Is Enterprise part of your personal canon?

[indolover]

It is not part of mine. lol.

My own view was that they should have taken Trek off TV for a while, after Voyager ended.

And as Paramount is a huge studio, with the resources to boot, they should have conducted a thorough analysis as to why Voyager was not as critically acclaimed as TNG or DS9. DS9 can use the excuse of competition for its poor ratings, even though in terms of acting, writing, etc. it is arguably the best series (IMO on par with TNG).

If I were the Paramount CEO in 2001 (or otherwise in top management there) I would have ceased Trek production for a few years, and with an analysis of what went wrong in Voyager come back in 2005/2006 with a new series, either a post-Dominion War story, or set in a new era (25th century) with new scenarios, aliens and enemies.

 

[-Brett-]

If there was such a thing as a "personal canon" then Enterprise wouldn't be part of it, no.

 

[Amaris]

Whether I have a "personal canon" or not, doesn't really matter. It would be like whether I decided the Civil War never happened. Whether I acknowledge it or not makes no difference to it's existence. That said, if I had a "personal canon", then yes, Star Trek: Enterprise would be a part of it.

 

[STR]

Yes, aside from TATV and one where everyone's turned into aliens that act like monkeys. Evolution, I think is the title.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Yes, I love ENT.

 

[RegFan]

Of course it is.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Whether I have a "personal canon" or not, doesn't really matter. It would be like whether I decided the Civil War never happened. Whether I acknowledge it or not makes no difference to it's existence.

Well, some people think that the moon landing never happened. It matters to them. But you're right of course, there's no such thing as "personal canon". It's interesting though for what reasons someone refuses to accept "Enterprise" as Canon. Some do it because of continuity errors (like that didn't happen before...), others because they think "Enterprise" was simply a bad show (like this thread's OP).

This raises a question. If a show is full of continuity errors and retcons but has top-notch stories and actors is it more likely to be accepted as "Canon" than a show who fully and unconditionally adheres to previous continuity, but has mediocre plots and actors (or the other way around)? Maybe we should do a poll about it.

As for "Enterprise"... I refuse to acknowledge the existence of "personal canon" myself, because the term constitutes an oxymoron. That being said, the first two seasons of the show were mostly bland and uninspired. Simply a waste of time. It definitely got better from Season 3 onwards. But I guess it was too little, too late at this stage.

However, it wasn't necessarily a mistake to do a show right after "Voyager". The mistake was to have it produced by Berman and Braga (or any other people previously involved with producing Trek so much). Right from the start, they should have done what they did with ST09: Bring new people in. Get fresh prespectives. If anything, Manny Coto should have been showrunner from day one. Just like the Reeves-Stevens' should have been on board from the start as well. Paramount's mistake was that they neglected to do a real shake-up.

 

[Finn]

^I'm a bit mystified by those who is comparing deciding what's canon or not to whether historical events happened. Trek isn't real. And there are plently of evidence that the Civil War. It would be too absurd to believe someone just up and made up the civil war, especially when those over 70 were born when there were still a good number of living civil war veterans.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

^I'm a bit mystified by those who is comparing deciding what's canon or not to whether historical events happened. Trek isn't real. And there are plently of evidence that the Civil War. It would be too absurd to believe someone just up and made up the civil war, especially when those over 70 were born when there were still a good number of living civil war veterans.

Well, there's also no doubt about it that "Enterprise" was actually produced by Paramount (I've got the DVDs right here!! ).

 

[T'Girl]

I refuse to acknowledge the existence of "personal canon" myself, because the term constitutes an oxymoron.

Not really, I accept the animated series as canon, "everything on screen", but some stipulate that to be canon it has to be "live action." There are the tech manuals produced by people attached to the show like Michael Okuda, the info within is considered canon by some, but the first tech manual by Franz Joseph isn't because he was from outside.

The more resent novels are considered to exist side by side by some people with the on screen, especially the 24th century material subsequent to the ending of DS9 and Nemesis. Personally I like the early novels better (but they're not canon).

Some comic book fans feel that the comic book series (forget the name) that preceded the movie Star Trek Eleven, because it was official vetted and endorsed, is an integral part of the movie. While not part of over all canon, the comics are in fact part of that one movie's canon.

Gene Rossenberry said in interviews that he considered the movie The Final Frontier "apocrypha," partially because of his feelings for Shatner. Well if Roddenberry can have a personal canon, why not the rest of us?

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Yes.

However, I have no problem with the idea of personal canon. For instance, why shouldn't I take TOS as a self-contained show and disregard the sequels and prequel? They weren't planned at the time and there was no detailed backstory serving as the basis for Kirk and co's adventures.

That's not actually how I choose to approach Trek, but surely I should be able to consume entertainment as I choose, so long as I don't attempt to enforce my interpretation on everyone else?

 

[StarryEyed]

No, it just doesn't fit with what was previously established. I disregard it.

 

[Sorak]

It is not.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Whether I have a "personal canon" or not, doesn't really matter. It would be like whether I decided the Civil War never happened. Whether I acknowledge it or not makes no difference to it's existence.

Agreed.

You can like, or not like, the show, but there is no such thing as "personal canon." It happened, whether we like it or not, and it's not our place to question that fact.

That being said, ENT is my favorite out of all Trek series. Make of that what you will.

 

[BillJ]

Is Enterprise part of my personal continuity? Why not? There's nothing in it that is so outlandishly out of line with what came before.

The quality of the stories were very hit or miss. But the same can be said for every Trek series.

 

[Lord Garth]

Officially, I acknowledge it as canon.

Personally, yes and no. That's not a cop-out answer, it's the truth. I can't see it as a prequel to TOS or TNG -- though I was almost swayed by what I've seen of the fourth season -- but I can easily see it as a prequel to ST XI.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

FWIW, I don't see a single thing in ENT that is incompatible with existing Trek continuity (NOT CANON - those terms are not the same). Anything that fans think is out of line, is more an instance of fanon assumptions that were never true in the first place.

 

[Lord Garth]

It's water under the bridge at this point. The series began almost 10 years ago and I'm way passed that.

My reasons aren't the ones you've heard over and over again in the ENT Forum.

EDIT

Screw it. Before I do this, promise not to get into a long debate with me. I'm not in the mood and I really don't care about it that much. I want anyone out there to respect my opinion as much as you would have me respect yours. Thanks.

I remember how the ENT Forum could get in the past. Part of why I stayed out of there, aside from not watching most of the series.

If the Klingon Empire is only four days away from Earth, then why haven't they conquered Earth before? Maybe the Vulcans protected Earth from the late-21st Century on but they wouldn't have cared before that. Earth is resource rich and ripe for invasion.

Why does the Enterprise look so much like a Federation Starfleet vessel? For a United Federation of Planets that we later see, a lot of its design is based off of Earth designs. Before ENT, I could always say there was alien input into the Federation design. I would've used a more NASA-like design. Though, in fairness, the uniforms had a NASA-like appearance.

For starters, but that's as far as I'm going. I'm not Stewey or whoever else ENT fans usually get into debates over these things with.

None of this would matter if I didn't find the series flatly written or dully acted.

 

[F. King Daniel]

FWIW, the NX-01 looked like a Starfleet vessel because Paramount/CBS own the copyright on the Enterprise's general shape. That cost money, and they weren't gonna let it go to waste. Thus saucer/nacelles.

 

[Rett Mikhal]

The difference between 'accepting' history and 'accepting' canon is that you have to do one because it's history. It happened because it did, no matter how stupid it was. You can learn from people's mistakes that way.

Canon, on the other hand, is the result of the entertainment industry and when it is stupid you don't learn from people's mistakes, you have to embrace them as they muck up your favorite series. I made a thread similar to this in the Sci-Fi lounge if there's ever been a sequel so dumb or otherwise so functionally broken you just dismiss it.

I've never really watched Enterprise much. A few episodes (Mirror universe episodes were pretty good), but from what I've read on Memory Alpha whenever there is an oddity in the timeline, it's Enterprise's fault. There are patches and half assed explanations all over the place like "Romulans may have had cloaks as early as 2150 (ENT)" and that just blows my mind for many reasons. One, the makers (Berman and Braga, mostly) didn't know anything about the canon that when Kirk first encountered a cloak it was a BIG DEAL and two, they think we're really dumb. They think "The Romulans cloak, if they're in Enterprise and they don't cloak people won't get it." That mentality has to stop, NOW. Stop treating the audience like a bunch of babies!

Berman needs to realize it's better to be smart with a few smart friends than dumb with a million dumb friends.

So, because it apparently has such glaring errors, I'd rather think of it as just glorified fan fiction with less spelling errors.