Moore: Star Trek Had Too Much Continuity March 24, 2008
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: DS9, Star Trek (2009 film), TNG , trackback
Last week Ron Moore talked about his visit to the new Star Trek set and today there is more at Sci-Fi Wire. The TNG/DS9 vet writer/producer says after seeing Trek at Paramount again, “all that kind of really hardcore, Trekkie geek stuff came flying back.” Moore (who has not read the Trek script, but has experience rebooting the Battlestar franchise) opined on Abrams’ plan to bring Trek back.
From the Sci-Fi Wire interview:
I just think that Star Trek had gone on for so long and had developed such a complicated backstory and so much continuity that it really wasn’t possible for any one writer or any one group of writers, really, to keep it all straight anymore….
And that meant there was a whole legion of people out there that weren’t even going to make the effort because it was just too much work. This really gives it a chance to start over and bring everybody back to what made it so great to begin with.
More Moore at Sci-Fi Wire
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I’d love to use that line of logic on a history test!
So true.
I agree, the franchise got to bloated with it’s self. thats what killed enterprise
well I agree with Moore… lets get back to good stories and good movies/TV and let the nazis worry about ret-coning history so that their the only ones that can enjoy Trek.
I got off Trek for a while during DS9 days after catching an obscure treaty reference and finding myself startled at how much I knew about this nonworld. Maybe if the show had been better that wouldn’t have bothered me, but, anyway, I think Moore’s right. I’m entirely looking forward to the movie, but the structure can bear only so much weight.
Uhm, no. Moore’s talking out of his ass. Just because there’s a lot of backstory and continuity, doesn’t mean the scripts for each episode had to be loaded down with that crap. There was no reason at all for all the technobabble, there was no reason at all that the characters were often scared of their own shadow geeks, instead of cut from the hero mold like Kirk. In short, it was the freaking writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else.
I totally disagree. It’s not really that complicated when you get right down to it. I’m not a trek writer, but I can’t imagine that any writer has ever hit a dead end because of a continuity issue.
Well I don’t know how complicated the backstory was, but there were published Encyclopedias and Chronologies, so having someone check them would’ve helped. Hell, there are prolly many Trek fans who’d have done it for free….
That said, I do agree that there were several aspects that made the universe just a bloated mess. Like creating new races when an older, already established, but not used as much race might’ve worked. In Ent, there was an ep where a freighter was supposed to be attacked by an alien race. Originally it was Orions, but IRCC it was changed to a newer species.
Also, I remember going through the Trek Encyclopedia around the temporal and spatial anomoly section and several were just the same thing, with new names. Now giving them new names spared the writers from charges of just rehashing “X” plot device….but really, it was the same with just a different name.
Also, reusing established anomolies would’ve helped strengthen continuity, not made it so damn confusing and prolly made them think twice about doing that type of story again and again.
Having said that…..I’m ready for a new Trek with a far, far simpler backstory. These days I just don’t have the time, effort or inclination to look into a bloated, largely lacklustre backstory, nor do I think it’s going to hurt Trek much by jettisoning it.
Vulcans use logic, Klingons and Romulans are the enemy and I dont care if the Cardassians, Bajorans, Breen, Ferengi, Dominion and Borg even exist in the new Trek or it’s future. There’s a combined total of 21 years worth of seasons for those that do and they’re all out on DVD.
#3
I’m going to have to respectively disagree.
I believe that the reason Enterprise failed was exactly the opposite. Enterprise made it very clear from the get-go that they were going to throw away all the bloatedness. So many interviews stated that they would favor good storytelling over consistency with minutea.
The big push with Enterprise was to reach out to new audiences even if it pissed off some of the hardcore fans. That’s the reason behind the music video opening and dropping “Star Trek” from the title. And it worked, they pissed off the hardcore fans who felt betrayed. Complaints poured in every week about how Enterprise was so seperated from the show and didn’t respect that which came before it.
In my opinion, it made Enterprise a really good show that was able to make bold choices without tiptoeing around the details like the final awful seasons of Voyager (my opinions only)
The problem with the plan was that for all the talk about reaching a new audience, Paramount never ever made any attempt to reach out to a new audience. The general public never heard of Enterprise, or assumed it was just “one of those Trek shows”.
I have a few friends who aren’t into Trek at all and they started to catch a little Enterprise and got really into it. Enough to ask to borrow older Treks. They didn’t like Voyager and Deep Space Nine because of the bloated factor. But loved Enterprise.
It’s a shame the show was designed for a certain audience and then never introduced to that audience.
“In short, it was the freaking [poor, medioce, hackneyed] writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else.”
EXACTLY, r6. EXACTLY.
I agree with Moore. The longer the shows and movies ran the deeper the continuity got. That can intimidate alot of casual viewers/fans and simply doesn’t make the material as accessible as it should be.
It’s great to have all that depth; but after awhile you can get shackled down by it.
This isn’t the first time Moore has said something to this effect. He and Braga both stated they felt that Trek was gonna need a reboot eventually during an audio commentary for either Generations or First Contact, I can’t remember which.
There’s nothing wrong with hitting the refresh button with Trek.
I think what Moore’s referring to is not just keeping the canon straight, for storytelling’s sake, but the intimidating nature of it all. Unlike soap operas, this is a world that tries much harder to be free of loose ends. It has to try because it’s already a strange heady concept of a show. It needs consistency to make that concept to fascilitate suspension of disbelief.
On top of all that, it’s intimidating because a writer has to meet the *sometimes* unreasonable expectations of its fans. That’s partly the show’s own doing. Once TNG premiered, or perhaps as early as the plans for Phase II and TMP, or TAS, the decision was made to make all incarnations of the show tie into each other, and therefore, fact-check it down to the nitty-gritty details.
Even discounting TAS, after 40 years of stories spanning 28 television seasons and 10 movies, it would be intimidating for all but the most hard-core students of this world to break into. It’s hard enough for an apiring TV writer to fathom breaking a spec script for a show that’s only been around for a season or two.
The feeling of a world being visited will still be there with this new movie, but with much less baggage. We can always do as John Lennon said and put the old ones on if we want to reminisce. We can discount this new film as part of the canon we’re more familiar with or include it with everything else. Hopefully we’ll be able to reconsile the two into one, but if not, then it would be a clean slate and it might not be such a bad thing.
#9
The biggest problem with Ent is that they straddled the fence. They kept saying it wasn’t a re-boot, so people expected them to honor what came before. But they didn’t honor what came before so it pissed people off.
And the writing was just god awful. Great concept (prequel that is, not the Temporal Cold War…..an idiotic term anyway), great crew, horrible writing and an inability to have the balls to just say “we’re rebooting it” created a big confusing mess that seemed to piss off more people than not.
Later, they tried to say that Ent *was* in an altered timeline, but too many people were pissed or dis-interested to care, the writing was still crap and the show just lacked any kind of direction. Both in the show and in the real world. Both crew and writing team were “just flyin around”.
Then they bring in Manny Coto who tries to firmly establish it in the Trek universe proper, and while he does a pretty good job that I and many others would’ve liked to see continue, it’s too late. Shows dead.
Oh boy, Ron Moore opened up a can of worms on this one.
I wonder if Moore will complain about continuity if the BSG franchise continues to make spinoff series and TV movies and such.
I’m all for a fresh start, but what was so complicated about the ‘Star Trek’ universe?
“Battlestar:Galactica” only remotely resembled it’s origins, and, while it was, arguably, an improvement, it never actually needed to be named ‘Battlestar: Galactica” to begin with. And talk about complicated. That program was far more of a saga than the original Trek ever was.
If ‘Star Trek’ is “reimagined” to the point that it’s just another space opera, I don’t see the point, except to trade in on a brand to make an easier buck than gambling on an all new idea.
I would like to see the philosophy of a non interference directive and an optimistic future survive the transition to the new product. I’d be thrilled if we actually saw some new worlds and civilizations. I’m afraid though that what we’re being prepared for is a young adult soap opera in space.
#6, you are RIGHT on the money. I really couldn’t have said it better myself!!
I can’t figure out why we’re even listening to what Ron Moore says, as if his words have any relevance to what Abrams and Co are doing. They’re going out of their way to make us purists (who are a small minority in the first place, as far as I know) happy with the new project, even bringing in people who are NOT involved with the project who they hope has some credibility with us fans, and getting them to wax poetic about the film. They don’t seem to realize that they wouldn’t even HAVE to “convince/win the purist population” if they hadn’t made so many asinine changes in the first place.
Trek began it’s slide after DS9….same writers, same composers, same production designers, cinematographers, etc. all led to a blandness and “sameness” to each show, no matter what timeline they were set in. Enterpise should’ve been done by a whole new production group from the gitgo.
#12 When did they say that Ent was in an altered timeline? Or are you referring to the Borg discovery in Antarctica?
When did they ever, ever say it was an altered timeline? Never. Enterpise never ever tried to be a reboot. They may have failed to be in a place people were comfortable with it being, but it never claimed to be a reboot or alternate timeline.
Also, I don’t want to get into an argument over the quality of Enterprise. I just want to point out that it did not pussy-foot around the details. That’s all.
And for all the talk. Enterprise didn’t really trample on that many things. Little details like the date of some mission, or some Vulcan biology. The things Enterprise conflicted with were what people thought it should be.
That’s not a good thing or a bad thing. I’m just saying if you damn it, damn it for what it was.
Personally, I preferred good storytelling to nitpicking details. That’s just me. Some people prefer consistency of the little details. That’s valid too. I don’t see why people who like the ideas of Star Trek can’t accept each others thought there. I respect that you didn’t like Enterprise, and wouldn’t care to try to change your mind.
IDIC
I’m going to hold star trek Hostage in my mind until they make good use
of all of today’s powerful computers, made ready & available & write good stories that totally stay within “Cannon!” Don’t ever tell me that you “Can’t do it!!!” AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
“In short, it was the freaking [poor, medioce, hackneyed] writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else.”
I would say that for Bermann, but Moore wrote some of the best stories (”All good things”, expanding the Klingon culture in DS9) and produced DS9 (not only one of the best Trek series, but also one of the best scifi series). I think Voyager and ENT would have become better if not Bermann but Moore had made them.
That’s one of the good things about TOS: you could watch about any episode in any order, or even independant of the others, and still get it without a compendium. Each one stood alone.
#17 Agreed
Perfectly stated. The process ceased to be a labor of caring and became a preprocessed product with an unending sameness.
Ron Moore is Absolutely Right(TM). And this dude knows whereof he speaks – anyone who could take crap like the 1978 “Battlestar Galactica” into the brilliant current version, as Moore has, should be heeded.
How can you ever have continuity issues when time travel is possible?
# 20 would that be phaser cannon or what? ;-)
Bloatedness is what kept me away from Babylon 5. I didn’t want a frakkin’ soap opera. I wanted episodes. It’s not that I have a short attention span (I’ve been watching Trek for 4 decades now) but I just don’t like being forced to watch a series week after week or be lost in ambiguity.
Moore is riding high on the hog right now… he apparently has forgotten how quickly an audience can turn on a show. I don’t wish that to happen with BSG, but now that they’re doing Caprica, who knows?
I’m all about good story telling. Let’s see if it happens again.
#18
“#12 When did they say that Ent was in an altered timeline? Or are you referring to the Borg discovery in Antarctica?”
Yep.
#19
“When did they ever, ever say it was an altered timeline? Never.”
It was never stated within the show, but Braga made comments about it later.
From “The Trek Nation” May 19th 2003.
“Following the screening there was a short Q&A. Braga teased, “No direct threatening questions”. When asked about continuity discrepancies in “Regeneration”, Braga replied the “timeline has been altered”. A temporal paradox? Along the same theme, he added that next season would be edgier.”
Here’s the link: http://www.treknation.com/articles/brannon_braga_ucsc_event.shtml
As for the quality of the show….well as I said above, it had some cool things…..they just weren’t executed well. On other boards around that time, I stated that a prequel idea was awesome, but that B&B, just weren’t the people to execute it. Mainly because I didn’t think people who had spent so much time writing in a certain time and mind frame could readjust their thinking to a much more primitive time.
#22: “That’s one of the good things about TOS: you could watch about any episode in any order, or even independant of the others, and still get it without a compendium. Each one stood alone.”
Exactly so.
There’s this tired old (by Internet standards) chestnut that goes “Saying continuity is a problem is an excuse of lazy writers.”
Nope. Falling back on audience familiarity, affection or need to find out what happens in a continuing storyline, while certainly not a failing when done well, is simply a marvelous safety net when writers *can’t *write*compelling*short*screenplays* that make people want to tune in next week to see another new story.
Rod Serling could do that brilliantly. The producers of TOS managed to find writers who could do it more often than not for a couple of years, and it’s those damned fine little stand-alone fifty-minute science fiction “movies” that remain the foundation of “Star Trek’s” success.
OMG, Michael Moore just said everything I’ve wanted to say re: the new film. That’s exactly it: move the hell away from this massive saga of 5 series all interconnected, and just get back to the beginning… when Trek was new and pure, and start fresh. That said, it’ll never, ever be possible to escape star trek’s backstory. Too many rabid fans (like myself) keeping tabs on everything. But at least with a prequel they aren’t as beholden to the Trek canon. They can and should take some creative liberties. Trek got too bogged down and that’s why we all suffered Trek fatigue, in a sense. The last two films were major disappointments and the canon just felt tired and regurgitated. This new film could capture the sense of adventure and new-ness to Trek that we haven’t felt since the last 10 minutes of “First Contact.”
Jordan, that’s RON Moore, not Michael Moore. :)
Moore is right, the Abrams and company should just start from scratch, make the film and ignore all these ridiculous chronology book limitations that some fans are trying to impose upon trek. Back story is only useful to a point then it becomes a veritable white Elephant which will in the end kill vitality of the franchise. Its alright to homage the past but its not alright to be stuck in it.
Jeez. What did Gunsmoke do? Give me a break.
Moore, did it with Galactica and it can be done with Star Trek, just start over and keep the best from the original series. Perhaps this is something of what we’ll get with the new movie. I think, in this case, they are keeping much of what worked and are using the older Spock angle to explain the new changes.
Works for me, now if they can just omit the screaming opera singer from the 2nd & 3rd season remastered titles… too overpowering!
#6:
Both parties have a point here. The canon gives us races, a history, a universe to play around in. It truly does add to stories. It also spawns new stories that are wonderful in their own right, and are even better when seen in the full context of the work. (I think the best-ever example of that was Enterprise Season Four.) From the broad strokes of the races and the universe to the subtle little references that so delight the fandom, Trek is its own legendarium, and I would never want to see that thrown away as RDM seems to be advocating here. A Galactica-style reboot for Trek would, as another poster said, only turn Star Trek into just another space opera.
And yet… it is -hard- to write new Trek within that huge conflicting mass of data that is canon. Even knowing as much as I do (which, at last count, is roughly everything ever, give or take an episode of Voyager), I simply could not write Trek fanfic anymore if not for the huge crutch of Memory-Alpha. I can’t keep the years of the Dominion War straight, I rely heavily on a javascript stardate converter I found on Google and on the warp tables from Ex Astris, and trying to map out locations so as not to piss off the alarming number of fans who think the Star Charts are canon (or ought to be) is hellish when you want a face-off between the Klingons and the Tzehnkethi. In this respect, RDM is exactly right. Moreover, when he was writing DS9, the canon was a lot smaller than it is today–and hardcore fans didn’t expect you to keep consistent with the novels, the production materials, the fanon… I once even had the executive producer of Hidden Frontier complain to me that my own fan production (Star Trek: Excelsior) wasn’t fully respectful to HF because my show’s backstory contradicted -his- show’s canon! (A fan film!)
Suffice to say it’s fracking hard. There are too many details for any one man (or men) to keep track of, and simply doing one’s best to avoid a myriad of technical contradictions consumes enormous amounts of energy. Trying to write a good story within the context of canon is a tremendous undertaking, and I am always impressed with those who attempt it and succeed; they are not recognized enough. (Except for NV/P2’s Hugo nomination! Go Cawley! Represent!) In this regard, like RDM (who, incidentally, did a wonderful job on DS9 and also deserves recognition), I hate the canon and want it to die painfully.
What I think Trek needs to find–and, from what I see of BALOK’s “Supreme Court”, what Trek has found–is a balance. Characters, conflicts, the central ideas of the races we know and love, from Klingons to the Dominion to even the Xindi–these things matter, and should always be protected within the canon. These are the things, along with Gene’s bold vision of the future, that make Star Trek something special. Minutiae–dates, registries, locations, technological capabilities, even actors–should be entirely ignored, altered to serve the purposes or themes of the story. The fans who disowned Enterprise because the NX-01 looked like an Akira–and it did–are the same fans who railed against the new movie for apparently having the Enterprise being built on Earth. These fans are the greatest threat to good storytelling and to Gene’s vision, and, therefore, they are a grave threat to the franchise as a whole.
Let’s have a new vision of canon, where we, as a fandom, have clearly marked the differences between “that which is important” and “that which is not.” *That* would put Star Trek on the fast track to a renaissance.
My two cents.
Wow… that was longer than I thought it was. Sorry.
Ron, Ron, Ron…..
Staying within continuity for a Star Trek show shouldn’t be any more complicated than staying within continuity for a CSI or Law & Order show.
Just don’t contradict what came before, or put forward something that really doesn’t fit without a really freakin’ good reason.
Besides, hasn’t it been said over and over again that limitations makes for better writing?
18, 19, 27 RE: altered timeline…
All of Season Three could’ve been an altered timeline. Daniels explained that the Xindi attack on Earth in the Season Two finale and the following year’s-worth of stories were “not supposed to have happened” and were a consequence of the Temporal Cold War.
Of course the whole series could’ve been an altered timeline for similar reasons (the Temporal Cold War starting with the pilot episode). I always wonder if in the “new” timeline a model of the NX-01 is also included in the 1701-D conference room alongside the other Starfleet Enterprises. Ow. My head hurts.
Ron Moore is Absolutely Wrong. Totally. Completely. Utterly. Profoundly.
There’s nothing really that complicated about Trek’s continuity, if one cares even a little bit about it. It’s a huge universe, with plenty of room for new directions, all along its fictional timeline. With any sort of luck, Messrs. Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman understand this. As Jeff (#6) said, the fact that there is continuity doesn’t mean that every script has to loaded down with it, and the fact of continuity gives dozens of launching-points for new stories, too.
(Having written more than half a million words of storyteling in the Trekverse {or at least a very close analogue to it ;) }, I’ll certainly argue from experience that continuity has far more benefits than drawbacks.)
I think it ironic that, for all the whining about continuity, the Trek film widely considered the best is the most continuity-laden of the bunch. Its entire story owes its existence to an Original Series episode. Why does it work? Because the filmmakers knew to provide just enough hooks to the original story so that new viewers could “get it”, and then got on with the job of the storytelling. That’s good use of continuity.
Moore’s Galactica could have benefitted from a whole lot more respect and caring for the original. I’m still saddened that he opted to demonstrate so little of either. And I think if what he did to BSG was ever done to Trek, it would be a profound loss.
#34 very well said, It would be a chance for trek to maybe go down a different time line. If I could change one or two things in trek. One would be Captain Pike, Let him have a different fate then He did in the original, I always hated how he ended up in the original. I know I am going to hear a lot of criticism on this statement, so be it.
I find it supremely ironic that Ron Moore is complaining about “too much continuity,” when he single-handedly created much of the Klingon backstory for the 24th century period. But, setting that aside…
The problem with Star Trek isn’t continuity, it’s a dire lack of any sense of adventure and exploration.
Say all the negative things you want about the first two seasons of TNG, but at least the Enterprise was actually attempting to go out and explore “new worlds and new civilizations.” That was the whole reason for families being on the new Enterprise, a decision that was highly controversial among Trek fans when the show first debuted.
Then, somewhere around Season Six, TNG forgot about exploration entirely, and the Enterprise served merely as a heavily-armed Ramada Inn designed to ferry around diplomats, mediate the occasional Klingon or Cardassian skirmish or serve simply as a backdrop for a crew member’s emotional crisis or holodeck experience.
Plots became predictable, and always revolved around fixing The Crew Member or Technological Gadget That Has Gone Wrong This Week™.
So, continuity isn’t the issue. Case in point: Doctor Who, the longest-running sci-fi series in history (with more episodes than the entire Trek franchise put together) has *oodles* of continuity, but it doesn’t get in the way of telling a fun adventure each week. And if something needs to be retconned in order for the story to make sense, then fine. The point is to tell a story that is fun and adventurous. And if some commentary on modern society can be woven in to give it depth, so much the better.
Remember when Star Trek was actually fun and adventurous? You know, like watching “Doomsday Machine” or “Trouble with Tribbles” or “City on the Edge of Forever”? You know, those feelings you get, even though you’ve seen the episode thousands of times?
Does anyone get those feelings when watching “The Quality of Life,” “Aquiel,” or “Bloodlines”? Does anyone even remember what the hell those episodes were even about without having to consult Wikipedia? I doubt it.
I’m sorry, Mr. Moore. You’re supremely talented and your new Galactica series kicks ass. But Star Trek wasn’t run into the ground because of “the weight of continuity.” It was run into the ground by many writer/producers who clearly got bored with the 24th century universe they helped create, and we as the audience eventually got bored watching episodes which took place in it.
Star Trek is near death because it desperately needs a new infusion of genuine adventure… and fun! I’m hoping the new film will re-ignite that.
I don’t know if Moore is as perplexed by all the back-story and continuity there is to get straight as he is simply worried he’ll piss off a purist with the wrong colored laser button. If he reads these posts like Robert Orci does, he understands how some people here can be so militant about their make-believe. I’m as sure there’s a part of him that is quite capable of going through all the shows with his team and making a time-line and figuring it all out, as I’m also as sure there’s a part of him that doesn’t give a f**k about it either.
As for Trek, I’m a 60’s veteran, loved the original show, loved Next Generation, preferred DS9 to Babylon 5, loved Voyager and loved Enterprise. Basically I love Star Trek!
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I try to analyze why some people put one up against another, why series are put down in comparison to each other. However, the intricate “canon” back history that run’s through all series tying them together souldn’t take precedence over a good story. I think good stories are the key.
It’s fascinating that given enough time and episodes that all will eventually be explained. When I watch Worf’s reaction to questions about the Klingon’s “human” appearance in “TRIALS AND TRIBBLE-ATIONS” (which of course is DS9’s visit back to TOS) and later the reason for their appearance is explained in ENT: AFFLICTION I just love it! Eventually all canon discrepancies will be explained. It’s a pity some people have such closed minds about TOS versus everything after that they miss out on the joy of these magic moments.
So to the new movie, make it a good story, TRY to maintain canon. If you have to deviate, leave it for some future Trek TV episode to explain. I’m going along to see ST:The JJ version with an open mind and huge excitement. I don’t care that a few deviations in cannon may have to be to get from A to B. Any blinding contradictions I know will be explained later. As Spock say’s “There are always possibilities”
Why are people evenc aring what he says?If people seriously want what was done with battlestar Galactica with Star Trek then Star Trek IS dead.
He showed how little regarded he had with the original.It should never have had the name battlestar Galactica.What many of the cheerleaders of the reimaged forget the original was a hit and was cancled over It’s budget and ABC not getting much over Merchandise.It had a strong fanbase going on for years with only one season,and It’s DVD set sold very well.Now we all know J.J. Abrams and his crew are not going In this direction.Leonard Nimoy’s Inclusion proves this.This will be a film for both new and Old fans.How many times have they said William Shatner Isn’t In this film because of Generations.Merchandise reports suggest a strong resemblanse to the original show.Forget Moore and his Galactica In name only I will take J.J. Abrams,Damion Lindelloff,Alex Kurtman,and Bob Orci over him and his projects.
jeff – March 24, 2008
“In short, it was the freaking writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else. ”
I agree. “Shaka, when the WALLS FELL!” And way too many holodeck malfunctions.
But I also agree with Moore in that there was just too much backstory and frontstory. Nowhere left to go. Enterprise was an attempt to get away from the massive fact-psychosis (and holodeck-driven drama) of most of the other Trek series.
But it also slammed the door on post-Picard era shows by introducing TimeCop Daniels. A few hundred years after Picard it seems that Star Fleet spends all its energy and technology on just barely managing to de-subvert the timeline to avoid defeat in the Temporal Cold War. Zzzzzzzzz….
So I think it was a combination of uninspired writing plus an impenetrably complex back story that ran the Trek franchise into the ground. Enterprise just wasn’t able to attract a new audience.
J.J. knows how to attract new audiences, and if that means that not every single little piece of the 40+ year old Star Trek puzzle will still fit, then that’s fine. Two generations of viewers have been born since TOS first aired. That’s a lot of potential new fans.
No. He’s wrong, the back story is what makes trek special, When the quandrant is in danger we know the places that could be efected, Earth Vulcan, Cardassia, Bajor, Betazed, Romulus, Fereginar, Risa, Andoria, Kronos, etc… These places have developed over time some more than others but if writers can’t do alittle research on the back ground of the characters they are writting about then they are just lazy and shouldn’t of been offered the job in the first place
i agree with Moore 100%. Trek I growing under its own weight and needs this new, fresh start. Comic books retcon and reboot all the time and it works wonders for the Characters and stories and for new readers. it is waht Trek needs and hopefuly what it is getting.
sigh…no the nx-01 dosent appear in the conference room in 1701-D…and yes all the bridge plaques from the enterprise ships are all wrong… # ship to bear the name enterprise..well no one will notice say paramount execs..why dont you introduce the borg on enterprise? says another suit.
In star trek you can do anything you want and invent anything you want as long as its set AFTER voyager, why anyone would want to invent a prequel wish to be constrained by 40 years of canon is beyond me. and as a hardcore trek purist, I have alot of clout as far as getting people to check out star trek, if i hate it..good chance other not so hardcore fans will listen to me.
Ron Moore got his start because of Trek. Now, he treats it like it is substandard sci-fi. That irks me. He would be no where without his experience from Trek
Nuff said!
#40 – agreed!
I like continuity! I like to know what planets have been visited prior to said ship, i like to know what aliens are members of the federation and what class starships are, when a certain contact or war was first initiated, it’s all part of trek history, which is very rich. Maybe to rich for some to follow, but i think if you are any average fan then you should be interested in the history as much as the character developement, that’s what adds to star trek. Anyways, i welcome a reboot of star trek even if it’s a major reboot from scratch, i’ll still be interested and watch it nonetheless.
#40- I couldn’t have said it better. Newer Star Trek seemed to be doing nothing but trying to save their asses every week fighting this group or that. They were always fighting with someone. I agree- get back to the adventure side of it and EXPLORE! Surely there must be someone with an imagination to come up with something NEW!
I’m just glad that folks like Ron Moore rather than continuity-obsessed viewers are the ones producing TV shows. That’s not accidental, by any stretch.
Other than the work of John Dykstra’s folks and Dorléac there’s little worth respecting in the 1978 version of BSG.
I completely disagree… It’s the epic story and incredible history that has made Trek able to live on for so many years. I find it funny that people believe that Trek is unable to gain new fans if they were to start watching during the later shows like Voy/Ent, because I have known so many people that have become fans JUST because of those shows.
Although I am embracing the new film with open arms, I still feel it’s a damn shame what’s happening to all that history.
Anyone know of a new T.V series?
Moore and Dennis Bailey hit the nail on the head.
Give me compelling stories about real problems, not wierd, make-believe technobabble-certification-exam-questions about stuff that doesn’t make sense to begin with!
Then, set it in 50 minutes or so with a BEGINING and MIDDLE and an END (as in, THREE ACTS) and write it like it’s worth writing. Act it like it’s worth acting.
(You know, like “Law & Order” for example – a program that could EASILY get bogged down by Police and Lawyer Geeks who could – but don’t – argue over every little point, reference, precedent… they just tell great stories about LIFE IN NEW YORK. Come to think of it, didn’t Roddenberry once say, “Joe Friday does not lecture us on the chemistry of gun powder or the mechanics of ballistic trajectory. He just shoots his gun.”????)
Keep the ADHD/Ritalin Addition slop for soap operas and SciFi Channel.
I THINK that all the DS9,VOY and ENT era stuff has died which Ron Moore was apart of.
I THINK that the Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and also Ron Moore’s version of star trek has died.
I THINK Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and also Ron Moore’s version of star trek was to must war and battle stuff.
I FEEL that Ron Moore should shut up because he also had a hand in the bad version of star trek.
I FEEL that TOS and the first six movies Star Trek canon is Alive and well.
I FEEL that TOS and the first six movies Star Trek continuity is fine the way it is.
#55: I remember that Manny Coto was trying to start one, but I’m not sure if his idea was taken into consideration (it was around a year after “Enterprise” ended). Besides, at the moment, he’s too busy with “24″.
He’s totally right… it is hard to stay creative in a universe with so much established history… if you’re a tired and/or poor writer.
The original Star Trek boasted some of the top Sci-Fi writers in the business. Some of the best episodes and movies even came from people who hadn’t done Star Trek before. The problem wasn’t and isn’t the canon… the problem was they started to have the same few people write all the episodes, and these people either went creatively bankrupt, or just weren’t that talented to begin with.
DS9 tried to push the envelope, but you just knew things would end up alright… just because of who was writing it. More ambitious writers would have had Federation member-worlds choosing to ally with the Dominion, or choosing to bolt from a sinking ship (Vulcan and Romulus reunifying), or better yet, having Federation victory being completely due to Section 31 and their questionable acts… opening up a completely new can of worms for the Federation. How would our heroes respond knowing that they were going to lose if S31didn’t wipe out the founders, how would the other Alpha Quadrant powers react, how would Federation member worlds react? Mankind reverting to brutality when pushed far enough… that’s interesting, and would add an interesting nuance to Roddenberry’s idea of the future. Sure, his vision was optimistic and open-minded, but lets not forget how that Federation had a General Order 24, and a willingness to defend itself without hesitation. With that, I don’t think the Federation losing (and essentially becoming nuBSG) would have been good though.
Personally, I don’t think nuBSG is any screaming hell, and I’ll be impressed if it has a fraction of the staying power of Star Trek. Its easy to reboot something like BSG, which was nothing but a B-level space opera designed to ride the wave that Star Wars (and Star Trek) were riding. Starbuck and Apollo just weren’t iconic characters, and they still aren’t. Most people probably didn’t know Starbuck was originally played by one of the guys from the A-Team.
Moore pretty much pissed on canon. The Next Generation movies sucked becaused they became Star Wars wannabes. Forgetting its Star Trek roots in the process. JJ might fall in the same trap. Bigger isn’t always better. Today, the masses got to the movies to see action, sex, special effects and big explosions. Where will the big compromise fall? Remember this is a business first and foremost. My bet is, the masses will get what they want at the expense of what we all grew up with.
-60. CANON
Right on!
When Manny Coto came on board for Enterprise during the 4th season, that is when i believed the show would pick up, it needed vitality, something fresh and exciting, and i am pleased with the 4th season of Enterprise, it gave us the Augments, the Orions, Vulcan homeworld, Klingon forehead solving, Babel, section 31 and the first treaty between earth and alien worlds, something which uses all of Star Trek lore and history and also something which solves previous continuity problems. I felt Enterprise started to feel something worth watching because it felt more in touch with other Star Trek series and not just oh it’s Tuesday, Enterprise is on i’ll watch it because it Trek, no because during it’s 4th season i wanted to watch it because it was actually good. I would have no problem with a reboot and i would have no problem with another TV series prequel, as long as they keep in touch with trek as a sense of human issues, exploration, aliens and the occasional battle (not just battle because they are aliens) but because there is a reason behind it (DS9 season 4 war with Klingons comes to mind).
I can just see this goin on for ages!
Anyways, I kinda have to agree with the Moore man on this one! For 18 years there was always a new series of Trek, after a while there was only so much you could do! Voyager, in my opinion, extended the franchise; new races, new rules etc. From a writing point of view, there was so much of a back-story that it was next to impossible to go into new terratories. I will agree though that with the last seasons, the borg lost their scare factor!
I can see why Moore thinks this, Firefly short but sweet; BSG ending on a high. Everything that came after Next Gen, was essentially trying to capitalise on that show’s success! Suddenly there were quadrants to the galaxy. DS9 only kicked off with the introduction of the Dominion and even there they brought in Worf to continue that link with the franchise’s most succesful show. It is possible to have too much of a good thing!
When Roddenberry created TNG, he wisely set it far enough (78 years?) in the future so much of TOS continuity stayed out of reach. He (with help from many) created a whole new universe of ST.By contrast, the creators of the following spinoffs not only set two shows in the same continuity, they kept reusing elements of TNG (Borg, Ferengi , Q, Worf/Klingons ) to easily hook TNG viewers in with easy familiarity. Enterprise wangled in Borg, Ferengi and Romulans with psuedohistorical contortions worthy of an Olympic event. Paramount’s continuity straitjacket is parcially the result of using tried and true TNG elements to promote DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. New stuff is hard to create, yes. But they should try.
#62: “When Manny Coto came on board for Enterprise during the 4th season …”
Actually, he came on board during the 3rd season (he “mapped out” the second half of the Xindi story arc). He was made showrunner for the 4th.
Personally, I balme the death of TV Trek on the the hardcore fans. So obsessed with everything being bloated that when Enterprise did not satisfy this core group, they abandoned the very franchise that they claimed to love so much. So much for loyalty. Same thing happened to Nemesis too. Fans abandoned it and thus killed off the franchise themselves. It took a casual fan like Abrams to bring trek back and I for one hope that he makes one hell of a movie that follows canon and manages to piss off hardcore fans all the same.
The continuity issue really isn’t as bad as some people make it out to be. Yes, blatant, in-excusable, change the whole world upside down continuity violation should be avoided, but for the most part, with the exception of a few die hards, I think a lot of the fans can handle minor inconsistancies when done for the reason of making a good story.
The problem as I see it, is that with the arrival of the internet, suddendly those few die hards got very loud, far louder than the majority of fans were willing to put the effort out to shout down. While Joe Sixpack may like Star Trek and and watch it whenever it comes on, he may not ever go to a convention, or a Star Trek website. So his opinion is not necessarily recorded.
I love Moore. He’s only about a million times smarter than most of the social anorexics that post their little rants on here everyday, and I completely agree with him.
>>8. The Lensman – March 24, 2008
. . . Also, I remember going through the Trek Encyclopedia around the temporal and spatial anomoly section and several were just the same thing, with new names. Now giving them new names spared the writers from charges of just rehashing “X” plot device….but really, it was the same with just a different name.
Also, reusing established anomolies would’ve helped strengthen continuity, not made it so damn confusing and prolly made them think twice about doing that type of story again and again.<<
I think I’m going out on a limb, but I’ll see if this floats, there may be a reason as to why “New” names appear in identical situations. . . . Because just like the idea of “The Guardian” or “Tribbles” some references may require a paycheck to be issued to a previous writer, and keeping that to a minimum is obviously needed AND causing a mess at the same time.
ALTHOUGH I RESPECT MOORE AND HIS OPINION…
…can I just say that ALL the writers of all the novels and comic books of the last 25-or-so years have successfully straddled the “too-much-continuity” question on an almost regular MONTHLY basis.
I think I understand what Moore was trying to say, but it’s not impossible to deal with all that continuity. They simply fell back one too many times on the same writers.
Moore is just a Cry – Baby! How about a new tv show called: Star Trek Historian. It’s placed about 250 years after the next generation. Something has way gone wrong with the earth. Poverty, corruption, etc. We come to findout (for example of one eposode) that Garth really went insane because of some kind of outside power souce yet detected by anyone. At least until our Historian team learns of the truth. They discover that Garths desendants & the villian desendants some 500 years later need a reconning. Now justice, fairness and help for the present time period is in jepardy until our crew of 5 people find a way to make peace and amends with those who have become bitter or have slanted things unfairly for others. Justice will not come as easy as before with a flip of a switch. It will only come with real action. And hopefully soon before the
many victoms suffer beyond repair. It’s Law & Order SVU – Meets Star Trek Voyager. …. You like? Anyway it all takes place on earth & is full of Possibilities as 3 of the 5 members are female!! This is all free of charge. I am beamer. And I am out.
Ok, speaking as a writer (and as one who submitted stories to STRANGE NEW WORLDS), I welcome an established continuity to work with. When you’re talking about TREK or STAR WARS, having a backstory to draw from enhances the story-telling possibilities. I like figuring out how to put them together like a puzzle to come up with something new and interesting.
Having said that, I don’t think a writer should use established TREK elements simply as a gimmick. It has to serve the story.
One of the things I always disliked about TNG is the fact that it was so vanilla. White-bread, everyone gets along. And there were too many “bottle” stories – guest star on the ship, yadda yadda yadda. The great thing about TOS (and it’s been stated already) was the exploration aspects of it. ENT tried to do this, but there was too much “gee, whiz” winking at the audience for my taste.
ENT always offended me as a TREK fan because it completely ignored established continuity. Not a canon issue, but from a story-telling standpoint, ignoring continuity complicates the job for other writers. I’ll admit the stories in ENT were OK, and I’ll even go so far as to say that ENT was pretty decent sci-fi, but it was lousy TREK.
I think Moore is mistaken, but he’s entitled to his opinion. I have to disagree with his notion of a bloated backstory, though. You’re only talking about the TV shows and movies. “Canon” completely ignores the novels and comic books – and even straddles the fence on the animated series. If all of those stories were lumped in there…
Oh, Beamer has more!!! The Truth gets detected by some super, & I mean super computer. This new super computer, placed on earth can rewind or fastforward to any events that have been recorded ever. Information is compiled and the computer is about to make connection with video or written info, ether personal notes, or as big a star fleet official records. The connect of names, place, etc. causes this super computer to say: Hey somethings not right about this. The team consists of an emotional your teen who’s been trying to find out what has happend to her family. Also a Romulan who pretends to be a half human – half Vulcan all because of a dark past. The other guy is the great, great grandson of Mr. Obrian. The next guy is a male andorian slave who broke free. But the group does not turn him in because the have rationalized his usefullness being needed. Finally another female who noone knows is really a shapeshifter. Please consider the possibilities !!!!!!!!!!!1
I looooooove “Canon Nazis”. The whining is akin to the sound of Jack-boots on the pavement… marching in time.
Lets face facts…. The new movie is doomed to fail in their minds because there is bound to be an error…. somewhere… You better believe they’ll find it if there is. Then we can all read about it here.
lets the artists do there job ….and direct and act and design and photograph and write a NEW chapter in the “idea” Gene created over 40 years ago.
How do you avoid the bloat of the established history? Stay the hell out of it and go forward in the timeline. Then you don’t have to worry about possibly overlooking some small detail mentioned someplace else and completely “changing the past”. Personally, I think that was Trek’s problem.
I liked Enterprise towards the end, but honestly, if you’re gonna do a prequel series, you need to have people who aren’t just off the shelf writers, but also knowledgeable fans of the series. Otherwise, you get exactly what he said- people who don’t care/don’t want to go back and look at things.
It’s too bad, too, because they could’ve done almost anything if they had gone forward or, alternately, had the Trek fandom humping their legs if they had just gone the extra mile to follow the canon.
Fine, but use the original series all you can as retro special effects as this will really draw the croud. I’d tune into anything like the ‘More trouble with tribbles show from DS9. That was so cool. Just make it a weekly series. I’d never get tired of it!!
71. Beamer – March 24, 2008
“Moore is just a Cry – Baby! How about a new tv show called: Star Trek Historian.”
How about… no.
Sounds far too much of Time Tunnel meets Time Cops meets a Trek series far worse than Voyager.
And Moore didn’t cry.. he offered his opinion.
I’m talking about something we all can do! Change things today – in light of the past. You know, LEARN from the past! That’s our biggest problem. But in Star Trek historian, we’ve learned that lesson. We’re ready to make things right in the big things, & not just in the small personal things. Although the small things will help develope the charactors. The Fab Five will have no ship. only a secret dark warehouse of safety. Away from those who have only dispare. They need the hope that things really are alright. We as a human race are one big family. So let’s try to get along.
Read my first Beamer. Past shows should be preserved & re-visited. NEVER changed or ignored. Shatner & the rest will always live on. We can’t snuff them out. I support the new movie. But to really enjoy it, I have to pretend that Rodenberry is making Trek right now for the first time.
I want to embrase the new completely. Yet I think I’m going to have to lie to myself to do it.
What Ron Moore is saying here is nothing new, it’s been stated by him before, and by he and Brannon Braga on the commentary track for Star Trek: First Contact. As for Moore “opening a can of worms” with his comments (as one poster put it), that’s hardly the case.
I love Star Trek, almost everything I’ve seen from it, and can pick and choose the bad episodes from the good ones, the good movies from the poor ones, without hesitation and to know what makes them great, mediocre, or downright awful. Moore is totally correct in his assessment; now, I’m not sure what exactly the premise of the new film is, so I’ll reserve judgment until I see it, but a “reboot” or “re-imagining” is totally fine with me, it’s what Trek needs at this point.
I have sooo tried to watch Galactica. But when I’m clicking up the channels, I just keep going. I don’t see the explosions I saw in the old show. The new one is too people oriented. Give me some Sci-Fi Baby!
Make me wonder more with my imagination!
beamer
warning for spamming
and you and some other people should just calm down. I dont want to see any more attacks/flames on Ron Moore. You can disagree with his opinion but find a civilized way to do so.
What 41 said.
The problem with reimagining or rebooting Trek is that Trek was just one example of a pre-existing story structure – go to place, see things there, stuff happens. Unlike the Galacticas, which have a clearly-stated universal premise in the first episode (colonies! cylons! war! galactica!), Trek started with only the bare bones of a backstory (there’s a ship in the future with a captain, an alien and a hard-drinkin’ doctor) and slowly accrued things we now associate with it. What’s an ‘essential part’ of Trek? Are the Vulcans and Vulcan society–our understanding of which is pieced together from dozens and dozens of episodes–essential, or is it simply the character of the Other in the main cast? Is the Federation as a multi-species governmental entity an essential part, or is only the implication of a utopic future Earth needed for it to be still Trek? Is the look of the Enterprise key? How much can it change before it’s different?
The truth is, Trek already had a reboot. It was called TNG.
“I looooooove “Canon Nazis”. The whining is akin to the sound of Jack-boots on the pavement… marching in time. ”
How is referring to people as “nazis” not flaming?
Moore is absolutely right. It’s not that every story had to reference a complicated backstory, it’s that hundreds of episodes had presented solutions to what seemed like every problem they could encounter. If a crewman’s disease had been cured by a saved pattern in the transporter buffer in an early episode of TNG, why couldn’t the crew of Voyager use that solution when one of their people got sick? Inevitably, there would be an explanation – a tachyon field around the planet prevented it or something. (Before anybody attacks this, I am making up this entire example. But many things like this occurred.) Eventually, the technology became magic (was there anything Voyager’s computers couldn’t do?), robbing the stories of any tension. Some combination of solutions to previous plots should have rendered any threat moot. Also, the writers were bound to obey tossed-off lines of dialogue made up by writers decades ago who could never have dreamed these words would handcuff producers beyond the year 2000! (When, incidentally, the devastating Eugenics Wars had miraculously been avoided.)
Not just that, but while fans demanded devotion to the show’s history, this was meaningless to casual viewers, who found the barrier to entry into the series too steep. Which is why, as the show went on, the audience got older. They simply couldn’t create new Trekkies.
Moore has a very, very valid point.
Ever since TREKs demise, there has been this constant need for some to explain why. Everything from over-saturation to crappy writing to competition from other sci-fi franchises and series have come up and I guess since no one has done a quantifying study or statistical analyses, any theory is as good as another.
However, Moore’s theory seems to me to be a little silly and the least valid I’ve heard in awhile. All the reasons I listed above, make a lot more sense.
I slightly see his point, but only in regards to the fact that a serialized show might be complicated and therefore followed by a limited audience and that audience will probably be smaller. Hence, DS9, rating decline might fit his theory. But neither VOYAGER nor ENTERPRISE (it early episodes), were serials and their ratings steadily declined. As a matter of fact, complicated, serialized writing of ENTERPRISE season 3 and 4, didn’t help or hurt the show that much. It still didn’t make a big difference. Might we therefore look in areas other than complicated back-story and continuity to explain why it under performed?
I don’t agree that viewing TNG required me to have seen TOS. I don’t agree that watching DS9 required me to have seen TOS or TNG. I don’t agree that watching VOYAGER required me to have seen TOS, TNG or DS9… and so on. Therefore, Moore’s point doesn’t work in regards to viewing these show and the question of canon, complex back-story and continuity don’t seem to apply. They are non-issues. Sure, the writers might have had to work harder, but following the details of any show comes with the territory. That’s why shows have bibles to follow. TREKs show bible was thicker than most, but not thicker than a lot of others series, past and present.
TV soap operas, many that have continued longer than STAR TREK and developed much more complicated back-stories and continuity–and have a ton more episodes–have not been crushed by the weight of these things. There are many, many TV series that have produced a mammoth amount of episodes, way more than TREK, and that is simply a non issue. Moore is entitled to his opinion, but I see very little truth to his claim.
It’s all well and good to try and come up with a legitimate reason why TREK declined and the best way to bring it back. A limited reboot may be the way to go, but to say that starting over is the answer to all TREK problems and people are going to flock to the theaters is sheer guess work.
TREK declined because that is the nature of all TV shows and popular trends. Shows and trends ten times more popular than TREK are now gone from the airways, indeed gone from popular discussion and memory. Surely, no TREK fan could or should have thought STAR TREK would last forever at the popularity level it was? Add to this, the fact that TREK is viewed as a cult, and was never really as popular worldwide as say, STAR WARS, 007, LOTR, and you see this need to explain its disappearance is greatly exaggerated. It was and is a niche product, so it’s decline was truly foreseeable.
The biggest mistake this movie is possibly making is thinking TREK is popular enough to justify a 200 million dollar plus movie (I’m adding advertising cost).
Could be wrong, but just don’t see it. The thing that is really telling about TREK is the fact that it has never even come close to breaching non-english speaking countries. The film makers, in my opinion, haven’t dealt with this suffiently enough and this will be the breaking point of whether it succeeds. A great story helps, but plenty of movies have great stories and never find an audience. Indeed, movies with crappy stories make a lot of money too. I suspect the makers are banking on the films reported epic production design and size, as well as CGI to bring the audiences to the theaters. May work, may not. I would have put in as many bankable stars as possible to hedge my bet, since it is quite obvious that the STAR TREK name itself hasn’t worked for past films.
I do wish the production all the luck in the world.
#69
“I think I’m going out on a limb, but I’ll see if this floats, there may be a reason as to why “New” names appear in identical situations. . . . Because just like the idea of “The Guardian” or “Tribbles” some references may require a paycheck to be issued to a previous writer, and keeping that to a minimum is obviously needed AND causing a mess at the same time.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Seems to me the producers, during the height of TNG popularity, would’ve made sure that such a situation wouldn’t arise. I can see them not caring during the 60’s, because sci-fi just wasn’t big, nor did these guys think a sci-fi show, let alone theirs would ever be popular or profitable enough to warrant some kind of air tight copyright or whatever.
However once the property became the most popular sci-fi, pretty much ever, on t.v., I would’ve thought Paramount would’ve been in the mindset of “anything created NOW on this property is OURS.” and taken whatever legal steps to secure such. I could be wrong tho…..wonder if anyone here could clarify?
Those of you are what I term Cannon fanatics and purist s what is the point of having trek if cannon takes precidents over good story telling? If you weigh down trek with all this flotsam and jetsum of back story mumbo jumbo of trek history chronology you will end killing trek , In fact trek right now is on critical life support Paramount is not going to commit money or resourses to produce a trek film soley for a limited segment of the trek audience, that would be bad business for them and in the long run would not serve the greater good of the trek franchise. Paramount is in the business to make money by producting films for the widest possible audiences. In the case of trek they are doing the film with the fan in mind but soley for the fans benifit. If this movie is in the spirtit of the original then its good enough it is by definition a trek film with as much right to legitimacy as the original, you might want to get used to that because its the shape of trek to come and it will be be a big hit in spite of you, It will probably spawn a series films and they will be embraced by the younger generation and by a large portion of trek fan in the older generation.
I love Trek and I want it to survive and the only way it can survive is it must change and at the same same time remain true to itself, thats what Abrams is trying to do, please give him a chance, give the film a chance
I agree with Ron Moore and Dennis Bailey. And Arthur Conan Doyle and Isaac Asimov. Did the fact that Watson’s jezail bullet wound moved from his shoulder to his leg impair the Sherlockian canon? Or because the Galactic Empire of Foundation and its timeline had to be adjusted to fit the Robot stories, now the entire Foundation and Robot arc is ruined?
Of course not.
The continuity of any series has to, within certain limits, take second place to the needs of the story. Eitherwise, a piece will become so-much fanfic: heavy on Kirk’s safe combination but light on tension, conflict, resolution and true character development.
Alright. In a civil way I’d like to say I luv TOS over all. Perhapes what could be cool is to find a few TOS extras who by now are in their 70 who we might struggle a little to remember because they were in only one episode. But their cameo would be huge when people discover their small, tiny role in the film. Maybe just a guy sreaming as a Romulan is shooting to some civilians. Consider that chick from the Pilot to be the new computer voice on the Enterprise. Her voice rocks. It sounds familar, though many can’t place her. Plus she could be the prequal voice to majel Barrett. You like?
Garovorkin you are so right. I never knew I was that old til now. My sixteen year old daughter read your #89. Please know I embrace Abams. In fact I now look forward to seeing Kirk’s new hair-do. Give me some advice so I know how to handle all of that mentally. Yes, I’m a geek. Just know, Trek has become almost reality to me. If my reality changes, then was my past just a lie?
I think the shows were boring, continuity didn’t have much to do with it.
OR DID IT?!
I agree with Moore. I think it all went bad with DS9, and vanished up it’s own backside, and the spinoffs that followed too. They completely shut out any casual viewers.
# 92 Beamer Sarcasm is very poor subsitiute for alot of things, look the problem I have that more then a few trek fan are against this film before it even has a chance. i understand loving the original nothing else but to dictate what is proper trek and what is not that i have a problem with. Yeah i sound a bit preachy but im not trying to be. I just can’t believe some of these comments im reading.
Trying to find new and fascinating tales to tell in the richly established history of Trek lore makes writing a challenge. And this is bad, why?
I can understand the point he’s trying to get at, but it still seems like a lazy approach to creativity to me. And creativity is what’s kept the franchise alive for me over all the years and throughout it’s many incarnations.
Either way, I’ll still be chompin’ at the bit when the movie gets here, just throwin’ my two cents in. :?)
I know a couple of Trek fans in Singapore who pooh-pooh any talk of TV/movie canon because they like the way this writer extrapolates post-DS9 and yadda yadda yadda.
I think Ron Moore is absolutely right. When it comes to a point where no writer or group of writers can seriously produce anything new without angering some small faction of fans… the continuity has become too complicated. Heck, the fact that there are over 90 responses to a simple statement alone with no clear agreement…. proves that beyond any doubt.
Sorry Ron but I disagree.
It was not the burden of 40 years continuity that killed Star Trek on TV. Manny Coto’s fourth year of Enterprise clearly showed you could leverage continuity to create new situation and stories. Getting the little details and reusing place names is easy at least with today’s desktop databases.
What killed Enterprise in the first 3 years was the utter disregard for canon, poorly written dialog, poor direction leading to supposedly competent characters doing criminally stupid things, and overall poor production characterized by the regurgitation of copycat plots old DS9 and (arg!) Voyager episodes. Not an overload of continuity.
probably a good 90% of the preceding comments explain the descent, decline and death of ST.
canon only gets in the way of fanboys and in-charge storytellers who UTTERLY FAIL to GET THE FACT that the series was founded on compelling character drama, as in the excellent FICTION in science fiction.
anybody bitching and moaning about the shackles of canon are, trust me, full of sh*t. totally, utterly full of sh*t.
the greatness of TOS (take the top 25 episodes here) lies in its complicated relationships found among a handful of well-developed characters thrown into genuine social-commentary conflicts and pure adventure.
always amazing to me how anal you fanboys are.
#86 Agreed. Well explained too. How many times would you watch something and wonder “why don’t they just do that thing they did in “some other” episode?” That’s how cannon damages storytelling, by creating arbitrary conventions that get in the way of crafting a new compelling story.
Y’know, Arthur C. Clark also realized the problem with creating new stories built on older ones, namely that something from the previous chapters would often conflict with new chapter in a way that was never intended. He solved the problem by retconning the backstory with each new book. This becomes more and more necessary as a story continues, in order to maintain continuity without sacrificing story.
The quote reads fairly innocent to me. I don’t see it as a complaint. RDM believes that the largess of the canon proved too intimidating or burdensome to other writers who might come in with a fresh approach. Whether or not this is true, I can certainly imagine a scenario where talented people with only a passing or superficial understanding of Star Trek would turn away when they learned that x and y can’t happen because of z. Add to all of that, I (personally) don’t think this is a right and wrong situation. RDM’s not saying canon is bad, he’s not saying that it’s wrong for people to be slavishly devoted to canon; he’s just saying that there’s a lot of it, and sometimes, for some writers, getting back to the basics of the story works best. If a writer can’t make something her/his own, then it’s just not as fulfilling. That might be, too, where he’s coming from by making this pretty innocuous statement. He went to the set and Star Trek was fun to him again. Cool!
Everyone remember Star Trek Historian is a T.V. Show. Which brings the question. Don’t you think that there could be some extras, or even 1 or 2 main charactors from the new movie that would ultimately be interested in a spinoff T.V show? Perhapes a Starfleet Headquarters Trek that prequals JJ’s film. I’m talking about a contraversal show that shows how the U.S. and other countries have moved towards a common peace during the first five years of “First Contact.” How about the guy that invents the transporter or the communicator?
I think Ron Moore’s viewpoint is valid, however, he did spend 10 years working on Star Trek, so obviously he was heavily steeped in the canon. That said, he has acknowledged that when you spend that long in one universe and writing stories with one large continuity, you begin to struggle against it. Ron did so in his later years at Star Trek, and it was one of the reasons he stated for leaving the franchise.
The way I’ve always felt about Star Trek and its continuity is that it can both confine a writer and liberate them. Time and again it has been demonstrated that Star Trek could produce original, fresh and relevant stories while also using its pre-existing continuity to spin off stories that other series would never be able to tackle.
I remember an interview Ron gave where he spoke about how he once came up for with a storyline that he liked which he couldn’t write it because it conflicted with pre-established rules in Star Trek. I always wonder how many stories are possible because of the already existing Star Trek universe in comparison to those that it excludes.
Besides, Star Trek has been able to utilise its continuity to great effect over the years, more so than any other show on TV. Some shows have lasted a fraction of Star Trek’s length and devoured itself in its own continuity.
Just look at the number of fan productions that have spun off from throwaway lines and small pieces of continuity.
Frankly, if a writer has problems writing a story because of continuity, I have to wonder what sort of writer they are. Surely whether or not the Enterprise can do this or that is irrelevant if the core of the story is about its characters.
I mean the Phazer.
#1 I’d love to use that line of logic on a history test! -
History is real, but even history is only as accurate as the recollections of those who witnessed it. Star Trek is Fiction…and I see no reason why we should not open our minds to a retelling of the tale for a new generation. I’ve had the pleasure of growing up on TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT. It became so damned convoluted that it got away from what Trek started off as…exploration The later series and later movies just became too damned political.
99. Decius is Stonn, Stonn is Decius – March 24, 2008
“…anybody bitching and moaning about the shackles of canon are, trust me, full of sh*t. totally, utterly full of sh*t.”
“…always amazing to me how anal you fanboys are.”
While you make some points… you are not compelling me to “trust” you when you attempt to tell me how full of “_____” anyone else is… especially a writer who HAS written Trek. I haven’t written any Trek episodes or movie scripts…. which did you scribe?
Or is this just more “___”?
I don’t have a problem with his statement – I think he’s largely correct. I might not have liked most of his work, but mostly that comes down to personal taste IMHO.
There is *way* too much fact-checking that can and IS done. I would imagine it *is* quite daunting to write a script for a series where you know there are thousands of people just looking for errors and who can spot them so quickly. It’s like working for an overly-critical boss. Nothing is ever right. You might come close, but its never *right*. Some people say “screw it!” to those situations and try anyway, others say “I can’t do it” and don’t bother putting in their full effort.
I *hated* all the techbabble crap. I really hated it. I might be in the minority here, but I really just need a few technical terms for the sake of realism when it directly relates to what is going on. I don’t need a “I’m going to blah blah blah the blahity-blah so when I blah the blah it doesn’t blah blah blahity blah blah.” (Hey, its how it sounded to me! =p) I could deal with maybe 1.5 times the amount of techbabble there was in TOS. Anything more than that and the majority of the audience just zones out until the person talking is finished (Yeah, talking to you there Geordi/Wesley/Data!).
The need to self-reference in later series and explain everything before it was done really annoyed and bored me into not watching the later episodes. I don’t need to know how it was done unless you can explain it in less than 3 sentences on a 5th grade reading level. Seriously!
Beamer , it’s not my call, but you may get more feedback on your TV show on the “chat” line.
What’s the point of this “discussion” board anyway? So that people can write little essays about how they’re right? I know that nobody ever really listens to people they disagree with, but why give this “conversation” a podium? What does it accomplish? Nothing, as far as I can tell.
Imagine being a writer trying to write anything for trek. First off you have deal with a cannon and chronology that contradicts itself anyway.Wedding a trek movie to this cumbersome cannon and backstory is very unrealistic.
I love Continuity so I don’t really agree with Moore’s statement. Where would Star Trek be if it was to out right abandon continuity? Khan wouldn’t have happened and it all probably would have stopped with the Motion Picture.
I think for Moore to say that it’s too much work is like saying you don’t want to do historical research when you’re writing about Napoleon. I myself would like to see more continuity rather then less of it. It gives a solid sense of continuation and that these events “did” happen rather then be a forgettable monster of the week episodic format.
#40 I like the way you think. And sure, that is something of what we could see if somehow the slate is wiped clean of some known details. Captain Pike could certainly have a much more heroic adventure, with say, Jim Kirk and live to pass on the Enterprise.
I’m an original fan and I’m certainly not worried about some changes. As I’ve said before, “I’m a fan of the original 79 episodes and 6 movies.” That’s it. And certainly, if they can make me believe that what’s going to be in the movie is connected to the original show, then cool! If not, the original cast and “the body of work” as Leonard Nimoy has called, it, will still be there.
I’m very much hoping the premise of the movie will cover all the bases!
It’s a win, win, all around!
I agree with Ron Moore, BUT in a narrow sense… The problem for me is not that Star Trek ended up with too much continuity, but that it wasn’t written with continuity in mind from the very beginning. I like TOS just fine, but I do feel that too often, the writers were allowed to just make stuff up as they went along.
Some time ago, a video of continuity errors was posted on this site. I remember that there were several clips of Spock saying, “This is ___, the hardest substance known to science” juxtaposed, one right after the other. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that should be set out from the beginning in some kind of manual for Star Trek writers. If Roddenberry had set out such details of continuity across the board — which he did do for certain things, like the nature of Warp travel, subspace, etc. — then there wouldn’t have been as much struggling later on.
One of the things I like the most about BSG Reimagined and Lost, and to a lesser extent Star Wars (but, midichlorians – hrmph!), is that they largely seem to have been written as one piece, before the first episode was filmed. Star Trek, with its episodic nature, gave certain writers the impression, it would seem, that they could get away with more. But that’s just a sloppy attitude.
not to take off topic, but what Sackhoff said scares me about the ending of BSG Season 4 the final one. If you followed the link to the complete interview, she said who thought that we would ever see a sex in the city movie, but the way BSG ended left the door open ( or somthing like that) is she saying BSG is going to have an ending like Sopranos? ( which Moore said was brillant!)
I hated the end of the sopranos, I really had hoped BSG had a closing, but eventually not, THAT SUCKS.
#112 Tom I just don’t see how trek can continue to be viable if it limited to the conditions that some fans would love impose on it.
I think it’s much easier to get lost watching Battlestar Galactica than Star Trek. Most episodes of Star Trek (of all series) can be watched without knowing everything that happened before. In Battlestar Galactica, if you don’t know what’s happened before (in almost every episode) you are completely lost!!! So, in this case, it seems that Ronald D. Moore doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he’s just trying to come up with a reason why he left Star Trek. Most stories of Star Trek were easy to follow without knowing everything and if you wanted information on any backstory it can easily be found on the internet. Some of my friends starting liking Star Trek after watching episodes like “In the Pale Moonlight,” an episode that’s helped if you understand the backstroy of Romulan/Federation relations but it’s not necessary to understand (Garak is a spy/Romulans don’t like humans/the Federation is involved in a bitter war with the Dominion) which are all the facts you need to know to understand the episode, and “The Way of the Warrior,” “Unification,” etc. Each of these episodes can be better understood if you understand canon but it’s not necessary to understand and enjoy the episode. After watching these episodes my friends began watching other Star Trek episodes and each one of them, without fail, thinks DS9 is the best Trek series. When asked why they site the fact that there’s more action, more drama, more political intrigue, more spy stories, more criminal investigations, etc. One of my friends calls DS9 “the most realistic Trek,” citing that crime, no matter technologically advanced, will ever be completely eliminated and neither can all of our problems be solved with technology. They also have watched DS9 out of order and still understood every episode they saw. So much for canon holding Trek back. Each series could be watched without watching any of the others and it could still be followed. The idea that continuity is holding back Star Trek seems to be an excuse for “I just got burned out and couldn’t come up with anymore good ideas.” While I hate to compare Star Trek to Star Wars, continuity is extremely important in Star Wars and every other sci-fi show I can think of. Babylon 5 was heavily dependant on continuity, almost as much as Battlestar Galactica. In fact, Battlestar Galactica seems to rely on continuity more than any other sci-fi show I’ve ever seen. BSG relies on it more than B5, Stargate, Star Wars, and Star Trek. In short, Ronald Moore’s argument makes no sense whatsoever. And that makes him completely wrong. Nothing compares to Star Trek and never will. Nothing is better, more entertaining, or more exciting than Star Trek.
By the way, BSG is OK but it’s NOT great! Star Trek, B5, and Stargate all beat it hands down.
Good stories can be made that can both respect canon and not require knowledge of canon to enjoy it. Which is exactly what the writers and producers promise they are doing!!
Moore = right. Everybody who disagrees = wrong.
Have they said who’s gonna play Deanna Troi?
I’m kidding.
#56:”Then, set it in 50 minutes or so with a BEGINING and MIDDLE and an END (as in, THREE ACTS) and write it like it’s worth writing.”
This requires discipline.
#116 the original trek didn’t have that kind of continuity to begin with which you have pointed The Abrams movie is reboot of the franchise .why should it it have be handcuffed by that? why cant it go in a new direction and still call itself trek, What about all the trek books they are not considered cannon yet they are still considered trek. Yes you are correct about ds9,b5 and Galactica being dependant on continuity but I believe that they were written with that in mind. Not so the original Trek Roddenberry did not create the cannon, people who came after created it.
Y’know boys… there’s nothing less attractive, even to girl who likes nerds, than a guy who can’t let go of his action figures. Except, possibly, a guy who can’t stop complaining about how they’re detailed wrong.
I have to chuckle at some of the people who post on this board- not the regulars, but the ones who come in from out of the blue saying “The Original Series sucked,” etc. WHY ARE YOU HERE??? Go watch YouTube or something that might bring you entertainment!
g’night folks. I’ve read enough for the night.
Someone claimed that the TNG films sucked: not true. Someone said that the TNG wanted to be Star Wars films: nonsense.
ST: Insurrection was purely Star Trek and dealt with a story of an small group of people being forcibly located by a larger group and the fact that they were small was the excuse used by the larger group to relocate them. The claim that their relocation could help a larger group of people was also used as rational for the Federation’s actions. Captain Picard’s line “It’s too easy to turn a blind eye to a people you don’t know” is one of the greatest lines of the film and the entire movie was a moral and ethical story. In other words, social commentary. And that is exactly what Star Trek is and has always been! Star Wars has never been that. Nemesis was about family, which would have been more clear had the scene between Picard and Data in Picard’s quarters talking about Riker’s promotion and the marriage of Riker and Troi had not been cut from the film (this scene can be viewed in the “Delected Scenes” in the Nemisis SE DVD). First Contact dealt with Picards inner demons and the topic of revenge. In case you didn’t know canon First Contact opened with a look back at TNG “Best of Both Worlds” and, in case you still didn’t undrstand, Picard explained to both Lily and the viewers what happened all those years ago. To make a long story short (I know, too late) is that the TNG films were excellent and didn’t “suck” and didn’t want to be “Star Wars films.” Star Trek doesn’t have “too much continuity” and stories can be made that are entertaining, respectful of canon, and, at the same time, not requiring knowledge of canon to understand what’s going on. All of this (stories that are entertaining, respect canon but the viewer doesn’t need to understand canon to understand the story) is impossible in Star Wars, B5, and especially BSG.
It’s not impossible in Star Wars – I saw the clone wars by itself without seeing or knowing much other than Darth Vader is Luke’s father. I didn’t watch all the movies until last year. (I admit, knowing what’s come and gone is helpful, but its not a necessity.)
Captain April- are you serious?
Police procedurals don’t have much canon- and even ones like NYPD Blue which did focused on one unit of one precint over an 8 year period. Not two quadrants of the galaxy over a 400 year period. They could not be more different.
Worse still, Trek chronology and canon is so incredibly inconstant and inbred. It would be a nightmare- as some in this thread who actually write fan fic have pointed out.
I respect you for wanting to keep canon, but if you think it would be easy, you are frankly not being realistic.
Personally, I think Moore is dead on. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want JJ to change Trek as dramatically as Moore changed BSG- not by a long shot! But I do think a relaxed and open-minded attitude toward canon is the best bet.
#123 other then star trek first contact the rest of the next gen movies were just t palin god awful .Generations explain to me how human flesh could enter the nexus when metal ships could not, for the first movie that was best they could come u[p with?
Star Trek insurrection, the whole mystical shagra la planet was a waist of story af time.
Nemesis where we have Picard vs mini me Picard, oh and they kill off data but not really. that put the kabosh on the next gen films. If they wereas good as you believe, then why isn’t the studio doing another next gen movie? The next generation movies stopped being critically and financially viable for the studio.
#109 Michael (regarding the “point” of this little forum):
I read everybody. Of the half of the comments that are grammatically correct and therefore taken seriously, about half again have some insight that I had not considered. #84, although I disagree with quite a bit of what he said, just gave me a whole new perspective on TNG that had never occurred to me before. The same is true of others. I also find this a valuable tool for taking the temperature of the fandom (although TrekMovie.com, like all sites, has its own unique community biases which I must take into account).
If you don’t personally take anything away from this, then, with all due respect, get out of the kitchen.
This particular thread is fascinating, because opinions are varied and, it seems to me, almost evenly divided. I’m jumping straight from reading “Moore is exactly right” to “Moore is full of it” so quickly so often that I’m getting a bit disoriented here. I think RDM may have just touched a very raw nerve for Trekdom.
Exploring it further is imperative.
120, if it takes place prior to TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY then it takes place prior to all that was established in those series so they could go in their own direction so long as they respect certain things. TOS did establish canon, the Eugenics Wars, the Earth-Romulan War, etc.
Also, I said that DS9 could be watched WITHOUT knowing canon and I pointed out the fact that my friends watched DS9 FIRST, were hooked, watched DS9 out of order, AND understood what was going on. Certain events could be HELPED if you understood canon but it wasn’t NECESSARY!
A total reboot is UNACCEPTABLE! Period. I don’t want another “Casino Royal” where 40 years of history are wiped out because people are too lasy to come up with a good plot. Star Trek stories never end and, as I’ve said above, you can make a good one without making it necessary to understand canon WITHOUT violating it.
The Producers/Writers/some of the Actors have said repeatily that the new film respects the old while trying to bring in the new. They have also said that fans will like it and hopefully it’ll bring in a new generation of fans. Hopefully they’ll go back and start watching what has come before.
By the way, as I type this I’m watching Enterprise on Sci-Fi and just saw yet another episode in which you didn’t need to know canon to understand, like most Trek episodes.
You people talk as if you need the Star Trek Chronology of Memory Alpha in front of you when you watch Star Trek. Simply not true. Minor errors are ok, after all it gives us something to talk about, but a complete reboot is unacceptable, as I said before.
120, B5 and BSG were written with this in mind, NOT DS9.
By the way, Star Trek has been very successful in bringing in new audiences for years, TNG premered 21 years after TOS, ENT aired 14 years after TNG. Bringing Star Trek back from the brink of destruction has been done before and it will be done again because Star Trek is a continuing story that has canon as a guide, not a necessary component, of the story unlike every other sci-fi franchise in existance.
I cant stand comments like these from Moore. Translation is……he got lazy, unmotivated and wanted to do his own thing.
#128 well might i point out one rather obvious thing the Eugenics was I believe happened in 1997 which i believe is contradicted by the next genteration which moved World war 3 up to the year 2053 i believe, also Ds9 contradicts the old timeline of Tos if im not mistaken so what continuity are you talking about? the problem is that the original trek was written in the 60’s and history has kinda passed it by.
124, I stand corrected on Star Wars. What you just said about Star Wars, “knowing what’s come and gone is helpful, but its not a necessity” is exactly the point I’m making with Star Trek. When it comes to Star Trek truer words have never been spoken.
125, you’re right minor changes are okay but major ones (i.e. ignoring WWIII, the Eugenics Wars, First Contact, saying ENT or any other Trek series didn’t happen (prequels naturally taking place prior to TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY), etc.) is unacceptable. I’ve always understood minor errors (there were several in ENT, i.e. Phase Pistols, and understandable error and one made for a good reason) and I’ve always embrased them but major errors, like the one’s listed above, are unacceptable and unnesasary. Staying within the confins of major continuity issues is easy to do (and I have written fan fiction stories) while still making an interesting and entertaining story which everyone can enjoy.
OK, I know I’ve made the same point multiple time but I felt that it needed to be repeated and, hopefully, made more clear.
130. You’re right that the date of the Eugenics Wars has been contradicted multiple times but noone ever denied that it HAPPENED sometime in the past. That’s what I mean by minor problems vs. major problems. Minor problem: exact date of Eugenics Wars, Major Problem: Claiming that the Eugenics Wars NEVER happened. World War III happened AROUND 2053 according to TNG but there was no evidence that WWIII was the same as the Eugenics Wars, and no evidence that it wasn’t. Again, Minor Problem: Exact date, Major Problem: Claiming WWIII and the Eugenics Wars NEVER happened. I’m not saying that continuity doesn’t need to be “updated” but to completely ignore major events in Star Trek history, like First Contact (a whole movie was made on the subject), WWIII, Eugenics Wars, etc. would be a mistake. Again getting dates wrong, or updating it as history moves past it is one thing, but claiming these events never happened would be a critical error.
I hope I have clarified things for you.
#131 LoyalstarTrekfan ive probably read some of those stories you’ve written. I don’t think you and i are going to agree on a lot of things and thats simply the way it is. for example City on the Edge of Forever, I love the screenplay that Ellison wrote but not so much the episode that emerged rom it. With Abrams film I just can’t seem to make myself care about what is cannon and what isn’t. I can accept it as trek, and if not the original ill think of it as an alternate universe trek. I am convinced that Ron Moore is right in what he believes, that trek cannot continue in the old vain and survive
By the way, ENT Producer Manny Coto decided to leave the date of the Eugenics Wars vague and simply make it clear that it happened in the past. Again updating continuity is one thing, ignoring it completely is quite another.
However, by the look of this new film they won’t be dealing with WWIII, Eugenics Wars or any of that so we won’t have to worry about them ignoring it.
133, well I think we can agree on one thing: Trek is in trouble and needs to bring in new fans. I believe they also need to keep the old. It’s a balancing act. One I’m confident JJ Abrams can do.
#135 the proof will be in the film, you know your trek no question about that.
The Quickening – “I don’t agree that viewing TNG required me to have seen TOS. ” you are 100 percent right there. Gene wanted it that way I believe.
He’s totally right about continuity. Too much of it, and it limits the writers’ options for the stories they can tell.
More importantly it means a writer would have to pay attention to stuff that maybe they think is stupid.
Let’s face it…OVER half of all the episodes of all the Star Trek series’ were pretty awful in terms of the stories they were telling. If you want to stick with continuity (ie “canon” for those who take this stuff waaaaaaaay to seriously) then you have to pay attention to and possibly incorporate lame elements into the story you want to tell. No writer wants to do that.
Well. Don’t know what I can say that hasn’t been said but my goodness, I cannot believe the gentleman said that. Wow.
Start over?
First of all, why did everyone think that they could only do stories that related to stuff that we already knew?
That being said, what I think was so hard to do was KEEPING THE DEADLINES forced upon them by TPTB. IMO, making sure things were kept “true” was more time-consuming than it was difficult. It seems to me that with the time constraints of doing a weekly television series, they felt they didn’t have the time to make sure they weren’t violating canon hence saying the complicated back-story complicated things. Granted, I am not a writer and I wasn’t there at the time so I don’t actually have a leg to stand on. It’s just an opinion. I actually can see both sides of the argument. However, it sounded kind of lame to me. Looks like they didn’t have enough stories to choose from that didn’t have to be canon-checked.
Don’t get me wrong – - I really do appreciate the effort they made to keep things straight. It makes it so much more realistic and fun.
When they did the episode in TNG where Worf’s brother Nicolai Rozhenko, his adoptive parents’ human son, suddenly appeared (in Season 7, Ep. 13) they didn’t have to worry about the history because nothing had been said yet. So they were able to create something to add to the Star Trek Bible.
Second of all, didn’t he just contradict himself? When Ron Moore said
“This really gives it a chance to start over and bring everybody back to what made it so great to begin with”,
did he forget that they’re starting TOS over? And how can they start over? How can they ignore what’s already happened? Did he mean that they’re throwing the book out and rewriting history? They’re not doing “Starfleet: The Beginning”, where they can add whatever they want that hasn’t been covered yet; they’re doing a ‘prequel’ which still has rules because we know the characters and most of their history. And they still have to consult the basics. For example: they still have to call Kirk’s brother by his correct name BUT…….. here’s where they could add a new branch and say that Aurelan was George Samuel’s SECOND wife and create a whole new piece of history that wouldn’t violate any rules because nowhere did it say that he only had one wife/family, etc. As I stated somewhere before in another thread, we didn’t know that Spock’s parents were Sarek and Amanda until a third of the way through Season 2, so what else don’t we know?
Am I making sense? Anyway, I think what he said was a bit of a copout but I WASN’T THERE so my opinion could be ‘an obtuse piece of flotsam’. (I’ve always wanted to say that!!)
:-)
kg
I’ve only sampled the 100+ comments above, so forgive me if I’m repeating someone else, but comment #98 is right on the money. I think Ron Moore is a great contributor to Trekdom as well as brilliant with BSG, but unless we’re misconstruing his meaning here, I think he’s wrong in this case. ENTERPRISE did poorly because it was written poorly for three years. Manny Coto made it good in the fourth season by embracing continuity and making it fit with the Trek canon, not by junking it and ignoring all that came before. The best efforts on ENTERPRISE came from Coto and the Reeves-Stevenses, writers with great regard for canon and continuity. There were some good stories here and there with ENTERPRISE, and I thought the cast and characters were plenty worthy, but on the whole, seasons 1-3 suffered greatly from DISinterest in continuity and Star Trek canon.
And to the early comment (#6, I think), I’m with you up until lumping Moore in with the rest. Moore didn’t play as big a part as anyone else in bringing Trek’s quality down; his efforts were, for the most part, welcome and solid. The real offenders were Berman and Braga. I know Braga has popped in here from time to time, and I mean nothing personal by this, but his approach to Star Trek was less respectful of the overall context of the Trek universe and more like, well, “regular” television. It’s probably the biggest reason VOYAGER was the lesser entity it was, and most assuredly why ENTERPRISE never got consistently good until year 4.
Continuity is good, so long as it’s respected.
#127 – Ironically, yours was one of the posts I liked, not that there weren’t others. I guess I’m just tired of the argument, though I have participated in it before. It just seems increasingly pointless since, they are going to do whatever they want to do, not one of us will agree with everything they decide upon and it’s all a fantasy anyways.
If I recall, you actually write this stuff. That gives you some credibility. I like reading a lot of the comments for the same reasons as you do, and I’m sorry to offend, but I as much as I like talking nerd philosophy (i really do) I don’t see any meeting of the minds here.
The reason I say that is because over and over again on this board I see the same arguments, and it’s clear (at least to me) that trek means something different to everybody. There can be no consensus within this community, there are too many points of view.
I think the problem is that trek isn’t really any one series or movie either. It’s whatever your or my general impression of it is. There are people here that won’t be satisfied by anything less than a total recreation of TOS. There are those who want it to be DS9 or Voyager. Everyone has a legitimate argument from their point of view as a consumer.
Being a former marketer, I look at this and say, well, these guys here and these guys over there want a fundamentally different product. Me personally, if trek went back to stand alone episodes reliant on the reset button, I wouldn’t watch it. I didn’t watch voyager or enterprise for those reasons. But some people did. Some people liked the traditional trek storytelling style, while others, like myself, want a radical departure that saves the best elements.
Maybe the answer is to have different trek universes being developed simultaneously, maybe a strict canon universe that continues with what was before, and yes, a re-imagined universe that takes the whole trek concept and reinterprets it no holds barred.
Unfortunately for the purists, the later is basically what we are getting; but unfortunately for the not-purists, the re-imagining could be hamstrung by attempts to have it both ways.
I don’t want a safe, pandering movie that covers all the bases. I want trek to feel fresh and relevant again. Others want to continue with what trek was. I don’t think this can be resolved, it’s a fundamental difference of opinion.
Again, sorry to offend.
Star Trek didn’t have enough continuity, Star Trek had too much continuity, ST had continuity holes, ST never had any sign of decent continuity, we must deviate from continuity to come full circle, we must not stick to continuity in order to obtain fresh ST quality, continuity is distraction, continuity is the opposite of distraction…
LMAO!
Re: #89. Garovorkin
“Those of you are what I term Canon fanatics and purists – what is the point of having Trek if canon takes precedence over good story-telling?”
Why can’t we have both? If you cannot stay within the parameters of the subject matter…
Isn’t’ that the challenge? Were the writers told what kind of a story to write? Were they given a list of topics to choose from on a first-come, first-served basis? Maybe it doesn’t make sense because there’s more that Mr. Moore hasn’t told us.
So, sorry Garovorkin, guess I disagree with you. But don’t lump me in with the fanatics. I do prefer that they stay true to canon and believe that a good writer could work it out. But like I said, that is not my profession so I could be wrong. It’s my opinion that the series would garner more respect by having good continuity. But then again, it could be a situation where you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. If you keep continuity, some consider you to be anal. If you don’t, others criticize you as being poorly organized and flawed.
I prefer the continuity. Surely there must be a few writers who could spin a good yarn despite that “burden”.
kg
#139
Just to nerd out on you for a moment, Worf’s human adoptive brother had actually been established as early as ‘Heart of Glory’ in the first season.
*geekout concluded*
Overall, I agree with Moore. After 80 episodes of TOS, 10 movies, 178 eps of TNG, 176 of DS9, 172 VOY & 98 ENT – for gawd’s sake, over 700 hours! – it had become incredibly restrictive for new writers to come in and try to follow the elaborate canon that had been established. Even if they had a fresh idea, it could often contradict with some pre-established ‘fact’. And we know the difficulties the writers often had introducing conflict – ‘MY characters wouldn’t act that way’ – which is really at the heart of any drama. When something becomes so complex that you have to publish encyclopedias just to keep track of the minutae, it’s often better for all involved to start from scratch. Or, to go the route Moore did with BSG and keep what works but ditch all the baggage that doesn’t.
Many writers that have come to Trek have said similar things – Nicholas Meyer, Harlan Ellison – about the frustration they experienced when told they ‘couldn’t do that’, so this isn’t really such a bombshell. In fact, Rodenberry had a heckuva time keeping writers the first few years of TNG because of the rather heavy restrictions he laid down.
Also, I don’t believe Moore has ‘forgotten’ that he worked on Trek for 10+ years, and was himself a slave to canon. I think he’s merely acknowledging that holding so steadfastly to that canon didn’t always produce the highest quality writing possible.
I’ll add this, I was accused by my best friend of destroying star trek.. because of my canon arguments…The NX-01 should never have existed, the ship was not primitive enough, it seemed to be more modern than kirk’s enterprise, the transporter, any contact with the romulans, the klingon in the pilot episode, was tpol the first vulcan to serve on a federation ship? or was it spock? THE BORG? the wall plaques on the starships unaltered to make room for the NX-01, the ships displayed in the conference room on the enterprise -D even has the shuttle enterprise but no NX-01, to me it’s about major events and not the little things, still i was and am still to blame for no star trek on TV.
I didnt want to kill star trek, I wanted to change it, especially before it was too late and major canon could be saved. It was a stupid idea to have a prequel series when the future and universe was wide open. Please everyone…dont believe that the canon people want to kill star trek, they really want to save it.
Yes. I agree. Maybe its not loading Star Trek movies and TV series with references that makes good trek. Maybe its someone like Abrams who takes that stereotype and completely ignores it.
And yes, Star Trek did get to loaded. The books, the TV series, the Movies, all of it seemed to fall in different story lines. People didn’t care about continuity in the past, and its in shambles. And people who line up behind one thing and ignore another don’t get to experience Star Trek as a whole.
I’m hoping two things. One, J.J. makes a movie that really actually ties everything together without too much referencing, or he just tosses most of it out the window and starts from scratch.
Honestly. Its Star Trek… how could he really make it different, without taking a lot of the fundamentals away?
Oh and this is my opinion. I’ve read a lot of the other posts, and both sides have incredible arguments.
#141: No offense taken. I thought you were just being snippy, so I’m quite pleased to have been wrong, actually.
The way I see it, in any public discussion/ruckus like the one we have here, there are a few people who are both reading and listening, there are a few who, as you point out, aren’t listening at all but just spouting off, there are a few who are just posting a response to the original post and aren’t reading anything else, and there are a -lot- of people who are reading and listening but not posting (lurkers; we can assume a lurker-to-poster ratio of at -least- 1:1 and as high as 10:1). When I post, I’m targeting the people who are both reading and listening–the discussers, as opposed to the ranters–and the lurkers.
I find that, after sufficiently prolonged exposure to intelligent arguments and ideas, the ranters tend to agree with whatever consensus exists among the discussers. That opinion seeps through the online Treksphere and becomes The Official Consensus, and everyone who disagrees is a Minority (currently, the Official Consensus is that Generations was a terrible movie. This is a very, very recent development) Often you don’t see the effects of your writing in the short-term (and the Eternal September problem sometimes keeps you from -ever- seeing them), but I trust that it’s always going on, and new consensuses are always evolving. The cosmic ballet… goes on.
So that’s why I write. And the fact that the discussers are so intelligently divided (yourself now included in that group) about so important an issue is why this particular thread has me so interested.
#53 – Gotta disagree, Dennis. See, for me, as cheesy as the original BSG sometimes got, the characters were people that I could like and respect. That really isn’t the case with the new version.
I also am very disappointed that the new version ran so far away from the science fictional elements of the original.
Those two things alone make me continue to prefer original BSG to its newer, mutated progeny. I’d much rather have seen Richard Hatch’s sequel than what we’ve got now.
#145 – Really, I enjoyed the prequel series quite a lot, especially when it had people making it who got serious about treating it like a prequel. I’m a huge supporter of maintaining continuity, and, frankly, I found a grand total of maybe three actual, definable continuity violations in all of ENT, a better record than any of the other Berman era shows. (ENT even snuck in some stuff long relegated to the category of “fanon”, such as the founding races of the Federation!) If it were up to me (and of course it isn’t), we’d be exploring the “Lost Era” between Classic Trek and TNG a whole lot more. That would be both sequel and prequel at the same time, and lots of fun, besides.
But that’s just MHO. make of it all what you will.
Excellent points 139 and 140.
140 said: “Continuity is good, so long as it’s respected.”
Well said. However I have to disagree with you on Voyager. There were many times they referred back to several TNG episodes and I never saw an instance where Voyager violated canon. As for Enterprise, there were instances, the biggest violators were “Regeneration” and “Acquision,” but overall I think that Enterprise had many strong points and was an excellent concept. Season 4 was by far the best season though for many of the reasons you stated. I think Enterprise took too long to find the true direction it should go in. The “Temporal Cold War” got annoying very quickly but “Broken Bow” was an excellent episode and a fine pilot. It could have been done without a “Temporal Cold War” and the introduction of a new enemy, the Suliban, was a good idea and there was no reason for them to be taking orders from the future. They simply could have had a political motive. My point is Enterprise was a good show, in my opinion, but not great until the 4th season, partially because of the “Temporal Cold War” and because of other issues, but I wouldn’t say that Enterprise was terrible. I enjoyed Enterprise, especially the episodes not dealing with the “TCW.” I also liked their nice touches to the real world, including the Starfleet seal.
As a side note, I saw the episode “Fallen Hero,” one of Enterprise’s better episodes from Season 1 if you ask me, tonight on Sci-Fi and they briefly went over the history of Vulcan/Human relations which matched what was described in “First Contact.”
“When we made first contact with you I find humans intriging but I was also concerned. You had just emerged from a global war and your contention that you were ready to join the interstellar community was – premature, to say the least.” -Vulcan Ambassador
“And a century of good behavior hasn’t changed your mind?” -Captain Jonathan Archer
By the way, I think that the problem wasn’t Rick Berman, who did many great things for Star Trek including First Contact, but Brannon Braga who apparently wanted to go his way and didn’t seem to care if it fit into the Star Trek universe. No offense intended to Braga. I’m glad he went on to “Threshold,” a unique show that I’ve seen a few times on Sci-Fi and it would’ve been interesting to see how it developed if it had continued. What I saw of “Threshold” was OK but certainly not great.
Please note the dialogue above is paraphrased as it is late and it’s been over two hours since I saw the episode.
Well Moore,
I don’t think that the writers were ever really able to get together to lay down a hard continuity in the first place. They each had a different Star Trek universe/timeline in their heads, and took it with them and developed it until it became obvious… contradictions everywhere…
Just pick a combination of Trek continuity and stick with it… That’s my advice…
Re: #144. sean
“Just to nerd out on you for a moment, Worf’s human adoptive brother had actually been established as early as ‘Heart of Glory’ in the first season.”
Really? I missed that. I’ll have to get the DVDs and rewatch that episode. Thanks for the info.
Gotta admit that it sounds like the Canon does put a lot of restrictions on writers.
Also, re: #145. toddk
Was it established in TOS (or anywhere for that matter) that Spock was the first Vulcan to serve on a Federation ship?
Oops. Yes it does. Just found it in my Star Trek Encyclopedia. “Spock was the first Vulcan to ENLIST in the Federation Starfleet.” Maybe they thought they could get away with it (having a Vulcan on the NX-01) because she didn’t actually “enlist”. Or do I need to go back and watch the beginning of “Enterprise” as well?
I haven’t noticed everything that has gone wrong, but I have noticed a few things. Didn’t obsess on it.
kg
What is a “prolly?”
:-D
James!! We’re finally on at the same time!! But unfortunately, I have to sign off. It’s a few minutes to 3 a.m. (here in Toronto, Ontario, Ca) and my eyes are crossing…
kg
147, you said “(currently, the Official Consensus is that Generations was a terrible movie. This is a very, very recent development)”
Well, I guess I’m in the minority then because I think that Generations was a good movie. I wouldn’t argue that it was the weakest of the TNG films but is was, pardon the pun, lightyears ahead of The Final Frontier, the weakest Star Trek film ever. I know I’m in the minority when it comes to both Nemesis and Enterprise which I thing were both very good and were very worthy of the Star Trek name. Neither were the best ever but both were worthy additions. I would also like to point out that Nemesis went up against LORD OF THE RINGS! Perhaps that’s the reason in didn’t do well in theaters. From what I understand, it did fairly well in DVD sales.
Very interesting post , by the way 147.
#147 – Thank you. Liked your stuff too.
Is everyone familiar with jammer’s reviews? He does reviews on star trek AND on bsg. He’s pretty harsh, but I (personally) like a lot of what he has to say, and he covers all the series (though not all of TNG yet).
http://www.jammersreviews.com
It’s Trekkie speak for ‘probably’.
kg
:-D back atcha
Sorry. #156 was supposed to be addressed to #152. Doug in answer to his question:
“What is a ‘prolly?’ ”
It’s really late…
kg
I have to say that I both agree and disagree with Moore’s statement. Yes, canon is big and can be restricting, but that is because canon was constantly being invented by a multitude of writers, not just one person. Each one of those writers brought something to the canon, and at the same time, it also got more complicated. On the flip side however, canon provides
a background on which a good story can be told. I have no big issue with canon personally; I just don’t watch the Trek I’m not interested in, but I can (and do) appreciate that there are others who enjoy those elements of Trek that don’t hold much interest for me.
I personally think the problem with canon ( and I will reiterate that this is only my opinion) is that we (the writers, the producers, and especially the fans) made canon the “core” of Star Trek. At some point along the way, Star Trek stopped being about boldly going where no man has gone before, and became about making damn sure the future jibes with the past or there will be hell to pay. Trek started playing it safe with the storytelling and became increasingly insular in an attempt to preserve what came before at the expense of what lies ahead.
The great irony about Trek is that it is supposed to be about humanity’s future, but the people involved in it keep getting trapped by the past.
What is “cannon?”
(um, I believe it is a weapon that fires cannon balls)
“canon” is an extablished history (as in a TREK chronology)…. please try to get it right.
If this was a “continuity is great” comment you wouldn’t see it on this site since Trek Movie is only interested in pushing it’s reboot agenda.
The Trek Movie Report reboot agenda continues….
#160 – Yes… there’s big agenda… we all know about it… we’re all scheming against you… and now… as you know about it… you will have to be eliminated
Addressing earlier posts complaining of Ron Moore’s lack of credentials to speak on the new Trek film; the man spent the better part of a decade working in the franchise. He is more than qualified to voice an opinion on the matter; whether he is involved or not. His re-working of BSG is making diamond out of coal. Taking essentially a failed, big-budget children’s show and turning it into a thought-provoking adult drama was unprecedented (not to mention brilliant). He never (in the interview) expressed a desire to do a “BSG” on Trek. He merely stated that Trek needs to get out from under the elephantine history that was suffocating it. Nothing wrong with continuity; as long as your show does not become ABOUT continuity. Towards the end, Trek seemed to tell fewer new stories and began to feed on itself. As for Moore’s potential BSG spin-offs, BSG is largely unexplored. Leaving some leeway for new avenues to explore. However, I’m still a little leery of Caprica and prequels in general: I hate knowing the ending, and then waiting years to see it! But Moore is a talented writer and is more than qualified to offer his opinion on the state of the Trek franchise.
Okay, let me get this straight. I believe the best way of looking at this new movie is comparing it to comic books vs. comic book adaptations.
The old Trek chronology / canon / timeline / continuity is the comic books, cherrished and collected by a few hundred thousand fans!
The new Trek is its blockbuster adaptation that is suitable for a multi million audiene.
I’ve never read one single Spider-Man comic but I was still able to enjoy the three movies! You just have to know that Spidey is some sort of mutant in a red and blue Spider-Man suit. That’s it. That’s the icon. All those geeky comic book details may be in there somewhere, but you don’t need that background to enjoy the movie.
Now, we’ve got Kirk, Spock and Bones aboard the Enterprise, wearing modernized versions of their classic gold and blue uniforms, we’ve got miniskirts and a knock-out starship that ressembles the classic in every way but still translates well to the big screen! That’s all this movie needs.
There’ll be Klingons and Romulans behind every other star again and no freakin’ Ferengi, Nausicaans, Kazon, Vorta, Suliban or Xindi-Reptiles! There is no Enterprise-E or other “There are many letters in the alphabet” kinda starship clones…
The old world still exists in the comic books, ahm, DVDs…but this one it made to hit the big time, to be in the same league as Spider-Man, Star Wars or Pirates…
It would be fun to revisit the old chronology one day on the small screen (or via DTV productions) as it certainly is fun for comic book collectors to read the new Spider-Man comics even though there is that mainstream trilogy of movies.
These three blockbusters haven’t harmed the comics in any way but the succeeded in introducing the myth to a wider audience. It could work with Trek as well…
Moore’s an idiot and just plain lazy. Any writer (and this especially includes modern comic book writers) who bitches about “too much continuity” is simply uncreative and unwilling to expend the effort to get things right. Interestingly, they all love to “reimagine” — the modern term for plagiarism and lack of creativity.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m surrounded by non canon-ites!
help, they’re coming to get me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In my opinion, Moore is totally right. Trek has collapsed under the weight of its bloated continuity/canon. I think that writing modern Trek can be compared to an obstacle course.
That’s why I am very confident in a reprise of TOS, when you didn’t have to handle hundreds of aliens, starships, plots, subplots and so on.
Well, after months of reading this site everyday for my trek (since the demise of startrek.com) I’m finally going to post.
Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Different strokes for different folks.
I feel bad when I come here and read how unhappy so many seem when they talk Trek. For me Star Trek is a great diversion. I own all the movies and series. I read a LOT of the books.
Reading through the posts, perspective of what Star Trek is morphs from individual to individual. But when it gets right down to it Star Trek is Entertainment. It may have a message, I like when it does. But it’s FUN.
For those here to hate, I say go on hatin’ I’m still going to go to the theatre and see the movie. I’ll buy it when it comes out, just like I have all the others. There are moments in ALL of the movies that make it worth the price of my entertainment dollar. I can sit back and enjoy Nemesis just as much as TWOK.
And I loved DS9 and ENT. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. Each series has a different flavor, but it’s all Trek. Trek’s not about hatin’
I also watch, own, love and read Star Wars stuff. It’s all good.
We’re not looking for the cure to cancer here folks. It’s entertainment. FUN!
Let it be…
Modern Trek lost me in part because its backstory had become so convoluted. The weird stilted hybrid Star War/1980s therapy-speak dialogue didn’t help much either. It all helped to make Star Trek seem like a strange parallel universe, rather than an extrapolation of our own future.
Simplicity is the key thing with Abrams’ Trek. The original Trek was a fun sci-fi adventure series with a healthy dose of moral discussion. People don’t want to have to buy a multi-volume Star Trek Chronology to understand what’s going on in a story: the details like Starfleet and the Federation should be incidental and the characters and concepts the main thing.
Ron Moore showed how this can work in BSG. I’m feeling very positive!
in response to all this timeline stuff, daniels was from the original timeline. the events of enterprise established the alternate timeline, and the rest of the shows belonged to that timeline. i know of no place where enterpriose contradicted the other shows in any way, save maybe the romulan cloaking device.
the continuity is much of what makes the show so enjoyable. as is the imagination required to work within it. you cannot throw it out the window and do whatever you want.
I’m a little insulted as a Star Trek fan that Ron Moore thinks I’m not going to give a new Trek series a chance because I’m aware of all the past history of the series. I gave both series that came after his DS9 a chance and was turned off by them not by continuity stuff, but by bad writing that relied too much on technobabble and hackneyed story ideas, coupled with cardboard cutout depth characters. None of that has to do with continuity. I’m like most fans who don’t care what color someone’s uniform is, or whether the rank pins are correct, or whatever – we want compelling storytelling. He gave us that in DS9 and BSG, and that’s what makes them great.
I’m aware that in the past Ron Moore has griped about how he couldn’t do some stuff on DS9 because the producers and suits wouldn’t let him, and with his success with BSG he now has a podium to keep taking shots at these producers, but I think we’ve heard enough now. We get it. Move on.
I think Moore is utterly mistaken.
He says that keeping track of the continuity in recent Trek “created a barrier for potential audiences”. That may be true if we compare the ten Trek movies to something like the Batman movies that started over almost every time. Still, the Trek movies have always been the parts of the franchise with the least geeky references and with the sloppiest continuity. And the great movies among them appealed to nerds and normal people alike, while those that sucked were not really the ones made primarily with continuity in mind (”Nemesis”).
The continuity requirements of Trek on TV have always been more demanding. Still, since when does it require intimate knowledge about Star Trek history to understand single Voyager or Enterprise episodes? Sure, those who don’t care so much will miss a few nerdy references. But Moore can’t honestly mean that it would be better to drop them. Or to re-invent continuity every week instead of looking it up some basic facts in the ST Encyclopedia or, even much better, at Memory Alpha, which takes the writers just a few minutes. “It was not possible to keep it all straight anymore” is a pathetic excuse for laziness.
People do watch Star Trek because it has an established continuity, even if they don’t admit it. And Star Trek isn’t even a series format that requires permanent attention. In Battlestar Galactica, for instance, it is not really possible to miss more than a few filler episodes. Everything that happens may play a role at a later time. I find it quite ironical that the man who created this very intertwined series accuses Trek of overdoing continuity. I wonder what he will say in ten years, when spin-offs like Caprica and who knows what else are history, and someone is going to re-reboot everything he has created.
Continuity does not limit creativity. It never did. It just requires people who care about what they are doing instead of resorting to lame excuses.
Continuity does not deter the casual audience. Because there are people who may not love Star Trek as much as I do but who like to see a great story – as opposed to those people who avoid the theater or the TV program if they only see pointed ears and warp nacelles. You can never gain the latter as an audience, no matter how much you reboot the franchise.
I also have to disagree with Ron Moore.
I always cite the new ‘Doctor Who’ show as the perfect example: it is still set in the same continuity as the classic serials, yet is a completely fresh start. It doesn’t contradict anything from the old show. Instead, it focuses on forging ahead into its own mythology and canon.
People who are afraid of large canons are those that expect little mentions of past episodes in each new story, and think that it’s going to be too difficult for writers to do that. Just don’t bother; it’s not needed. Start off with what the previous productions established as fact, and then go off your own way.
This is a non-story. He’s been saying this for a long time. Go watch First Contact. He does the commentary. As they’re talking (I forget who is also doing the commentary), he talks about how continuity in Star Trek is so overwhelming for new writers that to rejuvenate the series, it would be best to do a reboot.
When did the [special edition] First Contact DVD come out? A long while ago now.
That’s why this is a non-story.
#168 nails it. That’s why each Voyager was particularly unwatchable for me (even with the addition of a top-ten Sci-fi eye candy.) Every piece of dialog was so contrived and cloyingly poetic and philosophical. Every plot was so transparent and nearly always resolved by a stern lecture Janeway and some techno-babel innovation which began by reversing the polarity of at least three types of partial beams. If that is canon, then I’ll pass.
I actually liked Enterprise because most of the time, the dialog almost sounded like actual conversation. And they didn’t reverse the polarity of diddly-squat. Yes- the screwed up the timeline. Yes, they screwed up the technology. Yes, the broke the sacred scriptures…- er, I mean canon.
But they also got closer to the emotional feel of TOS than any previous offering. There was a grit and a real humanness in many of the characters. The captain let his weak-side show, the engineer was aware of just how screwed they be w/o their technology and you could just imagine Trip skinning his knuckles and dropping the f-bomb out of frustration. There was real tension between species which showed that diversity, while noble, is hard and messy work. It wasn’t a ship full of conformity-zombies who sounded like they’d just been to Dr. Phil’s Anger Management Boot Camp.
ENT had the right premise to revitalize Trek- they just didn’t execute it as good as they could have. I’m hoping the new film succeeds where Enterprise failed.
This is the bit of quotation that cracks me up:
“. . . there was a whole legion of people out there that weren’t even going to make the effort because it was just too much work. . . ”
Uh. . . what about the “whole legion of people” who’ve been writing Trek stories for free over the decades? Track them down. I’m sure they’d do it.
Anyway, it seems to me there’s an entire universe to explore within each Star Trek timeframe. Sticking within the bounds of continuity shouldn’t be too hard, as the universe is, after all, boundless.
If you have ever watched the new BSG, you know that continuity is not a priority for Mr. Moore. Then again, neither is internal consistency or plausibility. That show is anti-continuity – it started brilliantly, and it’s now a mess.
I think Nick Meyer had the right ideas about continuity on the commentary track to ST II. You need to have the basics right. For example, the preexisting relationship between Kirk and Khan developed from Space Seed was correct. On the other hand, it does not really matter if we saw Chekov in that episode or not. One is continuity, the other is minutia.
It’s pretty clear now that they’re setting the movie up as a “soft reboot” – with most of the changes being visual (some dramatic, some sticking pretty close to the original) and offering up plot-based explanations for the most obvious divergences.
This will split the purist/no reboot “camp” into two groups:
1) Folks who dislike the movie will refuse to accept the changes, declare the thing a reboot, and reject it;
2) Those who like the movie will rationalize the changes and insist that “they can all be explained if you try, no big deal.” They’ll declare that the movie isn’t a reboot and that the (in some cases substantial) visual and backstory details don’t matter that much.
The next several years of Internet fandom will see a lot of “conversation” (arguing and shouting and fussing) as the “Abrams pulled it off” purists try to persuade the rejectionists and the rejectionists declare them to be “sheeple who will suck up whatever swill Hollywood deigns to dump on you.”
The rest of us will just be buying tickets and DVDs (or not, but not posting endlessly about why not).
Although he wasn’t part of it – Voyager fell down because it couldn’t even hold up continuity with in the one series, sometimes even the one season or even episode! That’s just sloppy.
#175 considering the fact that the cannon and chronology contradict in place, and as time goes on events in the trek universe have to have their dates moved up, and every new series and subsequent movies have forced revisions in the time line. What is your definiton of within the continuity?
After Robert Wise and Nimoy ,Benet and Meyer ther have not been to many alist directors and writers exactly beating down the doors to do a new trek film especailly in the last few years. I dont see james Cammeron, Alex Proyas, Steven Spielberg.and Ridley Scott clammering to get involved in the Cannon mindfield that has become the trek franchise The cannon restrictions are an issue here, and yes ive read some of the fan fiction some of it is good but no one in Hollywood is going to even bother with a script written by a script or story written by a fan and thats that.
Abrams right now is Treks best shot in years fo getting back on top, and if he’s got to break a few cannon rule to achieve a good film, then so what!
and by the Im not saying he should disregard the entire lore of Trek just not be handcuffed by it. If the movie does a Homage to the past then that should be more then good enough.
#178. “Although he wasn’t part of it – Voyager fell down because it couldn’t even hold up continuity with in the one series, sometimes even the one season or even episode! That’s just sloppy.”
A lot depends on what we mean by the word “continuity.” I’m all for continuity, so long as we are working from my definition of it.
#175. “Anyway, it seems to me there’s an entire universe to explore within each Star Trek timeframe. Sticking within the bounds of continuity shouldn’t be too hard, as the universe is, after all, boundless.”
But it’s not boundless – for canonistas it is tightly bound up in terms of both time and space. Your future is predetermined, your past is saturated with facts you cannot change, and your present time frame has to abide by the locally established reaities without changing the past and without violating the future. Who negotiated this treaty? When did this war occur? Who cares? Just stick with the broad strokes and don’t violate the spirit of the story. The facts are numerous, inconsistent (from episode to episode/series to series/movie to movie), and not all that interesting.
No, what killed Enterprise was terrible acting, poor planning and plots, weak characters, rehashed stories, in-your-face-cartoon-sexuality, and a far too late realization of utilizing continuity to thier benefit. They weren’t constricted by it, they blatantly ignored it too much.
Just my thoughts, anyway. I used to turn this show on simply to see how pissed off I could get each week! And I’m a Bakula fan!
#177
It is also possible that there are
3) those who recognize that the new movie does not fit into established history, but will enjoy it nonetheless as a different sci-fi universe.
Curiously, group 3) will likely join forces with 2) because they like it, although their position on it not being the same any more is closer to 1).
#176
I have to agree that BSG pulls things out of thin air whenever needed, perhaps more often than Trek usually did. However, when it comes to linking episodes and topics together, BSG requires more attention from the audience than even DS9 did. Regardless how much sense it really made.
“One is continuity, the other is minutia.”
Good point. The problem is that while you can find a perfect definition for what is crucial and what is trivial for yourself (at least I am always trying), not everyone will agree with even the definition, much less with your conclusions. Especially with regard to “artistic” issues. Some people wouldn’t care if the new Enterprise had three nacelles, while some others expect the ship to look exactly the same for continuity to be preserved.
Interestingly, it is not even a question of being a nerd or not whether you recognize small errors or not. People with only a remote affinity to Trek have been asking me why the tombstone showed “James R. Kirk”, and similar questions, how they could make such a stupid mistake, and how I could possibly explain that. And the new movie Enterprise in the movie will likely be received with disapproval by exactly many of those people who are not expected to care at all.
Also, while it is always easy to dismiss single small mistakes as something we may disregard (I’m doing that all the time), at some point they sum up to a big one, and impair the suspension of disbelief. Really, I doubt I will be able to watch the new Trek movie and then “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, and pretend that it’s the same universe.
#181 I agree enterprise was not a good show, because its intention of exploration was disregared. I would have liked a mirrorverse version of Enterprise with Evil Archer and Crew that would been entertaining. Explore the trek saga from the darkside, now that would have been different.
>>I don’t want another “Casino Royal”
If the new Trek movie is as true to the “original” as was the new Casino Royale was to Ian Fleming’s character as written (not Roger Moore-ized), we’re in for one hell of a great show in May.
Ron Moore isn’t working on this film, yet from what I’ve seen in responses here, people are overreacting to his words as if he were Paramount Incarnate. He’s just a guy with a public forum opining on what he sees. JJ Abrams isn’t going to read his words and go,” OMG!! I’ve got to scrap everything to make some coin on this flick!”
Ron Moore’s Galactica universe is a dark, ugly, miserable place to be a human, with the occasional glimmer of hope that keeps getting lit and snuffed out. That would never fly in the Star Trek universe.
I enjoy Galactica. I enjoy Star Trek. There are things in both stories I could do without. I’m still watching, however. Both have stories to tell that I care enough about that I’ll spend my time watching.
So, take RM’s words with a grain of salt. And enjoy the ride til May.
#168 – “Simplicity is the key thing with Abrams’ Trek. The original Trek was a fun sci-fi adventure series with a healthy dose of moral discussion. People don’t want to have to buy a multi-volume Star Trek Chronology to understand what’s going on in a story: the details like Starfleet and the Federation should be incidental and the characters and concepts the main thing.”
But that’s the thing. It doesn’t have to be complex to maintain continuity. The usual mistake that gets made is a production assuming the audience already knows stuff (e.g., in “Generations”, who the Duras sisters are and what their point is, is completely omitted in the film; one has no idea why they’re there or why they’re pissed-off at Picard and the Enterprise crew unless one has already seen the relevant episodes; but in “The Wrath of Khan”, the backstory is laid out in a few lines of exposition, and the movie gets on with telling its story. Bad use of continuity vs. good use of continuity, right there.) It doesn’t mean that maintaining continuity is itself bad, only that people need to use it effectively.
#174 – ” Yes, they screwed up the technology. Yes, the broke the sacred scriptures…- er, I mean canon.”
Actually, no, they didn’t. They messed with people’s preconceptions of what the era ought to be, but they contradicted very very little of what was established on-screen. All of ENT did a better job of maintaining continuity than Season 1 of TNG alone.
“But they also got closer to the emotional feel of TOS than any previous offering.”
I’d argue that DS9 also got close, but ENT season 4 has it beat, hands-down.
#177 – “It’s pretty clear now that they’re setting the movie up as a “soft reboot” – with most of the changes being visual (some dramatic, some sticking pretty close to the original) and offering up plot-based explanations for the most obvious divergences. ”
That much I think is likely the case, with–as you say, the arguments deriving into how to reconcile visual interpretations. e.g., does something have to look absolutely identical to fit in, or is it “acceptable” to have dates and events preserved, but visual interpretations to be different? I think much of the discussion will finally derive from things we haven’t seen yet, so it’s hard to know yet how it will all play out.
For myself, I’m more flexible with the visual interpretations. While I think, if it had been me, I’d be closer to the originals than the film seems to be, based on what little we’ve seen, I don’t think I’d be as close as “New Voyages”/”Phase II” has been, at least not if designing for a feature film. I’ve had my own ideas about what to change, and I’ll be curious to see how close the film gets (or doesn’t) to them. (No crime if they aren’t that close, of course! I think we all have our own ideas, but for all I know, the team on the film might have better ideas than me. :) )
#179 – “considering the fact that the cannon and chronology contradict in place, and as time goes on events in the trek universe have to have their dates moved up, and every new series and subsequent movies have forced revisions in the time line. What is your definiton of within the continuity?”
Well, I do tend to agree with Roberto’s “Supreme Court” analogy. When there were contradictions (which very early TOS certainly had, ’cause they were still figuring it all out at the time), if they make some decisions about what to follow, and end up picking one interpretation over another, that’s all cool.
As for changing dates based on reality, I oppose that. The Trekverse and our own reality diverged a long time ago. They should be treated as separate, and thus I’d place the emphasis on consistency within the Trekverse over trying to reconcile differences with reality. (e.g., the Eugenics Wars happened in the Trekverse, in ‘92-’96, and they didn’t in ours. No big deal. Moving right along. :) It’s a non-issue unless one is specifically doing story which deals with it.)
#167… Thanks Bill. Now that sounds level headed. I agree with you absolutely.
Although I agree in general with what Ron Moore is saying, what really staggers me is the impression that some people here can’t see that Moore’s Battlestar is anything less than an atounding success on every level compared to the original. I loved that show in the 70’s but it’s pretty near unwatchable now. If more than a few fans would be unhappy with that level of improvement over the technobabble snorefest that was Voyager, then Abrams might as well give up now.
Atounding? Great typing…
I think that what Moore was trying to say is that it became very difficult to get “new” fans on board because the shows were so loaded down with “canon” that a new fan might not get it all, having not seen every Trek incarnation to date. I’m not a huge fan of Ron Moore. I did not like what he did with Klingon culture. However, he brought some decent stories to DS9. But being a TOS fan, I think he has a point. TOS had very little continuity, therefore it was easy to see a random episode and become intrigued with the series. It was done to be viewed, as most shows in its time, in no particular order (for the most part). You could watch “COTEOF” and enjoy it thoroughly, regardless of whether you had seen a single other episode. There was not a great story every week, but I think there were at least 20-30 of them out of 79 episodes. That’s a lot.
Abrams and co. have made it clear that one of their goals is to make a Star Trek movie that everyone may enjoy, regardless of how much Star Trek he/she has seen prior to the film. To do so, it is probably best if the story is not drowning in “canon”, at least IMO.
Still, there will be some who go to the theater in their lab coats and with microscopes set to kill, at least that is the impression I get from reading comments every day. I find that ironic, since the original series and films were riddled with continuity errors and questions to anyone who dared approach them that way.
Mr. Orci told us that Memory Alpha is a regular source for canon research, so there is obviously an effort made to be respectful of ST history. he has also told us that anything which appears to be an error in canon will have a canon explanation. I think it will be fun. You can bet there will be much to comment about.
As for Ron Moore, I may not like much of what he did on Trek, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. 28 seasons of Star Trek. That is a lot of information.
#182. “Also, while it is always easy to dismiss single small mistakes as something we may disregard (I’m doing that all the time), at some point they sum up to a big one, and impair the suspension of disbelief. Really, I doubt I will be able to watch the new Trek movie and then “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, and pretend that it’s the same universe.”
They only sum to one big mistake if you are keeping score.
Different productions of Shekespeare belong, in a sense, in a different universe, but what matters is the retelling of the story.
Continuity is perhaps best defined as “Whatever you can get away with”.
The fact that someone will always disagree shows that canon is relative to the average minimal expectations of the audience. If the people disagreeing with you are a few dozen fans with ship of the line factoids, you can probably get away with it.
- The Problem -
It wasn’t canon that killed Trek, it was the fact we had nearly 20 years of Trek without any breaks, the reason so few turned out for the later films was folks going “Why am I paying $10 to see this when I can watch it on TV for free ?”
I still think there SHOULD of been a break from the end of TNG to the first TNG movie, but no, they rushed head first into Generations, now TOS didn’t rush into TMP, there was a 10 year break, i’m not suggesting that TNG needed to take a 10 year break before thier first film.
Folks had to start MISSING it first, the first TNG film sould of been an EVENT, like TMP was, it should of been like a family reunion deal, but no, someone somewhere got it in thier heads to go ahead and make a TNG film while a new Star Trek series was on TV !
Then they had the nerve to act surpursed when the turn out wasn’t what they hoped for, so they thought, well lets do another anyway, that one did better, but still fell short of expetations, they kept going anyway.
Rember all this while new episodes were being made for TV.
Ultimately Paramount pulled the plug on Trek’s life support.
” It’s Dead, Jim ” McCoy would possibly say.
Now we are where we are because of all that that happened.
The Franchise is split in half, the movie half belong to Paramount, the TV half belonging to CBS inc. Folks that want a new series, good luck, Les Moonves isn’t dead yet and he’s calling the shots, he’s only to happy to keep selling the OLD shows on DVD to get more money in his pocket.
Les Moonves hates Sci-Fi, and Star Trek, no way will he fund a brand new show, EVER, at least not in his lifetime anyway. Deal with it. It’s amazeing he put money aside to have Star Trek Remastered even, possibly not a whole lot, I’m thinking he’s a cheap bastard when it comes to this.
So, to have BRAND NEW Star Trek , we only have, Paramount.
Okay, time to support JJ’s movie, wouldn’t you say ?
No more petty arguments about canon, color of the ship, ect.
Let’s face the facts folks, we’re not going to get any new Star Trek on TV ever again untill CBS inc want’s it bad enough, and currently they don’t.
Paramont seems to be willing to bet the BANK on the new film, so what should we do as fans ? I donno, maybe go see it perhaps ?
EVEN if the new film makes more money then any other Star Trek film EVER, there will not be a new series on TV, Les Moonves is still alive.
I’ve been saying this IRL to my friends and they agree with this view, it’s a shame the franchice is split in half, but there’s nothing we can do to correct that situation, what’s done is done.
The Franchise should have only one owner, it’d be a lot easyer to have things done by only talking to one enity, but that’s not the case here, nore will it be anytime soon, I’m still trying to understand how the Merchindiseing side of this whole mess works out between the 2 owners of Star Trek, that in itself must be a pain in tail.
Let’s say Hallmark makes a TOS thing for X-mas, who get’s the $ ?
Does Paramont becuse they produced the show in the 1960’s ?
Or does CBS inc get the $ becaause they own the show currently ?
I’m willing to bet CBS gets the $ now.
Let’s say Hallmark makes a TOS Movie thing as well.
Paramont gets the $ from that, right ?
See how confuseing that can get in the long run ?
#185 Alex I don’t think any of us are going to agree perfectly on everthing with regard to trek, here we are bit players tn the lastest chapter of the Cannon Follies. Even after the film The saga will continue and you know what I wouldn’t have it any other way. Its fun have theses knock down drag out fights over what trek should be and shouldn’t be. I look foward to the film and tidal wave of agument that lays ahead for us all. I don’t think we are going to run out of things to ague and fight an debate over.
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– I just hope this helps the canon thumpers to see the light…
– STAR TREK needs room to breath!
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I think the only thing that killed Trek was a couple of unfortunate series that — for whatever reason — weren’t as strong as they could have been.
If you took a really popular sci-fi show and slapped “Trek” in the title, you would have right there a Star Trek success story. Likewise, if you take a pretty lame show and slap “Trek” in the title, you still don’t have a good show.
In short, success has nothing to do with whether it’s Trek or not, it’s just chance. I don’t think Trek history is such a big problem for writers, personally. I mean people have no trouble producing a diverse range of modern-day dramas, all based on the same human history going back thousands of years. I think a good writer should be able to take a good story and fit it into any franchise, certainly into a universe like Star Trek, where anything is possible. The diversity of TNG and DS9 proves you can go in any direction, and still do it well. And the fact that VOY was very similar to the original in concept, yet far less successful, proves that the concpet isn’t what makes or breaks something, it’s more about the writing, stories, and characters.
I hate to nerd out again, but things written in the Star Trek Chronology or Encyclopedia aren’t canon. They’re merely Mike & Denise doing their best to extrapolate based on available facts.
With this in mind, no, nothing on screen says that Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet. It is a concept Rodenberry had in mind for the character, but even TOS seemed to contradict this notion with the Intrepid being crewed entirely by Vulcans. The Eugenics Wars are referenced by Spock as being in the 90’s, and Kahn subsequently makes reference to leaving Earth in ‘96, but no specific timeline is given for the conflict. It could have happened in 1989 for all we know. There are a lot of notions like these that Trek fans hold as true, but that have not necessarily ever been established on screen.
That aside, I understand what people are saying about creativity being required to work around canon. I do think a creative writer can often incorporate the old while giving us something new. And I honestly don’t believe Moore was saying that’s impossible. I think a lot of the limitations came from TPTB at the time, in terms of how they wanted stories structured. On TNG, for instance, the idea was that no matter what happened in the episode, you needed to return things to the status quo by the end (this happened a lot in TOS as well). Then there was Rodenberry’s bizarre ‘no conflict’ rule for TNG (odd, since I thought TOS had plenty of conflict between the leads). Then you had VOY’s insistence on cramming every scientific term known to man into every episode, regardless of the content. There were a lot of restrictions on the writers besides canon, admittedly.
That aside, I respect Ron Moore’s opinion because this guy understood Star Trek better than almost anyone else in the crew. He was almost single-handedly responsible for DS9 (alongside Behr & Wolfe), a show I feel ranks up there with the best of the best. Not to mention he wrote almost every one of my favorite episodes of TNG (The Bonding, Yesterdays Enterprise, Sins of the Father, Family, Ethics, All Good Things, The Chase, etc.). And many of those episodes prove Moore is one of those creative writers that can not only create something new (The Bonding) but also work within a canon framework (Trials And Tribbleations, Relics). Let’s also not forget he was a key contributor on the excellent (but short lived) Carnivale, and had the good judgement to leave Voyager almost as quickly as he came to it.
I’m not saying the guy is perfect or always right (see: Generations), only that the majority of the work he has done indicates he understands the formula for telling a good story. So even if you disagree with him, there’s simply no justification for dismissing him as a ‘hack’.
Also, those of you bringing up Dr Who as an example of lengthy continuity…I’m a fan of the Doctor, but no, continuity was never the strong point of that show. They have fun with it, they twist it, they tweak it, they come up with ludicrous explanations for the contradictions, but over the course of 40 years there have been SO many inconsistencies that most people’s heads would implode upon examining them all. The origins of the Doctor alone have been written and rewritten so many times that it’s difficult to keep track.
#185 The Trekverse and our own reality diverged a long time ago.
This is very true. It happened in 1968 when Gary Seven intervened in the launch of an orbital nuke weapon platform (atop a Saturn V, no less). Obviously something happened to “their” timeline, as we never had such a program in place during the Apollo era. Something had to have happened prior to that, though… Was it the Enterprise appearing over Omaha a year earlier, and the subsequent abduction/return of Captain Christopher? Maybe that incursion was enough to make our government paranoid enough to orbit bombs and diverge our timeline from the Trek timeline. Kirk said the Eugenics Wars were in the late 20th century (whole populations being bombed out of existence).. but in 1996, Voyager visited California, and it looked pretty peaceful. Zephram Cochran used to be from Alpha Centauri, but “later” appeared to be from Montana. Then again, the whole divergence thing could have started at Roswell with the Ferengi, where they gave us Velcro..or maybe with something Kirk did in Edith Keeler’s time by stealing those clothes… agh!!
Ok, I’ll admit, given these brief examples, writing for the Trek Universe is a terribly complex proposition. Not only do you have to write a story that takes into account the past, but the future as well. No wonder the Temporal Police were so cranky.
#177. A soft reboot. I like that. Indeed, if I were a writer, I’d appreciate the opportunity to write a story which would explain why some elements would be changed. The question would be creating such a story to be able to pull that off. Yes, I’d want to keep the best from the original series, but I would also want to be able to create a new view of that same concept.
In that light, I found JMS outline for a possible take on the show very interesting and it had some nice ideas about the mission of the Enterprise.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the writers and producers of the movie will do with the concept.
You know, it’s funny, I think many people are so worried about canon that they think when the movie is released, if something major is changed, that their whole collection of videos, books and props will slowly fade away in front of their eyes as if history will truly be altered in reality.
As I’ve said in #112, if the movie doesn’t fit into what I regard as the original series, then I’ll be happy with what I consider original trek. Nothing can take away from that. I suspect as this point, however, the movie will be fun, entertaining and interesting.
#18 nailed it. What put Trek into a coma was that Enterprise looked, sounded, and felt the same as TNG, DS9 & VOY.
When Enterprise was announced Bermaga promised a new Trek, but in reality it was just more of the same. It looked the same. The music was the same. The stories still felt the same. It didn’t even really feel like a prequel. 1st season Enterprise even used aspects of the previous series by using holodecks, Ferengi, Klingons, etc, etc.
Enterprise had monster numbers when it first premiered on UPN but as it became apparent very quickly that it was just MORE OF THE SAME the ratings went south. Trek was in desperate need of some sort of reboot – similar to but not nearly as radical as what was done with Battlestar Galactica. The reboot really only needed to be a fresher or more unique take on the Trek universe. After a combined 21 seasons Trek had to evolve and the producers missed the opportunity.
Just my opinion.
Greater continuity creates an opportunity for greater and more grounded storytelling.
And Enterprise died because it was a bland show.
#198—I like that opinion. Perhaps the new spin on Trek (STXI) will produce what is needed for a future Trek series.
Personally, I liked ENT more than any of the other spinoff series (I, like many others, was unable to see it until it was on dvd), but I think the change was too little, too late, and on the wrong type of network.
The obvious answer is to create new fans by attracting a broader audience. A hot Hollywood name like JJ Abrams may be just what is needed to do this.
The strength of TOS was always characters and stories that set the audience’s imagination in motion. It was never about continuity until the onset of TNG. The TNG-era spinoffs drowned themselves in “canon” and technobabble, IMO.
The filmmakers have the right idea. Let’s hope the end result is as good as the theory.
151:
“Oops. Yes it does. Just found it in my Star Trek Encyclopedia. “Spock was the first Vulcan to ENLIST in the Federation Starfleet.” Maybe they thought they could get away with it (having a Vulcan on the NX-01) because she didn’t actually “enlist”. Or do I need to go back and watch the beginning of “Enterprise” as well?”
Huh! I thought Spock was the first Vulcan to enroll in and graduate from Starfleet Academy.
AFA T’Pol, she was originally with the Vulcan High Command when assigned to NX-01 and later formalized her association with Starfleet in Season 3, I think it was.
Peace. Live long and prosper.
The Vulcanista }:-|
#179, #180.
*By no means* am I a canonista opposed to changes. Not by a long shot – I’m entirely open-minded about the whole thing. I’m NOT one of those fans obsessed with orthodoxy.
I’m just disputing the notion that Trek’s complex backstory makes it a tough sell for writers. I am sure there are plenty of folks with plenty of ideas that would fit in quite snugly with the existing Trekiverse. That’s all I’m sayin’.
#200. Despite its flaws I still enjoyed Enterprise. I still think the prequel concept was a great idea, just executed horribly. Season 4 should have been how they started the series. Its just with Enterprise as I watch it I shake my head at the series it could have been.
I guess what I was trying to say originally but didn’t is that I think there really is still a big Trek audience out there but they want something different. Enterprise at times was a great show, but it was still just more of the same.
And you are totally correct on the technobabble. I’m watching DS9 for the first time since it originally aired and I am already amazed at how they unnecessarily bogged down the script with technobabble.
It still amazes me that people get so tied up in the details of canon.
First of all, canon doesn’t exist. It’s a fictional story. Details and history were added in the story to tie it to the viewer and make it more realistic. That’s all. There was never any attempt by Gene or the original crew that made TOS to create this complete historical future universe that had no flaws.
There are tons of contradictions in the TOS series itself. How can you possibly criticize any other Star Trek series or movie for messing up some details here or there when the original freakin show did it all the time???
I got news for those of you so hung up on canon….. you are the only ones that care. The writers don’t care, the movie producers don’t care, heck, even Gene himself didn’t care. It was all entertainment, and as long as the story was entertaining, that’s all that mattered.
Please step back and take some stock in your life and realize that 99% of the people that pay to go see this movie next year will have never even seen this website, or thought twice about canon, or if the freakin bridge railings are red or blue or whatever. They will just want to go see a good movie. Period.
I’ve been a Star Trek fan my whole life, but I’m what I guess you would call a normal human being that understands it’s all fiction, and I can enjoy most every movie and show for what it is and not once think of whether or not some detail i’m seeing is contradicted in some earlier show or movie. I can also be objective and criticize the movie on an entertainment level as to whether or not it’s a good movie. In other words, just because i like Star Trek, doesn’t mean I love every show or movie. TOS for example was cool at it’s time, but now the tech, FX, acting and fight scenes are just laughable and difficult to watch. By the same token, some of the movies were quit horrible too.
I for one have been yearning for someone to make a serious Star Trek movie. One with a real budget and a good story. One that doesn’t look like a made for TV movie being shown in a theater. Canon be damned. I just want a serious Trek movie for once. I think the last one was ST:II. A couple others after that were ok, but that was the last truely great Star Trek movie.
#200 (and now 203) — I also meant to say I agree on the subject of technobabble, which often slowed the dialogue to a grinding halt on the later shows.
There was virtually none on the original show. I’m guessing (hoping) the new film gets away from it and back to the original humanistic vision of Star Trek, which was always more of a conversation about the characters — & what makes *them* tick — than all those flipping gizmos.
#205 – I have this hope that in the new film somebody (Spock perhaps)starts going all technobabble and Kirk or McCoy or whoever looks at him and says “Shut the F*** up!” I think it would be classic.
#206. Brilliant!!! But (ahem). . . MPAA rating?
#204—Jay, I’ve been beating that drum since I can remember.
Why do so many straight hollywood types have ridiculous long hair? Do they really think it’s attractive, cool or hip? His is especially feathery and Farah Fawcett like. He looks like a “Garnier Fructis” commercial. At least it’s not in a pony tail.
Too much back-story was not the problem. For me, it was writing that got too soap-opera like. You do need good character conflict and development, but what happened to exploring an interesting scientific or sci-fi concept? Why didn’t writers/producers look more to good sci-fi novels and short-stories for inspiration?
Clearly Moore appreciates not having to adhere by the “canon” of the original Battlestar Galactica. Regarding Trek, maybe he’s referring to the limitations Paramount put on him. Where he’s confused, though, is in separating the big picture of what Trek is from its minutiae.
Good Trek isn’t about getting the terminology 100 percent correct, it’s about capturing the feel of an optimistic, idealistic future featuring enlightened humans 300 years advanced from us. That’s what sets Trek apart from any other pop-culture science fiction, and the dark direction from DS9 on took Trek away from that core.
#205 I also meant to say I agree on the subject of technobabble, which often slowed the dialogue to a grinding halt on the later shows.
There was virtually none on the original show.
>>>>
OH, but there were some humdingers…i.e., In “Court Marshal” Kirk saying the “heartbeat reader” amplified sound by a factor of “1 to the 4th power”.
-Scotty using the term “whatum units” or some other gibberish.
Star Trek was never about exploration of real science concepts- it was about current events couched in the metaphor of the starship and the alien culture.
#210—”Good Trek isn’t about getting the terminology 100 percent correct, it’s about capturing the feel of an optimistic, idealistic future featuring enlightened humans 300 years advanced from us. That’s what sets Trek apart from any other pop-culture science fiction”.
That’s what we mean when we complain about “technobabble”. It should be well developed characters who are interesting, and good solid sci-fi stories. Technology is just window dressing.
#204- best post ever.
Mr Poopey face is my hero.
- I don’t know why is so hard to mantain a continuity in the stories ..especially when the producers are always surounded by fans…!
History has too much continuity. Let’s start anew. Let’s give Romans some laser guns and hummers. :-P
Come on, Ron, it’s not all that fraking hard to adhere to established facts. Writers all over the world are doing it all the time, and they have more than 5000 years of established facts to adhere to. Why should Trek be any different?
So, if you have trouble adhering to established facts, just use your own world, not someone else’s. It’s *that* easy.
200. I agree with tyour statement that later Trek was “drowning in canon”. At some point along the way, canon became the premise of Trek rather than its’ foundation. Trek is not about making sure every single fact always gets straight. Trek is about the human condition, using science-fiction elements to explore those themes.But at some point, that got lost.
Another thing, to those of you who say canon is not so daunting and that writers who don’t know or want to handle it are just lazy, clearly you are not writers yourselves. Dealing with history, whether real or fictional, is a very difficult process. Research consumes a considerable amount of time and energy. The TV writer faces the added difficulty of having to write consistently and turn out new scripts at a fixed point in time. That doesn’t leave much time for research or writing as well as one might like. As fans, we invest the time to learn these things so we may develop a greater understanding and appreciation of the Trek series. Gathering such knowledge and even having the time to do so, is a rare luxury for the TV writer. The creators have to churn out new episodes on a regular basis, all we have to do is sit back and watch.
Canon can go in the toilet for the most part. But since Leonard Nimoy IS portraying Spock in this film, there are certain elements of 1966-1991 Trek that JJ’s movie should adhere to. And so far, it appears they are.
Please stop comparing actual history with the fictional framework within Trek. They are apples & oranges. Hell, they aren’t even apples & oranges – more like cigars & underwear.
However, I will point out that even when Hollywood crosses with real history, they very rarely follow it to the letter, either.
#219—-That’s because sticking to the continuity of the “facts” often handicaps a story. Go figure.
Cigars and underwear, huh?
I guess my wife is on to something when she tells me to put on a robe.
Bottom Line: Continuity makes a good story. Complaining about too much continuity is a sign of lazy writers (Brannon Braga & Ron Moore).
#217 – “Another thing, to those of you who say canon is not so daunting and that writers who don’t know or want to handle it are just lazy, clearly you are not writers yourselves.”
I do claim to be a writer, and I still think it isn’t so impossibly daunting.
“Dealing with history, whether real or fictional, is a very difficult process. Research consumes a considerable amount of time and energy.”
Absolutely. I think Trek was very fortunate that it had folks like the Okudas, who took the time to compile all the myriad facts and put them into a reasonable reference guide. I write and edit a fanfic series, and over the past couple of years, have found myself doing the same thing. It’s been a very rewarding experience. :)
“The TV writer faces the added difficulty of having to write consistently and turn out new scripts at a fixed point in time. That doesn’t leave much time for research or writing as well as one might like. As fans, we invest the time to learn these things so we may develop a greater understanding and appreciation of the Trek series. Gathering such knowledge and even having the time to do so, is a rare luxury for the TV writer. The creators have to churn out new episodes on a regular basis, all we have to do is sit back and watch.”
And with that I will totally agree. That’s one reason why I do not in fact worry if not every minute detail is exactly right, and I will more tease the writers if they get it wrong than scream at them. It’s tough, and, really, the Trek writers did a pretty creditable job over the years.
But not expecting perfection–which I don’t–or being open to the fact that writers sometimes just have to figure out a resolution when previous continuity-bits conflict–which occasionally they do, and which they certainly will in various cases for this new film–is not the same as being willing to accept a conscious decision to just throw the whole thing out–which I am not, and hopefully neither are they.
#222—According to the writers, they are not throwing everything out, so not to worry.
The problem with setting even a portion of this film in the TOS-era, is that there was very little continuity to begin with. Chances are, whichever direction the writers go, there will be a contradiction of some kind.
I was initially very taken aback at the notion of an alternate timeline in STXI. I have come to the realization that such a thing is salvation for this team and its efforts to revisit the golden era of Trek (1966-1991), aka the 23rd Century (which presents continuity problems itself, since the 1st season of TOS has the suggested time period all over the place).
I think what should be maintained at all costs is the characters that we love. Trying to hang on to imaginary “canon” in the TOS-era is like grasping at a deflated life preserver in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
What if they acknowledge Zephram Cochrane as being from Earth, and not Alpha Centauri as suggested in TOS?
What if they actually have Romulans painting their ships like birds of prey (like in TOS), and not Klingons (like everything afterward)?
What if The Botany Bay was actually adrift in space for 300 years, rather than the 200 years that both Kirk and Khan said it was in “Space Seed” and TWOK?
Which “canon” is it appropriate to violate? You almost have to contradict something.
#219 is right. Take Braveheart, for example. The Battle of Sterling in the film was depicted with those huge spears to stop a heavy cavalry charge.
In fact, the battle was fought not on a plain near the woods, but around Sterling Bridge. Lacking time and budget to recreate the bridge and it’s downfall, “real history” gave way to “reel history” and the now beloved scene was created.
The point? Gibson changed some historical facts, but still managed to convey both the importance of that particular battle and Wallace’s skills as a tactician.
If bio-pics get leeway with actual history, why can’t we lighten up with fictional history? If Braveheart took a few inches, let’s not begrudge JJ a mile or two. It is just fiction.
There was a time when I thought that “canon” was un-important. As a matter of fact, I think a tremendous story telling opportunity was lost in Star Trek 3 by acknowleging that Spock was killed in the prior film.
I also was into recreational drug use and liked the quick and temporary high it brought.
I hope that in the next Trek film the filmmakers set the story on the USS Lexington, with Jennifer Garner playing Kirk.
Ronold Moore is such a visionary… and it comforts me that he won’t be drawing on any of the BSG saga that he created when Caprica goes before the camers
Canonistas!
#224–I hear the English are still angry that Wallace did not wait for their entire army to cross the bridge before engaging them.
English General: “You cheated.”
William Wallace: “I don’t like to lose.”
I guess he didn’t believe in the no-win scenario.
221-
Agreed completely.
#219—-That’s because sticking to the continuity of the “facts” often handicaps a story.
No- it helps shape a good story.
#222 Alex you have to admit that for a writer any writer trying to reconcile so much Cannon is a seemly impossible tasks. Le me put this, Suppose a writer comes up with an incredible trek story, one that would blow the sox of of audiences but it turns out because of one cannon detail he has to scrap it, end result we get deprived of a really great story. Look at all the trek books they are not considered cannon yet fans have no trouble accepting them, and they don’t’ perfectly adhere to cannon either. Especially some of the early trek novels like Spock must die in which the Orgainians. put a total ban on the klingon empires right to travel space, which never happened in any trek series. Or Planet of Judgement, Or price of the Phoenix, or Fate of the phoenix, the cannon was not a factor here. By the way speaking of the Organians why weren’t they ther to stop the war between the Federation in both yesterday’s Enterprise and In DS9, I guess the Cannon police were asleep at the switch on this one, they never stated in any of the subsequent series what happened to Orgainans. He’s another issue that works against the continuity and cannon arguments in trek.
Abrams is going to give us a story that might not adhere perfectly to cannon or continuity, but does that mean we should discard it when so many non cannon trek stories have been written and accepted by trekdom, What about the Comics? The trek universe is plenty big enough to accommodate not only this movie but all these other alternate treks
I’ve said this before and I will say it again: canon can be a useful tool but it isn’t the be all and end all of good writing. An example where it could be useful? Well, let’s say that you wanted to make a social commentary episode on the treatment of returning veterans from war, a topic close to the hearts of many Americans today. Okay, you could just create some war on some planet never heard of before, OR you could use canon, let’s say the Dominion War, as a backdrop or background for the story and any relevant information about the war could be described in a briefing, similar to what was done in ENT: “Fallen Hero” or VOY: “False Profits.” Again, you could easily follow what was going on in these episodes even if you never saw an episode of Star Trek, yet canon was used for supporting information in the episode to make it more realistic, something woefully missing in most sci-fi. Again, they shouldn’t get too caught up in canon, and let’s face it: most episodes of Trek had nothing to do with canon, Trek’s past, because they weren’t dealing with the past. Plenty of episodes added to canon but didn’t dwell on it. I’m also all for what I call updating canon. An example of this would be the Romulan warp drive issue. In TOS: “Balance of Terror” the Romulan ship was described as having “simple impulse.” In ENT they made the correct decision to have the Romulans have warp drive because you obviously can’t fight an interstellar war without warp drive. Also according to TOS the Eugenics Wars was called “the last global war” on Earth by Spock resulting in high casualties and ended in 1996, and in ST: II they said the same thing about the date, but in later Trek, the date of the Eugenics Wars was left unclear only that it happened in the past was fine because history had passed the 1996 date and no eugenics wars ever occurred. Again, this update to canon is fine. It’s not that hard to stay within canon, just make a good story that includes adventure, and maybe action, and you’ve got a good story. You don’t need to worry about past events unless your episode/movie/story involves time travel or an event that has some past event as the background. In the case of the latter, a quick but realistic review of the past events can easily be done as I pointed to above. In short, canon holds nothing back in Star Trek unlike in BSG (Good luck understanding what’s going on if you miss even a single episode) or B5 (which has a strict unalterable, unupdatable history, backstroy, and many stories were necessary to see to understand future events). Canon can be used as a guide NOT a how-to manual for Star Trek stories. Updating canon and replacing the unrealistic canon (Romulan warp drive situation) is fine, a complete reboot as done in BSG, or James Bond is unnecessary and should never be done. Really, it’s not that hard to make a great story that doesn’t rely on canon to be understood and doesn’t need to even reference past events as seen many times in all the Star Trek series.
By the way, I’m a fan of all the STAR TREK films and TV series (including Generations, Nemesis, and Enterprise) Non of these did a complete reboot. According to previous statements by the Writers/Producers of the new film have said they aren’t doing a complete reboot so I’m sure I’ll be happy. I will go see this new film and I am looking forward to it. I first I was concerned that they were doing a complete reboot but their statements have put me at ease. Again, updating canon is fine, rebooting is not fine.
An interesting side note, I was recently on a Babylon 5 fan site and do you know what the view of Star Trek is by those fans: Star Trek even has canon? Since when does Star Trek rely on past events? The B5 fans point to the TNG episode where LaForge was taken prisoner by the Romulan Tal Shiar for use in an assassination plot. At the end of the episode, LaForge and Counselor Troi are trying to restore his memory of the events and Troi says something like “this will take some time.” Yet, by the next episode everything was forgotten as if it never happened. B5 fans say that what history was established (Eugenics Wars, WWIII, First Contact) is rarely used and referred to or is changed to fit the writer’s agendas. They say that since each Star Trek episode is self contained, it doesn’t really matter what happened before, with the rare exception such material is used, and they point to this as an example of why their show, in this case B5, is better than Star Trek. I’ve seen similar comments on other sci-fi forums. It seems only Star Trek fans think there is too much canon in Star Trek. I find this fascinating.
219, and when hollywood makes a historical fiction film that doesn’t follow history to the letter, guess what, actual history is MUCH better. Regardless, we are talking about a FICTIONAL universe and a FICTIONAL history. That said, the rest of my post above clearly describes my position. But in short, because it’s such a long post, updating and making canon more realistic is fine, radically changing it or rebooting it (i.e. saying WWIII, Eugenetics Wars, ENT, etc. never happened) is not fine.
222, well said, better than I could have said it. As you can see :)
229, yes it is big enough to accomodate and you make an excellent point about the writer with an excellent story and about the Organians. Again, as I said before, canon can be a useful guide but is not the end all and be all of a good Trek story. All I’m saying is that I don’t want a complete reboot (saying that this REPLACES ALL the old Trek, nothing seen before ever happened or will ever happened – THIS IS Star Trek, no other Star Trek matters, etc.) like what has been seen in the James Bond franchise, and even more noticably, BSG. If this new Trek film is an excellent story that revitalizes the Trek franchise and is clearly Star Trek then I’m happy. If they make some canon mistakes or updates (a deliberate changing of canon to make it more realistic and able to fit into our future, i.e. date of Eugenics Wars) then I’m okay with it so long as it’s not a complete reboot. This is exactly what we’ve been assured by the Producers/Writers that is what they’re doing. In fact I remember them saying something like “If you’ve been a fan for 40 years then your knowledge won’t be wasted but if you’ve never Star Trek before you’ll also be able to enjoy and love this film.” Basically saying this is a film for everyone. And that makes me very, very happy. Hopefully this new film is a blockbuster and that it revitalizes the Trek franchise. Otherwise Trek may die like many other sci-fi franchises (i.e. Babylon 5.)
By the way, the books have been excellent and are actually sort of involved in their own mini-universe of continuity as they have begun referring to previous books and events that occured in those previous books. You don’t need to read these previous books to understand what’s going on as everything you need to know is in the story you’re reading (much like a Trek TV episode).
#230 LoyalStartrekfan using it a point of reference for certain things in the trek univserse okay thats actually quite reasonable. Not being wedded to the cannon does not entail discarding it completely, without any cannon at all it would not be trek. Im not quite that narrow in my thinking. Your point about B5 is on the money , great series that it is its story cannon(both its greatest strength and weakness)closes it off to change. In B5 they can only do side stories and those must fit in the context of the cannon. by the way there is a fan fistion website that you might want to check out called Scif minds there are several interesting crossover stoires involving the trek universe one in which the Enterprise c and D end up defending the staton and another where the federation comes to the aid of earth force during the earth mimbari war. they are fun reads
IMHO, rebooting has the unfortunate nature of going where someone else has gone before. At some point you will eventually regurgitate the same story ideas and touchstones that the previous incarnation had done. How many times will Kirk, Spock and Bones have to go through the same character touchstones before it gets old. In this instance, they will go through them but I imagine there will be a twist. Moore’s comment about continuity is just plain sloppy in my opinion. That continuity is what gave Trek its legacy, it isn’t perfect or pretty, but it is that reality. I’d be far more impressed if someone down the line looks at that continuity and says, hey I’ll make a movie that respects that, adds to it in a unique way and succeeds. Then Moore can shut the hell up. He may be God to a good many of you but I think he should just focus on his project right now. Why mouth over something he isn’t apart of anymore. If this new Trek succeeds, fine but it’ll only succeed on the back of the Original not of its own identity. Just my 2 cents!
I think more importantly, rather than just being slavish to canon, is really getting the spirit of the whole thing — of Star Trek, the federation, the 23rd century — right, even if a few details aren’t there. Personally, my favourite thing about the early TOS episodes — with simple things in the 2nd pilot like Gary Mitchell mentioning some poet from some planet I can’t remember without googling — is how huge and varied a universe it feels like, especially because they’re sparing with the specific dates and the specific historical details. Less backstory means more interesting possibilities — you could conceive of Kirk etc. being used to generations of travel to amazing worlds yet still baffled by new ones. By Voyager and Enterprise that universe kind of seemed a bit too full of mundane details and bogged down with character’s specific birthdates etc. And part of the problem was that all those worlds, especially post TNG and DS90210… looked a hell of a lot like a soundstage at Paramount and their inhabitants looked like the same white/ generic looking actors in various similar forehead makeup outfits. In Voyager they were in a distant quadrant of the galaxy, and it was pretty much exactly like this one. The imagination was kind of gone… everything had been explained to death… characters had automatically generated backstories that weren’t necessarily interesting… like they were generated from some big database of ‘things we haven’t done ten times yet’. But the spirit and scope of TOS really seemed lost. I watched The Motion Picture on TV this weekend, and for all it’s boring flaws, it really captures that “there’s a huge universe outside of what we’re seeing” feeling that the TNG movies and the later series really kind of missed… and which teh Star Wars movies do really well….. Treks II, III and VI, and even V captured it pretty well too…. later everything ultimately was generated by the Berman Star Trek factory… and they sort of automatically said “well, the fans will want this and this and this… check, check, check”
We need some strange new worlds here.
#228
In SOME instances, it can be quite useful. But it is far from an absolute. At other times it can be unnecessary baggage for the type of story someone is trying to tell. That’s why biopics & historical pieces so often change events & places around – the resequencing can often better fit the ‘beat’ of the story for the big screen.
#230
I see where you’re coming from, but then again some of the most popular ‘historical’ films of all time have been far from accurate (Gladiator, Ben Hur, The Elephant Man). As to whether the ‘real’ story is better…really, that’s something that has to be examined on a case-by-case basis. What constitutes a ‘better’ version of events? The real events happened, period. I don’t know that they can really be questioned in terms of their storytelling merits. Cinema has certain needs in terms of story & plot, and an extremely straightforward retelling of events tends not to work as well in the medium.
Regardless, I actually said in an earlier post that comparing real history to history within the show doesn’t really work. My only point was that given the show is fiction, the rules should be all that much more flexible with regard to events. These stories have been written by hundreds of writers over the course of 40 years, and all of them had their own unique take on the Trek universe as well as the characters that inhabit it, which often accounts for the discrepancies people have noticed in various character backgrounds or ‘historical’ events. Every new writer brings a previously unexplored and new facet to the characters, so in a sense they’re rewritten every time they’re passed on to someone new.
#9: Agreed.
I was a huge TNG, and moderate TOS fan (and still am), but just completely stopped watching any Trek around `96-97 because of the aforementioned bloat. When Enterprise came out I didn’t even bother to watch. My reaction was: “Oh great, more beating the dead Trek horse.”
It was only last year out of what-the-hell-why-not-edness that I borrowed the Enterprise DVDs and watched the show, and I was blown away. It was fantastic! Acting! Stories! Everything that made TNG/TOS(and movies) great, nothing that made everything else suck.
But that was its death — Trek nerds were OUTRAGED, OUTRAGED I say that the spaceship looked wrong and that it dared play fast and loose with the HOLY CANON (of a f’ing TV franchise), so they all changed the channel, and the rest of us never gave it a chance thinking it was just more DS9/VOY/whatever.
It really was a terrific show, just one that took Trek about as seriously as TOS did, and it was wonderful. Once you stopped taking Trek so seriously. Too bad they never pitched it to the rest of us like that. I hope the new movie has the same feel and priorities.
Guys, it’s a TV franchise, not a religion! Lighten up!
I think Trek had great stories when a writer added something significant to existing continuity. Think of “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” or any TOS stories that established Spock’s backstory.
It was the new series concepts that blew it. DS9 didn’t get cracking until they got a warp ship. VOY was immediately hobbled by its “different quadrant” angle. We were immediatey bedazzled by…The Kazon! Neelix and his teenage girlfriend! VOY used the FC Borg to limp out to 7 seasons and had some good outings in the process. I even recall a mighty good “copout” episode where Captain Sulu had a run-in with Kang.
Complaining about continuity is like complaining about the air. We all live in history. “The air is the air.”
For example, If you want to set a love story in Warsaw in the early ’40’s, it must be set in the milieu of a city under seige by German and Russian forces, a brutal Jewish ghetto, and a ragtag armed resistance wreaking havoc on its German occupiers while the Russians wait on the other side of the Vistula river and the real government is in exile.
It’s history, and it happened. It’s canon. And no-one wrote it.
But what a field-day of ideas which can come from it:
A Russian soldier saves a Polish boy going after his bouncing ball just before it approaches a Russian-laid minefield near the east bank. He saves the boy’s life just in time. Boom! Mom’s happy to meet him because her Polish husband died during the war and this guy saved the boy’s life. The Russian comes in holding the boy and is immediately paralyzed by her deep blue eyes and the smell of her soup on the stove. He goes and falls in love. He crosses the river and joins the underground. Easy-Peasy story, and based on a complex set of facts which cannot be imagined away.
But so much happened during those years, and thousands of stories could be well written based on an event.
Maybe Trek needs to allow its own history to gain some complexity and to allow new writers to expound on its small elements to achieve success.
“Commander Sisko” was born in Wolf 359, and we saw those events unfold through new eyes. Trek needs to go back to Narendra 3, or examine the Husnock. Take any ship that survived the Dominion War, and send them off to Romulus to co-patrol while they get back on their feet. Let’s have the Preservers come in and mix it up. Trek needs fresh blood and it’s loaded with new stories based on its past. Show “The great tribble hunt,” and flesh it out.
Were going to be having these cannon arguments all over again when the movie finally arrives. Most fans are going to like the film regardless. It will be like a juggernaut and it will rake in millions and then there will be talk of the inevitable sequels. It will open a new era in trek and again there will be the inevitable and annoying comparisons between the old and the new. I wonder how the stars of the new film will be received at the trek fan conventions ? That I think, will be the most telling of all.
#178:”Although he wasn’t part of it – Voyager fell down because it couldn’t even hold up continuity with in the one series, sometimes even the one season or even episode! That’s just sloppy.”
That’s okay, neither could TOS.
237-
AJ- you seem to have been able to capture the possibility and imagination that the canon-haters seem to lack.
Darn good post. Unfortunately, reason will be lost on them.
I’d have to say that it’s not just canon that’s the problem, but fan lore. There’s many, many “facts” that I hear were violated in ENT, or VOY, etc.. and research would go to show that it’s fanon, not canon. I know people that refuse to accept Enterprise ever happened (or nemesis for that matter) because it violated the “canon” that some obscure reference book made before even TNG came out had supposedly established. So, really, it’s the combination of fan lore, canon, and several other factors that made ENT fail, along with any trouble this movie could face. No matter what one says about the intention of a series, or movie, being a part of the old canon, or a “new” canon, people are STILL going to compare it to the “old” canon.
#223 – “According to the writers, they are not throwing everything out, so not to worry.”
That has been a considerable encouragement and source of hope to me amidst the din of reboot idiocy. ;)
“The problem with setting even a portion of this film in the TOS-era, is that there was very little continuity to begin with. Chances are, whichever direction the writers go, there will be a contradiction of some kind.”
Actually, I think it goes the other way. With much of TOS painted with a relatively broad brush, it’s easier to weave new material in without contradiction, as opposed to the tighter arcs and more convoluted storytelling that characterized a lot of the more modern Trek shows. Granted, the fact that, very early in TOS, they were making it up as they went along led to assorted contradictions, and the current team likely had to make some decisions about what datapoints to go along with, but that’s part of the game, and it’s cool with me.
“I was initially very taken aback at the notion of an alternate timeline in STXI. I have come to the realization that such a thing is salvation for this team and its efforts to revisit the golden era of Trek (1966-1991), aka the 23rd Century (which presents continuity problems itself, since the 1st season of TOS has the suggested time period all over the place).”
But since it’s been widely settled upon that TOS was in the 2260s, it would seem that that particular issue ceased to be a concern a long time ago.
Alternate timelines? thanks, but no thanks. If the result of the film is that we end up in a different continuum than we were when we started–unless it’s a very similar continuum, like the way “Yesteryear” ended–then it’s the same as throwing out the old continuity, and is every bit as unacceptable.
“What if they acknowledge Zephram Cochrane as being from Earth, and not Alpha Centauri as suggested in TOS?”
That, too, was dealt with long ago, and resolved (and well before “First Contact”, I might add), so that would–to me–be a non-issue.
“What if they actually have Romulans painting their ships like birds of prey (like in TOS), and not Klingons (like everything afterward)?”
Again, a non-issue, since the two weren’t really contradictory, and Rihannsu ships still retained the bird motif even in latter-era Trek.
“What if The Botany Bay was actually adrift in space for 300 years, rather than the 200 years that both Kirk and Khan said it was in “Space Seed” and TWOK?”
Again, a non-issue for me, since I fully accept a mid-23rd Century timeframe for TOS. ‘Course, why they’d feel the need in this story to bring up the Botany Bay, I don’t know, but… ;)
“Which “canon” is it appropriate to violate? You almost have to contradict something.”
As I’ve said before, I don’t have any hangup if, when faced with contradictory material, they pick an interpretation and go with it. Obviously it’d make more sense to stick with a resolution that’s already been established, but there’s plenty of reasonable room for different interpretations without throwing out the overall continuity.
#229 – “Alex you have to admit that for a writer any writer trying to reconcile so much Cannon is a seemly impossible tasks.”
No, really, I don’t, at least if one allows that there were contradictions and being generally consistent is not the same as requiring them to support both sides of a contradiction. Considering as most of the contradictions were, to my mind, resolved a long time ago, why people are worrying about that as anything other than some straw-man attempt to argue against continuity is something that I fear escapes me.
“Le me put this, Suppose a writer comes up with an incredible trek story, one that would blow the sox of of audiences but it turns out because of one cannon detail he has to scrap it, end result we get deprived of a really great story.”
I think it depends on the detail. An incredible story that requires, say, the Federation to be eliminated in the 2260s is probably not a good choice for Star Trek, no matter how good the plot might be. An incredible story that rests on the idea that Kirk had a younger brother that we hadn’t previously been introduced to…well, nothing says he couldn’t have had one. This is where a producer’s judgment comes into play, knowing what is or is not reasonable when telling stories in an existing fictional construct.
“Look at all the trek books they are not considered cannon yet fans have no trouble accepting them, and they don’t’ perfectly adhere to cannon either.”
Well, I’ve always been on the side of the argument that unless they did something to contradict what’s been established elsewhere, they ought to be considered part of the overall continuity, and I try to do that as much as possible for my own purposes, even while recognizing that the studio doesn’t. More’s the pity, because many of the books are vastly better than anything the studio’s given us.
“Especially some of the early trek novels like Spock must die in which the Orgainians. put a total ban on the klingon empires right to travel space, which never happened in any trek series.”
True, though at the time it didn’t contradict a thing. ;)
“Or Planet of Judgement, Or price of the Phoenix, or Fate of the phoenix, the cannon was not a factor here.”
And those books still don’t actually contradict anything of significance. ;)
“By the way speaking of the Organians why weren’t they ther to stop the war between the Federation in both yesterday’s Enterprise and In DS9, I guess the Cannon police were asleep at the switch on this one, they never stated in any of the subsequent series what happened to Orgainans. He’s another issue that works against the continuity and cannon arguments in trek.”
Nope. The fact that nothing was said about what happened doesn’t mean that something couldn’t have. That of course is a failure of those who argue that continuity means that if something wasn’t established previously, it can’t be established going forward, which makes no sense. Instead, the argument should be in the reverse. To follow continuity effectively, one merely needs to avoid contradicting what’s been explicitly been established (though as we’ve noted, in cases where previous continuity has itself been contradictory, there has to be some leeway given). e.g., in the case of the Organians, multiple fan-produced and licensed materials established that in fact the Organians either up and vanished, or at least stepped back from enforcing the Treaty all over the known galaxy, and it’s been mentioned as a story point in a few places. So a canonical oddity was explained in a way that didn’t contradict anything established on film, and everyone moved on. It’s really just that simple. People are making it more complicated than necessary, to try to bolster a weak argument, and thus that argument fails.
“Abrams is going to give us a story that might not adhere perfectly to cannon or continuity, but does that mean we should discard it when so many non cannon trek stories have been written and accepted by trekdom,”
Given what we think may be happening, if the result is still a movie that basically ends up in the same Trekverse as all the other series and films, I won’t have an issue if they offer some new ideas on canonical details. As we’ve noted previously, the period of the film is one for which there is minimal canonical detail established, anyway, and occasional contradictions, so they actually have a good amount of freedom to chart their course without messing with overall continuity at all. That’s one of the things that makes me look forward to this film, that it’s telling a story in a period not well-covered in previous filmed Trek at all.
“What about the Comics? The trek universe is plenty big enough to accommodate not only this movie but all these other alternate treks”
Sure. And the vast majority of the comics all fit in the same overall continuity, too, further demonstration of just how much can be done without having to throw out said continuity at all.
QED :)
#241 – “I’d have to say that it’s not just canon that’s the problem, but fan lore. There’s many, many “facts” that I hear were violated in ENT, or VOY, etc.. and research would go to show that it’s fanon, not canon.”
To apoint, that’s true. Even more, where ENT ran into problems of that type was that it didn’t always gel with people’s preconceptions of what the 22nd Century should be. Based on obviously vague and fragmentary statements from other shows, people came up with ideas, and when the producers went in a different direction, people got upset.
I’ll freely admit, as an ENT fan, that my preconceptions of what the 22nd Century was like differed quite a bit from what the show presented. But I didn’t feel it appropriate to penalize the producers for making a different choice, especially when I failed to do them even so much as the courtesy of telling them what I thought. ;) More seriously, I enjoyed the show on its own terms, and in the end had to admit that some of their ideas were better than mine, and made for a more interesting story arc. (Vulcan and Andor bickering, with Earth in the middle? How could one not like the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triangle redone on a planetary scale? ;) What an awesome literary conceit! I just thought it was a shame they didn’t do much with it until Season 4.) None of that was established in previous Trek shows, but neither was it denied by them, either, and it made for some cool concepts.
“I know people that refuse to accept Enterprise ever happened (or nemesis for that matter) because it violated the “canon” that some obscure reference book made before even TNG came out had supposedly established.”
Actually, for several years I played a fun game on-line: I called it “Debunk the False Continuity Violation Claim”. The reality was that of all the claims of things where ENT violated previous canonical continuity, 99% of them were demonstrably false. Ironically, ENT’s continuity record was among the best in all of Trek, despite it getting such a horrible rep on that front.
As a collector of many of the obscure reference books, one thing I went into ENT keeping in mind was that I wasn’t going to hold the producers responsible for consistency with anything other than previously-filmed Star Trek. I felt that to do otherwise just wasn’t fair. And I considered myself rewarded with four years of an enjoyable Star Trek prequel.
I have every intention of doing the same with the new film. Canonical Trek has huge gaps in the time period in which the film is supposedly taking place. Oh, licensed Trekfic and fanon have covered that period quite extensively, but I’ll be happy to give Mr. Abrams and his team a pass on that stuff if they stay generally consistent with the shows. And I look forward to seeing what they’ll be adding to the overall continuity, even as the fanboy in me has enjoyed picking up on the little details that have come from the books and will translate onto the screen (e.g., names of Kirk’s family).
#243 Alex you answered all my points very nicely, no question . I don’t think debate on this film is going to dying down anytime soon if anything its going to get even more heated as the time of the film approaches. There is on e thing that going to be interesting to see. Kirk and Pike. Now I seem to recall in the old series(The Menagerie) that kirk first met Pike when he he was promoted to fleet captain and Kirk in turn assumed command of the Enterprise. In the film, I am getting the impression and I have no proof of this , that Kirk is going to be on the Enterprise during this mission in the film, so potential you have a contradiction here, I am not nitpicking, but it tells me that the Romulan time incursion is probably going to result in some changes to the time line. What the end result of these changes are well we will see. One thing I definitely take issue with is that some fans are condemning the film before they have even seen it for the most trivial and unfathomable reasons. I say to them see film and then decide.
Wow! A lot of comments here about continuity so I apologize if I repeat any observations already made…
Any work of fiction has to deal with the “continuity” issue in one form or another. Writers often create back stories (if only for themselves) to set up their “universe” and give their main story some context to draw on. We, the reader or viewer, may or may not be aware of that back story (or continuity) but someone, writer or reader, will know when the continuity has been “violated” for the good of the story. Obviously, as more tales from a familiar universe are told it becomes more and more difficult to remain both consistent and fresh with each subsequent tale depending on how narrowly focused the canon. The really great writers know both how to continue with fresh stories (without too much deviation from established canon) and when to abandon the universe because they have exhausted their own creativity in that world or ran out of room to be creative. Others may pick up the mantle and bring something fresh for a time but, on the other hand, we the reader/viewer may not care if it is fresh or not–we just want to revisit something that is comfortable and familiar like sitting around each week with old friends doing the same thing.
I think a show like “Lost” is a prime example of both a creatively rich show and one that has to constantly deal with the “continuity” issue. Its advantage is that the writers (especially now that they now there is a terminus) have plotted out the “canon” for Lost and fairly consistently come up with episodes that are enjoyable and fun to watch as the onion layers are peeled off each week.
Continuity can be done successfully but maybe the lesson to learn is that you have to recocognize when the effort is no longer worth the energy in terms of creativity (look at Moore going from Trek to BSG). Or, maybe, we have to learn that a good story doesn’t need the high standard of continuity that we sometimes place on Trek–maybe we just want to hang out with some old friends and be comfortable knowing we have them around for the journey ahead.
#246 Finally some sane rational person. Story continuity in episodic television is a blessing and a hinderance. If you go back and look at earlier tv shows in the 60’s and 70’s you will usually find absolutely no continuity whatsoever. Shows that we remember fondly never even mentioned the ‘tragic circumstances’ or losses that took place just one week earlier! They were not realistic and felt plastic because of this.
Unfortunately, the weight of continuity heavy shows such as BSG, Lost or the entire Trek universe make it a very daunting task to write creatively without a sense of trepidation. I actually wrote a spec script for TNG in 1988. I filled in back story but made some of the writers very nervous about taking the leap.
The comic book world has dealt with this issue long before television. Comic book fans have grown accustomed to having a ‘fresh’ look or ‘re-imagined’ version of classic heroes such a Superman, Batman and Flash. The new Trek movie will provide a jump off point that will allow creative minds the liberty of telling stories in this familar world.
I am not a writer, but I think many stories are shopped to franchises for their potential as valid adaptations ( I had that distinct impression with Die Hard IV–Can’t teach an old dog new tricks buddy cop flick, and the protagonist’s backstory totally stripped out). The movie was adapted to the lore and the lore was minimized/eliminated for running time consideration and extra cost.
Trek cannot go there, because it exists in a large and simple fictional universe with so many specific signposts. It’s backstory races (Klings, Roms, etc) have been reduced to simple caricatures and its main characters as such can’t evolve as they interact with them TOS’s Klings and Roms were far more interesting.
TNG even showed a cool and thoughtful Klingon Commander in “Heart of Glory” who did not require bloodwine, and who could speak without yelling. Let’s find out more about him. Let’s make him the head of the next High Council after Gowron and Martok go away. He’s thoughtful, maybe like Gorkon, and he could be portrayed without destroying continuity.
You can now drop in a simple story. Kronos 1 is being pursued by Romulans after a diplomatic conference. Why it’s Cmdr. Tomalok! (RIP Andreas). And our heroes find them in combat as they warp in, continuity is saved, and it’s the story and good actors and characters which drive the thing forward.
After TOS, Trek got burned with new concepts (Kazon, and even Ferengi. Neelix and Tuvix. Mean Vulcans), and had some winners (Q, Guinan, Borg and the Founders). It also has some insane classics when it pushes continuity up to 11 (Yesterday’s Enterprise, Trials…, Robert Picardo vs. the Borg and in FC, Sulu vs. Kang, “In a Mirror,” and many others). It’s a rich universe, but the writers shouldn’t be scared to try.
Perhaps it’s time to publish a proper writer’s guide to the show with, instead of year-by year commentary (the marvelous timeline by the Okudas), an overview of the universe in the century it is set, and the races and their history, mores and technological capabilities. And, if I recall the writer’s guide to TNG, GR wrote “we will Not do this, and Not do that.” So don’t bother putting a banana in the tailpipe. It won’t work.
I backed off from Enterprise after season 2, largely because of the continuity debate. I’m fine with keeping continuity, but I don’t want the writers to be a slave to it, or (as happened on Enterprise in the early years) to craft so-so stories around things that worked earlier. It was a reach to have the Borg or the Ferengi in Enterprise. The trial in “Judgement” was lifted out of Star Trek VI. And there were the numerous “look we’re a prequel” lines about stuff like the prime directive and the founding of the Federation. I think the problem with Enterprise was that there was so much continuity, and so much worrying about continuity, and so much playing off continuity, that people were afraid to write anything new. Just look at the last episode. As well done as it was, it was a rehash of a TNG episode. TNG, DS9, and Voyager all were willing to strike out in their own directions.
If this is going to be a different Star Trek, then just tell us.
And just call it what it is: A Re-boot. Then the rest of us can
trash everything we hold onto & embrase all the new.
This should clear up the confusion.
Beamer,
If it is a reboot, why would you have to “trash” anything? 40 years of Trek 1.0 would still be readably available. It ain’t going anywhere.
243, 244 excellent points and well thought out. Your points on ENT were especially appreciated as an ENT fan myself. (ENT isn’t my favorite series but I thought that it was excellent and an superb edition to Star Trek.) You also have a great point on the time period this new movie takes place.
My point about canon is as follows: the major “pivotal” stuff needs to stay (First Contact happened in 2063, the Federation was founded in 2161, Earth-Romulan War occurred, Eugenics Wars/WWIII occurred, etc.) the minor stuff and exact dates (was the Federation founded on May 8th or October 11th, or, as the books suggest, August 12th?) is open and able to be clarified or not concerned with. A minor piece of “canon” that can easily be ignored is the earthquake referrenced in VOY: “Future’s End” in which LA fell under 200 meters of water in 2047. (A remark that always brings a smile to my face because they are talking about LA and the loss of LA would be no great loss – no offense.)
249, yes the “when someone comes up with this new – directive” stuff was kind of annoying and the Borg and Ferengi should never have been in ENT. However, the idea that noone wanted to do anything new is just wrong. There were many good episodes in ENT Seasons 1 & 2 (”The Andorian Incident” “Shadows of P’Jem” “The Seventh” “Cogenitor” “First Flight”) and the Xindi conflict, an intelligent race with FIVE species – that hasn’t been done before, and all of Season 4 was unique, different, while still respecting canon but not being “a slave” to it.
#252 LoyalStartrekfan I had a number of issues with enterprise, you mention the Borg and the Ferengi, i do agree on that point they should not have been in enterprise at all. There is one thing that i wish they had done. and that was the Earth Romulan war, which if memory serves me correctly, happened around that time. That is another aspect of enterprise that did not sit well with me. there opportunity for the series to flesh out this pivotal event in trek, why they fought, why the Vulcans forced the Star fleet to negotiate a peace treaty with the Romulans. Equally problematic is that Enterprise should have emphasized the exploration side of trek more then it ended up doing.
#250 Beamer what is your point? do you like the idea of the Abrams film do you prefer that Paramount just forget about the film? i am Just curious
I always thought hat what sunk ENT was the Temporal cold war stuff. There was so much they could have done with the show, new avenues they could have gone, taking and showing the birth of the federation. Instead the fell back on this tired overused time travel thing, rehashed old dumb sci-fi plots and didn’t focus enough on the adventure, the discovery, the unknown. Perhaps having writers who didn’t grow up on Star Trek would have been useful. Get a fresh perspective and all.
I suspect that to get the show on, they needed a hook and the time travel thing is the one Berman and Bragga used. I don’t think it was a good hook, and it hurt the show overall in the end.
I just wish TNG was still on.
…..Who ever said writing was supposed to be easy? Sheesh Ron, you’re such a whiner.
I swear, the way these quotes are dissected & selectively remembered one might think we were talking about the Presidential Race! ;)
He didn’t say he hated canon, or that stories shouldn’t be coherent or consistent. He said that after 40 years of canon (and fanon) that many writers & potential audiences were turned off because they felt too many things had been set in stone. And no matter how much you love the show or its ‘history’, what he said is valid. Many writers would feel creatively confined with so much established in-show history, and many folks that hadn’t watched all the shows might have come in and thought ‘What the hell are these people talking about?’, and just turned the channel. It happens.
ENT was a very promising series to begin with, but really, they spent way too much time on this temporal cold war garbage and ruined the whole series.
As for the new Movie, I just hope it isn’t just a grittier rehash of the DS9 episode – Valiant.
Ron Moore is just a hack who has yet to create an original idea. Just because he was overwhelmed by the continuity issues of a 40 year old franchise doesn’t mean other writers would be.