I think the tie-in books established that the movies were in-universe fiction written by Barbara Wright.
Star Trek II TWOK Parallel Universe??
- Thread starter Lt. Tyler
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I think the tie-in books established that the movies were in-universe fiction written by Barbara Wright.
First I've heard of that. But then the wants of the BBC aren't my forte. And considering Peter Cushing's Doctor was human, actually named "Dr. Who," and had a Tardis that looked and acted nothing like it did in the show, the only real way to "canonize" it would be to say that it took place in a parallel universe. It's not like DW didn't have any of those.
Well, internally, yes. But externally, its look did inspire the Smith and Capaldi TARDIS designs, with the St. John's Ambulance logo on the door and the white-framed windows. And one aspect of its internal design, having the interior doors match the exterior doors, has been part of the modern-series TARDIS since 2005.
I agree. Plus it's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The 'II' tells me it's part of a film series that started with and carried on from the first one.
But it all only really matters in our own head cannons.
Well, the fact that they need a "planet of Galactic Peace" in the first place may suggest that there might still be tension between the Romulans and the Feds at that juncture. But maybe just everybody has a beef with the Klingons and that's all there is to it.
Of course by the time we visit the "planet of Galactic Peace" it's a neglected diplomatic outpost and presumably galactic politics has left them long behind.
In fact, the original theatrical print of the movie and the original edition of the novelization were titled simply Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. The "II" was used on posters and merchandise, but wasn't actually added to the film's title card until later releases.
And there are cases of numbered sequels that are out of continuity with their predecessors. For instance, The Exorcist III ignores the events of The Exorcist II, and Highlander III ignores Highlander II. Then there's Halloween III, which is completely unconnected to any of the other films in the series, including the first two. I think they were planning to make Halloween a sort of anthology series, but after the poor reception of III, they went back to doing more conventional sequels.
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All of the Highlander films exist in their own continuities, don't they? I can't find a single pair of them that's consistent with one another.
There is way too much ignored or overlooked in the movies to have it all be one whole piece of work happening in the same universe. I think that how they completely pretended that the Organism Peace Treaty never occurred is inexcusible. And that's just one of many things that happened in the TOS that the movie wrote off.
Highlander and Highlander Endgame are the closest but even then you got to pretty much ignore the end of the first movie for it to work.
^ I thought Endgame was only ever intended as a sequel to the TV series? 
Not really. Fans and writers tend to assume that the Organians enforced the treaty actively and would've intervened to stop any further conflict, but that ignores what "Errand of Mercy" itself clearly established: that the Organians are extreme introverts who loathe any interaction with corporeal beings. The only reason they intervened in the first place was because the war came to their own planet and it was the only way they could get the noisy kids off their lawn. It was never Gene Coon's intent to have the Organians be an active presence from then on. After all, TOS was made in an era where TV shows aspired to an anthology-like model where viewers could follow any episode without needing to have seen any others, so anything that happened in a given episode was expected to be wrapped up completely in that episode and then never heard from again. So Coon made a point of setting up the Organians as isolationists to establish in advance that their intervention would be a one-time thing. As long as the UFP and the Klingons left Organia alone, there'd be no intervention in their subsequent conflicts. (Note that the Organians didn't intervene in "Day of the Dove" or "More Tribbles, More Troubles" or "The Time Trap" either, even though there was active conflict between the two sides in all of them.)
So I see the Organian Peace Treaty more as a treaty agreed upon between the two governments in response to the events at Organia, and subsequently dependent on the cooperation of the signatories, as with any normal treaty. And since the smooth-headed Klingons disappeared after TAS, I tend to assume there must've been a coup that led to them being marginalized, so whatever government took over would not have been a signatory to the treaty in the first place.
It's a hybrid, continues the series but also Rachel from the first movie is killed early in the film. This somehow makes the movie both pre-The Gathering AND post-The Kurgan's death.
Edited - this was replying to Mr Laser Beam
Edited - this was replying to Mr Laser Beam
The Organian intervention fails for Yesterday's Enterprise. Or perhaps the anomaly was Organian in origin?
The Organian intervention definitely fails though when the Klingons mount a sustained invasion of the Federation out in DS9.
But the idea that in the TOS movies the Organians kept the hostility at cold war levels and restrained it from descending into a mass confrontation of fleets is something I find plausible at least.
The Organian intervention definitely fails though when the Klingons mount a sustained invasion of the Federation out in DS9.
But the idea that in the TOS movies the Organians kept the hostility at cold war levels and restrained it from descending into a mass confrontation of fleets is something I find plausible at least.
As I understood it the Organians were introduced to allow the Klingons to be a major adversary for the Federation without the risk of going to actual full-scale armed conflict, but have served their purpose as I don't think we've heard about them since TOS at all.
Not post-TOS, but they were seen in Enterprise: "Observer Effect." Except that also ignored "Errand"'s insistence on the Organians' distaste for corporeal beings, because it had Organians possessing corporeal beings in order to observe their behavior. I wish they'd given the energy beings in that episode a different name.
To be fair, one concept that has been floated about Star Trek is that the consoles are configurable for any mission requirement in-universe. For example, Worf's position at tactical on the 'D': there's no reason the wishbone railing console couldn't have been reconfigured to be anything the crew wanted it to be, but the crew decided it was the best position for that specific role. The technology is modular by it's very nature.
No reason to assume the TOS-era technology isn't similarly configurable.
As did the disc label on the original Blu Ray (the only one of the sequels that was un-enumerated).
I think Moffat mentioned in an interview that they tried to a poster for one or both of the Peter Cushing films to be in the Black Archive in the 50th Anniversary special, but couldn't get the rights to it for some reason. I know the newer Daleks in the Matt Smith era that were all sorts of colors were inspired by the Peter Cushing movies.
I'd make the Dalek movies as AU in the Who multiverse. I was very disappointed we never met a parallel Doctor.
Peter Cushing himself had an interesting idea of where and how they fit in to modern canon, but Google is failing me right now.
Peter Cushing himself had an interesting idea of where and how they fit in to modern canon, but Google is failing me right now.
Doctor Who actually turns up in one of the books along with some youthful companions from a comic strip.
: Well I’ll tell you something I thought once. I just said I didn’t watch TV, but one of the few episodes of the ‘Dr. Who’ series that I saw was one that involved a kind of mystical clown (‘The Celestial Toymaker’? – ed.), and I realised that perhaps he kidnapped Dr Who and wiped his memory and made him relive some of his earlier adventures. When Bill Hartnell turned into Patrick Troughton, and changed his appearance, that idea seemed more likely. I think that’s what happened, so I think those films we did fit perfectly well into the TV series. That would not have been the case had I taken the role in the TV series.
https://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/category/peter-cushing/
After seeing Cushing as Van Helsing in a couple of the Hammer Dracula movies, I'm thinking he could've made an excellent Pertwee-esque Doctor. The kindly, doddering grandfather he played in the Dalek movies wasn't really the best use of his talents.
