The Enterprise...then and now?

[ancient]

aridas sofia said:
^Whether or not Paramount considers it canon is beyond question. Whether their justification is valid is questionable.

Does it really matter? If you consider TAS to be 'real trek' what difference does it make? Paramount has made their view quite clear. Not Canon. Does it really affect anything? Hasn't so far.

Ok, so it makes fan projects a bit more controversial when someone incorperates, say, a TAS shuttle into their fanon Enterprise blueprint. I can live with that!

 

[aridas sofia]

Ancient, nothing on this board affects anything of any significance whatsoever except, I suppose, my CBS stock.

 

[USS Mariner]

Didn't Paramount recently state that TAS is officially "quasi-canon?"

 

[Warped9]

Paramount be damned. Writers and producers on TNG-ENT have referenced things from TAS. They were legitimizing TAS right there by referencing elements of it onscreen.

Not that it needed their stamp to do so. TAS has far stronger connections to TOS than any of the latter live-action Treks ever had. And that gives TAS far more credibility in my view than any of the live-action spinoffs or Paramount's say-so.

 

[USS Mariner]

Warped9 said:
Paramount be damned. Writers and producers on TNG-ENT have referenced things from TAS. They were legitimizing TAS right there by referencing elements of it onscreen.

Not that it needed their stamp to do so. TAS has far stronger connections to TOS than any of the latter live-action Treks ever had. And that gives TAS far more credibility in my view than any of the live-action spinoffs or Paramount's say-so.

Your not getting an argument from me there. I consider it Season 4 of TOS.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Mariner Class said:
Didn't Paramount recently state that TAS is officially "quasi-canon?"

If they haven't issued a press release, it'd only be a formality. Paramount's only interest is whether or not it makes them money. They've allowed references in scripts back to DS9, visual elements in ENT and TOS-R, released the DVDs, so the only conclusion one can reach is they think it does.

Besides, the canon argument's silly. Canon only means what the makers of future productions are obligated to adhere to, which, as we've seen in practice, is precious little if they believe it necessary for the story. TAS is like any other ST series, film, or novel, its events and parts are there to be used or ignored as is seen fit. If Abrams shows Pike as the Enterprise's first commander, it's his call. If he wants to stick Arex at navigation and M'ress at communications while the rest of the crew beams down to fight Klingons with sticks, ditto. Such changes might violate canon and/or continuity as they now stand, but changes of that magnitude have already occurred and more will come.

 

[aridas sofia]

And there have been a number of visual references to TAS within the remastered episodes. Grain ship. Antares. Shi’Khar.

And then FWIW there's that sehlat in ENT, and a number of other references in the other series.

They seem to be willing to permit TAS in, but on a case by case basis, and not as de facto "canon".

Why? It's that Giant Spock, I tell you. They'll let in Brainless Spock from "Spock's Brain" and Spore Spock from "This Side of Paradise" and Dead Spock from ST3 but not Giant Spock from "The Infinite Vulcan".

It's not a statement about canon. It's a statement about mutant, zombified Vulcans.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Personally, I'd take Giant-Spock over Remote Controlled Brainless-Spock any day.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

aridas sofia said:
They seem to be willing to permit TAS in, but on a case by case basis, and not as de facto "canon".

Why? It's that Giant Spock, I tell you. They'll let in Brainless Spock from "Spock's Brain" and Spore Spock from "This Side of Paradise" and Dead Spock from ST3 but not Giant Spock from "The Infinite Vulcan".

It's not a statement about canon. It's a statement about mutant, zombified Vulcans.

Then we have a perfect way to resolve the question: Giant Spock can fight Giant Apollo in a "Loser Leaves Canon" death match. Get a couple of lirpas and set 'em up on a blue and yellow triseklion and you've got the makings of a pay-per-view blockbuster.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Someone get Vince McMahon on the phone. We've gotta get this added to the bill for Wrestlemania 24.

 

[jayrath]

The problem is that it's more than a model, or a prop or a set piece. It's an icon.

Mickey Mouse hasn't been redesigned since 1940. No one ever carps about how, by today's standards, how flat and undetailed he is.

 

[Mallory]

True. But when was Mickey's last theatrical release?

 

[jayrath]

^ 1988, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." But Donald Duck was also unchanged in "Fantasia 2000."

 

[Warped9]

From the 1930s-'60s we basically had V2 like rocketships and saucers for space travel. Then we got the break out designs of Star Trek even though Hollywood basically started giving us stuff that looked like expansions on what NASA was contemplating or at least speculating on. That went on until Star Wars and its induastrial look mixed with unusual shapes.

And the SW's industrial look has been perpetuated ever since and even adopted by the Trek designs (to a degree.) Sometimes that look is appropriate as with the hardware in the Alien films or the Earth Force ships of Babylon 5. But it's now become tiresome that every sf and sci-fi project is essentially a variation on the same theme.

I look back and long to see something that still looks distinctive and dares to break convention. Perhaps thats one of the reasons I still love the TOS E. Because it defied convention in its day and continues to do so. I can quibble about details of its interior sets, but I still think the exterior design looks fantastically futuristic.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Mariner Class said:

Warped9 said:
Paramount be damned. Writers and producers on TNG-ENT have referenced things from TAS. They were legitimizing TAS right there by referencing elements of it onscreen.

Not that it needed their stamp to do so. TAS has far stronger connections to TOS than any of the latter live-action Treks ever had. And that gives TAS far more credibility in my view than any of the live-action spinoffs or Paramount's say-so.

Your not getting an argument from me there. I consider it Season 4 of TOS.

If that were the case it would mean that TOS continued to go downhill in Season Four as rapidly and excruciatingly as in Season Three.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Starship Polaris said:

Mariner Class said:
Your not getting an argument from me there. I consider it Season 4 of TOS.

If that were the case it would mean that TOS continued to go downhill in Season Four as rapidly and excruciatingly as in Season Three.

That's a matter of opinion. I, for one, have never felt that Season 3 is nearly as bad as some make it out to be. Sure, it wasn't up to the quality of the first two seasons, but not every show was Spock's Brain either. I find S3 and TAS very enjoyable for the most part. More so than say the first two seasons of TNG, which are near unwatchable, in my opinion.

 

[Warped9]

EliyahuQeoni said:

Starship Polaris said:

Mariner Class said:
Your not getting an argument from me there. I consider it Season 4 of TOS.

If that were the case it would mean that TOS continued to go downhill in Season Four as rapidly and excruciatingly as in Season Three.

That's a matter of opinion. I, for one, have never felt that Season 3 is nearly as bad as some make it out to be. Sure, it wasn't up to the quality of the first two seasons, but not every show was Spock's Brain either. I find S3 and TAS very enjoyable for the most part. More so than say the first two seasons of TNG, which are near unwatchable, in my opinion.

Overall I don't S3 is nearly as bad as many make it out to be either. Furthermore if many of the stories from TAS had actually been filmed as TOS' fourth season then they would have been adapted for live-action and would have been properly fleshed out as well.

There are other things to consider. If TOS had had a fourth season then it likely would mean that the third season had been better overall to justify contining the series production for another year. Also a fourth year would have been aired for the tv season of 1969/70 after the Apollo 11 moon landing. I've little doubt the '69 moon landing lent a measure of legitimacy to Star Trek for many viewers when the show went into syndicated reruns. If the show had still been in production after the moon landing then it could have been a shot-in-the-arm in terms of overall quality. Under those conditions, if ratings were affected for the positive, then there might even have been a fifth season.

Sadly we will never know, but it does illustrate that you can't just change one thing to change a situation. Change depends on different circumstances occuring beforehand and then it affacts subsequent circumstances.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think a couple of things that would've had to come about in the third season before a fourth season would've happened, namely getting that Monday 8pm timeslot, and Roddenberry sticking around to line produce the show (most likely to be replaced by Bob Justman, once GR started to get burned out again). The big thing, though, no Freddie Freiberger, therefore no elimination of the fun factor.

This would've also meant that "Spock's Brain", if it even got produced, would've remained the satirical story it started off as, "The Way To Eden" would've featured McCoy's daughter Joanna instead of Chekov's long lost girlfriend, and "More Troubles, More Tribbles" would've been made instead of, oh, perhaps "And the Children Shall Lead".

Monday nights might've also enabled the show to avoid a lot of the pre-emptions.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

That's pretty much it. If Laugh-In would've taken the move back 30 mins to open the Monday slot up, then GR stays and the third season's probably more in line with the second in quality.

If the show stays on into a fourth season (1969-70), would that have carried it to the point where the Nielsons started measuring the demographics of the audience and not just the raw numbers? I know that was around 1970. If so, there's no telling how long the show runs. I wouldn't doubt there'd have been an infusion of cash as well. If you've got the show with "the perfect demographics", you're not gonna want to strangle it with a shrinking budget.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Either that, or it would've been a bidding war between CBS and ABC to pick up the show for the fourth season.

And then we'd have seen the cash infusion, etc.