The evidence suggests otherwise.
The Intersection of Canon and the Prime Timeline
- Thread starter Jinn
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They are our betters. They know exactly what we need and how we should consume and interpret it.
I bow to our corporate overlords!
What evidence? Them saying so? Well geez, they could tell you they are the overlords of Earth. Since you apply no critical thinking skills to pretty much anything CBS says.
They have said nothing or done nothing to make me doubt what they said in that statement.
That is some dumb hyperbole.
This.
If we can't agree about Discovery, I'm at least glad we can agree about something that actually matters in Real Life.
Canon is whatever characters and events TPTB deem to be officially part of a franchise.
Discovery is recognized by the TPTB as part of the franchise thus it is canon.
Continuity is the timeline/reality/universe in which characters and events exist.
Discovery is said to take place in the Prime Timeline/Universe*. Not to be confused with the Prime Timeline/Universe**, the Prime Timeline/Universe***, the Prime Timeline/Universe****, or the Prime Timeline/Universe*****.
* TOS with Abram sets, TNG movie era ships, and an Enterprise that looks like someone sat on it.
** Seen briefly at the beginning of Star Trek (2009).
** Fandom lumping all the shows and movies together.
*** Anal retentively working it out via time travel shenanigans as the last 20 episodes of Enterprise and the bit before Nero changes time in Star Trek (2009).
**** Whatever a magic 8 ball says it is today.
Discovery is recognized by the TPTB as part of the franchise thus it is canon.
Continuity is the timeline/reality/universe in which characters and events exist.
Discovery is said to take place in the Prime Timeline/Universe*. Not to be confused with the Prime Timeline/Universe**, the Prime Timeline/Universe***, the Prime Timeline/Universe****, or the Prime Timeline/Universe*****.
* TOS with Abram sets, TNG movie era ships, and an Enterprise that looks like someone sat on it.
** Seen briefly at the beginning of Star Trek (2009).
** Fandom lumping all the shows and movies together.
*** Anal retentively working it out via time travel shenanigans as the last 20 episodes of Enterprise and the bit before Nero changes time in Star Trek (2009).
**** Whatever a magic 8 ball says it is today.
They sued a fan film for using their IP, but they'd allow a major corporation to make millions off it, and claiming that they owned it, without saying anything? Logical.
All this whinging about Discovery being set in the "Prime Timeline" but not matching it exactly reminds me of this.
With Mike representing the Discovery production staff.
With Mike representing the Discovery production staff.
Viacom owns Paramount. There have been repeated talks of some sort of corporate merger wherein National Amusements would sell CBS to Viacom so that Paramount and CBS could become a single entity.
That means any discussions of Star Trek IP becomes a hot issue looked intensely at legal and accounting teams on both corporate sides. This isn't the early 70's where Gene Roddenberry could keep selling Trek things under the owner's nose because they didn't care. These arrangements are scruitinized.
The "25% content" statement never made sense. What all-knowing arbitrating authority weighs a ship model in the scales and says "Nay! It has cylindrical thingies whereof had these thingies been formed in a rectangular fashion, t'would have shaved 5 points lifted from the scale. While we may look askance should such a thing appear in one of the Star Trek books vended at bipliopoles, Discovery is quite another matter. It is 30% like a ship from Into Darkness, and into the darkness so mote it be! Now bring forth the awkward undergarment of Michael Burnham, for we have heard it resembles greatly the codpiece of a bacta-tank Skywalker.."
That they might have conversations about, say, not using the the Kelvin model, that kind of thing, sure, I could believe that. I think Discovery just was going to have its own look from the get-go. Fuller saw to that.
The fact that the guy who made the comment has since had his Facebook account deleted after he "blew the whistle" paints a different picture.
Batman is an adaptation.
Trek is not.
There is a difference.
Sorry if this seems short, it’s just I think I mention this every time someone sets up Bale and West as the example. No one ever even picks the forties Batman. Maybe it’s the yellow peril.
Nonsense. For a start, I believe ‘Spock Prime’ was written in the credits on Trek 2009. It has nothing to do with gatekeeping the fandom or emotional projection either....firstly, all the previous arguments about newer Trek series not being in keeping with the original didn’t necessarily use ‘Prime’ to describe TOS, and secondly, what emotional projection? There was a concerted effort in the late eighties and nineties to move Trek into a cohesive whole on the part of the people making and licensing it, it trades on its history with anniversary events etc (even Kelvin Timeline does that, look at the STV photo in Beyond, and Nimoys appearances in both predecessors.) so any idea that there is a canon or continuity is right there, front and centre (ten years before...says DSC) and fandom is just reacting to that by passing judgement or comment on how well that is being achieved. It’s not some political thing, with conservative fans and progressive fans, and the moral implication that will suggest for some. Some see it that way, but it’s far from truth in either sides favour. Daftness. Evil gatekeeper fans and their spending money all these years to keep it a viable franchise that eventually gets a new installment...nasty newbies coming in with no respect for occasionally clumsy effects and odd lighting that is the true dream....daft.
No it doesn’t.
That could have meant anything. CBS might not have liked him giving out BTS information without clearance, it could cause misconceptions like it did here.
The whole thing with 25% is pretty simple and went something like this:
-Marketing wants to sell new things, like new toys. They plan to re-use old toys as new STD merchandise.
-Legal hears of this and says: You can't do this for some legalese reason (can't resell something that had TOS branding as now having STD branding, or some such thing)
-Marketing: But... but... like, but we are in TOS era, how can we sell new merchandise then?
-Legal: Well, make it different enough that you can sell it as new
-Marketing: how different?
-Legal: Hmm, 25% difference ought to do it.
-Marketing to Creative: Make Enterprise 25% different because Legal told us so.
And that's how you get that Facebook post from creative that says 25% mandate is coming from legal. Technically yes, but only because marketing asked for it in the first place.
-Marketing wants to sell new things, like new toys. They plan to re-use old toys as new STD merchandise.
-Legal hears of this and says: You can't do this for some legalese reason (can't resell something that had TOS branding as now having STD branding, or some such thing)
-Marketing: But... but... like, but we are in TOS era, how can we sell new merchandise then?
-Legal: Well, make it different enough that you can sell it as new
-Marketing: how different?
-Legal: Hmm, 25% difference ought to do it.
-Marketing to Creative: Make Enterprise 25% different because Legal told us so.
And that's how you get that Facebook post from creative that says 25% mandate is coming from legal. Technically yes, but only because marketing asked for it in the first place.
No, that's been debunked. Specifically...
And as for...
Yes. In this particular case, the corporate line actually makes sense in relation to how intellectual property law works. John Eaves and some other design-side folks posted that they were instructed to make changes, which I totally believe... but it was only their interpretation that the reason involved a legal requirement involving IP ownership. They based this on what I was surprised to learn is the apparently widespread rule of thumb in the design biz that changing a visual design by 25% — whatever the heck that's supposed to mean anyway, which is far from clear — is a sufficient safeguard against infringing on existing IP. That rule of thumb is nonsense, because that isn't the relevant legal standard and has never been the legal standard, so it's inconceivable that someone from the CBS legal department would have provided such an instruction.
This, I can't argue with. Whatever instruction was given was grounded in creative reasons (with possible marketing reasons behind those), not legal reasons. Unfortunately, I'd say both the decision and the implementation of it were pretty ill-conceived.
Based on what? I did quite a bit of digging into this when the "25%" thing first came up, and from all available evidence CBS owns all the underlying Star Trek IP, both copyrights and trademarks, without exception. Paramount holds the movie rights to that IP since the 2005 corporate split, but nothing more. Any claims to the contrary I found (whether about Franz Joseph or Bad Robot or any other entity) were based on nothing more than rumor and speculation.
How do you figure? That was Eaves, and the most reasonable interpretation of the disappearance of the venue where he made his mistaken claims is that the claims were mistaken, and nobody wanted them left up to cause confusion.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the thread!... As for what the "Prime Timeline" is...
This succinctly sums up my personal approach to it, thank you very much.
Anything we saw on screen before that point remains canonical, yes, but the specific timeline(s) in which we saw those events take place were precursors to the version of "prime" from which ST09 branched off.Exactly how I see it.
For once we agree
I seriously doubt CBS would go anywhere near TOS timeline if that meant even some potential copyright infringement landmines.
Not quite plausible, but perhaps close. Again, CBS owns the IP, so it can sell whatever merch it wants branded however it wants... if it's doing the selling itself. What it can't do is sell the license to make and sell, say, the TOS-era Enterprise or TOS-era Klingon cruisers to one party to market as "TOS" products, and then sell the license to make the same stuff to someone else to market as "DSC" products, if the underlying product is identical. If you want to sell a new license, it needs to be for a new thing.
(That said, the "25%" bit is still spurious. That's simply not how the law evaluates differences between items of IP.)
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