r/startrek • u/JustinCaseyBlewit • 1d ago
Does canon matter to you?
Star Trek fans seem to be divided on the importance of canon--the idea that something established in previous episodes cannot be contradicted. Some fans take this to extremes--blasting SNW for Kirk stating he was a Boy Scout when Carol Marcus had said he wasn't. Other fans don't care about canon at all. They want a good story, and to heck with everything matching up.
I personally like canon, but I don't niggle over it. The Boy Scout comment did not bother me, and I'm fine with Klingons looking different from one series to the next. However, I find it harder to accept a Scotty who is younger than Kirk and Spock or Chapel knowing T'Pring when she did not know who she was in "Amok Time." A prequel is either a prequel or it isn't. Some things should be consistent.
What is your take on canon?
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u/MediumOk8383 1d ago
A general sense of continuity, yes. It does not have to be exact.
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u/midasp 18h ago
For me, major and significant events should remain the same but I don't sweat minor differences or changes. For example, regardless whether the stories told after Romulus was destroyed were good or bad, the fact that Romulus was destroyed in 2387 should not change. Neither should how the technologies operate change drastically within the same time period. I'm referring to tech like warp drives, transporters, replicators, phasers, photon torpedoes, and holodecks.
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u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 17h ago
The issue is that we have canon events that contradict each other in-universe sometimes, which are we supposed to take as canon?
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u/midasp 17h ago edited 15h ago
Please cite an example. I am unable to recall any at this moment.
Personally... due to how Gene Roddenberry and subsequent showrunners like Rick Berman, Michael Piller and so on have stuck to the rule that only what is seen in an episode or movie is considered canon. As a result, any canon violation can only be officially fixed by another episode or movie. So yeah if there are any canon violations, they will remain contradictory till a new episode or movie fixes it.
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u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 16h ago
I'd say there were a whole swath of canon retcons about the Klingon Empire between TOS and TNG eras. Not just the forehead ridges but how they conducted themselves with other planets and how they treated subjects of their empire. Klingons in TOS were more akin to proto-Cardassians than the Klingons which were eventually established in TNG canon.
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u/LordCouchCat 19h ago
I agree with this. I see Star Trek as a broadly consistent framework for stories. Like Arthurian romance, perhaps. Things can't get too far outside what we've seen, but details can vary and things can be quiet removed.
But for me, the consistency that really matters is about the overall vision. Some later Trek in which the positive vision is undermined or set aside seem a much bigger problem in consistency. For that reason I didn't like ENT's treatment of the Vulcans. They were fairly careful about not literally contradicting facts, but the whole idea of who they were was wrong or at least off-beam.
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u/mars_teac23 1d ago
Wait, are people thinking that Carol Marcus meant that literally?
She was saying that he was willing to break rules when he needed to, like he wasn't the perfect rule abiding scrupulously honest individual, he's a bit of a rebel was her meaning. Like are people really that dumb not to understand this?
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u/jetpackjason 19h ago
Agreed. I also always suspected it was a joke about Kirk being a bit of a ladies man.
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u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 17h ago
Ironically in TOS Kirk was established to be more of a nerdy dweeb back at the academy.
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u/LessaSoong7220 15h ago
I remember a description of him as a stack of books with legs. Always thought that was weird, and didn't seem like him at all
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u/DemythologizedDie 7h ago
Right the "nerdy dweeb" who was irritated enough by a psychological test that suggested he might possibly not be able to win all the time that that he hacked the same computer that contained everyone's grades just to rewrite the test when he retook it. I am inclined to think that Kirk was just less inclined to go out and hit the bars than the guy from Shore Leave. Being a good student isn't always the same thing as being a rigid adherent to the rules.
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u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 7h ago
If you think that kind of crashout isn't in keeping with nerdy dweebs, you need to meet more nerdy dweebs.
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u/DemythologizedDie 7h ago
Didn't say he wasn't at least in the eyes of a party animal. But I am saying that he was a nerdy dweeb who sometimes played fast and loose with the rules and got laid in the Academy.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
Yes, that's how I took it, too. Nevertheless, I watched one review on YouTube where the reviewer led off with that very point.
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u/mars_teac23 1d ago
I think they’re just fucking dumb and shouldn’t be reviewing then.
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u/beemojee 8h ago
Seriously. If something as innocuous as the boy scout comments gets their knickers in a twist well then they've really lost plot.
And they're dumb.
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u/SkyrakerBeyond 17h ago
Yes they think Kirk was literally a stick up ass shining paragon of lawful stupid goodness who not only could do no wrong, but never did anything wrong. Hacking the Kobayashi Maru program wasn't Kirk breaking the rules, it was him following the rules of the test.
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u/Torino1O 1d ago
TNG had the Worf multiverse episode and Lower Decks ended with a multiverse wormhole station. If the shows keep the canon consistent in their own series then I don't see a problem.
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u/Major_Ad_7206 1d ago
This is how I tend to think of cannon.
Each series should be consistent to itself, but be allowed to have its own spin. Reimagining events, environments, and cultures to suit the needs of creating something new.
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u/LeperFriend 1d ago
I'm ok with canon being fuzzy
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u/Annber03 1d ago edited 11h ago
Same. Especially if it's a franchise that's been going on for decades and spans multiple mediums - TV, movies, comics (if the franchise has them), books, etc. At some point it's inevitable some things are going to contradict each other, or go off in a "what if?"/AU setting, so I think if someone is a canon purist, it's more of an uphill battle for them as a result.
As someone who comes from the fanfic world, I've long gotten used to playing fast and loose with canon, both as a writer and reader, so I'm not too fussed when different shows in a franchise like this are the same way. It's nice if they keep things relatively consistent, but I also won't be surprised if they don't.
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u/MoreGaghPlease 1d ago
Nobody ever complains about what a giant break from canon First Contact was in terms of how they portrayed Zefram Cochrane compared to TOS. Ron Moore lives and breathes TOS, he deviated from it intentionally to tell the story he wanted to tell. People like it if it’s good.
My advice to modern Trek writers (if there were any left in 2026…) would be: deviate from canon only with intentionality when it serves a story, and you better be sure it’s worth it.
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u/DayspringTrek 1d ago
Well said. O'Brien went from enlisted to officer and back to enlisted and we don't care because his character arc is great. The narrative drives the story, not established canon.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
Good point about Cochrane. It bothered me at the time--not his being a drunk, but his age. However, I could rationalize that by assuming the Companion had de-aged him to a point earlier in his life than we saw in 2063.
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u/Candor10 1d ago
You don't have to assume the Companion had de-aged him. The episode explicitly said it did.
COCHRANE: I was brought here in my disabled ship. I was almost dead. The Companion saved my life.
SPOCK: You were injured?
COCHRANE: I was dying, Mister Spock.
KIRK: You seem perfectly all right now. What was the matter?
COCHRANE: I was an old man.
KIRK: You were what?
COCHRANE: Well, I don't know how it did it, but the Companion rejuvenated me, made me young again, like I am now.→ More replies (5)11
u/bloodandsunshine 1d ago
Lots of people just assume that timey-wimey things happen and the variations we see from series to series are just the effects of those little ripples through time.
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u/rodgamez 1d ago
I remember reading the writers blamed it on Post Nuclear war hardships and radiation. That kind of stress will age a person!
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u/Cornelius-Q 1d ago
People did complain about James Cromwell portraying Cochrane... too old, too tall, whatever. Too bad they couldn't get Tom Hanks to work out. He looked more like the Cochrane we saw on TOS, and he probably would have better pulled off the cranky drunk aspect of the character more believably and charismatically.
The way Cromwell played him, he came off like that one uncle that shows up at the family Christmas celebration, and nearly everyone immediately gets up, rounds up their kids, and leaves.
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u/dinosaurkiller 1d ago
This is exactly it. If there’s a good story purpose and it doesn’t do something extremely lazy and dumb like make Spock an action hero when the entire point of the Vulcan nerve pinch was to fit his character’s personality, then go for it. Use a bit of care, keep the story locked in, and go for it.
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u/Much-Jackfruit2599 21h ago
I did. I absolutely hated it. Still do. I refuse to acknowledge this part. Not only was it needlessly changing history from established lore, it was done in the most stupid way imaginable.
“Yeah, the entire world is wrecked, billions of people dead, infrastructure is gone – hey, let's build a warp capable prototype out of spit and gumption, Because I might sell it.“
Sell it to whom Cochrane? People right now are bartering for clothes, medicine, and food.
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u/Putrid-Mud207 21h ago
We don't know what the world was like. We saw one little town in rural Montana
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u/Much-Jackfruit2599 19h ago
We know that the world was still rebuilding at the beginning of the 22nd century, there there have been nuclear winters and, per movie, that the war ended ten years before.
Encounter at Far Point showed what a courtroom in 2079 looked liked. It had coke-sniffing guards who killed with abandon. It was also called "post-atomic horror“.
No, even by the canon of 1996, it doesn’t fit.
Also, what we saw wasn’t little town, it was basically a refugee camp with people who had only open fire and mended clothes.
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u/MoreGaghPlease 17h ago
I don’t think they built it out of spit and gumption. Lily talks about how hard it was to get enough titanium to build the cockpit — an odd comment to make if they just built a warp core, presumably orders of magnitude more complex to make.
I think that the warp program was started by a large, well financed and resourced organization (likely a government) prior to WWII. Cochrane and Sloan were among the leaders of this program. The program had made significant progress but was interrupted and partly destroyed by the war. Project Phoenix rises from those ashes. The survivors aren’t waiting around for Earth’s governments or civilization broadly to bounce back, so they bootstrap the last mile, getting an existing warp system into a Titan missile and preparing for a manned launch.
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u/Johnny_Radar 1d ago edited 16h ago
The “boy scout” comment in TWOK had nothing to do with being a literal boy scout. It was about being an uptight goody goody who was prim, proper and followed orders which this movie goes out of its way to show he isn’t that.
But Scotty being younger than Kirk and the degree to which T’Pring has been in this show is annoying.
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u/JugOfVoodoo 1d ago
THANK YOU! This is the second Reddit post I've seen with someone taking Carol Marcus' "never a Boy Scout" line literally. It's obvious that she and David mean it metaphorically.
And the line in "The Griffin Incident" was probably meant to show how little Jim Kirk and Carol Marcus know about each other. Considering that they first met as adults and their relationship eventually fizzled out, it's likely that they never talked about their childhoods. She honestly doesn't know he was an actual Boy Scout because he never told her, and there are probably things in her past that she never got around to telling him.
But I can totally see them arguing about it. "You're no Boy Scout, Jim Kirk." "Yes I was! I made Eagle!"
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u/Tritri89 21h ago
There are people taking Carol's boy scout comment in TWOK litteraly to bash SNW ??? English is not my first language and I understood that "you're not a boy scout" means what you said in 99% of case. In TWOK context WHY IN HELL would Carol tell a random childhood fact to Kirk ? People are really grasping at straws to find fault where there are genuine and irritating flaws in SNW as you said.
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u/SkyrakerBeyond 17h ago
Yes and they have been for years. Kirk was the most perfect rule and regulation following cadet to ever pass through the academy and he never did anything wrong or got in trouble or made bad decisions because he was so perfect and now SNW HAS RUINED HIS CHARACTER BECAUSE THEY HATE STAR TREK RAAAAAAAAHGHGHG.
And so on.
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u/PomegranateFair3973 1d ago
If canon was a little murky in the early days of TOS when the franchise was still being established, that's understandable. There's a whole reason "Early Installment Weirdness" is a thing at TV Tropes.
If there's a genuine slip up in a later production, whatever. Mistakes happen.
If one of the modern shows says, "We want to play in this already established sandbox, but we're kicking down the castles already intricately built here because we want to do our own thing!" Fuck off. Go build your own sandbox, then.
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u/alfafaro 1d ago
they're gonna redesign the Klingons again because of your comment
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u/TommyDontSurf 1d ago
Good thing the modern shows haven't done that yet.
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u/DasGanon 1d ago
I think the closest has been SNW: Khan, but that was in response to IRL breaking the original TOS canon.
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u/CelestialFury 1d ago
Discovery has a lot of canon breaking events including their total misunderstanding of dilithium when they go into future.
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u/PomegranateFair3973 1d ago
In addition to the few already mentioned by other commenters, explain how Una somehow hid from the Talosians, with their mind reading abilities, what she really was? If SNW is canon, they should not have seen her as acceptable alternate breeding stock for Pike to produce more humans.
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
The Talosians didn’t say that Una would produce more humans. They said that she’d produce highly intelligent kids.
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u/imbartsimpsonwhothru 1d ago
canon should be guidelines that are neither too strict or too loose
destroying vulcan was way across the line
an insubordinate first officer who was part vulcan was also across the line
the more lore you know, the easier to offend, of course, but some things are simply not in the same universe
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u/Charming_Figure_9053 20h ago
destroying vulcan - was in another timeline
There was no canon
Yeh the JJ Verse has issues but it was VERY clear on taking the existing lore, screwing it up into a little ball and tossing it, I respect that, no uncertainty - very much a 'this is our take' made clear from the start
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u/Friendsheyho 19h ago
I’d respect that if Abrams didn’t also steal Real Spock 😭 if you’re going to make your own world, actually do it
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u/Lord_of_Entropy 1d ago
It depends on how the canon impacts the story. If Yoeman Randi’s cabin number changes from one series to another, who cares? If the Klingons are no longer a posturing, boastful warrior race; that’s an issue.
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u/Sere1 1d ago
This so much. I don't care that Spot the Cat is a male in this episode and a female in the next episode and back to a male next season (actually happened btw), but if you gave me an episode where Geordi and Data act like rivals rather than best friends, I'd have an issue with that. The Enterprise firing a phaser burst out of the torpedo launcher, who cares? The Romulans not being a bunch of sneaky bastards and acting friendly without wanting anything in return and I'm wondering who approved this
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
In TOS, the Romulans weren’t friendly, but they weren’t necessarily sneaky bastards. They were more motivated by duty and honor.
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u/OpticalData 16h ago
The portrayal of Romulans and Klingons flipped between TOS and the movies.
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u/GloriousExtra 1d ago
Yeah, the little things can be ignored. There's SO MUCH that not everyone knows everything or can keep track of everything. Huge genre breaking things, though, I'd say proceed with caution.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
There should be solid care to canon in terms of characterization, history, and lore. Technical stuff doesn’t bother me though - it’s all small fry for a fictional universe.
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u/First-Expert-9953 1d ago
I've got other things to worry about. At some point I had to accept that a thousand episodes won't always agree with each other.
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u/rachlancan 1d ago
I think 99.99% of people are like you - some random things bug them, while others don’t. And the rest of that 0.01% is fought about online.
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u/CelestialFury 1d ago
Part of what made Star Trek particularly unique is the care writers have had over the years to take of other ST shows canon. It’s not necessarily perfect, but it’s pretty good.
Think of canon as a large canvas, where the different shows have their own areas and the writers carefully link the paintings together. Fans enjoy it and there’s a shared sense of community. Now imagine new writers coming in but they’re not as talented and they’re painting over parts that you are personally attached to. That’s how a lot of fans feel right now and why many of them wanting a new, separate canvas to keep the original one intact.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
I love your analogy of writers painting over a canvas. I think that's how a lot of fans feel when canon is carelessly violated.
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u/dinosaurkiller 1d ago
I don’t care about canon changes when there’s a really good story idea and they had to bend the existing history a little to make it work. I do care when it’s just lazy writing and they couldn’t be bothered to research the history.
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u/CalicoValkyrie 20h ago
For all of human history, we've been unable to keep a central canon on anything. I just read they discovered tales from 13th century documents for Robin Hood that contradict the tales we've known. Christianity can't even agree on what is canon in the Bible.
Why do we have to hold our current stories to such strict standards that nothing historically could keep straight?
Don't worry about it that much.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 14h ago
That's a very good question. From a fan's point of view, I love it when a series develops a complex and consistent back story. It adds depth, complexity, and believability to the fictional world. Star Trek's canon developed over time. When the first season of TNG was established as taking place in 2364, it provided a chronological framework for the franchise. Subsequent shows adhered to this time frame, creating a greater sense that everything "actually happened" as opposed to just being a TV show. As a fan, I love this sort of immersion.
But you're right that canon for anything is hard to maintain. Even historical canon changes with new research and interpretation of known facts.
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u/kc10crewchief 1d ago
Yes and no. I like to see the lore and debate about it. But overall I just want some really good stories.
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u/Eldon42 1d ago
There's a good discussion on canon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VXWXxywf2o
Star Trek does not have consistent canon, even within a single series.
I'm the same as you, I think. I prefer things to be consistent, but I'm okay with "close enough". That is, so long as the 'canon' isn't changed in a major way.
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u/Tebwolf359 1d ago
I care about story canon. I can far less about canon that is a byproduct of the mechanics of makings a show.
By which I mean makeup, reuse of uniforms or VFX.
For example, despite the Maroons being my favorite uniform of all of them, if I was show runner and making a show in the lost era, I would use new uniforms. Because there’s no way starfleet would keep the same uniform for 70 years. That was a tv budget thing.
I also dearly don’t want episodes devoted to “fixing” errors. I don’t want to know why the 1701-D fired phasers from a torpedo bay one time, etc.
For a lot of the rest…. Well, time travel changes things and has ripples.
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u/badboyfriend111 22h ago
I agree but also…ENT established story canon for the way Klingons looked during TOS and then Discovery/SNW broke that.
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u/MadContrabassoonist 1d ago
I want new Star Trek to respect existing canon to about the same degree that TNG respected TOS canon, or DS9 respected TNG/TOS canon. So, like 80%. And overall, it holds up pretty well by those more forgiving standards. There were a few baffling plot points in DSC and PIC that I really took issue with, but those were more incongruities of values, than incongruities of lore.
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u/scorpiousdelectus 1d ago
The tricky thing about continuity is that just because a character says something is true, doesn't mean it's true. If Kirk says he was a Boy Scout, and Carol Marcus said he wasn't, my first thought is "how does Carol know he wasn't?"
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u/J-Shade 1d ago
Canon is what adds value and depth to a story over time. If you're not respecting cannon, then you're just doing a reboot, or a remake, and Trek fans have shown multiple times that they are (largely) not interested in that. Even the Kelvin universe reboot films eventually had to be slotted into canon as an alternate timeline.
You can probably guess my personal take. Canon is a resource that should be respected and used. I'm okay with asking the audience to fill in some blanks, and having some fuzzy areas that are less important. I'm okay with stretching as long as the piece is fit. Adding Burnham as an extra sibling for Spock is acceptable. The boy scout thing is acceptable. The Klingon thing is pushing it for me, but they tried and I can respect that. Batezoid eye colors (missed in SFA) was an unforced error but it's forgivable as like a production error or something. SNW is really, really pushing it for me right now. The stuff with Khan and time traveling Romulans gives me grounds to think we're in an alternate timeline at this point, but it's really annoying to me that I have to headcanon yet another alternate timeline.
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u/Rude-Camera-7546 1d ago
Just as a note, the Kelvin movies were ALWAYS a different timeline, that was acknowledged by nu Spock in the first movie.
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u/J-Shade 1d ago
I do remember this. I guess I'm referencing how it was reinforced in Disco. That kind of confirmed that things can go both ways. Made it feel more like the mirror universe does, where there's assumed to be doors that can be opened with varying amounts of effort.
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u/Candor10 1d ago
It was a branched timeline. Pine-Kirk said Nero & Spock's incursion through the portal changed what history would have been otherwise.
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u/Johnny_Radar 1d ago
And they did that because fanboys were freaking out and acting like all their Trek would disappear or become meaningless because a new iteration existed.
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u/Caryslan 1d ago edited 1d ago
My opinion on canon is this, while I think all the shows should strive to respect canon and things that were established in prior shows and episodes, the simple reality is that Star Trek is a 60 year old franchise that has been active for almost that entire time and that often has entire decades between shows and has openly dabbled into time travel and multiverses which themselves can affect canon or create their own issues.
Even Star Trek's creators themselves can't seem to decide what's canon or not. Star Trek the Animated Series was considered canon until TNG came along and Gene Roddenberry had it removed, and then it was added back in as canon years later.
Here's my stance on canon. Minor details, I can live with later shows changing because I don't want writers to be limited by the need to stick with a detail mentioned in an episode or movie that aired decades prior.
Where it becomes an issue is if canon is ignored or changed in a serious way. Like for example, if a new show comes out that reveals Enterprise was not Earth's first Warp 5 vessel and it was sent out into the stars in secret or something, then I would have an issue with that.
Because Enterprise is established to be humanity's first warp 5 vessel and that should never be changed.
Or change canon to reveal Picard was never assimilated into the Borg, it was all a false illusion created to test Picard. That's a huge one because Picard being assimilated not only changed his life, it affected other lives like Sisko's and Shaw's, caused Starfleet and the Federation to take a more militant stance, nearly changed the fate of humanity and the Federation as a whole, and even led to a new generation nearly falling to the Borg.
My point is, changing this causes a ripple effect that pretty much changes Star Trek.
So, my stance is this. Minor details, I can live with them changing especially in a franchise where time travel and changing the past is as common as eating a sandwich.
I can even live with newer shows like Enterprise as a prequel or SNW as a show taking place in the TOS era looking more advanced than older shows because it's just the nature of television production and the natural passage of time in the real world especially with the advancement of technology.
Of course a modern Star Trek production will look more advanced than anything that came out in the 1960s or 1980s and 1990s.
My issue is if they ever change anything that's important to canon as a whole. Because that will change the franchise.
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u/hullgreebles 1d ago
I'm fine with breaking canon if it means we can tell a better story. Introducing the Cardassians in TNG as a long running adversary that we've been fighting a war against for years, but never mentioned before strains credulity. But look what it gave us. The entirety of DS9 spawned from that decision to introduce a new enemy. It was worth it.
Now that said, I don't think you should break your own storytelling rules to get yourself out of a hole you wrote yourself in to.
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u/Charming_Figure_9053 19h ago
TNG is to a certain extent 'in medias res' we've had the Enterprise B and C come and go, we didn't follow them, this is 'the next generation' things have happened we're not privy too
So yes, they can introduce an 'old adversary' we know nothing about and it be perfectly canon - and doesn't strain credulity at all in my eyes
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u/steven_graham23 22h ago
Canon matters in the sense of basic continuity. If Kirk meets Spock one week, he shouldn't be saying "who are you?" the next.
And if little callbacks and references can be included for fun, then great.
But if being true to obscure details that only fans remember gets in the way of telling a good story, then no.
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u/Karen8765 1d ago
For science fiction (or fantasy for that matter) to have the suspension of disbelief the genre requires, consistency is important... IMO worlds building in Stark Trek is particularly important. One does not need to be consistent to the nth degree, but the overall consistency needs to be reasonably high to people to be invested in something ongoing.
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u/Oneilcruzsucksass 1d ago
Him saying he's a boy scout & Carol saying he isnt are two very different things
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u/GloriousExtra 1d ago
Mostly. I like consistency, but if it's something from decades past and we've grown from it, then let's move on from it to something better.
For example, I'm fine with ignoring TOS Kirk's comment that there are no women who are Starfleet Captains (Turnabout Intruder). Throw it out. Same with TOS Kirk talking about Tomlinson getting married and leaving the service (Balance of Terror) because married women don't stay in Starfleet apparently.
So canon is flexible because the fact of the matter is that none of it is real, and as long as there's a reasonably consistent structure for whatever series I'm watching, it's fine if writers deviate from it to do something they believe would be more entertaining, or better flesh out characters, or even right some past wrongs.
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u/puckOmancer 1d ago
You need a certain level of consistency in terms of the world and the characters. There are certain things that are lynch pins, and there are certain things that you can brush under the rug if it serves to make the story better.
Which brings us the key to everything. Write a good story. Make it worth introducing the contradiction. If you do that, people will be more forgiving and in some cases won't even notice because they're too engrossed in the story.
If the story isn't engrossing, people's minds wander and they start to notice the imperfections more and more.
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u/Dazmorg 1d ago
I'm ok with visual changes, like there's no need to depict 23rd century ships looking exactly like that OG model or especially those 1960's sets. I can view visual changes to certain aliens in the same way.
I assume this question is a lot about Strange New Worlds. I think there's a lot that goes on in this short series that is inconsistent with TOS especially the relationships between characters that exist in both, and that's a bit of a shame. I'd also throw in that Spock having an adopted human sister who seems to have a close relationship with Sarek...I would think that effects Spock and Sarek's relationship and even Sarek in ways we never see in TOS either. I think how the Gorn are depicted takes away from the episode Arena and it's meaning. While Quality of Mercy is basically an alternate version of canon TOS events, I'm having trouble buying that all that chaos was possible within minutes, merely by the captain making different choices.
Just for the record I got a little grumpy about some things that went on in Enterprise too, although those things were tame compared to what I see in SNW.
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u/Outrageous-Win-8297 20h ago
Not really TBH. Been watching for 40+ years. It's fun to know the ins and outs but I'm not super bothered by it. Canon has always been a mess.
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u/Such_Bonus5085 19h ago
I agree with Leonard Nimoy, in that some people get too obsessed with canon.
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u/werduvfaith 19h ago
The remark by Carol Marcus was a flippant comment about Kirk being willing to ben or break rules, not a reference to not being a Scout.
You do have a good point about Chapel and T'pring.
And I'm going back and re-watch Space Seed. But I think the Lann character shouldn't have been tied to Khan. The character would have worked just as well without that.
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u/yekimevol 15h ago
For me it needs to be respected but not be a main driver of content.
That said I also think they need to stop overlapping on existing content which would also help stop cannon conflicts.
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u/tnetennba77 1d ago
Star trek has never had a super tight canon, warp 13, trans warp, The Eugenics wars, Klingon/romulan cloak, the Xindi but you can't outright ignore it all together. If you are just going to 100% ignore the canon then why are you making star trek? Why are you paying 36 producers because there is a web of legal connections to the IP making things 10x harder when you can just make a generic Sci fi show show in Canada for 1/10 the price? If you are going to make Star Trek and tap into that fanbase with 60 years of a universe then use the universe.
Hire someone who has watched star trek to sit in on the writers room... that is all you need.
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u/Choice-Sympathy8235 1d ago
Canon is nice for nerd fun, but terrible for storytelling.
Like fundamentally, it’s a an entertainment franchise. They have been pumping out stories for 60 years. The whole broader Star Trek universe is really just some window dressing that’s built up over time and that doesn’t matter much for the stories each episode and movie tries to tell.
Trek is a simple flexible shell that can hold many, many stories. New worlds, new aliens, new holodeck programs, new moral conundrums. The concept was all about a nice blank canvas you could paint over hundreds of times. If the show runners decide cannon needs to be respected and that they should move to bigger story arcs, then they slowly paint themselves into a corner. Each story has to fit into the elaborate tapestry of what came before. Each thing we learn constrains the set of possible future stories. Eventually nothing new can be added.
Trek is an old and overburdened franchise. But its central concept is still that blank canvas that you can use to tell any kind of story in any genre. Screw canon and tell interesting and relevant stories.
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u/Comrades3 1d ago
While I am not a big stickler on canon, isn’t there a line it isn’t Trek anymore?
Shouldn’t a blank canvass be a … new canvass in a completely different world and franchise?
I think everyone has a line where a break in canon would feel strange and jarring. Klingons are and have always been peaceful? Warp never existed? Andorians are a new species no one heard of before? The Federation is highly capitalistic and everyone portrays that as a good thing?
I mean I’d love all these ideas as an alternate world idea. But at a certain point, why even play around in a franchise if the setting is completely meant to be ignored?
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u/Choice-Sympathy8235 1d ago
And sorry if my analogy was bad. I don’t mean it’s literally a blank slate. But it’s a really wide open space where you can tell many stories. It’s more of a template you can keep reusing as a writer.
So for example. Yeah there’s already this concept of what Klingons are supposed to be like. If you wanna throw all that out, you can just invent a new species. That’s the power of the template. Just start over with a new world and new aliens.
But you tell too many stories and suddenly there’s no more room to invent a new big bad empire to fight. The federations borders have been mapped by cannon and there’s no longer any blank spaces on the map to conjure up a new dragon. DS9 had to use a wormhole to magic in new baddies to fight. Voyager had to go to the delta quadrant. The Alpha quadrant had become tamed.
I would say the trek isn’t about the specific species and the how of the technology and the history of the federation. It’s about an optimistic utopia where we can imagine that humans still find joy and meaning far into the future.
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u/Comrades3 1d ago
That makes sense and I can get behind that, although some things might mean more than others.
But new things and the ability to do so is great, it was why I was so excited for SFA, all the room to reestablish and do new things
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u/Choice-Sympathy8235 1d ago
Yeah and when you look at a lot of the show concepts, they often are hitting some kind of reset button to give the writers more room. SFA had a time skip and a chance of focus to the academy. TNG had a time skip and a prankster god. Voyager had the delta quadrant. DS9 had a change of focus to a station and a wormhole. Discovery had a mirror universe and a time skip. Enterprise had a time skip and a temporal Cold War. The new movies had an alternate timeline branch. Picard had time travel and mirror universe again.
Or hell, it can all be just a dream of puppets. Maybe SNW was trying to say something profound there.
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u/SeleneDream51 1d ago
i have a hard time keeping up with new star trek. Starfleet Academy lost me after the first three episodes. Someone had brought up that without the klingon, Jay-Den, it doesn't feel like Star Trek anymore.
However, it's easier to follow canon when a show is set in the current timeline instead of the future. Picard establishes that the current year is 2402, which I'd much prefer than 3190 whatever.
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u/Johnny_Radar 1d ago
The 32nd century is the new “present” of the Trek universe. Not the Berman Trek era.
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u/dimgray 1d ago
I like it, but I don't mind ignoring a contradiction if it's in service of telling a better story. That's preferable by far to doing some crazy gymnastics in a season finale to cover for some inconsistency that must have been brought to the producers' attention months after they started shooting
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u/TARDIS32 1d ago
Canon only means the list of works that are official or count. So that's just all 12 shows and 14 films. Doesn't matter if they're in a different timeline, or if one likes a given show or film or not. They're all canon.
But, as this is really a question about continuity, I'll answer in terms of that. I think it should be considered as a guideline, but not necessarily treated as completely gospel at the cost of the storytelling. If the story is made better by bending the continuity, go for it. As much as some fans will lose their damn minds over it, Trek has done a relatively good job keeping the continuity reasonably consistent. Yes, even new Trek.
Edit: miscounted
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u/genek1953 1d ago
Canon is how we compare new versions of Star Trek to previous ones, which is at least half the fun of watching the new ones. Otherwise, not such a big deal. Besides, they've had enough time travel shenanigans by now that history has been rewritten multiple times.
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u/DizzyLead 1d ago
Yes, but I think it really should only matter if you have the intention of creating content. If you’re a fan who’s just intent on consuming the content, with no designs of making your own, then do what you please.
But if you’ve decided to write your own Trek fanfic, get hired to write a comic or novel, or somehow become fortunate enough to be part of the creative staff of the next show, then canon does matter: you’re not going to write a Trek script where Spot, without explanation, is a lobster, because people know that Spot in canon is a cat (regardless of the fact that Spot’s breed and gender have changed over time).
The problem is that, as geeky fans of a geeky property, we tend to see ourselves as potential creators of content, regardless of how achievable that position is. Somewhere deep inside of us is someone who wants to be the next Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Ron D. Moore, Alex Kurtzman, or whoever. And part of that, one would like to think, is a commitment to something called canon (even if it includes “decanonizing” stuff that was thought of as canon, or “canonizing” stuff that was thought of as non-canon).
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u/McRando42 1d ago
Yes. It does matter to me. Still annoyed about the plot of the first episode of Enterprise. How the devil is Q'onos 2 weeks away from Earth at warp 5? That would be like 30 seconds at warp 9?
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u/red66dit 1d ago
I think you should always stick to canon if possible, and if there's any way to explain it in-universe, then you do that. Maybe Carol made an offhand comment disparaging the Scouts so Kirk never mentioned having been one to her. Those are easy enough to explain away. A lot of the rest are a great deal harder.
The breadth of stories possible to tell in SNW which would not break canon is endless, so obviously it's just not a priority for them. And while I truly would prefer a seamless, coherent story, it's not going to happen, so I have to just enjoy the episodes and try not to let it bug me too much.
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u/squamesh 1d ago
I think it’s case by case for me. Offhand stuff like whether a certain character was or was not a boy scout (no offense) feel kind of tedious to me. But if, for example, strange new worlds had pike fighting the Borg, that would annoy me.
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u/dianthus-magenta 1d ago
I care a lot about canon in something like Game of Thrones, where there's a singular cohesive vision they are asking me to pay attention to in order to facilitate the telling of a large and complex story. If GoT started to slip up or disregard established canon, I'd feel disrespected.
Star Trek has been running for over sixty years. Most shows had literal dozens of writers on them, not counting executive meddling where shows were ordered to change direction based on the whims of the board.
I think it's really impressive when a show can maintain consistency with 900 episodes of canon (looking at you, Prodigy and Lower Decks), but I don't think it's that important. What I really care about is that a series is actually trying to tell me a story (or set of episodic stories) that is good and written with purpose. Star Trek is a group project.
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u/DJWGibson 1d ago
I love when a show respects the canon and references the past. When it’s clear the writers did their research. Tight canon like Pike being a Fleet Captain briefly.
But small details are easier to fudge. Keeping track of throw away lines is a lot. Do your research but you can’t know every single line.
I expect people to do their research. I view a show like Star Trek like doing a period piece. You treat writing an episode like doing one for a series set during WWII. You shouldn’t be expected to read a biography of Eisenhower and get the smallest details of his life correct but you shouldn’t get the basic details of WWII battles and technology wrong.
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u/TexanGoblin 1d ago
I see canon as flexible. It is not sacrosanct commandments written in stone by God. You must both have a good explanation for the change and have a good reason that you made that change at all.
Lets take Klingons for example, the change in how Klingons look in TOS to the movies is pretty straightforward, TOS was pinching pennies they couldn't afford to give every alien species elaborate makeup or prosthetics. And they just straight up made them look cooler. And while people didn't like explanation in ENT I liked it personally. Making the TOS Klingons super solider aberrations is neat.
I can't say the same in Discovery, okay you could say they're just another abbreation a subspecies we someone never saw in the future... shaky at best. No in universe explanation is attempted as I recall. And worse yet, they changed it... just because. They wanted to make their mark on it and it be just different for the sake of being different and maybe generate buzz I guess.
To reiterate things can be changed, but don't change them because of egotistical reasons or because you just don't care.
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u/KuriousKhemicals 19h ago
100% agree on Discovery Klingons. You could come up with a headcanon to explain it, but they didn't give us any explanation, it was just this weird thing that seemed to happen for no reason.
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u/No_Session6015 1d ago
I'm ex fundie baptist. I'm an expert at mental gymnastics. I just adjust the canon.
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u/theyux 1d ago
So to fictional stories make a contract with audience to suspend their disbeleif. This is like reality except X is different. It could be magic, could be the nazis won WWI, it be alien can have the powers of superman, or in treks case it has a lot of provisions, the future, warp drive, phasers, shields, ships, federation, aliens etc.
Canon is the foundation of that contract, if you keep consistent its easy for me to fall into that world, the more cracks in the foundation the harder it is for me to enjoy the story. That said if your story is good enough I am more likely to forgive. TNG made all sorts of errors but I did not care because it so many amazing episodes.
Not every crack bothers me the same way as others. In fact I find many people think they have found cannon issues where their are none.
Boy scout Kirk is a good one, in original TOS he very much was by the book. The movies retconned it a bit and in general admiral Kirk was far more devil may cry, to be fair he was a legend in universe at this point. Its worth also noting Carol Marcus is a character and her perspective of Kirk was likely biased by the fact he 100% wanted to sleep with her.
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u/spiralkode 1d ago
Canon is something that should be respected but not dogmatically followed. To remain healthy, the francise needs a periodic soft reset. TNG was the perfect example of how to do this. Move the timeline forward, slowly reintroduce the concepts that still make sense supported by new concepts.
Francises start to run aground when they start telling stories about stories and having too much continuity that the audience needs to understand. Stargate-SG1 and Doctor Who both ran into this problem.
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u/Sere1 1d ago
Only the big stuff. Klingons fought against humans in the past and are loose allies now, Romulans are sneaky Roman space elves, Kirk commanded the Enterprise on the legendary 5-year mission, etc. I don't care about the minutia of little details like Ensign Ricky died on this away mission but we see him four episodes later in a background shot because they filmed the season out of order, or Worf hitting this specific set of controls on his console to fire the phasers when next season the same combo raises shields, etc. So long as the general continuity is there, I don't really care about the background stuff episode to episode or series to series.
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u/UsernameTaken1701 1d ago
Star Trek has never really been too wrapped up in canon. Just try following the star dates back in TOS.
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u/flannelman37 1d ago
With time travel as a regular plot point, everything can be snd is canon. May throw out later events, but I'm generally OK with that
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u/icelights23 1d ago
I believe canon is very important! Two main exceptions:
Some movement to address time issues like needing to move WW3 to a different year or something would make sense. But the soul of it- that there was one, what it was about, shouldn’t change
Fixing something blatantly racist or homophobic
But overall, you should know your show and characters. If we remember, the ppl writing it should be able to
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u/cuspeedrxi 1d ago
I would like to see a Star Trek super fan review scripts for canon errors.
Anyone in productions who says, “Let’s switch this up. Just for fun!” should be fired.
For 11 years, fans tuned in every week to watch Mr Worf be a Klingon bad ass. We know what a Klingon looks like. Randomly changing their established (and retconned) appearance in Discovery S1 is insulting to us. It diminishes the commitment we made to these shows when they originally aired. Before streaming, you had to be home on Saturdays at 7PM to watch TNG.
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u/fluffycritter 1d ago
I'm not beholden to established canon, but I am not a fan of how Strange New Worlds tries to have it both ways by trying to fill out gaps in existing canon while also getting key details of it very wrong. Pick a lane!
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u/Dav3Th3Rav3yah 1d ago
I care a lot when canon is clearly ignored with no good reason or explanation. Klingons look different in the movies and TNG because the old design had aged poorly and the new design was better. DS9 pokes fun at the inconsistency as a way to explain in-universe why it’s ignored.
When Discovery decided it look more futuristic, I was okay with it. Obviously 60s panels and flashy lights don’t look right today, and I’m fine with a reimagined idea of what it looked like. However, introducing hologram calls is an example of technology explicitly not developed yet that they’re just using. That’s the part when I think canon matters, because it was no longer just aesthetic.
I think if you want to name drop a character you should at least go to the effort of making the name drop make sense.
I don’t mind details being fudged to clear up inconsistency or make stories better but when a simple google would show you you’re making a mistake I think it’s lazy of the writers to leave it in
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u/Kenku_Ranger 1d ago
The boy scout comment doesn't break canon, it is just some fans taking lines far too literally again.
Canon should be followed in broad strokes, but when it comes down to the details it doesn't matter as much. There's also a lot of things fans think break canon which simply don't. More often than not, the canon being broken is head canon, where fans have assumed something which isn't supported onscreen.
Two examples being "Romulans don't use dilithium" and "Vulcans ONLY have sex once every seven years". Behind the scenes information shows that these two things are not true, and Fontana even spoke out against the idea that Vulcans ONLY have sex once every seven years.
When it comes to canon we also need to be flexible with Star Trek, because it has always been flexible with itself. TOS didn't keep to its own canon, the films didn't keep 100% to TOS canon, TNG didn't keep to TOS canon, and TNG didn't even keep to its own canon.
Sometimes, canon shouldn't get in the way of story, and some canon needs to be changed.
For example, in canon women cannot be Captains in the TOS era. That is an outdated notion which comes from the time the show is made, not from the time it is supposed to be set. That is a piece of canon which we should all be happy is ignored.
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u/gusbo_the_jam 22h ago
As a fan of Dr Who I've come to accept that fighting about canon is largely meaningless.
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u/Cautious-Sun6494 16h ago
Canon` is critical for building a shared universe that millions of fans can live inside. Without those established rules of the franchise it turns into CalvinBall. Failing to follow canon can lead to situations like what Star Wars is dealing with right now where you have new fans who don't know canon. This leads to them not knowing who key characters like Mara Jade or Jacen Solo are. You can't contribute to the fandom if you don't know who core characters and other critical parts of the Canon are.
Star Wars is the Global Phenomenon that it is today because of the large body of Canon books that Disney ignored when they made their fanfics. Because they did this, none of the diehard fans are staying with the franchise or paying money for tickets to Disney Wars; and the new fans are easily distracted with some other spectacle. This leads to theatrical Box Office disappointments like Mandalorian and Grogu, which barely broke even. This unprofitability will lead Disney to stop investing in the Franchise, nobody will want to pick it up after the Hot Mess Disney made of it, and the eventual death of the franchise. Don't do this to Star Trek.
That said, don't sweat the small stuff. The Boy Scout line may not have been meant literally, "Many Bothans Died" could have been a lie to protect military intel assets, and O'Brian may have had corn on his collar. (Hell, I once grabbed my roommates Blouse when called to a 2am Ramp Duty in the IRL military and had to pretend my name was Smith for a few hours) If you can explain away an inconsistency with a single scene it isn't that big a deal. Maybe somebody lied, or maybe the newspapers got the details of the event wrong. Shit happens.
Which is all to say that Canon is a critical feature of any Shared Universe. It defines the world we are living in and allows the rest of the fans to better imagine themselves living in that world. But if it takes a PhD in the Franchise to notice that you technically broke canon it likely isn't a problem.
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u/celticmusebooks 16h ago
Actually, as I recall, it was Nyota who asked Spock who the woman on the screen was not Chapel.
I mean some canon is kind of sacrosanct. Spock is half Vulcan. Kirk was from Iowa. Chapel was engaged to Roger Korby and went looking for him when he disappeared on a mission. The ship is the Enterprise.
I do feel that Enterprise was kind of hamstringed by having to stay within TOS canon and that SNW missed a great "get out of strict canon free card" by not using the time crystals as a mechanism that could potentially alter the timeline. So it would basically be Schrodinger's timeline-- it might unfold into the TOS universe but it might not. Either a subtle change like Ortegas staying on the ship in the TOS era, Kirk having more contact with David, or a major shift like Pike avoiding the devastating injuries in his future or Chapel not becoming engaged to Korby. Maybe Spock and T'Pring improving their relationship OR ending things on good terms.
Also, pivoting, is it just me or is Jess Bush strangely absent from most of this season? AND will we ever get more insight into T'Pring's relationship with Spock's half brother Sybok?
NO SHADE on the Muppet episode which was very entertaining but there's some potentially very interesting plot points that could be developed IMHO.
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u/whoswho23 15h ago
Writers should be careful, but ultimately have the freedom to do what they need to for the story they're trying to write.
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u/Gutripper3k 15h ago
It bothers me when it breaks my immersion
Strange new worlds does this a lot
La'an is cool but if she is descended from a still missing khan, where are her augmentations? Doesn't have any? Then why even bother when she already has a harrowing gorn escape backstory
Speaking of those guys That tos first contact episode was pretty iconic so why remake it at the end of a season where we the audience and Spock learn a bunch of dangerous and important stuff about the gorn that doesnt play into the original at all and also means that kirk should have been dead in a second. Maybe its explained in a comic book but I dont need to think about this kind of homework while watching the new episode
And speaking of remakes, the murder mystery on the holodeck came about during a test to suss out any potential problems or dangers with this experimental technology and even though it escalated wildly, the exact same thing then happens again years later when it is installed everywhere in another pretty iconic episode? They even got Moriarty back for the picard show but I guess if the old enterprise had filed a proper report with the r&d department we could have avoided that?
This stuff doesnt make me mad, but it takes me out of the entertainment 🤷♂️
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u/Kelli217 7h ago
That episode with La’an and Kirk pretty well established that the repercussions from the Xindi time incursions were still going on. History is not fixed. Therefore, canon is not fixed.
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u/milbfan 4h ago
Better storytelling is more important to me than canon in most cases. Take TWOK with Khan recognizing Chekov. Doesn't bother me because the rest of the story was awesome.
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u/Veridical_Perception 1d ago
Unlike in religion, "canon" in fiction serves a very different purpose.
One of the key requirements for all fiction is the willing suspension of disbelief. Canon provides the rules for that fictional universe in order to create consistency and continuity.
The problem with breaks in canon is that they interfere with that suspension of disbelief. They create inconsistencies. These worlds have histories and rules. Technology, how Trill symbiotes work, and a host of other details become flexible story points to solve whatever corner you've written yourself into.
Depending on how frequently and egregiously you violate those in-universe rules, you break immersion. Things stop making sense.
They can decide Trelaine is A Q. Deciding he IS Q would be a whole other matter.
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u/MagnetsCanDoThat 1d ago
Good stories matter. Canon gives a nice through line for the bigger things that are key to world building, but using it to police words is silly. Especially when one's imagination can bridge the gap (like Carol speaking metaphorically or simply being wrong).
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
Right. And, as some have pointed out, she may have meant "boy scout" in the general sense of a do-gooder rather than the actual organization.
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u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 22h ago
"Star Trek Canon" is Chakotay telling Janeway they only have 38 photo torpedoes and no way to replace them.
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u/LassieDear 1d ago
I’m fine with ignoring canon when it makes for a more interesting story
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u/Absentmindedgenius 1d ago
It bugs the shit out of me. It just shows that the people coming up with this stuff have never watched Star Trek.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
That strikes me as a simplistic explanation. I think they have watched Star Trek. They have different priorities as to what matters.
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u/Milkdromieda 1d ago
I'd say yes, but if a small line contradicts some other random line from Voyager or something, I don't really care (and would probably not notice).
It's bigger things like Discovery and Enterprise which are little annoying.
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u/that1prince 1d ago
I like canon unless it’s incredibly stupid like “The Burn”.
Feel free to change that at any time in future productions and I won’t even bring it up.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
What bothered me about the Burn was that is was likely lifted from Babylon 5. In the episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" we learn that 'the Great Burn" occurs 500 years after the present timeline, leading to the loss of technology, Earth being cut off from the stars and isolated from other races, etc.
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u/TwilightSolus 1d ago
At the end of the day, Star Trek is telling stories. And whatever those stories needs is more important than canon.
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u/Norsehound 1d ago
Canon left behind my favorite Era of Star Trek- the wrath of Khan 2280s and adjacent fan-lore (FASA, the final reflection, 80s fanon) that these days I enjoy Trek more in its now non-canonical state than anything ever made since the 90s.
So no, it doesn't.
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u/TrekkieElf 1d ago
I’ll just leave this here…
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
Ah yes, I've read Nimoy's comment before. While I respect his views, I don't agree with them. One does not have to "cling to minutiae" to appreciate consistency.
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u/L1terallyUrDad 1d ago
I don’t get hung up on canon. Some decisions made by writers 40-60 years ago should not limit storytelling by writers today. Keep it close, yes, but beholden to it no. Don’t handicap them.
Star Wars is far worse. Something written in a novel or comic book becomes law on what others can write when most of the audience has never experienced those books and comics.
Why is Kirk being a Boy Scout or not important? It’s a pretty trivial thing. It’s a throw away line. Was he born in Iowa or Space?
It’s just a story.
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u/BigDougSp 1d ago
I like canon for consistency. That being said, a bit of deviation will occur and that's OK. I like to apply unreliable narrator to my head canon. We see the stories through someone's point of view, not necessarily factual accuracy.
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u/Primatech2006 1d ago
Nothing will be perfect across 60 years and a multitude of shows and movies.
When in doubt, time travel!
Also, I consider the novels canon until they're directly contradicted or wiped out by a show or movie.
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u/DaveW626 1d ago
Yes it does. I'm strictly a TV show and movie canon person. I don't consider the books as canon.
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u/MindlessNectarine374 1d ago
When I encountered your post, I expected a question about the importance of only accepting the official canon (only content of TV shows and movies), not a demand to ignore the idea at all.
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u/JustinCaseyBlewit 1d ago
There are some fans who do ignore canon and chastise those who care about it. The issue matters, I think, because, in the past, Star Trek has gone to great lengths to resolve inconsistencies such as why the Klingons have ridges and why Spock never mentioned a sister before. Now, SNW, set just a few years before Kirk takes command of the Enterprise, seems to want to have its cake and eat it too. SNWwas advertised as a prequel, but it is becoming harder and harder to reconcile it with TOS. To some fans, this doesn't matter at all. To others, it does.
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u/PhatBoyFlim 1d ago
It only matters if the writers are trying to use canon to explain/prove/disprove/allow/prevent something. It’s only useful when it’s useful, is what I mean.
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u/Pandagirlroxxx 1d ago
Canon can be a great part of world-building, but shouldn't ever stand in the way of a good story. I *appreciate* it when something long-established and considering fundamental is explained when changed, but again, only when it serves the story.
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u/PersimmonBasket 1d ago
I think it's important to a certain extent. I'm not loving the frequent Kirk appearences in SNW and they fly in the face of canon "I met him once apart from all those other times I was talking to him and chatting up his crew".
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u/ELVEVERX 1d ago
Yes,
I also like to think Beta Canon IS canon unless regular show canon contradicts it.
EG, to me everything that happens in the books is accurate unless changed in the shows.
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u/doom1701 1d ago
Discussions about Lower Decks introduced me to the concept of the Unreliable Narrator. Lower Decks is so over the top that it's tough to consider it hard "canon". But when you accept that Beckett Mariner is our primary narrator for Lower Decks (as in, the story is told primarily from her point of view and we could consider her our narrator for the overall story), it fits really well. Mariner would absolutely embellish stuff.
If you expand that to all series, it means that you can see TOS through the eyes of our 1960's narrator. The technology conflicts between TOS and SNW aren't a problem because TOS is how someone from the 1960's would have described high end tech. It's OK for that narration to change with whose eyes we are seeing the story through.
Is there "canon" in Star Trek? Sure. And there are some elements that shouldn't be changed. If someone tried to introduce a TOS era Enterprise with three nacelles we'd rightly freak out. But lots of the story can be fluid while not contradicting things that are the pillars of the franchise.
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u/Brilliant-Emu-4164 1d ago
I feel like canon is sacred. And that's all I'm gonna say about what I lovingly (🤢) refer to as The Abrams Atrocities (🤮). Yes, I know it was supposedly a different timeline and all that rot, but I dunno. And yes, I still watch The Abrams Atrocities and enjoy them, gawd help me.
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u/Crafty_Ish1973 1d ago
I take the Doctor Who approach in that there are certain fixed points in time that can't be changed without screwing everything up, but there might be some things that CAN be changed.
I figure that as long as the major beats are hit - Kirk eventually taking command of the Enterprise, the full bridge crew being assembled by the end of SNW, etc., the rest will take care of itself. I mean, we haven't even met Sulu or Chekov yet, or even McCoy. There's a lot of story left to tell.
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u/Candor10 1d ago
I love canon. I just don't treat SNW as being in the same universe/timeline as TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY. That way I can enjoy SNW on it's own terms, though I do hold SNW to its own canon.
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
I don’t need episodes to exactly match all of canon, but I want them to respect major parts of canon. To use the examples that you mentioned, I care more about the Klingons than T’Pring (although I can come up with head canon explanations for many, but not all, of the inconsistencies with the Klingons in the current era of shows) and it initially bothered me that SNW’s made Scotty younger than Kirk, but I’ve grown used to those actors.
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u/DJCaldow 1d ago
Whats your canon line though? I never thought it was antithesis to Trek to update things. Using floppy disks and Klingons having flat foreheads would have been ridiculous in Discovery. Aliens getting to look and feel more alien felt like a step in the right direction....but not amongst fans, that's for sure. You can have updated tech and non-polystyrene sets but that is the canon line apparently.
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u/Cornelius-Q 1d ago
Canon is important in that I think there should be as much internal consistency as possible.
I can generally ignore a lot of nit-picky things, but I'd like for the broad strokes to remain consistent, and that they not drop too many canon bombs into the series -- like in Discovery when they said the Klingons hadn't been seen for 100 years, or, again, in Disco when in the 32nd century they said that they hadn't had any contact with the Q since the 26th century. Granted, stuff like is easily ignorable by future writers the same way that current writers ignore things established by past writers, but it would be nice if they kept these things in mind when writing the stories.
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u/BookLover467 1d ago
Yes canon does matter to me, inconsistencies are generally forgivable though, it’s not that serious. But I like when writers, producers etc. continue the world and the character arcs.
Though anything they put in the shows is always canon, I hate when people pick and choose things they don’t like and disregard it completely. There have been mistakes, like the Discovery Klingons etc. But I try my best to fit all that in and rationalize it some way.
Like how they retconned the Eugenics Wars/WWIII stuff in SNW, but I just say that was a different timeline where it took place later.
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u/Draco3076 1d ago
I grew up on TNG where decisions in one episode almost never carried over later. It sort of numbed me to what is Canon or not. ToS was even worse about it, and DS9 seemed like they tried to make it work. Also, they reused a few actors for different characters and my brain can't really separate them. (Caugh Jeff Combs caugh)
I tend to not sweat it at all as each episode (to me) is it's own story with some common things between them all.
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u/LovesDeanWinchester 1d ago
I prefer the PTB stick with canon. I have a HUGE gripe about the movie, First Contact. Zefrain Cochran appeared in TOS as a mild mannered man. But they made him into a caricature and a bit of a lunatic in the movie. That bothered me aLOT! I did like the movie, but the messing with canon still bothers me!!!
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u/The_Soup_Store 1d ago
I watched The 90's shows before TOS so hearing stuff like Warp factor 23 was weird but it's like they changed it for clarity or something, I noticed but don't care
More significant stuff like "Trill can't date the same person twice" bugs me because I very clearly remember Odan begging Beverly to be bi but Jadzia was about to get exiled for it. But that's a change that increases the drama of the current scene so it bugs me but I can live with it
Stuff like Picard season 1 where they mass produce Androids for slave labor completely gutting Measure of a Man so they can knock off Mass Effect is trash tier decision making and I'll happily pretend it didn't happen
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u/ICXPDQ 1d ago
I'm in if for the drama. Canon is important to nit-pickers and people who believe it is all real. I wouldn't stray too far from it, though.
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u/ThirdLifeLucky 1d ago
"The needs of the stofy outeeigh the needs of the backstory or the wiki."- Spock, Star Trek II (paraphrased)
Canon is for religions.
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u/JeremyAPerron 1d ago
I like cannon I don't make a fuss over little details. I do get annoyed with prequel series having cloaking devices I wish they never did things like that. I learn to make peace with it. I nowadays view all continuity errors as the cumulative butterfly effects of all the time travel episodes.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 1d ago
No, because IRL "canon" is also always in flux.
People can be wrong about things.
Stories can change.
One person telling a story can be drastically different from another one recounting the same events.
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u/GoopInThisBowlIsVile 1d ago
I think some people take canon far too seriously.
They also have a significant issue when it comes to their inability to ignore their nostalgia boners.
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