NCC-1701: Reconciling Its TOS & DIS Configurations

[Dukhat]

Voyager directly references events of First Contact, and crosses over with DS9, complicating things because DS9 crosses over with TNG which crosses over with TOS and the classic movies.

But Voyager only references FC after the split, and crosses over with DS9 before the split. The first half of the series takes place in the prime timeline; the second half takes place in the new timeline. That's why Admiral Paris looks nothing like the Admiral Paris we see at the start of the show

 

[Boris Skrbic]

The first half of the series takes place in the prime timeline; the second half takes place in the new timeline.

So why does NEM feature a display model of Jefferies’ Enterprise?

 

[Dukhat]

So why does NEM feature a display model of Jefferies’ Enterprise?

Because the Enterprise we see in DSC will eventually look like the Enterprise we see in TOS. Just wait for SNW.

 

[ChallengerHK]

In such a context it really doesn’t matter how well one ship design fits.

I'm hoping that eventually they'll show an upside Enterprise. And have it fly backwards, like in the blooper reel.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

I'm hoping that eventually they'll show an upside Enterprise. And have it fly backwards, like in the blooper reel.

Why would you want the documentary camera drone to have that kind of malfunction?

 

[Ronald Held]

I will be waiting to see the WNMHGB 1701 at the last episode of SNW.

 

[Spaceship Jo]

Canon is everything that was onscreen. So the "basic canon" is Shatner's pauses, Nimoy's ears, an accurate Jefferies Enterprise, and a sense of fun adventure with at least a sprinkling of moralizing.

Different continuity? Just listen to the creators of DSC go on about how this is absolutely the 100% same continuity. I mean, you're right, but they don't agree, or won't admit it.

Also, the Berman era wasn't "avoiding" TOS era, so much as not going there much. Going there was an extraordinary effort, and yes, time travel is a thing in Trek, but these shows were purposefully set in non-TOS times. That's like Columbo in the 90s "avoided" going to meet Quincy, ME (or himself) in the late 70s. Unfair comparison? Yup, but it gets the point across (unless y'all are too young to know those shows).

 

[fireproof78]

The modern, connected world, if anything makes fidelity to the source material more essential not less, unless it is explicitly a new version

I was following along until this point. What is it about past TOS history that makes it essential?

Honestly, I get that the Berman era basically delicately touched the TOS era like fine china, but that doesn't mean it needs to remain that way. I love TOS, but once TMP hit it was clear that the TOS look was not essential to the larger world of Star Trek. The recreations of sets for TNG was due to a fan's recreation and the production borrowed them. It was cheap, pure and simple.

The exteriors are set dressing in terms of this is the era in which they take place. I can know that this is the Enterprise, that is the bridge, based upon the format, not slavish adherence to appearance. While I can appreciate it being jarring based upon past works that doesn't make the past approach essential.

 

[Spaceship Jo]

I was following along until this point. What is it about past TOS history that makes it essential?

We live in a time where everyone wants the James Bond movies to have continuity with teach other, to make the name a codename, etc. As people can watch older things with as much ease as new things, audiences have grown to expect internal coherence (or the impression of coherence) from their media.

This isn't my preference. I'm happy to say every Bond movie is essentially like a new staging of the same story, no connective tissue necessary.

Honestly, I get that the Berman era basically delicately touched the TOS era like fine china, but that doesn't mean it needs to remain that way. I love TOS, but once TMP hit it was clear that the TOS look was not essential to the larger world of Star Trek. The recreations of sets for TNG was due to a fan's recreation and the production borrowed them. It was cheap, pure and simple.

Cheap? I'm literally laughing out loud. The Berman era recreations of TOS era are some of the most expensive things they did! And no, TMP hit and made it clear that the TMP era looked a bit different than the TOS era. It didn't change the TOS era anymore than the 2010s don't look exactly like the 90s, but that doesn't change the 90s. If you're going to show the 90s now, your production techniques can change, but if it looks like the 2020s, people will notice and not like it.

The exteriors are set dressing in terms of this is the era in which they take place. I can know that this is the Enterprise, that is the bridge, based upon the format, not slavish adherence to appearance. While I can appreciate it being jarring based upon past works that doesn't make the past approach essential.

The audience likes things to change and yet to stay the same. That's the eternal Hollywood dilemma: "They want to see Jaws again, but we can't just do Jaws again, or can we? Let's do Marvel all over again, oh wait, we can do it without any of the things that made it work, right? The same... but different?"

I agree that the TOS era need not be the same now as it was then. But, the history of Trek disagrees, because in changing it now, it's not just an alteration of what we saw in the 60s, its an alteration of 90s and 2000s Trek as well. Their intent for decades was quite clear. So, if every new Trek had been set at the same time as TOS and looked totally different from each other, then that would be one thing. But they've all been deliberately the opposite of that, until now. (And even now, things like LD aim to do things the Berman era way, so the waters are quite muddy.)

 

[Boris Skrbic]

an accurate Jefferies Enterprise

Why should this be basic canon?

Also, the Berman era wasn't "avoiding" TOS era, so much as not going there much.

Actually I said it was avoiding embarrassing elements by not going there much, although it’s relevant that even references that cost nothing were purposefully avoided as a rule. Many familiar planets could’ve been revisited but weren’t, because TNG was seeking to establish its own identity.

Different continuity? Just listen to the creators of DSC go on about how this is absolutely the 100% same continuity. I mean, you're right, but they don't agree, or won't admit it

They do admit it but not necessarily in those terms. I’m using the word ‘continuity’ as opposed to ‘canon’ because of associations with filming continuity and such, the kind of local consistency where details matter. As such, if you can imagine a flash-forward to TOS, you can also imagine avoidance of elements that just wouldn’t fly in the 2020s, like the sexism directed towards Dehner in the second pilot.

Does it matter then what the ship looks like, if the production has already decided that Star Trek shouldn’t be period?

 

[fireproof78]

Cheap? I'm literally laughing out loud. The Berman era recreations of TOS era are some of the most expensive things they did! And no, TMP hit and made it clear that the TMP era looked a bit different than the TOS era. It didn't change the TOS era anymore than the 2010s don't look exactly like the 90s, but that doesn't change the 90s. If you're going to show the 90s now, your production techniques can change, but if it looks like the 2020s, people will notice and not like it.

Did you read that was for TNG or did you just take that to mean the Berman era in general? Because I phrased it specifically to address a particular point.

Honestly, the rest feels like trying to treat TOS as a real historical period, which only the Berman era did. TMP certainly did not, and Roddenberry certainly did not.

We live in a time where everyone wants the James Bond movies to have continuity with teach other, to make the name a codename, etc. As people can watch older things with as much ease as new things, audiences have grown to expect internal coherence (or the impression of coherence) from their media.

So audience demands make it essential? Now I'm laughing out loud.

 

[Spaceship Jo]

Why should this be basic canon?
Does it matter then what the ship looks like, if the production has already decided that Star Trek shouldn’t be period?

Again, if every Trek had shunned the notion of being period, then it wouldn't be new or matter. But this era of Trek has decided (excepting LD) that its going to call itself period, but simply not be. That's why it matters. But then, you already know that is my response, as it's part of my above post, just not part you quoted.

 

[Spaceship Jo]

So audience demands make it essential? Now I'm laughing out loud.

What's with this tendency to strip out partial quotes and respond as though they haven't already been directly addressed? That's twice this morning!

I think the Enterprise in DSC and presumably in SNW is too similar to TOS, if anything. So I'm not the one to be saying we should following supposed audience demands.

If the creators of a show pointedly say "This is XYZ, we absolutely swear it is XYZ, and there would be no point in doing this if it wasn't XYZ" and then the show is ABZ, then it's rather fair for the audience to take issue with that.

Think of it like the uncanny valley. The closer it is to TOS, the more off-putting (to some or many) it will be because they swear up and down that it is one thing when it plainly isn't. The more abstracted (to a degree) the essence of TOS in modern Trek, the better that is digested as still being TOS like/related/adjacent.

Did you read that was for TNG or did you just take that to mean the Berman era in general? Because I phrased it specifically to address a particular point.

Honestly, the rest feels like trying to treat TOS as a real historical period, which only the Berman era did. TMP certainly did not, and Roddenberry certainly did not.

Since the Berman era is the vast majority of Trek content, and the JJ era played along with the same rules (in this context if not many others), and since there was no reason for the TMP era to revisit the TOS era which leaves it neutral in this context, in a way, yes, absolutely. Saying TMP did not treat TOS as a historical period is obfuscating: it neither took place at the same time as TOS nor did it revisit that time period, so we don't know anything except Gene's quotes about the changed look of things, which was neither in-universe nor anything more than a talking point, and besides, with different teams helming the different films, it's entirely possible they'd have had varying thoughts on TOS as a historical period, but again, that didn't happen so we can't put that in one column or the other. At this point, only DSC and PIC are in column B, with presumably SNW joining them soon.

If TMP wanted to distinctly not treat TOS as period (not that this takes that one way or the other), instead of a refit, it would have been the TMP Enterprise as it appeared in TMP, but the dialogue would have been "nope, this isn't a refit, this is how it always was".

And yet again, I feel compelled to clarify that I think it would be great if they all treated the TOS period as totally different, or however they want.

 

[yotsuya]

As far as I'm concerned, Discovery is a reboot. Whether it be just visual or deeper is up to the individual. I love Eaves ship design. The way I put it elsewhere was that in the original timeline the built that ship earlier and smaller (according to Eaves original size) and in Discovery and Strange New Worlds it was later and larger. So in the Discovery universe, there will never be a refit to make it look like TOS. And in the TOS universe, there was no refit between The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before except the minor changes directly from one to the other. That does not mean that Discovery and Strange New World can't tell us stories in the same timeline, just that they look different and some events/facts are different between them. Basically parallel worlds that are following nearly the same events. Like the Mirror universe only not so different.

Or to put it differently, somewhere between TOS traveling back in time, and Enterprise traveling in time and all the potential ramifications of that, something got changed to make the future slightly different. Some people consider Enterprise to be a different Universe so this is not a new idea and Enterprise might be tied to one or the other. I also consider the Kelvin to be in a different timeline as that ship does not fit with TOS or Discovery.

So that is how I reconcile all the things that don't add up. The TOS Enterprise is separate from the Discovery Enterprise. Two separate universes following very similar timelines.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

But this era of Trek has decided (excepting LD) that its going to call itself period, but simply not be. That's why it matters. But then, you already know that is my response, as it's part of my above post, just not part you quoted.

I did quote a part where you claim that, but perhaps it’s not the one you mean:

Different continuity? Just listen to the creators of DSC go on about how this is absolutely the 100% same continuity. I mean, you're right, but they don't agree, or won't admit it.​

And I replied:

They do admit it but not necessarily in those terms.

For example:

Tamara Deverell: For the Enterprise, we based it initially off of The Original Series. We were really drawing a lot of our materials from that. And then we particularly went to more of the Star Trek movies, which is a little bit fatter, a little bit bigger. Overall, I think we expanded the length of it to be within the world of our Discovery, which is bigger, so we did cheat it as a larger ship.​

So there is a cheat. I’m not sure where you found a statement in which someone insists that DSC ties into TOS in precise, audiovisual, Forrest Gump terms, but we see that if you get down to the details, those in charge know what they’re doing: starting with TOS and giving it an update, in this case a ship size increase that can’t be explained as pre-refit.

We’re on the same page about the core argument here, which is that DSC created a dissonance by no longer treating TOS as period. My goal now is to examine the detailed continuity as seen by those involved in order to dispel any illusions that SNW will miraculously tie into TOS as period after all. Another example: the DSC and SNW revisions of the dedication plaque include the phrase “where no one has gone before”. Did someone change that believing ‘one’ would revert to ‘man’ on the film-era plaques? Why would it? It’s a different detailed continuity built upon the same canon, so the overall ship design doesn’t have to match the original either.

 

[dupersuper]

Why would you want the documentary camera drone to have that kind of malfunction?

Positronic radiation from a subspace fissure caused by an unstable warp field...?

 

[fireproof78]

Swamp gas reflected light from Venus.

 

[RichT]

So why does NEM feature a display model of Jefferies’ Enterprise?

 

[Spaceship Jo]

Akiva Goldsman: "It's not the J.J. [Abrams] verse or the Kurtzman verse. It is 10 years before TOS, so we are in a section of canon that has been referred to a lot."

That's the first quote that came up from cursory googling, but I don't have a compiled list of things Kurtzman has said, though I recall many promotional and BTS videos from the first two seasons of DSC having tons of similar quotes (possible I'm wrong, but that's the kind of deep dive I don't have the energy for today, so... sorry?)

Ha, just found another site with a longer version of that same Goldsman quote: "It is 10 years before TOS, so we are in a section of canon that has been referred to a lot. There is a lot of speculation about it. We are considering the novels not to be canon, but we are aware of them. And we are going to cross paths with components that Trek fans are familiar with, but it is its own standalone story, with its own characters and its own unique vision of Trek."

So... yeah, that's similar to the Tamara Deverell quote you pulled up. "Its own unique vision of Trek" doesn't really back up my argument. If anyone wants to dig through all those old clips of Kurtzman, have fun! I'm sure I'll be accused of moving the goalposts, but I wouldn't be sharing the words from Goldsman (that don't back me up) if I just wanted to "win" a BBS discussion.

 

[valkyrie013]

Even if you move forward to the refit of the movies when they had some money, the sets were never this elaborate. The transporter room for example looks similar to tos but better detailed. From a proported set leak it's totally different with bits and Bob's that takes tos ques like the green glass background.
My opinion, you can detail and dress up the tos/movie style without totally changing.