syredronning (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
syredronning) wrote2010-05-29 02:33 am
syredronning) wrote2010-05-29 02:33 am
Entry tags:
This canon thing (meta)
I spent some more thinking on the canon question - yes, definitely masochistic here.
First of all, thanks for the kind voting on my poll, I've got to assume that I only have readers left who like my characters and ignore all other glitches :P
Then I thought about the definition of canon. As I wrote, the classic definition is "broadcast TV episodes and movies filmed with humans".
Which would include:
* ST V which was so strange that GR himself saw it as non-canon
* any trek series episode including Paris and Janeway as reptilians having eggs together, and Vulcan mind melds being heretic activities
Which would exclude:
* TAS (Trek animated series), including ... with the Spock-tormented-as-child background
* Meta from "Spockanalia" - original statements by D.C.Fontana, Roddenberry or the actors
* Cut material and behind the photo shots
* pro-novels
* skipped first scripts of movies
* any interview statements
* action figures (he, I'm saying that because I knew one canon nazi who couldn't read a brilliant fanfic novel in which Rigellians looked like Vulcans - which was even used in a pro-novel - because for TMP there was a Rigellian figure signed off by GR which looked different!)
(GR's statements are often taken as canon by fans but the problem here is that probably the least know all of what he said there and then. The classic definition has the advantage that all fans can catch up.)
Looking at that list, I think that there isn't a single fan around that doesn't have something out of the large number of out-of-canon source implemented into hir own canon (see canon nazi example above). GR wrote the TMP novelization with that footnote that makes K/S fans have instant orgasms. McCoy has a daughter because DCF asked DeForest Kelley whether he wanted his character to have a boy or a girl, for a script they planned. DCF was the one who stated in Spockanalia that Spock's family name had no vocals. Saavik is half-Romulan which was cut from the script but is in the movie novelization.
Which bits and pieces each fan declares to additional canon is a very personal decision, which IMO also has something to do with the time frame the fan became a fan.
I started with TOS way back then. My Romulans don't have forehead ridges but look like Vulcans (I'll warn for that in the next Draws ;). There are no Remans in my book. Now, Klingons, okay, I got used to the ridges because the whole race developed a lot more during TNG, but I don't like the explanation they gave in ENT, I rather think my TOS Klingons to look like TNG.
There are old Sarek/Amanda TOS fans around for which the "late" movies (ST II/III/IV) are apocrypha and only the one episode is correct on which they based their whole mental canon for the couple. Hey, it's been 15 years between TOS and the movies!
Spock's half-brother in ST V sent old fans wailing in disgust because WTF?
Troi/Worf - Frakes and Sirtis LAUGHED in the interview about it, saying that it was a strange and bad idea.
Red Matter in Reboot - gives me a fucking headache. And don't ask me where Nero hung around for 25 years *ignores most of comics after reading a wiki entry about them* (Edit: I own the first and liked the idea of Borg technology on the Narada, but the 25-years-gap irks me. Though I might give them another chance.)
The whole canon brooding was brought on by this rather well-done posting META: Star Trekonomics by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mijan who brought many valid points about how the future without money would look in GR's opinion. However, I can't really see it work - something she even comments on:
>I'm sorry, but I can't wrap my brain around this shit. You can't tell me that a society can function without money.
Well, you may be right. I'm NOT saying that this is how it WILL be, or SHOULD be. As I already tried to make abundantly clear, this is JUST a matter of establishing what is known of economics in Star Trek canon.
I have two personal ways to deal with canony things that I cannot work with - either it works for me somehow, no matter how magical (SpockPrime and his time warp), or it doesn't (no money) and then I might violate it for the sake of the story.
Re trekonomics, once I think it through, it can't be socialist, only communist, because there will be always limited resources (land, energy, etc.). So there is always the question how to distribute it, and it would in my mind always end with a kind of communist structure because someone would have to distribute the limited resources at one point - and I don't think it will work even with refined humanity. So this is a brain-breaker for me until someone writes fiction where all of this is dealt with in a way that makes me BELIEVE it could work - please point me to such stories if you know any. (Because I actually would like to see a society in which this could work, down to the resources-management.)
In any case, with the advent of Reboot, a movie that is glaringly AU per self-definition, I feel the strong dedication to CANON (in bold) has been diluted by the many new fans of who many hadn't even watched one TOS episode - and frankly, in many ways it felt like a liberation of creative forces. I may complain about the sudden rush of gender-swap, but I'm quite fond of AUs *g* and so many other strange things that influxed from other media fandoms. It's really a Reboot but it's more than that, it's an amalgamation of forty-five years of TV and media development. There's so much more social, gender and political meta around that I tend to feel overwhelmed by the many aspects I should have to care for that it could be quite overwhelming. Maybe that's another reason why today's writers care less for canon but more for other things: the past was more about interpretation of the original source - today is more about mash-up with everything interesting that is around.
Phew, long meta is long. Hope it makes any sense...
First of all, thanks for the kind voting on my poll, I've got to assume that I only have readers left who like my characters and ignore all other glitches :P
Then I thought about the definition of canon. As I wrote, the classic definition is "broadcast TV episodes and movies filmed with humans".
Which would include:
* ST V which was so strange that GR himself saw it as non-canon
* any trek series episode including Paris and Janeway as reptilians having eggs together, and Vulcan mind melds being heretic activities
Which would exclude:
* TAS (Trek animated series), including ... with the Spock-tormented-as-child background
* Meta from "Spockanalia" - original statements by D.C.Fontana, Roddenberry or the actors
* Cut material and behind the photo shots
* pro-novels
* skipped first scripts of movies
* any interview statements
* action figures (he, I'm saying that because I knew one canon nazi who couldn't read a brilliant fanfic novel in which Rigellians looked like Vulcans - which was even used in a pro-novel - because for TMP there was a Rigellian figure signed off by GR which looked different!)
(GR's statements are often taken as canon by fans but the problem here is that probably the least know all of what he said there and then. The classic definition has the advantage that all fans can catch up.)
Looking at that list, I think that there isn't a single fan around that doesn't have something out of the large number of out-of-canon source implemented into hir own canon (see canon nazi example above). GR wrote the TMP novelization with that footnote that makes K/S fans have instant orgasms. McCoy has a daughter because DCF asked DeForest Kelley whether he wanted his character to have a boy or a girl, for a script they planned. DCF was the one who stated in Spockanalia that Spock's family name had no vocals. Saavik is half-Romulan which was cut from the script but is in the movie novelization.
Which bits and pieces each fan declares to additional canon is a very personal decision, which IMO also has something to do with the time frame the fan became a fan.
I started with TOS way back then. My Romulans don't have forehead ridges but look like Vulcans (I'll warn for that in the next Draws ;). There are no Remans in my book. Now, Klingons, okay, I got used to the ridges because the whole race developed a lot more during TNG, but I don't like the explanation they gave in ENT, I rather think my TOS Klingons to look like TNG.
There are old Sarek/Amanda TOS fans around for which the "late" movies (ST II/III/IV) are apocrypha and only the one episode is correct on which they based their whole mental canon for the couple. Hey, it's been 15 years between TOS and the movies!
Spock's half-brother in ST V sent old fans wailing in disgust because WTF?
Troi/Worf - Frakes and Sirtis LAUGHED in the interview about it, saying that it was a strange and bad idea.
Red Matter in Reboot - gives me a fucking headache. And don't ask me where Nero hung around for 25 years *ignores most of comics after reading a wiki entry about them* (Edit: I own the first and liked the idea of Borg technology on the Narada, but the 25-years-gap irks me. Though I might give them another chance.)
The whole canon brooding was brought on by this rather well-done posting META: Star Trekonomics by
mijan who brought many valid points about how the future without money would look in GR's opinion. However, I can't really see it work - something she even comments on:>I'm sorry, but I can't wrap my brain around this shit. You can't tell me that a society can function without money.
Well, you may be right. I'm NOT saying that this is how it WILL be, or SHOULD be. As I already tried to make abundantly clear, this is JUST a matter of establishing what is known of economics in Star Trek canon.
I have two personal ways to deal with canony things that I cannot work with - either it works for me somehow, no matter how magical (SpockPrime and his time warp), or it doesn't (no money) and then I might violate it for the sake of the story.
Re trekonomics, once I think it through, it can't be socialist, only communist, because there will be always limited resources (land, energy, etc.). So there is always the question how to distribute it, and it would in my mind always end with a kind of communist structure because someone would have to distribute the limited resources at one point - and I don't think it will work even with refined humanity. So this is a brain-breaker for me until someone writes fiction where all of this is dealt with in a way that makes me BELIEVE it could work - please point me to such stories if you know any. (Because I actually would like to see a society in which this could work, down to the resources-management.)
In any case, with the advent of Reboot, a movie that is glaringly AU per self-definition, I feel the strong dedication to CANON (in bold) has been diluted by the many new fans of who many hadn't even watched one TOS episode - and frankly, in many ways it felt like a liberation of creative forces. I may complain about the sudden rush of gender-swap, but I'm quite fond of AUs *g* and so many other strange things that influxed from other media fandoms. It's really a Reboot but it's more than that, it's an amalgamation of forty-five years of TV and media development. There's so much more social, gender and political meta around that I tend to feel overwhelmed by the many aspects I should have to care for that it could be quite overwhelming. Maybe that's another reason why today's writers care less for canon but more for other things: the past was more about interpretation of the original source - today is more about mash-up with everything interesting that is around.
Phew, long meta is long. Hope it makes any sense...