Should Text from Set Decorations Be Considered Canon?

[Praetor]

Lately, I've been noticing that on Memory Alpha, with the new TNG Blu-Rays, folks have been taking to filling in names and registries for starships, and other information, based on screencaps of quick flashes of display screens.

Frankly, I don't like it, but it really brought up the question of the thread - should these materials be considered canon?

Specifically, I'm talking not about things that the production team knew we the viewers would read, but smaller things that require screencap and study to fully interpret. How much of this should we accept as "fact" and why?

Personally, I think this sort of material falls into two groups; the production team in newer productions seems to like to include Easter Eggs for viewers and hardcore fans to pause and look at, whereas in older productions I think it was generally assumed that most of it was not going to be seen by fans, and so many in-jokes were included. The former, such as the bio screens in ENT's "In A Mirror Darkly" I'm more apt to include than information about the "Great Bird of the Galaxy," a bird with a man's head from early TNG.

What say you?

 

[T'Girl]

Unless it's out and out goofy, or jibberish, I say yes on canon.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Nope. They're fun easter eggs or trivia, but nothing more. I'm not gonna lose any sleep if a plaque on the bridge says the Enterpise was comissioned on date X but an episode puts it on date Y.

Trek is more of a mythology, wide open to interpretation and modification, than a story set in stone.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Deja Vu.

 

[Nine of Four]

^ ^ Tru dat!!!!

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'd rather experience Dejah Thoris.

 

[Praetor]

Did I miss a thread?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yes

 

[austen_pierce]

Sounds like we're duplicating but without a link back to the original, I'll add my two cents here. My feeling is that in the absence of contradiction, we can assume that what we see and read on screen is canon. If contradicted by dialogue, dialogue wins. Call it canon triage (groaner, I know).

 

[Praetor]

Ah, frak. Mods, feel free to close this one. Totally didn't see the other one.

 

[mythme]

its what is sometimes referred to as soft- or quasi-canon. as said above, unless it is jibberish or contradicted by something verbally stated, then it is accepted as truth. But this has been the convention even before the age of Blu-Ray. The text in the "Conundrum" bios, for instance. No where is it said that Beverly was born on the moon. But there it is, and is universally accepted. In fact, during the remastering process they are often making the text jibe with accepted canon, often removing the sillier "inside jokes" from the original Okudagrams, like Claire Raymond's descendants being Muppets in "The Neutral Zone"

 

[Kegg]

Nope. They're fun easter eggs or trivia, but nothing more.

Which is precisely why they should be on Memory Alpha. All the little details is half of the fun of that site.

I don't see anything wrong in considering them canon. Okay, it might be canon that contradicts some other canon but that is hardly new.

 

[Melakon]

But this means all those Buckaroo Banzai and Dirty Pair references are then canon. Well, screw it. In my fictional sci-fi universe, equipment and support craft are often brandnamed as Kurosawa.

 

[jpv2000]

its what is sometimes referred to as soft- or quasi-canon. as said above, unless it is jibberish or contradicted by something verbally stated, then it is accepted as truth. But this has been the convention even before the age of Blu-Ray. The text in the "Conundrum" bios, for instance. No where is it said that Beverly was born on the moon. But there it is, and is universally accepted. In fact, during the remastering process they are often making the text jibe with accepted canon, often removing the sillier "inside jokes" from the original Okudagrams, like Claire Raymond's descendants being Muppets in "The Neutral Zone"

Indeed. This, and what was said above is how I've always looked at it.

 

[T'Girl]

The large display in sickbay: "Medical Insurance Remaining."

The lettering isn't exactly small, there are lot's of broadcast episodes where it clearly visible, not just on DVD/blueray.

 

[Shawnster]

It's canon only if the text is integral to the plot. If you were going to write a novelization adaptation of the episode, the visuals from the episode you'd chose to describe with words would be canon. The Easter eggs, on the other hand, are fun to notice but, ultimately, shouldn't be counted as canon, in my opinion. Otherwise, that large rubber ducky and prop plane are integral components on the Galaxy Class starship.

OH, that's a good point. If those things were meant to be considered canon, they would not have been covered up in certain episodes. I can't remember which episodes now but those specific Easter eggs from the Galaxy Class MSD (the duck, Nomad, the Plane, etc..) were masked out in some close up shots. The masking was specifically over those individual pieces and, thus, not simply masking out reflection.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/in-jokes.htm discusses these in-jokes and how they were masked out in the episode Mind's Eye

 

[Nine of Four]

I completely agree, Shawnster. If it is a component of the episode, it's canon, if it's an "easter egg", it's not.

But the ducky is real.....

 

[Shawnster]

The ducky is a lie.

No, wait, that was the cellular peptide cake.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^With mint frosting.

 

[Melakon]

They keep the ducky in the swimming pool near the bowling alley.