I think it would be good if any spin-off literature set in the new continuity of ST XI would try and offer some explanations for the errors that are in the movie (e.g. the oft-discussed inconsistent speeds of the NuEnterprise, why the Klingons didn't adapt the Narada's tech, etc). Other books have addressed such issues in past movies and series, a good example being the great Greg Cox, whose Khan novel To Reign in Hell provided an explanation for the radical difference in the Augments of "Space Seed" and TWOK, and how the USS Reliant crew mistook Ceti Alpha V for Ceti Alpha VI. The authors of the ENT novel The Good That Men Do also helped fix a great many of the problems of the ENT finale.
Should novels set in the JJVerse rectify the film's plot holes?
- Thread starter EJA
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Re: Charting the Novel-verse
God no.
I'm sick of reading page-wasting "fixes" for the "Balance of Terror" Romulan "impulse only" drive, why the Borg act slightly different in TNG and VOY and so forth. Unless 100% relevent to the story being told most mistakes are "best left unsolved" IMO.
Any fan can make up a fix for a mistake in an episode or film if they want to. You shouldn't need to read one in a book (which isn't canon anyway) in order to be able to enjoy said film or episode.
The Nero comic already showed Nerada's defences vaporizing Klingons who annoyed it.
The fast trip to Vulcan has been discussed to death already on TBBS. Note that Kirk had time to change before reaching the sickbay (you could add hours there if you need to), and that ships in Star Trek have moved at the speed of plot since "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
IMO The Good That Men Do is a prime example of why authors should leave well alone. They took a bad episode and made an even more nonsensical mess of it.
Rant over.
God no.
I'm sick of reading page-wasting "fixes" for the "Balance of Terror" Romulan "impulse only" drive, why the Borg act slightly different in TNG and VOY and so forth. Unless 100% relevent to the story being told most mistakes are "best left unsolved" IMO.
Any fan can make up a fix for a mistake in an episode or film if they want to. You shouldn't need to read one in a book (which isn't canon anyway) in order to be able to enjoy said film or episode.
The Nero comic already showed Nerada's defences vaporizing Klingons who annoyed it.
The fast trip to Vulcan has been discussed to death already on TBBS. Note that Kirk had time to change before reaching the sickbay (you could add hours there if you need to), and that ships in Star Trek have moved at the speed of plot since "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
IMO The Good That Men Do is a prime example of why authors should leave well alone. They took a bad episode and made an even more nonsensical mess of it.
Rant over.
Even if they wanted to they probably wouldn't be allowed to - last year when the novelization came out there was an interview with ADF where he mentioned wanting to correct the origin of Bones being called Bones and they were very firm about saying no.
Re: Charting the Novel-verse
I feel I should point out that explanations have been posited for the oddities in WNMHGB, such as the Enterprise travelling via a wormhole in Federation space to the outer rim of the galaxy. XI's oddities, however, are a bit harder to reconcile.
I feel I should point out that explanations have been posited for the oddities in WNMHGB, such as the Enterprise travelling via a wormhole in Federation space to the outer rim of the galaxy. XI's oddities, however, are a bit harder to reconcile.
Coulda been the same wormhole. You know...the one that's always lurking just off-camera.
When I was hired to do Seek a Newer World, I was told outright not to engage in any kind of apologies or rationalizations, let alone "fixes" or changes, for things in the movie. And I'd independently arrived at the same decision already. That had been my first impulse, since I love explaining things, but I realized that the goal of these books was to appeal to the same new audience the film itself was targeted at. It won't help the fandom grow if the books just cater to the pre-existing fanbase and try to rationalize the new film in terms of their expectations -- let alone if the books adopt a critical tone toward the film that's brought in so many new fans and potential new readers. The goal was to tell new standalone stories in the film's universe, to draw in people who enjoyed the film and say "Hey, here are more fun adventures in the same vein."
That said, I was able to sneak in a few subtle clarifications just as throwaway lines, the sort of thing that wouldn't distract new fans but that continuity-savvy readers would notice and go, "Oh yeah, that clears things up." Like a passing reference to Kirk meeting Scotty on one of the Delta Vega consortium's mining planets (implying there are multiple such worlds that can be called "Delta Vega"). Sometimes a few words is all it takes.
Not really. It's just that longtime fans aren't as used to living with them. You want a film that's really filled with gigantic plot holes, look at The Wrath of Khan. Why can't Reliant's crew count to six? How come Khan's multiethnic followers have turned Aryan, and why are they twentysomething if they've been stranded for 15 years and were adults before? How do Khan's people have movie-era medical monitors and insignias if they were stranded in the TV era? Why does Scotty abandon his post and take his dying nephew to the bridge instead of sickbay? Why is a great mind like Khan's unable to parse the screamingly obvious "hours will seem like days" code? Why does the Ceti eel leave Chekov instead of killing him? Why is Spock the only one who can restart the engines when they've got a whole crew of engineers down there? How has Federation technology suddenly advanced to the out-and-out magical level of being able to create entire planets with a torpedo smaller than a person? Why does Kirk say he's "never faced death" before after losing Gary Mitchell, Edith Keeler, his brother and sister-in-law, his wife Miramanee, and his unborn child within the span of a few years? Nothing about TWOK makes sense if you really examine it. But like ST 2009, it's got a strong core of character and emotion and that makes people willing to excuse its many, many absurdities. And people have spent over 20 years rationalizing or ignoring its flaws, so they tend to forget how massive those flaws were.
That said, I was able to sneak in a few subtle clarifications just as throwaway lines, the sort of thing that wouldn't distract new fans but that continuity-savvy readers would notice and go, "Oh yeah, that clears things up." Like a passing reference to Kirk meeting Scotty on one of the Delta Vega consortium's mining planets (implying there are multiple such worlds that can be called "Delta Vega"). Sometimes a few words is all it takes.
Not really. It's just that longtime fans aren't as used to living with them. You want a film that's really filled with gigantic plot holes, look at The Wrath of Khan. Why can't Reliant's crew count to six? How come Khan's multiethnic followers have turned Aryan, and why are they twentysomething if they've been stranded for 15 years and were adults before? How do Khan's people have movie-era medical monitors and insignias if they were stranded in the TV era? Why does Scotty abandon his post and take his dying nephew to the bridge instead of sickbay? Why is a great mind like Khan's unable to parse the screamingly obvious "hours will seem like days" code? Why does the Ceti eel leave Chekov instead of killing him? Why is Spock the only one who can restart the engines when they've got a whole crew of engineers down there? How has Federation technology suddenly advanced to the out-and-out magical level of being able to create entire planets with a torpedo smaller than a person? Why does Kirk say he's "never faced death" before after losing Gary Mitchell, Edith Keeler, his brother and sister-in-law, his wife Miramanee, and his unborn child within the span of a few years? Nothing about TWOK makes sense if you really examine it. But like ST 2009, it's got a strong core of character and emotion and that makes people willing to excuse its many, many absurdities. And people have spent over 20 years rationalizing or ignoring its flaws, so they tend to forget how massive those flaws were.
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Re: Charting the Novel-verse
Such as?
The Nerada's unique look was explained in Countdown, as was the bald/tattooed look of the crew.
nuDelta Vega was hinted at although not spelled out in Nero (a planet in the Vulcan system with a unique orbit that just happened to be at it's closest to Vulcan affording a great view at the time)
The bigger-than-the-TOS Enterprise USS Kelvin? Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky postulated a few mile long Defender-class uberships in the TOS era in 1980something.
Try typing "Star Trek mistakes" into YouTube and watch the pre-STXI canon fall apart
Such as?
The Nerada's unique look was explained in Countdown, as was the bald/tattooed look of the crew.
nuDelta Vega was hinted at although not spelled out in Nero (a planet in the Vulcan system with a unique orbit that just happened to be at it's closest to Vulcan affording a great view at the time)
The bigger-than-the-TOS Enterprise USS Kelvin? Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky postulated a few mile long Defender-class uberships in the TOS era in 1980something.
Try typing "Star Trek mistakes" into YouTube and watch the pre-STXI canon fall apart
Wow. My appreciation for Alan Dean Foster has just multiplied exponentially. That line set my teeth on edge.
In general, though, I agree with KingDaniel. While I do enjoy a bit of fan-service now and then, a lot of times with these big continuity fixes, it seems like the authors are trying so hard to fit them in that they end up discussing something that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Not to pick on you, Christopher, but I think a good example is in Ex Machina, when you threw in the thing about Chekov leading an assault to retake engineering from Khan (to explain how Khan recognized him in TWoK). I felt that was totally irrelevant to anything going on in the story, and seemed very shoehorned. Not to mention the fact that if I wasn't familiar with that fanon concept from the message boards, I wouldn't have even made the connection of what you were trying to rectify (which would've made it seem even more random).
Anyway, I'll stop before I really start to rant, but the point is, if it's organically a part of the story, go for it, but if not, I'm just as happy without it.
You're right on all other counts, so this almost doesn't seem worth questioning, but I know you take pride in the details, so I'll go ahead. Doesn't the Genesis torpedo work by vitalizing an existing (but lifeless) planet, rather than creating a whole new one? Isn't that why the Reliant had to go on that long, tedious mission to find a planet that was completely lifeless?
I completely agree with this. When I was a kid, I loved TWoK. When I was new to the fan community, I tried to justify its many mistakes. Now, I just accept that the plot has more holes than a whiffle ball. A lot of action movies do, though, and that really doesn't matter, ultimately. I'm pretty sure that plot holes generally only bother people when they've already found something else distasteful about what they're watching. One of my favorite shows on TV right now, "Chuck," has a ton of plot holes. A lot of times, I find myself thinking "we're just gonna have to let that one go." But it's okay, because, as Christopher said, what really matters is the characters and emotion, and whether you care about the people involved in the story. You could have the most flawless plot in history, but if you don't have those things, what's the point?
All of the entries in the franchise have their logical problems. This is why the Nitpicker's Guide for each series could be written in the first place. I don't mind if an author clears up one or more issues in their book as long as there's also an entertaining story being told. Throwaway lines and winks at the attentive audience are cool with me.
The Good That Men Do went further than it had to. There are ways to explain away the holoprogram that are shorter and do not separate Trip from the crew for all time. The solution used is almost as bad as the problem in terms of what it does for future storytelling possibilities.
EDIT: Regarding the Genesis torpedo, didn't it create the Genesis planet from the matter in the Mutara Nebula? Protomatter is still very much a plot device, but at least the conservation laws are upheld.
The Good That Men Do went further than it had to. There are ways to explain away the holoprogram that are shorter and do not separate Trip from the crew for all time. The solution used is almost as bad as the problem in terms of what it does for future storytelling possibilities.
EDIT: Regarding the Genesis torpedo, didn't it create the Genesis planet from the matter in the Mutara Nebula? Protomatter is still very much a plot device, but at least the conservation laws are upheld.
Actually I think the ADF quote being referred to wasn't about reconciling ST'09 with prior continuity, but about making the novelization consistent with the finished film (where McCoy said "nothing but my Bones") rather than with the script (where he said "my skeleton" instead).
Oh, I'll agree, there's definitely more shoehorned continuity in Ex Machina than there needed to be. It was my first novel and I hadn't learned restraint yet.
Which is exactly the problem. If it was programmed merely to restructure an existing planet, it shouldn't have been possible for that same programming to work on a nebula and transform it into an entire planet (and even its sun??) from scratch. It should've simply done nothing (nothing successful, anyway) because it wasn't being applied to the situation it was designed for.
Not to mention the immense power required. Even if we interpret Genesis as some type of transporter-based technology, a massive-scale application of the replicator concept, think of the energy that would be required to transform the surface of an entire planet, let alone create such a planet out of a nebula in mere minutes. Then look at the teeny-tiny Genesis torpedo. How could something that small contain that much power? I read the novelization of TWOK before I saw the movie, and when I read about the Genesis torpedo, I was expecting something the size of a small ICBM, say. Then I saw the movie and it turned out to be barely five feet long, and I couldn't believe how stupid that was.
Indeed. And of course when it comes to absurdities and implausibilities, TOS itself tops just about everything. Space amoebas? Duplicate Earths? Space gangsters and space Nazis? Teenagers with magic powers? Dr. McCoy being too incompetent to tell the difference between blindness and an inner eyelid? Spock being too incompetent to remember that ultraviolet is part of the EM spectrum? Not to mention all the internal consistencies of a series that was making up its universe as it went along and took half a season even to settle on what some of its key institutions and species were named. But fans bought into it anyway because they bought into the characters.
Are you sure? Why would they not let him make it consistent with the finished film?
Fair enough.
It turned a nebula into a planet? Really? Man, it's been way too long since I've seen TWoK, apparently.
(That's not sarcasm, I'm actually being serious. I guess I lose nerd points for not knowing that, but I never used to pay attention to that stuff before I came on the board.)
QFT. That whole "He's blind! Oh wait, he's not!" might actually be the weakest reset button in the entire history of the franchise. Besides the fact that McCoy didn't notice, why didn't Spock just tell someone? "Oh, hey guys, this'll wear off in, like, a day."
Re: Charting the Novel-verse
The Genesis sun could have been a star hidden inside the Mutara Nebula somewhere all along.
This pseudo-fix brought to you by The Best of Trek #14. It's weird how the Trek trivia you were reading just yesterday comes up today...
(and from these old books, I can tell you that fans were not happy about the STII, III and IV plot holes back then)
The Genesis sun could have been a star hidden inside the Mutara Nebula somewhere all along.
This pseudo-fix brought to you by The Best of Trek #14. It's weird how the Trek trivia you were reading just yesterday comes up today...
(and from these old books, I can tell you that fans were not happy about the STII, III and IV plot holes back then)
Sorry, I misremembered. From a Wired interview:
Still not about reconciling with past canon, though (since there never was any canonical explanation for "Bones"), just an artistic judgment to try to make the joke a bit more subtle.
I've heard a variety of after-the-fact rationalizations. But as far as you could tell by watching the film, the sun came out of nowhere, as if planets just automatically have suns along with them. It's still a flaw in the film as presented, regardless of how fans may choose to explain it away later.
I think McIntyre presents the same in her novelization, saying there was a protostar in the nebula or somesuch. There is that flickering light during the battle sequence, which I'd always taken as the star.
But in any case: please minimal continuity spackle in any JJverse novels.
But in any case: please minimal continuity spackle in any JJverse novels.
Christopher, isn't the reason McCoy is called Bones a fairly oblique reference to the term Sawbones from old naval times?
As for the Mutara Nebula/Genesis thing, you have the Deus Ex Machina explanation that the torpedo has volatile protomatter and the energy produced from the warp core explosion would provide enough energy, and probably mutate the Genesis stuff, to turn the nebula into a planet. And since a star is just a ball of hot gas, there's no reason why a small sun could not have been created and then gone into a micro-supernova which helped along the destruction of the unstable planet since the planetary matrix was non-existent.
As for the Mutara Nebula/Genesis thing, you have the Deus Ex Machina explanation that the torpedo has volatile protomatter and the energy produced from the warp core explosion would provide enough energy, and probably mutate the Genesis stuff, to turn the nebula into a planet. And since a star is just a ball of hot gas, there's no reason why a small sun could not have been created and then gone into a micro-supernova which helped along the destruction of the unstable planet since the planetary matrix was non-existent.
That's certainly the prevailing theory over the years, and is mentioned in a lot of the "making of" material, but I'm pretty sure it was never mentioned onscreen, thus making it's canonicity up for interpretation.
I'm fine with the new one explanation personally, it's after "the point*" so things like that don't bother me.
The trip to Vulcan does bother me a bit since that's actual math, and I wouldn't mind seeing that touched on a little bit in a novel.
But then Spock "seeing" Vulcan explode doesn't bother me since it occurs during the mindmeld and can easily be explained as metaphorical.
In summation, maybe we should leave it alone? But then again, I loved The Good That Men Do, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.
*Narada coming through the time-hole and creating the new line being "the point".
Metatextually, yes. I was referring to canonical explanations, i.e. something stated onscreen and in-universe.
In other words, magic. If you blew up your computer, would it "mutate" the programming of your Adobe Reader in a way that would make it spontaneously generate the Great American Novel? That's what I'm talking about here. The Genesis torpedo was supposed to be programmed to transform a specific target substrate in a specific way. It simply wasn't designed to work on a nebula. And you can deduce that purely from what was stated in the film itself. Diverging from reality is one thing, but when a story isn't even consistent within itself, that's simply cheating.
Oh, there are a ton of kinetic, thermodynamic, chemical, and other physical reasons why it couldn't possibly happen that way, certainly not in less that a few million years.
A while back on this BBS, someone offered a terrific explanation for how that star could've already been there. (Searches) Ahh, here it is:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=3460686&postcount=47
Myasishchev suggested that Mutara could be a planetary nebula around a post-Main-Sequence star, with the Regula planetoid as an outlying body in its orbit. Thus the star would be inside the nebula and be the source of it. It's a bit problematical in terms of the density and appearance of the nebula, but it's the only plausible suggestion I've heard for the origin of the star.
Except in A Piece Of The Action...
CONTINUITY SPACKLE is now the name of my new band.