quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: [QB] Let me see how briefly and non-inflammatorily I can touch on some of the points raised...
Some of those who have been here for a while know my position on registries. I look at both the intention and the execution, and when the two don't match up, I tend to err on the side of intention.
Execution gaffes tend to be due to time or budgetary restrictions, or to a breakdown in communication.
I think everything could be resolved if the impetus was there to go back and fine-tune the episodes -- from all of the series -- that felt the effects of those considerations.
I'm sure some of these changes would be made -- for the Director's Edition of TMP, the size of V'Ger was reduced to 2 AU, and the planets in Vulcan's sky were omitted. However, no fan could guess exactly what would be changed beforehand and in what ways it would be changed. We didn't even know whether there would be a Director's Edition.
If we could see into the future and prove that Star Trek will be reedited in the ways you suggest, preferably by acquiring the reedited DVD collection, you would be able to convince me unless there is a possibility that the future will change as a result of your actions.
I want to analyze Star Trek, and Star Trek is objectively defined as the collection of television shows, movies, books, novels owned by Paramount and created by its employees and licensees. Legally, only Paramount or its licensees can create more of Star Trek and decide what Star Trek is -- by ignoring certain materials or establishing an order of precedence -- while outsiders can merely reproduce parts of these sources for scholarly analysis under the Fair Use terms of the copyright law, if ever they intend to go public without licensing their work.
If we're not playing by these rules, then we're not analyzing Star Trek. If you believe part of the legal definition is wrong, that's your view and not necessarily mine, and you can always try to become a writer or a licensee. Otherwise, we're analyzing and discussing our individual views of Star Trek, which can technically range from "Voyager is a dream" to "Everything happened just the way it is shown onscreen." These views can depend on everything from how much we like a show under analysis to how much Okuda we've read. The result is a rough consensus called the Flare View of Star Trek. It's not Star Trek.
If, on the other hand, we analyze Star Trek, the conclusions we reach will have no creativity to them given what we know about Star Trek so far -- there are many more shows to be made. By the virtue of being objective, these conclusions help the writers and technical advisors who do not have the time to make up a registry system that would take into account an occassional random number.
The best part is that they're not the intellectual property of fans and can be technically used without the fear of stealing story ideas. The method produces useful theories that explain what we see throughout the entire history of Star Trek, as opposed to just one particular show. These theories can alert the writers of any unintended consequences of their shows, such as communism or racism that have been observed by serious essayists in published books.
That's why I like analyzing Star Trek as opposed to my own view of what Star Trek should be. You may not like analyzing Star Trek, but the conclusions reached are objective if done right. Hence, it does not belong in the "Designs, Artwork, and Creativity" forum, whereas the other kind of discussion technically does.
Regardless of whether or not we retitle this forum, it can be described as "Discussion of Subjective Views of Star Trek Starships and Technology". That's why there's such a thin line between this and "Designs, Artwork, and Creativity." To sum up, the result of such discussions is not an objective view of Star Trek, but rather a comparatively useless Flare consensus.
posted
I have no problem with anything you said, Boris. But to elaborate slightly on what my position is about... The Star Trek universe is a collection of episodes and movies (primarily) focussed around one group of people at a time, and the ship or station in which they go about their Trek-y business. The rest is just set dressing, and relatively unimportant to the larger context of those people's stories.
Thus, to use one of my earlier examples, when production materials and behind-the-scenes info identify the U.S.S. Pegasus, as a Cheyenne-class vessel, but when it comes time to do the VFX work for the episode, there isn't enough time or money to create a filmable miniature of that class, and an Oberth is struck from the existing molds to fill in... Well, I accept the limitations imposed on the makers of the episode and accept that it was supposed to be a Cheyenne, and still is in the 'real' Trek universe, as the registry wasn't altered to reflect the change of class. If one wants to take the placeholder model at face value and rationalize from there, fine. I just composite a Cheyenne in those shots in my mind's eye and call it done.
Similarly, I just hear Riker saying "NCC-71807... That's the Yamato -- our sister ship!" But I also acknowledge the erroneous line by having a U.S.S. Yamato in my ship list at NCC-1305 -- whichever class that ends up being. Plus four more between there and her Galaxy-class incarnation.
The final filmed material is not some infallible documentary. There are flawed human beings creating this stuff, and all their eccentricities and misunderstandings and politics and practical considerations form a significant filter between core concept and aired (or screened) end product. And so long as the core stories and characters remain inviolate, I see no problem with doing what we can to remove that filter and get a clear idea of what the Star Trek universe would look like if viewed through some hypothetical objective lens.
There is a third alternative to rationalizing or ignoring production errors. One could just as easily -- if not moreso -- acknowledge the error and go with what maintains internal consistency within the Trek universe. It beats going in circles trying to impose one's personal rationalizations on everyone else. *laugh* Especially in this crowd, where we have such a wonderful pool of behind-the-scenes information upon which to draw. We'd be fools to leave such a valuable resource lying around unused...
--Jonah
P.S. Don't get me started -- I've written essays on this subject and can go on for pages if provoked.
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
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quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: The final filmed material is not some infallible documentary. There are flawed human beings creating this stuff, and all their eccentricities and misunderstandings and politics and practical considerations form a significant filter between core concept and aired (or screened) end product.
Exactly, that's the point I was trying to make earlier. Star Trek is nothing more than a fictional sci-fi TV show. It's simply madness to treat the final "canon" product as something that is a 100% accurate documentary of reality, especially when taking into account the extensive subject knowledge that most of us here have.
posted
I didn't say it's 100% correct. I just said that you shouldn't need production notes to know what's an error and what isn't, because the show takes precedence over production notes if anybody cares to look at it closer. All you need do is notice bloopers, and 59650 or 1305-E hardly qualify as one.
I'll alert you to an "oddity" among some of the best writers, which is that they consider the final result the final result regardless of their intentions. If they don't like it, they don't go out and reedit it -- they write a new story.
Although he has revealed some of the intentions behind the B5 story, JMS refuses to accept anything but the final version, right down to the details. If you've read enough of his posts, you'll see that even if he admits to an error, he's not telling anybody how to interpret it, although he does have his own definite views that may be canonized in further stories.
If the core concept of the show cannot fit inside the limitations of the medium, the argument is that the original core concept wasn't good enough because it didn't use the limitations of the medium properly -- i.e., you're not a good TV writer, and you shouldn't blame the viewers for misinterpreting you. Low budgets, fears of cancellation, or the inability to go back are no less a valid limitation than the word-count of a novel.
They should be used to your advantage -- if most of the viewers expect a simplistic story of good and bad guys, use it to shock them somewhere in the story by turning things upside down. If you've made mistakes that can be rationalized but that contradict some of your concept, use them nevertheless if you care about a good final show more than a good original intention. It's just a show, not a holy vision that has to remain the same from the beginning to the end.
And there is no distinction between the details and the big picture -- if you can use the details to your advantage, they become foreshadowing and things that will be noticed on a second viewing.
If you do not take responsibility for your creation, you're going to be stuck writing for a show that does not express your views to people who don't know the distinction between error and the intended. Is Star Trek intended for people who know that the Pegasus was to have been a Cheyenne? If it were, the production notes would be aired next to the show. How do you know that it's still considered the Cheyenne among people who create and own Star Trek?
I don't know, and I don't pretend to. I just look at what's there and try to explain it a way that doesn't diminish the final result by literring it with "errors." So do many people who are not fans, and come to completely different conclusions than some of us. That's a red flag to me saying that perhaps my perception need not be the perception of the mainstream audience who don't have the production notes and books.
Boris
[ November 22, 2002, 06:44: Message edited by: Boris ]
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posted
I agree with you wholeheartedly. One of the things I liked about Babylon 5 that I've found lacking in Star Trek is the fact that in B5, the details are important. Whereas, as I said above, in Trek, the details could almost not matter less.
For instance, it matters not a jot to the story of "The Pegasus" if the ship was a Cheyenne or an Oberth. Thus, my quibbling over what class it was is equally irrelevent to the story. It just comes down (for me) to the fact that now that I know the story, I look at the tapestry on which it's woven. Yes, the casual viewer won't know what class it was intended to be, and that doesn't matter, as it doesn't affect the story or their understanding of it.
Most of the production errors can be skipped over, like the one shot in "Generations" in which the Enterprise-D is accidentally shown bearing the 71832 registry of the Odyssey from her recently-filmed DS9 appearance. That sort of thing might (emphasis on might) cause some confusion among casual viewers. Probably not, but maybe. Most will have the brainpower to figure out that it was a production goof and move on.
I think we're in agreement about the context here. Our ruminations in no way affect the picture on the tapestry.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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posted
I think the point of contention is just what a blooper is, which to me is merely that which cannot possibly be rationalized within the context of the show (a boom mike), whereas other people see it as something that was not intended but happened anyway.
The latter allows much more room for accepting and rejecting what we see. It theoretically allows a producer to think like this: "Hmm...maybe I couldn't force my views on to Braga, or work hard enough, but if I manipulate the actual audience through the nets, I'll gain the following which allows my work to be perceived in the way I wanted."
What if that producer's views were out of spirit of Star Trek? It would be like me accepting Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever" in favor of the aired version, or imagining that Jadzia never died. The official canon order is in place to prevent such manipulations, and that's why public fandom creations are illegal anyway. They can hurt the show as much as helping it.
If Star Trek is to become a better show, everything must matter, from the details up. The first step is to stop excusing anything but bloopers that cannot possibly exist within the context of the show, as perceived by the mainstream audience uninfluenced by production notes. That's what I want to do, and it's the only approach lacking any creativity, which is why I'm arguing it belongs to this forum.
Boris
[ November 23, 2002, 10:29: Message edited by: Boris ]
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posted
Paragraph 3, Boris, is where I think I can clear this up. Your "City..." and Jadzia examples would change the story! I'm trying to say that neither registry number of the Prometheus has any bearing on the Romulans, the Holodocs, the Starfleet interception, the Hirogen ultimatum, or any other element of that script or episode at frickin' all.
Can we agree on that much? Quit trying to shoot my approach down through the use of misconceived examples.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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posted
I don't think the examples are misconceived, because they're merely changing the plot and a little bit of characterization, which are only aspects of the story.
The visual items influence the way a viewer perceives the story likewise. It's just that you seem to perceive the work of the VFX people and the artists as almost irrelevant to what is nothing less than a visual medium, as opposed to a book.
They do choose their ship sizes and models carefully given their budget. They may not have the movie budget that allows them to build new models to perfect scale, but they do the best they can, sometimes better than the writers. Every ship is designed or used to make it fit the story under the budget, and is not a matter of "let's see, do we want an Oberth or an Excelsior today?" In talking to Gary Hutzel, David Stipes, and reading all of the behind-the-scenes interviews, I never got the impression that their work is disconnected from the story.
Furthermore, just because the VFX aren't produced under a movie budget doesn't mean that they're wrong. Only a viewer who sees the million Oberths and Excelsiors as artifacts of a certain budget will ignore them, and that's people who know too much about the way the VFX was produced and unreasonably want the TV show to be produced under a movie budget.
The budget limitation merely defines the kind of story that will or won't be told -- we've seen numerous examples where certain stories were abandoned because they didn't fit the budget or the VFX abilities. That's why the VFX vendor had to be changed on DS9 when the story suddenly required fleet shots.
Every once in a while, a casual viewer does notice these things. She notices that the Defiant has four decks in the background MSD. Its having twenty decks would create quite a different impression of the ship and by extension the story. There's the whole thing in literary analysis about finding new things in the text on subsequent readings, and this is one example of it.
posted
Damn, it's a registries thread and I find myself agreeing with Jonah. What has happened to the world? Oh yeah, no one's actually taking about registries...
-------------------- "My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor
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posted
And Boris? They are misconceived. The plot is what makes the story. If Jadzia hadn't died, we're in parallel universe-land. Ezri wouldn't be there. She wouldn't have taken the approach she did to nail the serial killer. There would be no Dax-Bashir romance. Worf wouldn't have left to become the Federation ambassador to the Klingon Empire (before apparantly becoming bored with that and returning to the Enterprise). Jadzia not getting killed profoundly affects the story, no two ways about it...
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: I don't think the examples are misconceived, because they're merely changing the plot and a little bit of characterization, which are only aspects of the story.
Merely? What crazy world is this where story != plot + characters?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
I don't know what kind of shows you guys are watching, but plot by itself doesn't normally make a story (except maybe in Sherlock Holmes or Mission Impossible). Characterization is usually cited as the most important aspect, because a lot of things follow from the characters. I never said that these are the ONLY aspects of the story, or that the setting is what makes the story.
I'm saying you shouldn't ignore the setting. If you read a novel describing the characters' home town in some detail, it's not window dressing. It's what made the characters what they are, and can also tell us something about the characters who chose to move there from another town.
Similarily, the kind of hardware Starfleet uses tells us a lot about Starfleet. The Defiant tells us a lot about Sisko, because he was one of its main designers. The ship is a malformed, raw expression of anger, with a lot of confused and redundant systems all over the place. That's the subtext. On a more obvious level, we essentially see the kind of design process that must have gone into it to make it the Defiant, by noticing all of these features and imagining who designed what and how.
The registry numbers probably have little function in this specific story, but it's still better to explain some oddities than to label them errors. We've seen that Starfleet allows the Enterprises and other ships to maintain the original registries occassionally, and that ships can be sometimes renamed with Starfleet's permission. Hence, a couple of out-of-system registry numbers seem quite reasonable, and are more consistent with Starfleet practice than the extremely uniform system you're proposing.
posted
But. y'know, changing something like Jadzia dying isn't "merely" altering the plot and some characterisation. Or rather, it is, but there's no merely about it. In any way, shape or form.
Characters drive the plot. Plots make interesting things happen to the characters. Setting is way, way below them on the list of "what makes a good story".
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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