Talk:Star Trek canon

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Good article Star Trek canon has been listed as one of the Arts good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
December 29, 2006 Good article nominee Listed
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Contents


That last bit reads alot more like a rant then actual encyclopedic content. Oberiko 01:40, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Looks pretty good after Woohookitty's clean up. 68.81.231.127 09:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Intrepid class starship and deleted scenes.

On the Intrepid class starship page, I wrote:

"In addition, the bridge of an Intrepid class starship is a self-contained module that can detach itself from the ship in an emergency and manuever with thrusters."

This was based on: [1] from "Star Trek: The Magazine". I ask here instead of the Intrepid class page as I am wondering if this magazine is canon. It (and other sources like it from people that worked on Star Trek) should be mentioned in the article. If not, I'll simply remove the sentence.

Also, are deleted scenes from movies canon? Martin Madden briefly appeared in a deleted scene in "Nemesis" and has his own article and was intended by the writers to be canon but was deleted and not shown on screen.

"As a rule of thumb, the events that take place within the real action series and movies are canon, or official Star Trek facts. Story lines, characters, events, stardates, etc. that take place within the fictional novels, the Animated Series and the various comic lines are not canon." [2]

Are deleted scenes canon? --Blue387 20:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Strictly, no: deleted scenes from anything should not be canon (maybe semi-canon at most and noted as such), unless they are restored as part of an episode/piece later; for example, the enhancements made to Star Trek: The Motion Picture upon its re-release. The extra material sometimes released with ST productions should not be considered canon as well (e.g., recent releases of Star Trek: Nemesis, etc.), should not be canon but semi-canon only and distinguished as such. Ditto for magazine contributions/articles.
So, no: I don't believe there were any legitimate mentions in the series of the Intrepid class bridge module (or Galaxy class, for that matter) being detachable, so this isn't canon per se and should be noted as such, if at all. Thoughts? Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 04:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Star Trek or Star Trek ?

Hello to you all! Many of the ST articles I've perused (and edited thusly) recently contain both forms (i.e., Star Trek or Star Trek — italicised or not) to describe the 'ST universe'. As such, I believe this underlines a slightly significant issue – of (in)consistency or of (not) having a standard (to my knowledge) – regarding various Star Trek references on Wikipedia pages in general. A few questions:

(1) The first overall question that this begs is: what term and how should the ST universe be referred to in toto: Star Trek (plain) or Star Trek (italicised)?
(2) Next: which of the terms should be used to describe the original series: the term Star Trek (italicised; the genuine name for the original series) or Star Trek: The Original Series (or ST:TOS/ variation) (not the original name, but used to distinguish it from the various incarnations and from the larger 'universe')?
(3) What, if any, confusion will or can result from the varying usage/appearance of this term? That is: will someone infer that Star Trek (italicised) infer the original series or universe? Or will they infer that Star Trek (plain) infers the universe, a general reference, and not the original show, et al.?

Note that I'm not generally referring to wikilinks in Wikipedia – e.g., Star Trek fictional universe – (which should likely be all one way or another italicised or not). just in-text references everywhere.

So, I think a standard must be developed or adhered to with using this term in Wikipedia (perhaps by consulting and comparing to 'canon' reference works, et al.), and I'll go with that. Thoughts? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 18:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cite for Paramounts definition of canon

I see this talk page hasn't been used in a while, but hopefully someone can answer my question. Is there any reference to Paramounts definition of what is canon and what isn't? I am working on a new Star Trek book article, and want to have all the references in there before I add the article to Wikipedia. Thanks, Chuck(척뉴넘) 06:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I found this at the Star Trek website. I think it something that can be used as a reference if anyone was wondering. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/help/faqs/faq/676.html . Chuck(contrib) 02:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Star Trek VI

What parts of Star Trek VI are supposed to be non-canon? Adam Bishop 23:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistencies in Star Trek canon

Lately I've been working on a page to complement this one, that will cover inconsistencies in the Star Trek canon. For the purposes of that page, I will take canon to be the most common definition, including the five live series and ten movies.

This page would be in part a replacement to the now-deleted page on continuity violations in ENT. But unlike that page, it will not cover possible violations and theories/explainations to resolve them, and only include confirmed violations with sources. It will also be extended to cover inconsistencies between the other series and movies, which do not involve ENT.

The prototype for the page is in my user space, here: User:Ritchy/Inconsistencies in Star Trek canon. I invite everyone to collaborate in building the page, so that it may be ready for inclusion in wikipedia swifftly. -- Ritchy 15:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New page

This page is tagged for clean up. Furthermore, it is unsourced and, IMHO, could be better structured and written. Consequently, I remade the page from scratch. The new page is structure by material rather then by type of canon. It eliminates the "semi-canon", "unofficial canon" and all the other fan-made divisions of canon, and instead has a clear list of canon, not canon, and disputed/unclear areas. Finally, and most importantly, it is sourced with relevant quotes. You can see the new page here: Ritchy/Canon (Star Trek).

Obviously, I believe that we should replace the current page with this new page. But I will not do this unilaterally. Instead, I would like to have some feedback from the people around here. How is the new page? Is anything unclear or missing? Should something from the current page be included in the new one?

Looking forward to all your feedback! -- Ritchy 04:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the that page much better than the one presently here. There are some points I would like to address with it: Voyages of the Imagination has some excellent and sourceable info regarding the decanonisation of TAS in the mid-1980s for example, to the extent that novel writers and the comic strips weren't allowed to use TAS elements. What canon really means is "that stuff which we have committed not to contradict, or at least to retcon". In fact, though, the writers of Star Trek (including Gene, as noted) have never really considered itself bound by previously established facts, and where they do contradict established facts, have often left the fans to rationalise this, rather than creating an actual comic-book like retcon. Saying "the books are not canon" is saying "we will not consider ourselves bound by the books, and will not refer to events therein". Morwen - Talk 16:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's been a week. There's only been one reply, and it's a positive one. So I'll go ahead and change the page. -- Ritchy 03:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New page talk

NOTE: This discussion took place on the talk page of Ritchy/Canon (Star Trek), while the new page was under development. As the new page is now up and this user page will be deleted, I've taken the liberty of transferring the discussion here.

Still thinking this revision takes this concept in too absolute terms. Not sure where this should go precisely, but is a useful quote from Marco Palmieri [who is the Pocket Star Trek editor]

"canon refers to the body of information the show and film writers adhere to when crafting new stories."

he denounces the usage "personal canon" and suchforth. He notes that "it's also frequently and incorrectly used in place of the word 'continuity' and 'consistency'. These terms are not interchangeable."

Star Trek has never really considered itself bound by what was on screen before, though. so isn't the definition effectively meaningless?

They also quote Paula Block, who notes that Jeri Taylor's books were quasi-canon for a while, and that Gene had a very fluid attitude to canon, maybe even declaring bits of the 3rd season of TOS to be non-canon.

Block notes that "life isn't long enough to spend a lot of time dwelling on non-issues" like canon.

(2006) Voyages of the Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 1416503498.  Morwen - Talk 19:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure where you're going with this? The first part about Palmieri's quotes seem like they would better fit in the page about Canon (fiction), rather then here, as they sound to me as they define/discuss the general concept of canon rather then how it specificly applies in the Star Trek franchise. Block's quote about Roddenberry's attitude to canon is already in the article (reference #4 FYI) as is the information about Taylor's books (although I don't have a quote from Block specifically on that, I do have some other references).
Regarding your edit/question on the article page, "who by?" is by Mike Sussman, producer of Enterprise and the one who made that specific prop. The reference is already in the text, though I'll add it to the image caption as well to avoid future ambiguity. You're right, I should include unreferenced quotes in the image captions and assume people will dig through the article to find the relevant reference. -- Ritchy 23:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
So, you think him saying "it shouldn't be taken as hard canon" can be turned into "it is not canon", despite all these statements from Paramount and from Pocket and other sources that canon really isn't a black and white thing. In any case, Mike Sussman isn't CBS/Paramount: the last episode of Ent was aired May 13, 2005, implying he was not speaking with an official hat on (as production would have wound up before then). Right now the person who decides what is Trek canon is going to be J. J. Abrams, after all. Morwen - Talk 07:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
He says, paraphrasing, "Those bios are just something we slapped together quickly, without double-checking the facts. Don't take it too seriously." In the complete quote, he even calls attention to the fact that his bio says Archer commanded the Enterprise from 2150 to 2160, while in the show he was seen in command from 2151 to 2161 (although I didn't include this bit in the page, to keep the quote short and to the point -- should I add it?) Yes, I take that as him saying it's not canon. How do you take it?
I know canon is not a black and white thing. That's the point I try to bring accross in this page, by illustrating all the on-going canon debates. If an official source debates the interpretation of the viewscreen, or other illegible material seen in the episodes, and insists that they are canon, then I would love to add it to present the conflicting viewpoitns. However, I have never seen such a source. If you have one, that would be quite helpful. -- Ritchy 15:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Follow-up: Sussman may have been talking after the cancellation of ENT, but he was talking about something he did while the series was going on. He wasn't making a new statement, he was recalling something that happened back then. Saying he had no autority because ENT was over by then is off-topic; he had some level of autority back when it happened, and that's what counts. JJ Abrams will have some autority on the upcoming movie, but not on the entire Star Trek Franchise! He'll get to decide what is canon in the movie, in the sense that he gets to decide what happens in the movie, but he most definitly does not get to decide what is canon throughout the franchise. Not even Gene Roddenberry had that kind of power.
At any rate, I've added some text to the intro paragraph (among other edits) today, to make it clearer that the notion of "canon" in this case is not set in stone but is fluid and open to debate. I hope this update addresses some of the issues you had with the page. -- Ritchy 19:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Review; December 17, 2006

Hello, there. I'm Jerichi, and I'll be your Good Article Reviewer today.

Being somewhat of a Star Trek fan, I am quite pleased to see someone nominate an article for Good Article which is related to Star Trek. Although I do like the series, don't take this as a bias towards this article achieving Good Article status, as for I shall look at it from the guidelines given to me, and pass it or fail it based on that, as I am supposed to do.

This article looks like it has been dilegnetly worked on, and its quite complete, in my humble opinion. But, to give you and myself an overview of things that need to be done, regardless of passing or failing this as a GA, I'll give you my checklist. The "-" indicates that something needs fixing, the "=" indicates that it is of decent quality, and the "+" indicates that it is of great quality, but mind you, this doesn't mean it is perfect. If there is a "~" next to it, that means it is borderline with the next rating. "=~" would be borderline "+" and "=" for example.

  1. It is well written.
    a (Prose: It flows quite well, but still keeps the ability to be able to read parts of it without the portions being totally dependent on each other. The only thing I can't say I like is the one sentence sections. Try and expand those if you can.): Verdict: =~
    b (Structure: Well structured. All portions are clearly defined.): Verdict: +
    c (MoS: Everything checks out fine here. Although there may be some minor details I overlooked, it seems to be good.): Verdict: +
    d (Jargon: This article basically is about jargon used when talking about Star Trek. All the words which need links have links. Not much to say.): Verdict: +
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (References: All of the refrences are from offical websites, interviews, and a few other misc. sources which seem to check out ok.) Verdict: + :
    b (Inline citations: A large amount of these. I'm actually suprised by the amount.): Verdict: +
    c (Reliable: From the sources given, and the article itself, everything seems to be nice and reliable.): Verdict: +
    d (OR: Too many quotations, links, and genral refrences to claim anything to be OR.) : Verdict: +
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (Major aspects: All of the forms of media which may be questioned as canonical or not are here, and they match up with the other articles as being part of the Star Trek series.): Verdict: +
    b (Focused: It seems to stay on topic. Nothing really concernes me here.): Verdict: +
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (Fair representation: I don't see any problem with this. All viewpoints, which, in this case, is mostly of Gene, his staff, and fans, seems to be covered.): Verdict: +
    b (All significant views: Since most of the signifiacant views are that of the ones who create the seires, and all the names that would have any say over the status of canon (which seems to be only Gene), this checks out.): Verdict: +
  5. It is stable.
    (No fights have broken out over anything, and no edit wars have happened. This also seems to be a pretty stable topic matter.) Verdict: +
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (Tagged and captioned: Yes, yes. All tagged and captioned, and the pictures add to the article as for the refer to the objects being discussed.): Verdict: +
    b (Lack of images does not in itself exclude GA: I'd like one more image. This is giving example of canon media, so I'd like one more example of something that is considered either canon or non-canon, preferably the latter. A scene from an episode which has been identified as non-canon would be a good thing, and explain the reasons why it isn't. This isn't needed though.): Verdict: =
    c (Non-free images have fair use rationales: All rationales check out fine, and are under fair use rules.): Verdict: +

After this review, I can't see anything so wrong with this article that it shouldn't be a GA.

Congratulations on your new Good Article status.

Best wishes and Happy Holidays. Jeri-kun 16:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Retrieve

I'm thinking of adding a picture of Colonel West and the Operation Retrieve briefing from Star Trek VI to the "Movies" section. That scene was not part of the theatrical release but part of the home release, making its canon status uncertain. I think it would be a good example. The problem is, I don't own the movie, so I can't take a screenshot. There is a very good shot on Memory Alpha here, but I do not know if we're allowed to trans-wiki pictures. Can anyone fill me in on the policy for this case? Can we take a fair-use image from another source and use it in Wikipedia? -- Ritchy 16:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trek Remastered

Since the TV series section talks about canon issues with regards to edited versions of episodes, I think it's only fair to also add the Remastered episodes of TOS into the equation. To my knowledge Paramount has never said one way or the other whether Remastered is to be considered canon, or if it isn't. And it's an argument that could occur. Imagine, for example, if a TOS episode were remastered and someone decided to give a certain planet (let's say Talos IV for argument's sake) a couple of moons, to make the SFX look prettier -- while the original version never showed any moons at all. Later, someone writes a novel or a teleplay or a screenplay in which it's necessary to state that Talos IV either has moons or it doesn't. So which version do you use? Remastered or Original? And what if Remastered is the only version available by that time? It's an important part of the canon argument, I think. 23skidoo 21:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any source saying that the remastering will change canon information like the number of moons around planets? Because all the information I found says that what they are doing is simply making the episodes "prettier". StarTrek.com lists minor changes, like backgrounds and starship exteriors looking nicer. And this before and after comparison of Balance of Terror confirms that all they did is improve, not change, some graphics. I'm sorry to say, the appearance of the comet on the viewscreen or the exact shade of orange of the bird painted on the Romulan ship are not improtant parts of the canon debate. I cut down on your text, to make it more to-the-point and factual. -- Ritchy 22:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
No, but the placement of actors in scenes where they never were (which reportedly happened in several episodes - extras, not main characters), and the physical alteration of planetary appearances is a matter of canon. A few color tweaks is not what I'm talking about. In addition, there are technical matters - for example in one early episode Scotty is shown phasering a door. In the original, no beam was shown; in the remastered version a beam was added. Not important, you might say -- tell that to the many Trek fans who are deeply interested in the technology. Perhaps that particular beam weapon Scotty used was never supposed to have a visible laser beam? When Where No Man Has Gone Before was remastered, there were calls to replace the infamous "James R. Kirk" tombstone. Thankfully that did not occur. The cut down text is fair -- it covers my point -- but when I'm talking about canon issues, I'm talking about things a bit more fundamental than a color difference. And I attest the appearance of the comet you use as an example is an important part of the canon debate. I'll give you an example that is not taken from any episode but which is a plausible situation; let's say there's an episode of TOS in which the Enterprise visits a planet that is shown as being emerald green. Along comes Remastered as it's decided to make the planet look more like earth. No more emerald green, now it's blue and, well, earth-like. Along comes a writer - perhaps a screenplay writer, or perhaps a novelist or better still a comic book writer/artist (since the comics are making a comeback). He is writing a sequel to said episode and wants to describe/depict said planet. And let's say for some reason the plot hinges on what the planet looks like. This author wants to be true to canon ... so what version does he follow? You see where I'm getting at. There's a difference between remastering a show to remove dust specks from film and restore elements that have been lost over time, but once you start adding or altering elements, it becomes a thorny issue. It's really no different than someone taking the Sherlock Holmes "canon" and deciding to update it a little by tweaking the occasional word here or there -- to those who don't care or who aren't that deep into the Holmes mythology, it's no different than changing that shade of orange on the ship. But to those who are, it's a big deal, indeed. Oh, and if I did have a source re: moons and planets, I would have included it in the article, right? Anyway, Balance of Terror is a bad example to use in your defence of Remastered because it was, IIRC the first episode to be so redone. From what I have been told more wholesale changes have been made to more recently remastered episodes, to the point where even Remastered supporters are starting to go "hey, wait a minute" (and no, I don't have a link - spend a few hours reading the TrekBBS and you'll find people other than me squawking about it). 23skidoo 15:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Three links were deleted from the "external links" section, with the questions "relevant how? interesting to whom? why not list everyone's Star Trek site? Please see WP:LINKS before re-adding." After checking WP:LINKS and thinking it over, I have come to these conclusions.

  1. The Canon Wars article definitely comes back. It contains relevant, on-topic information and a lot of sources. It is definitely relevant to this page. It qualifies under WP:LINKS "what should be linked" 3 and 4, and none of the "links to be avoided" criteria apply.
  2. The Ex Astris Scientia article is a personal web page, so it's fair to delete it.
  3. The Memory Alpha policy is interesting, as it gives a different point-by-point idea of canon from the one expressed on this page. This makes it fall in "what should be linked" point 4 and "links to be considered" point 4. The "links to be avoided" point 12 says that wikis should be avoided unless they are stable; I believe Memory Alpha fits this exception criteria. So I'll add it back as well.

-- Ritchy 15:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Animated Series and StarTrek.com

The "Official" FAQ "What is Canon?" has not been updated since 2003-07-10. However as I understand it CBS/Paramount explicitly made the Animated series canon around the time of its DVD launch. Recently the CBS Senior Director of Product Development, Paula Block (who is in charge of all Trek licensed products), stated "Canon is Star Trek continuity as presented on TV and Movie screens. Licensed products like books and comics aren’t part of that continuity, so they aren’t canon. And that’s that." [3]
That last comment certainly seems to include the Animated Series in canon to me. —MJBurrage(T•C) 18:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

How long ago the page was updated isn't relevant - official Paramount policy doesn't expire over time. If there was an official change since then though, I would expect some kind of official announcement. I've not seen one.
"Canon is Star Trek continuity as presented on TV and Movie screens." When people talk about Star Trek on TV, they usually mean the live-action shows and exclude TAS. The fact this quote groups together TV and Movies (which were all live-action) and comes after an interview about how TAS isn't canon seems to support this interpretation. Certainly we shouldn't rush to reverse the non-canon status of TAS, well-established since Roddenberry's days, simply based on an ambiguously-worded comment made in passing. -- Ritchy (talk) 14:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It also pretty clearly includes TOS Remastered, and the 2008/2009 film as canon. —MJBurrage(T•C) 18:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

We'll update the page to include the new movie once it comes out - it's not canon until it does. We already mention TOS remastered in the article. -- Ritchy (talk) 14:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)