News Discovery and Trek Continuity

[DSG2k]

With respect to attempts to challenge the reading of Kurtzman's statement, let me present one from ten years ago that demonstrates it to be correct.

Alex Kurtzman: We did a lot of reading of the books. I think we consider the books canon to a large degree so it’s very important to us to stay consistent. But there is a bit of a hole and there’s actually different mythologies about {Kirk & Spock's} history so it’s a matter of staying consistent but also figuring out how you can play around a little bit anchored by the rules

Source: https://trekmovie.com/2008/09/19/orci-kurtzman-trek-very-true-to-canon-even-books/

So again, the issue is as I have presented it vis-à-vis continuity and canon.

 

[Lord Garth]

I suppose no one is allowed to change their stance on an issue ever...

There was no current Trek series in 2009. Tie-ins would have a lot more weight. And since they were rebooting TOS, they had to look at the source material, of which there were only three seasons. So they had to look at the novels to fill in any gaps of information for inspiration, since the first six movies only covered the later years.

Different time, different circumstances. But, even in 2009, I personally didn't consider the new tie-in comics or novels canon because I figured they could be contradicted in a second. Granted there are only three Kelvin Movies, so not a lot of on-screen material to contradict the tie-ins.

 

[cultcross]

Plus he's basically saying the exact same thing there - we like the books, we don't want to screw with them, but it's impossible not to.

 

[DSG2k]

I suppose no one is allowed to change their stance on an issue ever...

What change? The point of the second quote is that he has consistently viewed the books and comics as canon/continuity to follow. It's what he said in 2008 and what he said in 2018. The only difference is that, before, he was a movie scriptwriter for Paramount, but now he's running the television franchise for CBS.

As CBS's Rick Berman, his view carries rather more weight now, and definitely matters with respect to Discovery and the canon policy it's operating under.

 

[DSG2k]

Plus he's basically saying the exact same thing there - we like the books, we don't want to screw with them, but it's impossible not to.

Yes, he has adopted as canon a set of material as vast and self-contradictory (if not moreso) than Doctor Who.

The point, however, is not the degree of difficulty or whether he does or doesn't like them, but the fact that it is now considered canon continuity material whereas this was never so before, and what that means for the universe Discovery inhabits versus the universe of the Roddenberry-Berman shows.

If Kurtzman instead had said Doctor Who is now canon for Star Trek, the universe that his new Trek work would inhabit is different than what existed previously. Thus, it is a separate universe, even if it is meant and marketed as a continuation of the former one.

In effect, what one has here is Tuvix.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Kurtzman wouldn't be the first Trek showrunner to use the novels as source material. A lot of the Janeway backstory in Voyager novel Mosaic by Jeri Taylor was introduced into the series specifically, in the episode Coda.

 

[Manchester]

So? Televised Trek has always negated the novelverse since the days when the books had numbers on them. Heck books even negated other books at times.

Not seeing the problem here.

He's just trying to create a problem where there isn't one. And we all fell for the bait.

 

[Manchester]

but the fact that it is now considered canon continuity material whereas this was never so before

To my understanding, books have always been canon but they can be overruled by what's on screen. In this interview he's just saying that they aren't trying to piss any novel readers off, but it will happen.

 

[DSG2k]

Kurtzman wouldn't be the first Trek showrunner to use the novels as source material. A lot of the Janeway backstory in Voyager novel Mosaic by Jeri Taylor was introduced into the series specifically, in the episode Coda.

Jeri Taylor wrote and canonized two novels, including Mosaic, and was a Voyager Exec Producer.

 

[DSG2k]

To my understanding, books have always been canon but they can be overruled by what's on screen. In this interview he's just saying that they aren't trying to piss any novel readers off, but it will happen.

Prior to the Viacom split, books were never canon but for the aforementioned Taylor exceptions.

For a look at how things worked back then, see: http://www.st-v-sw.net/CanonWars//STCanon.html . . . it was probably last updated before JJ-Trek was even a thing.

 

[DSG2k]

Regarding my "Tuvix" analogy, let me expand on that a bit.

Many view Discovery as true Trek because it is, to borrow a phrase, the next closest continuer of the Trek shows of the past. It was marketed that way, after all.

However, if the classic Trek canon is Tuvok and the books and comics continuities are Neelix, what Kurtzman has done with Discovery is not to give us more Tuvok, but to execute a transporter accident and give us Tuvix.

Why would I, to learn about Tuvok, waste my time on Tuvix? Tuvix can tell me things about Tuvok but only via a distorted lens, so I might as well stick with what Tuvok said. This is doubly true when Tuvix seems to sometimes "reimagine" assorted Tuvok things, add in new contrary info, and otherwise get Tuvok details wrong.

This is not to suggest Tuvix is bad, mind you, or that it is bad for you to like him. However, pretending he is Tuvok is pretty silly.

 

[Timo]

But everybody who does Trek in any sort of an official capacity always brings something new into the mix.

Some may say it's comics continuity. Others may confess it's that bestselling Star Wars touch, or a smidgen of current RW affairs, or Shakespearean drama. Most won't say anything, though.

Yet it's never Tuvok. That is, Tuvok is always in flux, or growth, and no amount of futuro-barium-tagging transporter magic can bring back the "original". And that's not dependent on what the current folks say or fail to say about their motivations or influences.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DigificWriter]

DSG2K, you keep using words without accurately understanding what they mean.

Kurtzman is stating that there exists an explicit desire to refer to the entire universe of Trek-related material without contradiction in relation to the production of Discovery and other projects, but that said desire is tempered by the inevitable reality that contradiction is going to happen.

Neither of these statements are new or particularly groundbreaking, and do not in any way suggest what you are claiming they do: that Kurtzman has suddenly granted all of the pre-existing tie-in material the status of Canon.

 

[DSG2k]

But everybody who does Trek in any sort of an official capacity always brings something new into the mix.

Some may say it's comics continuity. Others may confess it's that bestselling Star Wars touch, or a smidgen of current RW affairs, or Shakespearean drama.

Comics continuity doesn't fit in that list.

"Bringing something new into the mix" isn't an issue. Every new writer for TNG, every spec script bought and made, every retcon . . . all of this added to the existing universe, a piece at a time, *within the existing boundaries*.

Bringing in an entirely different universe is altogether different.

Yet it's never Tuvok. That is, Tuvok is always in flux, or growth, and no amount of futuro-barium-tagging transporter magic can bring back the "original". And that's not dependent on what the current folks say or fail to say about their motivations or influences.

Star Trek, like Tuvok, can grow and evolve. It did so throughout the Roddenberry-Berman era.

However, changing what Star Trek even is in advance of evolving it means that, like an evolving Tuvix, it is not an evolution of Tuvok.

 

[XCV330]

Star Trek, like Tuvok, can grow and evolve. It did so throughout the Roddenberry-Berman era..

It bloomed and it flourished and it declined and rot set in. That's how things happen. The comics and books have good stories and material worth delving into. It doesn't matter if its currently out of continuity if there are ideas with exploring. It's all star trek.

 

[DSG2k]

DSG2K, you keep using words without accurately understanding what they mean.

If your statement were accurate I would've expected to find a quote of Kurtzman saying the books and comics are not canon. Instead, I found the exact opposite.

 

[DSG2k]

It's all star trek.

It may all be Star Trek-branded entertainment product, but, to paraphrase the Great Bird, it's not all Star Trek.

 

[XCV330]

It may all be Star Trek-branded entertainment product, but, to paraphrase the Great Bird, it's not all Star Trek.

I can't communicate with cultists. I've tried. Doesn't work. Please enjoy the cleansing and ritual adoration of your Roddenberry statue. I could tell you where to put it, but you wouldn't like it.

 

[DigificWriter]

If your statement were accurate I would've expected to find a quote of Kurtzman saying the books and comics are not canon. Instead, I found the exact opposite.

No, you didn't, because what you found does not say what you are claiming it does.

The only statements regarding the Canonicity of Star Trek tie-in material that have been made in the current "era" of Trek pertain specifically to the Discovery tie-in novels, which Discovery's writers have collaborated on through Kirsten Beyer and which, like Jeri Taylor's Mosaic and Pathways, both inform and have been informed by what is happening onscreen.

 

[DSG2k]

I can't communicate with cultists. I've tried. Doesn't work. Please enjoy the cleansing and ritual adoration of your Roddenberry statue. I could tell you where to put it, but you wouldn't like it.

I'm no Roddenberry worshipper, but if you're so interested in such activities I would simply note that he'd be a lot more comfortable than your Discovery model.