Star Trek and Star Wars forgot… but Stargate remembered that rules matter in Sci-fi
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
- How much does canon really matter? Trekkies have had to accept that canon is a little fluid in the new Star Trek franchise.. but should it be? Should canon matter? Should established rules matter? Brad Wright thinks it should and tells us why ..
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Rules matter and can be incredibly useful in driving a story.
A good example of the rules driving stories would be Isaac Asimov's Robot series. (The books rather than the film). He established the Three Rules of Robotics at the outset of the book, and then looked at scenarios that might challenge those rules, and cause anomalies in robot behaviour.
I really LOVED SG1 and SGA. Thankfully I had all the DVD's to watch throughout
the COVID isolation time period. These two series all ways left me in a good mood.
Helpful . YES rules matter.
I would be really interested in seeing what star trek or star wars would look like being written by Brad Wright
I read a script companion for Stargate and they talked about arguments over story vs consistent science. I got the feeling they took it seriously and I appreciate that!
Good Fantasy needs rules and consistency too
It doesn't have to be believable, but it has to be internally self consistent. It would also help if the writers considered the 2nd and 3rd-order effects of a sifi technology on the society.
That's really difficult to do in a 1 hour long tv series, especially today with 5-8 42 minute episodes per season. Each minute of screen time is important. Also, it requires a lot of secondary actors which increase the expense. I can't tell you how many TNG episodes of a world were basically just 5 or 6 people in a room talking at a table. That was their entire "world" governing body, along with all their major characters. Sometimes it was only 1 english speaking actor with a few bumps on his nose representing an entire alien world civilization. Babylon 5 tried to break this cliche by doing what you suggested and creating a backstory and more believable world histories. It was unique at the time.
It doesn’t have to be believable to us, but it has to believable to them. It has to make sense for the world they’ve created.
The Doctor "Don't tell me the Rules" it's sad how new Doctor Who has not been brave enough to work inside of it's own rules, sadly diverged into crap story Chaos.
Ratings are the consequences for breaking the rules.
Too many cooks in the kitchen. Had one producer kept at it, there wouldn't have been an issue.
This is definitely a good discussion about world building and consistency.
Lightspeed torpedoes would be everywhere in Star Wars if they worked that well. You wouldn't even need to waste starships on ramming. A fighter sized torpedo could take out a Star Destroyer based on what happened to the Supremacy.
The rules are needed for any REAL story telling
This is the exact reason why stargate is my favorite Sci-Fi show
Rules are important, It's like when you are a kid and one of the kids pulls out now bullets bounce of me. It takes you from sitting in a story and believing it to watching it and feeling disconnected. now matter how good the story is it will not suck you in if you can't suspend your disbelief.
That's a challenge I have when watching new Star Trek. Every time they do something that seems to break canon, it takes me out of the scene a bit.
I just finished rewatching all of SG-1 and Atlantis. Atlantis had way less problems than SG-1. I didn't remember SG-1 being so horribly inconsistent, but it is. Things like the Tok'ra and Tollan being able to easily remove a goa'uld symbote... until it's time to remove Ba'al from Adria, then it's suddenly an impossible surgical procedure again... right before it's simply a ceremony again in Continuum. Other things like how the black hole connected to the Stargate was a huge problem for the SGC, then later they toss blackhole connected stargates around like it's nothing. A really glaring inconsistency was how sometimes dying symbiotes instantly kill the Jaffa carrying them, and then other times it's like oh your symbiote is dead we better remove it. There's a lot more but... the show really didn't handle consistency as well as I remembered, and I'm not even holding the really ridiculous things against it, like Kowalski's symbiote being just fine as a severed head, and zats disintegrating with the 3rd shot...
The black hole stargate depends if it's incoming or outgoing..
@@lawrencespruyt5053 It didn't seem to matter which way it went, except in the first episode. The trapped SG team dialed earth and the stargate shut down almost immediately because of the time dilation, but dialed the other direction the stargate would never shut down. When they tossed a stargate into a black hole in the Pegasus galaxy, it stayed open permanently instead of shutting down really fast even though it was dialed out. On top of that, Teal'c was hiding the other stargate right on top of the cargo ship with no problem from gravitational effects. Same thing when they blew up the star, they dialed the exact same black hole planet from the first episode that nearly destroy earth and just kept it in the cargo bay with no gravitational or time dilation issue. It's all a big mess that doesn't make a lot of sense when you think too hard about it.
@serqetry although I haven't watched through it in a year or so, I'd argue that the Pegasus gates are more advanced, and better at (for lack of a better word) collecting energy from its environment, where the milky way gates could only be energized if in contact with the power source. So when the Pegasus gate was dialed out it had essentially unlimited energy keeping the gate active past the 38 minute window. And as for the gate they used to blow up the star, it was surrounded by a tok'ra shield.. and in Canon, the iris slowed the time dilation effect, so the force field should have done the same, but to a greater degree...
@@lawrencespruyt5053no, the iris doesn't reduce the effects of time dilation. It's a set of very strong metal plates. Carter ordered it closed to prevent people from being pulled by gravity through the gate to the black hole planet.
I agree about the gate in the cargo hold. Once it connected with the black hole gate, there should have been serious gravity and time dilation effects, and the shield wouldn't affect that at all.
@chrisschembari2486 and yet when the iris was destroyed, the slow build up had a sudden surge
IMHO, I think JJ took the Lightspeed missile idea from Farscape's Starburst inside a Peacekeeper ship idea.
How did the stargate always know how to shutdown straight after the last person wishing to travel stepped through
"Why don't you fall through the floor?" 😂😂😂
That did seem slightly convenient how quickly it shut down sometimes, but it does shut down shortly if you aren't sending a signal through it, and they can shut it down manually any time barring something keeping it open on the other side.
Remember the scene with the nid outpost where oniel keeps the door open by keeping his hand in the outgoing event horizon...that was explained and it was plausible.
Where tealc went through the buried Stargate and the drone thay sent through first dropped back in the event horizon and was destroyed.
world-rules are important. Cinderella can't pull an M-16 out of the pumpkin carriage. A story has to have internal consistency.
You make some very good points, and definitely have picked out the problem with letting JJ Abrams and his cronies loose on anyone's beloved franchise. With Trek, I'm fine with a lot of the changes that were necessary to bring Trek back, it just couldn't have sat alongside shows like the Expanse without seriously raising it's game, and if you need an explanation, it's time travel messing up the time line. I would like the rules of zat guns properly explained though, the whole "1 shot stuns, 2 shots kill, 3 shots make the body disappear without a trace" was always silly and I'm glad they "forgot" about it.
Also something bugged me about Continuum... the real Ba'al was supposed to be the one that went back in time to destroy the Achilles, and the last clone was the one they were doing the extraction on. At the end, after the timeline was saved, Vala stays to help Ba'al's host... except if this was a clone, he would have no capacity to function as a human individual because all the clone hosts were rapidly grown to adults and only the symbiote gave them a personality. Was Vala supposed to be talking to what would basically be an infant in an adult human body? I don't think this detail was well thought out. And a minor nitpick I had was O'Neill dying from being stabbed in the shoulder with a needle... lol. Stargate should do better.
I would have to guess they cloned both the host and symbiote but I had questions too.
@@seth8629 yes they were both clones, but humans don't have genetic memory like goa'uld symbiotes. It makes sense the Ba'al clones would have identical memories and personalities, but the cloned hosts would be blank slates without the symbiotes.
@@serqetry Maybe the cloned host could experience the complete memories while implanted with the symbiote. I could believe the human brain could imprint with those and retain some memories after the symbiote was removed. I'm sure that dude is a vegetable regardless of whether they tried to help him. Ba'al is a dick!
@@serqetry My headcanon is that the real "Baal Prime" stay in the relative safety of the present, sending one of his clones into the past [instead of taking the risk of going through a timey-wimey wormhole with an unreliable exit point].
-> It was all part of his Master Plan to pretend he was the clone.
Did anyone stop to think that maybe infantile men were a kink that Vala wanted to explore? 🤔
Even tho this is an older vid at this point, it’s a subject I don’t think gets talked about in terms that I think it should very often.
As even tho sci-fi isn’t fantasy, when it comes to writing, just as you can have a hard or soft magic system.
You can absolutely have a hard or soft sci-fi “Magic system”. I will admittedly say stargate doesn’t have the hardest system in the world, but leans further in that direction. Just as Star Wars tends to have an extremely soft magic system.
Easy way when it comes to fantasy to tell, is if a problem is solved by “A Wizard did it” or if it was solved consistently within the rules of the magic set forth within the property.
Same thing goes for sci-fi, some shows lean into that sort of soft system a lot more, usually relying on techno babble or something random after they write themselves into a corner.
Same thing applies if you can say “ a science wizard did it” which stargate does have a few episodes where that’s definitively the case, but more often than not they follow the rules and laws put in place with the lore Bible of the series.
I mean maybe there is a proper term for a sci-fi “Magic system”, but I’ve just rarely seen anyone bridge the gap when it comes to writing and storytelling in that sense.
Tho I’ve also written more fantasy than I have sci-fi, despite being a die hard sci-fi fan, I don’t think my own writing skills lend themselves that well to it.
Rules are NOT made to be broken in Sci-Fi. You need consistency, otherwise past stories mean nothing, and if past stories mean nothing, that means you know that future episodes have no real stakes. Consistency and canon are very, very important.
Well said👍
I always loved how SG would even write into the script why something happened when you thought it shouldn’t be able to happen. They even did it when something was done correctly but some of the viewers might have thought it was wrong. The episode when SG-1 were caught in a trap by the bounty Hunter and O’Neill tried to be sly and throw a knife at him thinking it would get through. The bounty hunter even said that O’Neill was mistaking the technology of the trap with that of the personal shields used by Goa’uld. He then said it wouldn’t be much of a trap if all you had to do was walk through it slowly.
I think the closes they got to breaking the rules was with the Zats and the one, two, and three shots. How many times had people been shot multiple times and they didn’t die. At the very least they should have explained how much of an interval had to take place before it was deadly. The third shot was just a weak answer to solve a problem by making a bunch of stuff disappear. And I think I remember someone from the cast or writers even saying that. The problem I had with the 3rd shot was why didn’t what the object was laying on also disappear, or at least part of it? When they shot the boxes in the navy van, shouldn’t the van, or at least part of the floor, have also disappeared?
I would like to offer an additional thought. Rules do matter but authority matters too. What I mean by this is that the device which is used to outline the rule must have authority.
It frustrates me, when we as the audience meet a new minor character or other device with no other plot significance than to set a rule. Not because we never meet this Oracle of truth again but because even if they weren't a minor character, they need plot armour to emphasis the significance of their truth.
When we meet Yoda for the first time, we learn the truth of the difference between the light side and dark side of the force. As Luke's teacher, Yoda has authority but at that time he's still a minor character.
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Any deviation would rupture the immersion and continuity, further imperiling the satisfaction of viewers/fans and their profound emotional engagement.
For dedicated enthusiasts who invest their time and lives delving into the intricate lore of the show, this is akin to discrediting a well-recognized scientific research paper in the realm of sci-fi (an universally accepted fact), yet failing to present the approach of the new research paper that supposedly surpasses the previous one.
What it really showing is: It signifies a notable deficiency in the competence of the devoted sci-fi writer and the entire production team behind the show, for not identifying or even endorsing such a form of lackluster writing. They might take pride in applauding themselves for embracing these types of simplistic and lazy writing techniques, perhaps to economize time and resources. They appear to be unaware of the impact it has on the overall quality. some even blame fans for caring excessively more than they are.
On the other hand, fans who absolve them shoulder the responsibility for cultivating this forgiving culture, this behaviror only perpetuating the cycle of receiving subpar shows.
Exactly!!!! Thank you!
Even in fantasy you set up rules and follow them. Many adaptations of books to tv are forgetting the rules even from episode to episode.
Completly agree with you. Sticking to established rules helps with immersion in the story. Its very jarring when they break them. Would be like a non-fiction story suddenly having dragons flying around or perpetual motion machines.
Star wars old cannon - Hyperdrive doesn't work in Gravity wells and traveling between systems can be days or weeks. New cannon Flick the hyper drive on and off jumping the ship between planets at near ground level.
Sci-Fan is its own genre. Hard and Soft systems are here to stay so the wayward children of Science Fiction and Fantasy are with us to stay and meandering into the real world, so let's all bake some Brookies (brownies + cookies) and enjoy a Frappe (milkshake/Icee meets latte).
I fully agree that rules in sci-fi are important for a cohesive story.
I would argue that even fantasy needs to stick to the rules it establishes, even if those rules aren't based in science.
There was risky subspace transportation in TNG and DS9. But JJ wouldn't know about this.
Internal consistency is vital to good stories. Some things can be explained away like Spock having a brother and a sister. Or the holographic comms from Discovery wreaking havoc on Enterprise’s systems. Even a lot of the differences in tech for the Kelvin timeline can be attributed to research done because of Eric Bana’s attack. But “figuring out the math” for beaming into a warp bubble goes against Trek’s fundamental rules. And Star Wars? Well, it’s Star Wars.
Thanks man. Really that is very nice info.
Now I'm going to have to dig up and watch a particular episode of Babylon 5... because of Star Wars. Your comment about "why didn't they do it before?" reminded me of that B5 episode, and I know they dealt with something on a similar vein - opening a jump gate inside another jump gate, which Ivanova blows up about, saying something along the lines of it being called a "bonehead move" and being tantamount to suicide... thus why it isn't done. So, rule established... and rule about to be broken... and I can't remember how they got around the "suicidal maneuver" part, which is why I need to go back and watch it again. I also think there might have been some other issue involved that made it a bad idea.
The reason I want to watch the episode again is because I think there might be one option for "not doing the thing" that might have made the Last Jedi sequence a better plot point. Not perfect, but better, and at least functional - it might not even work. A starfighter could not have taken out the Death Star because - even if it worked, it might not have been enough mass disruption, and no guarantee what damage was done would have been enough. Not enough capital ships in the Rebel Alliance at that point to spare. And so on. Those excuses might be enough to answer "why not then", but don't work for Last Jedi - and I won't rant further on that part. In the end, though, some mention of it might not work at all (those pesky, fine point calculations, or some other reason), and/or why it had to be done as a manual maneuver, might have been a help to the story... but like the theme of this video assesses, the rules have to be put in place first, and breaking them has to have at least potential consequences. Having a different writer in Last Jedi who decided to throw out any rules that Abrahms might have added, probably didn't help, either. I'm a big SW fan, and am pretty good at suspending my disbelief from a pretty high bar, it does frustrate me at times.
I think it had something to do with the white-star being based on Vorlon tech, being one of if not the fastest ships in universe, & **Most Importantly*, would normally be predictable in a no-win situation *however* every other ship that could form its own Jump-point was far larger, so the shadow vessel assumed it couldn't, and by then it was too late. (P.S. - Notice I said jump-point, which is what both the gate and the ship created one of)... Also of course a white star had never attempted it before..
On a similar subject, you know how things are introduced and never used again so it never makes sense why not? B5 didn't do that when Marcus saved Ivanova's life, if you can't remember the details for that one, I won't spoil it for you. =)
@@zyme5998 Oh, I do remember that one... and even the additional callback with... oh gods, the PsiCorps guy, the name just ran away from me... with his girlfriend. I don't think they went into a lot of detail as to why it wouldn't work on her... I think they might have intended to, but the series didn't continue far enough to bring it in.
What gets me is when Star Wars breaks not just cannon, but basic high school physics.
3:30 to be clear, let's specify that we're talking about Starfleet transporters, which can't do that. Even TOS had some unnamed advanced aliens who sent Gary Seven's team back to Earth across many LY, TNG had the Iconian gateways, etc. JarJarverse fans are talking out of their plasma conduits when they say it's a different universe. JarJarverse only diverged from the Prime universe with the destruction of the Kelvin.
4:45 I'm afraid that's just a failure of imagination on the part of George Lucas and others creating the earlier SW movies. Maybe in the 70s and 80s, they didn't want to depict the heroes doing kamikaze runs - a qualm that modern Disney SW don't seem to have a problem with.
In physics, Force equals Mass times Acceleration, or F = MA. If you can accelerate a ship to speeds faster than light and hit something with it, the effects are devastating. As RUclipsr and physicist Isaac Arthur likes to say, "there's no such thing as an unarmed starship".
8:30 I always wondered why that pilot episode Apophis retreat looked a bit weird. Thanks for that!
9:00 I get the feeling that nutrek creators don't really see them as errors and don't care to fix them.
10:00 JarJarverse team to Brad Wright: "We'd love for you to write a Trek script. We want the Enterprise to beam down a team to a planet and meet the Furlings. Now, this time we want the REAL Furlings, okay?"
No, it's not a failure on the part of George Lucas and others. Hyperspace is four and five dimensional space and greater. The idea is that you pop outside of the universe, find a shorter route through hyperspace, and emerge back into the universe at NORMAL speed. Similar to warp speed---space itself is moving faster than light, but objects WITHIN the warp field travel at NORMAL sub-light speeds. Rian Johnson was being a huge arsehole, and ignored the rules. Think about it. Kamikaze runs were in World War Two. Star Wars was based off World War Two.
As far as transporting long distances-and through shields, no less-you're forgetting that the Dominion had that capability in DS9; albeit, not regularly used, probably because of the energy requirements. Also, there were a few species that had developed-or assimilated-said technology; one notable being long extinct (before Star Trek Online).
The whole transporter thing was just more of a contrived money saving device. They didn't want to have to use shuttles.
the rules of any universe (sci fi or fantasy) have to remain constant. Go back to the stories that inspired or influenced these shows creators and you see they had a constant set of rules they always stick to that made those stories last, many from those times for decades or even a century. A great example is how the superman radio show made up the rules for Kryptonite so that the actor could have time off, and the stories until recently have stuck to the rule of what it does and how it works. I think the biggest reason long running franchises go down the tubes is all the folks that "take over" with out understanding the rules of what they took over, the example here of the transporter is a great example of that. Though to be fair Star Trek always did like to break their own rules then retro in how it wasn't being broken.
Agreed, I think rules should be followed as well or the whole thing because unbelievable.
"The Rules" and 'canon' are different things. I think rules (as in physics and engineering) *do* matter, but 'canon' (character beats, events, intentions, especially throwaway ones) is much less important. A specific beef I had with Discovery was the ridiculous turbolift spaces that were impossible to fit within the ships.
As for the hyperspace ramming in The Last Jedi, that could have been easily fixed by a single line mentioning that the tracking signal that let the FO follow the Resistance was being targeted to ensure a hyperspace collision (I think that came from either EC Henry or Eckhart). Not the only issue that could have been fixed by an added line.
I couldn't agree more.
The Orville was consistent too. It ended on a high satisfying note.
Plot armour!
I saw George Takei once on Howard Stern. He said that every fictional Universe has its own rules no matter how fantastical and you have to follow them otherwise everything falls apart. He said that's why he believes heroes failed because and season one they set up rules of their universe and as the show went along they didn't follow those rules
Or the disaster known as modern Doctor Who ...
'If they plan ahead.' I think you found one big thing there.
Or, be explicit in making it a different universe, a la MCU. You can even use that for later storytelling.
The gate didn't stay open in the first episode, we just don't see how they were able to dial up. Which is why they created the portable DHDs later.
If you want a moment where the characters forget that the stargates are just one way, in Atlantis sometimes Ronon and Sheppard keep shooting through the gate, but maybe that's the adrenaline talking.
No they did some editing magic to fix the mistake. Originally the gate did stay open and they walked back through. Brad realised the error last minute.
@@scitrek Oh excuse me I didn't realize you were talking about the episode before it aired, I thought you were comparing the original pilot with the "Final Cut", yes but at least they changed it before airing so that's good.
Original Star Trek was famous for that. Something works one episode and totally forgotten the next.
Having consistent rules means that breaking them can be an effective plot point.
As he stated: As long as you come up with a convincing reason for how/why the rule was broken. THAT makes it interesting, not just breaking a rule. Breaking a rule is something any idiot writer who knows nothing of the universe in which they're creating a story does out of ignorance and/or lack of care. Breaking it and using it to drive a good story explaining why/how it was broken is excellent writing.
I don’t agree, that’s just lazy writing as far as I’m concerned regardless of how interesting it was to break the rule.
You mean Shit writing because of the writer IS too dumb to Come Up with a solution without warping reality
Totally agree...
Totally agree. Rules matter in all types of stories. Especially sci-fi and fantasy to maintain the suspension of disbelief
The thing with the Star Trek is that with each series ( original, next generation etc) they incorporate new scientific discoveries from the real world into the the stories. Do these change the direction of the canon?
I've got a lot of sgu lore questions that I could turn into a storie.😢
Rules always matter. For example if creating a vampire universe you must establish how vampires die. Do they just bleed, do they disintegrate or explode in a cloud of dust. Also you have set if your vampires are undead or some kind of parasitic metamorphosis. Make rules and stick to them.
thank u sir
And this is why I like things like Babylon 5
For me Mass Effect has the tightest science. Its foundation is based on Element Zero. They explain what it is, what it does, how they use it, and how they discovered it. What also makes their science more believable is their science is derived from existing theories. Lookup negative mass.
That's exactly why I revere Stargate and tolerate StarTrek. They didn't need to invent a new kind of radiation every week to explain something that doesn't even make sense.
Rules ABSOLUTELY matter. Otherwise nothing makes sense anymore.
I spent time thinking how I could "fix" the canon of Star Trek if I were in charge, and came to the realization that its not possible. You would have to identify _every_ inconsistency and contradiction, and then decide what was 'real' and what wasn't. And there are _waaaaaay_ too many inconsistencies and contradictions.
All that could really be done is to start over.
Rules are what makes Stargate an attractive show for people with true autism, when cells divide slowly and their synaptic pruning is disrupted.
J. J. Abrams does crap like that all the time. He's more concerned with the story that things like physics and "rules" are gleefully thrown out. You'll notice in the Force Awakens while on the planet with Maz Kenada they could see, in real time, the attack of the starkiller base as it wipes out the new Republic home world which is light years away. There's no way they could have seen it as it was happening. But he wanted the characters to know that the base had been used and that the New Republic system was being destroyed to add tension. Similar to Star Trek where Spock saw Vulcan get destroyed when they were no where near it.
Well they have hyperspace relays for communication so depending on the distance, if they were not on opposite sides of the galaxy, they could possibly get near real time news. I can overlook a lot of the crap in the Sequels, but I can't overlook what they did to Luke in TLJ!
I struggle to consider much Trek after Enterprise canon. I like Strange New Worlds because it's developing some of the supporting characters from The Original Series that were under-developed in the 1960s like Chapel and M'Benga, Picard Season 3 is good and Lower Decks is entertaining. The rest can burn.
I hope they do hand the future of Trek to Terry Matalas because he at least clearly loves the franchise in a way a lot of the people in-charge now don't if they think Discovery is what we wanted.
Stargate the SG1: the Sci-fi we deserve, but not the one we need right now.
Yes, I do think rules and canon matter. Rules place limitations, and in my opinion limitations are as important to storytelling as possibilities are. Limitations are a source of conflict, tension and questions, which in turn leads to greater audience engagement. Canon is important because it gives the stories their identity and allow the audience to recognize it as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Expanse, Stargate or Farscape. If we suddenly removed the warp drive from Star Trek and it was now the adventures of the starship Queen Elizabeth from the Alliance of Inhabited Worlds, bravely venturing into space and encountering the Dinlong Monarchy, would you be able to point at it and go "Ah yes, Trek"?
Rules matter a lot when creating stories, When I saw the "hyperspace ram" in SW I immediately thought, Why didnt the CIS just strap hyper drives to their fighters and ram the Republic capital ships and why didnt the rebels jump X-wings into ISD's I mean one X-wing vs one ISD is an amazing trade off.
Hyperspace ramming happend before in Star wars,in a Comic three Star Destroyers dropped Out of hyperspace too Close and rammed into the executor. Do you know what happened? Minor damage ON the shields and the executor is a Dreadnought that IS six Times smaller than the Disney mega Star Destroyers. So Not only did they Break the Lore but appearantly the First Order shields are so Shit that they are weaker than the ones in the executor
Well, Star Trek was an episodic show and not a serial like Stargate. Star Trek didn't have to remember that a deflector wasn't the same as a shield and it kept reinventing the same show-saving science-magic each week because they just did things differently back then. Stargate created a universe and rules and lived by them because it was meant to be different. Star Wars was more like that - it established rules and followed them. If we had any "good" Star Trek writing now, we could have the best series ever. But the same people who didn't appreciate the source material are making a desperate effort to avoid learning it now. Remember how great it was when Beverly Crusher was running away from the Borg and "happened to remember" that she'd done something similar a few episodes earlier and pulled out the Metaphasic shields from her browser tabs and used it? EVERY episode should have been like that.
respecting the rules is respecting hte source material, something fans are passionate about.
Disrespecting the rules is disrespecting the fans
Yes, rules are important. Without rules there are no stakes. Without rules, the author can say "... and then the good guys win..." at any time.
Rules are important as you said they form the basis for so many stories, those rules then help establish cannon which in turn helps new writers create their stories. Without established rules or cannon when the writers create their story they can get established facts wrong at best at worse paint themselves into a corner which then requires they either break all known rules or just make something up which they never use again. It doesn't matter whether sci-fi or fantasy the rules establish what kind of world it is. Even games have these kinds of bibles/rules that establish what can or cannot occur in universe from video games to D & D the rules help tell the story. Good writing is obviously a godsend but that alone won't hold up.
If you doubt this, ask Brandon Sanderson how rules matter in storytelling.
Trek and Wars didn't 'forget', they were ROOFIED and dragged down a dark alley.
🤣🤣
I prefer the rules small rule breaking might not bother me but even explaining something doesn’t automatically justify the rule breaking scenario.
Believability, like rules and canon matter.
I think we can accept that the Abrams treks should just be ignored. But I do think there's a difference between consistency with every piece of canon and changing the underlying structure of the universe, as with interplanetary beaming (as you say: why would ships even exist if that were possible.)
New Trek on TV may not be as religious as you would like, but things like "Spock is different" doesn't sit well for me. Are you the same person you are over a decade ago? It's not really treated as a joke, it's treated as a previously unknown part of his journey to becoming the Spock we saw portrayed by Nimoy.
And big things like Burnham's existence can totally make sense...the adoptive sister that was MIA for over a decade before we met Spock just never came up in on-screen conversation.
Also: rules matter plenty in fantasy, too. For instance. a magic system without limitations leaves you without meaningful stories.
I play it a bit on both sides. Overall it is the story that is most important to me, and small canon inconsistencies are not a big deal. Small things like occasionally Data uses a contraction, really easy to make that mistake and honestly that was a bit of a silly rule to begin with, why would such a sophisticated AI not be able to use a contraction, even the computers of the 80s were able to use words when programmed, and he was supposed programmed with multiple full languages in it, so why certain words he couldn't use.
I've liked all of modern Star Trek with my only real criticism of them being that I wish for more cerebral stories like we used to get in the TNG era. Every season of every show seems to end with galaxy ending stakes. Galaxy ending stakes can be fun, but if you use them too much, you may as well not use them at all.
I do agree as well that the rules matter and when you ignore them, sure, we can come up with reasons why it makes sense, but when you just ignore the rules because they are inconvenient in the writers room, that becomes troublesome.
That said, Subspace Beaming was established as a thing all the way back in TNG. In TNG it was established that subspace beaming existed but was incredibly dangerous. There was a Ferengi who used it to torment Picard (why do the Ferengi hate Picard so much) beaming on and off the Enterprise D from far distances. The tech was established there, and established as being dangerous to the point that only someone desperate would use it.
So... with that in mind, I could believe that Montgomery Scott was the first to come up with the formulas for subspace beaming, and that he would, as indicated in that movie, be reluctant to try it unless it was very important, which it was deemed as being such then. I could then believe that a purposefully thawed Khan who was given access to trek technological knowledge, would have been able to come up with a way that he was comfortable with using it. I would also just simply assume he didn't beam from the shuttle to Kronos, but instead was beamed out of the shuttle from somewhere nearby and then transmitted to Kronos.
As for the separate universe cop out, yeah, it was a cop out, and the technology looked too good for the TOS era, but the assumption that Starfleet would bump up their R&D to the max after the Kelvin was taken out by Nero's ship makes at least some sense.
But you're doing the very thing that was mentioned...creating your own fan plothole covers. Fans shouldn't be made to do that.
@@kirkdarling4120 I enjoy it though :)
There does seem to be a horrible trend these days where this current generation of egotistical tv writers and showrunners (who are supposed to be custodians of long-running series) these days now prefer to disregard or, worse, subvert canon, continuity and the pre-established rules, feeling they can just do about anything they want, as you've said, and saying that there's no canon/continuity... This is an issue with Doctor Who these days, while admittedly, it has always been a bit loose with its canon/continuity in the past, though necessarily in a bad way. It was not as bad as it has become recently, and now Star Trek seems to have gotten to be like this as well, now. I think there needs to be a decent and careful balance with the storytelling.
Anyone ever wonder with the blackhole episode how the time would have been explained to the population of earth?
Got to have some constant framework. Otherwise you get one dues ex machina after another.
Rules are important to the "universe" it is about. Ether there is Stargate, Star Trek og Star wars for that matter. Or even some other show. Agree that Star Wars is more fantasy oriented "sci-Fi" and does not always need to explain everything, like Star Trek. Im not that into the all of the canon of Star Trek but enjoy the new trek. But was a bit strange when they introduced the new Klingon.
Actually the idea of long range teleportation was based upon the concept of space being the thing that's moving and not just the objects within it, an actual scientific postulation that has been accepted by the scientific community but it assumes that space is expanding. Abrams did what Abrams does and used a halfbaked version of this to justify the teleporter device in his movie. Unfortunately, his being the corporate fave flavour allowed him to get away with this because he'd had successes elsewhere and made a lot of cash. Setting rules for the show was important and has great bearing on the popularity of the original because fans knew what should be done within the confines of a storyline adding to the drama when the characters had to find ways around them in order to get a satisfactory result. New Trek does away with that by lazy use of the alternative timeline to explain away the lack of knowledge of, or disregard for, cannon in order to squeeze in the box ticking corporate woke requirements on a franchise that led the way for the real thing, making many elements of New Trek seem like cardboard copies of what went before despite having effects budgets that the original production team would have chewed off their arms and legs to have received.
"That's the difference between science fiction and fantasy."
Bullshit.
Fantasy that doesn't follow its own rules is bad fantasy.
I hate all this bullshit about Star wars isnt "real scifi" Like Bro they probably have way more Expanded Material about the science in their Universe than Most "real" Sci Fi Shows Put together. Also why IS Star wars called Fantasy? Just because of the Force ? Then Star Trek with Q should BE called Fantasy and Stargate with its ascension Thing. Also Trek ships Look way more fantastical than Star wars ships
I'm a big Star Wars fan and I LOATHED that idiotic maneuver at the end of The Last Jedi. Even when watching the original Trek I disliked when the basic science they used contradicted things shown in other episodes. Whenever someone asks who would win between the Empire and the Federation, I always say that which ever series understands physics the least has the advantage. I'm sad to say that this puts SG1 at a significant disadvantage.
If you change the Klingons, what for? Is the story so much more enjoyable? Or is just because of that darn copyright? (Who the hell came up with the idiocy of splitting movie and series company?)
Continuity Matters in a series that in essence is what we are talking about with Rules the establish that Continuity throughout the whole
As soon as they break the rules, I'm out.
Let's be honest... it's not JUST the rule- and lore-breaking that bothers us in New Trek and the Sequel Trilogy. That idiotic "Holdo Maneuver" was totally jumping the shark. And if rapid effective Force healing was a thing, you know damn well Obi-Wan could have saved Qui-Gon AND Padme. But it is a major part of what upset so much of the fanbase of both franchises. Having characters behave... well, out of character was another major factor.
Do we really think that Luke would kill his nephew, who really hadn't done anything yet, when his character is established as bending over backward, even risking his own life, to save his mass-murdering father?
And in New Trek... come on, it is a MILITARY. When officers in TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise were insubordinate, they were consistently reprimanded/disciplined. I particularly love the episodes where Data is in command of the Enterprise or another vessel and (with more compassion that most humans!) disciplines the offending subordinate. But in New Trek... lesser officers are routinely insubordinate to their superiors. That would never be pemitted in any effective military. Also... New Trek characters are so crass and crude. Even when Shatner's Kirk was flirting with Orion women, he was classier about it!
The third main factor has been their internal inconsistencies/hypocrises. Luke trying to kill Ben Solo when he refused to kill Anakin. Holdo being praised for her sacrifice then Finn being chastised by a minor character for attempting to do the same 15 minutes later. Nobody showing up when the Resistance needed aid against a relatively minor threat, then literally the whole galaxy shows up when "Palpatine somehow returned". Really?
Anyways, if the IP owners of Stargate have listened and learned from the failures of New Trek and Disney Wars, more power to them! I look forward to the results.
Rules matter. Without them, nothing matters, nothing makes sense, and no achievement has any value.
But the gate does turn off in the first scene of SG-1. Shortly after Apophis steps through the gate, it goes off. He then later instructs the snake guards to start the dialing process. However they do it, the gate was off.
I think the point of the story was that originally the gate didn't go off and that they had to scramble during the editing phase to film some new scenes quickly to fix the problem before the episode was aired.
You've ERANED the LIKE... unlike the writers for the last 20 years... I used to get the business from my friends 23 years ago because I would point out inconsistences in movies. I can't suspend disbelief if the movie doesn't follow the rules it sets out.
Rules matter because if they do not, you are making a Dr Who episode.
I think BSG proved that re-imagining can work - but don’t approach it half pregnant - go all in with the changes, or stick to the rules. Make a choice.
Kelvin Scotty got the mathematical equation from prime Spock who got it from prime Scotty
Oh, some have said with the light speed jump in to another ship, that is kind of a war crime… And that’s a good explanation of
Canon matters. I've always felt that these showrunners simply don't respect the show itself. They don't respect the audience and think it is just a bunch of teenage boys wanting to see pow pow boom boom mixed with T&A. We are all very lucky to have the work done by Brad and J. Michael Straczynski.
Consistency is important. If a episode casual disregards established events or physical laws it cheapens the series and frustrates the viewers. Frustrated viewers watching a series which ignores past events due to the laziness of the writers tend to look elsewhere for entertainment.
Most writers don’t care. So I don’t care and don’t watch.
That’s why I don’t care about the strike.
Let’s start with “cannon” didn’t even exist until well into TNG, and new trek is trying to stay cannon’ish.
SG, never explained why all of a sudden “ep 2 of sg1 everyone in the universe spoke English unless Daniel had to translate for effect. That said, I agree, make the rules of your universe and tools, build a timeline and do your best to stick to it. Breaking your rules bothers me more than breaking cannon. Look at Known Space for a good example of consistency. B5 was pretty good too.
There is a lot to argue about the above being science fiction vs science fantasy. See Arther C. Clark’s opinion on it.
I'm a fan of all three (except Ep. 1,2,3 of Star Wars YUCK!!!) but Stargate (in all of it's forms) is my favorite.
yea explain how does star trek "all good thing" makes sense?
Space wizard.
If you create a universe with canon but then ingnore that canon or change it without validating it, then those that create it have no respect for the audience. They are essentially are just relying on the audiences love of the previous series or movies to get them an easy win. Any future prospects of the franchise become jeopardised as potential new generations of fans see the inconsistancies without the nostalgia attached for them to overlook the creators disrepect for their intelligents
Few times a person can say that he agrees with another when it comes to complex opinions. But this time I agree 100% with what is expressed here. Science fiction is really stories where the fantasy is based on real science as much as possible. And the stargate saga is science fiction. Star Trek was until 2005. When the "new Abrams universe" came, destroying the previously established canon, it became more fiction than science or fantasy, sometimes to absurd conclusions as in Discovery. Since then they became a fairy tale with cheap science like Star Wars. And they just tried to fix it halfway with Picard and Strange New Worlds. But as a fan of Star Trek for 50 years, currently of the three the real science fiction is Stargate and this thanks to the universe created by Brad Wright and his group.
Earlier "Nu-Trek" was really, really awful and had no respect for Star Trek canon, or science in general... but Strange New Worlds seems to be different. So far my only real complaint with SNW is how they constantly use transporter suspension when it has been very clearly established in TNG and VOY that you can't easily do that without serious problems due to pattern degradation. I could buy this if SNW was newer than VOY, but it only makes sense it would be even harder to do this with pre-TOS transporters. Oh and there was one thing about the communication antenna being in the warp nacelles??? I thought that was part of the main deflector dish?
Having followed the Star Trek saga since 1969 in its various versions, I have found contradictions on several occasions (especially the Klingons of the original and those of The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager) but this is corrected in the series Enterprise. But Stargate, so far (we'll see what Amazon does with the saga) hasn't made any absurd inconsistencies and Brad Wright and his teammates were very careful that there weren't any. The Abrams universe from the very beginning was dedicated to making mincemeat of Star Trek canon. And the last straw is how they solve the Discovery season finales. A Klingon, he dominates his entire empire because he has his finger 24 hours a year for life on a bomb that can blow up his planet. In another season finale we learned that all the federation warp ships were blown up by the nervous hysteria of an infant on planet x. I call that idiotic science fiction.@@serqetry
@@andreskalmar4865 the Klingons weren't "corrected" in Enterprise. That whole thing was an idiotic attempt to explain something that didn't need explaining. They tried to turn a funny joke in the DS9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations into something serious, and they failed miserably. Probably the dumbest thing about Enterprise besides inserting another ship named Enterprise into canon where one never existed.
Also, SG-1 has quite a few absurd inconsistencies... but nothing as offensive as the earlier Nu-Trek disrespecting of canon.