Monday, August 09, 2010

George Lucas turned out to be the responsible one. Who knew?

It's interesting that a huge chunk of our science-fiction culture got tossed into the garbage can over the last couple of years.

2009's film "Star Trek" decided to totally reboot the "Star Trek" canon. The means of doing this was having a Romulan ship accidentally travel backwards in time, thus creating an alternate timeline that wipes out the original timeline. The net effect is that everything from the "Star Trek" continuity that post-dates the original series pilot episode, literally about 95% of everything "Trek" that has ever gone on-screen, has been wiped out. It never happened now.

This is only exceeded by the "Dr. Who" series 5 episode "The Pandorica Opens" which blew up the entire observable universe except for Earth's solar system. The series 5 finale "The Big Bang" even has the Doctor himself vanishing into nothingness. Of course, the Doctor and the universe get restored, but it is still unclear whether any major changes to the "Dr. Who" continuity have been made. At the strictest possible interpretation, literally the entire 40+ year television history of "Dr. Who" may now be non-canonical.

On the other hand, the "Star Wars" franchise is still going strong after 33 years, off and on. George Lucas has never been forced to reboot the "Star Wars" continuity aside from some cosmetic changes. He's never created an alternate timeline, or a parallel universe, or blown the universe up and recreated it. As pissed off as "Star Wars" fans tend to get over things like Jar Jar Binks or the Ewoks, they have to concede that George Lucas's creation has endured.