Star Trek and Cannon... darned confusing!
- Thread starter A'Tun-Te
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That is such a fucking myth.
The problem with fandoms -- of all shapes and sizes, but peciliarly ones of a property with a long history -- is that they're obsessed with canon. It all reminds me of that Futurama episode where Star Trek actually became a religion in the future, leading to wars between people of rival beliefs (all of them, ironically, forgetting what Star Trek's message actually was).
The moment you get to the stage where you realize that canon is nonsense and just learn to enjoy watching the show, it's an actual relief. Where once I obsessed over minute errors, now I just... I don't even shrug. It just washes over me. I began to simply enjoy the storytelling, once I stopped caring about how two pieces of TV produced 30 years apart were supposed to relate to each other.
Canon is bunk. Repeat it after me folks. Canon doesn't matter. Ahh, now doesn't that feel good?
The moment you get to the stage where you realize that canon is nonsense and just learn to enjoy watching the show, it's an actual relief. Where once I obsessed over minute errors, now I just... I don't even shrug. It just washes over me. I began to simply enjoy the storytelling, once I stopped caring about how two pieces of TV produced 30 years apart were supposed to relate to each other.
Canon is bunk. Repeat it after me folks. Canon doesn't matter. Ahh, now doesn't that feel good?
LOL, such an episode actually exists? I have to find it and see it!
The problem with fandoms -- of all shapes and sizes, but peciliarly ones of a property with a long history -- is that they're obsessed with canon. It all reminds me of that Futurama episode where Star Trek actually became a religion in the future, leading to wars between people of rival beliefs (all of them, ironically, forgetting what Star Trek's message actually was).
The moment you get to the stage where you realize that canon is nonsense and just learn to enjoy watching the show, it's an actual relief. Where once I obsessed over minute errors, now I just... I don't even shrug. It just washes over me. I began to simply enjoy the storytelling, once I stopped caring about how two pieces of TV produced 30 years apart were supposed to relate to each other.
Canon is bunk. Repeat it after me folks. Canon doesn't matter. Ahh, now doesn't that feel good?
Tell that to the producers of Discovery. They're more obsessed with it than any fan I've seen.
Canon is bunk. Repeat it after me folks. Canon doesn't matter. Ahh, now doesn't that feel good?
While I can agree with you at least to a certain extent (I think if you'd throw all canon away there's simply no Trek left, but clinging on to minutiae isn't fruitful) , what do you recommend those do that enjoyed Trek but simply can't do without consistency- such as the opening poster who admits to becoming confused and unable to keep up if canon is violated (perhaps due to his Asperger's)? Simply abandon Trek altogether and search for a new hobby?
Religious chant: "All power to the engiiinnes.."
Seriously??
Lmao no they’re not.
For years and years I have watched this debate go nowhere.
It is my fate. It is my curse.
Or treat each Trek as its own individual thing. For me, I would rather just enjoy the show as presented rather than attempt to mash it altogether in to one cohesive whole. If I'm watching the show but thinking about how it contradicts XYZ in another show then I don't feel like I'm fully invested in what I'm watching. My mind is elsewhere.
So, I attempt to just appreciate the show that I'm watching in that moment and not worry about the minutia. I have enough things to worry over.
My personal viewpoint is that I appreciate the spirit of Trek to be kept. I expect each trek show to be about a future in which humanity has built a better world, and pursuits knowledge for the sake of bettering humankind and not for personal gain, and so on. These things matter to me. I don't care if in a TNG reboot series Picard suddenly is 20 years younger, but I would mind if they portrayed him as a sanctimonious smug person that is a sadistic child abuser in private - and it is quietly accepted by Starfleet and his fellow officers because he is very good in his job - to give a hypothetical example.
It's of course still possible to make an excellent and engaging SF series abandoning those ''precepts' but I'd rather simply have them not call it 'trek' in that case.
It's of course still possible to make an excellent and engaging SF series abandoning those ''precepts' but I'd rather simply have them not call it 'trek' in that case.
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The look and feel of TOS were established for three years. We've just been watching it over and over and over for 50.
Yep!
As I joked in another forum the other day: If we have to treat STAR TREK as though it's a religion, can we at least not be so fundamentalist about it?
...Oh, sorry.
Damn it. Now my new sample pages for DC Comics are useless!!!
How dare you malign the time travel breakthroughs of Dr. Sam Beckett that way, sir!...But wait, isn't a quantum leap actually an extremely small advancement?
I would never!
Pretty much this. To way I read it is that anything that occurs before TOS must have a direct inspiration of the form and function of that era, as if an interstellar Federation could not possibly have some sort of variety in their computers, and visual language.
Also, what makes me laugh more, is the fact that the look that is considered so iconic, so necessary for any prequel to adhere to was tossed about by GR the moment he had the opportunity. Going from austere white and primary colored uniforms to muted beiges and blues.
Yeah @at Quark's, it's called "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" and it's pretty funny. Features most of the TOS cast in guest roles.
Reminds me a bit of how a journalist once long ago described his visit to a Dickens fanclub, where the humourless members rejected all forms of irony and self-mockery not exactly found as such in the books as 'un-Dickensian' and almost as blasphemy whereas he strongly felt Dickens would probably have come up with those reversals himself, if only he had lived a little longer ...
And when it came to consistency, the Borg win the platinum medal for the least amount of it.
Okay, that doesn't mean the Queen (or at least the acting of her by both actors playing the role) were less than entertaining, and maybe the makers knew that it would be impossible to keep the sensation of "impossible to beat enemy" going.That and DSC, which isn't sure if it's trying to flesh out the past pre-Kirk and spin it by the end to make it flow into TOS solidly, or if it's trying to alter and retcon established history.
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