I won't disagree with your explanation of Roddenberry's philosophy, but I will say that, if he'd really gotten his way and Star Trek had never had a fleshed out continuity and universe, I would probably not have liked it as much. Part of what I like about Trek is that it's a world with a history and a general order of things. I really, really don't like the idea of new stories saying that the old stories just didn't happen at all for the convenience of a plot point.

Setting TNG good 100 years in the future was probably Roddenberry's best idea for TNG. Nowadays we can't start a new Trek show without Kirk, Spock, Khan or Picard.

I think one of Star Trek's greatest strengths is the fact that it has this entrenched established history. It gives the series a tangible feeling that is incredibly difficult to replicate. I think the best example is Mass Effect. I read everything in the Codex in that game because it made the setting, the technology, and the motivations a firm bed rock for them to tell the story. Everything fit together and it felt like Shepard and crew were in a lived in universe. The codex talks about Turian face paint being markers of units and that Turians with no face paint, no identification with something greater than themselves. Later on in the second game you're betrayed....by a Turian, with no facepaint. The details matter. So Star Trek having this extensive history and foundation has been a great boon to it. As for our august founder, Roddenberry got a LOT right. Some rules I think should still be listened to, for instance space is BIG is often ignored to a ridiculous degree. But he also got a lot wrong, no conflict between Starfleet characters in the TNG era jumps out. Them making Zefram Cochrane a bit of a Roddenberry homage was spot on. A man with a great vision, but plenty of flaws...but ultimately still a man worth lauding. As for the Star Trek fatigue of the early 2000s, that wasn't on the creative team, the suits wanted something familiar and tried and true, but with what *they* thought was going to sell. Then Enterprise got cancelled in the CW merger. But the show was originally supposed to have an entirely different feel.

Without any sort of canon a franchise is basically an anthology series. If that’s what they want to do then fine. Outer limits, Twilight zone worked great. But I never worried about missing an episode of buying supplementary materials for those properties. If you want people to truly invest (mentally, and financially) in a property then Canon is the way to go. I’m not going to bother learning about it digging deep into anything in an anthology show because it doesn’t really matter if it changes every episode.

A note on Late Medieval/Early Modern Chivalry novels: the genius of Cervantes's "Don Quixote" is precisely about this (especially the original first part from 1604). Don Quixote becomes obsessed with those novels and loses his mind. As most people know, he then tries to imitate the stories he had read, but also, whenever he could, the character also gets into hilarious debates about "continuity errors" between the many "franchises" that were popular back in the 17th century (and earlier). Most probably Cervantes was mocking people he knew that were also obsessed with discussing and nit-picking fiction _ad nauseam._ Continuity debates are not a new thing!

13:40 Well, on the other had in Stargate: SG-1 I loved in season 6+, when they were building spaceships (Prometheus and Daedalus class BC-304s), they were reference back to previous seasons stories on how/where they found/gained the material or the technology that was build in. I loved that kind of world building and continuity.

"If you're gonna fiddle with the basics, you're better off just making something completely new."--Joss Whedon...before he went off the deep end. With something like Star Trek, I don't think it's such a smart idea to just ignore what's come before--the rules of the mythos--for the sake of the story. That's fiddling with the basics. At some point, it's not so much "franchise fatigue" you have to worry about, but breaking the audience's willing suspension of disbelief. If you blatantly contradict yourself too often the audience starts to lose track of what's going on, and they start asking questions. When that happens, you've got a narrow window of opportunity to create an answer and tie it all together (however loosely) or they'll stop watching out of sheer frustration. If you still wanna throw it all out for the sake of your own story...make your own completely new thing in the first place. Anything else is just disrespecting the audience.

The one point I disagree with is the one you made at the end. Too often, mythoi or franchises fall apart when the next generation of storytellers get hold of it, because they may have grown up on their favorite fictional universe and read it to death and read all the metacommentaries that have come along since the Internet was invented... ...but they too often took the wrong lessons from what made those original works so transcendent. There's a big difference between the departure from Roddenberry's vision for stylistic purposes of, say, Deep Space Nine, where tempers may flare but eventually consensus is reached or, if all else fails, Mr. Worf is simply commanded to launch torpedoes (see DS9: "For The Uniform", where Sisko just presses the Eff You Button on Eddington)... ...and the conflict on Discovery, which so, so, SOOOOO often leans on rank insubordination that neither Starfleet nor any of its real-world analogues would ever tolerate even for a minute but which our protagonist gets a free pass on. The real chicken-and-egg argument is whether Star Trek declined...or its audience did. Has our culture so completely degenerated over the last 60 years that TOS or TNG wouldn't even work now because the audience is too immature, individualistic, or easily wowed by shiny things (looking at you, Kelvin timeline movies, which may as well have been directed by Michael Bay) to appreciate a well-told story? Or maybe it's executive meddling? Does Paramount think everyone in the audience is an idiot, so Star Trek is now made to appeal to idiots? And is that itself a self-fulfilling prophecy, one shared throughout Hollywood as in the utterly moronic Marvel movies? Or perhaps I'm just a snob, seeing as I'm closer to 60 than 30 and am therefore naturally inclined to believe that "new stuff = stupid stuff" just like my parents and grandparents thought about new media when they were in middle age?

A franchise should put off locking down events in a timeline. Don't say this is the first time we've encountered "X" unless the story demands it. Don't say some alien, etc., is the first in the group or the only one. These details might need to change later. If a story doesn't demand it, then don't lock down the narrative timeline. While some cannon change is necessary, the in-story history can't change every other episode, or the history loses narrative impact. So either make the narrative episodic and forget about tying anything together or be limited and thoughtful about what makes it into the canon.

As a writer, I can attest to the heavy burden of respecting continuity. It requires a nerd-level obsession with the content. Best to keep stories to manageable lengths. A lore-master is essential for a franchise.

I disagree. Contradictions within an established fantasy universe are not interesting or expression of creativity, they are just sloppy writing. Unfortunately even the same authors make these mistakes, when they suddenly change their mind and try to retcon what they wrote before. This should not happen to a good writer. One famous example is when Isaac Asimov wrote prequels and sequels to his Foundation trilogy in order to merge it with his robot novels. By contradicting events that he had established before, he just destroyed his own legacy. A positive example is Tolkien who was consistent in the universe he created, although the genre of his books changed entirely. But he never contradicted himself. This shows that he was the better writer and more invested in his own creation. And I think, his readers are thankful for it.

Assignment: Earth could have been a great show. In my head it’s like the 3rd Doctor “exiled to Earth” arc in Doctor Who - central very knowledgeable time-aware protagonist with fantastic gadgets placed by his superiors in one point in space and time (until they decide to send him somewhere/when else this week), less intellectual but feisty and fashionable female companion native to the time as an audience surrogate, possible military contacts/assistance as necessary.

Although I couldn’t agree more on the pushback on the “it’s not canon” gatekeepers.. you should keep in mind that one of the achievements of Star Trek is it’s worldbuilding which many many people love and are invested in. Any writer that takes the time and care to set their stories firmly in the world of Star Trek and then build on it will be rewarded.

I wonder if Rick Berman is a better example than Gene Roddenberry for building a franchise. Rick Berman oversaw four star trek shows, several of which were on the air at the same time. TNG and DS9 technically both occurred at the same time and DS9 and Voyager did as well, but because the shows took place in different parts of the galaxy it didn't usually matter how their timelines lined up. At least, there was a fair amount of flexibility there for the writers. Also, the three shows had very different settings and so could put their characters in very different situations and could even ask fundamentally different questions. None of this required ditching continuity or not marketing the shows as Star Trek. Plus they weren't obsessed with the past the way current star trek shows are. Just so some partially informed thoughts.

In Star Trek we actually have several examples of spin-offs that are very different in style and tone from the rest of the franchise. There is Deep Space Nine, where the franchise was bold enough to tell a darker and more realistic story and set it on a space station instead of starship. There is Lower Decks, an even bolder move to make essentially a parody, but still set in the same universe. And there is Prodigy, an attempt to deliver a story for younger audience, which Star Trek has never done before, at least on screen.

It’s all about the quality of the story. Break cannon to make a deeper and richer story, the audience will embrace it and make that the new cannon. Break cannon and make the story less, then the audience will hate it.

I'm not sure if I agree with this or not. Inconsistencies within a franchise, or mythos, can only serve to discredit the same. Personally, this is why I tapped out of Star Trek: Enterprise after season 2, and I don't even bother with any of the many Nu Trek shows and movies. Their utter disregard for continuity and even Roddenberry's core values, makes the whole thing seem hollow and artificial. I don't feel like I'm even watching Star Trek, and I think I speak for many fans when I say that.

The only spinoff show that surpassed the original is Better Call Saul. It showed you can delight with honoring continuity by briskly closing out vignette stories without derailing yourself in endless nostalgia (Picard S3) and pastiche (Strange New Worlds).

Say what you want about Gene but at least he provided in universe explanations for his retcons, thus aknowledging the inteligence of his audience.

Continuity doesn't really matter if the story is strong enough to stand without it. The dis-continuity of phaser settings doesn't matter as long as the story doesn't hinge upon it. What grinds people's gears is when continuity is changed in service of a trite story point to simply service a 'modern day' narrative aesthetic. If the story was good enough, people would readily incorporate the change. If it wasn't, people would highlight the change as part of the criticism.

I don't consider myself obsessed with canon, but I think in a long-running universe/franchise/whatever, one that spend a great deal of it's "middle age" (TNG, DS9, Voyager, & Enterprise) establishing more & more in the timeline, needs to have some sort of rules to follow. I think they have been getting back to that with SNW more than any (except Picard S3), but still adding to it all with their own. If you want to radically change things to suit your own aesthetics & such, then you should just come up with your own original universe, and not be burdened by the "nitpicking canon" that Trek & it's loyal fans have been holding onto.

I think the thing everyone misses is that Roddenberry created “hypermodernism.” Especially with TNG. He created a whole new film tool set for persuading audiences. It’s kind of a trip because postmodernism is considered a rebuttal to modernism, yet in film at least, hypermodernism preceded pm. So he took two toolsets, modernism that includes objective truths, morally recognizable characters, grand narratives and postmodernism, which includes local narratives, blurred lines, morally grey characters and anti heroes, mixed both together, and had characters that operated from above both artistic toolsets. TNG for instance is just about a group of cosmopolitans navigating both the physical and the ethnocentric/limbic universes.This is mostly due to the more purely limbic entities they encounter and rarely of their own objective reduction. Whereas Discovery is the first postmodern Star Trek ever made. It has anti heroes, subjective truths, morally gray characters and so on right there on the bridge searching the stars before they conquered the self. How this compares to other franchises is that other franchises aren’t creating. A director or an individual might create (for instance all of Nolan’s films are hypermodern, yet he isn’t imo smart or creative enough to invent an entirely new toolset), but a studio like Disney has to co opt ideas like the infinity saga, investigate fan wishlists through their research groups, create committees and the like to inform scripts. So what happens when a once in a lifetime idea like infinity stones is milked dry, you’re forced to create something as interesting or better though a great deal of your process is to research fans who don’t know the first thing about writing or creating. So in conclusion: ditch the committee and research group process of making films. Get back to how man always did it, as film is the artistic expression of an individual. Ideas like infinity saga, Inception, the matrix, Star Wars weren’t made and cannot be made through research groups.

I really like the sentiment of "Star Trek as a place". It as you so well put it allows for other stories, other genres, other concepts. Star trek murder mistery? Star trek spy thriller? Star trek soap opera? All ate possible in some corner of the federation/galaxy. :)

This is very enlightening. You’ve pretty much put in words what I’ve been trying to express to some of my friends. Hopefully there will be some people who will internalize this and develop better stories in the future. (Also, way to include OSP in a video! Maybe one day, a crossover is likely.)

Demolition Man referred to "The Franchise Wars"............we always assumed that meant fast food franchises.

This entire video put me in mind of something said by Matt Mercer during one of the 4 sided dives about how he doesn't want to be treated as a creative monolith but more as a creator who simply laid the creative foundation for his world and others have built from there

One thing that annoys me when people tear into Roddenberry is that they decide to go at his personal life or not living up to the ideals he set in Star Trek. More recently there was a post someone made about character biographies about Kirks mother which briefly included how she'd had a "love instructor" which the poster and a lot of replies took the time to denounce Gene as a pervert for such a thing, ignoring any context that this is supposed to show something about the characters history, not Gene himself. But something I've noticed over the years, more and more fans seem to be willing to trash on Gene for any number of things they learn about him, no matter how minor and a lot of it has to do with how they perceive his private life.

10:46 Ooooh so that's my it's called the "Cthulhu Mythos".

I think when discussing continuity people often think of it as one thing, but really there are multiple layers of continuity and only one of them is actually important. At the top layer, the most superficial is visual continuity. Do things look the same, is there an explanation for differences, can a viewer visually recognise and disintguish the show/film from others, etc The middle layer is minutiae, do the details, technobabble, rules, and tropes of the universe/setting/mythos remain consistent, can a viewer/reader recognise some piece of minutiae as uniquely from this mythos, etc And the deepest and most critical layer, does the larger story being told remain consistent, is the universe cohesive enough to support the serialised and episodic stories. It's this layer that separates TOS from Twilight Zone. TNG from Orville. DS9 from Babylon 5. And so on. It's this layer that keeps viewers/readers coming back for more. It's this layer that supports the existence of spin offs and sequels. The universe is compelling in part if not wholly because of this cohesiveness. I don't much care about the first two layers, but the bottom layer is of critical importance, for me, in any long running mythos. Without it it's just a disconnected anthology like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror.

Great ideas in this! Thanks so much for bringing up these ideas of making a more flexible continuity.

It's funny, Roddenberry would probably love Discovery the most for being so different and maybe like Strange New Worlds the least for being so close to TOS. Yet it's the reverse with some of the fandom, the toxic side of the fandom. I just love all of Star Trek. I accept that all the series are not created equals, some I like more like DS9, SNW and TNG, and some I like less like VOY and TOS. Even within my favorites series, they're plenty of episodes I skip over. I don't have to love 100% of it to be a fan, I just love most of it and it's universe.

Hard disagree regarding Canon. Shared reality reinforces stories over time. The audience likes knowing what’s going on.

I can't help but notice some strong similarities between Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas, in regard to contituity, prequels, sequels, and spin-offs.

Short but really well presented. Normally I have more in-depth comments but I'm not sure what else I can say in this case.

I do hope James Gunn’s DCU takes on different genre and tons for different movies, that is my biggest hope. Great video

Loved the video. Very good.

I enjoyed the, no doubt deliberate, adit of Data on Sigmunds couch as you talk about fans internalising and obsessing. Nice one Rowan.

One thing that worked in Enterprise's favour was it kind of was its own thing. Sure, we still had Star Fleet and Vulcans and the like - but it really could do almost anything it wanted with the 'grey area' in the canon.

Love your videos. My opinion on canon is that the structure builds a mythos, and rich context can add a layer to storytelling that makes it easier and more impactful to build emotion and meaning, including suspense, tragedy and accomplishment. Discarding canon provokes the question - are you building something equally or more meaningful long term with this choice. The quality is justification, otherwise you've cashed out the benefit of context without anything to show for it. TNG needed to escape TOS' shadow to do something really ambitious. But in other cases it feels like canon is abandoned intentionally to de-identify Trek in the pursuit of conformity with other television trends, to be less ambitious. Ultimately its not important whether you maintain canon, its if you tell a good long term story using the tools you have. Canon elements are tools, and if you break them you better build something else in the process. Most importantly the notion of "franchise fatigue" has never sat that well with me because blaming the tastes of audiences ignores the clear tonal shifts and reduction in quality that took place through VOY to Nemesis and ENT. Nemesis is the only piece of Star Trek from that era I truly don't like and can't rewatch. Blaming the decline of 90's Trek on changing tastes ignores that Trek made its own success to begin with - nobody bet on it succeeding, Hollywood always wanted to make less affirmational and original TV instead. I really think if Nemesis and ENT weren't so bad compared to what came before, they would've kept going. Trek could've continued to evolve without going off the air.

If you don't want to follow continuity write your own story. The Original show was built in a TV universe where episodes were standalone. The characters and often the mission was the same but stories didn't follow each other or have to reference each other. The original show got a lot of high quality science fiction writers who at the time wanted the freedom to write the story. As a result in the first three years of Star Trek the Enterprise stumbled across around thirty different species who could wipe out the federation with their minds, if they noticed them. I prefer the continuity of TNG.

Dude...this was fantastic. This needs to be said louder for the kids in the back. 👏🏼

You’re spot on, Rowan. Great vid. But wow button down the hatches for the response!

Disagree completely. By its very nature, Star Trek has always been about worldbuilding and maintaining as much foundational consistency as possible. Otherwise it ceases to be science fiction and turns into pure fantasy. We don't expect Star Wars to rewrite its own internal canon all the time; neither should we expect that from Star Trek.

First of all, you reminded me of the Cthulhu Mythos, just by using the word “Mythos”. Secondly, I kinda’ agree with you about Gene Roddenberry’s methods of creating or rebooting Star Trek. That being said, I’m hoping I could use that to my advantage, while creating a webcomic? But Yes, I prefer the word “Mythos” much better than “Franchise”.

My head canon is always that Trek shows aren't documentaries, they're dramatic retellings of historical events. Continuity is as irrelvant as when Greek playwrights did they're own versions of the same stories. It should also be remembered that arguably the orginal canon series, Sherlock Holmes, is riddled with continuity errors.

Good points. I feel like the "rules" for spinoffs have changed in the last couple decades, since there's a hard push for serialized content, and the ultra contemporary implementation almost uses it as a way to lock people into watching everything even if they dislike the content, simply on the hope that there may be future content that relies on it. The disney shows are trying to balance that out, and it seems like a gambit.

“ Despite many modern Star Trek shows being well liked “ 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Oh Rowan,you are such a comedian!

I wonder if Gene thought of true continuity as a luxury, therefore; not making it a big priority. If he would have had a guaranteed 10 year green light for the series maybe things would have been different.

While watching I realised that Warhammer 30k hits all these marks and it's probably why it's continually bubbling up into the mainstream across different mediums.

5:26 Avalanche of Major Grin videos, interrupted by none other that your humble servant Rowan J Coleman. ^^ It was perfect ! Also, Gene was wrong in my opinion. If he can't keep continuity whole, he shouldn't have made details that could be used to keep records of continuity (like those stupid stardates). Continuity errors appears everywhere, but avoiding it is also your duty. But he was right to refuse mentioning events or characters from TOS in TNG, you must let your franchise breathe. There is a balance to find between constant references to past canon and complete writing freedom, something old mythos used well.

This is why I wished we'd got a Tarantino Star Trek film: it would be utterly unique in tone and content for the universe. The Star Wars series generally don't interest me much as they're just fleshing out a single story, rather than showing the diversity of the universe. Both Star Wars and Star Trek have a huge potential to tell really different stories, but they too often rely on doing more of the same. Discovery, to some extent, attempted this, but fell down in many ways, such as the unnecessary link to Spock. Lower Decks is a fantastic example of doing something new, and I understand that Prodigy is, too

I think the following methodology sums it up just as perfectly. "The literary work of the studios may be divided into various branches. First, the selection of the subject. Many authors have special ability in finding favorable subjects, while utterly unable to develop them respectably. Let them give their subjects to others. Let these subjects, and perhaps separate parts of them -- scenes, pictures, episodes, various types and situations be collected. From this treasure of thought, material will be extracted by others. . . . It is precisely in such studios that a collective composition may be written. Perhaps various chapters will be written by various people. Perhaps various types and situations will be worked out and embodied by various authors. The whole composition may be finally written by a single person, but with the constant and systematic collaboration of the other members of the studio in the particular work."

Those sound like good advise but I don't know if they can all be applied at the same time. Can someone think of another mythos being built right now with this amount of variety within it's shows? Spin offs at least usually stay within the same genre

This is why the MST3k fans are absolute goats. “Just repeat to yourself it’s just a show. I should really just relax.”

I meant to add this yesterday, but its so true what you say about this concern with continuity and extended universes. It is such trash trying to maintain crap like that.

Gary Marshal and Norman Lear adhered to these exact same rules with their phenomenal spinoffs (Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy - the cartoons of Happy Days, Maude, The Jeffersons). Those rules make a lot more sense in show biz than what we have now, but pure chaos like Star Wars has done isn't following those rules either. They blend too much while trashing the original material to "make their own way". In other words, the Rodenberry rules allow for growth by moving forward and modern (Disney) does it by cannibalizing and killing off their foundations.

This has worked, for some "franchises". Every new Transformers series (TV series, movie, and even comic run) completely re-writes the entire lore "the mythos" of the setting. And it still largely works because as long as the story is about big robot characters that turn into cars - it's still recognizable as "Transformers". You can even see it in the various versions of Spider-man movies, from the Rami trilogy to the current Spiderverse movies. They guy in the red suit swinging around the city is still recognizable as "Spider-man". This doesn't exactly hold for most of the franchises out there, though. Holding "canon" or "continuity" or, as I prefer to call it, the story-so-far-as-we've-already-told-it, "loosely" makes for a WEAKER story in many respects, especially if you're TRYING to build a "franchise" or even merely a "mythos" that can grow and branch out. If you don't know what the rules are that you're playing by, the game isn't as fun (see the Bluey episode "Shadowlands"). Yes, Roddenberry's desire to make Next Generation it's own thing rather than a direct "sequel" constantly tied back to original characters or episodes was a GOOD THING (something all these "prequel" Star Trek series failed to grasp). But it was after Roddenberry's health took him mostly out of the picture in that third season that TNG really took off and connected to the "general audience" in ways the franchise had not done before. The rules became MORE CONSISTENT when Rick Berman took over and easier for the general audience to follow (even though most people still had nothing remotely resembling a basic map of the galaxy or even knew how fast "warp 7" was). They could start to love the ensemble cast, because unlike TOS where Sulu, Checov, Uhura and the other "side characters" were essentially blank slates to tell that particular episode's particular story without having to hire a completely new group of actors, like Twilight Zone had, in TNG each character in the cast was an actual CHARACTER with story arcs that impacted later episodes. It became a better series for it - and certainly more POPULAR with the general audience than the series I prefer. And that consistency made the franchise (or mythos if you prefer) strong enough to support spin-off series like DS9 (which has some of the best writing in all of Star Trek) and Voyager and Enterprise. Roddenberry suggested that each spin off or "sequel" also be a story unto itself, and as long as there was "internal consistency" within that particular "branch" of the "mythos" it didn't matter how much "continuity" (a word which here means the franchise as a whole's "internal consistency") was preserved, changed, or ret-conned. While there is certainly room for the various branches of a tree to be their own things (you cite the early Marvel movies) there does need to be some consistency to the tree overall (the trunk and roots need to be strong) or the tree will fall over (or the weak branches will, anyway, like our old Elm tree that eventually lost all the main branches on one side and started to lean over our house, forcing us to cut the whole thing down). To switch metaphors: you can build this wing of the mythos in Gothic style and that wing more baroque and that wing over there Queen Anne style, and this one modern American manufactured home. But if the FOUNDATION isn't solid and consistent, your building is weak and will constantly threaten to collapse under it's own weight (see the MCU phase 4) and better off as a "neighborhood" of unconnected structures. But at that point you're not building a franchise or even a mythos, you're just building a "style" like the way Robocop and Starship Troopers aren't part of a connected franchise, but they are both obviously Verhoveven movies. I know many modern writers despise "canon" and "continuity" and see them as a ball and chain to telling the story THEY want to tell. All that says to me is "I don't care how LAZY I am about world building - and you shouldn't either. But, watch it, love it, and buy the merch because it's got the logo of your favorite franchise on it." If you don't want to tell a Star Trek story, don't tell a Star Trek story, make up your own setting. If the setting's "rules" are a "ball and chain," make up your own where you get to set the rules yourself. *Ah! but you DO WANT the built-in Star Trek fan base.* So, you take your original not-a-Star-Trek story, slap a Star Trek veneer on it, slap a Star Trek label on it, and sell the thing as if it WAS a Star Trek story. And then you seem mystified that Star Trek fans see through the veneer and don't really like it. They even seem a bit offended as if your "brilliant, subversion of expectations" was some sort of bait-and-switch. And then they go watch the Orville which IS it's own universe with it's own rules - but somehow preserves more of the essence of Star Trek than the shows that actually get a Star Trek label. And that's before we even get into the injection of current year, divisive political messaging and the tendency of the makers of the new shows, when the audience sees through their paper-thin veneer and rejects the "new" interpretation of the "mythos", to call the franchise's fan base (you know, the one they wanted so much they didn't try to make their OWN fictional setting, but used some one else's ALREADY POPULAR one) some sort of racist or sexist bigots for not loving their poorly written - almost entirely unlike Star Trek - stories they're trying to pass off as "Star Trek" (or Star Wars, or Doctor Who, or He-man, or She-ra, or Lord of the Rings, or Wheel of Time, or . . .) stories.

Interesting point x

I loved and whole heartedly agree with all your summary points. ...and that clip of Data and the shrink whilst mentioning borderline obsessiveness 😂👌

I love all of your videos, but have to say I disagree with your view on canon. I think when multiple shows are set in the same universe, they should be consistent with one another in the mythos. This facilitates the building of a larger world in which our imaginations can live.

Honestly, while I agree that multiple people working within a single universe should try as much as they can to branch off and do different things, I also believe canon and continuity should be respected unless whoever is writing genuinely believes they can execute an old idea better. Otherwise, why not just do something new and not be constrained by a name and the expectations that come with? Other than it's not as marketable?

i think gene may have been on to something for television. but i think streaming has changed that. and i think that the direction of current shows makes sense but i will point out that story telling today is also combined with wokeness which i think causes issues.

Especially relevant points given the recent release of B5: The Road Home, and the handful of complaints I've seen dismissing it out of hand over trivial discrepancies in the design of the Shadows or the year Sheridan took command.

I actually really appreciate that Strange New Worlds found an in universe way to basically say "continuity is whatever we say it is any given day"

I have to disagree completely. Star Wars didn't feel like a commanding force even during the sequel trilogy. The only time it got close with disney at the helm was Rogue One. Also I like the Star Trek Encounters music in the background.

👏🏼 Thanks 👍🏻🖖🏻

Honestly, this just confirms what I always thought - the reason I only got into Trek with TNG was that they started to throw off many of the chains Rodenberry put on the franchise and how he thought things should work. Thank goodness that nonsense from the motion picture novel was not made canon in the movie itself. Star Trek NEEDS continuity. It is better for it.

Thanks!

Watching this made me think I'd gladly see your retrospectives on Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda. EDIT: Oh, you already did a video on Andromeda, silly me.

I'm fine with new visions up to a point and that point is Discovery 🤣🤣🤣

I think the Star Wars EU writers of the, now legends, timeline worded it best: they were having fun with writing fan fiction that so happened to be published. They always knew it could be retracted by george himself, giving way to the creation of the then known tiered canon. This is now how I view all franchise media: fan fiction. Sometimes very expensive fan fiction. That sometimes references other fan fiction in the franchise. It's just people/writers having fun in a certain universe I also happen to like. It doesn't mean the franchise is now ruined whenever a piece of bad media is published.

EXCELLENT Video!!! And so appreciated to see some Logical well thought out push-back to all the ridiculous "cannon mongers" lol ! I am a diehard Trek fan and I totally Agree with you! I have been able to enjoy ALL the Trek shows from TNG to Discovery and Strange New Worlds because I Love seeing the new visions and Takes on the Star Trek Mythos!!! We don't need RIGID character timelines and "purity" in Science Fiction Fantasy!!! Good Lord, so many of these people act like this is REAL history!!! It's Entertainment! Story-telling trumps all including fictional history... :)

The Idea for a Star Trek medical show should be done right now!!!!!!!

Standards should be a time code related to the individual starship.

We discussed the topic of continuity (especially in a time sense) in my pnp group and all cane to the agreement that only time pressure for the drama shal be relevant, else we just shift as needed. Dates are there for the purpose of story, not to make a mathematical debate. If we suddenly realized our travels for a quest made us be at an event 4 months after it should happen? Fuck it, we just „arrived“ in time and accept it and move forward! In series i only need that setial timecount if one episode refers to the previous one. But as long as i can follow „ah this happens after the previous one“, all is fine.

Stardates, at least how they have functioned from TNG on are based on the same system as Julian Dates - If you're in an excel file and type in a date, the computer converts that to a number, specifically the number of days since January 1st 1901. My assumption has been that the original stardates were days past the founding of the federation, but I don't know that that holds exactly true.

Tell me what you think about Rerry Rhodan and Perrypedia.

I've actually made this argument with a variety of different friend groups of mine. The reason why I love logging in and watching Star Trek right now is that SNG is different from Picard which is different from Discovery or Lower Decks or Prodigy. Right now, I don't feel over-saturated with Star Trek not because it's always there, but because of the differences. I usually argue about how you have four different time frames going on - 2250's/60s, 2380's, 2400's, and 3190's. These give very different feels to the stories, and yet, that gives us differences in structure. Then you get the different tones. SNG is more hopeful, Picard is somber, Discovery is kind of a bit of both, and Lower Decks is just goofy. Marvel and Star Wars hasn't felt different, and so I've gotten bored. Are there issues with Star Trek? Yes. There are aspects I'm not happy about, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy myself. And I'm glad that they've kind of gone 'ok, cannon is nice, buuuuttttt....we're not 100% beholden to it. Yeah, we're going to keep the major events static, but we can tweak around a bit too.'

An astute look at the world of the Roddenberry legacy. I like it. I’d also say continuity wasn’t a thing for most shows in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Star Trek being a bit of an outlier because it set up the expectation of literally dating the episode. Per usual this is what I come to the channel for. Thanks!

So to put it simply; keep canon akin to liquid: fluid & flexible

My general take on the subject of franchise and/or mythos is that at some point we, the audice, became obsessed with the concept of a "right way" to tell a tale in a specific narrative universe. For some reason, I always linked the birth of this attitude with George Lucas and his refusal to incorporate the Star Wars Expanded Universe. In a way, this was very true to the old way of doing things (i.e. many different voices telling many different stories), on the other it created (or solidified) the idea of a corpus of "official stories" labelled as such by the original creator. For me, this attitude had the unfortunate consequence of creating a hierarchy among the creators, leaving some really good ideas in the dust. On the subject of franchise fatigue, I think it has more to do with how the stories are told, not just with the subject and genre. On paper, the MCU explored many genres, but at some point the accepted format became just to fire a joke per minute. The first Thor movie had some levity, but this was used as a tool, to counterbalace the family and personal drama. Thor: Ragnarok, on the other hand, was almost a slapstick comedy, just like many other MCU movies and series in the last five-ish years.

Hey 👋 Mr Coleman. Please 🙏 please let us know what you think of the Babylon 5 movie amination.... please 😅❤. If you can do a video 📹 🙏

Love your work and I'm sure your recount of roddenberry's history and preferences is all correct, but I don't know that I agree with your assessment. In essence you just gave us a 14 minute validation for Disco. I agree that sticking to the minutiae can be silly the broader strokes can be important. The Enterprise of TOS was a functioning naval vessel in size while SNW depicts a Marriott. Time travel was at most rare and believed to be impossible, while the current shows have it as commonplace. There has to be some limits. It wouldn't fly if as a writer I change the force to be drug-induced telekinesis and that all Jedi are nothing but crackheads, or that Michael Corleone was just an FBI plant to end the five families or that Rick Blaine was a Nazi spy working to capture the heads of the French resistance.

Love this! It encompasses a lot of my own thoughts lately regarding another heated topic; changed timelines. I'm calling it mythos from now on and wishing for good story telling for many years to come.

Every film being presented by an unreliable narrative is a great "get out of gaol card".

I am not 100% sure where Strange New Worlds fits into this but I enjoy it all the same. One of the better "reboots"? Or would it be a prequel series? Or maybe it is a quasi-spin-off reboot?

The JJ Abrams Star Trek movies weren't great. They should have started with a TV series or netflix, whatever, and gone on to movies. Hopefully, STrange New Worlds will start doing movies and that'll be the ticket.

This makes so much sense. The most iconic versions of the Universal monsters are almost completely disconnected from the books they were based on, and every adaptation of Dracula/Frankenstein/Wolfman/Mummy/etc. is an almost entirely original concept. (Imagine if "Hotel Transylvania" was bound by the established canon of "The Munsters," or if "Monster High" couldn't contradict anything previously established in the Hammer series.)

By Jove! How dare you make sense! The fandom will never stand for this! Argh, scream, consternation.

The Stardate explanation actually working must have felt like when you bullshit your way through an oral examination and end up acing it.

Great video, and I think right on the mark for all modern mythoses.

One wonders if in the future (assuming we get there) humanity will view the Marvel and DC characters, Star Trek, Star Wars, Middle Earth, LOST etc. with the same reverence as Robin Hood, the Iliad, Journey to the West and other great mythic epics of the past. In a way, this video essay is a good thing to have, as it tells all rebooters, "It's all right, you can reinterpret things any way you want." And indeed, with the Abrams Trek movies, the MCU Multiverse and the DC Crisis epics, if all else fails just say you're in an alternate reality. 😜 That said, I always believe in the first rule of yours, but also that there is a time for "young minds, fresh ideas" as well as a time for "more of the same." It's hard to judge when is the best time for these when basing a story in this universe, admittedly, but that is where the skill of the storyteller comes in. Great video.

For continuity, I find that internal continuity is important but past the episode or series it is less so. Inacurate narrators are common in the real world where things are recorded wrong or missunderstood. Why would the reality of Star Trek be any different. Not every character would know all the knowledge or record things the same way which allows for conradictions as the society learns more (or we find out another version of the events for prequel series/events)

Finally, a real video *#YTMND** **#laurenfaust** 🖖🏻*

What's the point of calling it Star Trek, if it doesn't reference back and add to the universe that was built? Discovery may have been an "okay" show if it was conceived of as an original show rather than a spinoff of the existing Star Trek universe.

Lol, at 5:25 - 5:38, is just a sea of Major Grin videos. Dude's a hack

The only franchise that comes close on television is Dick Wolf's Law & Order franchise.

By the way, any chance of a LOST retrospective? Would be great to hear what you have to say about *the* cult TV show of the 2000s.

This is how people are, they want everything to be literal, fixate in little meaning details and ignore the actual message.

To sound "Boldly" Gene AKA The Great Bird of the Galaxy was to the '60s and '70s was like Glenn Larson was in the '70s through to near the end of his life. Gene wanted to lay his claim for a story. Glenn on the other hand, wanted to make a show and if it were a success, cool, if not back to the drawing board.