Strange New Worlds' showrunners advise fans to write to Skydance and Paramount if they're interested in a "Year One" Kirk sequel series

[Dukhat]

So to summarize, the studio who owns Trek can still do whatever they want with the IP, which could include invalidating past works that don't line up with the story they want to tell now. But that is unlikely to happen, unless Skydance takes the attitude of cleaning house.

 

[Christopher]

So to summarize, the studio who owns Trek can still do whatever they want with the IP, which could include invalidating past works that don't line up with the story they want to tell now. But that is unlikely to happen, unless Skydance takes the attitude of cleaning house.

Except, again, it would be the show's writers and producers making that decision, not "the studio." It's not all one monolithic entity making every decision. It's a hierarchy of many people with different jobs and responsibilities on different levels. If the writers and producers want to make a show in a new continuity, or to continue the old, the studio executives who are several levels above them in the hierarchy probably wouldn't care either way as long as they're confident it will make them money.

As I keep trying to explain, canon is not a matter of studio policy. It's just been the traditional preference of Star Trek's creators to continue the existing continuity. Roddenberry evidently wanted TNG to be a soft reboot, but his successors decided to treat it as a direct continuation of TOS instead, and all their successors, save Bad Robot, have chosen to follow suit, both because it's traditional and because many of them are fans themselves. Nobody tells them they have to; they just want to.

And it doesn't "invalidate" anything, because there's no right or wrong answer when something is entirely fictional. Stories in different continuities are all equally "valid" within their own realities. It's just that some of them are consistent with each other and some are not.

 

[Dukhat]

And I'm saying this conversation isn't about the definition of 'canon.' It's about the right of an IP holder to say "That thing that that former guy made that I'm now in charge of? I'm ignoring it."

 

[UssGlenn]

That's a common misconception. "Canon" is not an official seal of approval, it's just a term of criticism to refer to a complete body of works. The output of the original creators or owners is the canon, automatically, by definition. In most cases, creators and studios never even think about the word "canon," because it's a word used mostly by fans and critics. It describes what something already is, rather than making it what it is. Canon is not synonymous with continuity, because there are plenty of canons that play fast and loose with their internal continuity, like Marvel Comics with its perpetually sliding timescale.

And yes, some canons' creators choose to alter their continuity or disregard parts of their past. But they don't do that by removing some official seal or sticker that says "This is Canon," because there ain't no such animal. (Also because "canon" is a noun, not an adjective. It's "canonical.") They just do it by deciding they're not going to count that part of the story.

I feel I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in it's original usage, Canon does indeed require an official seal of approval. Biblical Canon must be approved by the Church.

 

[Zombie Cheerleader]

And I'm saying this conversation isn't about the definition of 'canon.' It's about the right of an IP holder to say "That thing that that former guy made that I'm now in charge of? I'm ignoring it."

Eh, they have people for that.

 

[Dukhat]

Eh, they have people for that.

But they gotta approve it.

 

[Outcast91]

Who cares, if you want to consider it canon, consider it canon, if you don't, don't.
No one is forcing you to watch SNW, or the potential Year One.
I personally just separate it by eras.

PilotVerse is
The Cage
TOS
TAS
and TMP

MeyerVerse is
TWOK
SFS
TVA
FF
UC

BermanVerse is
TNG, Generations, DS9, First Contact, Voyager, Insurrection, and ENT

KelvinVerse
'09, ID, Beyond

DiscoVerse
Discovery,SNW, (Year One?), Lower Decks, Section 31, Star Trek Picard, Starfleet Academy and Short Treks all comprise this.

There are always shared elements, but these are all their own canons in my head, there is a broad canon, but there is a stylistic difference between eras, to such a degree, that I consider them smaller canons.

 

[Zombie Cheerleader]

But they gotta approve it.

They have people for that, too.

 

[Dukhat]

They have people for that, too.

Top men?

 

[Jedman67]

Except, again, it would be the show's writers and producers making that decision, not "the studio." It's not all one monolithic entity making every decision. It's a hierarchy of many people with different jobs and responsibilities on different levels. If the writers and producers want to make a show in a new continuity, or to continue the old, the studio executives who are several levels above them in the hierarchy probably wouldn't care either way as long as they're confident it will make them money.

As I keep trying to explain, canon is not a matter of studio policy. It's just been the traditional preference of Star Trek's creators to continue the existing continuity. Roddenberry evidently wanted TNG to be a soft reboot, but his successors decided to treat it as a direct continuation of TOS instead, and all their successors, save Bad Robot, have chosen to follow suit, both because it's traditional and because many of them are fans themselves. Nobody tells them they have to; they just want to.

And it doesn't "invalidate" anything, because there's no right or wrong answer when something is entirely fictional. Stories in different continuities are all equally "valid" within their own realities. It's just that some of them are consistent with each other and some are not.

My eyeballs hurt reading this

 

[Dukhat]

Especially since it wasn't at all my point.

 

[Outcast91]

You could take it to a meta degree as well.

All Our Yesterdays, and TVA make a new timeline.
TNG exists in this timeline, Q also trolls the timeline.

Category:Star Trek time travel episodes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So many to list and so many changes, and tech transfers (Including the doctor's mobile emitter.)
One could make the argument it's a separate timeline.

 

[Christopher]

And I'm saying this conversation isn't about the definition of 'canon.' It's about the right of an IP holder to say "That thing that that former guy made that I'm now in charge of? I'm ignoring it."

I'm not talking about canon. The point is that you're defining the question wrong, because it's not "the IP holder" who usually makes that decision, it's the creative people who work for them. You're ascribing creative decisions to the businesspeople, telescoping a whole hierarchy down to an imaginary single decision-maker, and that's just not how it works.

What you're saying is the equivalent of assuming that the Commanding Admiral of Starfleet is responsible for deciding who goes on a landing party to a planet surface. No. The captain or first officer of the individual ship makes that decision. It's not Starfleet as a monolithic entity that decides, it's the specific person responsible for that specific ship, several levels of hierarchy below the heads of the whole organization. By the same token, the "IP holders" of a corporation are responsible for the overall business strategy of the company as a whole. It's the individual showrunners, several layers of hierarchy below them, who make decisions about what stories are told in the individual shows. They have to answer to their bosses, sure, and their bosses can reject their ideas and tell them to come up with something different, but the whole reason bosses have employees is so they don't have to make every single decision themselves.

I feel I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in it's original usage, Canon does indeed require an official seal of approval. Biblical Canon must be approved by the Church.

Which is exactly why it's such a terrible and misleading analogy for fictional continuity, and should never, ever be taken literally in that context.

 

[Outcast91]

I'm not talking about canon. The point is that you're defining the question wrong, because it's not "the IP holder" who usually makes that decision, it's the creative people who work for them. You're ascribing creative decisions to the businesspeople, telescoping a whole hierarchy down to an imaginary single decision-maker, and that's just not how it works.

What you're saying is the equivalent of assuming that the Commanding Admiral of Starfleet is responsible for deciding who goes on a landing party to a planet surface. No. The captain or first officer of the individual ship makes that decision. It's not Starfleet as a monolithic entity that decides, it's the specific person responsible for that specific ship, several levels of hierarchy below the heads of the whole organization. By the same token, the "IP holders" of a corporation are responsible for the overall business strategy of the company as a whole. It's the individual showrunners, several layers of hierarchy below them, who make decisions about what stories are told in the individual shows. They have to answer to their bosses, sure, and their bosses can reject their ideas and tell them to come up with something different, but the whole reason bosses have employees is so they don't have to make every single decision themselves.




Which is exactly why it's such a terrible and misleading analogy for fictional continuity, and should never, ever be taken literally in that context.

How?
It's actually closer.
Tolkien's legendarium is mostly the work of one single man.

Trek is the work of many authors.
I think that the canon is decided by both the fans and the writers.
Eventually by the company who owns it, but it usually starts with the fandom.
Fallout is a good example of that, Fallout:Brotherhood of Steel isn't canon, but at one time it was considered canonical.

 

[Christopher]

How?
It's actually closer.

The point is that fictional canon is not something declared by an official the way religious canon is. Nobody "decides" that something is canon. It's just a nickname we use for what something already is, i.e. a comprehensive body of works with something in common, usually authorship or (nominal) continuity. It's like calling something land or water. The label doesn't make it what it is, it just describes it.

 

[UssGlenn]

You could make the argument that movies, tv episodes, audio works, books, comics, video games, fan fiction, etc, are analogous to The Torah, the Gospels, the Epistles, the Apocrypha, the Gnostic gospels, ect. and someone has to decides what counts.

 

[Zombie Cheerleader]

Top men?

 

[Christopher]

You could make the argument that movies, tv episodes, audio works, books, comics, video games, fan fiction, etc, are analogous to The Torah, the Gospels, the Epistles, the Apocrypha, the Gnostic gospels, ect. and someone has to decides what counts.

But that argument would be wrong. The only people who decide what counts are the writers, producers, editors, and directors, by the act of making the stories in the first place. Anything else is overcomplicating it.

And bringing tie-ins into it is making the same mistake I was talking about, treating the exceptions as if they were the rule. As a rule, the canon is the work of the original creators or owners. As a rule, tie-ins are apocrypha. When tie-ins are treated as canonical, it's usually because the original creators are the ones making or overseeing them. It's not because some imaginary authority issued a ukase or something, it's just because "canon" is a stupid nickname we use for the work of the primary creator. It's because it's easier for the showrunner to maintain consistency with their vision and continuity than it is for outsiders, so generally only showrunner-created tie-ins can be canonical. It's not authority-driven, it's story-driven. Canon comes from the stories; it is not imposed on them.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm not talking about canon. The point is that you're defining the question wrong, because it's not "the IP holder" who usually makes that decision, it's the creative people who work for them. You're ascribing creative decisions to the businesspeople, telescoping a whole hierarchy down to an imaginary single decision-maker, and that's just not how it works.

What you're saying is the equivalent of assuming that the Commanding Admiral of Starfleet is responsible for deciding who goes on a landing party to a planet surface. No. The captain or first officer of the individual ship makes that decision. It's not Starfleet as a monolithic entity that decides, it's the specific person responsible for that specific ship, several levels of hierarchy below the heads of the whole organization. By the same token, the "IP holders" of a corporation are responsible for the overall business strategy of the company as a whole. It's the individual showrunners, several layers of hierarchy below them, who make decisions about what stories are told in the individual shows. They have to answer to their bosses, sure, and their bosses can reject their ideas and tell them to come up with something different, but the whole reason bosses have employees is so they don't have to make every single decision themselves.

Again you're getting bogged down with semantics. If you can't seem to get past the terminology I'm using to make my point instead of actually focusing on that point (because I know you get my point), then it's clear that the discussion is going nowhere with you and I'm happy to conclude it.

 

[Christopher]

Again you're getting bogged down with semantics. If you can't seem to get past the terminology I'm using to make my point instead of actually focusing on that point (because I know you get my point), then it's clear that the discussion is going nowhere with you and I'm happy to conclude it.

The fact that you think the difference between the business executives who do not make creative decisions and the creators whose entire job is to make creative decisions is nothing but "semantics" is proof that you don't understand the issue at all. The reason the discussion is going nowhere is because you're rejecting my point out of hand rather than actually listening.