We saw how crazy things got in "Futurama", to the point that a "reformation" against a Trek based religion resulted in a "Big Brother policy" watching for anybody daring to use the words "star" and "trek" in a single sentence.
When did canon become such a hot-button issue?
- Thread starter Amasov
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We saw how crazy things got in "Futurama", to the point that a "reformation" against a Trek based religion resulted in a "Big Brother policy" watching for anybody daring to use the words "star" and "trek" in a single sentence.
Yeah, I have to part ways with some of those folks. While I prefer a nice, steady continuity....and I'll admit I can get a bit, er, impassioned about continuity, it's still just entertainment. People aren't going to die, worlds will not fall, nations will not dissolve because of the spore drive on Discovery.
Some people just need to chill out a bit (and yes, sometimes I need to take a chill break myself when I find myself getting to wrapped up in my argument---though I've never crossed the line into using apocalyptical imagery to make my points).
It's a shame he felt the need to do so, did folks piss their knickers in 1979 when TMP aired and the Klingons were revamped and the Starfleet uniforms changed?
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Well, you know, now that I think of it the danger of the spore drive if I recall is that people will die, worlds will fall and nations will dissolve. So I guess I stand corrected.
Yes. A canon is simply the body of stories by the creators/owners of a property. Many canons are quite cavalier about their internal continuity, like Marvel Comics with its sliding timescale, or the Japanese Kamen Rider and Super Sentai franchises where the different series ignore and contradict each other freely but also do regular crossovers pretending to be in the same reality.
It should be kept in mind that Star Trek has no monopoly on canon/continuity arguments. Back in 1996 when the Paul McGann Doctor Who movie came out, I was participating in a local computer network's bulletin board, and there was this one poster on the board who was absolutely fanatical in his hatred for the McGann movie and the ways it got Doctor Who "wrong" -- ignoring all my attempts to point out how completely the original series had changed its style and continuity over the decades so that there had never really been a single "right" version of it anyway. He was just as intractable and vitriolic as the most extreme Trek-canon purists today; you couldn't mention the McGann movie even in passing without attracting an extended diatribe about everything that was wrong with it and what a loathsome crime against humanity its very existence was. On the day the local BBS finally shut down years later, well after the arguments over the movie had died down, he posted a farewell message that consisted entirely of one last condemnation of the McGann movie and the moral atrocity of its creation. He just couldn't let it go. He wouldn't be satisfied unless every copy of the movie was burned to ash and any mention of its existence or any of the people involved in it was forbidden under penalty of treason.
And of course it was Sherlock Holmes fandom generations ago that first used "canon" as a metaphor for what counted in a fictional universe. Although I don't think most of them were nearly that fundamentalist about it.
No, not really. In 1960s TV, lack of continuity was practically considered a feature rather than a bug. Without much syndication, with no home video, you might only see each episode once, or never see it at all if you weren't home that evening or there was too much static in the TV signal. So the priority was to make each individual episode work as a self-contained entity with no reliance on anything outside itself. Heck, the fact that TOS even gave returning background actors the same character names from week to week was atypically strong continuity for '60s TV.
What made continuity matter to fans was the show's later syndicated run starting in 1969, immediately after NBC cancelled the series. TOS had an unusually small number of episodes for a daily syndication package, but one of the major syndicators was a big fan and picked it up anyway, so audiences got to see the same episodes over and over again, more frequently than with a lot of other shows. And that enabled us to get to know the episodes by heart and get a sense of the show and its universe as a larger whole rather than just a series of separate episodes. In a way, it foreshadowed the kind of TV viewing that's standard today with season box sets and binge viewing and the like. That intimate knowledge of the series as a whole was supplemented by the release of The Star Trek Concordance with its episode guide and detailed lexicon, creating the feel of an encyclopedic record of a unified reality. The James Blish and Alan Dean Foster books of episode adaptations probably helped too -- although they had notable continuity differences from the episodes they were based on.
I definitely think that the availability of things like the Concordance and the Okuda Chronology / Encyclopedias just added to the belief that this was all one, carefully woven, unified tale. When, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It's actually amazing it holds up as well as it does.
Yeah, true. Star Trek is the one I pay attention to. The only other decades spanning series I watch is the James Bond films, and they are mostly individual movies without any major linkages between them (at least until the Craig movies). Ironically when it comes to Bond films I prefer them to be more isolated stories. I liked the Craig films too, but I find myself hoping the next film is more standalone, Bond is sent on a mission to stop some megalomaniac that doesn't have some personal vendetta against 007 (hopefully it won't be called "Shatterhand" though that is the working title--and it is a title of a Fleming story if I'm not mistaken)...but I digress.
Another favorite show of mine, Dallas, had a similar 'canon' issue (though I don't think it was called that) with the infamous dream year. Every future writer had to pretend season 9 (as reflected on the DVD's) never happened. That was the new-old continuity. The only thing that carried over from the dream year was falling oil prices causing problems for Ewing Oil and other oil companies. That whole dream year idea still boggles my mind--and I remember reading Knots Landing show runners being furious because they built whole stories out of Bobby's death and they were not considered, so no more crossover episodes occurred as a result. And frankly, it doesn't make sense, I once watched the last episode of season 8 and the first of season 10 to see how well it flowed....and it didn't, not at all. It was such a disjointed transition. I really was WTF.
But I'm going off on a tangent, sorry. Some fans just get a bit too wrapped up in what is just a franchise. It's something I read in "The World of Star Trek" by David Gerrold (so even in 1973, before the animated series even) that some fans took Star Trek a bit too seriously. It's ok to love the show(s), debate them (endlessly in some cases) and watch them over and over again (endlessly in some cases). But keep it in perspective. I hope I never get like that Dr. Who guy. Even if I have continuity issues with Discovery, I can get into the show and I enjoy it otherwise. I just wish it fit the continuity a bit better.
SIR, YES SIR! *heel click*
Much of modern story and movie telling would do well to be regarded as such.
Somewhat different circumstances. It was set after TOS and had feature film budget for makeup and effects and until the reboot movies retained the same appearance in multiple films and TV series.
And if it is perfectly justifiable to radically change how Klingons are depicted after 3 or 4 decades, why not Vulcans? Why not depict Vulcans as having blue skin for instance?
If you pay me a few billion, then I'll buy the rights to Star Trek and make your wish come true.
Someone should probably tell that to CBS...
I can have fanfic for free though.
Hardly the same. There were numerous differences between the Klingon designs of Fred Phillips on TMP (a single central spinal ridge on an otherwise smooth bald head, the same for every individual), the Burman Studios on TSFS (thick bony head plates with individualized bump patterns, minimal ridging on females), Michael Westmore on TNG through ENT (Burman-style head plates with TMP-style nasal ridges and no gender differentiation), and Richard Snell from TVH-TUC (thinner, rounder head plates with more intricate individualized ridging, again minimal on females).
https://www.herocollector.com/en-us/Article/star-trek-the-many-faces-of-the-klingon
Prosthetic makeup is an art form. Different artists bring their own distinct style and design sensibilities to their work. So of course every new Trek makeup designer has taken the opportunity to reinvent the Klingons in some way, to devise their own personalized variation on the basic themes laid down in TMP and TSFS.
Actually a good question. Different Trek makeup (or digital) designers have come up with their own distinct variants for many Trek species -- not just Klingons, but Andorians, Tellarites, Romulans, Gorn, Saurians, Barzans, etc. And yet the Vulcan design has remained pretty much constant. I'd conjecture it's because Spock is such an iconic, central character that nobody wants to tamper with his look too much. And so other Vulcans maintain a consistent look by association.
Then again, maybe it's because Vulcans are so humanoid. There are other instances where humanoid aliens are kept fairly consistent in their look from designer to designer. Michael Westmore's Tiburon makeup from DS9 closely replicates Dr. Sevrin's ear design and just adds a vertical ridge of small forehead horns. Westmore's Orion women in ENT looked pretty much exactly like the TOS version, as do the Discovery Orions; the only difference was that Westmore gave Orion males elaborate head piercings.
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