When canon is violated, it risks shattering suspension of disbelief. This is why we have crazy threads here trying to rationalize things that were obvious plot-holes, goofs, or poetic license.

Here is one active "rationalization" thread.

There is no in-universe explanation for why the refit Enterprise looks so different from TOS. They tried to hold onto the TOS-isms on the Phase II version but they decided they had to go pretty much blue-sky to make it really pop, and it was ultimately the right decision. However, it creates mental "friction" in sustaining suspension of disbelief because of the way the screenplay still describes it as merely a refit rather than an all-new ship. What really should have happened is to have treated it as a whole new class similar to the -B, -C, and -D, but since the screenplay was such a moving target even up through shooting they simply could not reconcile it.

Trek fans hold trivia about the behind-the-scenes aspects in a separate part of their brain from the suspension-of-disbelief part. The S.O.D. part is the escapism, the Oz, the Neverland.

When we're in the zone of S.O.D., these continuity errors or deliberate violations for the sake of modernized production values create friction. It's like imagine if you went back to look at old photographs and they kept shifting to be more modern rather than being a true time-capsule. Our memory of TOS is inviolate. That's one reason why some people have a problem with the FX on TOS Remastered. I don't, but some do, because that is their mental pocket-universe, warts and all.

So when the new stuff comes in, it feels like a mental violation in a way. It's some snot-nosed punk saying "this is how it SHOULD have looked if they had more money and technology and better taste". You know, fashion. This is a big reason for the blowback against the Kelvin-verse, for those who couldn't take the excuse of the alternate-universe aspect.

I could go down the line.

Now, in these sorts of threads there are armies of people who say "you can't expect things to stay static. It just wouldn't sell". That may be true, but at the same time, you have to at least pay a modicum of respect to how much people value their imaginary worlds that they carry around in their heads. Within that dreamscape they really don't give a damn that the walls were cardboard and the switches were cast from icecube trays. That's what they were introduced to when they were little kids and they don't want anyone retroactively telling them otherwise. No bloody -A, -B, -C or -D as Scotty would say.

So ultimately all canon is "head" canon.

 

[Mage]

Someone used the word 'worship' on page one...

Canon/continuity is a good thing for any serial storytelling. No one's saying it's unimportant. The problem isn't the canon. The problems is the near religious approach some fans have with it, and how obsessive they become to make sure everything fits and how angry they become when ultimatly, something can't fit in.

 

[Ithekro]

Continuity, to me, makes it seem like the universe is still the same place. Otherwise, why call it "Star Trek"? If it is too radically different were you can't tell if this is some new sci-fi show, Battlestar Galactica, or Star Command, than it is no longer Star Trek, but something just using the name to get viewers. It is like people complaining about fan films and asking they why just don't make their own IP. Here it would be the reverse "Why are you using this IP when this is clearly something totally different in every way?"

This is partly why I'm still not feeling it for Discovery. Something seems too far off with what little we've seen. Maybe it will work, may it will be too far gone. (If it ever airs) With Star Trek (2009) there were issues, but they manage to get around them (alternate universe, similar, but not the same), by Star Trek: Beyond, it felt more like Star Trek than anything for a long time.

This is also why the recent Star Wars films work for me, it feels right. Like the story is being told in the same universe.