Thank you for this new information. This makes me appreciate Star Trek more now that I know that it was Coon and Fontana that refined the vision of TOS to what we know of it today. IMO, at least Star Trek has kept with the original vision while trying to push the envelope. That's why I like it more than what Disney is doing with Star Wars right now.
Was that the principle criticism of Discovery, though? That it wasn't 'Roddenberry enough' (whatever that meant)? I like Discovery but my problem was (and still is) that it is a too drastic change in 'character' from what I grew up watching, they cut too many ties with what came before -it feels like a (pretty good) sci fi show; cosplaying as Star Trek, rather than an 'evolution' like say DS9.
Roddenberry has always reminded me of George Lucas, in that he has fantastic ideas and concepts, but needs help with the execution, as well as someone who can occasionally tell him no. Also I’m not sure how much you could get out of a series where the protagonists don’t argue, especially when the cast is as big and diverse as TNG. Differences breed conflict, but the satisfaction is in seeing the team overcome their differences to work together
the crazy thing is Luca's original trilogy worked because his wife was shutting down most of his ideas and making changes left and right. he divorced her before the prequels and we all know how that turned out. but if you tell this to his crazy fans they will talk to you like a heretic.
i think a cancelled tv show that ended up lasting 5 to 6 decades afterwards that is still being made to this day is pretty good, same with Lucas. Notice how NOTHING is remotely original with nowhere near the impact ..maybe the Matrix in terms of relevance to the public consciousness.
And he worked his ass off to earn it as did Shatner. Not a problem, as their critics didn't do much of anything ... except become Roger Ebert's ...why not grab the glory while you can .. you know how many failed pilots NEVER had film franchises?????
To be fair, George Lucas wasn't really all that different from Roddenberry. I also consider him a great idea man whose actual writing skill was his weak spot. For example, The Empire Strikes Back benefited from the input of director Irvin Kershner and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, much like The Wrath of Khan with Nicholas Meyer. It also strayed much further from Lucas's style and vision than any other Star Wars film, as shown by the lighter elements of Return of the Jedi.
I know that Marcia gave him the idea to have the Death Star orbiting Yavin in order to fire on the moon. Before she did that he just had it sitting there waiting to be blown up. He comes across as a stubborn one, because he got his way in ROTJ. He also didn't like the Mouse Droid scene and was going to delete it until Marcia persuaded him to keep it. Apparently, he didn't like how a test audience laughed at it. Ironic, considering he was the one who came up with the least funny character in the history of cinema, Jar-Jar Binks. Also, the OT actors have said that they relied more on Gary Kurtz for direction, because they were getting very little from Lucas.
Look at how SHITTY Star Wars and Star Trek are now ... sh1t they are living legends compared to the shameless pandering crap that is festering in the film and streaming features now.
@jockadoobee "You think this was my vision? I don't even like to fly! I take trains! I made this so I could retire on some tropical island filled with... naked women. You know what my vision is? Dollar signs, baby. Money! THAT's Zephram Cochrane!"
ST:TNG was weak tea during its first two seasons, saved in season three by the arrival of Michael Pillar as head writer. This occurred at the same time that Roddenberry's health was in serious decline and he had less and less to do with the actual show.
I would say that Roddenberry was very flawed. He came up with great ideas but he also had a huge ego, he bragged a lot about his accomplishments, and took credit for other people's work. I'm sure almost every Trek fan knows about how Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme so he could get a cut of the royalties. He did that to quite a few people, although maybe not to that extent. I think that's where he crossed the line compared to other creators like Lucas.
I’ve always felt Roddenberry was a great ideas guy, but a weak writer and, as you said in your video, Trek as a whole was only really able to truly meet its full potential (on both big and small screens) once he stepped out of its way. That doesn’t take anything away from him, it still takes a huge amount of imagination and creativity to come up with the idea for a show like Star Trek, but the reality is even men of great vision can only see so far...
@@WhatsReallyGoingOn84 It's an episode like that one that suggests you can take a terrible idea and turn it into a decent episode. The episode with the giant amoeba is another example.
One of my favourite pieces of Roddenberry trivia: when they were discussing the Ferengi during production of TNG's first season, Gene was in the middle of a 10 minute description of the Ferengi's sexual prowess, specifically that they have massive dongs. Someone else in the room had to shut him down by saying "Erm, Gene? It's supposed to be a family show..."
He was a degenerate sex fiend. He died before MeToo or he'd have gotten hit, hard. But of course Hollywood probably would have protected him anyway, since he always pushed The Message.
The big problem with Roddenberry in the '70s and later is that he started believing his own BS. He forgot that, while Star Trek did get philosophical or allegorical, it was at heart an action-adventure show.
The main Star Trek strength is that's not tied specifically to anyone, it's always about team work between multiple writers and producers. And as for the fans that talk about "the sacred Roddenberry vision" they really don't know the history of the franchise.
He wrote one really bad pilot, and then one sorta okay redo pilot, and lucked out on a few hiring decisions that actually made the show what it was, which was mostly not great which is why it got canceled. Had Star Trek been made when there was more than a couple television channels in existence, it never would have gone beyond half a season. But it was pretty much the only thing on, so a lot of people watched it. His involvement in TNG was minimal, and all the things he pushed for are the worst parts of that show, and it took years for the franchise to recover and extricate itself from the mess he left behind. The best Star Trek was made after he died with zero input from him. His genius was in self-promotion, and convincing the most self-absorbed generation in history that by supporting him financially they were somehow changing the world for the better and would enjoy a piece of his glory. His jokes about starting a cult weren't really jokes.
I think the problem with Gene Roddenberry is that a lot of the concepts that he used were taken from science fiction writers who never seem to get any credit in the Star Trek community, for instance, the logo of the federation is taken from Asimovs Foundation book series while the bones of the Star trek utopian concept was taken from Heinlein's Star Ship Troopers of all things. Gene Roddenberry wasn't a good storyteller, in fact, he wasn't even all that good at concepts, what he was good at however was surrounding himself with good science fiction writers and that's what secured his legacy.
You are right on in this assessment. I think Roddenberry, for lack of a better descriptor, "got high on his own supply" in the years between TOS and TMP. Fandom, as a social force, did him a disservice with their hero worship of 'The Great Bird of the Galaxy." Years of being told he was the "visionary creator" of a blueprint of ideal utopian human perfection. Which is just ridiculous. I mean, his memos during the Bennett years? Claiming that Starfleet wasn't a military force? That's just insanity. They have uniforms, a rank structure. political command hierarchy and a mission that encompasses both defensive and offensive duties....that's a military force.
Thank you for this video!!! I fully believe that yes we should praise Roddenberry for his vision but to put him up on this pedestal as some godly figure whose beliefs we must never deviate from and must be held sacred as some people try to do, is a misguided and sometimes willfully ignorant thing. It's as you said, some of the things we as Trek fans collectively love came from ideas that Roddenberry himself didn't even want, and that should be okay. Let Star Trek grow and change with every generation, stop holding it back and forcing it to adhere to the the past. I recently watched an interview of Roddenberry from the 80s in which he had hoped that one day they would go back to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and have bright new creatives and stars tell the stories of those early days, he had even said that nothing would make him more thrilled to hear people saying that these new things are even better than the ones Roddenberry made. If he could look to the future and hope and be okay with things that are made by other people to be better than his, then we as fans should also keep that same open mind to give other creatives the chance to go past Roddenberry, than rather using Roddenberry as a weapon against others to push them down. Roddenberry's vision is a foundation to build on, it should not be a wall used to keep us from boldly going where no one has gone before.
As one of the people who despises everything to do with discovery and generally love everything before it, I don’t care for deep space nine. It has nothing to do with it not being optimistic as I don’t watch Star Trek for that aspect. I often want to strangle some of the characters for their obviously flawed ideals of diplomacy being the answer to everything. While I appreciate DS9 for trying to be different and Sisko not always using diplomacy first, DS9 was one of the most boring shows I’ve ever watched. It simply didn’t do it for me and was an absolute chore to finish. The only characters I really enjoyed watching were Worf, Nog, Jake, Quark and Rom. There just wasn’t enough payoff for me to justify watching all seven seasons.
I love Deep Space Nine but I firmly believe that it began the slow, steady decline of Star Trek. They deconstructed so many aspects of the world and pushed the characters to so many ludicrous extremes that there was nowhere left to go. After DS9, Star Trek just became increasingly nasty, ugly, and unpleasant to watch. I'll take Roddenberry's quaint, idealized vision of the future over the grimdark forces edginess of modern Trek any day.
Silver Snail14 since that comment I’ve finished deep space 9 and my opinion hasn’t changed. I don’t mind edginess as long as it isn’t snarky and overly politicized and paraded as “better than you.” Which is why I refuse to watch anything after the abrams movies. I’ve never watched Star Trek for optimism about the future which I found insufferable. As much as I love Star Trek and what Gene made but I find his ideas of the future or how it should be Naive and childish. I digress. Star Trek has mostly been about exploration and should remain that way. I certainly didn’t enjoy the romps around DS9 and hated the bajoran religious crap(I say that as a religious person myself). Loved voyager and enterprise as well and I know lots of people didn’t like the Xindi conflict of season 3 but I think the dominion war would have been more successful over a season rather than four or five. I appreciate the darkness of DS9 but found DS9 incredibly boring except for the ferengi. Sorry didn’t mean to write an essay I just gave a lot of opinions and things to say. Lol
Yes he is, he gets due credit for his forward thinking vision and passion about Star Trek, but he's also arrogant with an overblown ego and it sometimes comes thru in his work. I think his 'perfect idealized' Federation is a metaphor for how he views himself. And the weaker early eps of TNG mirrors his grossly over inflated sense of self, often at the cost of good storytelling. It took movies like Undiscovered Country and series like DS9 free of Roddenberry direct involvement to deconstruct much of the glossy veneer of his fictional world and tell very powerful stories that inspire ppl because they struggle to be better, not sit on some moral pillar
He can be arrogant. Look at the shit show Star Trek is now ... not a problem, at all - as Rodden berry pretty much didn't have much else... rode that covered wagon to the stars. God bless him. TNG was NEVER the equal of the original and there wouldn't have been a TNG without Star Trek.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 Just because it paved the way for TNG doesnt make it better, TNG fixed everything wrong with TOS and surpassed it in nearly every way, the only good thing about it was Spock 🖖
@@karl810 Yes, but TNG movie series was not repeated (Star Trek 2009 Kelvin Timeline) was. and the Picard series SUCKS. In fact, Discovery sucks and most of current Star Trek franchises do - Alex Kurtzman ran the franchise into the ground. But , will agree on the impact of TNG. The fact of the matter is Shatner is still blogging in his 90s and i doubt Frakes, Burton, Sirtis, Will Wheaton or anybody got as much mileage out of their seminal roles than Shatner (Emmy award winner for Boston Legal) I will agree that Generation was the superior of the Star Trek television models.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 i feel thats only because TNG is still watched and beloved by so many, alot more people would be upset of it was replaced rather than have a sequel. TOS on the otherhand isn't watched like all the other series still are on netflix and was due an update, while TNG isnt quite there yet and new shows like picard can be planted in that timeline while ignoring TOS. Maybe not, but Patrick Stewart has done a lot better than shatner, I think he's just lucky to be from a time when there was a lot fewer actors to compete with, I cant personally think of anything else hes been in but he isn't my type of actor, so I've probably subconsciously avoided him.
@@karl810 If there wasnt a Star Trek there wouldnt have been a Star Wars. The fandom basically resurrected a show, had it come back in the form of syndication - and TNG was always SYNDICATED. It was never on Network Television first run. The brand isnt the same - but TOS place in history is guaranteed. There were Doctor's Scientists, Teachers that listed Star Trek as its inspiration for their career choices... it isnt even close. TNG was a great show, but it came AFTER Star Trek. Picard didnt have a run on TELEVISION. He didnt Direct major motion pictures as Leonard Nimoy did. (Star Trek/ the Voyage Home, Three Men and a Baby)... its not even close. But, TNG has its place in the lore of Star Trek. will say - TNG had quality spin offs like Deep Space 9, Voyager, etc. -
I agree fully. Fairly and eloquently presented. As I read the other biographies in the 90s and 00s, I realized the Gene had lied to my face in 1981, with his spoken reflections of the shows to that point and hoiw he had fought everyone to achieve truth, justice and progress for all humanity. I now realize, like all in entertainment, he was a professional liar...and in our youth we wanted him and others to be. A Galaxy Quest revelation. He presented himself as a hero in every turn, which I guess many of us imagine ourselves, but he slandered others to crown himself with those laurels. To exaggerate ones efforts may be forgiven, but to blame innocent (and even heroic) others for your own failings is a tough pill to swallow.
I haven’t watched the video yet but I’m going to say yes. Yes GR is hugely overrated. He has the status of Jesus among Star Trek fans and I find him to be a very weak writer. He often added a minor tweak to a writer’s script in order to get writing credit. And what he did write was some of the worst Trek ever. Tng didn’t get good until after his involvement ended. He wrote TMP and disliked, ST 2, 4, and 6.
Yes he’s overrated for the following reasons. He never explained how the Federation spaceships cleaned themselves, why there where no automatic repair bots to help the crew, why there were no safe and non-explosive consoles on the bridges, why they couldn’t put the bridge in the center of the ships and give them virtual windows and why so many things just don’t make any sense. Other than that he created a nice universe and DS9 is the best part of it.
For ST, Rodenberry provided leadership and the main creative vision throughout the series. Every other contribution (however important) is secondary to that.
This is one of the reasons I love First Contact. Zefram Cochrane was played as Gene Rodenberry; a drunk lothario, most of whose credited work was done by someone else, and he couldn't give a sh# about "creating a grand vision of the future" and just wanted to make $$$.
thank you. I get tired of people treating Roddenbery like a god and anything he didn`t make is "sacrilege." it is almost impossible to recommend the new trek show lower decks without a snob telling you how it is an insult to "Roddenbery vision". one more thing, if you want to emphasize your point. you can point out the reason Lucas original trilogy works while the prequels was a hot mess, is because Lucas divorced his wife before the prequals. Luca's original trilogy worked because his wife was shutting down most of his ideas and making changes left and right. she had Vader kill Obiwan to make Vader menacing. she added the mouse droids to break a long scene with comedy etc. she made star wars work.
Worth noting that TOS was really not in any way like Wagon Train. That show had a format similar to shows like fantasy island and the love boat. By which i mean the guest stars were the focus of the episodes, and the cast were basically in support to them. "Wagon train to the stars" was basically the elevator pitch, but it was abandoned VERY early on
Great video. Roddenberry's reputation was, for a very long time, hopelessly entwined with his own mythmaking about himself. In the many books by people involved with Star Trek, Roddenberry often comes across pretty badly. Often really badly. Roddenberry spent decades telling fans that the reason Number One was cut from Trek between the first and second pilots was because sexist NBC executives didn't want to see a woman as first officer. In reality, the execs would have been happy to have a woman, they just didn't like Roddenberry casting one of his own mistresses. When Alexander Courage wrote the great, original Star Trek theme, Roddenberry published it with lyrics he'd written. This wasn't done because those lyrics were going to be used--they were never intended to be used anywhere. He did it just to basically steal half of Courage's royalties. That's why Courage didn't return for subsequent seasons. Roddenberry was removed from direct participation in any of the movies after THE MOTIONLESS PICTURE because his behavior on that one had been deplorable. He hated THE WRATH OF KHAN and in an effort to sabotage it, he leaked the fact that Spock was going to die. Roddenberry is a problematic individual. This notion of "Roddenberry's vision"--as in, a unified vision that plays out through the versions of Trek--is nonsense. In the vid, you say THE WRATH OF KHAN was a major departure from his vision but that isn't correct. That movie was perfectly in keeping with the vision that animated the tv series--it's practically a bigger-budget, longer episode of that series. But Roddenberry's basic concept of Star Trek changed pretty radically between when the show was cancelled and the run of movies. While he was destroying his mind with alcohol and illicit substances, he began to buy into a lot of overblown hype and nonsense from elements of the Trek fan community about Trek presenting an utopian vision of the future. Roddenberry's "vision" as it manifested itself in TNG was of just that. The rules he established for writing that series would not have allowed the original to be made (and if TNG had been the original, it would have lasted half a season and no one would even remember it today). Roddenberry's first big objection to THE WRATH OF KHAN was that it presented Starfleet as a military--he was very opposed to "militarism" in his later years--but that is, in fact, exactly what it had been in the original. Roddenberry had even pitched it, as you note, as Horatio Hornblower in space. One of Roddenberry's TNG rule--as you also note--is that there couldn't be conflict between the characters. That would rule out pretty much all of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship so central to the original. Roddenberry talked a lot about Trek being about examining the human condition and with the original, that was certainly true, but his much-later notion of perfect people in a perfect Utopia threw this right out the window. On TNG, he vetoed a script in which a child grieves the death of his parents because, he argued, people in his future don't grieve deaths but accept death as a natural part of the life process. He vetoed a story in which Data was to be dissected in order to find out what makes him tick because, he argued, Data would be happy to allow himself to be dissected if it furthered human knowledge (that script was later radically reworked and turned into an ep). A script in which Picard and his brother were presented as bickering siblings was vetoed because Roddenberry thought their bickering suggested there was some problem with their upbringing--something that wouldn't exist in the future. This is not the human condition; it's anti-human. And anti-Star Trek. TNG was revisionist, its revisionism often fairly extreme, and the people who came into Trek with it often adopted its notion of Trek. That's why, when DS9 came along and intentionally interrogated that Utopian nonsense from TNG, the TNG fans despised it and insisted the show wasn't Star Trek. They're currently doing the same thing with the DISCOVERY show. But as you point out, all of this has been done in Trek before. DS9 and DISCOVERY are much closer to Star Trek than TNG.
Visionary genius? No. He deserves props for conceiving one of the greatest franchises in history. However, by and large, it has been in the hands of others since the 1980s. Harve Bennet, Leonard Nimoy , Nicholas Meyer and Berman have had more input into the creative aspects and overall canon than Rodenberry ultimately did.
Gene roddenberry was a visionary. In his idea of the show.. BUT as stated he didn't create the show on his own.. In fact he did very little.. That is why I have always personally called it the Classic trek (TOS to Ent) JJtrek the reboot and then STD. JJtrek could be fun and did have some interesting stories... STD I just don't like it's to damn preachy and while its sure is pretty it just not Star trek from a visual style.. On top of that the hamfisted way Burnedham is inserted into canon lore makes no goddamn sense. Also the way shes always talking back and being up the nose toward her commanding officers WOULD have landed her in a court martial fasted then you can say Andorian shingles!
I don't like STD either, but if anything I find it the least 'preachy' of all the treks. My problem is it lacks good storytelling, the writing is all over the place. You can see how evident it is when a good writer comes in on one or two episodes and the rest are trash. The arcs just don't really weld together, they are badly connected with the writing equivalent of cardboard and tape. The lead character is unlikeable and unrelatable, Saru is the most relatable character by far. I just can't connect with the show, what's worse is the 'science' of the show, it's just Deus Ex Machina through and through, an excuse to move the plot along. I burst out laughing the moment I heard the word 'time crystals' and it didn't get any better from then on. Then they have to shit on the fans by redesigning the aliens, and the ships are really ugly. About the only thing I find tolerable is the uniforms. But the last thing I would call it is preachy, there are a few lines here and there with a rather ham fisted 'message' but for the most part it's a lights show substituting for bad writing.
@@lloroshastar6347 Star trek have always been preachy about the betterment of mankin yeah.. BUT STD is preachy in how MEN are worthless and all the power should be with the waman. Because shes is the bestest ever at everything... I do not have anything against a strong female lead. IF its not at the detriment of males. As in Do NOT make the males stupid just to make the woman look good..
Honestly, I think people put him up ona pedestal too much. He is one of the main reasons TNG season 1 is pretty bad and annoyingly preachy. When he does something good, it's great. But let's not ignore the fact he also did a lot of bad too
Roddenberry was great on concepts, but lousy in execution. He should be viewed, I think, as the leader who inspired greatness in others. His scripts all tended to be bluntly unsubtle preach-pieces with clunky dialogue. One irony of the process Trek took from oblivion to resurrection is that 70s fans were vocal in their desire for Gene's vision to be realized on screen, free of compromise and network interference….but when they got exactly that, in _The Motion Picture,_ the fans then decided they did not want that vision at all.
What a relief to hear a fellow fan talk sense. Any iteration of Trek has been entertaining at some level (except one, which was a meandering, status-quo suffering pile of cack). From TOS to DISCO and beyond, I'm game.
1:00 Horatio Hornblower has a TV series created on it and all episodes can be found on youtube- i love it! Can’t believe that was an inspiration for Trek my other fave show! Awesome :)
I can't fathom the mental acrobatics it must require to be able ignore the differences between Star Trek and NuTrek. DS9 used Roddenism as its starting point which it then questioned; NuTrek is not in Roddenberry's universe, it doesn't even know who Roddenberry is. Star Trek is about Roddenberry's philosophy, that's the lifeblood of the show, you can play with it as much as you want but you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Under Kurtzman and Abrams Star Trek has no future.
Gene's vision for the original series was great, especially considering the social movements of the 60's. Yet I really loved DS9 for its more meaningful stories. What do you do when you have to compromise your values. I doubt if Roddenberry could do a story like "In the Pale Moonlight"
Roddenberry had a great idea.. i think that's it.. he has an unsettling creapy LRON hubbard quality to him, as does Lukas, Lovecraft, and countless others.. great video as are your others.. Query: top five characters in ALL of Star Trek? Mine: 5 Kirk 4 The Doctor (Voyager) 3 Data 2 Worf 1 Spock
even the idea of trek may not have been roddenberry's i think it belonged to herb solow who according to a doccumentry i saw on youtube was the one who came up with the "wagon train to the stars" concept, probably was instrumental in the ordering of the 2nd pilot.
All these creators would be nothing without an army of talented people helping that vision come alive. Roddenberry created Star Trek. But many others made it a classic and a franchise. His own ego helped pushed this myth. When Roddenberry had full control we got the motion picture. When others took the helm, we got the Wrath of Kahn. When George Lucas had complete control we got the Phantom Menace. It's a cautionary tale of believing ones hype. I wouldn't discount fan's reactions to the yearning for more of a Roddenberry vision of Trek. It's more than nostalgia. In dark times, humanity yearns for assurances that it's going to be okay. That things will get better. His ideas are a bit ridiculous. Early TNG just came across as arrogant and self-righteous. For me, the line should be in the middle. Today's problems are largely solved, but it's still not a utopia. Flaws exist. Tragedy exists. Tomorrow, they have new problems. Humanity still has struggles and continues to improve.
Gene was a true character, a bold man with a huge vision and a lot of personal flaws. He clearly had quite an ego but I still have more respect for him than I do for studio flunkies like Abrahms, Kurtzmann and their ilk. As quaint and idealized as his vision of the future was, I still see it as the true spirit of Star Trek. Without that, all you have is another boring, generic sci-fi show with people in bad makeup pointlessly shooting lasers at each other.
EYY U ANSWERED MY QUESTION! I love your vids and this one is no exception. My mom has idolized Roddenberry ever since she fell in love with Trek watching a rerun of Balance of Terror playing in the background on her math tutors TV, so watching the documentary with Roddenberrys son together was truly an experience for both of us as massive Star Trek nerds. ALSO since u answered me once here’s me pushing my luck and asking another question: As a working filmmaker and novelist yourself, what is some advice you would give to a younger version of yourself? I’m working on a film project of my own, but I haven’t been able to get my ideas coherently onto the page, and in the past couple of weeks have hit a mental roadblock.
From what I got in The Fofty Year Mission, Roddenberry was a visionary who was a deeply flawed being. His biggest weakness - apart from his obsession with sex and drugs apparently - seemed to be his big ego, especially in his twilight years when he seemed to be loosing his faculties. By comparison, Lucas is always modest when talking about Star Wars and often downplays his contributions; he didn't take writing credit for Empire (although he had many important ideas and wrote the most important second draft which first established Vader as Luke's father) and even credited Leigh Breckett as a writer, even though she could only do one draft due to her terminal illness. Straczynski also appears to be a remarkably compassionate and decent human being, although not quite as modest as Lucas 😅
He had less to do with everything g than people think. He was also very flawed. I know this going in. I still admire, and look up to the guy. I know he had great people making him look greater too. Just as Alan Dean Foster is a major uncredited genius behind Star Wars.
Man, I love your videos so much. Have you written the definitive text book on Trek for use in a college course yet? Cause I would read that shit and take that course. 👏
I think its best we revere the vision he had. We can be realists about him as a person - but if you are too mutable about his vision you end up compromising in far too many ways.
One other thing to consider is that Roddenberry's projects, a couple of which had respectable pilots, fell short. Assignment: Earth is one of my favorite episodes and Genesis II, by itself, was one of the better SF tv movies. The former was not picked up; the latter was, but Alex Cord was replaced by John Saxon as Dylan Hunt and that changed the feel of it. GenII lasted less than a season. I never saw The Questor Tapes, but we know it went nowhere. So GR seems a one-hit wonder. Moving on, I still think of Blake's 7 and how Terry Nation and Co. aspired to make a Star Trek rebuttal. I don't recall seeing it over here since the early 80's and wonder if they shot themselves in the foot with how the show ultimately developed.
I think about this topic very often. I think the GR futuristic positivistic vision being challenging for dramatic storytelling. Similar problem comes from adhering to hard science. One of the issues I have with criticizing this concept of GR's "vision," while acknowledging that his contribution to the actual production is overblown, is that it is still poorly explored and very profound. Look how much just presenting a socially equal crew, accounting for rank, in a period peaking with racial and geopolitical strife. I don't think I would want to erase the ST we got, but I think the exploration of the futurism is still worthy. Drama, and a lack of sophistication is sciences, has hampered the exploration of this concept. Coupled with an instinctual suspicious and doubt in humans, that is actually over estimated. Civilization, and cooperation has obliterated humanities murder rate that was as high as 50%. Even considering our technological ability to kill more, now. In fact, the more science actually shows that a world like the earth portrayed in ST is not just possible, but a likely outcome. Yes, we have many existential threats but we do have solutions, and exploring a society where the majority of society has been raised is the best possible environments. The best healthcare, food, social interactions, and education. Generation apart from the stress hormone soaked and agitating environs, creating people who have more mental and physical resilience, patience, empathy, and perspective. Will they be perfect, no. But, more people on average will have the capabilities of our current high performers. This is already too long, and I could go on so much. Suffice it say, I think this is my the allegory story telling is one of the best ways to convey the drama by using the aliens and otherness to frame a current issue, and show how the ideal human handles the challenge.
I read a short article decades ago that stated Roddenberry had only good 2 plot ideas : Man vs. God & Man as God . Not sure if that really all he is but I found it an interesting starting point
For a similar realist look at Roddenberry everyone should read producers Solow and Justman’s book “Inside Star Trek”. While Roddenberry was the genius creator he largely abandoned TOS in the final third season when there was nothing more to be gained from it.
Harve Bennett parted ways with the ST IP once his proposal for the prequel ('the Academy Years') was squelched. In fact, he barely stayed on even for The Final Frontier, having successfully shepherded the loose, unplanned Genesis/Spock trilogy earlier in the 1980s. I for one would have been quite content to have Star Trek as a (temporary) relic of the past - if it meant not having the property bastardised by JJ and Alex (Bad Robot and Secret Hideout). They are horridly "overrated"!
Much of what is said here in the comments and video are covered in Shatner’s documentary Chaos on the Bridge(now viewable on YT), which detailed the early TNG era and Roddenberry’s involvement and issues with the first 2 years. TOS was always a hit or miss series when it came up storytelling and consistency, when the episodes were good they were really good like The City on the Edge of Forever, when they were bad like the hippie themed The Way to Eden, they were very cringe. As Spock would say, Roddenberry was very human, he was certainly not the Great Bird of the Galaxy, but a man with definite feet of clay, he left something entertaining but it definitely wasn’t something to be worshipped with religious fervour.
Any Star Trek Fan who knows the background of both TOS and even TNG knows that Roddenberry was largely the creator and initiator of both shows but not a TV version of an auteur . Gene provided the template and foundation while writers and producers of TOS especially helped provide the concrete, steel and structure of Star Trek. As a trekker myself , I never understood this preciousness and purity over Genes views. I like Gene but Gene partly had to promote himself through the convention circuit and elsewhere to partly keep Star Trek in the public consciousness and keep himself going. I view him largely through a pragmatic , cynical point of view.
The thing I find hard to deal with in newer Trek is not whether or not the shows adhere to some nebulous idea of "Gene's vision", but simply the level of explicit, and in my opinion gratuitous sex and violence in many episodes. When I was 5 my parents let me watch Star Trek (TOS in its first run) by myself. In contrast, I couldn't do that with anything after "Enterprise" without screening every episode beforehand. (And even "Enterprise" had questionable moments.) Such a shame, really. I think Star Trek should be something everyone can grow up with, as I did. But that's just my opinion. If you love newer Trek, more power to you, and I'm glad you're in the Trek family! 🖖😊
I’m so used to the Star Trek online music that I was humming along with it while watching this for the first 50 seconds of the video before I knew I was doing it.
I agree with a lot of what you said but I think that is exactly how Roddenberry is rated by most fans. I haven't heard anyone put him up there with Lucas and everyone I've met who likes trek still doesn't like some of the dumb things Roddenberry did. I credit Roddenberry for creating Trek. Yes he had a lot of help but if he didn't start the process then none of it would exist. That's pretty much all I credit him for. Many other talented people took his idea and made it great. Personally I credit Ronald D Moore for the majority of my enjoyment from Trek. I wish Patrick Stewart had requested Moore be in charge of new Picard. Moore is brilliant and also a fan which is a great combination.
As a staunch DSC defender I do have some issues with the show. The biggest of those is the fact they have been far to conservative in expanding the universe. For all the complaints about broken continuity and writers supposedly not knowing trek almost every episode is filled with references and expansions on established lore to the point that I wish they would simply do more of their own thing and let those bits of detail exist out in the very large world.
I was born just a few years after the series started and I began watching it when I was five. In spite of all I've learned about Roddenberry the man, I still have to give him credit for making this amazing thing called Star Trek happen. My personal moral philosophy came mostly from trek, and especially the character of Spock. For good or ill, I'd just be a different person if it wasn't for Spock- and Roddenberry. I went to the conventions, at a time Roddenberry was consciously developing a cult of personality around himself. If there is anyone still in that cult, I advise them to get help. As a writer and as a man he is entirely undeserving of adoration.
Thank you for your research,But I think we all knew this over the years. As the internet shown us fan the truth the man behind the myth. Creator Gene Roddenberry was human in all aspect. And not a professional writer Just an enthusiast writer that he was involved less in the writing staff,however he let writer express their ideas ethics in the show. One still give the man the credit for creating the concept of Star trek and those who were involved building it. (Except J.J. version who destroy the two franchise) Now that man been dead for years let not remember him as a oil snake sale man,but an inventor of a beloved scifi series. As for star wars fans MR. Lucas never reveal his secret about the forces concept in the new hope is not the same the Empire strike back which he did not directed. Who create the force powers was Irvin Kershner and he writers. Mr. Lucas original force abilities were seeing alternative future and sensing outcome. The concept of the fourth perspective nature which we never see. As for Dark Vader his battle suite can generate a force field to survive in the vacuum of space. That why Dark Vader try to strangle the commander ,one can hear the vacuum effects. To these day Mr. Lucas said the first movie is my version the rest after is not ,But the money is great!.
I would love to see a video of what your take on a modern Stargate would be. It's always been my favourite /Star.*/ universe, but was sad to see it ended so abruptly.
Abruptly? Watching all of Stargate is a massive undertaking. There's a lot and it went on for a good long time. SG-1 is my number one favorite TV show, btw.
Good video and some well-made arguments. Since I've read a lot about the man, let me add in some relevant details not in this video… *The Mythology surrounding him* Firstly, when Gene originally created Star Trek, he was really nothing more than a TV producer who happened to have some progressive personal views. At that point, his nickname "The Great Bird of the Galaxy" was really little more than a joke by his colleagues. The popular idea of Roddenberry being some kind of brilliant social visionary simply wasn't true in the 60s - it was mostly just a mythology which built up around him in the public consciousness during the 1970s, mainly as a reaction to what Star Trek had come to represent. It's also worth noting that Gene's _name_ was always more powerful than the man himself. When TNG was being developed in the 80s, the studios did not need Gene himself, but they absolutely _did_ need his _name_ and his blessing for the show, since loyalty to the original series was so strong. In the mean time, Gene had became aware of the "mythology" surrounding him as some great visionary, and so when he returned to TV in the 80s, he embraced that role and tried to fully step into those boots, becoming far more invested in social issues. His iconic status also worked to his advantage, affording him greater respect, privilege, and control over his franchise. *No saint* We must also mention the character of Zephram Cochrane in First Contact. I'm not sure how intentional it was, but one way or another, this character ended up being a perfect representation of Gene Roddenberry - a man credited as some great visionary whose original motivations were far less noble. To quote the film: "You wanna know what my vision is? ...Dollar signs! Money! I didn't build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity […] I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with ...naked women." It was Gene Roddenberry who turned the Edo (from season 1's "Justice") into a species of sex maniacs. Roddenberry also invented the hedonistic pleasure planet Risa where he envisaged women openly kissing one another, something the studio wouldn't allow at the time. *Fans ignorant of the truth?* So, when fans criticize modern Trek, claiming it falls short of Roddenberry's vision, are we being naive and ignorant of the truth? I say no-we aren't! Let me explain why… Sure, Gene may have been just a mere human being, and perhaps far less saintly, selfless and idealistic as some would imagine him to be. But the man still DID have a vision for his TV show, a very strong, clear one. And a good one, too. The fact that he wasn't really a "writer" doesn't detract from this at all. Steve Jobs didn't need to personally manufacture every iPhone in order to have a vision for the device. Now it's an extremely valid point that the success of Star Trek was NOT down to Gene alone. Rather like George Lucas, I respectfully say that neither of these men had the brilliance to single-handedly make their shows a success. In both cases, they depended upon an outstanding team of creatives, all of whose combined effort is what made the franchises successful, with plenty of tweaking along the way. And as with many successful franchises, much of Star Trek's success is attributable to *Jews.* Jewish men were there making all four shows a success, absolutely instrumental at every stage, including writing, producing, acting, and of course the music. No one does entertainment like the Jews! *What is Roddenberry's Vision?* So yes, we certainly can't give Gene Roddenberry sole credit for the success, or even the tone, of Star Trek. It's the result of a huge number of creative professionals. So then, what exactly do we mean when when some of us talk about "Roddenberry's Vision"? What we are talking about is the SPIRIT of Star Trek, as depicted by all the classic shows (TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY). We're talking about the result of a team of individuals who came together to form a cohesive, universal tone and style for a series. It may not have all been laid out by Roddenberry. Much of it may have formed organically over time, through tweaking and trial and error. But the result is a very clear tone and style, easily identifiable as optimistic, good, utopian, dignified, noble, gentle, and so on. The world of Star Trek is a beautiful, aspirational world which we'd all love to live in. Gene may only be a figurehead of all of this, but it's his show with his name upon it, and Gene had ultimate control over the show. He was ultimately in charge and had the final say. Even after Roddenberry died, he entrusted his vision to Rick Berman, a man who strongly, faithfully, and fiercely upheld that vision when he took the reins. Berman has many critics, with many thinking he "played it too safe" and was too conservative. But one thing he could never be accused of is failing to uphold Gene's vision, because he took that responsibility incredibly seriously. The result of this was that Gene's vision became ever-more perfected over time, with Voyager-the final Trek series-giving us the most fully-formed representation of that utopian world, vision and spirit. So that's what we're referring to when we talk about "Roddenberry's vision". We're talking about the entire moral tone of the franchise, set out by Rodenberry, continued by Berman, and fleshed out by countless creative professionals. *What about the Wrath of Khan?* Yeah… so what about the Wrath of Khan? The most popular Trek movie ever, which Gene hated? Well firstly, Gene Roddenberry was an individual, and we all have personal preferences. With so many episodes of Trek and movies, there are ALWAYS going to be SOME anomalies where Gene's opinions don't match popular fan opinions. It's not the anomalies that matter but the fact that the overall vast bulk of Trek WAS to Gene's approval. It's also important to note that this was a movie not a TV series. The movies stood quite far apart from the TV shows in many ways. They had a far wider, much more mainstream audience, and as such they were designed to cater to more mainstream tastes, being far less cerebral, "dumber", and far more action-based. So, Gene didn't like the more popularist movies? Neither do many fans. A perfect example is TNG movie "First Contact". As excellent is this movie is (I love it), it is shunned by many TNG purists. The tonal differences between it and the TV series are very obvious, like night and day. Instead of Picard sitting in his ready room having quiet conversations, he's firing a machine gun (or having a sand buggy chase in a later movie). Instead of the Borg being a mysterious, ominous, impersonal force, they now have a "leader" who can appeal to mass-audiences. Perhaps above all, what makes this film distasteful to Trek purists is Picard's thirst for vengeance and his angry outburts in this film. It's not in line with Roddenberry's optimistic vision for mankind. So there is a dillemma here: Are the films good and Roddenberry an idiot? Or is Roddenberry always right and the films aren't canon? I would say the films lie in a "grey area" where Trek purism is pitted against mainstream audience appeal. Some Trek fans are on one side, others are on the other, but I think many of us kind of straddle both sides, acknowledging that these movies push the boundaries of the tone of Trek, while the films themselves are good. In that sense, I'd probably place ALL the movies in the same category, including even Nemesis, and JJ Abraham's movies. They're probably not "canon", but they're fun, and you can sit down on a Saturday afternoon and enjoy them as pieces of popular entertainment. This is NOT something you can do with "Kurtzman Trek" because it's simply too far of a departure from the values and tone established by Roddenberry-Berman.
Just because a man had a image of a Better future and We didn't stand or get 1/10th of what he foresaw, don't make him over ratted. but you have good points, Just like Howard Hughes " i Hired the best people" ( when he talked about how he became so Rich) so did Gene.
I see where you're coming from. Personally I think GR is probably perceived about right in general. But there is no question that Forbidden Planet probably underated though. I suspect GR probably saw that.
I quite enjoy the show Have Gun Will Travel. It has surprisingly strong scripts for a show written in the 50s (head and shoulders above others of that time, and many written now). However the worse episode of HGWT which stands out as bad, was written by Gene. And HGWT was a show about morals doing the right thing, etc. However that episode written by Gene was a backward step for the show
Does he deserve the reverence he receives from fans , as opposed to his critics that CREATED NOTHING that lasted 5 decades and countless reboot .... WHAT DO YOU THINK? The continuing video essay of critics that created WHAT????
Was Albert Einstein Overrated? Am I comparing Roddenberry to Einstein? YES! IF the creation of a thing, or an idea spawns most if not all of what follows, does not SOME of the credit go to the creator? Einstein was as a lot have said, brilliant and way ahead of his time. However, the scientific information BASED on Einstein's theories that spawned afterwards are just as important IF NOT MORE.. and everyone of those scientist would tell you, they credit Einstein for allowing them to get to those ideas. I have many more examples of historic figures, but I am pretty sure my point is made. Yes, someone else created the Klingon's, would he of done that without the idea of Star Trek? My guess is NO.
Agreed on all points. And to push over another sacred cow, the worst (and cheesiest) episodes of the original _Twilight Zone_ were written by Rod Serling.
If you create the concept, you are the creator. That is not to take away from all who contributed to movies or tv shows, whether it be writers or other producers, but without the concept, Star Trek would have never come into fruition. As much as you would like to discredit Roddenberry's contribution, all it does is strengthen it, based on facts, not opinions. This is no different than any other show. A person usually comes up with a concept & that person is a creator or co-creator in certain instances.
JJ/Klutzman haven't buggered Trek becuase they don't follow the "utopia" that Roddenberry insisted. Most fans I have talked at modern Trek for just being badly written. And I mean BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADLY!!! IMO.
Roddenberry... for lack of a better term was Pollyannaish when it came to the future especially with TNG most notably the episodes Conspiracy and the Icarus Factor one being a episode that was suppose to show a darker side to Starfleet and the latter showing a human story about fathers and sons namely Will and Kyle Riker. It to take the death of Roddenberry to free the writers to show the flawed side of the Federation and have a full scale war with the Dominion.
I'm kind of sick of Star Trek. When you are fed a diet of military, war and geo-political story lines along with a cast of unsympathetic characters and over-the-top visual effects, you start to look for something else. Even CATS eventually closed on Broadway.
George Lucas is different than Gene. He made the wrong choice to not have help with the prequels and did most of it on his own making it struggle. But he made that up with The Clone Wars. He was VERY dedicated to that and it made the prequels more tolerable. Most notable too is he knew when to step back and pass off a torch. Didnt Gene want to keep hogging credits when they werent due to him?
Sorry for the weirdly deep and sluggish speech pattern here. I was suffering from a bad cold at the time.
Thank you for this new information. This makes me appreciate Star Trek more now that I know that it was Coon and Fontana that refined the vision of TOS to what we know of it today. IMO, at least Star Trek has kept with the original vision while trying to push the envelope. That's why I like it more than what Disney is doing with Star Wars right now.
Would you say that about George Lucas?
Discovery is the new black sheep!
Was that the principle criticism of Discovery, though?
That it wasn't 'Roddenberry enough' (whatever that meant)?
I like Discovery but my problem was (and still is) that it is a too drastic change in 'character' from what I grew up watching, they cut too many ties with what came before -it feels like a (pretty good) sci fi show; cosplaying as Star Trek, rather than an 'evolution' like say DS9.
Weirdly deep and sluggish vocal manner....you'd make a perfect New Zealand TV news reporter lol
Roddenberry has always reminded me of George Lucas, in that he has fantastic ideas and concepts, but needs help with the execution, as well as someone who can occasionally tell him no.
Also I’m not sure how much you could get out of a series where the protagonists don’t argue, especially when the cast is as big and diverse as TNG. Differences breed conflict, but the satisfaction is in seeing the team overcome their differences to work together
And we all know what happens when Lucas has full control. The PT anyone? Sand...
Yes, possibly. I've only seen TFA of the Disney films, but from what I can tell Lucas stuck the knife in, but Disney twisted it.
@Optimus Prime Attack of the clones is 30-50s pulp -stylization.
the crazy thing is Luca's original trilogy worked because his wife was shutting down most of his ideas and making changes left and right. he divorced her before the prequels and we all know how that turned out. but if you tell this to his crazy fans they will talk to you like a heretic.
i think a cancelled tv show that ended up lasting 5 to 6 decades afterwards that is still being made to this day is pretty good, same with Lucas. Notice how NOTHING is remotely original with nowhere near the impact ..maybe the Matrix in terms of relevance to the public consciousness.
Gene was as much of a gloryhound as Shatner. He wrote unpublished lyrics to the original TOS theme song just so he could get a writing credit for it.
And he worked his ass off to earn it as did Shatner. Not a problem, as their critics didn't do much of anything ... except become Roger Ebert's ...why not grab the glory while you can .. you know how many failed pilots NEVER had film franchises?????
To be fair, George Lucas wasn't really all that different from Roddenberry. I also consider him a great idea man whose actual writing skill was his weak spot. For example, The Empire Strikes Back benefited from the input of director Irvin Kershner and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, much like The Wrath of Khan with Nicholas Meyer. It also strayed much further from Lucas's style and vision than any other Star Wars film, as shown by the lighter elements of Return of the Jedi.
ANH was ghost written by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck.
I know that Marcia gave him the idea to have the Death Star orbiting Yavin in order to fire on the moon. Before she did that he just had it sitting there waiting to be blown up. He comes across as a stubborn one, because he got his way in ROTJ. He also didn't like the Mouse Droid scene and was going to delete it until Marcia persuaded him to keep it. Apparently, he didn't like how a test audience laughed at it. Ironic, considering he was the one who came up with the least funny character in the history of cinema, Jar-Jar Binks. Also, the OT actors have said that they relied more on Gary Kurtz for direction, because they were getting very little from Lucas.
Look at how SHITTY Star Wars and Star Trek are now ... sh1t they are living legends compared to the shameless pandering crap that is festering in the film and streaming features now.
This reminds me of the line from First Contact: You did have a vision, and now we're sitting in it.
@jockadoobee "You think this was my vision? I don't even like to fly! I take trains! I made this so I could retire on some tropical island filled with... naked women. You know what my vision is? Dollar signs, baby. Money! THAT's Zephram Cochrane!"
I've always wondered if the character of Cochrane was at least partly based on Roddenberry
ST:TNG was weak tea during its first two seasons, saved in season three by the arrival of Michael Pillar as head writer. This occurred at the same time that Roddenberry's health was in serious decline and he had less and less to do with the actual show.
Also the time Maurice Hurley left
I would say that Roddenberry was very flawed. He came up with great ideas but he also had a huge ego, he bragged a lot about his accomplishments, and took credit for other people's work. I'm sure almost every Trek fan knows about how Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme so he could get a cut of the royalties. He did that to quite a few people, although maybe not to that extent. I think that's where he crossed the line compared to other creators like Lucas.
I’ve always felt Roddenberry was a great ideas guy, but a weak writer and, as you said in your video, Trek as a whole was only really able to truly meet its full potential (on both big and small screens) once he stepped out of its way. That doesn’t take anything away from him, it still takes a huge amount of imagination and creativity to come up with the idea for a show like Star Trek, but the reality is even men of great vision can only see so far...
He sure did some downright cringey stuff like the episode where the alien humans recreated the USA, right down to the Constitution. Ugh.
@@WhatsReallyGoingOn84 It's an episode like that one that suggests you can take a terrible idea and turn it into a decent episode. The episode with the giant amoeba is another example.
The Cage, The Managerie, Charlie X. Really the only Roddenberry episodes that weren't a total slog to get through.
Sorry to say Gene (the great bird)was kicked out. Roddenbury took ideas from others then tried to take credit for it.
One of my favourite pieces of Roddenberry trivia: when they were discussing the Ferengi during production of TNG's first season, Gene was in the middle of a 10 minute description of the Ferengi's sexual prowess, specifically that they have massive dongs.
Someone else in the room had to shut him down by saying "Erm, Gene? It's supposed to be a family show..."
I had read that he was very obsessed with sex.
@@GentlemanAmerican very
@@GentlemanAmerican a man obsessed with sex? Breaking news!
@@georgejones8481 He assaulted Grace Lee Whitney. He has to be the exec she was talking about.
He was a degenerate sex fiend. He died before MeToo or he'd have gotten hit, hard. But of course Hollywood probably would have protected him anyway, since he always pushed The Message.
The big problem with Roddenberry in the '70s and later is that he started believing his own BS. He forgot that, while Star Trek did get philosophical or allegorical, it was at heart an action-adventure show.
The main Star Trek strength is that's not tied specifically to anyone, it's always about team work between multiple writers and producers.
And as for the fans that talk about "the sacred Roddenberry vision" they really don't know the history of the franchise.
He wrote one really bad pilot, and then one sorta okay redo pilot, and lucked out on a few hiring decisions that actually made the show what it was, which was mostly not great which is why it got canceled. Had Star Trek been made when there was more than a couple television channels in existence, it never would have gone beyond half a season. But it was pretty much the only thing on, so a lot of people watched it. His involvement in TNG was minimal, and all the things he pushed for are the worst parts of that show, and it took years for the franchise to recover and extricate itself from the mess he left behind. The best Star Trek was made after he died with zero input from him. His genius was in self-promotion, and convincing the most self-absorbed generation in history that by supporting him financially they were somehow changing the world for the better and would enjoy a piece of his glory. His jokes about starting a cult weren't really jokes.
I think the problem with Gene Roddenberry is that a lot of the concepts that he used were taken from science fiction writers who never seem to get any credit in the Star Trek community, for instance, the logo of the federation is taken from Asimovs Foundation book series while the bones of the Star trek utopian concept was taken from Heinlein's Star Ship Troopers of all things. Gene Roddenberry wasn't a good storyteller, in fact, he wasn't even all that good at concepts, what he was good at however was surrounding himself with good science fiction writers and that's what secured his legacy.
You are right on in this assessment.
I think Roddenberry, for lack of a better descriptor, "got high on his own supply" in the years between TOS and TMP. Fandom, as a social force, did him a disservice with their hero worship of 'The Great Bird of the Galaxy." Years of being told he was the "visionary creator" of a blueprint of ideal utopian human perfection.
Which is just ridiculous.
I mean, his memos during the Bennett years? Claiming that Starfleet wasn't a military force? That's just insanity. They have uniforms, a rank structure. political command hierarchy and a mission that encompasses both defensive and offensive duties....that's a military force.
Thank you for this video!!! I fully believe that yes we should praise Roddenberry for his vision but to put him up on this pedestal as some godly figure whose beliefs we must never deviate from and must be held sacred as some people try to do, is a misguided and sometimes willfully ignorant thing. It's as you said, some of the things we as Trek fans collectively love came from ideas that Roddenberry himself didn't even want, and that should be okay. Let Star Trek grow and change with every generation, stop holding it back and forcing it to adhere to the the past. I recently watched an interview of Roddenberry from the 80s in which he had hoped that one day they would go back to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and have bright new creatives and stars tell the stories of those early days, he had even said that nothing would make him more thrilled to hear people saying that these new things are even better than the ones Roddenberry made. If he could look to the future and hope and be okay with things that are made by other people to be better than his, then we as fans should also keep that same open mind to give other creatives the chance to go past Roddenberry, than rather using Roddenberry as a weapon against others to push them down. Roddenberry's vision is a foundation to build on, it should not be a wall used to keep us from boldly going where no one has gone before.
As one of the people who despises everything to do with discovery and generally love everything before it, I don’t care for deep space nine. It has nothing to do with it not being optimistic as I don’t watch Star Trek for that aspect. I often want to strangle some of the characters for their obviously flawed ideals of diplomacy being the answer to everything. While I appreciate DS9 for trying to be different and Sisko not always using diplomacy first, DS9 was one of the most boring shows I’ve ever watched. It simply didn’t do it for me and was an absolute chore to finish. The only characters I really enjoyed watching were Worf, Nog, Jake, Quark and Rom. There just wasn’t enough payoff for me to justify watching all seven seasons.
I love Deep Space Nine but I firmly believe that it began the slow, steady decline of Star Trek. They deconstructed so many aspects of the world and pushed the characters to so many ludicrous extremes that there was nowhere left to go. After DS9, Star Trek just became increasingly nasty, ugly, and unpleasant to watch. I'll take Roddenberry's quaint, idealized vision of the future over the grimdark forces edginess of modern Trek any day.
Silver Snail14 since that comment I’ve finished deep space 9 and my opinion hasn’t changed. I don’t mind edginess as long as it isn’t snarky and overly politicized and paraded as “better than you.” Which is why I refuse to watch anything after the abrams movies. I’ve never watched Star Trek for optimism about the future which I found insufferable. As much as I love Star Trek and what Gene made but I find his ideas of the future or how it should be Naive and childish. I digress. Star Trek has mostly been about exploration and should remain that way. I certainly didn’t enjoy the romps around DS9 and hated the bajoran religious crap(I say that as a religious person myself). Loved voyager and enterprise as well and I know lots of people didn’t like the Xindi conflict of season 3 but I think the dominion war would have been more successful over a season rather than four or five. I appreciate the darkness of DS9 but found DS9 incredibly boring except for the ferengi. Sorry didn’t mean to write an essay I just gave a lot of opinions and things to say. Lol
Yes he is, he gets due credit for his forward thinking vision and passion about Star Trek, but he's also arrogant with an overblown ego and it sometimes comes thru in his work. I think his 'perfect idealized' Federation is a metaphor for how he views himself. And the weaker early eps of TNG mirrors his grossly over inflated sense of self, often at the cost of good storytelling. It took movies like Undiscovered Country and series like DS9 free of Roddenberry direct involvement to deconstruct much of the glossy veneer of his fictional world and tell very powerful stories that inspire ppl because they struggle to be better, not sit on some moral pillar
He can be arrogant. Look at the shit show Star Trek is now ... not a problem, at all - as Rodden berry pretty much didn't have much else... rode that covered wagon to the stars. God bless him. TNG was NEVER the equal of the original and there wouldn't have been a TNG without Star Trek.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 Just because it paved the way for TNG doesnt make it better, TNG fixed everything wrong with TOS and surpassed it in nearly every way, the only good thing about it was Spock 🖖
@@karl810 Yes, but TNG movie series was not repeated (Star Trek 2009 Kelvin Timeline) was.
and the Picard series SUCKS. In fact, Discovery sucks and most of current Star Trek franchises do - Alex Kurtzman ran the franchise into the ground. But , will agree on the impact of TNG. The fact of the matter is Shatner is still blogging in his 90s and i doubt Frakes, Burton, Sirtis, Will Wheaton or anybody got as much mileage out of their seminal roles than Shatner (Emmy award winner for Boston Legal)
I will agree that Generation was the superior of the Star Trek television models.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 i feel thats only because TNG is still watched and beloved by so many, alot more people would be upset of it was replaced rather than have a sequel. TOS on the otherhand isn't watched like all the other series still are on netflix and was due an update, while TNG isnt quite there yet and new shows like picard can be planted in that timeline while ignoring TOS.
Maybe not, but Patrick Stewart has done a lot better than shatner, I think he's just lucky to be from a time when there was a lot fewer actors to compete with, I cant personally think of anything else hes been in but he isn't my type of actor, so I've probably subconsciously avoided him.
@@karl810 If there wasnt a Star Trek there wouldnt have been a Star Wars. The fandom basically resurrected a show, had it come back in the form of syndication - and TNG was always SYNDICATED. It was never on Network Television first run. The brand isnt the same - but TOS place in history is guaranteed. There were Doctor's Scientists, Teachers that listed Star Trek as its inspiration for their career choices... it isnt even close. TNG was a great show, but it came AFTER Star Trek. Picard didnt have a run on TELEVISION. He didnt Direct major motion pictures as Leonard Nimoy did. (Star Trek/ the Voyage Home, Three Men and a Baby)... its not even close. But, TNG has its place in the lore of Star Trek. will say - TNG had quality spin offs like Deep Space 9, Voyager, etc. -
I agree fully. Fairly and eloquently presented.
As I read the other biographies in the 90s and 00s, I realized the Gene had lied to my face in 1981, with his spoken reflections of the shows to that point and hoiw he had fought everyone to achieve truth, justice and progress for all humanity.
I now realize, like all in entertainment, he was a professional liar...and in our youth we wanted him and others to be. A Galaxy Quest revelation.
He presented himself as a hero in every turn, which I guess many of us imagine ourselves, but he slandered others to crown himself with those laurels. To exaggerate ones efforts may be forgiven, but to blame innocent (and even heroic) others for your own failings is a tough pill to swallow.
It's ironic that Star Trek was often at its best when Roddenberry had the least involvement in it.
As a non trekkie this was interesting look behind the current. Thanks for another great video.
I haven’t watched the video yet but I’m going to say yes. Yes GR is hugely overrated. He has the status of Jesus among Star Trek fans and I find him to be a very weak writer. He often added a minor tweak to a writer’s script in order to get writing credit. And what he did write was some of the worst Trek ever. Tng didn’t get good until after his involvement ended. He wrote TMP and disliked, ST 2, 4, and 6.
Now that I watched the videos, I see you shared similar views.
Yes he’s overrated for the following reasons. He never explained how the Federation spaceships cleaned themselves, why there where no automatic repair bots to help the crew, why there were no safe and non-explosive consoles on the bridges, why they couldn’t put the bridge in the center of the ships and give them virtual windows and why so many things just don’t make any sense. Other than that he created a nice universe and DS9 is the best part of it.
You could almost say Star Trek was created by a "Federation" of people working together.
All true.
As I've said before, Roddenberry was the visionary. And most visionaries need other people to help make their visions a reality.
For ST, Rodenberry provided leadership and the main creative vision throughout the series. Every other contribution (however important) is secondary to that.
This is one of the reasons I love First Contact. Zefram Cochrane was played as Gene Rodenberry; a drunk lothario, most of whose credited work was done by someone else, and he couldn't give a sh# about "creating a grand vision of the future" and just wanted to make $$$.
thank you. I get tired of people treating Roddenbery like a god and anything he didn`t make is "sacrilege." it is almost impossible to recommend the new trek show lower decks without a snob telling you how it is an insult to "Roddenbery vision". one more thing, if you want to emphasize your point. you can point out the reason Lucas original trilogy works while the prequels was a hot mess, is because Lucas divorced his wife before the prequals. Luca's original trilogy worked because his wife was shutting down most of his ideas and making changes left and right. she had Vader kill Obiwan to make Vader menacing. she added the mouse droids to break a long scene with comedy etc. she made star wars work.
Worth noting that TOS was really not in any way like Wagon Train. That show had a format similar to shows like fantasy island and the love boat. By which i mean the guest stars were the focus of the episodes, and the cast were basically in support to them. "Wagon train to the stars" was basically the elevator pitch, but it was abandoned VERY early on
I like post rodenberry but pre JJ Abrahams Star Trek the best. But his vision was great.
Great video. Roddenberry's reputation was, for a very long time, hopelessly entwined with his own mythmaking about himself. In the many books by people involved with Star Trek, Roddenberry often comes across pretty badly. Often really badly. Roddenberry spent decades telling fans that the reason Number One was cut from Trek between the first and second pilots was because sexist NBC executives didn't want to see a woman as first officer. In reality, the execs would have been happy to have a woman, they just didn't like Roddenberry casting one of his own mistresses. When Alexander Courage wrote the great, original Star Trek theme, Roddenberry published it with lyrics he'd written. This wasn't done because those lyrics were going to be used--they were never intended to be used anywhere. He did it just to basically steal half of Courage's royalties. That's why Courage didn't return for subsequent seasons. Roddenberry was removed from direct participation in any of the movies after THE MOTIONLESS PICTURE because his behavior on that one had been deplorable. He hated THE WRATH OF KHAN and in an effort to sabotage it, he leaked the fact that Spock was going to die.
Roddenberry is a problematic individual.
This notion of "Roddenberry's vision"--as in, a unified vision that plays out through the versions of Trek--is nonsense. In the vid, you say THE WRATH OF KHAN was a major departure from his vision but that isn't correct. That movie was perfectly in keeping with the vision that animated the tv series--it's practically a bigger-budget, longer episode of that series. But Roddenberry's basic concept of Star Trek changed pretty radically between when the show was cancelled and the run of movies. While he was destroying his mind with alcohol and illicit substances, he began to buy into a lot of overblown hype and nonsense from elements of the Trek fan community about Trek presenting an utopian vision of the future. Roddenberry's "vision" as it manifested itself in TNG was of just that. The rules he established for writing that series would not have allowed the original to be made (and if TNG had been the original, it would have lasted half a season and no one would even remember it today).
Roddenberry's first big objection to THE WRATH OF KHAN was that it presented Starfleet as a military--he was very opposed to "militarism" in his later years--but that is, in fact, exactly what it had been in the original. Roddenberry had even pitched it, as you note, as Horatio Hornblower in space.
One of Roddenberry's TNG rule--as you also note--is that there couldn't be conflict between the characters. That would rule out pretty much all of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship so central to the original.
Roddenberry talked a lot about Trek being about examining the human condition and with the original, that was certainly true, but his much-later notion of perfect people in a perfect Utopia threw this right out the window. On TNG, he vetoed a script in which a child grieves the death of his parents because, he argued, people in his future don't grieve deaths but accept death as a natural part of the life process. He vetoed a story in which Data was to be dissected in order to find out what makes him tick because, he argued, Data would be happy to allow himself to be dissected if it furthered human knowledge (that script was later radically reworked and turned into an ep). A script in which Picard and his brother were presented as bickering siblings was vetoed because Roddenberry thought their bickering suggested there was some problem with their upbringing--something that wouldn't exist in the future. This is not the human condition; it's anti-human. And anti-Star Trek.
TNG was revisionist, its revisionism often fairly extreme, and the people who came into Trek with it often adopted its notion of Trek. That's why, when DS9 came along and intentionally interrogated that Utopian nonsense from TNG, the TNG fans despised it and insisted the show wasn't Star Trek. They're currently doing the same thing with the DISCOVERY show. But as you point out, all of this has been done in Trek before. DS9 and DISCOVERY are much closer to Star Trek than TNG.
Except Deep Space Nine was bloated, self-important, and dull, and Discovery is just a steaming pile of idiocy.
He started it, many added to it and it grew beyond what Roddenberry could have imagined on his own.
Stop deitfiying GR. Stop asking what would Gene do.
Visionary genius? No. He deserves props for conceiving one of the greatest franchises in history. However, by and large, it has been in the hands of others since the 1980s. Harve Bennet, Leonard Nimoy , Nicholas Meyer and Berman have had more input into the creative aspects and overall canon than Rodenberry ultimately did.
Gene roddenberry was a visionary. In his idea of the show.. BUT as stated he didn't create the show on his own.. In fact he did very little.. That is why I have always personally called it the Classic trek (TOS to Ent) JJtrek the reboot and then STD. JJtrek could be fun and did have some interesting stories... STD I just don't like it's to damn preachy and while its sure is pretty it just not Star trek from a visual style.. On top of that the hamfisted way Burnedham is inserted into canon lore makes no goddamn sense. Also the way shes always talking back and being up the nose toward her commanding officers WOULD have landed her in a court martial fasted then you can say Andorian shingles!
I don't like STD either, but if anything I find it the least 'preachy' of all the treks. My problem is it lacks good storytelling, the writing is all over the place. You can see how evident it is when a good writer comes in on one or two episodes and the rest are trash. The arcs just don't really weld together, they are badly connected with the writing equivalent of cardboard and tape. The lead character is unlikeable and unrelatable, Saru is the most relatable character by far. I just can't connect with the show, what's worse is the 'science' of the show, it's just Deus Ex Machina through and through, an excuse to move the plot along. I burst out laughing the moment I heard the word 'time crystals' and it didn't get any better from then on. Then they have to shit on the fans by redesigning the aliens, and the ships are really ugly. About the only thing I find tolerable is the uniforms. But the last thing I would call it is preachy, there are a few lines here and there with a rather ham fisted 'message' but for the most part it's a lights show substituting for bad writing.
@@lloroshastar6347 Star trek have always been preachy about the betterment of mankin yeah.. BUT STD is preachy in how MEN are worthless and all the power should be with the waman. Because shes is the bestest ever at everything... I do not have anything against a strong female lead. IF its not at the detriment of males. As in Do NOT make the males stupid just to make the woman look good..
NOTE: When Roddenberry died there were ONLY 6 films & 2 TV series; NO DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, TNG Movies, etc.
Honestly, I think people put him up ona pedestal too much.
He is one of the main reasons TNG season 1 is pretty bad and annoyingly preachy.
When he does something good, it's great. But let's not ignore the fact he also did a lot of bad too
Roddenberry was great on concepts, but lousy in execution. He should be viewed, I think, as the leader who inspired greatness in others. His scripts all tended to be bluntly unsubtle preach-pieces with clunky dialogue. One irony of the process Trek took from oblivion to resurrection is that 70s fans were vocal in their desire for Gene's vision to be realized on screen, free of compromise and network interference….but when they got exactly that, in _The Motion Picture,_ the fans then decided they did not want that vision at all.
What a relief to hear a fellow fan talk sense.
Any iteration of Trek has been entertaining at some level (except one, which was a meandering, status-quo suffering pile of cack).
From TOS to DISCO and beyond, I'm game.
1:00 Horatio Hornblower has a TV series created on it and all episodes can be found on youtube- i love it! Can’t believe that was an inspiration for Trek my other fave show! Awesome :)
Look, let's not sugar coat it, the guy was a hack. You can't say it because you're a public person but IDGAF
I can't fathom the mental acrobatics it must require to be able ignore the differences between Star Trek and NuTrek.
DS9 used Roddenism as its starting point which it then questioned; NuTrek is not in Roddenberry's universe, it doesn't even know who Roddenberry is.
Star Trek is about Roddenberry's philosophy, that's the lifeblood of the show, you can play with it as much as you want but you can't just pretend it doesn't exist.
Under Kurtzman and Abrams Star Trek has no future.
Gene's vision for the original series was great, especially considering the social movements of the 60's. Yet I really loved DS9 for its more meaningful stories. What do you do when you have to compromise your values. I doubt if Roddenberry could do a story like "In the Pale Moonlight"
Watched this video and then thanks to Rowan went and watched Chaos on the Bridge right away. Loved it, will watch the other one tomorrow. 👍🏽
TNG only got good after Gene died.....
Roddenberry had a great idea.. i think that's it.. he has an unsettling creapy LRON hubbard quality to him, as does Lukas, Lovecraft, and countless others.. great video as are your others..
Query: top five characters in ALL of Star Trek?
Mine:
5 Kirk
4 The Doctor (Voyager)
3 Data
2 Worf
1 Spock
You and Dave Cullen (Computing forever channel) should have a discussion about the Kurtzmann Trek shows.
even the idea of trek may not have been roddenberry's i think it belonged to herb solow who according to a doccumentry i saw on youtube was the one who came up with the "wagon train to the stars" concept, probably was instrumental in the ordering of the 2nd pilot.
All these creators would be nothing without an army of talented people helping that vision come alive. Roddenberry created Star Trek. But many others made it a classic and a franchise. His own ego helped pushed this myth. When Roddenberry had full control we got the motion picture. When others took the helm, we got the Wrath of Kahn. When George Lucas had complete control we got the Phantom Menace. It's a cautionary tale of believing ones hype. I wouldn't discount fan's reactions to the yearning for more of a Roddenberry vision of Trek. It's more than nostalgia. In dark times, humanity yearns for assurances that it's going to be okay. That things will get better. His ideas are a bit ridiculous. Early TNG just came across as arrogant and self-righteous. For me, the line should be in the middle. Today's problems are largely solved, but it's still not a utopia. Flaws exist. Tragedy exists. Tomorrow, they have new problems. Humanity still has struggles and continues to improve.
Gene was a true character, a bold man with a huge vision and a lot of personal flaws. He clearly had quite an ego but I still have more respect for him than I do for studio flunkies like Abrahms, Kurtzmann and their ilk. As quaint and idealized as his vision of the future was, I still see it as the true spirit of Star Trek. Without that, all you have is another boring, generic sci-fi show with people in bad makeup pointlessly shooting lasers at each other.
Of all of your videos, this is my favorite ❤️
EYY U ANSWERED MY QUESTION! I love your vids and this one is no exception. My mom has idolized Roddenberry ever since she fell in love with Trek watching a rerun of Balance of Terror playing in the background on her math tutors TV, so watching the documentary with Roddenberrys son together was truly an experience for both of us as massive Star Trek nerds.
ALSO since u answered me once here’s me pushing my luck and asking another question: As a working filmmaker and novelist yourself, what is some advice you would give to a younger version of yourself? I’m working on a film project of my own, but I haven’t been able to get my ideas coherently onto the page, and in the past couple of weeks have hit a mental roadblock.
Glad you enjoyed the video, I hope I said your name right. Others have asked me that same question so I'll be able to give you an answer soon :)
Good to know! Also you didn’t call me tehas, so you said my name better than most lol :)
From what I got in The Fofty Year Mission, Roddenberry was a visionary who was a deeply flawed being. His biggest weakness - apart from his obsession with sex and drugs apparently - seemed to be his big ego, especially in his twilight years when he seemed to be loosing his faculties. By comparison, Lucas is always modest when talking about Star Wars and often downplays his contributions; he didn't take writing credit for Empire (although he had many important ideas and wrote the most important second draft which first established Vader as Luke's father) and even credited Leigh Breckett as a writer, even though she could only do one draft due to her terminal illness. Straczynski also appears to be a remarkably compassionate and decent human being, although not quite as modest as Lucas 😅
He had less to do with everything g than people think. He was also very flawed. I know this going in.
I still admire, and look up to the guy. I know he had great people making him look greater too.
Just as Alan Dean Foster is a major uncredited genius behind Star Wars.
Didn’t he also come up with Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda?
They were his ideas but they created the show Majel Barrett and David Kirschner
And farscape
@@flatline8580 ok my bad.
Both series, to my mind, had incredible first two seasons then plummeted in quality. I LOVED Earth: Final Conflict's first season, it was so strong.
@Optimus Prime
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Man, I love your videos so much. Have you written the definitive text book on Trek for use in a college course yet? Cause I would read that shit and take that course. 👏
I think its best we revere the vision he had. We can be realists about him as a person - but if you are too mutable about his vision you end up compromising in far too many ways.
One other thing to consider is that Roddenberry's projects, a couple of which had respectable pilots, fell short. Assignment: Earth is one of my favorite episodes and Genesis II, by itself, was one of the better SF tv movies. The former was not picked up; the latter was, but Alex Cord was replaced by John Saxon as Dylan Hunt and that changed the feel of it. GenII lasted less than a season. I never saw The Questor Tapes, but we know it went nowhere. So GR seems a one-hit wonder. Moving on, I still think of Blake's 7 and how Terry Nation and Co. aspired to make a Star Trek rebuttal. I don't recall seeing it over here since the early 80's and wonder if they shot themselves in the foot with how the show ultimately developed.
I think about this topic very often. I think the GR futuristic positivistic vision being challenging for dramatic storytelling. Similar problem comes from adhering to hard science. One of the issues I have with criticizing this concept of GR's "vision," while acknowledging that his contribution to the actual production is overblown, is that it is still poorly explored and very profound. Look how much just presenting a socially equal crew, accounting for rank, in a period peaking with racial and geopolitical strife. I don't think I would want to erase the ST we got, but I think the exploration of the futurism is still worthy. Drama, and a lack of sophistication is sciences, has hampered the exploration of this concept. Coupled with an instinctual suspicious and doubt in humans, that is actually over estimated. Civilization, and cooperation has obliterated humanities murder rate that was as high as 50%. Even considering our technological ability to kill more, now. In fact, the more science actually shows that a world like the earth portrayed in ST is not just possible, but a likely outcome. Yes, we have many existential threats but we do have solutions, and exploring a society where the majority of society has been raised is the best possible environments. The best healthcare, food, social interactions, and education. Generation apart from the stress hormone soaked and agitating environs, creating people who have more mental and physical resilience, patience, empathy, and perspective. Will they be perfect, no. But, more people on average will have the capabilities of our current high performers. This is already too long, and I could go on so much. Suffice it say, I think this is my the allegory story telling is one of the best ways to convey the drama by using the aliens and otherness to frame a current issue, and show how the ideal human handles the challenge.
I read a short article decades ago that stated Roddenberry had only good 2 plot ideas : Man vs. God & Man as God . Not sure if that really all he is but I found it an interesting starting point
For a similar realist look at Roddenberry everyone should read producers Solow and Justman’s book “Inside Star Trek”. While Roddenberry was the genius creator he largely abandoned TOS in the final third season when there was nothing more to be gained from it.
Harve Bennett parted ways with the ST IP once his proposal for the prequel ('the Academy Years') was squelched. In fact, he barely stayed on even for The Final Frontier, having successfully shepherded the loose, unplanned Genesis/Spock trilogy earlier in the 1980s.
I for one would have been quite content to have Star Trek as a (temporary) relic of the past - if it meant not having the property bastardised by JJ and Alex (Bad Robot and Secret Hideout). They are horridly "overrated"!
Much of what is said here in the comments and video are covered in Shatner’s documentary Chaos on the Bridge(now viewable on YT), which detailed the early TNG era and Roddenberry’s involvement and issues with the first 2 years.
TOS was always a hit or miss series when it came up storytelling and consistency, when the episodes were good they were really good like The City on the Edge of Forever, when they were bad like the hippie themed The Way to Eden, they were very cringe.
As Spock would say, Roddenberry was very human, he was certainly not the Great Bird of the Galaxy, but a man with definite feet of clay, he left something entertaining but it definitely wasn’t something to be worshipped with religious fervour.
Yes please do a video for a new Stargate show.
Any Star Trek Fan who knows the background of both TOS and even TNG knows that Roddenberry was largely the creator and initiator of both shows but not a TV version of an auteur .
Gene provided the template and foundation while writers and producers of TOS especially helped provide the concrete, steel and structure of Star Trek.
As a trekker myself , I never understood this preciousness and purity over Genes views. I like Gene but Gene partly had to promote himself through the convention circuit and elsewhere to partly keep Star Trek in the public consciousness and keep himself going. I view him largely through a pragmatic , cynical point of view.
The thing I find hard to deal with in newer Trek is not whether or not the shows adhere to some nebulous idea of "Gene's vision", but simply the level of explicit, and in my opinion gratuitous sex and violence in many episodes. When I was 5 my parents let me watch Star Trek (TOS in its first run) by myself. In contrast, I couldn't do that with anything after "Enterprise" without screening every episode beforehand. (And even "Enterprise" had questionable moments.) Such a shame, really. I think Star Trek should be something everyone can grow up with, as I did. But that's just my opinion. If you love newer Trek, more power to you, and I'm glad you're in the Trek family! 🖖😊
Great video for all the deluded assertors of the non-existent "Gene's Vision".
I totally love it ! ! !
Lucy Ball deserves credit for giving the show a chance also.
I’m so used to the Star Trek online music that I was humming along with it while watching this for the first 50 seconds of the video before I knew I was doing it.
I agree with a lot of what you said but I think that is exactly how Roddenberry is rated by most fans. I haven't heard anyone put him up there with Lucas and everyone I've met who likes trek still doesn't like some of the dumb things Roddenberry did. I credit Roddenberry for creating Trek. Yes he had a lot of help but if he didn't start the process then none of it would exist. That's pretty much all I credit him for. Many other talented people took his idea and made it great. Personally I credit Ronald D Moore for the majority of my enjoyment from Trek. I wish Patrick Stewart had requested Moore be in charge of new Picard. Moore is brilliant and also a fan which is a great combination.
As a staunch DSC defender I do have some issues with the show. The biggest of those is the fact they have been far to conservative in expanding the universe.
For all the complaints about broken continuity and writers supposedly not knowing trek almost every episode is filled with references and expansions on established lore to the point that I wish they would simply do more of their own thing and let those bits of detail exist out in the very large world.
Maybe they will get the chance now with season 3 to do their own thing.
I was born just a few years after the series started and I began watching it when I was five. In spite of all I've learned about Roddenberry the man, I still have to give him credit for making this amazing thing called Star Trek happen. My personal moral philosophy came mostly from trek, and especially the character of Spock. For good or ill, I'd just be a different person if it wasn't for Spock- and Roddenberry.
I went to the conventions, at a time Roddenberry was consciously developing a cult of personality around himself. If there is anyone still in that cult, I advise them to get help. As a writer and as a man he is entirely undeserving of adoration.
Thank you for your research,But I think we all knew this over the years. As the internet shown us fan the truth the man behind the myth. Creator Gene Roddenberry was human in all aspect. And not a professional writer Just an enthusiast writer that he was involved less in the writing staff,however he let writer express their ideas ethics in the show. One still give the man the credit for creating the concept of Star trek and those who were involved building it. (Except J.J. version who destroy the two franchise) Now that man been dead for years let not remember him as a oil snake sale man,but an inventor of a beloved scifi series. As for star wars fans MR. Lucas never reveal his secret about the forces concept in the new hope is not the same the Empire strike back which he did not directed. Who create the force powers was Irvin Kershner and he writers. Mr. Lucas original force abilities were seeing alternative future and sensing outcome. The concept of the fourth perspective nature which we never see. As for Dark Vader his battle suite can generate a force field to survive in the vacuum of space. That why Dark Vader try to strangle the commander ,one can hear the vacuum effects. To these day Mr. Lucas said the first movie is my version the rest after is not ,But the money is great!.
I would love to see a video of what your take on a modern Stargate would be. It's always been my favourite /Star.*/ universe, but was sad to see it ended so abruptly.
Abruptly? Watching all of Stargate is a massive undertaking. There's a lot and it went on for a good long time. SG-1 is my number one favorite TV show, btw.
Good video and some well-made arguments. Since I've read a lot about the man, let me add in some relevant details not in this video…
*The Mythology surrounding him*
Firstly, when Gene originally created Star Trek, he was really nothing more than a TV producer who happened to have some progressive personal views. At that point, his nickname "The Great Bird of the Galaxy" was really little more than a joke by his colleagues.
The popular idea of Roddenberry being some kind of brilliant social visionary simply wasn't true in the 60s - it was mostly just a mythology which built up around him in the public consciousness during the 1970s, mainly as a reaction to what Star Trek had come to represent.
It's also worth noting that Gene's _name_ was always more powerful than the man himself. When TNG was being developed in the 80s, the studios did not need Gene himself, but they absolutely _did_ need his _name_ and his blessing for the show, since loyalty to the original series was so strong.
In the mean time, Gene had became aware of the "mythology" surrounding him as some great visionary, and so when he returned to TV in the 80s, he embraced that role and tried to fully step into those boots, becoming far more invested in social issues. His iconic status also worked to his advantage, affording him greater respect, privilege, and control over his franchise.
*No saint*
We must also mention the character of Zephram Cochrane in First Contact. I'm not sure how intentional it was, but one way or another, this character ended up being a perfect representation of Gene Roddenberry - a man credited as some great visionary whose original motivations were far less noble. To quote the film:
"You wanna know what my vision is? ...Dollar signs! Money! I didn't build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity […] I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with ...naked women."
It was Gene Roddenberry who turned the Edo (from season 1's "Justice") into a species of sex maniacs. Roddenberry also invented the hedonistic pleasure planet Risa where he envisaged women openly kissing one another, something the studio wouldn't allow at the time.
*Fans ignorant of the truth?*
So, when fans criticize modern Trek, claiming it falls short of Roddenberry's vision, are we being naive and ignorant of the truth?
I say no-we aren't! Let me explain why…
Sure, Gene may have been just a mere human being, and perhaps far less saintly, selfless and idealistic as some would imagine him to be. But the man still DID have a vision for his TV show, a very strong, clear one. And a good one, too.
The fact that he wasn't really a "writer" doesn't detract from this at all. Steve Jobs didn't need to personally manufacture every iPhone in order to have a vision for the device.
Now it's an extremely valid point that the success of Star Trek was NOT down to Gene alone. Rather like George Lucas, I respectfully say that neither of these men had the brilliance to single-handedly make their shows a success. In both cases, they depended upon an outstanding team of creatives, all of whose combined effort is what made the franchises successful, with plenty of tweaking along the way.
And as with many successful franchises, much of Star Trek's success is attributable to *Jews.* Jewish men were there making all four shows a success, absolutely instrumental at every stage, including writing, producing, acting, and of course the music. No one does entertainment like the Jews!
*What is Roddenberry's Vision?*
So yes, we certainly can't give Gene Roddenberry sole credit for the success, or even the tone, of Star Trek. It's the result of a huge number of creative professionals.
So then, what exactly do we mean when when some of us talk about "Roddenberry's Vision"?
What we are talking about is the SPIRIT of Star Trek, as depicted by all the classic shows (TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY).
We're talking about the result of a team of individuals who came together to form a cohesive, universal tone and style for a series. It may not have all been laid out by Roddenberry. Much of it may have formed organically over time, through tweaking and trial and error.
But the result is a very clear tone and style, easily identifiable as optimistic, good, utopian, dignified, noble, gentle, and so on. The world of Star Trek is a beautiful, aspirational world which we'd all love to live in.
Gene may only be a figurehead of all of this, but it's his show with his name upon it, and Gene had ultimate control over the show. He was ultimately in charge and had the final say.
Even after Roddenberry died, he entrusted his vision to Rick Berman, a man who strongly, faithfully, and fiercely upheld that vision when he took the reins. Berman has many critics, with many thinking he "played it too safe" and was too conservative. But one thing he could never be accused of is failing to uphold Gene's vision, because he took that responsibility incredibly seriously.
The result of this was that Gene's vision became ever-more perfected over time, with Voyager-the final Trek series-giving us the most fully-formed representation of that utopian world, vision and spirit.
So that's what we're referring to when we talk about "Roddenberry's vision". We're talking about the entire moral tone of the franchise, set out by Rodenberry, continued by Berman, and fleshed out by countless creative professionals.
*What about the Wrath of Khan?*
Yeah… so what about the Wrath of Khan? The most popular Trek movie ever, which Gene hated?
Well firstly, Gene Roddenberry was an individual, and we all have personal preferences. With so many episodes of Trek and movies, there are ALWAYS going to be SOME anomalies where Gene's opinions don't match popular fan opinions.
It's not the anomalies that matter but the fact that the overall vast bulk of Trek WAS to Gene's approval.
It's also important to note that this was a movie not a TV series. The movies stood quite far apart from the TV shows in many ways. They had a far wider, much more mainstream audience, and as such they were designed to cater to more mainstream tastes, being far less cerebral, "dumber", and far more action-based.
So, Gene didn't like the more popularist movies? Neither do many fans.
A perfect example is TNG movie "First Contact". As excellent is this movie is (I love it), it is shunned by many TNG purists. The tonal differences between it and the TV series are very obvious, like night and day. Instead of Picard sitting in his ready room having quiet conversations, he's firing a machine gun (or having a sand buggy chase in a later movie). Instead of the Borg being a mysterious, ominous, impersonal force, they now have a "leader" who can appeal to mass-audiences.
Perhaps above all, what makes this film distasteful to Trek purists is Picard's thirst for vengeance and his angry outburts in this film. It's not in line with Roddenberry's optimistic vision for mankind.
So there is a dillemma here: Are the films good and Roddenberry an idiot? Or is Roddenberry always right and the films aren't canon?
I would say the films lie in a "grey area" where Trek purism is pitted against mainstream audience appeal. Some Trek fans are on one side, others are on the other, but I think many of us kind of straddle both sides, acknowledging that these movies push the boundaries of the tone of Trek, while the films themselves are good.
In that sense, I'd probably place ALL the movies in the same category, including even Nemesis, and JJ Abraham's movies. They're probably not "canon", but they're fun, and you can sit down on a Saturday afternoon and enjoy them as pieces of popular entertainment.
This is NOT something you can do with "Kurtzman Trek" because it's simply too far of a departure from the values and tone established by Roddenberry-Berman.
Just because a man had a image of a Better future and We didn't stand or get 1/10th of what he foresaw, don't make him over ratted. but you have good points, Just like Howard Hughes " i Hired the best people" ( when he talked about how he became so Rich) so did Gene.
I see where you're coming from. Personally I think GR is probably perceived about right in general. But there is no question that Forbidden Planet probably underated though. I suspect GR probably saw that.
I quite enjoy the show Have Gun Will Travel. It has surprisingly strong scripts for a show written in the 50s (head and shoulders above others of that time, and many written now). However the worse episode of HGWT which stands out as bad, was written by Gene. And HGWT was a show about morals doing the right thing, etc. However that episode written by Gene was a backward step for the show
Vastly overrated. Most of the best Star Trek ideas and stories from the '60s weren't his. And he never made anything else remotely as good.
excellent Video. I agree with all of it.
I'd like to hear about your idea for a stargate series. My favorite was Atlantis, but I'm probably a black sheep here, I enjoyed Universe as well.
Uh, there was disagreement and culture clashing. Not to mention harsh human environments.
Speaking of Battlestar Galactica: How is your review of Caprica coming?
You announced it over a year ago - maybe a Christmas gift for your viewers?
So less George Lucas and more Bob Kane.
Does he deserve the reverence he receives from fans , as opposed to his critics that CREATED NOTHING that lasted 5 decades and countless reboot .... WHAT DO YOU THINK?
The continuing video essay of critics that created WHAT????
Deep Space 9 was AMAZING and so was TNG to me at least.
Was Albert Einstein Overrated? Am I comparing Roddenberry to Einstein? YES! IF the creation of a thing, or an idea spawns most if not all of what follows, does not SOME of the credit go to the creator? Einstein was as a lot have said, brilliant and way ahead of his time. However, the scientific information BASED on Einstein's theories that spawned afterwards are just as important IF NOT MORE.. and everyone of those scientist would tell you, they credit Einstein for allowing them to get to those ideas. I have many more examples of historic figures, but I am pretty sure my point is made. Yes, someone else created the Klingon's, would he of done that without the idea of Star Trek? My guess is NO.
Roddenberry had ideas... but he also had good other writers and associates who did a lot of Work on Trek, such as D.C. Fontana..
All power to the engines!🙏
Agreed on all points. And to push over another sacred cow, the worst (and cheesiest) episodes of the original _Twilight Zone_ were written by Rod Serling.
If you create the concept, you are the creator. That is not to take away from all who contributed to movies or tv shows, whether it be writers or other producers, but without the concept, Star Trek would have never come into fruition. As much as you would like to discredit Roddenberry's contribution, all it does is strengthen it, based on facts, not opinions.
This is no different than any other show. A person usually comes up with a concept & that person is a creator or co-creator in certain instances.
JJ/Klutzman haven't buggered Trek becuase they don't follow the "utopia" that Roddenberry insisted. Most fans I have talked at modern Trek for just being badly written. And I mean BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADLY!!! IMO.
You should double check what you said about George Lucas. Marsha Lucas is the unsung hero of episode 4
Roddenberry... for lack of a better term was Pollyannaish when it came to the future especially with TNG most notably the episodes Conspiracy and the Icarus Factor one being a episode that was suppose to show a darker side to Starfleet and the latter showing a human story about fathers and sons namely Will and Kyle Riker. It to take the death of Roddenberry to free the writers to show the flawed side of the Federation and have a full scale war with the Dominion.
You can tell Roddenberry's writing on Have Gun, Will Travel.
If you want to know where star trek came from, you should read the hugo award winning book Way Station 1963.
If it wasn’t for James Doohan we wouldn’t have the Klingon language
I disagree. Encounter at Farpoint was Gene's nearly exclusive brainchild. It's one of my favorite pieces of Trek ever.
I'm kind of sick of Star Trek. When you are fed a diet of military, war and geo-political story lines along with a cast of unsympathetic characters and over-the-top visual effects, you start to look for something else. Even CATS eventually closed on Broadway.
Now Gene Roddenberry gets dumped on! It goes to show - the higher you are placed on a pedestal the more people try to knock you down.
George Lucas is different than Gene. He made the wrong choice to not have help with the prequels and did most of it on his own making it struggle. But he made that up with The Clone Wars. He was VERY dedicated to that and it made the prequels more tolerable. Most notable too is he knew when to step back and pass off a torch. Didnt Gene want to keep hogging credits when they werent due to him?
I really need to get on the ball and watch Babylon 5. It was a little before my time.