Making of Star Trek.. canon?

[Therin of Andor]

Sadly its taken over a large segment of the fanbase. Writing, acting, direction and production are all subservient to the mighty canon.

Has it? What does the fanbase have to do with the writing, acting, direction and production of Star Trek?

The only group affected by canon is the publishers and writers of licensed Star Trek fiction, not fan productions.

 

[Herbert1]

I really object to the phrase "fan wank" and find it offensive. I am also really tired of the "canon" religious police on the TrekBBS and other BBSes who seem to use it to personally attack other fans.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Sadly its taken over a large segment of the fanbase. Writing, acting, direction and production are all subservient to the mighty canon.

Has it? What does the fanbase have to do with the writing, acting, direction and production of Star Trek?

The only group affected by canon is the publishers and writers of licensed Star Trek fiction, not fan productions.

I mean fans who's first thoughts upon seeing a new Star Trek project is " how does it fit in the canon?". Not "what a great story" or "wow what a performance", but "that doesn't fit"!!!!

 

[Therin of Andor]

I mean fans who's first thoughts upon seeing a new Star Trek project is " how does it fit in the canon?". Not "what a great story" or "wow what a performance", but "that doesn't fit"!!!!

What makes you think it's "a large segment"? It's more likely a very, very small, but very vocal, segment.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I mean fans who's first thoughts upon seeing a new Star Trek project is " how does it fit in the canon?". Not "what a great story" or "wow what a performance", but "that doesn't fit"!!!!

What makes you think it's "a large segment"? It's more likely a very, very small, but very vocal, segment.

Too much time here?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

"The Making Of Star Trek" isn't canon, though it's fairly important to the Star Trek Orthodoxy.

 

[Herbert1]

A lot of those memos contained jokes and gags that were surely not meant to be canon any more that a rubber duck on the 1701-D.

It's a cinch that nobody involved with producing Star Trek back then ever thought or spoke the word "canon" at all, unless they were having a discussion about Bible study or the music of Pachelbel. That's a term that didn't become significant in Trekdom until Roddenberry's infamous TNG-era memo in which he tried to lay down the law about what did and didn't count as "true" Trek in his vision. It was only after that memo that fans began to develop this unhealthy obsession with arguing over what was "real" and "unreal" in this totally imaginary universe.

True. It probably never occurred to any of them that prequel stories would have been written. With the exception of the filmed series, the Star Trek universe consisted of the Gold Key comics and the novelizations by James Blish.

Only until 1989 did we get the Harve Bennett and David Loughery script for Star Trek: The First Adventure that they first start thinking about a prequel.

It probably also never occured to them that Star Trek would have an active fanzine and fan fiction community or that some of these materials would be professionally published and rival the inventiveness or quality of licensee products.

Now we have the Star Fleet Technical Manual and the Star Fleet Battles universe, the FASA RPG, Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise universe, the Mastercom Data Center/Federation Reference Series universe, the Last Unicorn Games/Decipher RPG universe, Bantam continuation novels, Pocket Book continuation novels, and comic books in addition to 11 movies and 6 television series.

Or multiple cuts of the films or a remastering of the original series with new special effects.

Or the excellent fan films Star Trek: The New Voyages/ Phase II or Starship Exeter.

Or the excellent web-based Star Fleet Museum.

The expanded universe stuff is often dismissed as non-canon or depricated as "fan wank", but many of these materials made entertaining and valuable contributions to the Star Trek mythos over the past 40 plus years.

 

[Nebusj]

"The Making Of Star Trek" isn't canon, though it's fairly important to the Star Trek Orthodoxy.

It's also where we get the Food Laws from.

 

[Warped9]

Is the famous book fanwank or the will of Roddenberry? Is the info in there taken from the show's bible, and, if so, is it canonical?

Yes, I know that strictly speaking, it has to be on the screen to be canon. But was the book sanctioned and meant to accurately represent the show and its background?

Much of the material in TMoST is what was meant to be official. My view has always been that if what's onscreen in TOS doesn't contradict what it's TMoST then I'll generally accept the printed material as official. Onscreen has primacy followed by print secondarily.

For example the background on the characters. I strongly suspect that Trek XI isn't going to acknowledge anything in TMoST, but then Trek XI is a restart/re-imagining anyway so it isn't obligated to do so.