My good friend John Gorenfeld has agreed to co-write, with Patrick Runkle, a series of posts about Star Trek for the site. Enjoy!–Dorian
Part I in a Series
So there sits semi-retired sad sack James T. Kirk on his 52nd birthday, at the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the best-loved of the Star Trek movies.
Shatner had not long before been been seen on TV as an alcoholic ex-priest getting sucked out of an airliner by a ghoul. Now he delivers a convincing scene–perhaps drawing on personal emotions–that evokes everything Kirk has given up in his life to become a Starfleet admiral. Reliably on hand to tell Kirk to get back into the game is Dr. McCoy, his straight-talking friend. “This isn’t about age, and you know it,” Bones says. No, it’s that Kirk has let himself get trapped in Starfleet academia–and, although the doctor doesn’t need to say it, regret–”when you want to be out there, hopping galaxies.”
But after a five-year mission to all those planets, there must have been all sorts of regrets going through his mind. Why didn’t writers Nicholas Meyer and Jack Sowards have Kirk turn to the dusky skyline of the 23rd century Fillmore District and say: “Bones…Remember that time we met Abraham Lincoln in space?”
You would think it was a meaningful enough life event. Imagine: First you see the guy who debated Stephen Douglas floating in fucking outer space. Then you invite him on board and he makes an insensitive remark about the ship’s black communications officer, but you’re so impressed with him anyway that you record in your Captain’s Log that “his kindness, his gentle wisdom, his humor…everything about him is so right.” Then you watch him die from a spear through the chest on the planet Excalbia, where a rock monster made you fight history’s greatest villains.
That’s what happened in the 1969 episode “The Savage Curtain,” during the third season of cheap sets and worse scripts. It used to be that a story like that was laughed off, but according to a prevailing school of thought that has developed in the Star Trek world over the last 15 years, “The Savage Curtain” is part of a “canon,” a tapestry of consistent events officially sanctioned by the late series creator Gene Roddenberry, either by his own blessing or through his chosen successors.
This series of pieces will examine the history and development of Trek canon, and argue for the position that canon–a concept which has never before received this much media attention–has been an unnecessary, deleterious, and un-Trek addition to the Trek world. And as many of the ridiculous fan flame wars about J.J. Abrams’s $150 million Trek prequel illustrate, canon’s place in the hearts and minds of fans needs to be seriously re-examined.
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Looking forward to the series! Hope that it’ll address the animated show, which is largely declared non-canonical (except for “Yesteryear,” which someone gets a free pass) despite the presence of virtually the entire original cast, several of the original writers and even a few of the more prominent guest stars.
For my own part, I’ve previously argued (http://www.thiel-a-vision.com/?p=91) that adhering to a strict canon is detrimental not only to “Star Trek,” but to DC Comics as well.
I was actually hoping that the new “Trek” film would simply start from scratch and not worry about previous continuity. Without getting into spoilers (though it’s a pretty open secret), it appears that they’ve gone a somewhat different route which allows them to have their Romulan Ale and drink it too. Unfortunately, I suppose it’s a necessity, given that fandom is full of people who will get pissed off because Chekov is around from the start. (“Wrath of Khan” made the same mistake, yet somehow most of us finally had to admit that it was pretty good despite the egregious canonical error.)
I could have sworn that the animated series WAS supposed to be canon – it was just the non-broadcast stories (novels, comics, etc.) that weren’t. When did that change?
“The Savage Curtain” also has Lincoln asking if time is still measured in minutes, and Kirk replying, “We can convert to it.” So either Kirk is using some kind of elaborate ruse to conceal the Federation’s use of minutes and seconds, or Kirk is just screwing around with Abraham Lincoln for no good reason, or the whole episode is a goofy lark that doesn’t slavishly follow what’s gone before.
I’m going with “goofy lark,” a fun zone in which Picard is constantly talking about how amazing France is with its beautiful flag and wonderful wines and seriously France rules SO HARD you guys.
I’m more interested in the canon as a concept. Which fandom was the term first used with (and I’m not talking religion)? Was it Trek? How does the fan conception of canon relate to the scriptural and literary uses of the word?
Elsie–It is generally accepted that the tern “canon” as applied to fiction was first used in relation to Sherlock Holmes stories.
I’m not sure that some fans do differentiate between the term as a it relates to fiction from how it relates to scripture. Fiction is scripture to many of them.
It would make sense that it dates back to Holmes as the first big fandom. Hmm, I should look for academic studies of the Victorian Sherlock Holmes fandom And it’s closest to the scriptural sense, but media convergence makes it so much more complicated.
Hal, I think Roddenberry said in his later years that he wished he had never done the animated series (which I think is silly because honestly, that show is some of my most favorite Trek ever; and also, Arex rules), so a lot of fans take that as permission to un-invite it to the canon party (except, of course, the parts they like… Spock traveling into his own past, Kirk’s middle name, etc.).
It’s the Trek equivalent of the “Does the TV movie count?” debates in Doctor Who fandom.
Does the new movie now mean the die hard Trek fans are erased from continuity as well?
I have an essay calling for the abolishment of the concept of canon as applied to screen series fiction, which cites and synthesizes many of the points these commenters have touched on. On my website:
http://members.iglou.com/scarfman/fodder.htm
or on my LiveJournal:
http://scarfman.livejournal.com/tag/canon
Abstract: All the concept canon is good for in fandom is dividing us.
I’m not a canon partisan, but seriously, the Abraham Lincoln episode rocks like a hurricane. Star Trek suffers when it focuses too much on its “messages” and ignores that goofy shit. Goofy shit is part of the charm.
OH DUDE! The next Trek movie should base itself off of the Lincoln episode. But different.
Dubya Bush in space? Clinton in space? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
The next movie has to do this.
STAR TREK: SPACE NIXON
Hell yeah.
“Fire photon torpedoes at his space-jowls!”