NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Everyone essentially is.
The Star Trek movies are considered a reboot because the original generation is played by an entirely new cast of actors (new continuity) which take place in an alternate timeline (so everything that happened still did) and they destroyed the machine that allowed it (so they cannot go back to the old continuity).
Effectively, "Canon" is people saying "these things from the work and these things not from the same work happened, but these things from the work and these things not from the work didn't happen".
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Lost in Space
Continuity is the events that actually happen within the work. Canon is what the creators of the work say happened within the universe in which the work takes place. They don't always agree.
If two continuities intersect by having characters cross over between them, as in the Star Trek reboot, then they explicitly take place within alternate universes.
edited 3rd Feb '17 7:43:23 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
No, the other one.
A Continuity Reboot essentially means that nothing outside the actual reboot is certain to be canon. Sometimes it can imply events from other continuities, but it can still throw a curveball and subvert that (such as Not His Sled). The main point, though, is that the work stands on its own, and you should get by if you only watch that and not the previous versions.
Check out my fanfiction!
Lost in Space
Each continuity can have its own canon, and there can be a canon encompassing both continuities. For example, the old Star Trek films still have a canonical 'verse, one that does not include the reboots.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Raven Wilder
In the case of the Star Trek reboot, it's unusual among film franchises for doing its reboot via an explicit Cosmic Retcon. So from a certain perspective, the old movies and TV series are not in continuity, since the time travel at the start of the film means all those works never happened (except Enterprise, I suppose, since it was a Prequel set long before the events of the reboot film). However, from another perspective, those films and movies are in continuity, it's just a continuity where some of the characters went back in time and changed everything that happened.
Time travel is confusing like that.
"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko
Thing is that many terms as documented on tv tropes are about approximate meanings rather than strict definitions. Alternate Continuity, Alternate Universe and Continuity Reboot have distinct differences but in practice tend to be different sides of the same idea. The new Star Trek films have been described as all of those by the actual production team.
The issue is that the examples themselves tend to fit into multiple groups and are not exclusive to just one, an Alternate Universe (a thematic world different but similar to what came before) is often predicated on an Alternate Continuity (a deviation from a shared point in time) and may produce an In-Universe Continuity Reboot (resetting the primary world). We can go on and on about greater individual distinctions between them, but it's all but impossible to list an event as containing just one trope.
Whether it's Canon Discontinuity, Alternate Universe, Alternate Continuity or Continuity Reboot is ultimately shown in how the work treats its facts. They may have concrete definitions but expect them to overlap.
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
I'm a bit confused on all the different continuity tropes.
What are the differences between:
Also if Star Trek's 2009 film is supposedly a Continuity Reboot.... how the heck is the main timeline supposed to exist?
Sorry.... just very confused here. This 44-year-old guy (me) from the UK is so out of it with continuity... especially as I've just got into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
edited 3rd Feb '17 6:17:06 AM by tedburki