It's like everything is a comic book debate, where there has to be a set standard from which to prove to everyone how much of a curbstomp battle it will be between your favorite character and the other guy. That's certainly the way Koenig played it in the scene. I've seen it get quite viscous, especially in certain other fandoms. Pretty much me. I would have never become a fan of Star Trek if the first thing I saw was TOS. I saw TNG first and a smattering of the TOS movies, and the tone and production values of both were, in my mind, far superior to TOS. And, above all, don't tell people you're trying to preserve canon when you're not. Just be honest. Nevermind that the two taste completely different. It was a quite a shock.
Canon is not something to be "preserved," though. A canon is just a story, and any story that's still ongoing is bound to evolve and change in the telling. The goal of creators of new canon is not to preserve it in unchanging form -- it's to add to it, to expand it, to update it. The only immutable canon is one that's no longer being created. You don't "preserve" a living, working artifact -- you use it. Museum pieces get preserved.
The comparison had come about there because it seemed like the showrunners were twisting themselves around trying to say Discovery is canon from the perspective that it should fit very neatly into the timeframe it takes place in. One of the examples I had seen is the design of the Klingons. Instead of saying these are just redesigned Klingons, they were instead trying to say these are another sect of Klingons never before seen. Huh. So someone said it was like McDonalds trying to give you another sandwich than the one you ordered and trying to insist it was the one you ordered. Not a totally accurate analogy, but I get it. Now I'll admit, I'm slow to accept things. When Enterprise came out at first I was like, this ain't no prequel. What are they trying to pull? But I stuck with it and the episodes got better and I came to accept it by the 2nd year. When I saw the Franklin in Beyond since it came from the time period of Enterprise I was looking for consistencies with that era (unlike some others, I actually thought they did a decent job with the Franklin on that front). So my initial doubt had become acceptance, and even more than that, I didn't want it ignored or contradicted. The same will happen with Discovery. However, there are certain key fundamentals I look for in Star Trek. While I liked Star Trek (2009) I had critiqued the film because it didn't feel much like a Star Trek film from a production design standpoint. It looked and felt more like a Star Wars film in many areas. I thought in STID they did a lot to bring Star Trek back into it. That film felt and looked more like a Star Trek film, as did Beyond. I know that's subjective and I can only speak from my perspective. While I agree with Christopher that Star Trek needs to grow and evolve to stay relevant (even if it takes me a while to get on board), I do feel there are certain things from a foundational perspective that should always be present (but again, that's from my personal perspective, things I look for may not necessarily be what others look for, which I'm sure makes it challenging for showrunners).
TOS was one of the great achievements of the modern age. I believe it to be museum worthy, which is not to say it can't be reimagined using a separate but unique continuity. The alternate reality crap is just that, crap else they would have done Straczinky's take on it which was much better.
At no point in the show have they said any such thing. On the contrary, they explicitly established that Kol was a member of the House of Kor, and thus presumably related to John Colicos's Kor, despite having a radically different makeup from either version Colicos sported. They are just redesigned Klingons, without any explanation given, any more than the changes in Romulan, Andorian, Tellarite, Trill, etc. makeup over the years have ever been explained in-story. It's more like two different chefs' interpretations of the same basic meal. One restaurant's chicken parmigiana might look and taste a lot different from another restaurant's chicken parmigiana, but you're still getting chicken.
And THIS is why I don't take them seriously. All of that was pure marketing to old fans, which is fine, except don't treat me like I'm so stupid I can't see that pretty much the opposite is happening. If you're gonna do one thing, own it. Don't pretend you're doing something else just to please a small minority who are never, ever going to like what you do anyway. That's what irks me. EDIT: Not very eloquent, but sums up what I'm getting at: In my mind, it was the precursor to one of the great achievements, but that's just me.
Some of the people that work on the show have said exactly that, that these are just a different segment of the Klingon population that we've never seen before. Now I know you'll say these are just production people, but when the people that work on the show say something like that, I tend to take them at their word. It's when they say things like that that I take exception to. Frankly I think they'd be better off if they simply said what you said, that they are redesigned Klingons, period. Instead they twist themselves in knots with bizarre explanations that don't make a lot of sense.
But not in the actual show. Offscreen comments are not part of the story. They're a separate thing. Most people will never read or hear those comments -- all they will have is the show itself. So none of it counts unless it's in an actual episode. You really shouldn't. For one thing, a TV show has multiple creators who may not agree on their interpretation of everything. For another thing, creators change their minds all the time, as better ideas come along. So what they say offscreen at a given point is not binding on what they decide to do onscreen later. For another thing, sometimes the things creators say in interviews are just a token gesture to appease oversensitive fans. In this case, I think that whoever said what you're referring to just meant that you could choose to interpret the new Klingon design that way if you wanted to. Like so many things in Trek, you can either just live with the discontinuity or you can try to handwave it, and they were just suggesting a possible handwave.
Perhaps so. I think that the showrunners have to keep a sort of coherent message though. Their people are going out there and saying things like that which is causing a great deal of consternation. It's ironic because it does really seem they are trying to keep a consistent storyline within the show itself, even attempting for the first time to incorporate novels and comics into the storyline so everyone is telling the same story, for lack of a better way to put it (whereas in the past novels and comics had to follow what was on screen, but not the other way around--this time it seems like more of a 2 way street). Yet they aren't really giving a consistent message on how to interpret the show compared to already existing canon like the original series, or Enterprise for example. My point is instead of just coming out and saying it's a redesign of the Star Trek universe, don't try to make it fit with what you've seen before, they have people giving muddled messages. It's a redesign, sort of, but really it should fit with the original series time frame, but not really, these are a new sect of Klingons, but they're redesigned. In a sense by trying to appease the fans who don't want to see a redesign (who they'll never satisfy anyway) they just tick them off more because they feel like they are trying to insult their intelligence. And my bet, much like Enterprise before it, given enough time if the stories are good enough, they'll win over some of those stubborn fans. I'll admit, I can be one of those stubborn fans myself. But I have yet to see a Star Trek series that has not won me over. I was skeptical of TNG because it was Star Trek without Kirk and Spock. Ditto for DS9 because it was basically a stationary show. I thought Enterprise was a poor prequel to begin. But each show won me over and got to the point I felt they were each an important part of the Star Trek universe.
The message is the show. That's where they say what they want to say. Among a tiny contingent of people on the Internet. Just because they make a lot of noise in their narrow circle doesn't mean they're actually numerous. And come on, "consternation?" That's silly. These are just stories. If something seems odd to you, use your own imagination and figure it out.
For lack of a better word. When I read the articles over at trekmovie's website, it caused quite a stir judging from the comments. I don't comment much over there anymore because it can get ugly and contentious. I love a good debate and argument even, but there's a fine line and it gets crossed a lot over there. I love Star Trek and love to debate it, but at the end of the day it is entertainment. And there are a lot of things I'm entertained with. I love James Bond movies, Hitchcock movies, I can tell you anything you want to know about Dallas (the show, yeah, not sure how that snuck in there...and I know who shot JR , and I'm still mad at TNT for cutting the show short and leaving a bunch of loose ends). But Star Trek is my favorite, and actually the only thing I actually bother to comment on online. Sometimes I wonder why I get so hung up about things about Star Trek. But I guess the people at CBS should be happy we all do care so much. If we were all like, who cares, it's just a stupid show, then they'd probably have something to worry about. True, these are a small contingent of fans, and I find inconsistent messages by the production team only fans the flames. I know they are trying to appease the fans but it'd probably be better if they just didn't bother. And like it or not but when people involved with the production say things, some people take it as a fact about the show.
That's true of comment sections all over the Internet. Unmoderated comment sections attract all the worst people. Generally it's best just to ignore them. Like I said, best to ignore them. Use your own judgment.
Another thing to keep in mind with Discovery, is that in the early stages there were a lot changes going on, so there's always the chance they were being honest when they said that, but then the Klingons ended up being changed later. I do remember them saying that about the Klingons, but then we got the meeting with representatives of all the major Houses in one of the early episodes, and at that point it became pretty clear that all of the Klingons looked like Kol, Voq, L'Rell and co.
Feature Films: Destiny trilogy could probably be cut down by minimising the Columbia scenes Ex Machina as a sequel to TMP Serpents Amongst the Ruins The Buried Age Engines of Destiny The Q Continuum Articles of the Federation Mini Series / arc-heavy TV series: Vanguard series DS9 Relaunch pre-Destiny (Avatar -> The Soul Key) Millennium Trilogy as a limited series maybe ten episodes A Time to series as a Season 8 of TNG ENT: Rise of the Federation VOY ReRelaunch (the Beyer Era) Typhon Pact novels "weekly" / episodic TV series The Lost Era, Enterprise three episode arcs anthology style SCE/CoE IKS Gorkon / Klingon Empire Seekers DTI Star Trek Titan
And a couple more, later on, which were pretty epic in and of themselves as establishing that into a very wide arc
"The Nanotech War" by Steven Piziks. It'd work well as an animated feature, like "Prodigy." The Chiar and their cities would look very cool in CGI.