Does the red "EXIT" sign and the department store-looking "NO SMOKING" sign in....

...Of course, that way lies potential disaster. Helmets are a bad idea in television and film overall, no matter what the genre: if you can't see the face, you instantly redefine yourself as Power Rangers. If "realistic" armor is adopted/adapted, and helmets go with it, so goes your credibility. So you have to create custom helmets that reveal the face; the football armor of TMP was sorta okay, but doesn't protect you from accusations that it doesn't protect you from all known dangers.

So in the end, you're forced to budget for spacesuits. And it wasn't cheap in ENT, although it was more or less effective, the "2001" style visor being well thought out in revealing maximal face and minimizing reflections.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Acknowledging that smoking is a thing that still exists and having a main character take a single puff of a cigar is having a fetish?

I think Roddenberry having an objection to Saavik being a traitor had more to do with the character being a popular one and Roddenberry's concept of all Starfleet personnel being perfect than any particular affection for the character.

I believe that Kim Cattrall not wanting to be the third actress to play Saavik had more to do with the character being changed than anything.

I believe I read that Meyer did want to bring Kirstie Alley back as Saavik, but her asking price was too high because she was a much bigger star in 1990 due to Cheers and the Look Who's Talking movies. It was Robin Curtis that he had no interest in bringing back, since he had nothing to do with casting her and her Saavik in ST III & IV was quite different from the character he introduced in TWOK.

 

Probably true. I just liked Meyer's reaction--that he created her and should be able to do what he wanted with her.

Yeah, I think I saw something about that myself. Like I said, I was glad it was someone else. I wouldn't minded if Saavik had returned, but her being a traitor just didn't feel right to me. So I was fine with the way things turned out.

 

I can understand a solo creator like a novelist thinking that way, but film is a collaborative enterprise, especially when you're working in someone else's universe. Heck, I've created a ton of Star Trek novel characters by this point, but I try not to feel possessive about them or begrudge other people's right to continue their stories in other novels. Although I feel better about it when they do good work with the characters than when I feel they've misunderstood them.

 

Yeah, I can see that. Maybe protective would be a better word. It's good you guys have a pretty good collaborative relationship that hopefully minimizes a character being mischaracterized as much as possible.

But yeah, for films you can't really be as possessive. I imagine Meyer was probably just frustrated at Rodenberry and it was probably something more said from that angle.

 

I know fans often talk about the red uniforms being too bulky and hot, but if memory serves they're amongst the uniforms the cast themselves seemed to like. Maybe that's just in preference to the truly uncomfortable ones in TMP, maybe as an actor you're used to being hot in costume under studio lights so it doesn't bother you that much (unlike the genital crushing previous ones), but it could be they're more practical and comfortable than we think.

As to the difference between Roddenberry and Bennett/Myers, we shouldn't forget how Gene's attitude as to what Star Trek was had shifted in the decade between the end of the series and TMP, whilst they were basing theirs on watching the more rough and ready (especially looking back 15 years later when certain attitudes would have already started to seem a bit dated and far from "Perfect") TV show in one big hit (and of course, Paramount didn't want 1979 Roddenberry Trek anyway). That's where the divide started rather than malice or deliberate dickishness on either side.

I mean, if you were only going by having seen the TV episodes, in an early 80's climate where people didn't smoke on TV anywhere like as much as they did in real life, you'd probably not even realise that it's supposed to be a future where people do not smoke at all.

 

As I recall, there was still plenty of smoking on TV in the early '80s, though maybe not as much as in the '60s. Certainly there were still plenty of characters who smoked cigars, like Hannibal and Face on The A-Team or Columbo in his revival movies in the late '80s and '90s. And it was the 1982 Police Squad! (forerunner of the Naked Gun movies) that gave us this running gag: