How much do you care about canon?

[McAvoy]

Something I have been thinking about since I watched one Steve Shives videos. He has repeatedly said that he really doesn't care about whether or not something matches up with a previous episode or two or more. For him as far as I can tell, is the story. Afterall, none of it is real and storytellers should have some free reign to tell the story they want to tell.

Now don't bash me on what I said above if you disagree. The point is of what I am saying is how much do you care about internal consistency within a established franchise. The lore of what came before it. The rules of what you can and cannot do.

Do you care that Spock had an adopted sister due to Discovery?

Do you care about the explanation given through Enterprise why Klingons look the way they do in TOS?

Or Enterprise NX-01 in being and it strongly resembles the Akira class.

Or the small stuff. Can't beam through shields. Whether or not you can turn while at warp. How fast warp speed really is according to manuals versus on screen.

[McAvoy]

I will go first. Deck 29 for the Enterprise-E in Nemesis. Bottom deck but has a bottom pit of death in it. No different to me than Star Trek V with the turbo lift.

Or the Excelsior model itself is showing that she should be a 700 meter ship. Not a 467 meter one.

Not the huge difference between the two filming models made for TNG. Or the models made for the Defiant. Or the models done for the Nebula class.

[stryke]

It genuinely depends on the work.

Something I've said a lot over the years is one of the reasons I used to like the settings of WFB and 40k was because the canon was designed to be open ended, nebulous, and inconsistent. Stories were told with conjecture, from a biased point of view, and so they were free to be innaccurate, either deliberately or you could just personally go 'nah, that doesn't fit what else I know so I'm fine to consider it wrong'. This was especially helpful as GW hasn't always had the best crop of writers, and so it was helpful to have that attitude to continue to enjoy things when you have an incident like that one time involving Grey Knights and the Sisters of Battle.

What's funny is that as GW has moved away from that style to a much more definite hard canon due it being so much more character led these days it's got significantly more popular as so many people are drawn to those characters. So I'm well aware there's a case for doing it differently, as what they're doing now is really working out for them. I think there's still flaws as the old way was about the setting, and the setting was what matters cause that were you play your games to explore that setting, and so it's okay for it to be relatively stagnant in the time period. There can be additions to give it more depth but not subtractions outside of just not mentioning stuff like the dwarfs on space surfboards which in my heart will always be a thing. The issue with making it character based is people in the new wave of fandom expect them to actually accomplish things and I've seen frustration that GW setup stuff that by the nature of it still being a game setting can never be resolved. So there's this conflict between the story part and the game part cause it's no longer just about the world building.

Another one that shouldn't be similar but it really is, is the Simpsons. It doesn't have canon apart from when it does to make the story better or funnier. This was true even in the classic era unless you want to claim either Kamp Krusty or the Summer of 4ft2 are now non-canon. Sure it can be fun to explain away the discrepencies by talking about such concepts as comicbook time and parallel realities but those are just for fun, and the reality is it's an episodic show where every episode starts from a blank slate. There was a recent episode that started with a disclaimer that 'everything is this episode is true, all others are filled with lies' and it really made me laugh as many people could do with that reminder on the regular.

But then again that's not always the case.

If a show or work has a canon that matters, a canon that they want me to care about and get invested into the details, then yeah I'll care if they decide to change it. The hows and whys are important too. Like, I thought it was pretty funny them nodding towards the difference in DS9 with the Klingons, and while I didn't think it was great in Enterprise, cause that describes my feelings in regard to Enterprise in general, it wasn't something I was at all annoyed or unhappy about.

The look of the Klingons in Disco though I entirely rejected and were a big part of why I didn't watch the show cause it just seemed to be a change for the sake of making changes, and it wasn't even an improvement, but a significant downgrade to what they were before.

[Nealithi]

Canon or consistency? Transporters failing to work has been such a staple from the beginning. Someone's hairspray has selenium in it and disrupted transporters in the area! You groan and roll with it.
Picard's Enterprise has an anti-matter warp core. If the next episode it is fusion and the next it is zero point energy then things are less interesting to follow. Similar to Janeway having different attitudes between episodes made her difficult to root for.

I don't want to drop into a talk on a specific show. But I feel some respect to what came before makes a show more engaging than being random. SNW the Enterprise looks like a blend of the TOS and movie era versions. And is better for it in my opinion.
Meanwhile Doctor Who had two episodes conflict. In one episode from decades ago it was noticed that the sound the Tardis made on materializing was the noise of a Tardis. New Who says the Doctor leaves the parking brake on. That made the newer episode a double slap in the face on what the series had built.

[Winter]

Well I think every one likes cannons, they're big and fire giant balls made of metal. They look cool and are the a great example of boring but practical.

Now in terms of Canon, it mostly depends on how it is used in the story. Take that whole "Environmental" Episode from TNG Force of Nature. This episode establishes new facts about how moving at Warp works and how doing so is dangerous for the galaxy. The entire episode changes everything we know about how moving at lightspeed works and that moving forward will need to change going forward with ships going at slower speed to avoid hurting the galaxy.

And this has been universally ignored by literally everyone because A) It adds a complicated element that hurts stories going forward and B) It's stupid because Warp Speed doesn't exist therefore it's a bad metaphor for an actual Environmental message. C) The episode it comes from is just plain bad and no one likes it and finally D) The person who makes the argument and "Proves her point" does so in a way that hinders her own argument and gets herself killed and endangers those she claims to protect.

This episode was a mistake and ignoring it was the right call.

To use another example a post I made about the StarFortress SF-17 bombers from The Last Jedi. This is a case of ignoring established continuity and canon for the sake of drama and it's bad. I don't begrudge anyone who likes this scene or the point it's trying to make but the problem is it falls apart because Rian Johnson created a newer and worser version of a existing ship to make his story work instead of using something that already exist.

I've already went over the problems with those bombers so I won't repeat myself but the issue here is that Johnson created a problem by ignoring canon and the film is worse off for it and he does this against several times throughout the film.

Both suffer from the same problem, the story is trying to make a point but in order for this point to work the writers choose to ignore established continuity to make it work. The key difference is Trek could just ignore Force of Nature and move on, Star Wars has deal with the fallout of the choices made in The Last Jedi because it's such an important entry in the series.

[Nealithi]

Well I think every one likes cannons, they're big and fire giant balls made of metal. They look cool and are the a great example of boring but practical.

Now in terms of Canon, it mostly depends on how it is used in the story. Take that whole "Environmental" Episode from TNG Force of Nature. This episode establishes new facts about how moving at Warp works and how doing so is dangerous for the galaxy. The entire episode changes everything we know about how moving at lightspeed works and that moving forward will need to change going forward with ships going at slower speed to avoid hurting the galaxy.

And this has been universally ignored by literally everyone because A) It adds a complicated element that hurts stories going forward and B) It's stupid because Warp Speed doesn't exist therefore it's a bad metaphor for an actual Environmental message. C) The episode it comes from is just plain bad and no one likes it and finally D) The person who makes the argument and "Proves her point" does so in a way that hinders her own argument and gets herself killed and endangers those she claims to protect.

This episode was a mistake and ignoring it was the right call.

To use another example a post I made about the StarFortress SF-17 bombers from The Last Jedi. This is a case of ignoring established continuity and canon for the sake of drama and it's bad. I don't begrudge anyone who likes this scene or the point it's trying to make but the problem is it falls apart because Rian Johnson created a newer and worser version of a existing ship to make his story work instead of using something that already exist.

I've already went over the problems with those bombers so I won't repeat myself but the issue here is that Johnson created a problem by ignoring canon and the film is worse off for it and he does this against several times throughout the film.

Both suffer from the same problem, the story is trying to make a point but in order for this point to work the writers choose to ignore established continuity to make it work. The key difference is Trek could just ignore Force of Nature and move on, Star Wars has deal with the fallout of the choices made in The Last Jedi because it's such an important entry in the series.

Hang on I have an issue here. How are cannons boring but practical? People love battleships and ships of the line etc. So they are not 'boring'. And modern missiles have made the art of naval cannons almost obsolete. So how do they remain practical?

[Winter]

[Hang on I have an issue here. How are cannons boring but practical? People love battleships and ships of the line etc. So they are not 'boring'. And modern missiles have made the art of naval cannons almost obsolete. So how do they remain practical?

Have you ever worked with a cannon before? I have and let me tell you they are REALLY boring to work with. It's a long slow process of loading the thing and it takes forever to aim and fire. In other words, boring.

But compared to other weapons they still get the job done cause even if you don't hit the target you're still likely going to to a lot of damage so they do their job no matter what which makes them by comparison to other weapons pratcial.

But more importantly, I was pocking fun at McAvoy misspelling Canon so I decided to be silly and I'm still recovering from this damn cold I have so my brain is only half here. OH LOOK PINK ELEPHANTS!!!


youtu.be/jcZUPDMXzJ8

[Thebestoftherest]

I have the feeling of it matters as much as the writers make it. Like if you gives long word salad of techno bable you better not be wasting out time.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Something I have been thinking about since I watched one Steve Shives videos. He has repeatedly said that he really doesn't care about whether or not something matches up with a previous episode or two or more. For him as far as I can tell, is the story. Afterall, none of it is real and storytellers should have some free reign to tell the story they want to tell.

Now don't bash me on what I said above if you disagree. The point is of what I am saying is how much do you care about internal consistency within a established franchise. The lore of what came before it. The rules of what you can and cannot do.

Do you care that Spock had an adopted sister due to Discovery?

No, it doesn’t interfere.

Do you care about the explanation given through Enterprise why Klingons look the way they do in TOS?

No because I find the onus on the people that changed the Klingons for the first movie in the first place.

[pilight]

I am mostly pretty forgiving about canon. As long as Spock is logical, McCoy is compassionate, and Kirk is heroic the little things can be forgiven. It's no different than the tales of King Arthur or Robin Hood. They often conflict in the details without detracting from the strength of the stories.