Should we get books that are accepted as part of canon?
- Thread starter Jayson
- Start date
I just checked Rodenberry.com, and they've changed it, so now all they have are episode scripts from Seasons 1 of TOS and TNG. I know they used to have pretty much all of the scripts and bibles from all of the seaons of all of the shows, but appently something changed.
Hah!
Sorry not to respond earlier, but I was trying to figure out some way to top this . . . and couldn't.
There just has to be a SUX COX joke here somewhere, but I can't find it.
ltcmmanderdata
Lieutenant Commander
its a good idea but it doesn't appear to be practical. when it comes to canon and books its probably better to leave well enough alone.
Exactly!
Any movie producer who raised this objection would be laughed out of the room. If not actually shipped off to a psych ward.
"Hah! You had me going there for a minute. What's that word again? 'Canon?' Admit it. You made that up, didn't you? . . . Seriously, though, is Burger King aboard again?"
I think canon(or continuity) is what seperates "Star Trek" from something like "Lost in Space." This idea of all these shows being connected and being part of the same mythos I feel gives the Trekverse some dramatic weight. "star Trek" should never be treated like a comic book were there is nothing to the characters than being archtypes. If you do that then your characters can't really grow or change because they got to stay true to their archtype. This might be okay for movies but it would really blow when it comes to tv shows. Not to mention the fact your basically limited all future trek adventure to be nothing but TOS and maybe TNG stories.
Jason
^Again, canon and continuity ARE NOT SYNONYMS. A canon is the complete core body of a creative work. The three seasons of Lost in Space constitute its canon, regardless of any continuity issues. Lots of canons have poor continuity. The first usage of the term "canon" in this sense was in reference to the Sherlock Holmes canon, meaning the 4 novels and 56 stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And that canon has dreadful continuity. It's full of contradictions. Canon is not a value judgment. It doesn't mean a particular way of creating a fictional series. It only means the series itself as distinct from derivative works.
Also, you clearly don't read comic books if you think they're devoid of continuity or characterization.
Also, you clearly don't read comic books if you think they're devoid of continuity or characterization.
But "Lost in Space" has its own canon, from which non-canonical works are derived, such as the comic book continuation of the Robinsons' story (some issues based on Bill Mumy's unfilmed reunion script), which is at odds with the "Lost in Space" movie remake/continuation that was obviously written to have an adult Bill Mumy star as an adult Will meeting young Will.
And "Lost in Space" is itself loosely derived from a Gold Key "Space Family Robinson" comic series.
So the LiS tie-ins and the ST tie-ins have much in common.
No it isn't. The Irwin Allen project was developed independently of the Disney/Gold Key project. They were both inspired by The Swiss Family Robinson, the popular story about a castaway family which had had a film remake by Disney a few years before. They both independently called their projects Space Family Robinson, but when Allen learned of the Disney property, he changed the title of his pilot to Lost in Space. I have a book on LiS which claims that Disney was developing a Space Family Robinson film and commissioned a Gold Key comic based on it, but Don Markstein's Toonopedia says the comic came first and may have been created by Carl Barks. Anyway, Gold Key could've theoretically sued Irwin Allen, since they were there first, but they already had a licensing deal with Allen and didn't want to damage that, so they just added Lost in Space as a (large) subtitle on their comic, even though there was no relation to the show beyond the premise of a family named Robinson stranded in space.
Interestingly, Gold Key's Space Family Robinson lived in a space station called K-7. Could David Gerrold have been a fan of the comic?
Yep. I didn't want to go into all that, not being any type of expert in LiS, so I (stupidly) hoped "loosely derived" would suffice. I thought there was a little put and take between the two concepts once they were both unrolling. The comic featured twin kids, if I recall?
That's why I said canon/continuity. I don't want to get the two idea's mixed up. The main point I am trying to say though is that continuity that connects all the shows together and is fairly consitent, I feel gives the shows a sense of reality. It makes it feel real. Which is important I think when your dealing with a fictional universe that is pretty unrealstic compared to the real world. Oviously things will deviate and change and things will be forgotten or ignored. For the most part though I have felt the shows have done a godo job of keeping everything feel connected as if it's all taking place in the same universe.
I enjoy the comics and I agree. They have done a good job. Most of them I even have accepted as part of the canon/continuity. I'm not saying books that aren't connected will suck or anything. I just feel like those that do seem to be more connected feel a little more special. Plus there is the fact that the Abramsverse is kind of unique in that it's basically a blank slate right now. All we know about is what we saw in the movie. To me that seems like a good thing in that you could basically use the books to sort of build this world up. Give it more depth and if these books were offically suported by the people currently in charge of the Abramsverse that would give them a level of authencity that a ordinay book in this universe might not have. Something that,while it might be contradicted, it will still be somewhat acurate look at this new trekverse.
I can't help but feel that any books in the Abramsverse might feel limited to having to do alien-of-the week stories and won't be able to make many changes to the Abramsverse or characters because they will feel the need to keep the status quo in place for the next movie. The Ds9 relauch books and so forth no longer have those restrictions. Offical canon/continuity books might would be able to get away with more than a regular book.
Jason
But if you use both words at the same point in the same sentence, aren't you by definition mixing them up, treating them as equivalent? If you'd just stop using the word "canon" altogether and stick with "continuity," you'd be fine.
Which would you rather have the filmmakers do: focus on making the best movies they can, or divide their attention between movies and books and therefore do less than their best job on both? Filmmaking takes a long time, and these folks are busy enough making Fringe, and writing other movies in Kurtzman & Orci's case, as well as developing a movie sequel. Is it realistic to expect these busy people to take the time necessary to put that kind of care into a novel series that would be read by maybe 2% of their filmgoing audience at most, and perhaps diminish the quality of the next movie in the process?
And don't assume that the direct participation of the "Supreme Court" is the only way to make the books accurate. Paula Block and John Van Citters at CBS Licensing are responsible for keeping books consistent with canon. Bad Robot Productions would also presumably have approval over any Abrams-continuity novels; even if they don't actively shape those novels, they'd still be in a position to reject or correct anything that was overtly inconsistent. Roberto Orci has been very open with the press and the fans about background ideas in the movie, and that's a resource a writer could draw on. Maybe a writer with the right connections could talk to some of the production staff from the film and get some behind-the-scenes insights. We're not working in a total vacuum here.
Your concern is accuracy, but all Trek novels are required to be accurate to the universe as it's depicted at the time the novel is written, and it's the work of people like those mentioned above (along with the author and editor themselves) to ensure that. Ideally, inaccuracies only occur when new material comes along that contradicts an earlier work. And as we've pointed out to you before, direct involvement of the filmmakers wouldn't prevent that kind of retroactive inaccuracy, because they might change their own minds about what they have planned for the universe. It's not like they have a perfect image in their minds of every single thing that's going to happen. Filmmaking is a dynamic process. Any script will go through many, many changes before it's filmed, and what's filmed will be changed even more in editing. It's impossible for anyone, even the filmmakers themselves, to predict what will happen in future movies, so it's impossible to do anything that's guaranteed to stay "accurate." And we already have means to keep the books as accurate as we can even without the filmmakers directly intervening.
So it comes down to the same thing we've been telling you for weeks: that what you're asking for is both impossible and unnecessary.
No, they wouldn't, for reasons that have been explained to you in exhaustive and repetitive detail. As long as there is new screen canon, tie-ins can't be expected to take the lead in advancing the universe, no matter who's behind them. They're supplemental material read by a tiny fraction of the moviegoing audience, so it would be the tail wagging the dog if they took (or shared) the lead.
The only reason the DS9 and other post-finale books have that kind of freedom is because there's essentially no chance of those series ever returning. As I've said before, the kind of things you're asking for are only possible with a series that's dead and gone onscreen. As long as the Abramsverse is an active franchise, there cannot be anything remotely like the DS9 post-finale continuity in its books. You've been told this over and over. Yes, it would be nice to have what you're asking for, but it is simply impossible. No matter how many times you ask for the same thing, the answer is not going to change.
Your lack of faith in the current crop of pro authors is amazing.
^Your confidence is appreciated, Therin, but he's right up to a point -- as long as the film series is ongoing, it presumably would be necessary to avoid any major changes in the status quo. The trick is figuring out how to tell interesting stories without such changes. We wouldn't have the leeway to do the equivalent of post-finale DS9 or Destiny or The Good That Men Do or the like, but maybe we could pull off the equivalent of The 34th Rule or String Theory or Immortal Coil or, dare I say, Ex Machina -- something that doesn't alter the characters or universe beyond what was established onscreen but still finds a worthwhile and meaningful story to tell.
And I don't see any problem with the first new JJ-timeline novels not attempting to change the status quo, since there's very little established/known status quo (yet) to change, and the tie-in readership is so miniscule compared to the film audience size.
Well-regarded novels, such as "The Wounded Sky", "Uhura's Song" - and especially titles like "Imzadi" and "Fallen Heroes", written while the shows were unfolding - managed to tell wonderful stories that did not depend on changing the then-current status quo. Although one could argue that a horta Starfleet officer was stretching the status quo, in ways future films were unlikely to go. (In fact, the production team wanted a horta in the ST IV council scenes!)
As long as the new film series is ongoing, I don't necessarily want the novels to attempt to anticipate its future, canonical status quo, in order for more than 1% of the audience to accept them as "real" enough.
Similar threads
