Star Wars I-III, Gotham, and DSC: a study in prequels (and how DSC isn’t a TOS prequel?)
- Thread starter Groppler Zorn
- Start date
What do we know about Spock that precludes him from having a sister? (Half, foster, step or full.)
Spock is Spock. What ever new information DISCO brings into the mix it will be about Spock. Spock has a foster sister and always has.
Not sure what difference who adds the information and when it was added makes. As I mentioned before Spock has many "parents" and what we know about has been added in a piecemeal fashion over the course of half a century. Much of it in "done in one" instalments by people who never contributed to Star Trek again.
People not interested in DISCO or Star Trek don't actually care about Spock or his relations. "Spock's sister" means nothing to them. They've no idea if Spock has a sister, a brother or a pet goldfish.
Nothing at all precludes the existence of a stepsister - that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. I was just trying to contextualise the differences in the character based on what we knew/know about them at particular points in the character’s development.
Going forward there’s plenty more that we could learn about Spock through the portrayal of Peck.
That's just it, we don't know because the subject of siblings never came up. That doesn't mean he can't have a sister or a brother just that it was never mentioned. And lets face it, Spock is the king of "it never came up" in Star Trek. He gets new super powers and relatives at the drop of a hat
Pedantic mode: I'm pretty sure Michael is Spock's foster sister. Sarek never married one of Michael's parents nor is he or Amanda one of her biological parents, so she can't be a step sister or a half sister. /pedantic mode.
Exactly. Spock held his cards close to the chest alright! I’d actually like to see that explored a little more in DSC - and I’d love to see Sybok thrown into the mix as well (as the actual stepchild - you’re right Michael is adopted!). There’s the potential to do a sweeping story involving Spock, Sarek, Michael and Sybok where we learn that Sarek, for all his good intentions, drove all of his children to pursuits other than that of the traditional Vulcan way. Spock and Michael went into starfleet (and I suspect Michael’s journey will be about learning to *be* human rather than how to successfully balance human and Vulcan halves, like Spock did), and Sybok rejected the Vulcan way altogether as we know. There’s a heck of a story waiting to be told there I feel. Or should that be a Peck of a story? I’ll get my coat...
Still catching up with this thread...this one goes out to @King Daniel Beyond and @BillJ; another with responses to others will follow...
"Visual re-imagining" and "alteration of the lore" have been ongoing in Trek since its inception. They do not a separate continuity make, in and of themselves. It wasn't Quinto's Spock being played by a different actor with differing physical characteristics and mannerisms that made him distinct from Nimoy's, any more than this was what distinguished Craig's Bond from his various predecessors. That is rather down to us being told so outright, both within the narrative itself, and without.
Let me put this counterfactual to you: if the first ten feature films had been made before TOS and TNG, and then those had been released as prequel series to them, instead of the other way around...would they pass muster against your standards, or would you be insisting they too didn't sufficiently match up to what had been previously depicted? Think it through carefully, now, because those films take a fair amount of liberties with both the visuals and the lore—pun not intended, but quite appropriate—of their parent series too.
Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry's The Making Of Star Trek (1968), pp. 367-368:
Now, in a very technical sense, that size for Kirk's Enterprise—which indeed was the one Matt Jefferies intended for his "finalized" design, and yet stood in stark contrast to Roddenberry's own wildly fluctuating conceptions that ranged anywhere from a meager 200 feet to something far and away more massive with a saucer "twenty stories thick" and a shuttlebay "large enough to hangar a whole fleet of today's jet liners" (take that, Herr Schneider!), and more importantly to a number of the actual interior sets and miniatures—did in fact appear onscreen at least once, in "The Enterprise Incident" (TOS):
But the scale bar there is scarcely legible even today in HD, and wouldn't have even remotely approached being so back in the '60s. One would have an easier time making out the parrot with Roddenberry's head or the Enterprise-D's giant mouse and duck from TNG:
How much do such details really "count" in the grand scheme of things? I suppose we'll call them...sticks? And if we are counting those, then there's also this one from "In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II" (ENT):
...which, lo and behold, would yield a size very close to that apparently being portrayed on DSC...going by the current officially licensed products, that is. And according to Doug Drexler, he even consulted and received approval from Jefferies himself in creating it, no less! What was all that guff about "disrespecting the efforts" of the people who created TOS again?
Holographic simulators and communicators? Molecularly synthesized clothing? More "disrespect" to the creators of TOS? Nope...
The Making Of Star Trek, pp. 188-190:
Robert Fletcher, costume designer for TMP:
But of course, we don't even really need to appeal to mere intent here, because such things are either implied or even outright shown to be present in episodes such as "The Return Of The Archons" (TOS), "Patterns Of Force" (TOS), and "The Practical Joker" (TAS).
-MMoM
I...agree? (!)
I don't follow. How would that change the analogy at all?
That would be a very odd thing indeed for them to believe, considering the term "Prime" was only coined with ST'09, for the sole purpose of distinguishing Nimoy-Spock's home reality from the explicitly "alternate" one created through its narrative...and the very same segments of the fan base which they would putatively be trying to "appease" with it here were already rejecting any suggestion of that being the same one as depicted in the other shows and films even then, despite that quite clearly being what was intended. (I was not among them, BTW. Were you?)
"Visual re-imagining" and "alteration of the lore" have been ongoing in Trek since its inception. They do not a separate continuity make, in and of themselves. It wasn't Quinto's Spock being played by a different actor with differing physical characteristics and mannerisms that made him distinct from Nimoy's, any more than this was what distinguished Craig's Bond from his various predecessors. That is rather down to us being told so outright, both within the narrative itself, and without.
Let me put this counterfactual to you: if the first ten feature films had been made before TOS and TNG, and then those had been released as prequel series to them, instead of the other way around...would they pass muster against your standards, or would you be insisting they too didn't sufficiently match up to what had been previously depicted? Think it through carefully, now, because those films take a fair amount of liberties with both the visuals and the lore—pun not intended, but quite appropriate—of their parent series too.
Really? You sound kind of offended:
You know what this reminds me of, Daniel? Something I wrote in high school about ENT, before even one episode had yet been aired. It was wrongheadedly overwrought nonsense then, as those more sensible than I were quick and quite correct to point out, and it is now, too. But thanks for the trip down memory lane...and the laugh.
He had a foster sister, yes. Cite me the episode of TOS that states or even implies that he didn't.
As much as Saavik always looked like Robin Curtis.
No, they didn't, and nothing in DSC thus far suggests that they did.
There were already multiple different looking D-7s and Birds of Prey, and DSC itself merely reinforces that these are both terms which encompass more than one design. Also, "D-7" is an in-joke deliberately designed to provoke precious reactions like those on display here. You and everyone else upset by the "wrong" ship being called a D-7 got trolled big time...
Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry's The Making Of Star Trek (1968), pp. 367-368:
I WENT ON THE STAGE ONE DAY, AND THEY WERE ALL READY AND WAITING FOR ME, BECAUSE THEY KNEW I WAS REALLY EXHAUSTED FROM SOME LONG RE-WRITE SESSIONS. AS SOON AS I WALKED UP TO THE SET, BILL AND LEONARD BLEW A SCENE, BUT THEY DID IT ON PURPOSE AND BEGAN ARGUING VERY VIOLENTLY. BILL WAS SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF HIS VOICE, "LEONARD! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SAYING THIS IS A D-7 KLINGON SHIP! IT'S A D-6!" LEONARD SHOUTED BACK, "NO, YOU IDIOT, THE D-6 HAS FOUR DOORS OVER HERE AND THE D-7 ONLY HAS TWO!" BILL IMMEDIATELY SHOUTED BACK, "NO, NO, NO—IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG."
WHILE ALL OF THIS IS GOING ON, I'M STANDING THERE, BEGINNING TO GET FRUSTRATED, WATCHING THE MINUTES TICK BY AND MENTALLY COUNTING THE MONEY WE'RE LOSING IN EXPENSIVE CREW TIME, BECAUSE THE CAMERAS AREN'T ROLLING. AND AS THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, I'M THINKING TO MYSELF, "WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR!" THEN I BEGAN THINKING THAT I SHOULD REMEMBER WHICH IS THE D-6 OR THE D-7. FINALLY I COULDN'T STAND IT ANY MORE, AND SO I WALKED IN BETWEEN THEM AND SAID, "COME ON, FELLOWS, IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER. LET'S GET ON WITH THE SCENE." THEN THE WHOLE CREW BROKE UP LAUGHING. THIS WAS THEIR WAY OF SAYING TO ME, "HEY, TIME IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. RELAX A LITTLE."
[caps as in original, used therein to indicate Roddenberry's own words]
WHILE ALL OF THIS IS GOING ON, I'M STANDING THERE, BEGINNING TO GET FRUSTRATED, WATCHING THE MINUTES TICK BY AND MENTALLY COUNTING THE MONEY WE'RE LOSING IN EXPENSIVE CREW TIME, BECAUSE THE CAMERAS AREN'T ROLLING. AND AS THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, I'M THINKING TO MYSELF, "WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR!" THEN I BEGAN THINKING THAT I SHOULD REMEMBER WHICH IS THE D-6 OR THE D-7. FINALLY I COULDN'T STAND IT ANY MORE, AND SO I WALKED IN BETWEEN THEM AND SAID, "COME ON, FELLOWS, IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER. LET'S GET ON WITH THE SCENE." THEN THE WHOLE CREW BROKE UP LAUGHING. THIS WAS THEIR WAY OF SAYING TO ME, "HEY, TIME IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. RELAX A LITTLE."
[caps as in original, used therein to indicate Roddenberry's own words]
Yes, it was. I'm pretty sure that you even started (or at least posted in) a number of threads about that yourself over the years, well before DSC ever came along. Are you "for real" here, or is this indeed some "shtick" that you keep winding us all up with as @Nerys Myk suggests?
No, it didn't, and nothing in DSC thus far suggests that it did.
No, Starfleet just changes uniforms frequently, with several different varieties in use at any given time for various posts and purposes. Just like always.
Licensed products aren't bricks (and neither are designer's intentions, for that matter...just ask Ryan Church) and never have been. More like straw that can be easily blown away with the slightest breeze. The bricks are the shows and films themselves. And yes, even they can be broken apart and relaid or replaced as necessary.
Now, in a very technical sense, that size for Kirk's Enterprise—which indeed was the one Matt Jefferies intended for his "finalized" design, and yet stood in stark contrast to Roddenberry's own wildly fluctuating conceptions that ranged anywhere from a meager 200 feet to something far and away more massive with a saucer "twenty stories thick" and a shuttlebay "large enough to hangar a whole fleet of today's jet liners" (take that, Herr Schneider!), and more importantly to a number of the actual interior sets and miniatures—did in fact appear onscreen at least once, in "The Enterprise Incident" (TOS):
But the scale bar there is scarcely legible even today in HD, and wouldn't have even remotely approached being so back in the '60s. One would have an easier time making out the parrot with Roddenberry's head or the Enterprise-D's giant mouse and duck from TNG:
How much do such details really "count" in the grand scheme of things? I suppose we'll call them...sticks? And if we are counting those, then there's also this one from "In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II" (ENT):
...which, lo and behold, would yield a size very close to that apparently being portrayed on DSC...going by the current officially licensed products, that is. And according to Doug Drexler, he even consulted and received approval from Jefferies himself in creating it, no less! What was all that guff about "disrespecting the efforts" of the people who created TOS again?
Holographic simulators and communicators? Molecularly synthesized clothing? More "disrespect" to the creators of TOS? Nope...
The Making Of Star Trek, pp. 188-190:
MEN AND WOMEN ON A STARSHIP, SO LONG OUT OF CONTACT WITH EARTH AND SO LONG AWAY FROM OTHER PLANETS, TOO, WILL REQUIRE A FEELING OF FRESH AIR AND SKY AND WIND AND SCENTS. BECAUSE WE ARE, IN MANY RESPECTS, STILL ANIMALS, OUR MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL EQUILIBRIUM WILL REQUIRE THE FAMILIARITY OF THIS. MAN HAS BEEN TOO LONG A PART OF EARTH TO BE TOO LONG SEPARATED. THEREFORE WE INTEND TO BUILD A SIMULATED 'OUTDOOR' RECREATION AREA WHICH GIVES A REALISTIC FEELING OF SKY, BREEZES, PLANTS, FOUNTAINS, AND SO FORTH. ONE OF THE REASONS FOR MAKING A STARSHIP SO LARGE WOULD BE TO HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THIS...
The fourth major facility on the eighth deck level is the entertainment center. Certainly man of the future will require entertainment as much as we enjoy motion pictures and television today. Probably entertainment will be three-dimensional in nature and perhaps will go even further, in that you will sit in the room and the story will take place all around you. In other words, a sophisticated extension of holography.
This technique will also have its effect on the traditional "mail call." Instead of receiving a letter, a man can sit in the room and, via tape, actually "see" the person sending the correspondence. As the tape is projected, the images will form in the air in front of him, so he will be able to see how his child looks, what's happening to the house, and how great his grandmother looked that day. It will be just as if he were standing there with them. Having used the "projecting unit," he can then use the "photographing unit," do a similar thing himself, and send it home...
Ship's laundry bears little resemblance to its 20th century ancestor. Primarily because garments are reconvertible. It is simply easier to put a garment into the processing machine, reduce it to its original chemical fibers, take out the dirt, and then recreate a "new" garment back into its original form...
The fourth major facility on the eighth deck level is the entertainment center. Certainly man of the future will require entertainment as much as we enjoy motion pictures and television today. Probably entertainment will be three-dimensional in nature and perhaps will go even further, in that you will sit in the room and the story will take place all around you. In other words, a sophisticated extension of holography.
This technique will also have its effect on the traditional "mail call." Instead of receiving a letter, a man can sit in the room and, via tape, actually "see" the person sending the correspondence. As the tape is projected, the images will form in the air in front of him, so he will be able to see how his child looks, what's happening to the house, and how great his grandmother looked that day. It will be just as if he were standing there with them. Having used the "projecting unit," he can then use the "photographing unit," do a similar thing himself, and send it home...
Ship's laundry bears little resemblance to its 20th century ancestor. Primarily because garments are reconvertible. It is simply easier to put a garment into the processing machine, reduce it to its original chemical fibers, take out the dirt, and then recreate a "new" garment back into its original form...
Robert Fletcher, costume designer for TMP:
Gene has the idea the people will be rearranging molecules to make clothing. We put a thing into a slot, stand in the shower and your clothing is assembled molecularly...
But of course, we don't even really need to appeal to mere intent here, because such things are either implied or even outright shown to be present in episodes such as "The Return Of The Archons" (TOS), "Patterns Of Force" (TOS), and "The Practical Joker" (TAS).
And other than her expressed desire for Spock not to have any siblings—a horse which already left the barn thirty years ago—exactly what part of her vision for the character do you feel has been violated by DSC, pray tell?
By all means, please do go ahead and list those things to which you refer here.
-MMoM
David was six during Operation Annihilate. Kirk never mentions him, even though he would have probably weighed heavily on the captain's thoughts.
Let's see...
- She's first officer first (Without ever going to Starfleet Academy. I'm sure like Spock she hasn't taken the Kobayashi Maru).
- She's in line for her own command first.
- She's fighting a Klingon war first.
- She's mutinied first.
- She's interacted with the Mirror Universe first.
- She's a hero of the Federation first.
- She's time traveled first.
I fail to see how this list diminishes Spock's overall character or career in any significant way...? How is he "not Spock" anymore because of these?
-MMoM
Fine by me.she'll be the Federation's greatest hero by the end of season two.
Let's see...
Mighty nice list of accomplishments for 15 episodes. I'm sure there are a few others that aren't right at the top of my head. At the rate she's going, she'll be the Federation's greatest hero by the end of season two.
- She's first officer first (Without ever going to Starfleet Academy. I'm sure like Spock she hasn't taken the Kobayashi Maru).
- She's in line for her own command first.
- She's fighting a Klingon war first.
- She's mutinied first.
- She's interacted with the Mirror Universe first.
- She's a hero of the Federation first.
- She's time traveled first.
She also managed to pee standing up first. Young Spock had a right old meltdown at that one.
He did however achieve Postir’Iar Kleen, the Vulcan ritual of cleaning ones own bum, at an earlier age than Michael, and reminds her of this at family gatherings while his mother chides them for being so competitive.
I fail to see how this list diminishes Spock's overall character or career in any significant way...? How is he "not Spock" anymore because of these?
-MMoM
Because there was a lot of ‘the first Vulcan in starfleet’ and things making Spock (and other characters) remarkable with these characteristics. It sets up a ‘why are these things remarkable?’ About things that were considered such in those later/earlier stories. It’s sort of like the spore drive and it’s associated stuff. Suddenly later achievements aren’t so special. Because DSC has apparently done many of them ‘first’. Including Time Travel, for instance.
I don't see how.
But Spock isn't the first Vulcan in Starfleet, T'Pol was.
And she did a bunch of fancy stuff too.
and then you have the USS Intrepid which probably has crew members that joined before him.
Well not exactly the same, the communication described here is basically Video mail, not real time.
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No there wasn't. That was always more of a fandom interpretation with rather thin if any basis in the show itself.
It doesn't even seem to have been conceived as an element of the character behind the scenes, or at least not one important enough to be mentioned in the writer's guide or his biography in The Making Of Star Trek, which itself even implies he was not the first: "It is a matter of record that Vulcans in the Space Service must occasionally be ordered to kill, if they do not think the situation logically justifies it..." (pg. 225).
If they had both holograms and real-time communications, then the integration of the two is a perfectly reasonable extension. And moreover, "The Return Of The Archons" (TOS) would seem to imply this is indeed something familiar to Kirk and Spock, as they attempt real-time communications with Landru's projection even after determining that's what it is:
LANDRU: I am Landru.
SPOCK: Projection, Captain. Unreal.
KIRK: But beautiful, Mister Spock, with no apparatus at this end.
LANDRU: You have come as destroyers. You bring an infection.
KIRK: You are holding my ship. I demand that you release it.
LANDRU: You have come to a world without hate, without fear, without conflict. No war, no disease, no crime. None of the ancient evils. Landru seeks tranquillity. Peace for all. The universal good.
KIRK: We mean you no harm. Ours is a mission of peace and good will.
LANDRU: The good must transcend the evil. It shall be done. So it has been since the beginning.
SPOCK: He doesn't hear you, Captain.
SPOCK: Projection, Captain. Unreal.
KIRK: But beautiful, Mister Spock, with no apparatus at this end.
LANDRU: You have come as destroyers. You bring an infection.
KIRK: You are holding my ship. I demand that you release it.
LANDRU: You have come to a world without hate, without fear, without conflict. No war, no disease, no crime. None of the ancient evils. Landru seeks tranquillity. Peace for all. The universal good.
KIRK: We mean you no harm. Ours is a mission of peace and good will.
LANDRU: The good must transcend the evil. It shall be done. So it has been since the beginning.
SPOCK: He doesn't hear you, Captain.
(Real-time holocoms also feature in Gene Roddenberry's novelization of The Motion Picture, as well.)
-MMoM
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No there wasn't. That was always more of a fandom interpretation with rather thin if any basis in the show itself.
It doesn't even seem to have been conceived as an element of the character behind the scenes, or at least not one important enough to be mentioned in the writer's guide or his biography in The Making Of Star Trek, which itself even implies he was not the first: "It is a matter of record that Vulcans in the Space Service must occasionally be ordered to kill, if they do not think the situation logically justifies it..." (pg. 225).
If they had both holograms and real-time communications, then the integration of the two is a perfectly reasonable extension. And moreover, "The Return Of The Archons" (TOS) would seem to imply this is indeed something familiar to Kirk and Spock, as they attempt real-time communications with Landru's projection even after determining that's what it is:
LANDRU: I am Landru.
SPOCK: Projection, Captain. Unreal.
KIRK: But beautiful, Mister Spock, with no apparatus at this end.
LANDRU: You have come as destroyers. You bring an infection.
KIRK: You are holding my ship. I demand that you release it.
LANDRU: You have come to a world without hate, without fear, without conflict. No war, no disease, no crime. None of the ancient evils. Landru seeks tranquillity. Peace for all. The universal good.
KIRK: We mean you no harm. Ours is a mission of peace and good will.
LANDRU: The good must transcend the evil. It shall be done. So it has been since the beginning.
SPOCK: He doesn't hear you, Captain.
(Real-time holocoms also feature in Gene Roddenberry's novelization of The Motion Picture, as well.)
-MMoM
Tbh, I don’t much care if Spock was first or three hundred and first, and am aware of much of the stuff you mention. (It always amazes me people didn’t get that things like viewscreens were always intended as essentially holograms, for instance.) However, the presentation of Spock, and these events with Spock, has always been that they are in some way remarkable. By writing in a family member who goes through so many of the same or similar issues, it all begins to look very clumsy.
For me one question raised by Michael as Spock’s foster sister is “what do we learn from her?”
With Spock we learn that logic and emotion have their places and are equally valid both on their own and together (on a very fundamental level- I know I could go further here). I struggle to see what can be gleaned from watching Michael struggle to be a human with a Vulcan upbringing.
She fails to understand T’Kuvma’s fanaticism and thinks that Klingon honour can be appealed to when I’m doubtful the Vulcan hello tactic would have worked at all.
She fails to convince her captain and fellow officers of her plans.
She mutinies and immediately realises how wrong she was.
She then struggles to atone for the mutiny and also to acclimatise to life on a starship with many humans. If this isn’t a product of her Vulcan upbringing then she has an introverted personality or an attitude problem (likely the former and there’s nothing wrong with that).
What do we take from her? What do we learn about starfleet, the federation, Star Trek, the human condition itself from her character?
I always felt there were lessons about humanity to learn from Spock. Does casting Michael in a similar role teach us the same things just in a modern context? As an elder (aging) millennial (sorry) I wonder whether I am supposed to see myself reflected in Micheal Burnham? If not, then who?
Disclaimer: post is not meant to sound confrontational - the sooner the internet learns to convey tone of voice the better...!
It should be pointed out that Michael Burnham was born in 2226 and Spock was born in 2230. So, yes, she does stuff first. It doesn't diminish Spock. Earlier born = earlier opportunity to do things. If Burnham were younger than Spock, she'd be in her early-20s. Not a believable age to be a First Officer. Whereas 30 makes more sense.
"Whatever!" No. Not whatever. If the show is set 10 years before TOS, Micheal Burnham needs to be at least a certain age and that certain age will make her older than Spock would be. Thus she's the big foster sister, not the little foster sister.
Michael Burnham isn't going to change whatever I've thought about Spock for almost 30 years. Not happening. Burnham is no threat to what I think of Spock.
"Whatever!" No. Not whatever. If the show is set 10 years before TOS, Micheal Burnham needs to be at least a certain age and that certain age will make her older than Spock would be. Thus she's the big foster sister, not the little foster sister.
Michael Burnham isn't going to change whatever I've thought about Spock for almost 30 years. Not happening. Burnham is no threat to what I think of Spock.
I suppose the irony of all this is that Spock went on to be an icon - both in-universe and in real life.
Given what we know about Michael Burnham after the DSC era, she seemed to be forgotten by history, despite being Spock’s older sister. So did Sybok if you think about it.
That may change as we get into s2 and beyond mind you, but I think it says something about Spock that he went on to become a legend and his siblings didn’t (that we know of anyway - the Picard show might inform us that the manoeuvre he first performed on the stargazer against the Ferengi was originally called the “Burnham manoeuvre” as she performed it first a century ago and Michael was Picard’s hero. I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing either way, but it could happen in order to change the “secret” status of Michael Burnham in all Trek following DSC).
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