How Do You Interpret "Canon"?

[HIjol]

I have to smile; as hard core a fan as I like to think I am, I did not even know the word (as defined in this Thread and "universe") until I joined this Board! You all taught me what canon was/is! I remember one of my first Posts, asking about it...I even spelled it wrong!

My canon evolved from what I remember about the shows, what I remembered from all my readings of the "official" books and Technical Manuals, and what I saw in the shows and movies.

I remember when I first saw Cannon Violation's avatar, I was thinking, "I remember that show and I liked it, but what in the heck did "Canon" and Quinn Martin Productions have to do with Star Trek???

Guess you can teach an Old Space Dog new specs!

 

[Philip Guyott]

Whoa whoa whoa - hold on there just a damn minute!!!!!

Who the hell would place something like Star Trek Online in the same catagory as The Animated Series!!!

You must be MAD!!!

(I'm only exaggerating for comedy - this is actually an utterly awful interpretation since some fan productions are more faithful than that awful awful cash-in stuff like STO).

lol. I agree with you that “some fan productions are more faithful than that awful awful cash-in stuff like STO”. However that does not make it official canon. Only CBS/Paramount works are canon.

 

[RAMA]

I try to ignore canon these days. I've made peace with Romulans having a cloaking device before Balance of Terror.

RAMA

 

[USS Triumphant]

I try to ignore canon these days. I've made peace with Romulans having a cloaking device before Balance of Terror.

I'm fine with that. Why not?

Know what I'm NOT okay with? Remans.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I generally accepted everything that happened in the first 4 series as canon, even if I didn't like some of it. I had never seen any of the animated series until about a year or so ago when I found some second hand dvd's, but I had read about them. I knew that the animated episode Yesteryear (at least the parts which were devoted to Spock's childhood) were considered canon by some.

But then Enterprise came along. And they started coming up with this stuff like mind melds and people who did them were socially unacceptable just a century before the events of the original series. And I'm like, "Wait, what the heck"? I know someone pointed out in another post I made about this that it was never said Vulcans practiced mind melds since ancient times, but it still feels off. The thing with Phlox's anti-Borg vaccine. That's the trouble with prequels, they very often contradict things.* That temporal cold war crap never made sense to me and it seemed like the story just eventually was dropped. I know they started the Xindi storyline for ratings, but that's really when I stopped caring.

*Prequels contradicting things remind me of the Star Wars movies. In Return of the Jedi Leia says she remembers their mother a little bit but Luke doesn't. In Revenge of the Sith, since she died right after they are born, why would one have memories and the other didn't.

JJ Abrams Trek, is an alternate universe in my mind.

 

[USS Triumphant]

*Prequels contradicting things remind me of the Star Wars movies. In Return of the Jedi Leia says she remembers their mother a little bit but Luke doesn't. In Revenge of the Sith, since she died right after they are born, why would one have memories and the other didn't.

Two possibilities:
1. Leia's abilities in the Force are more focused on her connections with other living beings than Luke's. It would be why she sensed him at Cloud City, untrained. Why she's a senator and diplomat. And why she'd remember sensing Padme when Luke doesn't.
2. She's completely wrong, and the woman she remembers was actually a caretaker Bail Organa had looking after her when she was very small, who was sad because she knew she was terminally ill and then passed away.

 

[Richard Baker]

I consider canon simply what has appeared on screen, even if it is in the background (like FJ ships appearing on the bridge monitors).

Just because it is canon though does not make it absolute or perfect- a lot of stupid and contradictory things have appeared on screen over the years.

Frustrating thing is that a lot of the problems with canon consistence y are due to simple mistakes or a director getting carried away with something for dramatic impact (ST-V's infamous turbolift scene). For me 'head canon' is like a blind spot in vision- something is there but the mind prefers to ignore it.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Two possibilities:
1. Leia's abilities in the Force are more focused on her connections with other living beings than Luke's. It would be why she sensed him at Cloud City, untrained. Why she's a senator and diplomat. And why she'd remember sensing Padme when Luke doesn't.
2. She's completely wrong, and the woman she remembers was actually a caretaker Bail Organa had looking after her when she was very small, who was sad because she knew she was terminally ill and then passed away.

Option number one is good. One theory I read was that Leia, even as a newborn infant could have looked directly at Padme and Luke didn't when she was shown the babies before she died. I really don't remember if that's what happened in that scene.

Although Luke says he doesn't recall any thing about Padme, he had the belief there was still good in his father, which was almost word for word Padme's dying words. So my interpretation of that is that they both had a fragmentary memory enhanced by the force.

Number 2, maybe. But when Luke asked if she remembered her real mother, this tells me he knew she was adopted. And that he knew that she knew it. And that it wasn't a recent discovery.

 

[Iamnotspock]

I like all of this except for the TATV part - I just ignore that episode altogether, plus, if you're right, it seems unlikely that all of the butterflies would still allow for anything so very similar to what we saw on TNG to be happening in the 24th century in Archer's NX-01 Enterprise's future.

A further thought occurs; we could say this of the Mirror Universe or the 'Yesterday's Enterprise' timeline.

 

[Galileo7]

Whatever Paramount produced for both TV, and movies screens are canon, but I don't have to like everything done.

Agree.
[ TOS, TAS, TOS Movies, NG, DS9, VOY, NG Movies, ENT, JJ Trek and Star Trek 2017 series]

 

[JoeCabby]

It's all Canon, but it doesn't all make sense.

 

[USS Triumphant]

It's all Canon, but it doesn't all make sense.

Bashir: What I want to know is, out of all the stories you told me which ones were true and which ones weren't?
Garak: My dear doctor...they're all true.
Bashir: Even the lies?
Garak: Especially the lies.

 

[eyeresist]

I like all of this except for the TATV part - I just ignore that episode altogether, plus, if you're right, it seems unlikely that all of the butterflies would still allow for anything so very similar to what we saw on TNG to be happening in the 24th century in Archer's NX-01 Enterprise's future.

Trek time travel shows indicate that the same people will exist in every timeline, but sometimes they will have beards.

But then Enterprise came along. And they started coming up with this stuff like mind melds and people who did them were socially unacceptable just a century before the events of the original series. And I'm like, "Wait, what the heck"?

Yes, the idea that a society might change over time is just ridiculous. I mean, as far as I can tell, the world now is exactly the same way it was in the 1920s. Right?

More serious response: If you have a sense of historical perspective, I think you'd see that if anything Vulcan society had changed too little for realism.

 

[Terok Nor]

For me, it doesn't even try to steer the series to the look and feel of Star Trek. Tech-Lingos were too defined and it's supposed to be a prequel. On Star Trek, the series was a work in progress in defining what the tech and sciences (STAR TREK SCIENCE) were, but too many times on ENT the lingo felt out of place.

They had secret rooms which kept super-advanced technologies and used it whenever it needed for their dumb plots. It's like the rabbit in the magic hat for Archer and the crew. The crew can handle the Borg better than their 200 year old counterparts??? Come on. Having them handle the Borg the way it was done makes the crew from the future look quite stupid since, from what I'd seen, had no clue how the hell to handle them.

Why would Star Fleet keep this a secret??? Why would the doctor of the so-called prequel Enterprise keep such an important technique to prevent being a Borg never resurfaced... for 200 years??? The series has to be ignored by default because nothing seen on Enterprise feels as if it's progressive to what I know from the original Star Trek.
So yeah, I'd rather ignore it too.

All good points and excellent reasons to ignore Enterprise. The fact there was a supposedly legendary ship called Enterprise before the 1701 was a major retcon from the get-go and it was all downhill from there.

Yeah, if ever there was a cause to ignore part of Star Trek, ENT would be it. In fact, it fits better with JJ Abrams Trek (in some ways) than with the original stuff - almost as if the canon was:

Canon A: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, Movies

Canon B: ENT, JJ Trek.

Ironically Enterprise is the only Star Trek series that still exists in the JJVerse. All 4 seasons with the possible exception of the final episode.

My headcanon is that ENT depicts a history corrupted by the Temporal Cold War, and this is not the 'real' history of ST universe.

I suppose you could also say it's an alternate timeline created by the Enterprise-E just like the JJVerse is an alternate timeline created by the Romulans. That would make it the past of the JJVerse and keep it away from the main universe with TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Yeah, if ever there was a cause to ignore part of Star Trek, ENT would be it. In fact, it fits better with JJ Abrams Trek (in some ways) than with the original stuff - almost as if the canon was:

Canon A: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, Movies

Canon B: ENT, JJ Trek.

OMG. I think I'm going to cry. (With joy.) Where were you when I was getting hammered from one end to the next because I stated what you said? I even mentioned there was a MODEL of the NX-01 in JJ's Into Darkness, but the ENT disciples were mad at me. Vindication.

 

[Nerys Myk]

OMG. I think I'm going to cry. (With joy.) Where were you when I was getting hammered from one end to the next because I stated what you said? I even mentioned there was a MODEL of the NX-01 in JJ's Into Darkness, but the ENT disciples were mad at me. Vindication.

Enterprise exists in both "canons". I dont find it any more out of place that any of the other spinoffs. If anything, the spinoffs exist in their own canon
Canon A: TOS and TAS
Canon B: TMP
Canon C: TOS films
Canon E: TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT
Canon F: Reboot

 

[STEPhon IT]

Hunh???

 

[eyeresist]

I even mentioned there was a MODEL of the NX-01 in JJ's Into Darkness, but the ENT disciples were mad at me.

I call BS on this. Why would ENT "disciples" care?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hunh???

Just thinking out loud. There are difference between TOS, TMP, the TOS films and the spinoffs that could be interpreted as different "canons".

 

[Trekkin]

How about between consecutive episodes of the same series?

For eg:

"Captain James R Kirk, of the USS 'Everyone is Wearing Brown Uniforms This Week.'

While materialising onto a planet to retrieve some lithium crystals, my chief medical officer seems to have been mysteriously replaced by a doddery old drunk. Said drunk seems to have shared some of his...product with Spock. Spock's skin has turned different shade, and that idiot is now running around the Bridge in one of my shirts.

On a more minor note: Sulu is refusing to sit in his seat, I think I have accidentally left that Russian junior officer behind at the last Starbase, Starfleet is expecting me to take naturally 'evolved' human ESP seriously, Mitchell's just died, and I forgot to start this log with the usual 'Space...' Speech.

All up: a pretty shitty day. Kirk out."