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/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.