Spoilers R rated content - what does it add?

Yeah this discussion is going nowhere. The joke is dead, buried and reanimated as a zombie to eat threads.

 

No. Making money as a vision applies to people who do not actually make money with whatever it is they're trying to do.

Thus when Gene finally got Desilu to bite on Star Trek, he was one step closer to realizing his vision. When episodes started filming and he finally started getting paid, the vision was realized.

And when Parmount took it away from him and gave it to Harve Bennet and Nicholas Meyer, it was a vision mostly thwarted despite the fact that he still got residuals from being the creator of the original show.

 

I cannot help that it remains relevant, despite various attempts to by many (I suppose well-intention posters) to argue around it.

 

And then he actively tried to sabotage the film.

 

It ads everything. I'd say it's essential. How do you deal with serous subject matters like war, racism, personal redemption without showing it. And how can you represent it in a satisfactory manner without an R rating?

 

A vision involves the power of imagination. GR's vision was a future characterized by unity, the advancement of the human race thanks to science and space exploration, etc. That vision was not "mostly thwarted" in the shows that followed TOS.

 

I suppose that would fall into the "more is more" philosophy of filmmaking.

 

And Gene had the power to imagine himself making a hundred million dollars and living on a tropical beach surrounded by hot women. I imagine he had a vision -- or several competing visions -- for humanity's future too, but it's the one involving hot women that most strongly motivated him to become a writer.

Sure it was, considering many of the films that followed were written and produced without his input (and he didn't get paid nearly as much as he would have liked). Then TNG came around and he was given the helm again.

 

i always thought the way zefram cochrane was depicted in 'first contact' was a hommage to gene

 

Reposting, because it remains relevant:

FRAKES: <turns on a TV> Look at that!
RODENBERRY: What, you don't have a science fiction in the 21st century?
FRAKES: Sure we do. It looks a lot different. There are fifty major science fiction properties in my time. You can see Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, even Babylon 5 on a day like this.
RODENBERRY: Uh huh...
FRAKES: And you know, Gene...
RODENBERRY: Please ...don't tell me it's all thanks to me. I've heard enough about the great Gene Rodenberry. I don't know who writes your history books or where you get your information from, but you people got some pretty funny ideas about me. You all look at me as if I'm some kind of saint or visionary or something.
FRAKES: I don't think you're a saint, Gene, but you did have a vision. ...And now we're filming it.
RODENBERRY: You wanna know what my vision is? ...Dollar signs! Money! I didn't create this show to usher in a new era for humanity. You think I wanna spend the rest of my life writing space operas? I don't even like to science fiction! I watch westerns! I built this show so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with ...naked women. That's Gene Rodenberry. That's his vision. This other guy you keep talking about. This historical figure. I never met him. I can't imagine I ever will.
FRAKES: Someone once said 'Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make it's own judgements'.
RODENBERRY: Rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?
FRAKES: You did, ten years from now, right after you got fired for going massively over budget on the first Star Trek movie. Live and learn, right?

 

This show is "adult" and I am thrilled about it. The gore is not at all bad by modern standards, and I think warranted as part of the story. I would like more sex, not less, although not TOO much more. As for profanity, I think a small amount is probably right. A lot would be jarring in a universe that had none for so long, although you know the reality would be different if they were real people on a real starship.

These things are part and parcel of making a show for adults, with adult themes. I don't think a show addressing rape and torture is appropriate for children whether or not it shows you prosthetic alien breasts. Yet I am thrilled to have a Star Trek that IS for adults.

 

SPOCK: Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It is currently laced with, ...shall I say, ...more colourful metaphors. 'Double dumb ass on you' ...and so forth.
KIRK: You mean profanity.
SPOCK: <nods>
KIRK: That's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you if you don't swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the period.
SPOCK: For example?
KIRK: Oh, the collective works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins.
SPOCK: Ah! ...'The giants'.​

My dad, who was in junior high when Star Trek first aired and has been hooked ever since, loudly blurted out at the end of that episode "Damn! Star Trek just got real!"

I remember when people used to talk about Trek being innovative and daring for dealing with issues nobody else wanted to touch... and now we have a major character arc involving PTSD and a male officer being raped by a female soldier. I don't know that Star Trek has ever taken so large a sledgehammer to that so people's comfort zones since James T. Kirk opened Lieutenant Uhura's interracial frequencies.

 

That's his vision for himself. His vision of the future of humanity is shown in the TV shows and movies.

No, it wasn't. The same vision of the future of humanity is generally prominent across all of the shows and movies.

 

Gene Rodenberry was a writer and TV producer, not a politician. He didn't have a "vision for humanity," he had a story.

Rodenberry didn't think so at the time.

 

I agree. Roddenberry's "vision" (to your point, more accurately described as a "concept") was actually relatively simple-

Humanity survives despite its basic instincts for violence and pettiness. People of Earth learn to unify and work together to achieve space flight. We head off into the galaxy together to explore and try to grow our knowledge and wisdom while serving as members of a broader galactic community.

That was it.

There was no "utopia" or evolved humanity. Quite the opposite actually, humanity was basically the same...just that we'd acquired some learning and wisdom through our struggles and put aside, as a species, some of the broader ugliness (like war on a planetary scale, and hating/killing because of different political or spiritual beliefs). But, person-to-person, we were essentially the same, right down to violent instincts, prejudices, flaws and greed.

That was much more interesting than what Roddenberry attempted to employ later, which was that humanity, right down to the individual, had evolved to be superior...without conflict, greed, or (honestly) passion. It was basically a very similar story to Vulcan enlightenment that led them to logic. That was nonsense that came as a result of Gene needing something to talk about on the convention circuit...when his ego was bigger and he wanted to sell his creation as something more special than it really was (and I'm not saying Star Trek wasn't special...it was...but it was special because it was damn fine entertainment...not because of some "vision").

The original "vision/concept" was far more realistic, inspirational, and dramatic. It said that in spite of our built-in weaknesses and flaws, we could still fight and prevail if we worked together. And the stories from those days were often about that struggle against our more base instincts. To me, THAT's inspirational! We can get up and fight the fight every day...and actually make progress. Later, it became more about going around and teaching everyone else how backward and immoral they were, as we sat on our high-horse of superiority....and that was FAR less interesting or realistic. I don't care about a people who have no struggle...no fight...no need to improve. They are already "there..." so where's the drama or adventure in that scenario? It's not interesting. There's no journey.

It's also one of the reasons I gravitate more (especially as I get older) away from 24th century Trek...and I think it's why the producers have done the same. Not that those shows weren't good (heck, DS9 is my second favorite)...but they all had that "superior humanity" stink on them to some degree, and it just made the characters and story less intriguing and involving to me. If we're not struggling to do the right thing and make progress because it's already a foregone conclusion...what's the point of even watching the story unfold?

 

So what? You can make exactly the same accusation against Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, etc... (But with hot men instead of hot women in some cases.) It doesn’t mean their creations are not worthwhile.

 

Their CREATIONS certainly were. But Michelangelo was an artist, not a visionary. The vast majority of the work he did was specifically for the purpose of GETTING PAID, most of which involved carving forgeries and passing them off as antiques to collectors who didn't know any better (and he was pretty damn good at it).

Much as we romanticize it, there has always been a dubious relationship between art and money. Artists will produce a few really great pieces that everyone remembers, and then they will produce a bunch of meaningless bullshit that actually pays the bills.

Which is, let's face it, probably why TOS had a dozen or so really great episodes bracketted by 20 mediocre ones and 40 shit ones.

 

I don't see how 24th century Star Trek shows humanity as anything different than TOS or ENT. When they say "evolved" they don't mean biologically. In TNG, it's only the crew who doesn't have conflict. There are all sorts of imperfect humans coming around, even in the first season.

Having no conflict among crewmembers adds a bit of realism. TOS didn't really have any inter crew conflick either, and the regulars were hypercompetent, just like TNG.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure it's all that dubious. Carpenters get paid for their work. Podiatrists get paid for their work. Doctors and lawyers and cooks and truckers and electricians expect to get paid for their labors. Not sure why society often seems to think that artists are supposed to be above all that, except that, yes, people do tend to overly romanticize art and artists, as opposed to realizing that it's just a job like any other.

None of which means it's only about the money. Good doctors care about their patients. Good teachers want to educate their students. Good carpenters and plumbers take pride in their work, etc. Doesn't mean they want to do it for free, just for the love of it.

There's no rule that says artists have to starve in garrets . . .