: It's a real model, but not a real spaceship. It doesn't function. It contains
: a model engine, not a real one. In any sense, even a full and complete 1:1
: scale representation of the Enterprise would be just that-- a
: representation, and I would suggest is therefore malleable in ways that
: are different than, say, the choice of car in Dukes of Hazzard.
: Let me put it another way. If the characters in Hazzard modified their car in
: a way that was not standard for a 1969 Dodge Charger, they've created a
: new and unique object that is still a 1969 Dodge Charger, just modified,
: because the "real" one still exists in the thousands, if not
: hundreds of thousands, of production cars that rolled off the line that
: bear the same make and model year. It becomes a modified 1969 Dodge
: Charger-- something with definable and noticeable distinctions from the
: original.
: If the makers of Star Trek change the model of the Enterprise by adding extra
: decks, and don't put that change into the fiction itself, they've
: performed a retcon. There never was any "real" enterprise. They
: haven't created a modified version of the original. The only thing you
: have to compare that representation of the Enterprise with is other
: representations of it, and no one of them is more valid than any other,
: very different from the situation with the 1969 Dodge Charger, where you
: have not just the original blueprints, but the actual production vehicle,
: lots of them, to compare to.
: That's where we part ways, because to me, that is marginally more real,
: because the General Lee is a fictional representation based on a real
: object, whereas the Enterprise is a fictional representation based on a
: fictional object. That's why I could say that details about the Lee are
: "wrong" if they fail to consistently adhere to the known
: description of "1969 Dodge Charger" without explaining the
: source of the differences-- as if they were to change model years without
: working the change into the fiction.
: The known description of "1969 Dodge Charger" derives from the
: actual vehicle, not the representation. For the Enterprise, there is only
: a series of varying representations, and a variance from a representation
: to me is less salient than a variance from the original the model
: represents.
: I'm not saying that's the only way of looking at, I'm just saying it's the
: way I look at it.
: Nowadays, the General Lee could be a fully CGI creation
: Since the General Lee on film is also just a representation, and not the
: vehicle itself, I could agree with that. A CG representation is not more
: or less real than a live action representation. It's not just that the
: vehicle they film is real where and when they film it, but the idea that
: it exists at all, anywhere. They could, for instance, film a replica that
: would not actually be a 1969 Dodge Charger, but would, to all external
: appearances, be accurate to all the known details of that model. That
: would be just as good. Heck, it wouldn't even have to be a real car-- it
: could just be a body on a frame without an engine.
: Just as a CG representation that got those details wrong would be just as bad
: as filming a real car that not only isn't a 1969 Dodge Charger, but
: doesn't look like one, either.
I guess we disagree on these points and that's cool. How do you evaluate right or wrong in a fictional setting?
Here's one for you. Captain Picard for example. Would you say Picard's height should be Patrick Stewart's actual height or do you think they can make any fictional value and consider that to be the 'truth'?
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