I guess Canon versus non-Canon and the use of multi-verses crop up as you keep adding more shows and content to an IP. Happened of course to Marvel first, and Star Wars is dealing with a lot of Canon issues the last 2 decades, https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Canon#Canon_and_Legends_(20... and now Star Trek is having more of these issues.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen in Harry Potter soon if it hasn't already.
Aren't only the books in Harry Potter cannon? The movies are segregated, if anything from the overlap period fed back into the books it was probably a mistake.
In my opinion, it's one of the worst (non canon now) Star Trek shows but it does get marginally better if you can struggle through the first season or two.
I would not recommend it unless you have nothing else to watch
I dropped it about half-way through season 2. Even if you pretend it's not Star Trek and treat it as a stand-alone show, it's terrible. The characters are not likeable and there is no depth to the story. It seems like they just stuck together some bells and whistles to impress the modern crowd and called it a day.
Some of them, others not so much. In the original series there was an episode on computerized warfare and efficiency (Season 1 Episode 23 A Taste of Armageddon). In the later series "The Next Generation" there was an episode on AI and rights (Season 2 Episode 9 The Measure of a Man).
Both still get cited in actual work, probably because it's easier to direct someone to watch a reasonably short and entertaining TV episode than some 300 page book on the subject.
The Measure of a Man is one of those episodes that drives me nuts. I re watched that season recently. The debate about artificial life is an important one but the framing is terrible: Data already being so far beyond the argument. Sure, someone might want to dismantle him but the idea that a court case would need to weigh it up for more than 30 seconds is preposterous. And the idea of the bridge crew accepting that Data would be dismantled if the court case succeeds rather than starting with the position of "if you go near our friend we'll shoot you with guns" to make it clear it would be a pr disaster for the federation.
2009 reboot movie was an obvious turning point, seemed like it was being used as an audition for Star Wars.
IIRC there were behind the scenes politics involved due to who owned the rights, like they were able to use the names and setting but it had to be "thematically" different to not infringe on previous series, which were owned by a different company.
Depends, wokespotting is a complex sport, and I only trust professionals to do it.
I tried myself, but failed. At first I thought it meant the movie was either feminist, antiracist and/or Marxist, but it then became clear it was actually an union of unpopular and one of the three criteria (see no time to die, or guardian 3 that are suddenly not woke). So from this, Star Trek, despite being the most Marxist utopia ever, isn't woke, since it's popular.
But Barbie is quite popular and still woke. But Alien is not despite featuring the biggest Mary Sue. Like I said, to complex for me, I leave wokespotting to professionals.
This is a fan theory and explosion of a little fan service that Lower Decks did.
Discovery is mostly bad, but based on the first half of S1, I think there was a screenwriting seed of a much better show that got mutated. Jason Isaacs's base character was wonderful, it would have been awesome to see a crew with a captain that is controversial and not liked. It would have been a great twist on ST shows where captains are always spotless role models. Clicks in the team, conflicts of interest would have been a bold new direction. Also side props for Anthony Rapp.
I've never been able to really get into any Star Trek series, with one major exception: Lower Decks
I'm sad to see it isn't getting renewed, but glad to see that it gets to stay canon, especially considering that it constantly mocks the extremes of what is Star Trek canon.
> best thing Trek has done since Archer’s Enterprise
That’s an unexpected statement, I thought Archer’s Enterprise wasn’t considered a good series[1]. I personally prefer others; I guess everyone has their own favorite.
[1]: “Following the pilot, the critical reaction became mixed. David Segal said in The Washington Post that the series ‘has a bargain basement feel that lands this side of camp.’", https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise
Enterprise started to get good once they realized what people wanted in a prequel series was to see elements of original Trek, humans struggling to get their footing in the galaxy, and how the Federation came to be. Unfortunately they wasted time on the Xindi arc/Temporal Cold War nonsense, and the ending was just an insult.
But I think that, like Voyager, it's gotten a retroactive boost in popularity. Apparently the same thing has happened for Star Wars? Lots of fans of the prequels and new trilogy, when original fans despised them.
In part, the "Enterprise wasn't that bad" has come as mostly in comparison to modern Trek, with the exception of Strange New Worlds and possibly Lower Decks.
I liked Enterprise when it first aired. It was no where near as good as Deep Space Nine and Voyager still felt more like TNG, but as a whole, those older shows stand together. But Picard was awful (somehow, S2 didn't happen and the Borg returned), Discovery was awful (S5 was middling but better).
It's the same with Star Wars. Episode 1 through 3 did suck, but were nowhere near as bad as 7 through 9. Episodes 1 through 3 made the whole series Vader's story, with Luke's echo part of Vader's own redemption. It added something. The new ones added nothing. Worse, they were the beginnings of the attempt to tear everything down (Luke bad, Jedi bad, you don't need training, you don't need self-control...).
> Generally, all live-action Star Trek television series and films have been considered part of the canon, up to the point of contradiction or material the creators consider bad. Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy are accepted as canonical as well.
When authors ignore established facts of the universe they're writing for (vulgo "the canon"), they're most likely either lazy or ignorant or arrogant. I read quotes about Star Wars lacking "strong female figures" before Disney (cough, Mon Mothma, cough Leia) and someone even mentioned that the Klingons got redesigned in STD because of their original skin color. (But why not just using some other colors is beside me.)
In all cases it's fraud. You claim to write a story inside a complex established universe but deliver something that just superficially uses some assets and then just does its own thing. Then just develop your own universe, ffs!
If you want to write Star Trek or Star Wars or whatever, adhere to the canon and stay within the established constraints. If you feel that the canon constrains your creativity too much, go find some other playground.
I imagine it was an issue to some extent when it happened, but DS9 and ENT established they look different in-universe and it wasn't just a new design.
> So why is the change between TOS and TNG ok but the change for Discovery isn’t?
Because of the intention. The TOS Klingons were always supposed to look like the TMP/TNG Klingons, but the producers didn't have the budget until the movie and next show.
It's an entirely different thing when the original designers correct a budget constraint vs. new designers arrogantly throwing away prior art.
The problem is that if you consider Discovery non-canon then it has to follow that Strange New Worlds (which spun off from Discovery) is also non-canon and that would be a shame. It (and Lower Decks) are the only new Trek shows that feel like they actually truly understand Star Trek.
according to what i think i read here, Lower Decks revealed that Discovery was on another timeline, so in that sense it would remain canon (for that timeline) and just would not effect the prime timeline
This is not 100% true,
You can interpret it if you want like it was done to shit on Discovery or you can interpret the opposite, but based on the "facts" there is no proof either way.
Well, technically it only establishes that there exist Klingons that look like the discovery Klingons in an alternate universe, not that there aren't also Klingons that look like discovery Klingons in the prime universe. That episode also seems to establish that there are universes that are temporally offset from the prime universe, as the transformations also include turning the Klingons into an older kind of Klingon ("proto-Klingons"), so it could just as well be that the discovery Klingons are just an older variant of Klingons.
This idea is strengthened by the fact that Discovery and Strange New Worlds are clearly shown to take place in the same universe, with Discovery introducing the characters and ship that appear in Strange New Worlds, and Spock from Strange New Worlds reflecting on the events of Discovery. And SNW later shows TNG style Klingons, establishing that both styles (as well as presumably TOS style Klingons) coexist in the same universe. So I don't think the Lower Decks episode resolves anything about the Klingon-look at all, it was just a fun reference/gag.
It could be that the shows exist in different timelines, but it could also be that any of the shows exist in different timelines that are just similar enough to make the references make sense. For instance, Lower Decks establishes that a Picard exists in it's universe, but also exists in many other universes (see the purple enterprise), so it doesn't necessarily take place in the same universe as TNG.
>Inside the Lower Decks universe, the characters of the Discovery Universe appear to be in an alternative universe.
Correct, but how that proves that Discovery in the main universe does not exist?
We seen a Garak for an other universe and that does prove that you can have same people , same ships, same uniforms in different universes, this was shown durin TNG.
So the only thing proven is that Discovery exists in a different universe, it is not proven that it does not exist in the main universe.
Let me know if my logic is wrong, we can try and formalize it better using any, exists, implies etc .
Given that Lowerdecks is an extremely canon-oriented fan-service love letter to earlier shows that are known to be canon (ie, that it demonstrates consistency with obvious canon like TOS and TNG) the hypothesis that it's NOT in the main universe seems to be the one that requires a proliferation of assumptions and therefore more argumentation and data to support.
My point is that Lower Decks did not prove the theory that Disco is in a different universe. So it is just as much evidence as before this episode that Disco is not in the main universe. In fact tehre is no proof that TNG and TOS and Lower Decks are in the exact same universe and not in very similar parallel universes. Unless if on screen was shown that all 3 have same quantumm signature.
I think it would make sense Disco is different universe , would make the fans happey too , but this episode brings no proof for it , though in a trek form or reddit I would let the fans to enoy this "fake news" , here or in Daystrom subreedit I am though expectic more logic.
Imagine caring about this at this point. Some corporation dictates to you what lore youre allowed to remember. "Canon." I will never understand fandom.
I used to love star trek. I have a good friend whos a hardcore trekky. He would talk like this, and I just thought, the mental hoops people jump through to give corporations money, like they're so invested in a story that they'll justify anything. He would talk about how much he hates discovery, and then watch the next episode.
I just turned it off. I gave up on star trek entirely. Who cares? They've destroyed an entertainment staple. They can backtrack if they want. They'll do this again in a few years. These things aren't made to last forever. They call them "properties" for a reason. Novel stories will be way more interesting if anyone wants to try to create some.
40k is intended to be a silly franchise from a lore perspective. But consistency goes a long way to making even the most ridiculous settings something people can engage with. Autobots v Decepticons, Tom v Jerry, etc all rely on people being more engaged with what they would be based on what’s on the screen in that moment.
I feel like it's actually alright for people to like what they like and care about what they care about, and that it is entirely separate from the struggle between art and commerce and the perils of capitalism and corporate malfeasance?
Part of the problem with Picard is that it was for all intents and purposes a character study of Jean-Luc Picard, and what people wanted was another season of TNG. It had a lot of good ideas, particularly around the Borg, but it just wasted their potential.
I really think it was a poorer show for indulging Patrick Stewart. Most of the things people disliked about the show were straight out of the things he asked for. No uniform, not an officer any more, no starship...
They built the show around his character, but that version of the character kind of sucked. It wasn't the Picard we knew. There was even the moment where Riker was the cautious one, and Picard reckless. It was less a character study and more a character deconstruction, and I hate those.
I’d recommend plowing thru the first season (it’s just ok but has some key moments and introduces some new characters), skip season 2 entirely, then watch the full third season.
Third season was fantastic although the plot starts to thin by the end. Nostalgia and at least one great new character introduced.
Second season does give closure on a few characters new and old, maybe worth watching if you got the time. But overall don’t let it stop you from getting to season 3.
Honestly it has been a clusterfuck from the start, cringe af.
It got better over the seasons, but it still had facepalm moments galore. Ugh.
In some Stockholm syndrome kind of way I'm missing it now however, quite schizophrenic.
I still haven't seen season 5, now I know what I'll do in the next days lol
This blog article is nonsense reasoning trying to find a way to argue their personal desire has happened, but in fact, it hasn't.
The LD finale absolutely did not make Discovery non-canon. It simply showed that Discovery style klingons exist in other universes.
Assuming that because the Discovery klingons were shown in an alternate universe therefore Discovery must be an alternate universe would mean assuming everything shown from any multiverse that could map to another series would mean that series was also in an alternate universe.
Everybody hates on Voyager and while I think it's one of the weakest series of 2nd-gen Trek (DS9 being my favorite), I still enjoyed it. In fact, it's part of what got me into programming 25+ years ago and was the catalyst for me getting into scifi. The holographic doctor really fascinated me and I thought maybe if I learned programming, I could one day (in the far future) be part of developing one. I owe my career to it.
Yeah the voyager hate will always be a thing - I feel it was because DS9 raised the bar and Voyager felt like it just strolled in under the bar, not noticing it. I was a hater and never seriously watched it until well after it stopped airing. While Trek was still on Netflix I worked my way through TOS, TNG, DS9 and then - Ugh, Voyager. But I watched the whole thing for the first time and it left me actually liking it. I felt bad I hated on it for all those years but it was indeed the weaker of of the Treks up to that point.
People moaning about Discovery are exhausting. Yes, much of it was terrible. Has terrible Star Trek ever stopped me from enjoying Star Trek? No! I loved all the series, in part because of the stinkers.
"Canon" makes sense in the context of religious documents where adherents believe some documents to represent reality and others not. But in the context of works recognized by all who care to be fiction, its just a senseless thing for internet quibbling. "This fiction is more valid than that fiction, because the legal entity presently holding the copyright says so." Get a grip.
Not all fiction is equivalent. When you are actively world building making explicit revisions is useful for those trying to follow along. If you'd prefer a different word you should say so.
I think that’s because the change wasn’t between TOS and TNG. It was between TOS series and TOS films; new style Klingons were in Star Trek 3 (1984) and Star Trek 4 (1986) before TNG started.
Imagine for the sake of argument TOS and TNG are 99% aligned on storytelling and need a patch to make the 1% agree, and that patch is provided in TNG retroactively.
Versus a new show comes along that is 20% aligned and would need an 80% patch to bring it into alignment.
As an executive trying to revitalize a property where fans are complaining about lack of alignment, do you understand why you might just erase the 20% rather than create 80% more of an otherwise-failed project?
>As an executive trying to revitalize a property where fans are complaining about lack of alignment, do you understand why you might just erase the 20% rather than create 80% more of an otherwise-failed project?
If you're an executive, you understand that the purpose of these properties is to make money. Discovery makes money. It has fans. It sells merchandise. You don't erase money because of the rancor of some pedantic nerds, most people do not care.
Cancellation is not the same as "erasure from canon." Lot of popular shows get cancelled all the time - Lower Decks got cancelled as well. Despite the narrative, Discovery was popular. It was a success.
Discovery is still canon. The premise of this thread is a conspiracy theory which is not factual. Star Trek Discovery is still a part of the Star Trek franchise. You can still purchase official Discovery memorabilia. You can still stream it. It has an official Blu-ray release.
if you want to build a coherent storyline across multiple media releases, you have to be able to recognize mistakes/missteps and be able to disavow them from what future releases will build on top of
It sounds like you don't take fiction seriously, and are showing contempt for people that do.
The issue of canon really occurs when different groups of people work on a singular fictional world over a long period of time. The people who work on these worlds have to take fiction seriously, and need a way to communicate with the fans which other works they are going to building on. It is a bit tiresome and over played, but is a natural consequence of large corporations handling these fictional universes.
You can take fiction seriously without treating it as representing some sort of quasireality from which coherency across decades of story telling from multiple generations of story tellers is expected. Two story tellers having contradictory accounts of what happens with a fictional character shouldn't cause distress or consternation to people who enjoy stories about that character; people who enjoy fiction should be able to take that in stride. The whole premise of a "canon" to fiction is actually an artifact of the legal construct of copyright; with folk stories which exist outside of copyright the premise of a consistent canon isn't talked about because anybody can make their own story, many people have, and everybody accepts that the stories are judged on their own independent merits rather than their conformity to the supposed canon. With franchises under copyright though, it is the copyright holding entity which is, by people who "take fiction seriously" as you put it, granted a special privilege to determine the relative validity of different works written by different people. This isn't even a privilege given to the writers, as seen in this case where the privilege is assigned to the Paramount corporation; not to the original writers of Star Trek, nor even the writers of the show supposedly erased from the "canon". See also, the demotion of Extended Universe in the tiered canon of Star Wars by... who? George Lucas? No. The EU writers? No. By the corporation who bought the legal rights to Star Wars decades after most of that stuff was written.
It's not fiction which you are taking seriously. It's copyright. Canon in fiction is an expression of territorialism from the entity owning the legal rights, not some sort of intrinsic attribute of the collection of stories.
But they don't stop watching it, their identities are invested in it. There's sunk cost fallacy going on there. They don't want it to suck, they want it to keep getting better. And it doesn't. And they complain. But they keep watching anyway. I know a guy that watched every episode of discovery, complained how bad it was, then watched the next one. It didn't matter that it sucked, you can't miss knowing the canon!
They're entirely captured by the corporations that produce this stuff. Their minds are trapped arguing over the validity of literal nonsense because it's profitable to some company for that to be the case.
The owners do whatever they want, then lip service the fandom after the fact, and the fandom takes it because they can't cut loose from their attachment. A die hard fan that won't drop something the minute it begins to be destroyed is a sucker for abuse, and their willingness to look past it afterwards is why the owners get away with it. And they'll do it again.
On the contrary, if they assign importance to "canon" they are putting the corporation on a pedestal, as it is the corporation which defines the canon.
I don’t think you understand what canon is if you think that. Canon is simply internally consistent story telling.
It’s agreeing that A follows B and C follows B, etc. It’s agreeing that “A” and “a” are two forms of the same thing, and make the same vowel sound. You run into trouble when you say “A” makes a “k” sound and the lowercase of “a” is “w”.
Canon is an imagination tool that allows consistent storytelling that increases in complexity and value over time.
"Darth Vader put on the One Ring and told Frodo to go back to Endor" is not going to be something that fans take seriously enough to make economically viable.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen in Harry Potter soon if it hasn't already.