Your Opinion: Is "Star Trek" Better or Worse Without Gene Roddenberry?

[137th Gebirg]

Because Roddenberry didn't like war. He didn't like conflict. We were supposed to have evolved beyond the need for any base instincts of aggression, and the advancement of replicator tech basically made needing fighting over resources obsolete, hence the whole "no money in the future" nonsense, which has been contradicted a million times over on-screen. Never mind the fact that if other aggressor species did exist out there, they wouldn't necessarily embrace the whole notion of "peaceful coexistence" that the Federation (the Homo Sapiens-only club) espouses. Conflict is life, and makes for good storytelling. Roddenberry did his own franchise a great disservice by going all peace-love-and-flowers hippie horseshit for early TNG.

Things like the Cardassian War were retconned into the universe by the writers to tell new stories, but I agree they probably should have put that farther back in the past, prior to the E-D's launch. It didn't make sense that it would have been happening during the show's run without a single person talking about it. Then again, you'd never know that the Dominion War was going on during Star Trek: Insurrection if it wasn't placed in some throw-away dialogue early in the script. Any way you cut it, it's just simply bad writing.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Because Roddenberry didn't like war. He didn't like conflict. We were supposed to have evolved beyond the need for any base instincts..........

(This is where I conked out due to repetition. Then I woke up to see---

.....................espouses. Conflict is life, and makes for good storytelling. Roddenberry did his own franchise a great disservice by going all peace-love-and-flowers hippie horseshit for early TNG.

I must admit I still have a soft spot for Tongo Rad despite....that episode in general. I wonder what Roddenberry thought of EDEN, given its hippie-critical viewpoint.

 

[137th Gebirg]

The "repetition" you cite is the concept of what one might call providing evidence to support an argument.

 

[MikHutch]

Conflict is life, and makes for good storytelling. Roddenberry did his own franchise a great disservice by going all peace-love-and-flowers hippie horseshit for early TNG.

I don't necessarily think a series always has to be about that. i think they could do a star trek series without war. but presenting the future as entirely conflict free isn't reasonable

Things like the Cardassian War were retconned into the universe by the writers to tell new stories, but I agree they probably should have put that farther back in the past, prior to the E-D's launch. It didn't make sense that it would have been happening during the show's run without a single person talking about it. Then again, you'd never know that the Dominion War was going on during Star Trek: Insurrection if it wasn't placed in some throw-away dialogue early in the script. Any way you cut it, it's just simply bad writing.

this gets me a lot. couldn't the cardassian war just be over right before Encounter at Farpoint?

 

[137th Gebirg]

I think that would have been a reasonable thing to do, yeah. For the life of me, I have no idea why they didn’t take that path.

 

[Praetor]

The fact that it could be going on during parts of TNG and we don't hear about it at the time leaves an impression that the war wasn't all that significant and that the enemy wasn't an especially threatening one, despite evidence to the contrary.

 

[BK613]

My head canon has the Feds getting the truce (which is not the same as a peace treaty)—the truce tat Picard was initially sent to obtain while on the Stargazer—just before the start of TNG and the actual negotiations for the peace treaty taking all the intervening time up to The Wounded to hammer out.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

The "repetition" you cite is the concept of what one might call providing evidence to support an argument.

The true problem was what Roddenberry didn't like. He apparently wanted dramaless drama. Hence the sleepiness. We reach. He did not. His cliches wore us out.

 

[MikHutch]

I think that would have been a reasonable thing to do, yeah. For the life of me, I have no idea why they didn’t take that path.

I can't either. especially since O'Brien was on the Enterprise then

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ Cripes I forgot about that. That makes it even more of a broken situation!

 

[BillJ]

My head canon has the Feds getting the truce (which is not the same as a peace treaty)—the truce tat Picard was initially sent to obtain while on the Stargazer—just before the start of TNG and the actual negotiations for the peace treaty taking all the intervening time up to The Wounded to hammer out.

IIRC, there is nine years between the destruction of the Stargazer and the commissioning of the Enterprise.

 

[MikHutch]

^^^ Cripes I forgot about that. That makes it even more of a broken situation!

Ikr! it would've made more sense if the Galaxy class was built to replace the Excelsior class after the war and is launched as the war ended.

IIRC, there is nine years between the destruction of the Stargazer and the commissioning of the Enterprise.

it makes the whole 'we never met the Ferengi' business odd too. it's like only a few years later and the Ferengi show up everywhere. apparently they knew the Cardassians for a while but Humans couldn't?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Colm Meaney played "Battle Bridge Conn" in "Encounter at Farpoint" and "First Security Guard" in "Lonely Among Us" [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Colm_Meaney#Appearances_as_O'Brien]. The first time the character was named as O'Brien in dialog was "Unnatural Selection" [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnatural_Selection_(episode)#Continuity].

 

[Praetor]

I've always just treated them all as O'Brien. I don't think there's any strong reason not to.

 

[BK613]

IIRC, there is nine years between the destruction of the Stargazer and the commissioning of the Enterprise.

KEIKO: Sure. The war lasted a long time. That takes its toll on people.
Nine years (or more) is a long time.

 

[Shawnster]

The fact that it could be going on during parts of TNG and we don't hear about it at the time leaves an impression that the war wasn't all that significant and that the enemy wasn't an especially threatening one, despite evidence to the contrary.

That's pretty much how I see it. The war with Cardassia was a minor border skirmish. It might have had a bigger impact on TNG had the Federation been much smaller. As it 8, though, the sheer size of the Federation makes it so that there can be a border war somewhere but it isn't big enough to be major news on the other side of Federation.

The Korean and Vietnam wars were on the news in the US, but neither Korea nor Vietnam ever directly threatened any US territory.

 

[MikHutch]

That's pretty much how I see it. The war with Cardassia was a minor border skirmish. It might have had a bigger impact on TNG had the Federation been much smaller. As it 8, though, the sheer size of the Federation makes it so that there can be a border war somewhere but it isn't big enough to be major news on the other side of Federation.

The Korean and Vietnam wars were on the news in the US, but neither Korea nor Vietnam ever directly threatened any US territory.

A reasonable take. But seeing as we barely even see much of the Federation and it's almost entirely Human-staffed ships in every conflict, you'd think the Enterprise would at least take a visit

 

[Shawnster]

A reasonable take. But seeing as we barely even see much of the Federation and it's almost entirely Human-staffed ships in every conflict, you'd think the Enterprise would at least take a visit

Yes. On the other hand, the Enterprise stayed out of the Dominion War as well, and that was a much larger conflict

 

[Arpy]

It’s an unrealistic and aloof take to have the Enterprise both physically and mentally out of the war. Pike was pissed to be away. I can imagine him constantly talking about with Una and drinking nightly going over the latest news. The first few seasons of TNG don’t make any sense if the rest of the fleet was out there in battle but his the enterprise and every other ship…hell, Starfleet Headquarters in “Conspiracy”…never makes any mention of it. Fans watching INS were also scratching their heads wondering when it took place in-universe.

The Cardassian War only makes sense as either having been largely concluded before the Enterprise launched or as a minor conflict far from it in a sprawling interstellar Federation.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Even if it was a minor thing during the early years of TNG, there is still the O'Brien problem, as @MikHutch mentioned up-thread. He never should have been on the E-D during that time.

Let's face it - the writers screwed the pooch on that one.