In startrek and starwars threads people go on about cannon,but what is it?
Canon ?
It’s just being used to indicate a particularly large, mounted gun/laser/phaser/whatever. I don’t think they’re referring to caisson-mounted muzzle-loading artillery. 
What some people would like to shoot at George Lucas for ruining the Star Wars franchise?
Actually it is spelled canon entry 5b
Yeah canon my spelling is bad
Meaning the “official” accepted storyline in this context.
Only complete geeks care about this.
They’re big, fluffy towels.
To quote MW:
When someone says something like “I don’t care what the book says, the movies are canon.”(Usually said about SW), they mean that this is the accepted or “real” way the events happened.
A collection of antique artillery pieces, designed to fire heavy iron balls propelled by the rapid combustion of black powder.
Also, a television series from the 1970’s, starring William Conrad.
Why do you ask?
Yeah, that too – although I thought most fans would prefer to hack him to death with a light saber. Or at least cut off one of his hands with one.
tracer, you made my day.
Chopping Lucas’ hand off is punishment enough. Then we’ll get him to make an Episode 1b, which will begin with Obi-Wan waking up and realizing that Episode 1 was just a dream. The movie will then give us a much better version of Anakin’s discovery, the problems on Naboo, etc. I actually liked Episode 2, so we’ll leave that alone.
Woo hoo! I made somebody’s day! (But I have to admit, I got the link to the chopped-off hands of Star Wars page from The Uselessness of Star Wars.)
An example of what is meant by canon: The producers of the Star Trek television series and movies consider only characters and events from the several live-action Star Trek television series and the theatrical motion pictures to be official, permanent parts of the Star Trek world and ongoing storyline, i.e., “the canon”. The producers actually have consultants who keep track of Star Trek “history” so that scripts don’t violate the canon.
On the other hand, characters and events that are only in the Star Trek novels, comic books, and the old animated series are not official parts of the ongoing storyline, i.e., they are “not canon”.
Damn, I thought this was going to be a thread about Pachelbel.
or a make of photographic equipment. Nikon is better thou.
Yes, Nikon is Godlike.
But, Leica rules.
It’s my favorite Monopoly token.
You coulda fooled me! Star Trek is notorious for violating its own internal consistency whenever it would make for a good script. Look at the Borg queen in ST: First Contact, for example – the Borg were supposed to be a collective mind with no personal individuality, and now we’re being told that one person acts as a “queen”?!
It should be noted that, generally, The Canon refers to the body of work that makes up Western literature*: books/poems/plays that are universally recognized as being of artistic merit and having great cultural import. Exactly which books belong in the Canon and which don’t is, of course, open to debate, but there are some writers who are an automatic shoe-in. Shakespeare, for example, or Homer.
Well, if you want to get pedantic about it, Miller, the term “Canon” as used today derived from the Roman Catholic Church’s use of the term to refer to those books that were officially considered Holy Scripture. And I’m pretty sure the Catholics got the term from an even earlier religious source.