Alex Kurtzman signs 4 year contract extension worth $160 Million

[J!!]

StarTrek has always played fast and loose with its continuity, it's only the fans who fetishize it.

[clearspira]

StarTrek has always played fast and loose with its continuity, it's only the fans who fetishize it.

Examples?

[J!!]

There's the first thing that comes to mind, from the very second episode (first, if you don't count the pilot). Others off the top of my head include:

-Women can't be starship captains, until they can. Even Roddenberry later admitted that was indefensibly sexist.

-Spock initially claims that Vulcans don't have emotions, which includes himself (despite smiling in the pilot). But then later says he has emotions on account of being half-human. Then later still, we're told that Vulcans are intensely emotional, just completely repressed.

-Bones claiming that Vulcan was conquered (assumedly by Earth), only for Spock to later claim that Vulcan has never ever ever ever been conquered.

-Early episodes of the original series state that The Enterprise is specifically an Earth ship, and that all the colonies they go to are Earth colonies. The Federation and Starfleet don't get introduced until fairly late in the first season (A Taste of Armageddon, according to Wikipedia).

-Numerous episodes of the original series feature money and commerce as a normal part of life, only for later shows to insist that the Federation has no money (no explanation for how they pay their tab at Quarks). I've don't remember where, but I've heard that the whole 'no money' thing originates from a throw-away line in Star Trek 4, with Roddenberry liking the idea so much he decided to make a big deal out of it in TNG.

-The original series makes absolutely no bones about Starfleet being a military organization, with Kirk referring to himself as a soldier several times throughout the show, only for all later shows to claim that Starfleet is not, nor has ever been a military.

-The generic Space-Goon Klingons of the original series are absolutely nothing like the honorable Space-Viking Klingons of TNG and later. Which could be rationalized as a recent cultural development, if not for the fact that they keep insisting that their Space-Viking shtick goes back thousands of years. But then, in Enterprise, we see that they actually were Space-Vikings before TOS. Except Archer's lawyer claims that the military takeover of the government & the cultural obsession with warfare was a recent development. Damn Klingons just can't make up their mind about whether or not to be Space-Vikings. What's so damn hard about this? Why would anybody not want to be a Space-Viking? It sounds freak'n awesome!

-Likewise, the Trill as introduced in TNG got a complete overhaul for DS9, both visually and in the way the symbiote joining works. They later make a big deal about how rare (and later not-rare) symbiote compatibility was among their people, with no mention at all of the fact that Riker The Human was apparently compatible.

-Speaking of Trill, Chuck points out in his Field of Fire review that the previous Dax host got reconnected from a guy who flipped out and killed his teacher, to a full on serial killer.


I could go on, but I fear I may nerd myself into oblivion. Sufficed to say that they way StarTrek's always operated is to remember continuity when it's a narrative asset, and to ignore it when it's a narrative impediment. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The franchise has been going for close to 60 years now, shaped by dozens if not hundreds of individual writers, all with their own individual vision, making everything up as they went along. Trying to keep everything internally consistent would not only be futile, but ultimately stifling.

Just as an example, consider Nor The Battle To The Strong. How would that episode have worked if they'd allowed themselves to be constrained by Roddenberry's 'In the future, people just accept death' bullshit? Jake, facing the horrors of war, surrounded by the dead and dying, just shrugs it off?


Trying to keep a tight continuity can work, but only when the bottom of the iceberg is well developed ahead of time, and only for stories/series with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. And that's just never been StarTrek's style.

StarTrek is ultimately a franchise that's designed to go on indefinitely, and to do that it needs to be free to change and evolve and reinvent itself as needed. It can't do that if every writer is stuck hauling the baggage of 60 years telling them what stories they are and aren't allowed to tell. Fast and loose is really they only way they can play it.

TL;DR: continuity fixation inevitably turns good ideas bad, and bad ideas worse.

[J!!]

damn, that ended up being so much longer than i expected.

[Mabus]

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2021/08/ ... -attached/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv ... t-4137472/
https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2021/08/ ... irculation
https://trekmovie.com/2021/08/03/star-t ... nt-to-amc/

So it would appear that this is just dust in the eyes, as Paramount may axe either Discovery or Picard (which filmed their next two seasons back to back to cut costs) to make room for Kurtzman's next pet projects, which is very likely, given that Paramount is currently in the cost saving mode due to the merger and the fact that their latest film releases have been nothing but bombs, which is why they've licensed all of their pre-NuTrek films to AMC as opposed to streaming them on Paramount+ to collect more money, which wouldn't have happened if Paramount+ was an actual success.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Enterprise is an Earth ship heading towards the edge of the galaxy.

[CmdrKing]

Two things:

1) I’m not sure their talk of putting shows on other platforms necessarily means Paramount+ is failing to make money: Viacom owns all this nonsense, so it could as easily be that they want to ensure all their revenue streams are productive and are trying to balance how to entice people to the streaming without scaring off ad buys for cable/on air TV.

2) I feel like the idea that Picard could end after it’s already in-production seasons isn’t that weird? I mean they named the show after the now 81 year old star, it seems unlikely they planned for it to run for 10 years, y’know?

[TGLS]

1) I’m not sure their talk of putting shows on other platforms necessarily means Paramount+ is failing to make money: Viacom owns all this nonsense, so it could as easily be that they want to ensure all their revenue streams are productive and are trying to balance how to entice people to the streaming without scaring off ad buys for cable/on air TV.

That's kind of the same way I was thinking. P+ looks at their statistics, and sees few people are watching Trek movies, so they sell the rights to AMC. Surely, it would be more concerning if they did the opposite, as that would indicate their current content isn't attracting viewers.

2) I feel like the idea that Picard could end after it’s already in-production seasons isn’t that weird? I mean they named the show after the now 81 year old star, it seems unlikely they planned for it to run for 10 years, y’know?

I think somebody (Chabon?) mentioned in an interview they had a few plans for the series (including a three and five season plan), but noted that the series would continue until Patrick Stewart was tired of it.

[clearspira]

There's the first thing that comes to mind, from the very second episode (first, if you don't count the pilot). Others off the top of my head include:

-Women can't be starship captains, until they can. Even Roddenberry later admitted that was indefensibly sexist.

-Spock initially claims that Vulcans don't have emotions, which includes himself (despite smiling in the pilot). But then later says he has emotions on account of being half-human. Then later still, we're told that Vulcans are intensely emotional, just completely repressed.

-Bones claiming that Vulcan was conquered (assumedly by Earth), only for Spock to later claim that Vulcan has never ever ever ever been conquered.

-Early episodes of the original series state that The Enterprise is specifically an Earth ship, and that all the colonies they go to are Earth colonies. The Federation and Starfleet don't get introduced until fairly late in the first season (A Taste of Armageddon, according to Wikipedia).

-Numerous episodes of the original series feature money and commerce as a normal part of life, only for later shows to insist that the Federation has no money (no explanation for how they pay their tab at Quarks). I've don't remember where, but I've heard that the whole 'no money' thing originates from a throw-away line in Star Trek 4, with Roddenberry liking the idea so much he decided to make a big deal out of it in TNG.

-The original series makes absolutely no bones about Starfleet being a military organization, with Kirk referring to himself as a soldier several times throughout the show, only for all later shows to claim that Starfleet is not, nor has ever been a military.

-The generic Space-Goon Klingons of the original series are absolutely nothing like the honorable Space-Viking Klingons of TNG and later. Which could be rationalized as a recent cultural development, if not for the fact that they keep insisting that their Space-Viking shtick goes back thousands of years. But then, in Enterprise, we see that they actually were Space-Vikings before TOS. Except Archer's lawyer claims that the military takeover of the government & the cultural obsession with warfare was a recent development. Damn Klingons just can't make up their mind about whether or not to be Space-Vikings. What's so damn hard about this? Why would anybody not want to be a Space-Viking? It sounds freak'n awesome!

-Likewise, the Trill as introduced in TNG got a complete overhaul for DS9, both visually and in the way the symbiote joining works. They later make a big deal about how rare (and later not-rare) symbiote compatibility was among their people, with no mention at all of the fact that Riker The Human was apparently compatible.

-Speaking of Trill, Chuck points out in his Field of Fire review that the previous Dax host got reconnected from a guy who flipped out and killed his teacher, to a full on serial killer.


I could go on, but I fear I may nerd myself into oblivion. Sufficed to say that they way StarTrek's always operated is to remember continuity when it's a narrative asset, and to ignore it when it's a narrative impediment. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The franchise has been going for close to 60 years now, shaped by dozens if not hundreds of individual writers, all with their own individual vision, making everything up as they went along. Trying to keep everything internally consistent would not only be futile, but ultimately stifling.

Just as an example, consider Nor The Battle To The Strong. How would that episode have worked if they'd allowed themselves to be constrained by Roddenberry's 'In the future, people just accept death' bullshit? Jake, facing the horrors of war, surrounded by the dead and dying, just shrugs it off?


Trying to keep a tight continuity can work, but only when the bottom of the iceberg is well developed ahead of time, and only for stories/series with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. And that's just never been StarTrek's style.

StarTrek is ultimately a franchise that's designed to go on indefinitely, and to do that it needs to be free to change and evolve and reinvent itself as needed. It can't do that if every writer is stuck hauling the baggage of 60 years telling them what stories they are and aren't allowed to tell. Fast and loose is really they only way they can play it.

TL;DR: continuity fixation inevitably turns good ideas bad, and bad ideas worse.

[Deledrius]

Fixating on those who fixate on continuity is a good way to miss the point, IMO.