Moore On Escaping 'The Box'

TrekToday · June 13 2008, 08:39 PM

Gene Roddenberry's vision of an evolved humanity made for good people, but for bad drama and caused the writers no end of grief.

As reported by TrekMovie.com, Ron Moore, who joined Star Trek: The Next Generation in the third season, he helped to change the tone of the show by adding conflict and real emotions, finding ways to get around what was termed the "Roddenberry box" of rules that made people a bit too perfect and made it harder to write an interesting story.

"I think there was a general consensus in the writers room in every season that we always chaffed at the notion that there were no petty jealousies and greed and all that," said Moore. "We railed against that on a daily basis, found ways to get around that, found ways to get through it with varying degrees of success. It was a constant problem that we just sort of gnashed our teeth about. It never made any logical sense or any dramatic sense."

Furthermore, it was not something that had been in effect during the run of the original series. "I was always saying 'the Original Series was never like this, the Original Series has plenty of problems with humanity, plenty of with jealousies and bickering and even racial prejudices are alive in the 23rd century,'" said Moore. "In 'Balance of Terror', Stiles is overtly prejudiced against Spock just because he is Vulcan. And that isn’t the only instance of that. It made for drama and it made for conflict. It made the world work."

According to Moore, Roddenberry became a visionary in place of being a writer. "He started to believe the stuff that he was creating a utopian future and wanted 'The Next Generation' universe to be reflective of the utopian universe that so many people had told him he had been creating for all these years," said Moore. "So it started to become less about the drama, less about making a television show, and more about servicing this idea of what utopianism was going to be and how perfect humanity was going to be in the future as an example of how to live our lives by, as opposed to making a great television series."

But by the time of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the writers were able to bend and work around the limitations. "We were all in league together," Moore explained. "Ira was a big proponent of throwing the box out the door, but he knew we couldn’t really throw the box out the door. We could only go so far and find creative ways around it. We couldn’t save the Star Trek universe by destroying it. We had to keep things in place because they were the fundamentals that Gene had built in. And so we just found ways around them whenever possible."

To read more, head to the article located here.

MattJC · June 13 2008, 08:59 PM

I doubt this clown will be happy until Star Trek is as dark and depressing as the new BSG is.

number6 · June 13 2008, 09:06 PM

Ron Moore is kinda like the David Gerrold of TNG. He got a shot at a spec script and then went on to write some of Modern Trek's finest moments.

While I think his head may have been profoundly expanded since his TNG days, his opinions about GR are spot on, and in line with some of Trek's other great scribes.

Gep Malakai · June 13 2008, 09:32 PM

MattJC wrote:

I doubt this clown will be happy until Star Trek is as dark and depressing as the new BSG is.

I could live with that.

Jack Bauer · June 13 2008, 09:54 PM

MattJC wrote:

I doubt this clown will be happy until Star Trek is as dark and depressing as the new BSG is.

I doubt it. He seems to have wanted the Star Trek he worked on to be closer to TOS than it was. It doesn't seem to me he wanted Trek as dark as BSG. Roddenberry got too caught up in his visionary status that he seemed quite embarrassed about how human his characters were in TOS.

MattJC · June 13 2008, 10:17 PM

In that interview he complains about the fact that was established in "Balance of Terror" the Romulans looks like Vulcans. He said there is probably a better to tell the Romulan story then that.
It's those kinds of arrogant remarks which make me dislike the notion of remakes in general.

Gep Malakai · June 13 2008, 10:30 PM

MattJC wrote:

He said there is probably a better to tell the Romulan story then that.
It's those kinds of arrogant remarks which make me dislike the notion of remakes in general.

Yes. How dare someone think they have a good idea for a story. They should all learn that other people always have better story ideas than they do.

Now go tell that ex-cop to take his stupid spaceship show and shove it, because there's no way he could do it better than '50 sci-fi movies.

MattJC · June 13 2008, 10:38 PM

That ex-cop wasn't remaking a previous TV show like Lost in Space now was he?

Gep Malakai · June 13 2008, 10:43 PM

^And that changes that both are examples of "Hey, I enjoy X, maybe I can make an even better version of it" how? Star Trek was quite heavily inspired by Forbidden Planet, among others. How much of a vacuum does the development of a project have to have been not to count?

MattJC · June 13 2008, 10:47 PM

Star Trek was not a remake.

MattJC · June 13 2008, 10:54 PM

If Moore has an idea for story, then he should start completely from scratch.
New title. New characters. New setting. Then he go nuts with his own creation if he so desired, instead of slapping the Star Trek label on it and then changing the things which makes Star Trek, Star Trek.

Gep Malakai · June 13 2008, 10:55 PM

MattJC wrote:

Star Trek was not a remake.

Again, how the heck does that change that somebody looked at a set of ideas that they liked, then said "hey, I think I can do that a little bit better?" Because if that's your major objection to remakes and why you think RDM is arrogant and a clown, then all writers who got inspired by another work are arrogant too. Otherwise, you're just trying to shore up your own anti-Trek XI bias with inconsistent nonsense.

Rhaenys · June 13 2008, 11:42 PM

I really don't agree with him. TNG was great. And maybe it would be better if they made a little more drama and conflict. But just a little. DS9 had too much of it.

And now he's saying that Star Trek has too much continuity, and I don't agree with that either. I think that would be a problem for him, but a better writer could write much more Star Trek stories and keep that continuity.
Canon could be a problem if you are writing a prequel, but noth with sequels.

Temis the Vorta · June 14 2008, 01:54 AM

MattJC wrote:

I doubt this clown will be happy until Star Trek is as dark and depressing as the new BSG is.

God forbid Star Trek should ever be good enough to win a Peabody Award.

PorthosShadow · June 14 2008, 02:22 AM

I was and still am a huge of DS9 because it made the Star Trek universe more realisitic while at the same time not making humans like 20th century apes.

Temis the Vorta · June 14 2008, 03:28 AM

BSG at its worst isn't nearly as depressing as VOY and the first three seasons of ENT.

Gep Malakai · June 14 2008, 03:36 AM

^

That's one way of looking at it.

Samuel T. Cogley · June 14 2008, 08:13 AM

Temis the Vorta wrote:

BSG at its worst isn't nearly as depressing as VOY and the first three seasons of ENT.

Hermiod · June 14 2008, 09:34 AM

MattJC wrote:

I doubt this clown will be happy until Star Trek is as dark and depressing as the new BSG is.

Don't be ridiculous.

As Moore pointed out, the kind of thing he was looking to do in TNG, they had already done in TOS. TNG's "we all love each other" approach hurt the first couple of seasons and it got a lot better when they stopped it.

It's okay for people in a television show, even people who care about each other, to not always see eye to eye.

Chemahkuu · June 14 2008, 02:05 PM

Temis the Vorta wrote:

BSG at its worst isn't nearly as depressing as VOY and the first three seasons of ENT.

True

One of the reasons I can rarely watch TNG these days, despite having grown up watching it, is exactly the sort of "goodie preachy" attitude TNG takes.

Perfect Humans have no drama to them, it has to come from an outside source like the alien of the week dilemma. Too flawed or indecisive, some of the melancholy DS9 characters, then it just gets too mired in that kind of depressing storyline.

I wouldn't mind more realistic Human drama in the newer Trek projects, not necessarily darker, just more believable "people".