On the other hand, I prefer Nancy Holder's Queen of the Slayers novel as a post-finale story than I have the "season 8" comics. Go fig'.
Make the books canon
- Thread starter CaptPicard
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Interesting, I had missed 'Queen.'
*makes mental note to look for it*
I tend to think that making the books canon is a BAD idea, considering some of the iffy content out there.
Can we take Spocks brother out of canon too?
*lol*
*makes mental note to look for it*
I tend to think that making the books canon is a BAD idea, considering some of the iffy content out there.
Can we take Spocks brother out of canon too?
*lol*
Spock's brother makes perfect sense. it's the whole god plot that doesn't in TFF.
To me, it's a non idea, neither a good idea nor a bad idea as I hope I've tried to put across.
I don't think it's so much that they're liars and hypocrites as that they have different creative expectations from Star Trek than from, say, Batman.
I got into a big argument on the Trek XI board a few weeks ago about whether or not it was a good idea for multiple Trek continuities to exist (since that's what a lot of folks are saying the new movie amounts to -- a new Star Trek continuity). And a lot of folks are strongly against the very idea of a new Trek continuity, even though they have no problem with it with other franchises.
These are folks who want Star Trek to constitute a single, completely self-consistent fictional continuity. Period. They can accept multiple versions of the Batman story, or the King Arthur legend, or what-have-you. But for Trek, there, to borrow another franchise's catchphrase, can be only one.
I don't agree with their attitude, but I wouldn't call them hypocrites just because they have different creative expectations.
^ Do they offer up reasoning -- or interesting facsimilies thereof -- for why Trek has to be this way, as opposed to King Arthur, Robin Hood, Batman, Superman, James Bond, etc.?
Personally, I don't get it, and I say that as a diehard TOS fan from diapers.
Personally, I don't get it, and I say that as a diehard TOS fan from diapers.
Their logic boiled down to, "That's the way it's always been and it shouldn't change or else I won't like it."
To be fair, I suspect it has to do with the idea that Star Trek is our real future, and therefore any suggestion of multiple continuities or such disrupts from the mental illusion that Trek will really happen. But that's just my suspicion.
Indeed, that's exactly what I was trying to say...thanks for finishing the translation into English Lit Major for me.
Of course...and I mean, I'm here, I'm reading the books, so I'm not one of those people.Unfortunately, we cannot offer such an assurance. But that was a risk we knew when we took these gigs...
Nevertheless, they exist, even if that's annoying to others. They're writing to Greg Cox, and they're telling me why Chewbacca's death matters more than...let's say other character deaths in tie-in fiction.
And, to a certain extent, I can understand where they're coming from.
Again, this is exactly what I was trying to say before. (This seems to be a good day for others anticipating my responses.
)I included the James Bond/Indiana Jones contrast as a current cinematic example in the hopes of preempting such a complaint, but I guess not.
(I also think it's a little harsh to say, "Well, if people who care that much about canonicity didn't avoid certain movies, I'll call them liars and hypocrites; and if they did, they'll be laughed at and ridiculed." I guess they just can't win.
)Since you mentioned a certain other franchise...Highlander 2 is a pretty bad movie, but it's made worse for purporting to be a Highlander movie, and the typical response to that movie from Highlander fans ("It never happened!") sounds very much like a canonical ruling.
My own initial reaction to the new movie was somewhat close to what you're talking about, Sci--I wanted this to be "the" origin story for "the" TOS crew, not "some other" origin story--and even though I can ultimately shift my expectations to accept multiple filmed continuities (I've started comparing it to Highlander or Terminator in my mind), the makers of the new film still cared enough to connect it back to the main timeline, and to create the Supreme Court analogy I feel works so well to describe how one approaches canon.
If anything, it's Star Trek's "fault" for creating and maintaining the "single, completely self-consistent fictional continuity" expectation in its audience. Having done so for over forty years, you can't be too surprised that some people are invested in it.
This is my "I have a legal analogy for everything!" post. 
If we think of the two franchises as two different "jurisdictions," I'm saying that I'd be curious to hear from someone who's operated in both.
The Star Trek novelists here are quick to point out that anything from another novel which is pertinent to whatever novel you're currently reading will be mentioned for the benefit of those who haven't read the other novel(s), and I think the same point would apply in that hypothetical scenario.
You will, however, need to have read Articles of the Federation.
The United States has an actual, separate Constitution as a document, while the United Kingdom doesn't, but both countries talk about actions being "constitutional" or "unconstitutional."
When I've mentioned the similar levels of consistency between the two novel lines to the people I mentioned before, it actually has served to alleviate their "concerns," and to make them more willing to consider reading the Star Trek novels--precisely because the novels now have their own metanarrative, and there is much less likelihood of a "constitutional crisis."
Spock's World is In re Marriage Cases, and "Spock's Brain" is Proposition 8. You might prefer one and ignore the other, but the latter (frustrating though it may be) holds more sway, until a sympathetic Supreme Court comes along and chooses to give more weight to the former after all.
I know you weren't implying difficulty with any individual, but you were implying that the optional Star Trek approach was preferable to the mandatory Star Wars approach. "Having to deal with Leland Chee" was just shorthand for "having to deal with the complications and convolutions of Star Wars continuity," as Chee is in charge of such matters at Lucasfilm.
If we think of the two franchises as two different "jurisdictions," I'm saying that I'd be curious to hear from someone who's operated in both.
I don't have to read every precedent cited in a US Supreme Court ruling (or even your garden-variety column about the law) in order to understand the ruling (or column).
The Star Trek novelists here are quick to point out that anything from another novel which is pertinent to whatever novel you're currently reading will be mentioned for the benefit of those who haven't read the other novel(s), and I think the same point would apply in that hypothetical scenario.
You will, however, need to have read Articles of the Federation.
I agree with these points, and I would agree that the novels as they currently stand represent a de facto Expanded Universe...
The United States has an actual, separate Constitution as a document, while the United Kingdom doesn't, but both countries talk about actions being "constitutional" or "unconstitutional."
When I've mentioned the similar levels of consistency between the two novel lines to the people I mentioned before, it actually has served to alleviate their "concerns," and to make them more willing to consider reading the Star Trek novels--precisely because the novels now have their own metanarrative, and there is much less likelihood of a "constitutional crisis."
I don't think it's an all-or-nothing proposition for them, either--a canonical book that sucks will still suck--but I think that the perception of canonicity is an intrinsic part of their decision process in choosing (or not choosing) to emotionally invest in a new story.
I think they'd probably view a bad (but canonical) episode the way one views a law that one disagrees with--annoying and frustrating, but somewhat unavoidable.
Spock's World is In re Marriage Cases, and "Spock's Brain" is Proposition 8. You might prefer one and ignore the other, but the latter (frustrating though it may be) holds more sway, until a sympathetic Supreme Court comes along and chooses to give more weight to the former after all.
To be fair, the term "constitution" means different things. To the US, the Constitution is the legal document, agreed to by the people of the United States, that establishes the existence of the United States and the basic rules by which its government will function.
By contrast, in the UK, "the constitution" refers to the sets of traditions, precedents, protocols, and procedures, both Acts of Parliament and unwritten, that clarify how the government will be constituted. Things that have the status of legal tradition but not Constitutional law in the US, such as the right of the US Supreme Court to engage in judicial review, would be considered part of the constitution in the UK.
ETA:
In other words, in the US, "the Constitution" refers to the legal document, whereas in the UK, "the constitution" is another way of saying "the way things work."
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I don't see how Highlander can be said to have a canonical anything, since pretty much every new version of it conflicts with or ignores earlier versions. Honestly, I don't think any two successive films in the series are in continuity with each other, none of the films acknowledge the TV series, the TV series ignored the second film, everything ignores the animated series, etc.
The ironic thing is, when Roddenberry was making TNG, he considered a lot of TOS to be apocryphal. In some ways, I think he intended TNG to be a semi-reboot, a revamping of the continuity that only accepted the plausible parts of the original show and disregarded the sillier or less successful parts. And he made a point of avoiding strong ties between TNG and TOS, aside from "The Naked Now." The only TOS alien race featured in TNG for years were the Klingons, and they were completely revamped from the sinister villains of TOS to a noble, honorable people in TNG.
Not to mention that TWOK played fast and loose with continuity too, building on "Space Seed" but directly contradicting aspects of it -- Khan's people lost their multiethnic composition, Chekov was retconned into the crew, the 15-year-old Enterprise paraphernalia they had was movie-era in design, Kirk suddenly had a son retconned into existence, Starfleet was suddenly a lot more military and less advanced in some ways, etc. Like Roddenberry in TNG, they adopted what they wanted to use and didn't hesitate to change things as it suited them.
So really it's not true that ST has always created and maintained a single, self-consistent continuity. The early revivals only approximately did so, pretending to be consistent but changing things as they went -- not unlike how Marvel comics pretend to be continuous but are constantly reworking their past chronology to keep the characters from aging, reinterpreting past events as it suits them, introducing changes that they then pretend never happened later on, etc. The tighter continuity ties to older Trek productions started to emerge later on, as staffers who were themselves devoted fans of TOS and the original movies (writers from Ron Moore to Manny Coto, and other staffers such as Sternbach, Okuda, and Drexler) became more prominent within the production staff and made a point of injecting more links to the past. And books like the Chronology helped reinforce the perception of ST (TAS excluded) as a single cohesive universe.
So if anything, the insistence on a uniform Trek continuity is something the fans (those who became staffers, at least) imposed on the franchise, not the other way around.
See, that's just weird. Why are you even talking about it terms of what has "weight" from some higher authority? This isn't something being imposed on people. This is entertainment. It's supposed to be about having fun. Why should you need someone's permission to find something enjoyable? Why treat a recreational activity as a matter of obedience to a higher authority?
Could it be simply that people like and enjoy the stories, and the events depicted therein, of the books, and would like to see them made "official" so that future tv shows and movies are based in a universe where these stories and events have happened as described, so that they could be followed up upon on screen, and future events happen in a way consistent for a universe where the books have occured and therefore continue the story?
That is always the reason I have assumed people to have about this subject.
I dont recall saying it "mattered", more it being a personal preference that some people may prefer to see the events made "offical" and therefore carried on in future shows as opposed to future shows going in a different direction, of which they not like as much.
The funny thing is, the other big universe where everything is theoretically canonical, namely Star Wars, COMPLETELY ignored a huge novel-written backstory of the Clone Wars, etc, when making the prequel trilogy.
So, despite being called canon, exactly that situation occurred, MNM.
Again: Star Trek has essentially the same policies, they just call it what it actually is, instead of pretending to be more important.
So, despite being called canon, exactly that situation occurred, MNM.
Again: Star Trek has essentially the same policies, they just call it what it actually is, instead of pretending to be more important.
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I can understand that as an "It would be nice if..." attitude, but not as an "I refuse to pay any attention to these stories unless they're treated like this" attitude. Enjoyment of the stories doesn't explain the assumption that they have less value if they aren't in the canon.
And no matter how much I can sympathize with the "It would be nice if..." attitude, that doesn't change the fact that it's never going to happen, and that making a post on a bulletin board asking for it to happen is going to have no effect at all.
The most that could be hoped for is something kind of like what's happening now, where the filmmakers are taking piecemeal elements from past books they've liked and integrating them or paying tribute to them within the movie (things like the names of Kirk's parents from Vonda McIntyre, an approach to Kirk's formative years inspired by Diane Carey's, etc.). Homage rather than full integration. Much like how the Batman comics have adopted a number of characters and ideas from Batman: The Animated Series (including Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, and a Paul Dini-written run on Detective Comics that has a very BTAS feel to it) while remaining a separate continuity.
I think most people can, intellectually at least, understand that it would never happen, and yes, posting on here and elsewhere, demanding it does happen is a waste of time.
But I was only really offering up a possible explanation to the poster who couldnt understand why people want it to happen.
People like what they read and what more of that, in all mediums of the franchise.
Now refusing to read books simply because they are not "cannon", or "official" or "consistent" or whatever, is not a view I agree with, but ah, each to their own.
Exactly.
The two countries have similar terms, which both have to do with a similar function (how the government is run), but they mean something different, so using "Canon = Constitution" as an analogy isn't always the end of the story.
FWIW, Highlander: Endgame (and arguably Highlander: The Source) occur in the continuity of the television series...but otherwise, yes, the ten or so Highlander timelines in existence now are quite a mess.
Too bad they didn't have anyone keeping things in order.
Well, when "the fans" are the same as "the staffers," making a distinction between the two is moot.
I didn't say the franchise was consistent, just that the franchise created the expectaton of a single continuity (just like Marvel does, despite the changes you're talking about)...and to that end, none of the retcons in TWOK matter as much to this perception as the fact that it's a sequel to a TOS episode.
Relax. It's just an analogy.
You asked why people who have this viewpoint would think the way they do, and I tried to explain it in terms of what they put weight on in their recreational choices. Potential readers are going to put weight on all sorts of things to varying subjective degrees (favourite authors, favourite series, favourite characters, etc.), and I was just saying that for this segment of the audience, that's part of the equation.
I don't think this is keeping anyone up at night.
Even when it comes to actual law in Real Life, people are going to have various reactions to different aspects of the law--from not caring at all, to endeavouring to change it, to changing jurisdictions for a more favourable legal system. Lawmakers themselves can't agree on what the law should be, or how it should be interpreted, but there's an ongoing system to resolve such disputes as they (naturally) arise.
As I said upthread, this is actually one of the reasons the Supreme Court analogy works so well for me--because the Supreme Court can also do just that, issuing a single ruling that overturns decades of precedent.
I think that's a normal part of the evolving legal process, and it strikes me as being very similar to the process of canonical evolution.
Exactly.
I think it's still worthwhile to offer up our own opinions (or our take on others' opinions), even as we all realise that our posts here aren't going to be prescriptive...it's all part of what makes up a vibrant discussion.
Hyperthetical:
"Okay, it's time for the next film to follow 'Nemesis'."
"Well, some of the 1% of our potential audience who read the novels have loved these relaunch titles."
"You mean we have to use all the changes those books have made to canon because some of 1% liked them in print? You mean the rest of them that read them didn't like the changes?"
"Let's just use the changes that suit our story, eh?"
"You gonna read the actual books or just ring Paula...?"
"Okay, it's time for the next film to follow 'Nemesis'."
"Well, some of the 1% of our potential audience who read the novels have loved these relaunch titles."
"You mean we have to use all the changes those books have made to canon because some of 1% liked them in print? You mean the rest of them that read them didn't like the changes?"
"Let's just use the changes that suit our story, eh?"
"You gonna read the actual books or just ring Paula...?"
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