As for questions of TAS's 'canonicity' which were mentioned earlier, evidently the main reason that Roddenberry (and/or his lawyers?) did not want it to be used as source material for newer Trek had more to do with legal questions of IP ownership and rights since one or more of the entities involved in TAS's production had gone belly-up. All that stuff must have been sorted out in recent years.
Kor
It was also the nature of some of the stories. While some were fantastic, some make Spock's Brain look like a masterpiece. Larry Niven's actually is a merger of his aliens with Star Trek. So there is a lot that isn't quite right with TAS. I get the feeling that there is the same thought with TAS as with Discovery that it is an official production so it must be canon.
I think the definition of canon is confused. Every time I look it up, I do not get "the officially produced list bye the rights holder". Instead I get various definitions that are based on consensus.
a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged.
a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine.
the works of a particular author or artist that are recognized as genuine.
the list of works considered to be permanently established as being of the highest quality.
So the definition of canon most keep shoving at me doesn't seem to fit these. What I see are things that CBS wants to be considered as official, but also what I see is a franchise that has had such change in direction in recent years that you could argue it breaks several of these definitions of canon. It is not the work of the same author or artist. It does not feel genuine to the original (or anything made before 2005). And there is definitely a quality difference (which way depends on what you are looking at and your personal preferences).
Canon isn't quite the same for each franchise and not all fans go along with the franchise owner. If you look at the other major human endeavor that uses the word canon - religion - you find that forced agreement results in schisms and division. Do we really need such horrible divisions. I'm not telling anyone to not consider Dis/SNW canon. And I've encountered quite a few here at TrekBBS who think I am nuts for calling Picard a great series that is true to TNG (as in I consider it canon).
I'm not feeling a lot of IDIC vibes in this thread for my opinion that Discovery and SNW are not part of the same continuity as the pre-2005 Trek or Picard. Instead I'm getting a lot of "you are wrong" on my opinions. I hope I have clearly expressed them as such - that is occasionally a failing of mine.
I just don't consider things made with such a poor attention to detail and continuity as Discovery to be part of the same universe as the others. Memory Alpha and Memory Beta exist and you can lookup just about everything in seconds if you wanted to check any part for continuity or previous canon. I don't have a problem with anyone liking it. I personally think season 1 of Discovery is the worst Star Trek made in all of Star Trek history in a tie with Into Darkness. I'm not forcing that opinion on anyone.
Canon to me requires continuity and isn't really in the hands of the producers if they choose to ignore previous canon. It's like the Catholic Church suddenly implementing a prohibition on pork and shellfish because that is what the current Vatican wants. People would not follow along just like there are fans who aren't following some of what CBS is doing with Star Trek. Sure it is technically head canon, but over time that head canon impacts the series. There are plenty of instances of head canon that have become canon because someone got hired by the franchise. Quite a few things from fandom and books have ended up as canon. SNW has made Number One's name from a book canon.
So as far as I'm concerned, even if you consider everything officially made as canon, you are still the one choosing what is canon. You are just choosing to agree with CBS where I do not agree with them. We all care about different things and I am not bashful that the tech of Star Trek has always been a big draw for me and that the change in tech with Discovery and SNW cannot be ignored. But the change to some of the story points makes it more than just a visual change for me and pushes it to the nature of BSG 78 vs 2005.
