What is Canon?

[USSEnterprise]

What elements of Star Trek and Star Wars are considered canon? I always assumed that only what happened in the ST TV shows and Movies (excluding TAS), and what happened in SW Movies, was considered canon material. Do technical manuals and other official, and yet unofficial publications count?

[Stark]

Oh dear. You know this board is attached to a website, right?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Main site canon description
SW canon is complicated, with various levels of canon and the movie visulas over-riding all.

The Creator of Star Wars is obviously George Lucas. He does not really speak directly to the fans, but he does sometimes speak to reporters, and he owns a corporation (Lucasfilm) which acts as the executor of his will. He is the Creator, and Lucasfilm is the copyright holder. The following quote from George Lucas in Star Wars Insider #45 pg21 (emphasis added) makes it clear that he considers the movies to be a portion of a larger milieu:

"Part of the job of the director is to sort of keep everything in line, and I can do that in the movies - but I can't do it on the whole Star Wars universe."

There is also an interview with Mr. Lucas in Cinescape #62 pg49, where it is made clear that the movies override the other sources:

And while rumors persist that an outline for a third trilogy exists (a joke Lucas made in passing to Rolling Stone, which then printed it as fact), the director insists that the only continuation to the saga will be in the form of licensed properties.

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe - the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel universe."

Taken in conjunction, these two quotes make it clear that he thinks of Star Wars as a larger universe which simultaneously contains two "worlds" (his movies and all of the other published material), and that the former override the latter in the event of a conflict.

Star Trek canon is, simply the movies and series with newer material over-riding previous sources, nothing else is canon-
the books are not, the novelizations (Even that by Roddenberry himself) are not, ad etc'.

here, Here, here, and Here are discussions on the forum.

The final state of canon is:

n

According to Paramount, this is the Star Trek canon hierarchy:

1.

The live-action TV shows and movies
2. The novels "Mosaic" and "Pathways"

According to Lucasfilm, this is the Star Wars canon hierarchy:

1. The movies
2. The movie novelizations, screenplays, radio dramas, and DK companion materials (Visual Dictionary, Incredible Cross-Sections, Inside the Worlds)
3.

The rest of the "Expanded Universe". This is to be treated in much the same way as we treat real-life history books, so there is more uncertainty about events which take place long ago, ie- farther away from the movies on the timeline, and sources can be legitimately evaluated on the basis of their apparent quality of research or editorial bias. For example, the obvious anti-Empire bias among historians in the immediate post-Endor era can be credited for such outlandishly cretinous statements as the KJA claim that the construction of the Executor (an insignificant speck compared to either Death Star) "nearly bankrupted the Empire".

Hope that helped you, this has been raised many times before

[Bounty]

A certain person's recent trip to TrekBBS's literature board revealed that the canonicity of the two Trek novels mentioned above is not to be taken to strictly. There's also the TAS episode Yesteryear which is considered quasi-canon with regards to biographical data on Spock and general info on Vulcan.

[Darth Wong]

A more important revelation from that discussion was that the staff writers never considered canon to be sacrosanct, the way the fans do. They consider the "continuity" to be above the canon in terms of determining what is and isn't real in the Star Trek universe. So it's possible for something to be canon but not part of the official continuity, if the writers realize that it's just too fucked up (in other words, bye-bye Threshold).

[USSEnterprise]

So episodes like Threshold, and Movies like The Final Frontier can be considered apocryphal?

[Darth Servo]

So episodes like Threshold, and Movies like The Final Frontier can be considered apocryphal?

They can be considered bad hallucinations after one of the characters got really hammered.

[SirNitram]

So episodes like Threshold, and Movies like The Final Frontier can be considered apocryphal?

Within the perspective of the folks in charge of it(Thus, not necessarily the debators), if something completely destroys continuity by being wildly out of line with the rest, we can overrule it. For example, if the majority of episodes suggest photon torpedos of kT-MT range, and one shows GT-TT range, or firecrackers, we can throw out the outlier.

[Darth Wong]

So episodes like Threshold, and Movies like The Final Frontier can be considered apocryphal?

Let's just say that "canon" is not the same as "gospel". Something can be canon, but false.

Since we know that there is something called the "continuity" which supersedes the canon and which guides future writing, we can conclude that something which is repeatedly and blatantly contradicted by future writing is obviously not part of the accepted continuity. It gets trickier when something is only contradicted once by subsequent writing; such a thing might be "conditionally" or tentatively accepted as part of the accepted continuity.

[ntstlkr]

"VS" arguments have been around for quite awhile, I suppose the notion took off with the advent of comic book superheros, the 'ol Superman vs Batman thing. Hell, I imagine people have been pitting groups of theoretical antagonists for ever and a day, the Green Hornet vs The Shadow from the old serial radio show days and so on.

The problem with contriving these matches been with establishing the essential characteristics of each side. Obviously it wouldn't be "fair" to give one side attributes it really didn't possess in order to skew whatever outcome postulated from this hypothetical combat. Sticking to "canon" material became essential to any vs argument.

I think, however, until recently, canon really wasn't seen quite as important in this respect until now. From a writer's stand point, canon has always been attached to the characters of the story, and not really to the "window dressing". Canon really spoke to the events, actions, and personality of the characters. After all any writer will probably tell you that the point of the story is all about the characters he writes about. Of course there are stories told about objects or "things", but they assume a personality and character of their own.

Anyways, with canon so tied to following just the characters, I dont think that writers really put as much import into how the idea of "canon" should address the details of the "world" the characters inhabit. Like it has been pointed out, how many writers truly understand the mechanics and details of the things they write about? GL is not an astrophysicist, mechanical engineer, or knowledgable in a great number of fields the encompasses the universe he created (at least that I know of). So yeah the exact details are a little fuzzy from his perspective, But thats ok, he's not writing about rayguns, or starships, or whatever. He'ss writing about the people in his story. The rest is just backround. Canon was never really meant, from the writer's viewpoint, to address that "backround".

Until now.

I think that this change in the nature of "canon" is due to the advent of a new kind of "fan". The number of people who ARE interested in the details, the "backround" as you were, has probably grown quite a bit from the beginning of these things. Eventually you were going to get technically minded or scientific professionals in the group. Folks who will, even as fans, "take apart" what they read or saw on screen.

Indeed, I think that it is due to the efforts of folks like Mike & Co here at SD.net and Dr. Saxton, among others, that "canon" can now include those "details" that writers must consider more importantly than before. That new light has been shed to make the worlds and universes the writers create more consistant, logical, and rational (if only from the perspective of the characters). This only goes to making stories (whether in print or onscreen) better. Of course not every writer will follow this through, but the good ones should.

Dern, sorry for the rant

[ntstlkr]

Damn, I have NO idea why it repeated...sorry folks.

[mr friendly guy]

A more important revelation from that discussion was that the staff writers never considered canon to be sacrosanct, the way the fans do. They consider the "continuity" to be above the canon in terms of determining what is and isn't real in the Star Trek universe. So it's possible for something to be canon but not part of the official continuity, if the writers realize that it's just too fucked up (in other words, bye-bye Threshold).

That would imply that those in charge of Trek do decide Threshold sucked so bad we should pretend it never happened. So have they made such a decision.

[Bounty]

That would imply that those in charge of Trek do decide Threshold sucked so bad we should pretend it never happened. So have they made such a decision.

The writers of the episode and Sternbach have said as much.

[Kurgan]

To add to what ntstlkr said, yes, and the notion of what is canon can change. To us, canon is "supposed to be" what allows us to make an educated guess about what the next part of the story will or will not be.

For example, we've never seen any indication that Darth Vader can fly, so if we heard about a story with Vader flying, we'd say "no way" because the "canon" never shows us that. But, the powers that be need only decide to create such a story and call it canon, and we'll be "forced" to accept it, and then try to explain away all the times it wasn't seen before in the established canon. (and in fact this literally has happened, if you replace Darth Vader with R2D2!)

An example from Star Trek is the Klingon Forehead ridge thing. We always saw the Klingons originally as these guys who were typically (but not always) somewhat dark skinned, with arched or bushy eyebrows and beards, but otherwise exactly like humans in every conceivable way. Then the movie comes out 10 years after the series ended and suddenly they have these big cranial ridges. From that point on all Klingons we ever see look like this. Then suddenly they have pointed teeth. We're told they sharpen their teeth as a cultural practice, but suddenly without exception they all have it. So it's now "canon" that Klingons always looked this way, and we're told that in TOS it was just that they lacked the makeup budget. So we're told to just "imagine that they always had them, even in TOS."

We see modern Klingons in DS9 of the same actors who played the same characters in TOS, but suddenly they all have cranial ridges and the hairstyles and manners of "modern" Klingons.

Then the writers throw in an episode where a modern Klingon travels back in time to see the TOS era and he's the only Klingon with forehead ridges. No explanation given, just a little joke. So fans brushed that off as the writers being cute... though some insisted that this screwed up the previous continuity explanation (budget constraints prevented the "true Klingons" from being seen).

Then finally in Enterprise it's explained that there was an actual genetic condition that was introduced as an experiment with combining Klingon and human Augment DNA, resulting in some Klingons having greater strength and intelligence, and losing their ridges. But it was also explained that the condition might be covered up with reconstructive surgery and the spread of the "infection" was stopped at least for now. So now we have a "canon" explanation for why in the past all Klingons had smooth foreheads, and now they all have ridges, including the old ones in the "modern" age.

And back to Star Wars, we have Lucas making changes to his movies in the Special Editions, which now alter the canon (the new versions are the "true vision" of what happened). Likewise with the prequels changing the "previously established story." So canon can change. But it's not the fans who are allowed to change the canon...

Lucas changes stuff and tends to just leave it open, preferring to let some novel or comic book explain the change, though he occasionally makes explanations himself (which sometimes sound to fans like he's just joking about it). Fans that don't consider his explanations for changes or gaps/gaffes in continuity then rely on their own explanations or wait for a supplemental explanation from the other people whose work Lucas canonises.

Though I guess in debates it ultimately depends on what you want to do. You could both agree to argue based only on one idea of canon (nothing after 1997! only the stuff Roddenberry approved! only the movies! etc) but not another...

At least from the creator's and owners' point of view, canon and continuity are fluid concepts. Lucas continually talks about getting the story closer to his "original vision" which is known only to him (since he "corrects" what he said in past interviews and writings, that most of the time fans have used to indicate what his "original vision" must have looked like). We have a few writings from Roddenberry about his own original vision, some of which happened, others of it didn't (like putting Federation marines onboard the Enterprise or having them change into casual clothes every so often when off-duty).

[Kurgan]

To clarify what I just said, I'm not saying that "canon" doesn't exist, I'm mere pointing out (and agreeing with others who have said as much) that it isn't something set in stone. But you can point to one time and place and say "this is what's canon NOW" which might not be the same as what's canon 5 years from now.

Paramount and LucasFilm both have their canon policies now, but they're not prisoners of their own policy. That's a luxury they have and we the fans don't, unless we admit we're just making up our own rules for the sake of argument.

[Bounty]

Lucas changes stuff and tends to just leave it open, preferring to let some novel or comic book explain the change

The genius of Star Wars canon : any mistake that's made, any stupid action on the part of a character or technological oddity, can be retconned later by an army of skilled writers and artists.

[Kurgan]

That's right. I should have summed it up in four words:

Lucas Lazy, Retcon ready.

[montypython]

The issue of canon conflicts is the reason why I prefer to just enjoy the stories as they are presented, if it stinks, go with something else. There are times the whole nitpicking of canon for oneupmanship distracts from the author's intent of the story, especially if the intention is not 'hard sci-fi'.

[Kurgan]

[Isolder74]

that's a cannon

but very cute

[NecronLord]

So episodes like Threshold, and Movies like The Final Frontier can be considered apocryphal?

I wouldn't say that TFF is not considered continuity. Of course, people bitch and bitch about the centre of the galaxy bit, but that's the only real outlier in it. The rest is fairly reasonable, if not up to the standards of the movies on either side of it. However, later in his life, we're told, Rodenberry stopped considering the Original Series 'continuity' at all.

For the purpouses of debating, with the exception of what we're explicitly told is drek and ignored by writers (Threshold) there is no excuse to summarily dismiss such things.

[Kurgan]

that's a cannon

but very cute

Yeah, all the pictures of Canons were too big.