Animated Series Questions

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-06-05 11:36pm

A. Is it canon?

B. If it is, would it change anything important about the technical understanding of the series?

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2004-06-05 11:48pm

According to Paramount, only the episode "Yesteryear" is canon, only because it contains info about Spocks background.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-06-06 01:11am

That show was neat. Wish it were still on somewhere.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-06-06 03:58am

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:That show was neat. Wish it were still on somewhere.

We'll pretend you didn't say that.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-06-06 06:13am

Aya wrote:According to Paramount, only the episode "Yesteryear" is canon, only because it contains info about Spocks background.

To be more precise, only the biographical nature of "Yesteryear" is canon, while anything else remains skeptical. I don't understand ST canon policy; Paramount doesn't explain it very well. Is the Animated Series lowly regarded due to being a cartoon? Rather discriminatory, considering ST's message of IDIC.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-06-06 10:04am

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:That show was neat. Wish it were still on somewhere.

Yep. It was pretty good for a 1974 cartoon show.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-06-06 12:10pm

Aya wrote:According to Paramount, only the episode "Yesteryear" is canon, only because it contains info about Spocks background.

That's the one where he has a pet, and shows emotions. Right?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-06-06 12:24pm

Stofsk wrote:
Aya wrote:According to Paramount, only the episode "Yesteryear" is canon, only because it contains info about Spocks background.
To be more precise, only the biographical nature of "Yesteryear" is canon, while anything else remains skeptical. I don't understand ST canon policy; Paramount doesn't explain it very well. Is the Animated Series lowly regarded due to being a cartoon? Rather discriminatory, considering ST's message of IDIC.

I think it has a bit more to do with it in general being badly done and not taken terribly seriously.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-06-06 02:18pm

The Animated Series suffered from two major problems, I thought:

1. Episode length. Since each episode was for only a 30-minute slot versus the original series' 60-minute slot, they obviously had half as much time for the stories to develop. From the couple of episodes that I saw, they seemed to try and preserve the pacing that TOS had, which resulted in the stories moving at a breakneck speed. The plots moved along so fast that everything just ended up seeming rushed, and never properly gave the audience an occasional break with quiet or relaxed scenes.

Basically, it was like they took TOS-like episodes and edited out all the slow parts while keeping the exciting and key scenes.

2. Animation quality. This was a problem because of two factors. The first was that it was made in the mid 1970s, generally considered to be a dark age of television animation because of industry-wide low production values. It really wasn't until the mid 1980s through Disney's efforts to vastly improve production values that television animation came around and became something to be admired.

The second factor was the actual animation studio that was animating Star Trek: Filmation. Filmation was a lot like Hanna Barbera, in that they also churned out a miriad of average to poor quality cartoon shows during the 70s, except that they were even more cheep than HB. Characters were often restricted to being shown either from the waist up or in close-up, only seen moving just a few times every episode. They used the typical methods of getting around this, such as cutting away from a character when or before they began to move, and cutting back to them when or after they reached their destination. They made heavy use of repeatable animation cycles, and almost all of the action, such as fighting or combat, occured in very short shots lasting a second or two. Non-movement was the primary focus for production, it seemed, so the show was pretty much reduced to talking heads who just occasionally moved from time to time when they absolutely had to.

So while the show still felt like Star Trek, it mostly felt like an awkward version of Star Trek.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2004-06-06 05:21pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Stofsk wrote:
Aya wrote:According to Paramount, only the episode "Yesteryear" is canon, only because it contains info about Spocks background.
To be more precise, only the biographical nature of "Yesteryear" is canon, while anything else remains skeptical. I don't understand ST canon policy; Paramount doesn't explain it very well. Is the Animated Series lowly regarded due to being a cartoon? Rather discriminatory, considering ST's message of IDIC.
I think it has a bit more to do with it in general being badly done and not taken terribly seriously.

Then why is Voyager considered cannon?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-06-06 08:45pm

Oh, the people who wrote it took it seriously... they just (from what I've heard) wanted to take it seriously in different directions. Which, if you think about it, was probably what killed Voyager to begin with... if you can't get people to agree on what direction to take the show, you can't exactly have changes occurring throughout the series that would naturally reflect such a voyage, because they might impinge on someone else's plans for episodes in the future.

As to why TAS isn't regarded as canon, if I had to take a guess, it would probably be due to the use of such devices as the personal shield belt (which IIRC was implemented so the studio didn't have to draw the characters in spacesuits) among other things.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-06-06 09:16pm

Sure it was crap, but it was kinda fun and had all the original voices. Meh.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-06-06 10:08pm

Admiral_K wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:
Stofsk wrote: To be more precise, only the biographical nature of "Yesteryear" is canon, while anything else remains skeptical. I don't understand ST canon policy; Paramount doesn't explain it very well. Is the Animated Series lowly regarded due to being a cartoon? Rather discriminatory, considering ST's message of IDIC.
I think it has a bit more to do with it in general being badly done and not taken terribly seriously.
Then why is Voyager considered cannon?

Because while they took it seriously, they are retarded.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-06-06 10:43pm

Stormbringer wrote:I think it has a bit more to do with it in general being badly done and not taken terribly seriously.

I understand. I never actually watched the series, aside from ironically the one episode which is considered 'canon' by ST policy (purely by accident, mind you - I sat down to watch TV and that episode was on). I wasn't impressed by it, to be honest.