Hi everybody, Back in the early days of Discovery I remember it being explained that Kirsten Beyer was coordinating the tie-in comics and novels for the series to keep them in continuity with the TV show. While they weren't canon, i think the intent was to keep them as faithful to the continuity as possible. They would feed off the TV information but also feed story info back to the TV show too. I assume that her involvement with Picard media continued that intention of continuity into the Picard storylines, both TV and tie-in. Does this continuity effort also apply to Strange New Worlds? What about Lower Decks and Prodigy? Also, how has the effort paid off. Are the comics and novels consistent after 6 years? Have their been any major (or minor) contradictions? Overall, has the effort paid off with a consistent overall universe of TV, comics and novel storyljnes or did the TV shows just end up overwriting as they went? Either result is ok because CBS/ Paramount have the right to do what they wish with their intellectual property. I'm just wondering if there was a significant difference in how continuity progressed since they made the effort to coordinate. Thanks for any insight, jsplinis
The Prodigy novel Supernova and the Prodigy videogame Supernova depict the same adventure but in different ways. STO has incorporated some elements from the comics, like the mirror Galaxy class and Sisko's new ship. Main problem is probably that the shows lack some coordination amongst themselves - barely any of the crew from Pike's Enterprise seen in DSC and Short Treks made it to SNW proper.
How is that a problem? Ships change personnel over time. And naturally actors who are signed for one- or two-shot guest star gigs on one show are not necessarily going to be available for recurring or regular roles on a spinoff.
Kirsten Beyer supervised the IDW mini-series, "The Illyrian Enigma", which deliberated teased out some Illyrian threads between Seasons One and Two of SNW, knowing that Una's trial would be covered by the opening episodes of Season Two. Unexplained in the "Lower Decks" comic mini-series is how Mariner and Boimler interacted with the space hippies of "The Way to Eden" (TOS).
That was bizarre. It equated the space hippies with Catullans, even though Tongo Rad was the only Catullan among them and Dr. Sevrin was Tiburonian. It also assumed the space hippie attire, makeup style, and slang were unchanged after 120 years, which is exceedingly unlikely. (Unless it's some sort of retro fashion thing, I guess.) Although it did give us the classic line "Or, as we call them in space, regular hippies."
It's X-Men movieverse level continuity, as always. Take what they want, repurpose what they want, ignore the rest.
Which has always been more the rule than the exception. Although these days, home video and wikis have made it easier for audiences to keep track of exact details, so series do generally try harder to maintain strong continuity than they did in the past, e.g. the first three Frankenstein films where Frankenstein's lab moves from a tower in the mountains to an outbuilding on the castle grounds to a chamber underneath the castle.
I spot checked a couple novels and it appears Kirsten Beyer is involved with coordinating the tie-in novels for all 3 new live-action shows. Is she or some else coordinating tie-ins for Lower Decks and Prodigy? Also, what is her level of involvement with the comics and novels? How does it compare to Roberto Orci's role with Kelvin tie-ins? Or Richard Arnold's, or Van Citter's or any others who have been in a similar position?
Yep. And despite this, I have never, ever seen anybody insist that SON OF FRANKENSTEIN is not "canon" or set in a different "timeline" or a "multiverse" or whatever nitpicky nonsense the internet obsesses over these days. SON OF FRANKENSTEIN is the sequel to BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and FRANKENSTEIN, period, even if the details aren't 100% consistent from film to film. At the risk of channeling my inner curmudgeon again, there's something to be said for the more laissez-faire approach to continuity series took back in the day. Pretty sure nobody stormed out of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN back in the forties to pen a lengthy manifesto on why the movie wasn't "canon" or set in the original "timeline" as the previous two Karloff movies. They just wanted a good time at the movies.