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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN

H

Henchmen21

Banned
DrForester said:
Original Gene Roddenberry 16 page Outline/Pitch.

http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_Pitch.pdf

startrek1964pitch-large.jpg


Love that last line
Click to expand...
Me too. Sadly, that's exactly what happened after he died. Berman didn't get it and just bogged down all the post TNG shows (and sadly the last 2 years of TNG) with meaningless technobabble. It saddens me to see fans who obsess over the tiniest of minutia of a fictional technology and say that's what Star Trek was about. It was always about these characters and their adventures & experiences into the unknown.
 
L

lunarworks

Member
Henchmen21 said:
Me too. Sadly, that's exactly what happened after he died. Berman didn't get it and just bogged down all the post TNG shows (and sadly the last 2 years of TNG) with meaningless technobabble. It saddens me to see fans who obsess over the tiniest of minutia of a fictional technology and say that's what Star Trek was about. It was always about these characters and their adventures & experiences into the unknown.
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Even though DS9 was explicitly post-Roddenberry, primarily within its grim setting, that's one of the reasons it still worked. It was a character-based drama that mostly avoided having to "reverse the tachyon matrix" to escape something or other. Voyager, though... I don't think we even need to discuss that again.

Fucking technobabble. It's a means to an end, but not an end itself.
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
That complete outline and a shit more stuff (like memos, letters, etc.) is in:
266-3.jpg


It was basically written as Star Trek was being made.

You can pick up used copies for cheap off Amazon, I got mine decades ago from some bookstore, I'd recommend anybody really interested in the behind the scenes stuff, especially the stuff from trying to get the show on the air in the first place, check it out.
 
D

dalin80

Banned
Henchmen21 said:
Me too. Sadly, that's exactly what happened after he died. Berman didn't get it and just bogged down all the post TNG shows (and sadly the last 2 years of TNG) with meaningless technobabble. It saddens me to see fans who obsess over the tiniest of minutia of a fictional technology and say that's what Star Trek was about. It was always about these characters and their adventures & experiences into the unknown.
Click to expand...

part of what made 'all good things' so awesome was how it was character driven and the techno babble was just a means to get the characters into position, although as one of the most important trek characters of all time worf should have had a bit more of a role.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
dalin80 said:
part of what made 'all good things' so awesome was how it was character driven and the techno babble was just a means to get the characters into position, although as one of the most important trek characters of all time worf should have had a bit more of a role.
Click to expand...


Worf really got wrote into a corner. They settled the Klingon stuff, so they shoehorned him into an awkward relationship with Troi. DS9 explored the character far more than TNG ever did.
 
Z

Zenith

Banned
DrForester said:
Worf really got wrote into a corner. They settled the Klingon stuff, so they shoehorned him into an awkward relationship with Troi. DS9 explored the character far more than TNG ever did.
Click to expand...

I would say the character of Alexander was the worst thing in TNG. Even worse than Wesley. Ruined the name of Klingons everywhere.
 
Davey Cakes

Davey Cakes

Member
So I've been running through the entire DS9 series. Enjoying it a lot.

Today I watched an episode titled "The Visitor."

I tell ya, I haven't cried like that since the last episode of Lost, and before that the ending to Mother 3. Good job, DS9.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
BattleMonkey said:
At least Alexander wasn't on the show much. We had to put up with too much Wesley.
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I enjoyed most of the Wesley Guest Star episodes (Except for The Game, but would say it had nothing do with Wesley). He was just a poorly written character. DS9 showed you could write a kid on the show well, two of them even. Nog's quest to go to Starfleet was far better written than Wesley's. And it was great they didn't shoehorn the "must join starfleet" story for Jake.
 
J

jaxword

Member
Thanks to TVtropes, I just learned the Federation president of Star Trek 6 was blind. That's why he has those strange glasses - they're an earlier form of Geordi's VISOR.
 
J

jaxword

Member
Jasoco said:
Who?

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Unnamed_Efrosians#Federation_President

??

I see no glasses. I also see no name. I didn't know he didn't have a name. That's weird. Also, I thought he was a Klingon. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Dude, it's in your own link:

"It should also be noted that Ra-ghoratreii was supposed to be blind, thus prompting his need for the special type of glasses he used during the rescue operation presentation in Star Trek VI. This fact was stated by Mike & Denise Okuda in the text commentary of the Star Trek VI DVD."
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
jaxword said:
Dude, it's in your own link:

"It should also be noted that Ra-ghoratreii was supposed to be blind, thus prompting his need for the special type of glasses he used during the rescue operation presentation in Star Trek VI. This fact was stated by Mike & Denise Okuda in the text commentary of the Star Trek VI DVD."
Click to expand...
Somehow I missed it. I really need to rewatch that movie.
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
I've always loved the first meeting between Sisko and Garak in Garak's shop after the Betazed invasion. Great dialog/acting, and Garak's plan/convincing, especially when viewed back knowing the entire plan in retrospect.

Sisko: That sounds like progress to me.
Garak: Doesn't it. Unfortunately, they're all dead now.
Sisko: What?!?

The way he just says it like it's a minor point and Sisko is all "wait, what?" in response.

At least ten good men lost their lives bringing it across the lines! That sort of thing.

It's best to not dwell on such minutiae.
 
S

spidye

Member
Dizzy-4U said:
I just finished watching "In the Pale Moonlight".

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-E-T!!!!!

I couldn't believe what I was watching. So amazing.
Click to expand...
yes. one of the best, if not the best episode in star trek history. I don't even like ds9 but that episode is just super awesome.
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
The ending is beyond great. "Because I can live with it."

"I CAN live with it."

Sits back.

"Computer, erase that entire personal log."

Cut to black.

And how he gets progressively undressed and drunk throughout the episode.

Watching that episode when it first aired blew my mind and it's still so awesome.

DS9 was also great at doing season finales without having to do two-part season finales. Sisko sitting back on Earth cleaning clams after all the shit that goes down is more effective than almost all of TNG's two-part finale/premieres. (Especially after Redemption.)

Plus, the whole baseball thing where he leaves it for Dukat but takes it a year later was a nice touch.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
benjipwns said:
The ending is beyond great. "Because I can live with it."

"I CAN live with it."
Click to expand...
According to Memory Alpha, that line was a reference to the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

Great movie. Great DS9 episode.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Startrek.com has done a lengthy interview with Rick Berman, where he reveals he is working on his Memoir. Some interesting stuff in there, but there seems some playing the victim and finger pointing.

http://startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-1
http://startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-2
http://startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-3

Some neat photo's too.

d14b3dedf6ba41729f218e19bf08cda785cefa5e.jpg



Some segments, but there's a lot more at he links above.


On Deep Space Nine
Going into DS9 -- with a space station, stories about war, politics and religion, a fractious crew and a commander of color -- how ready were you for the backlash from the portion of the fan base that felt the show wasn’t their father’s Star Trek?

Berman: At that point, our biggest concern was to do something different. We had a show that was on the air. We had no idea how long it was going to be on the air, but we knew that it was going to continue to be on the air for at least another few years. We didn’t want to send another crew out on a spaceship at the same time the TNG crew was out on the Enterprise. Michael (Piller) and I spent a long time thinking about this. One of the things that Brandon Tartikoff, who was the head of the studio at the time, suggested was The Rifleman, which was a show that he loved when he was a kid. It’s a father and a son out doing good deeds on the prairie. This was an era when television executives loved to say, “Let’s do The Partridge Family meets Father Knows Best.” Roddenberry evidently had talked about “Wagon Train in space” 20 years before and DS9 was “The Rifleman in space.” I think what Michael and I ended up pulling from that was the idea of a father and a son, and we chose to do the story of a man who had recently lost his wife, who was very bitter, and was sent to a very distant space station that was not a Federation facility. As a result, we could have a lot of non-Starfleet people.

One of the big problems that Michael and the writing staff (on TNG) had was Gene that believed that in the 24th century there wouldn’t be any conflict between the major characters. Mankind had reached a point where the kind of human conflict that exists today had subsided, and the writers all believed very strongly, in fact, that drama is based on conflict, and they were very frustrated by that. And they were frustrated very often by notes they got from Gene about how he didn’t want conflict between anyone in Starfleet, primarily the main cast of the show. So, what Michael and I felt was that if we placed the show on a Bajoran space station we would have characters like Odo and Quark and Kira, who were regular characters, who were not only not human, but they were also not Federation, and thus conflict could exist among the series regulars.

The religious elements you mentioned were not really part of our initial thoughts. That was stuff that evolved. But the idea of a wormhole that led to another part of the galaxy gave us new fodder. As far as hiring a black actor to play Sisko, this was something that meant a great deal to Michael Piller. My feeling was it would be great if we could find the right actor, but that if we couldn’t find the right actor, I felt that it wasn’t necessary to go with a black actor. But we very much wanted to find a black actor who could pull it off because it was time for that. When we met Avery (Brooks), when he came in and read for the role, we felt it was a slam dunk.

What comes to mind now when you think about DS9?

Berman: I’ve read a lot about tension between myself and Ira Behr and his writing staff on the show. I’ve read a lot about Ira pulling the wool over my eyes and Ira kind of tricking me into doing things that I didn’t want to do. I find that a little bit hurtful because it’s by and large not true. Ira had a very specific vision of how he wanted to run the show. This is after Michael had left. And there were certain things that I agreed with. In fact, a vast majority of what he and his staff did I agreed with. But there were certain things I didn’t agree with and, having been one of the two creators of the show and being an executive producer of the show, I felt I had the right to air my feelings to Ira. Unfortunately, it’s come out over the years as Ira tricking me into this or getting me to believe he was going to do X and then doing Y. I was never quite that foolish.

There were things I remember – the death of Dax – that I disagreed with him about. I felt that after the years that this character had been involved with the series it was wrong for her to have a quick, meaningless death. I wanted something a little more heroic. When Nog (Aron Eisenberg) was going to have both his legs blown off, I found that a little bit too violent. There was a lot of disagreement in that and we ended up having the bizarre compromise of having him lose one leg and then getting a prosthetic leg as opposed to losing two legs, which, in retrospect is very funny. The whole idea of the Dominion Wars, the idea that Ira wanted an arc that was going to last a season or perhaps longer, he and I had a lot of disagreement about that. And that was all based purely on the fact that Gene had been very specific to me about not wanting Star Trek to be a show about intergalactic wars, interspecies wars. He didn’t want it to be about humans fighting wars against other species.

I felt that the whole arc of these wars was something that could get done in half-dozen episodes. Ira felt differently and he pushed it, and it went longer than I’d hoped it’d go, but it wasn’t like a situation of, “Wow, Ira is in his ninth episode and Rick thought he was only going to do four.” I mean, I read every story. I read every script. I discussed every story and script with Ira and whoever the writers were. I was aware of it. I was not necessarily happy that it went as long as it did. But these are the kinds of disagreements that people involved with a television show have.

I think the thing I’m most proud of about DS9 is the casting. I think that Rene Auberjonois, (Alexander) Siddig, Armin Shimerman, Nana Visitor, Colm Meaney, Avery Brooks… these were some of the best actors we ever had on Star Trek. It was a superlative cast. They worked. It clicked. The character relationships – like Quark and Odo, O’Brien and Bashir, Sisko and Jake (Cirroc Lofton) – were wonderful and quite unique and stand out as some of the best of any Star Trek series. That was something I thought was terrific. And I thought the whole direction the show went, it ended up being what we set out for it to be. Thanks to Ira and an amazing staff of writers, it was different. It was still Star Trek, but it was dramatically different from what TNG was.
Click to expand...


On Voyager:
Overall, how satisfied were you with Voyager?

Berman: It was difficult. We had just ended TNG and DS9 was in its third year, and they immediately wanted another show to take the place of TNG. We asked them to wait a couple of years. They said, “We have all these time slots available. We don’t want to lose them.” They felt very strongly about a new series. The fact that TNG, a ship-based show, was going off the air and that we had a space station-based show on the air, meant that the obvious thing to do was create a new ship, which we did with the Voyager. We came up with a premise that, I think, was fresh or that certainly was different. We didn’t just want to have another ship, give it the name Voyager as opposed to Enterprise, and fill it with a nice balance of humans and aliens. This was a show that I asked Jeri Taylor to join Michael and me in creating. The whole idea of being thrust to a far-off part of the galaxy and being out of touch with Starfleet, out of touch with instructions and rules, in a sense, and having to join together with Maquis that we run into in the pilot episodes, the whole of idea of getting back at any cost – question mark; it shouldn’t be at any cost – I think, allowed us to do some new stuff, which was important. We were all aware that these things could get stale. A lot of the writers were the same writers and a lot of the writers were new writers, but we didn’t want to do TNG again.

At that point, just as we were creating Voyager, we were also writing and producing Generations and then, two years later, First Contact. So we were doing movies with the TNG crew, we had DS9 in its last three or four years, and all of a sudden we were asked to do another show, which was Voyager. There was even talk near the end of Voyager that they wanted us to create another show before Voyager went off the air. And I refused. I said, at the very (earliest), we would start it after Voyager went off the air. I think they wanted a one- or two-year overlap. Also, somewhere in there, there was an IMAX project that we developed that the studio ended up not being able to make a deal with the IMAX people. It was in the early days of IMAX. It was before movies were coming out in IMAX like they were today. But it was a great script and certainly something that would have been exciting to do. And, simultaneously, I was involved with putting together the whole Las Vegas Experience. So it was a very, very busy time and it was imperative for everybody to try to keep things from getting stale and repetitive, but it got more and more difficult.
Click to expand...


On Enterprise Finale:

Not to beat up on Enterprise, but we’ve got to ask about the finale. “These Are the Voyages…” was clearly the most controversial Trek finale. Some fans groused it was only an hour long, but the more strenuous gripe was that it folded four years of Enterprise into a TNG episode. Were you surprised by the hostile reaction?

Berman: Totally. I would have never done it if I had known how people were going to react. We were informed with not a whole lot of time that this was our last season. We knew that this was going to be the last episode of Star Trek for perhaps quite some time – and here we are, almost six years later. So it was the last episode for quite a length of time. It was a very difficult choice, how to end it. The studio wanted it to be a one-hour episode. We wanted it to be special. We wanted it to be something that would be memorable. This idea, which Brannon and I came up with – and I take full responsibility – pissed a lot of people off, and we certainly didn’t mean it to. Our thought was to take this crew and see them through the eyes of a future generation, see them through the eyes of the people who we first got involved in Star Trek with 18 years before, with Picard and Riker and Data, etc., and to see the history of how Archer and his crew went from where we had them to where, eventually, the Federation was formed, in some kind of a magical holographic history lesson.

It seemed like a great idea. A lot of people were furious about it. The actors, most of them, were very unhappy. In retrospect it was a bad idea. When it was conceived it was with our heart completely in the right place. We wanted to pay the greatest homage and honor to the characters of Enterprise that we possibly could, but because Jonathan (Frakes) and Marina (Sirtis) were the two people we brought in, and they were the ones looking back, it was perceived as “You’re ending our series with a TNG episode.” I understand how people felt that way. Too many people felt that way for them to be wrong. Brannon and I felt terrible that we’d let a lot of people down. It backfired, but our hearts were definitely in the right place. It just was not accepted in the way we thought it would be.
Click to expand...

On Star Trek 2009:
Speaking of the Abrams film, did you see it and what did you think of it?

Berman: I thought it was a wonderful movie. It was very, very big. You have to remember, I did four movies with incredibly restrictive budgets. The philosophy when I made movies was, “We know we can make X number of dollars off a Star Trek movie, so don’t spend more than Y number of dollars.” The lengths that (Abrams’) film went with its visual effects and production values were so astonishing to me. I thought the story was wonderful and a lot of the acting was terrific. I’ve just gotten to a point where these big action films filled with computer-generated stuff from beginning to end are starting to wear on me a little bit. To me, the movie, like Iron Man or any of these big, incredibly expensive films dealing with tens upon tens of millions of dollars worth of visual effects… it was a very, very exciting movie. In terms of it having the heart of Star Trek, I think it could have perhaps had a little bit more of that. But I liked it very much.
Click to expand...
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
Been slowly watching my way through DS9. On the first episode of Season 4 right now. Hey, look. Here comes Worf. And Sisko got his beard a few episodes ago. Series is now gettin' goooood.
 
B

B.K.

Member
I'm watching Star Trek IV on Scifi. Was that the President from Star Trek VI at the helm of the Saratoga? It looked like him.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
B.K. said:
I'm watching Star Trek IV on Scifi. Was that the President from Star Trek VI at the helm of the Saratoga? It looked like him.
Click to expand...

Wrong, Dumbass.

It was Kurtwood Smith of That 70's Show and Robocop fame. He was also in an episode of Deep Space Nine as a Cardassian and Annorax in the "Year of Hell" two parter on Voyager.
 
D

Dizzy-4U

Member
You know, I'm not a fan of silly episodes, but somehow seeing Odo as an umpire screaming "You're out!" had me laughing a lot more than it should.
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
So what's the worst TNG first season episode? (The syndication cycle has come back to the first season. I personally have WGN and two local channels who still air it late night.)

"Justice" has to be up there if not it. "The Naked Now" is at least stupidly funny in retrospect.

Then there's "Code of Honor" which Jonathan Frakes is a big fan of.
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
jaxword said:
Conspiracy. Even the directors said afterwards they screwed up and that much gore shouldn't have been in Star Trek.
Click to expand...
God, I saw that as a kid and remembered it vividly through my years. Though I kind of liked it. The episode that is. But the ending was a bit much.

And I love Naked Now. It's a fun episode. I like it.
 
J

jaxword

Member
antonz said:
Conspiracy is just out of place because the arc it was intended to introduce changed to the Borg.
Click to expand...

A change, we can all agree, was for the better.

Until Voyager, the Borg were probably the best Trek concept.
 
A

antonz

Member
jaxword said:
A change, we can all agree, was for the better.

Until Voyager, the Borg were probably the best Trek concept.
Click to expand...

Well yeah though overall they were still going to be borg-like its just budget wise its easier to just slap some plastic on a Guy and say he is a cyborg then making Parasitic Alien Cyborgs
 
Y

Yasae

Banned
antonz said:
Well yeah though overall they were still going to be borg-like its just budget wise its easier to just slap some plastic on a Guy and say he is a cyborg then making Parasitic Alien Cyborgs
Click to expand...
Also: Ancient Humanoids.
 
M

Margalis

Banned
I love Conspiracy - I love the stuff leading up to it in previous episodes, how it ends and how creepy it is. Yeah, it's a bit out of place but it's wonderfully weird and messed up.

Worst Season 1 Episode is probably the one where Tasha fights with the spiked glove thing.
 
Meus Renaissance

Meus Renaissance

Member
Maybe it was budget issues or time limit, but there is more of a story and a better portrayal of the characters in the Countdown comic series that were the prequel for the 2009 film. The film had no story of note, in my opinion. Nero was an amazing character but most who saw the film would have him introduced as a mad man. He recognises the Enterprise in the film, but the background behind that isn't really explained, nor how his relationship between him and Spock was once positive hence the audience aren't really aware of the sense of betrayal Nero felt. Was not impressed by this at all
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
ruby_onix said:
No, the arc it was in was intended to introduce corruption from within Starfleet.
Click to expand...


He's right. The parasites were the original plan for what would end up being the Borg. Budget reasons made attempting an Insectoid race unfeasible.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
DrForester said:
He's right. The parasites were the original plan for what would end up being the Borg. Budget reasons made attempting an Insectoid race unfeasible.
Click to expand...
Oh, I knew that part. But the Starfleet conspiracy in "Conspiracy" (which was set up in earlier episodes) was supposed to be about high-ranking corrupt human Starfleet officers.

Roddenberry shot the idea down after the setup but before the final reveal, because he decided that Starfleet/humanity should be perfect and uncorruptable. So mind-control aliens got shoehorned in at the last minute to take the blame.

Alien bugs aren't the "original" form of the Borg. Old men who eat too many vitamins are the "original" form of the Borg.
 
J

jaxword

Member
ruby_onix said:
Oh, I knew that part. But the Starfleet conspiracy in "Conspiracy" (which was set up in earlier episodes) was supposed to be about high-ranking corrupt human Starfleet officers.

Roddenberry shot the idea down after the setup but before the final reveal, because he decided that Starfleet/humanity should be perfect and uncorruptable. So mind-control aliens got shoehorned in at the last minute to take the blame.

Alien bugs aren't the "original" form of the Borg. Old men who eat too many vitamins are the "original" form of the Borg.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's pretty obvious the idea was splintered. The hostile, unstoppable race / the starfleet infiltration.

I should point out that BOTH of those ideas were used better when apart. The Borg became iconic Trek villains, and the Shapeshifters of DS9 were much more interesting than Alien Facehugger ripoffs.
 
S

Slayven

Member
DrForester said:
He's right. The parasites were the original plan for what would end up being the Borg. Budget reasons made attempting an Insectoid race unfeasible.
Click to expand...
If they ever do another series I hope they will go with a bug war or at least a race.
 
Z

Zenith

Banned
Was a commercial product of Sisko's clock ever made? I don't care it if ti can't tell the time it was a work of art.

Slayven said:
If they ever do another series I hope they will go with a bug war or at least a race.
Click to expand...

They already had the Insectoid Xindi.
 
S

Slayven

Member
Zenith said:
Was a commercial product of Sisko's clock ever made? I don't care it if ti can't tell the time it was a work of art.



They already had the Insectoid Xindi.
Click to expand...
For all the screen time they got. I was more impressed with the Aquatics.
 
E

Effect

Member
Dizzy-4U said:
I just finished watching "In the Pale Moonlight".

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-E-T!!!!!

I couldn't believe what I was watching. So amazing.
Click to expand...

Really one of the best Star Trek episodes produced. One of the best episodes I've seen in a show in general as well.
 
The Elite

The Elite

BOSS
DrForester said:
Startrek.com has done a lengthy interview with Rick Berman, where he reveals he is working on his Memoir. Some interesting stuff in there, but there seems some playing the victim and finger pointing.

http://startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-1
http://startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-2
http://startrek.com/article/rick-berman-looks-back-at-18-years-of-trek-part-3

Some neat photo's too.

d14b3dedf6ba41729f218e19bf08cda785cefa5e.jpg



Some segments, but there's a lot more at he links above.


On Deep Space Nine



On Voyager:



On Enterprise Finale:



On Star Trek 2009:
Click to expand...

Great stuff. Thanks for posting.
 
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