Hypothetical because of Abrams

[Zwinmar]

A hypothetical crossed my mind while reading a review of the newest Star Trek and Star Wars movies...
Since they are both directed by Abrams could the potential for mischievous be such that the canon for both be disrupted, or, at least become convoluted?

[Batman]

I don't see why. Neither company ever had canon tied to wrote or directed or edited or whatever anything, it's always (well for as long as I can remember anyway) been 'everything televised and the movies is in except when we say it's out and nothing else is except when we say it's in' and the Alphabet canon for Wars.
Now there's nothing to stop them both from readjusting their policies to 'if director X is doing it it's in' but why in Valen's name should they do that? Nobody but us gives a damn about the whole canon thing anyway.

[jwl]

You mean a canon crossover? I can see that being interesting, although I think more likely candidates would be star wars/ marvel or marvel movies (seeing as they are both owned by Disney).

[Ralin]

You mean a canon crossover? I can see that being interesting, although I think more likely candidates would be star wars/ marvel or marvel movies (seeing as they are both owned by Disney).

While the Star Trek: TNG/X-Men crossover novel I read as a kid was much better than you would expect I really don't see much reason to think that would do well. A Star Wars/Star Trek crossover would draw in every single vaguely nerdy person on the planet, multiple times.

[FedRebel]

While the Star Trek: TNG/X-Men crossover novel I read as a kid was much better than you would expect I really don't see much reason to think that would do well. A Star Wars/Star Trek crossover would draw in every single vaguely nerdy person on the planet, multiple times.

Half of whom would hate it by default, and if you try to 'balance the equation' to mitigate that you'll ending displeasing everyone. The media industry, novels, movies, etc. has a thin skin for negative critique, anyways Paramount and Disney would want a project to be highly lucrative and any hint of negative feedback would lead them to conclude it's not worth it.

Even in a perfect world (Conquest: The Movie?)...unless turbolasers bounce harmlessly off the deflectors of Trek ships, DarkStar and his minions will put up enough of a fit to doom the project.

OTOH...

Abrams is doing the movies for both franchises, Hasbro is making the toys for both franchises....

Disney, Paramount, think about.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

You mean a canon crossover? I can see that being interesting, although I think more likely candidates would be star wars/ marvel or marvel movies (seeing as they are both owned by Disney).

While the Star Trek: TNG/X-Men crossover novel I read as a kid was much better than you would expect I really don't see much reason to think that would do well. A Star Wars/Star Trek crossover would draw in every single vaguely nerdy person on the planet, multiple times.

Has anyone seen the Assimilation^2 that I read about? It's a TNG/Dr Who crossover...

[the atom]

Even in a perfect world (Conquest: The Movie?)...unless turbolasers bounce harmlessly off the deflectors of Trek ships, DarkStar and his minions will put up enough of a fit to doom the project.

DarkStar couldn't put up enough of a fit to make anybody do much of anything as I recall.

[Srelex]

Even in a perfect world (Conquest: The Movie?)...unless turbolasers bounce harmlessly off the deflectors of Trek ships, DarkStar and his minions will put up enough of a fit to doom the project.

DarkStar couldn't put up enough of a fit to make anybody do much of anything as I recall.

You mean to stay he's still around and still cares about this stuff after what, a decade?

Besides, multibillion dollar entertainment companies won't care about what a couple dozen nerds tops on the internet have to say.

[jwl]

While the Star Trek: TNG/X-Men crossover novel I read as a kid was much better than you would expect I really don't see much reason to think that would do well. A Star Wars/Star Trek crossover would draw in every single vaguely nerdy person on the planet, multiple times.

Half of whom would hate it by default, and if you try to 'balance the equation' to mitigate that you'll ending displeasing everyone. The media industry, novels, movies, etc. has a thin skin for negative critique, anyways Paramount and Disney would want a project to be highly lucrative and any hint of negative feedback would lead them to conclude it's not worth it.

Even in a perfect world (Conquest: The Movie?)...unless turbolasers bounce harmlessly off the deflectors of Trek ships, DarkStar and his minions will put up enough of a fit to doom the project.

The vast majority of people watching are not going to care in the slightest who it portrayed as more "powerful" in a crossover movie. The vs community is only a tiny proportion of the fans, and even of the vs people most won't fanrage if their side "loses". I know I wouldn't.

[The Romulan Republic]

In a film the Empire would probably be more powerful to make it an impressive and threatening villain but would lose due to technobable or something else (like Nero in Abrams' first Star Trek film).

That's a good way to placate the people who give a shit about the debates, because the Star Trek side wins but the Empire is stronger, which means that the Star Wars fans can say their defeat was just a fluke. So everybody sort of wins.

[jwl]

Honestly I don't think the empire would be a good villain in a canon wars/trek crossover, it would mess with the timelines too much, even if you ignored C & S-canon. I'd say one with the Yuuzhan Vong or something similar would work out better. Or the republic (new or old) could team up with the federation against a trek enemy.

[Lord Revan]

tbh if you used a small(ish) imp taskforce that got lost in an anomaly (kind of like the Narada but without killing the Galactic Empire) and that taskforce desided to take on the UFP for what ever reason, it wouldn't mess too much with the timeline (or you could just use a reset button at the end).

that said The Republic (old or new) might work if you make the start of the conflict be due to a mistake and have the conflict be the "villian" of the story with our heroes (either the ST side or both) trying to stop the conflict before too much blood is spilt.

[The Romulan Republic]

If using a small Imperial fleet, it would be best to set the film after Return of the Jedi. It would be plausible for some Imperial troops to disappear due to the chaos and decided to try to set up their own empire in a new galaxy.

[Connor MacLeod]

People worry about canon way too much nowadays.

[The Romulan Republic]

Canon matters because consistency matters. Without consistency you have stories that don't make sense and events that don't have lasting consequences and therefore arguably don't matter. And then how can the audience take them seriously?

Of course, following canon limits what writers can do, which is a reason why I am in favour of frequent reboots an/or alternate universes. Then we can have the best of both worlds.

[Stark]

Are you stating a causal chain where canon (or canon policy) is related to how seriously the audience can take a work? When discussing an imaginary ST/SW crossover discussion bogged down in exactly when it should occur?

[The Romulan Republic]

While canon does not necessarily effect weather people take something seriously, I believe that a lack of canon can have an effect on the consistency, believability, comprehensibility, and intelligence of a story and therefore can have an effect on weather people take it seriously.

The fact that I posted my argument in this thread does not invalidate it.

[Stark]

By 'people' do you mean people in general, or vs-obsessed nerds? Because lots of fiction has no canon policy at all and people take them seriously just fine.

I think this is a good example of Connor's point. Canon rules or levels or in or out of canon just don't matter that much - and in this specific example, the idea that fucking continuity would be an important obstacle to the project is absurd. If rights holders wanted to do it, nothing in the goddamn EU or pre/post ROTJ stuff would slow them down. Canon's importance to fiction in general has been over-valued to many by the vs debate and the specific need there for agreed content with which to debate.

[jwl]

Fair enough in large stuff like doctor who and marvel, but when you're talking about a low content base like in star wars g-canon, people are going to notice if you mess with stuff too much. I guess it could work though, thinking about it. But you'd have to be careful if you're keeping this in-continuity.

[Zwinmar]

Could it be a product of the fanatical idea held by the author that they are the only interpretation of a work?
Anecdotally, I know Star Wars was different before the release of the three prequels than it is no, the same can be said of the change between TOS and TNG.

[Connor MacLeod]

Canon matters because consistency matters. Without consistency you have stories that don't make sense and events that don't have lasting consequences and therefore arguably don't matter. And then how can the audience take them seriously?

'consistency' and 'canon' are not inextricably tied together. You can have plenty of settings that have no official 'canon' and still maintain consistency, simply because the author manages to keep his shit together and doesn't deviate. 'consistency' comes from the author, not from an arbitrary set of rules.

And even disregarding that, people have different ideas and standards about what 'makes sense', and what sort of bullshit they will put up with. Something can 'not make sense' to one person yet be perfectly sensible to another, which makes the idea of 'canon equating consistency' even more silly, because one needs a flexible and adaptable approach to deal with multiple (sometimes contradictory) viewpoints.

tl;dr: yes, consistency in a work matters (in a great many ways), but that does not mean 'canon' matters. 'Canon' is just merely one way to try and maintain consistency, and its not even the best approach.

Of course, following canon limits what writers can do, which is a reason why I am in favour of frequent reboots an/or alternate universes. Then we can have the best of both worlds.

Which makes it sound as if you feel that 'good' fiction can come from slavishly adhering to a pre-established set of rules and guidelins and never deviating once from it. You do realize that's a great formula (quite literally) for repetitive writing, right?

[Stark]

Could it be a product of the fanatical idea held by the author that they are the only interpretation of a work?
Anecdotally, I know Star Wars was different before the release of the three prequels than it is no, the same can be said of the change between TOS and TNG.

I'm not sure if I'm getting what you mean, but to be honest I do believe that whether or not authors working in a universe or collaborative creative production cooperate or try to dominate is really important. Some large, decades-old works involving different creators don't have the kind of constant contradiction that characterises things like Star Wars EU, because the creators actually care about the artistic integrity of the work. They don't just write whatever story they want and write Star Wars on the front and then hire some idiot to declare it 'C-Canon' so that their ignorance or mistakes 'don't matter'. To use Connor's explanation, canon is one way to maintain consistency - after you've already lost it. It's a band-aid for chaos and contradiction.

Using Star Wars or Star Trek to show why a canon policy is necessary to be taken seriously is a bit of a laugh, because the canon policy is only necessary because otherwise the 'universe' is a huge mess of contradictory bullshit (and even with it, it takes some guy like Publius to synthesise everything into some kind of holistic vision). And really, who 'takes seriously' Star Trek? Star Trek fans? People in general?

[Connor MacLeod]

It can also depend on the way the universe is set up. Some settings are designed to let people 'dominate' small parts of it without really affecting the overall setting. In such cases you can have lots of people writing the way 'they' think the setting operates, seemingly be in contradiction, and still be consistent because it's in line with the way the setting is contrived.

And yes, I pretty much described 40K to a T there. The setting is so incredibly vague and varied you can literally justify anything because it is meant to be vague and diverse and varied. That is, in fact, why they have no concrete canon setting. And yet it can be reasonably consistent and even sensible as long as you don't hold yourself to rigid definitions.

[the atom]

Canon is really only relevant to the versus community like us because it's generally better if debates follow along the rules of the respective franchises. Beyond that there's not really much reason to care.

[Ralin]

Half of whom would hate it by default, and if you try to 'balance the equation' to mitigate that you'll ending displeasing everyone. The media industry, novels, movies, etc. has a thin skin for negative critique, anyways Paramount and Disney would want a project to be highly lucrative and any hint of negative feedback would lead them to conclude it's not worth it.

Even in a perfect world (Conquest: The Movie?)...unless turbolasers bounce harmlessly off the deflectors of Trek ships, DarkStar and his minions will put up enough of a fit to doom the project.

You ever see that episode of The Simpsons where Comic Book Guy storms out a movie theater saying, "Worst. Cosmic Wars. Ever. I will only see it three more times. Today." ?

Well, that's basically what I expect would happen. It may be hated and reviled. That would only make it sell more copies.

I also really, really doubt it would be considered canon for either universe's continuity.