CanonWars First Post - Trek Update

Welcome to CanonWars.com.

This is the first CanonWars weblog posting. The others you see with earlier dates are merely copies from existing material at ST-v-SW.Net . . . hence the focus on Star Trek and Star Wars canon policies, and hence the lack of comments on most posts (since, alas, there is no easy way to copy those as well).

Until the completion of the main pages of the site, this weblog will have to suffice. The goal here is to discuss canon policies in general regarding a wide range of genres. Sci-fi is bound to appear, of course, but we will not be limiting ourselves to that. The concept of canon is one with wide applicability, and is an interesting subject all by itself. A number of scholarly and semi-scholarly works have been devoted to canon policies in various fandoms, for instance.

For now, though, I simply wish to provide an update. I recently posted some observations on the Viacom split's impact on Trek canon. Well, four days ago a new article appeared on StarTrek.com (based on press releases and a Variety write-up) largely confirming my guesses and answering a couple of questions.

The first note of interest is that while CBS Corp. is the new overall owner of Trek on TV, this naturally only refers to the upper echelons. As we previously knew, Paramount Television formerly oversaw the Trek series. And, Paramount Television was given to CBS Corp. in the split. In the new CBS Corp., this is continued with the newly-renamed "CBS Paramount Television".

While I theorized that the Trek series DVD distribution would be handled by a CBS Corp. entity, this is apparently not going to be the case for awhile yet. DVD distribution is still going to be handled by Viacom's Paramount Home Entertainment "at least on the short term". (This is understandable, really, since there would be so much repackaging and remastering of DVD menus to do. One wonders why they didn't just share PHE so as to avoid all the hassle, but whatever.)

Still unclear is the status of the films, not to mention StarTrek.com. However, the StarTrek.com writeup promises an update on the effect on the site soon.