How Do You Interpret "Canon"?

[BillJ]

How Do You Interpret "Canon"?

I think it is an interesting question.

Do you interpret it by taking actions and statements presented on the show at face value? Or do you use your life experiences and the world around you as part of the interpretation? Or some combination of the two?

In the episode "First Contact", we see Picard refer to a disastrous first contact with the Klingons that led to decades of war. But in "Broken Bow", we see a first contact that has to be seen as something less than disastrous and for the run of Enterprise didn't lead to decades of "war".

We seemingly can't take the events of the two at face value because they seem contradictory. Not that I'm picking on these two specifically. Just another conversation brought them front and center in my mind.

 

[Kemaiku]

A basic framework to develop the series/movie/book etc itself around. And help link adventures to each other.

Like not forgetting the name of a major character mid-episode/book or having an important building move continent because someone forgot to write it down.

 

[CorporalClegg]

As something way that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Like the texts from which the concept is derived, one shouldn't adhere to it too strictly when there's a contradiction on the first page.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Canon is the thing that is frequently confused with continuity.

 

[uniderth]

Events, characters, time, places, etc. that are used to establish continuity. Cannnnnnon is the things. Continuity is the connection of those things. I do not consider "anything seen on screen" as canon. I doubt that "in-universe" the Enterprise-D had little jokes on all those door labels. I doubt that the Enterprise-A had 70+ decks. For me cannnnnon is pretty much: ST, ST:TNG, ST: DSN, ST:VOY, and Movies.

 

[Greg Cox]

Continuity is a virtue, but hardly a paramount one. (No pun intended.)

"Canon" is a fannish obsession that matters very little in the real world.

 

[at Quark's]

Basically, I take everything that is shown or told onscreen in episodes or movies as canon (unless of course, it becomes clear that a character is lying or making stuff up) -- I don't bother with 'canon' manuals and such. I like the shows to be somewhat continuous, but I don't worry about it too much. Though it can be fun to think of explanations to reconcile spotted discrepancies, in the end it's just a set of TV shows and movies I happen to like.

 

[Kor]

Canon is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using continuity as our guide.



Kor

 

[BillJ]

Using canon was a bad choice on my part.

My question is more how people interpret what they see on screen. Do they go hard and fast with the statements as given, or do they look deeper?

 

[1001001]

I don't look too deeply. I think that's why I enjoy so much of it.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I take everything at face value until the face is altered.

Look at Sisko's family history, for example. What did it change, like three or four times over the course of the show? First is dad was a chef. (Either he retired or was six feet under.) Later, he was both a live and still whipping up the jambalaya for unpaying customers.

Which is the proper canon and when?

They tell us Picard is French, but he talks like a Brit. Khan was supposedly smart, but didn't understand the definition of "space."

 

[Mudd]

As an enormous waste of time.

 

[USS Triumphant]

My question is more how people interpret what they see on screen. Do they go hard and fast with the statements as given, or do they look deeper?

I regard everything on-screen as canon unless I believe that it contradicts previous canon, or Diane Duane's novels. In that situation, I feel free to No-Prize my own "personal canon" or fanon or whatever one wants to call it* explanation for what is actually going on. For instance, the entire series of Enterprise and the nuTrek movies are in a different timelime/quantum reality/whatever than TOS/TAS/TNG/DS9/VOY - due to some combination of Star Trek: First Contact and the various temporal shenanigans on Voyager. And I disregard "Nemesis" altogether - no Remans - probably some weird dream Picard had, feeling stress about "the paths not taken" and things coming to an end with Riker taking his own command and taking Troi with him.

But also - I only care about any of that insofar as it is correct *for me*. I might discuss my pet theories if the discussion makes that appropriate, but I don't really care if anyone else accepts them - everyone should have their own fanon that makes them happiest, just like I do, however bizarre *or* by-the-book I might find it.

*except "head canon", because that's Shockwave from the G1 Transformers.

 

[drt]

My personal canon is an even more extreme version of USS Triumphant's: TOS/TAS, TMP, ST2-6, TNG/DS9/VOY/ST7-10, ENT and nuTrek are all separate universes. It's the only way it makes sense to me, since each production team tended to maintain reasonable backstory and continuity, which usually doesn't translate as well to the others. (Sometimes I attach ENT onto TNG et al and sometimes onto nuTrek).

 

[Longinus]

My question is more how people interpret what they see on screen. Do they go hard and fast with the statements as given, or do they look deeper?

I rather gloss over minor discrepancies and oddities and try to focus the big picture. Movies and shows set in our real history have errors too, and so does Star Trek. I know that many fans love to come up with convoluted theories to explain continuity errors, but sometimes I think it goes too far like Cochrane Factors and Klingon genetic viruses (oh wait...) So I'd put creator intent and general feel of canon over every little minutiae.

Damn. I don't think I managed to explain that clearly. Oh well, it made sense in my head.

 

[JWPlatt]

"Canon" is a fannish obsession that matters very little in the real world.

That statement wouldn't appear to reconcile well with copyright.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Look at Sisko's family history, for example. What did it change, like three or four times over the course of the show? First is dad was a chef. (Either he retired or was six feet under.) Later, he was both a live and still whipping up the jambalaya for unpaying customers.

Which is the proper canon and when?

Occam's Razor; he came out of retirement.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

How Do You Interpret "Canon"?

I don't, as canon is just all the filmed Trek that the licensees have to conform to. My personal interpretation doesn't enter into it.

Continuity, on the other hand...

Do you interpret it by taking actions and statements presented on the show at face value? Or do you use your life experiences and the world around you as part of the interpretation? Or some combination of the two?

When it comes to continuity, I generally assume that the characters (especially the hero characters) are telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. Like, if Sulu says that Chekov doesn't have a brother and is an only child, then Chekov is an only child.

Sometimes you run into statements that are a bit more open to interpretation, though, like Kirk saying "there are only 12 like it in the fleet." When it comes to statements like that, I try to consider how much wiggle room they offer, if the character might be speaking colloquially, common sense, author intent, and how things work in the real world.

And I make more of an effort to accommodate the good episodes over the bad ones. In a continuity disagreement between, say, "City on the Edge of Forever" and "And The Children Shall Lead," guess which one's coming out on top?

I also try not to let the sequel shows rewrite too much of the shows that preceded them. TNG's pilot said that McCoy was 137 years old, which would put his age somewhere in his 30s during TOS. Since that was younger than DeForest Kelley's real-life age when TOS was shooting and they consistently implied that McCoy was 10-15 years older than Kirk, I tend to consider that reference similarly to Data's "Class of '78" comment in "Encounter at Farpoint": As an early reference made before the timeline was thoroughly worked out.

 

[Philip Guyott]

I divide Star Trek into three types of canon, and yes, I have put way, way to much thought into this
I study theology and borrowed terms used by Christians in designating the Hebrew Scriptures. These are ‘Proto-canon’ (which has a nice sci-fi sound to it!), ‘Deutero-canon’ and ‘Narrow-canon’.

In Theology:

· Protocanonical: The Old Testament (accepted as canon by all Christians)
· Deuterocanonical: The Apocrypha (accepted as canon only by Catholics and Orthodox)
· Narrow-Canonical: Writings only accepted as canon by certain devout Orthodox groups, but rejected by the mainstream.

In Trek:

· Protocanonical: All official live action series and movies.
· Deuterocanonical: The Animated Series, novels and computer games (e.g. ‘Star Trek Online’). Whilst these are all official Trek they do not need to conform to the continuity of Proto-canon.
· Narrow-Canonical: All Star Trek fan Productions. Accepted as head-canon by certain devout Trekkies, rejected by the mainstream

As to the continuity issues between TOS and Enterprise, I attribute these to fluctuations in the timeline causes by the temporal cold war.

 

[bbailey861]

Canon doesn't mean much at all. I just like a good story, whether it be from TV, movies, fan productions, books, and/or comics. If it counters something I've seen or read in the past, oh well. Just keep the (good) stories coming.