Maybe, but doesn't it seem just a little strange that one innocent little sentence would have created all this backlash every single day for a whole year?
Why Do We Demand Internal Consistency & Continuity in Star Trek?
- Thread starter Samuel
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Maybe, but doesn't it seem just a little strange that one innocent little sentence would have created all this backlash every single day for a whole year?
Historical drama writers drift into artistic licence quite often too. Amadeus gets quite a lot wrong but it's spot on about a lot too. Plus, it's a great movie
It's fine to expect some consistency, but it's unreasonable to look at 50 years of storytelling that comprises hundreds of hours of material, that never intended to be one singular vision, & not recognize that your list of things that happened is so huge, it requires a research team to investigate for weeks before you can finish one idea
That said, If Jason Bourne's amnesia cleared up in one movie & then he's back to having it in the next, without explanation, solely because the writers thought it would make their story gel better, it's fair that people would be annoyed by that. The notion is to walk a line that doesn't trample so much that it is a glaring distraction to the viewing experience. How far writers can push it before they kill our suspension of disbelief is an unknowable quantity, so they're bound to slip up now & then.
With love must come some forgiveness. So if you love a thing, you have to be willing to forgive an occasional transgression
I don't really see a lot of backlash. I see Trek fans doing what they always do: nitpick the shit out of every word and every scene. This isn't anything new. Star Wars fans do the same thing with it, as do most fandoms.
And out of those 27,000 people registered here, how many regularly post? In the Discovery forum it can't be more than a couple hundred which makes those 30 or 40 a sizable percentage.
I wasn't making a point about strict cannon adherence per se, but responding to your assertion that Trek is really about the message/ideas, not the setting. It was about the message and ideas when it started, but the setting itself has clearly become the more popular element. The Kelvin movies are generic action-adventure flicks, with the appeal to Trekkies coming from the fanwanky elements of the setting (which yes, includes the characters). Or hell, look at the contrast between The Orville, which is basically Trek without the canon, and DIS, which is full of little bits of canon-related fanwank, but doesn't deal except on a more superficial level with the traditional Trek plotlines like "let's use this sci-fi thing as an allegory to today."
I suppose I have a very different definition of "famous". Do you have any successful examples from this century? Because as far as I can see, internal consistency and continuity is important on virtually every TV and movie series these days except Star Trek.
I don't see this. People can be interested in the universe and the characters and messages. Also the the tech as well and the action and the humor. People enjoy things on many different levels and even with the whole disability issue, which didn't even feel like much of issue was that nobody was arguing that people with disability shouldn't be on the show. It felt it literally was about what kind of wheelchair or tech should be used and what limits a starfleet officer would have with a disability in terms of mobility compared to what strengths they would bring, overall as a officer. PLus a mixed on idea on what represents a more positive stance. Do you imbrace the happy vision that tech can help people with disability even more or do you take a more modern aproach for a better present day metaphor. Their is no right or wrong answer to the question because both have merit's and both have flaws. I felt a mixture of both is the best way, IMO. Just use modern tech that we have today to help people with disability and advance it by 20 to 30 years.
Jason
Is this thread canon to The TrekBBS? I want to link two posters together as twin siblings separated at birth who joined the board before ever learning they're related.
This is a bit of an aside, but I just realized the extent to which TNG in particular fell into soap opera conventions when it came to character development. Data is perhaps the best example. We find out that he has an evil identical twin brother, that his "father" who it was thought was dead, is actually alive, that his dead brother did not die, and that he has a robo-mother. Oh, and then in Nemesis they drop a third, mentally-challenged twin brother. Worf, Troi, and many other characters also had family members pop out of the woodwork when needed for a plotline.
In contrast, DS9, even though it's often decried as being the soapiest of the shows, didn't have as many random soapy twists like long-lost siblings coming out of the woodwork. There were individual plots which were a bit soapy, like finding out Dukat boned Kira's mom, but enough care was taken with character continuity that by the end of its run they didn't feel the need to throw random-ass character twists in.
Aside from learning that Julian was genetically enhanced in violation of Federation law and thus a walking abomination to Starfleet until his parents pay the legal penalty for his childhood procedure it's hard to find much "soapiness" in DS9. There are the odd plot points like the one you mentioned where Dukat had sexual relations with Kira's mother when she was a Bajoran comfort woman held aboard Terok Nor during the Cardassian occupation or, say, Worf's coming to grips with the fact that his dead wife is now reborn as a new Starfleet officer and the tension between himself and Ezri over the lingering feelings he has for Jadzia, but other than the occasional detour down that lane there really was little "drama" per se in the series.
Don't worry, based on the quality of writing, we'll end up with Michael Burnham's entire family tree making appearances on Discovery.
Exactly it is basic good story telling. Beginning, middle, end.
I find when fans become obsessed with a message they insist is being told in such and such a manner they go off the rails worse than those worrying about canon. It become a personal reflection of what they want to see. Then the very argument that it is fiction and all comes from the writers and is their property - goes out the door.
If the setting didn't count I would be watching a Western
The result somehow feels even worse, though, when continuity is disregarded and the story is mediocre or bad; I believe those are the times when the inconsistency gets complained about rather than just noted.
I think I might've tried to get my brother to join in the Early-2000s. I did get someone else to join in 2002 but he only lasted a few posts.
Yep. People are allowed to enjoy all the facets of the show and be fans of those. There should be a certain amount of consistency in portrayal be it family, humanity and technology. To do otherwise is patronising.
Of course it is canon. You get tons of poster crossovers from one forum to another. We are all using the same basic level of tech and the visuals are basically the same from this thread to other threads. Granted the board itself is a soft reboot from the BIg BLue days where you now have tons of new posters mixed in with a bunch of old timers still around. Of course it's created several spin-offs as well over the years like the Troll Kingdom and that new one that's name I can never, recall. Of course this will all change someday into a hardcore reboot where it's all about Marvel movies and soft core porn, with a single Trek forum left out of tradition that will sometimes get old timers who haven't died to stop buy for cameo's.
Jason
If the board gets rebooted with a new continuity I want Edward Norton to play me. If not him, Paul Rudd. Either way, I want Carl Spock to play at least one Marvel superhero.
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