They sure did, I vaguely recall someone calling the TMP Klingons "lobster-headed midgets" - and people still hate the TMP "pajamas".
When did canon become such a hot-button issue?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
This. When canon breaks, it's like seeing the Wizard behind the curtains. It ruins the whole immersive experience. It's not just Trek. Think midichlorians in The Phantom Menace hyperspace as a weapon in Last Jedi.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be upset over such things, and unrealistic to try to shame/insult people into not caring about it.
On the other hand, I think the importance of "immersion" tends to get overemphasized these days. It's entirely possible to get caught up in a fictional narrative and recognize that it's a theatrical production at the same time.
Fiction is weird. We trick our brains into thinking that an imaginary story is real ("No, don't go in the basement!") while we can also appreciate the craft and artifice involved ("Wow! That was a clever twist!") simultaneously. One does not necessarily exclude the other.
So we can, say, watch DISCO or TMP, admire the new Klingon makeups, chalk them up to bigger budgets or new techniques, and still be on the edge of our seats, wondering what's going to happen next. It's only distracting if, for some reason, you're really, really invested in forgetting that you're watching a show.
It's like people insisting that they can't watch musicals because, in real life, people don't spontaneously break into song and dance. To my mind, that's not the point. You can still get caught up in the story and emotions even if you know it's not "real."
Fiction is weird. We trick our brains into thinking that an imaginary story is real ("No, don't go in the basement!") while we can also appreciate the craft and artifice involved ("Wow! That was a clever twist!") simultaneously. One does not necessarily exclude the other.
So we can, say, watch DISCO or TMP, admire the new Klingon makeups, chalk them up to bigger budgets or new techniques, and still be on the edge of our seats, wondering what's going to happen next. It's only distracting if, for some reason, you're really, really invested in forgetting that you're watching a show.
It's like people insisting that they can't watch musicals because, in real life, people don't spontaneously break into song and dance. To my mind, that's not the point. You can still get caught up in the story and emotions even if you know it's not "real."
That's a great idea that's been sadly misinterpreted by fans. The Force is supposed to be the energy that connects all life, right? Well, midi-chlorians, which reside symbiotically in living cells and connect them to the Force, are an obvious analogy to mitochondria, the symbiotic organelles that exist inside the cells of every living thing and provide their energy, so that we literally couldn't exist without them. The Force is about life, so it makes perfect sense to connect it to something living, and to make an analogy with something as essential to life as mitochondria. It's a beautiful metaphor that unites the biological and the spiritual, which is utterly appropriate for a spiritual Force generated by living things.
What in the world could be wrong with that? Anything that can warp space enough to generate FTL propulsion would require enormous energy and would logically have enormous destructive potential. (In science fiction, "Jon's Law" says that "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction," with "interesting" meaning anything fast enough to keep a story moving.) And Star Wars has spent 40-odd years showing hyperspace entry as a ship suddenly leaping forward at extraordinary speed, either because it's literally doing so or because space is undergoing a very severe, eruptive distortion to make it appear to do so. So the depicted effect of what would happen to something directly in the path of the ship entering hyperspace is a logical, believable extrapolation of what we've been shown, as well as creating what's easily the single most striking image of ship combat in the entire history of the franchise.
Will this religion have denominations? "Cult of Connolly" should be one of those.
The Holy War between those who believe in the One True Saavik (Kirstie Alley) and those who accept the "false" Saavik (Robin Curtis) will not be pretty . . . .
Whereas true Trek theologians understand that the Trinity of Spocks--Nimoy, Quinto, and Peck--are both Three and One.
I doubt it's ever really "reasonable" to get upset about a TV show.
Tell that to every viewer who saw Seinfeld's series finale.
I'd like to supplement this with the following: Most viewers have long considered the idea that the more midichlorians one has, the stronger the force is in them. I say the opposite is true; the stronger the force is in an individual, the more midichlorians are present. They are drawn to the intensity of the force presence, and the greater that presence is, the more midichlorians are drawn to it.
The problem with saying that they're "drawn to" it is that it assumes they're something separate from the living things they inhabit. I often see people talking about them as if they were a bacterial infection or something, which is the wrong biological analogy. Midi-chlorians are based on mitochondria, which are genetically separate symbiotic organelles, but are not interlopers from outside; they're intrinsic components of every cell of our bodies, essentially the batteries they require to run. They don't come from outside us; they're within us from the moment we're conceived. And the same is true of midi-chlorians. They're explicitly said to reside within living cells, rather than being separate cells like bacteria. As Qui-Gon said "Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist" -- just as we couldn't exist without our mitochondria. They're both inseparable from the living beings they inhabit.
I think that people who dislike the idea of midi-chlorians are just people who don't appreciate how amazing mitochondria are.
An alternative explanation would be then that they feed on the greater force potential of such an individual, and reproduce at a higher rate because of it. Unless it was stated somewhere that midichlorians are necessary for the individual to access the force (I don't remember any such claim outside of fandom), it's more likely that they are present in greater numbers because the individual is stronger in the force, rather than the other way around. Or that has always been my understanding.
One thing about the 3 to 3 year gap between TOS and TMP. I have always gotten the impression that this is something fans kind of ignore much like the Eugenics War happening in 1990's. I still think visual continuity and crossovers through old story elements or characters being played by same actor goes along way towards making something feel like it's part of the same continuity.
As for how people felt about Enterprise I always got the impression that the canon debate stuff was most intense before the show got started but people eventually accepted it as canon, but disliked it for other reasons. The Xindi maybe being the one thing that was hardest to except.
Still the show was created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga who went back to TNG days, we had James Cromwell play Cochrane in the pilot and when we saw familiar aliens they still looked like they did during the Berman era or in the case of older TOS aliens like the Andorians the changes still felt close enough to what they use to look like that people bought. into them. Then you toss in the fan service season 4 and I think people eventually accepted at least it's existence within the same continuity that had been around for awhile.
If Fuller hadn't been fired and he had gotten stuff that felt more connected to TOS like you hear he wanted to then I think "Discovery" would have went down the same path because Fuller has his time at "Voyager" to be a kind of link to the old that people would have liked. It's kind of like college sports when a new coach is brought in to replace a legend. Alabama went through of slew of guys as head football coach back in the day and they were always looking for someone who use to catch under Bear Bryant or played under him etc.
It why people still want Ron Moore to someday create and run a Trek show. The ideal person for something as big as Trek is someone with a connection to some of it's roots but creative enough to not allow themselves to bogged down by them. Granted that can only last so long but then again I have always felt that was becoming the issue with the Prime Universe. At some point they will need to basically start from scratch and create something more new to stay fresh.
Jason
As for how people felt about Enterprise I always got the impression that the canon debate stuff was most intense before the show got started but people eventually accepted it as canon, but disliked it for other reasons. The Xindi maybe being the one thing that was hardest to except.
Still the show was created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga who went back to TNG days, we had James Cromwell play Cochrane in the pilot and when we saw familiar aliens they still looked like they did during the Berman era or in the case of older TOS aliens like the Andorians the changes still felt close enough to what they use to look like that people bought. into them. Then you toss in the fan service season 4 and I think people eventually accepted at least it's existence within the same continuity that had been around for awhile.
If Fuller hadn't been fired and he had gotten stuff that felt more connected to TOS like you hear he wanted to then I think "Discovery" would have went down the same path because Fuller has his time at "Voyager" to be a kind of link to the old that people would have liked. It's kind of like college sports when a new coach is brought in to replace a legend. Alabama went through of slew of guys as head football coach back in the day and they were always looking for someone who use to catch under Bear Bryant or played under him etc.
It why people still want Ron Moore to someday create and run a Trek show. The ideal person for something as big as Trek is someone with a connection to some of it's roots but creative enough to not allow themselves to bogged down by them. Granted that can only last so long but then again I have always felt that was becoming the issue with the Prime Universe. At some point they will need to basically start from scratch and create something more new to stay fresh.
Jason
If a story was just that, in isolation then references to a greater canon would not be relevant. The moment you incorporate a story into a universe then the universe becomes canon. It's like basing stories on the planet Earth where we know of certain conditions, of the laws of science and nature. Start telling a story whereby the characters are breathing a different atmosphere or the regular mode of transport in the Year 2019 are pogo sticks and you might find people will talk about canon given a previous story where Earth inhabitants breathed air and drove cars. In part it is consistency and any good story telling should have that.
Toei's Tokusatsu Franchises of Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Metal Heroes does more to maintain internal consistency than a lot of other franchises, so I'm happy with it as a fan.
Again, they're not bacteria. They're not separate organisms. They're symbiotic within every single cell of every living thing in the galaxy. They're inseparable parts of every life form. They reproduce at the same rate that cells reproduce, because they are part of cells.
And again -- they don't come along later. They're inside the egg cell and the sperm cell that fertilizes it. They're inside every cell of the developing embryo, from the very beginning.
"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you." -- Qui-Gon to Anakin
"All energy from the Living Force, from all things that have ever lived, feeds into the Cosmic Force, binding everything and communicating to us through the midi-chlorians." -- Qui-Gon to Yoda
"All that surround us is the foundation of life, the birthplace of what your science calls midi-chlorians, the foundation of what connects the Living Force and the Cosmic Force." -- Serenity to Yoda (The Clone Wars)
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian
Trust me, you're wrong about this. I was there at the time, and the arguments were exactly the same as the anti-Discovery arguments now and the anti-Kelvin arguments a decade ago. And they were every bit as vitriolic and vicious too.
Yes, and a large segment of fandom had come to detest Braga during his showrunnership of Voyager and came to hate him even more during ENT. It was disturbing how vicious and personal the attacks against him became. And it was strange how his worst haters gave him far more credit for the franchise that he deserved, ignoring the contributions of his various collaborators like Ron Moore and Joe Menosky, or assuming he was Berman's regular partner on every show rather than just ENT.
Yes, most people did, but there is always a strident core of purists who refuse to accept any change from prior Trek. Hell, I can think of a couple of people who have been TrekBBS regulars within the past 5-10 years who still, to this day, do not accept anything after TMP as "real" Trek.
To expand upon this idea it bears reminding that this is an art form, which means that creativity is going to occur.
Completely agree. Otherwise, how would animation survive?
Agreed.
I accept only episodes with James R Kirk as REAL Trek, everything else I consider no better than fan fiction.
Your headcanon is rather small, isn't it?
Similar threads
