ST canon is inconsistent and contradictory.

[The Wormhole]

Canon is important to me - the other franchise has a keeper of the Holocron and a story group that is responsible for film, TV, animation, and video game stories, ensuring a consistency. I think it was a mistake to have Klingons being different, as well as the Starfleet uniforms being different.

"The other franchise?" Are you afraid to say Star Wars by name or something?

Anyway, the Story Group is basically a paper tiger. They don't enforce consistency so much as they force the tie-in material to create rationalizations for the inconsistencies that pop up on screen. For evidence, look no further than the fact Rise of Skywalker makes no sense unless you read the Visual Dictionary and novelization. And sometimes, they're perfectly okay without providing rationalizations, see for example the fact Rey and Poe meet each other for the first time twice.

You have to wonder, how could they (the creators, producers or writers ) possibly make such a sexist mistake, knowing full well what their canon says about evolving past sexist discrimination in the first place?

Is this about Turnabout Intruder? If so, Roddenberry admitted he was being intentionally sexist with the stuff about no female captains and all that. There's a quote from him in the old Star Trek Chronology on the matter.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Anyway, the Story Group is basically a paper tiger. They don't enforce consistency so much as they force the tie-in material to create rationalizations for the inconsistencies that pop up on screen. For evidence, look no further than the fact Rise of Skywalker makes no sense unless you read the Visual Dictionary and novelization. And sometimes, they're perfectly okay without providing rationalizations, see for example the fact Rey and Poe meet each other for the first time twice.

No, they definitely contribute to film development, review and comment on the scripts, serve as a sounding board if necessary and steer tie-ins in ways that support the main event. The difference from fan thinking is they’re not going to put their foot down with a director so that everything retains the simplest, most obvious and traditional explanation (which is what most people seem to want when they report any complication as an “error” or an “inconsistency”).

I mean, so what if the obvious but not exclusive reading of TROS is that

Spoiler

Poe was a spice runner and joined the Resistance from there

?
Rey and Poe meeting in TLJ isn’t too annoying either because there is a qualitative difference between the TFA novelization, which is basically the shooting script with ADF’s enhancements, and the Ep. VIII equivalent by Jason Fry which incorporates anything and everything in order to make it feel more like the final official word.

Those are details, though, compared to the core distinction where the original trilogy is holy to Star Wars, whereas the original series is a touchstone for Star Trek but also very much of that era, quaint, sometimes embarrassing? Hence the constant desire to go there but not quite, rather than at the very least move forward and gradually update the franchise as the in-universe time follows the real world (which is what PIC is doing but certainly not as closely as a comparable SW installment would have).

Of course there is also the conceit that most everything in the Star Wars galaxy has been invented and merely appears or disappears as fashions and local needs change, whereas Star Trek is about social and technological advancement, but those are really mostly reflections on the underlying perceptions of their history. Star Wars was “done right” at the start; classic Star Trek is a great “early draft”.

 

[Nyotarules]

So canon is not important? Then why have canon at all? Superman should not come from Krypton, then.

Superman can come from whatever planet the writer wants him to come from. Comics, tv shows, movies and stage plays are not holy writ

You have to do a lot of verbal gymnastics to get past that one.

Which is why its best to give it the TMP treatment

 

[1001001]

Which is why its best to give it the TMP treatment

What's "The TMP Treatment"?

Bore your victims to death?

 

[Nyotarules]

What's "The TMP Treatment"?

Bore your victims to death?

LOL no the TMP 'the Klingons were always like this' treatment (before ENT's not needed explaination)

If there is a female captain in 23rd century Starfleet (Hello Captain Philippa Georgiou) its because there were always female captains in Starfleet

 

[BillJ]

If there is a female captain in 23rd century Starfleet (Hello Captain Philippa Georgiou) its because there were always female captains in Starfleet

There were always female captains in 23rd century Starfleet. Number One from "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" doesn't make sense any other way.

 

[The Wormhole]

No, they definitely contribute to film development, review and comment on the scripts, serve as a sounding board if necessary and steer tie-ins in ways that support the main event. The difference from fan thinking is they’re not going to put their foot down with a director so that everything retains the simplest, most obvious and traditional explanation (which is what most people seem to want when they report any complication as an “error” or an “inconsistency”).

I mean, so what if the obvious but not exclusive reading of TROS is that

Spoiler

Poe was a spice runner and joined the Resistance from there

?

There are other things, such as General Hux, who according to TFA and TLJ is the third highest ranking person in the First Order, after Snoke and Kylo Ren, a fact which is confirmed in the comics. Then suddenly in Rise of Skywalker, there's General Pryde, who outranks Hux and has been around since the First Order's Imperial days. You need the Visual Dictionary to explain things there.

And we have seen evidence of the decrees of the Story Group being walked back after negative backlash from the fans, like the infamous incident in 2015 when they tried saying that Ewoks should not be called Ewoks anymore but rather "Endor natives."

 

[fireproof78]

Canon is important to me - the other franchise has a keeper of the Holocron and a story group that is responsible for film, TV, animation, and video game stories, ensuring a consistency. I think it was a mistake to have Klingons being different, as well as the Starfleet uniforms being different.

It may be important to you and many other fans but it is not as important to the writers and creators, and that started with Gene Roddenberry and TMP and Nicholas Meyer and TWOK.

Consistency is fine for Star Wars but Trek is not a universe unto itself-it is wholly based upon future predictions of current humanity. Which means that it will get reinterpreted, reimagined and redesigned as time moves on and humanity grows and changes. That is not a bug-it is a feature.

The Jedi council looked like it was only 10 percent human.

Yes, and oddly and quite rarely, do we see those species outside of the Jedi Council in the films. It's a rather odd choice that the Council has multiple alien representatives, yet the rank and file are a lot of times humans.

 

[1001001]

LOL no the TMP' the Klingons were always like this' treatment (before ENT's not needed explaination)

Oh, got it.

The term “TMP Treatment” made me think of some kind of Guantanamo Bay “enhanced interrogation” technique.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Oh, got it.

The term “TMP Treatment” made me think of some kind of Guantanamo Bay “enhanced interrogation” technique.

Is it worse than the "Clockwork Orange Treatment"?

 

[1001001]

Is it worse than the "Clockwork Orange Treatment"?

Its longer, slower, and more painful.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Consistency is fine for Star Wars but Trek is not a universe unto itself-it is wholly based upon future predictions of current humanity. Which means that it will get reinterpreted, reimagined and redesigned as time moves on and humanity grows and changes. That is not a bug-it is a feature.

Canon is important to me - the other franchise has a keeper of the Holocron and a story group that is responsible for film, TV, animation, and video game stories, ensuring a consistency.

I have to agree on this one. It's one of the things I like about the Star Wars franchise.

Star Wars has a huge backlog of world building information and history, even if it doesn't make it on screen. They actually invested in their world building, which is why its fictional worlds and places seem so vibrant. And that allows it to sell a lot of novels, comics, video games etc.

It's not just the light saber, it's the different light saber combat forms. It's not just droids, it's a gazillion different types of droids from different manufacturers with different functions. It's not just a culture, it's their history, evolution, food habits, religion etc.

It has a detailed history of cultures, wars, politics, governments, with dates and backstories.

While Trek has been known to be vague about simple things money, about wars, sexuality etc. The world building in it isn't as detailed as I wished it could be.

Although I will admit Star Wars inserts stuff into story lines too lol.

Star Wars has so much material it could easily make movies or TV shows stretching into the distant past (Sith vs jedi) and still be fresh and interesting. That's an area where I think Star Wars has Trek beat.

 

[Trekkie27]

I have to agree on this one. It's one of the things I like about the Star Wars franchise.

Star Wars has a huge backlog of world building information and history, even if it doesn't make it on screen. They actually invested in their world building, which is why its fictional worlds and places seem so vibrant. And that allows it to sell a lot of novels, comics, video games etc.

It's not just the light saber, it's the different light saber combat forms. It's not just droids, it's a gazillion different types of droids from different manufacturers with different functions. It's not just a culture, it's their history,

It has a detailed history of cultures, wars, politics, governments, with dates and backstories.

While Trek has been known to be vague about simple things money, about wars, sexuality etc. The world building in it isn't as detailed as I wished it could be.

Although I will admit Star Wars inserts stuff into story lines too lol.

Star Wars has so much material it could easily make movies or TV shows stretching into the distant past (Sith vs jedi) and still be fresh and interesting. That's an area where I think Star Wars has Trek beat.

I agree completely. The canon and the background is what makes true science fiction fun, and, yes, Star Wars has Star Trek beaten on this one. But do you have any links or reading material on the rich backdrop of the SW universe? I know of the Holocron and its keeper, but, beyond that, I'm not up on it, and I'd like to know more.
Thanks for everything, Nightdiamond.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I agree completely. The canon and the background is what makes true science fiction fun, and, yes, Star Wars has Star Trek beaten on this one. But do you have any links or reading material on the rich backdrop of the SW universe? I know of the Holocron and its keeper, but, beyond that, I'm not up on it, and I'd like to know more.
Thanks for everything, Nightdiamond.

No problem at all Trekkie27. Hope these sources and ideas will help.

There are various Star Wars encyclopedias that tend to have detailed entries on various things, like droids, light saber combat, historical events, different cultures with their habits, evolution, beliefs, etc. It depends on which ones you get, but there are quite a few.

Some examples I heard that are pretty good are The Star Wars Visual Encyclopedia, and Star Wars Absolutely Everything You Need To Know, though I haven't read them yet. Some books are more detailed than others.

I've found that sources as simple as the Star Wars fandom Wikis, will give you a massive amount of detailed info, and they will list resources and links. The links on their own can also lead to more good sources of info.

Like the light saber thing.

It's so cool, because they took it and turned into a fictional martial art form. So there's like 7 different styles of light saber combat. And Wiki, and books like the two I mentioned above has info on it.. Even one of the animated shows mentioned it.

And then there are the novels and comics, if you want to get into them. I mean they're novels, but you'd amazed at the level of detail that's in them. There's some novels about the Old Republic, the past Jedi and Sith wars, the Mandalorians etc.

In fact I'd say they're a really good source of background information in the S.W universe.

I especially like the Darth Bane series, you will get a lot of detailed info about Sith and Jedi history and just basic happenings, that supposedly ties in what happened by the time of Revenge of the Sith.

The big issue now is whether some of this is accepted as canon as Disney declared some sources to no longer be canon, but part of it's now "older" archives. So it's somewhat the same as the debates going on now with Trek.

For me the issue is not so much canon as how much backstory and world building materials Star Wars has.

I can see they pretty much pulled info from their world building archives to create the Mandalorian series. Before that, they were somewhat minor characters, but now the show based on them is a massive, mainstream hit.

 

[F. King Daniel]

a massive, mainstream hit

Super cute Baby Yoda made it a huge meme and they're gonna make a fortune in toys, but there's no way anything on Disney+ is mainstream any more than anything on CBS-AA.

 

[Nyotarules]

There were always female captains in 23rd century Starfleet. Number One from "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" doesn't make sense any other way.

She was working for a sexist prig in TOS Pike, the DIS Pike was from another universe

 

[The Wormhole]

The term “TMP Treatment” made me think of some kind of Guantanamo Bay “enhanced interrogation” technique.

People have to sit down and stare at swirling colours on a screen for hours with the occasional "BWONG" noise thrown in at random intervals. It can break even the most hardened soul.

 

[Nightdiamond]

The term “TMP Treatment” made me think of some kind of Guantanamo Bay “enhanced interrogation” technique

.

People have to sit down and stare at swirling colours on a screen for hours with the occasional "BWONG" noise thrown in at random intervals. It can break even the most hardened soul.

All I remember from that movie is a weird uniforms, flashing lights and an attractive bald woman.

The Jedi council looked like it was only 10 percent human.

Yes, and oddly and quite rarely, do we see those species outside of the Jedi Council in the films. It's a rather odd choice that the Council has multiple alien representatives, yet the rank and file are a lot of times humans.

Maybe, but I do give a lot of credit to Star Wars for instead trying to think outside the box instead using bumpy forehead aliens all the time. Even a dangerous gangster was a big nasty blob of rubber pudding. And somehow it worked.

I mean, in The Siege of 558, the one where the Starfleet soldiers are defending that cave, everyone was a human. Even the reinforcements that arrived later were all human. It's like, sometimes the show just forgets.

Super cute Baby Yoda made it a huge meme and they're gonna make a fortune in toys, but there's no way anything on Disney+ is mainstream any more than anything on CBS-AA.

Maybe, but it did boost their subscriber rate to around 28 million, which is more than twice that of CBS AA. CBS AA is probably better with original content.

It's not so much a competition thing, the main thing is that the Mandalorian is a mainstream success in it's own right, even if doesn't always come in first place. And that they pulled a somewhat minor idea from their archives and turned it into a smash hit.

 

[fireproof78]

Maybe, but I do give a lot of credit to Star Wars for instead trying to think outside the box instead using bumpy forehead aliens all the time. Even a dangerous gangster was a big nasty blob of rubber pudding. And somehow it worked.

I mean, in The Siege of 558, the one where the Starfleet soldiers are defending that cave, everyone was a human. Even the reinforcements that arrived later were all human. It's like, sometimes the show just forgets.

I think its a difference of focus.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

It is possible that "Turnabout Intruder" happens in the same alternate Universe as "The Tholian Web" and "The Empath".

Not to mention 76 other episodes.

What's "The TMP Treatment"?

Bore your victims to death?