Its better that he did not have control forever, otherwise Star Trek would not have evolved. But at least with Roddenberry, there was not an overreliance on grimdark stories. I’m not saying that grimdark doesn’t have a place in Trek – it does – but I think Roddenberry would realize that his vision of an optimistic future for humanity would be needed more than ever in today's world.
I know that people had objections on Roddenberry's no conflict rule, but personally, for me, it made sense.
When you look at human behaviour and the fact its a product of environment in which one is raised, then the kind of socio-economic environment that the UFP is 'supposed' to provide (akin to Resource Based Economy) would in reality not really produce conflicts... or at least, they would have diminished by about 90-95%.
On a SF vessel, conflicts would be contradictory to the cohesiveness of a vessel's crew. And one doesn't mean you cannot have disagreements, but I don't think people fully understood the premise that living in the kind of society the UFP was portrayed like would effectively also create fundamentally different kinds of human behaviour.
Also, we don't know that Trek wouldn't have evolved without Rodenberry... the main issue here is he died before we could say for certain on what would have happened.
And yes, I also detest the fact that there is WAY too much reliance of grimdark stories. Writers don't seem to be capable or willing to write different kind of stories about how such a different society would work... to delve into intricate details or how things have changed.
He would have also challenged the writers to do better in their storytelling, and a lot of the mediocre stories that have been created from 1990 onwards. I do not think he would have liked how quality of content dipped between 1998 and 2003, and in particular, Voyager’s uneven writing.
Agreed.
But then again, he might not have been onboard with Enterprise to begin with, or at least the way it turned out; it probably would have been based around Robert April instead of Jonathan Archer (though he might have like the decon chamber, and really liked T’Pol and Hoshi). And he probably would not have been onboard with Discovery either, even though it fulfilled his promised of a gay character in Trek, and was a show with a strong female lead character in Burnham. I have a hard time imagining him approving of prequels being made, as he always looked forwards. And he might have a lot of misgivings as to how dark the universe Picard’s inhabits has become. But he’d probably like SNW, and possibly the Kelvin films as well.
So, my verdict is undecided.
Its possible the shows in question would have still been made... they just might have turned out differently than they have.
In fairness, I think one thing VOY did well in the early seasons (and even later ones) was that Janeway was highly insistent on preserving the principles and ideals of the Federation.
I agree that some of the stories were less than even, but overall, the crew actually did well in regards to maintaining their convictions without succumbing to outdated notions that if you take away the creature comforts, etc. that Humans turn into mindless animals (like Quark described once - Equinox came close to this, but I objected to the premise that the crew would have turned to such lows even with such losses - other SF officers suffered extensive losses and managed to pull through - maybe SF Academy should do a course in how to better mentally prepare people for such possibilities... and its possible they do that, which is why SF does have the reputation it has - we just hadn't seen it - and Equinox could be an exception rather than the rule).
