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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

The best that you can hope is that the adaptation is faithful & good.
"Faithful and good" does not mean slavishly replicating the source material.
Hopefully you can win over most of the existing fan base before you worry about your new customers who has never seen the original.
No. The priority is attracting a new audience. If the pre-existing fanbase also approves, that's just a bonus. I guarantee, no one involved in successful adaptations and popular like Game of Thrones, Fallout, The Last of Us, the MCU or whatever began by asking "how do we appeal to the fans we already have?"
If this board has taught me anything, if you granted the fans millions of dollars and carte blanche to produce a new canonical Star Trek series, then the production company would be bankrupt before they finished shooting the first episode, maybe even before shooting began.
Gene Roddenberry Himself did say "Star Trek would be shit if we listened to the fans."
Are you so Anti-Fandom that you want no Fans in your works?
Building off the above statement, look at movies or shows where you do have fans involved. In Star Trek that's Nemesis (which isn't held in high esteem) and Picard S3, which was garbage. Expanding the scope to other franchises, there's Superman Returns and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, which weren't great hits with their respective fandoms.
He's also one of the reasons why Voyager wasn't as great as it could've been.
Well, no. Voyager was held back by UPN who rejected many of the innovative ideas Brannon Braga had for the series, which Rick Berman was in support of.
Garret Wang claims otherwise.
Garret Wang's unprofessional conduct during while Voyager was in production is a matter of public record, and Robert Duncan McNeil has verified the reason Garret Wang never directed any episodes was because of that unprofessional behavior and because he never trained to be a director.
He was awful to all the women actors, corroborated by Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis, Terry Farrell, Jeri Ryan.
He gave them zero respect during contract negotiations, increasingly wanted to sexualize their roles (catsuits, "decontamination" scenes, etc), and straight up fired Terry Farrell from DS9 after she just asked for an episode reduction for S7.
I'll grant you Terry Farrell, as indeed Berman has admitted to his behavior towards her. Denise Crosby was more Berman just being rude to her once she decided to leave. Marina Sirtis was actually sexualized less when Berman took control, while Jeri Ryan's sexualization was at the request of UPN.
The Year of Hell was supposed to last all season as a Season long arc.
It got cut down to 2 eps because of Rick Berman not a fan of Serialized Story Telling and wanting it to be shorter, MUCH shorter.
Nope. As I referenced earlier, Berman was supportive of that idea, it was UPN that forced Year of Hell to be a two-parter and that it had to end with a reset button.
Increasingly stuck his nose in the writing credits for VOY and ENT (even though he wasn't a writer!) as the franchise began to spiral downward.
Berman is a writer registered with WGA, and as executive producer and creator of those shows, it's his right to have a pass over on their scripts. If he "weren't a writer" as you allege, there would be some serious consequences for him, like what happened on TNG when Roddenberry was allowing his lawyer to rewrite scripts.
 
ISB is still upset with Rick Berman to this day about this issue.

That tells you how important Terry Farrell was to ISB's long term plans.
Funny because he didn't have any plans for over her last two seasons of the show. The character was completely treading water. The most obvious example of this is how her entire reason had been reduced to her relationship to a man.

It's great Jadzia became an inspiration for women getting into science and a trans icon because - let's face it - trans people need all the icons they can get. But, Farrell herself aside, Jadiza was always the weakest character on a show of otherwise very strong characters.

**Now I will agree that the entirety of the drama between her and Berman was icky and gross and wholly unjustified. But that's really two separate issues.
 
Never Forgive! Never Forget!

I mean, I was sad at the time that Jadzia wasn’t coming back for the seventh season. I got over it. It did not affect my life in any measurable way. I love Star Trek but at the end of the day, it’s just an entertainment franchise. There are things from 25-30 years ago that affect me, but those are personal. But while I’ve tried very hard to forgive, it’s very difficult to forget. But again, that’s personal.
 
What's with the Terry Farrel worship all of a sudden?
Saw her episide of The D-Con Chamber. She came of as a "me! me! me!" person all of that time. It was annoying af. Good riddance.
But then the Sonequa Martin-Greene episode happened and oh wow!
She was extremely likeable, her personal tragedies were heartbreaking and she was extremely grateful to be part of Star Trek.
DSC sucked, but Sonequa deserves every bit of success that has and will come her way.
 
Never Forgive! Never Forget!
I'm as nerdy as they come, but this is a completely unhealthy attitude if it's not meant as tongue-in-cheek. I mean, the ENT finale is atrocious. The worst series finale in the franchise going back to 1969. It's objectively mediocre if not downright terrible on almost every creative level. In ten days we mark 20 years since that episode aired. But even as angry as that episode has sometimes made me, I forgave B&B long ago.

They made choices. Bad ones, if you ask me and probably the vast majority of other Trekkies, but done with the best intentions. Execution was very poor, but that happens in all lines of art and entertainment. If I can't forgive two producers I've never even met in the flesh much less personally know for mucking up a series finale then I have far worse problems than a crap final episode of a show.
 
"Faithful and good" does not mean slavishly replicating the source material.
Depends on what you want as a fan of the product.

Every fan is different, what works for one won't work for another.

No. The priority is attracting a new audience. If the pre-existing fanbase also approves, that's just a bonus.
If you can't get the existing fanbase to like it, they'll bad mouth your adaptation, and the rest won't matter because your project just tanked w/o fan support.
If you don't think fan support matters in modern adaptations and how'll it'll affect you financially, you only need to see modern adaptations and see the end results.

Some who are relatively faithful do very well.
Others which deviate dramatically fail miserably.

I guarantee, no one involved in successful adaptations and popular like Game of Thrones, Fallout, The Last of Us, the MCU or whatever began by asking "how do we appeal to the fans we already have?"
Game of Thrones adaptation was largely faithful to George RR Martin's first 5 seasons, the last 2 seasons are widely panned because it made bad storyline decisions that didn't make sense to the audience along with rushed pacing and it got panned by the fans. They stopped involving George RR Martin much past Season 5 and the last 2 seasons, the Show Runners wanted to be done with Game of Thrones so they can move on with their careers. Sadly the last 2 seasons were casualties of that and it sucked. That's why those last 2 seasons were so widely panned.

“I don’t think you really can set out to please the fans of anything,” he said. “Or please anyone other than yourself. I think you have to come into this trying to make the show that you want to make and trusting that, as fans of the game [ourselves], we would find the pieces that were essential to us...and try to do the best version.”

While he doesn’t intend to pander to die-hard Fallout fans, Nolan doesn’t plan to deviate too much from the series’ lore, either. He’s a fan of Bethesda Softworks’ franchise, saying Fallout 3 damn-near ruined his life. The chokehold the game had on him was part of the reason why he wanted to co-create the show to begin with.

It started, for me, with Fallout 3, which devoured about a year of my life,” he explained. “I was an aspiring young writer at that point, and it almost derailed my entire career. It’s so ludicrously playable and fun...seriously, the games were just incredible. It’s such a rare and unbelievable thing that I’ve gotten to do twice in my career, to take something that you love and get a chance to play in that universe, to create your own version. The first go-round for me was Batman, and this time with Fallout—a series of games that I absolutely loved.”
Jonathan Nolan is a BIG fan of Fallout 3, he also doesn't plan to deviate from the series lore too much.
He knows how to pay homage to the source material.

Most people who watch TLOU have found that it's rather a faithful adaptation of the original games.
The creator of The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann, stated not long ago that the HBO show was the most faithful adaptation of a video game franchise yet. So far, that is a fair assessment. The show and the game at this point share an incredible amount of shot-for-shot parity. If that continues, and it looks like it will, I find myself asking this question: what’s the point? It’s a question I level at the faithfulness crowd. Do you really want a shot-for-shot, carbon copy of what you’ve already played? A friend of mine pointed this out—why wouldn’t I just go play the game? Can’t really argue with that. Is there a need for a big-budget live-action remake of this?
Some fans just want to see their favorite Games in live-action w/ quality budget & top notch acting behind it.

The same is with the entire MCU formula.
Hire some of the best Writers/Directors/Actors.
They can deviate to some degree since the original Comics already has a "Multi-verse".
So the MCU is it's own Multi-verse and allows deviation from the original comics to some degree.
But a lot of the on-screen adaptation for the characters and stories are relatively faithful to the original storylines & character portrayals.
e.g. There's a reason why DeadPool 1-3 have been so sucessful. The Writing, the Acting, Ryan Reynolds portrayal is spot on for how Deadpool should act in a Live-Action version.


Gene Roddenberry Himself did say "Star Trek would be shit if we listened to the fans."

Building off the above statement, look at movies or shows where you do have fans involved. In Star Trek that's Nemesis (which isn't held in high esteem) and Picard S3, which was garbage. Expanding the scope to other franchises, there's Superman Returns and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, which weren't great hits with their respective fandoms.
I loved Picard S3 and many others do as well, it was my favorite season of Picard.
If you don't like it, that sucks for you. I guess it wasn't made for you.
Nemesis had it's own issues as well, but the final Space Battle was awesome, so it wasn't a complete write-off.

The first of the SW Sequel Trilogy movies was very well received by fans & did well financially.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy suffered from lack of planning by Disney between the 3x movies.
They even admitted it themselves, they had no continuity between the 3 movies and the middle director (Rian Johnson) literally through out all the notes and just did whatever he wanted.
They had to clean up his mess after the fact and that's why it's such a cluster of a trilogy and so many people hate it.

Well, no. Voyager was held back by UPN who rejected many of the innovative ideas Brannon Braga had for the series, which Rick Berman was in support of.
You're going to pass the blame to UPN?

Garret Wang's unprofessional conduct during while Voyager was in production is a matter of public record, and Robert Duncan McNeil has verified the reason Garret Wang never directed any episodes was because of that unprofessional behavior and because he never trained to be a director.
What, because Garret Wang called out Rick Berman in TV guide?
That one little comment prevented him from ever directing, because of pure spite on Rick Berman's end.
Literally every other Trek Actor was allowed to do it, only him.

I'll grant you Terry Farrell, as indeed Berman has admitted to his behavior towards her. Denise Crosby was more Berman just being rude to her once she decided to leave. Marina Sirtis was actually sexualized less when Berman took control, while Jeri Ryan's sexualization was at the request of UPN.
Again, passing the blame to UPN.
Many of these Actresses has stated on record that it was Berman himself that was the misogynist, not UPN.

Nope. As I referenced earlier, Berman was supportive of that idea, it was UPN that forced Year of Hell to be a two-parter and that it had to end with a reset button.
Others have stated that it was Berman who wasn't supportive of the idea. UPN didn't care. Berman cared more for syndication since he doesn't care for serialized story telling.

Berman is a writer registered with WGA, and as executive producer and creator of those shows, it's his right to have a pass over on their scripts. If he "weren't a writer" as you allege, there would be some serious consequences for him, like what happened on TNG when Roddenberry was allowing his lawyer to rewrite scripts.
And looked how ENT went in the first 2 seasons compared to when he gave up control and let somebody else take the reigns.
S3 & S4 of ENT was FAR better written & produced.

But by then, the damage is done and ENT fate was sealed.





Funny because he didn't have any plans for over her last two seasons of the show. The character was completely treading water. The most obvious example of this is how her entire reason had been reduced to her relationship to a man.
How is that so bad? I really liked the Jadzia & Worf marriage. That was alot of fun and brought depth to both characters.

It's great Jadzia became an inspiration for women getting into science and a trans icon because - let's face it - trans people need all the icons they can get. But, Farrell herself aside, Jadiza was always the weakest character on a show of otherwise very strong characters.
I'd disagree on that assessment.

While Sisko & Kira Nerys were the two strongest characters, I think Jadzia was up there in terms of strong characters after those two.
You may feel otherwise. YMMV, but I hold her very high in terms of character strength.

**Now I will agree that the entirety of the drama between her and Berman was icky and gross and wholly unjustified. But that's really two separate issues.
It gets intertwined with her character and affects her storyline trajectory. ISB would've figured out something for her.





I mean, I was sad at the time that Jadzia wasn’t coming back for the seventh season. I got over it. It did not affect my life in any measurable way. I love Star Trek but at the end of the day, it’s just an entertainment franchise. There are things from 25-30 years ago that affect me, but those are personal. But while I’ve tried very hard to forgive, it’s very difficult to forget. But again, that’s personal.
I'm happy it didn't affect you much.
I still won't forgive Rick Berman, not now, not ever.





I'm as nerdy as they come, but this is a completely unhealthy attitude if it's not meant as tongue-in-cheek.
Oh well, that's my attitude to bear. You don't have to like it, you can do what you want to do.
What I choose to hold grudges on is for me to decide, and nobody else.

I mean, the ENT finale is atrocious. The worst series finale in the franchise going back to 1969.
That we can agree on.

It's objectively mediocre if not downright terrible on almost every creative level.
I concur

In ten days we mark 20 years since that episode aired. But even as angry as that episode has sometimes made me, I forgave B&B long ago.
Good for you, you forgave them. I sure as hell didn't. I never will forgive them for squandering so much fan good will and leaving us High & Dry w/o Trek for so damn long.

They made choices. Bad ones, if you ask me and probably the vast majority of other Trekkies, but done with the best intentions.
I'm sure they had the "Best of Intentions", but "Good Intentions" doesn't change the ending of Trek and how long we suffered w/o Trek.
It was quite the Dry Spell.

Execution was very poor, but that happens in all lines of art and entertainment. If I can't forgive two producers I've never even met in the flesh much less personally know for mucking up a series finale then I have far worse problems than a crap final episode of a show.
Good for you, you forgave them.
I won't, don't care to forgive them.

They had their run with Trek, they're both gone now.
They made their money, now they get to relax and move on with their careers or retire.
Whatevers, I don't care for their creative inputs anymore.
 
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If you want to see what happens when a TV series gets taken over by Star Trek fans, look at Enterprise season 4. Manny Coto, Mike Sussman, André Bormanis, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens... and then Berman and Braga came back for the finale.
 
If you want to see what happens when a TV series gets taken over by Star Trek fans, look at Enterprise season 4. Manny Coto, Mike Sussman, André Bormanis, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens... and then Berman and Braga came back for the finale.
ENT S3 & S4 were the best seasons of ENT IMO.

The Series Finale/Ending sucked hard, and we know that B&B had their tendrils all over it.

The one thing B&B got right was the Opening Theme Song.

The first iteration was truly a good Theme Song.

They screwed it up with the Faster Tempo version for S3 &S4.
 
The revised version of Enterprise's main title theme was - as has been discussed ad nauseum in this thread and much like many other problematic points of the show - a decision forced upon the show by UPN.

Once the franchise moved from syndication to a network, they no longer had the immunity they enjoyed.
 
I'm happy it didn't affect you much.
I still won't forgive Rick Berman, not now, not ever.

Look, I don’t pretend to understand your perspective. What I can say is that it is extremely unhealthy to hold on to a grudge for something that is seemingly tangential to you. I’m concerned for you if you are still angry about this after thirty years. I don’t know you but if it were someone I did know, I would suggest they seek professional help. This attitude is not healthy. At all.
 
Look, I don’t pretend to understand your perspective.
That's fine, I don't expect you to.

What I can say is that it is extremely unhealthy to hold on to a grudge for something that is seemingly tangential to you.
Okay, that's my choice to bear. My grudge doesn't affect your or others, so let it be.

I’m concerned for you if you are still angry about this after thirty years.
How sweet of you to show concern for your fellow Trekkie.

I don’t know you but if it were someone I did know, I would suggest they seek professional help. This attitude is not healthy. At all.
I live life just fine bearing countless grudges.


Not very. For a start, by that point, DS9 was ending, so no long term plan existed.
And I'm sure ISB would've figured out something for her if she stayed on.
But that didn't happen, so she had to be written off.

Secondly, the season worked fine without Farrell. That’s how important she was. Of all the characters in DS9, Dax was the easiest to recast and it was done very smoothly.
It worked fine because of ISB & the great writing team on DS9.
They made it work.

Dax was easy to recast because they made her character a Trill.
It was lucky happen stance that she was the one that got canned and needed to be recast.

Imagine what would've happened if Sisko, Worf, Kira Nerys, Mile's O'Brien, or Bashir needed to be recast at the end of S6 and moving onto S7?

That would be FAR harder to do. Especially Sisko.
 
*shrug*

Good job that didn’t happen then?
But Jadzia didn't need to be written off.

Right now, it's a "He Said / She Said" affair between what happened BtS (Behind the Scenes) on the S7 Contract Extension Negotiation.

Terry has her piece on the matter that we've covered.
Rick Berman deflects and blames the Network.

Meanwhile, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's showrunner, Ira Steven Behr, and the writing staff were purposely kept out of the tense negotiations. Behr was livid when he found out Farrell was leaving the show, which meant he had to kill off the popular Jadzia Dax character. Behr said, "Let me put it this way, if I had known what was going on, I would have stopped it."
I trust that if ISB was part of the Negotiations, he would've found a way to make everything work w/o having to write-off Jadzia.

Even if it was in a reduced episode count role where Jadzia would be a "Recurring Guest Star" role.

Other TV shows have managed to handle that exact same situation and make it work.

It just sucks that Management was stubborn on this one person and forced ISB's hand to kill off his beloved character.

At the end of the day, I believe what Terry Farrell & ISB have to say more than Rick Berman, especially given the way he has acted BtS (Behind the Scenes).

His credibility is shot, period. The way he treats women and lies about things, there's not much to believe when there are other sides of the story to hear.
 
At least when Farrell was fired her character was pretty easily replaceable because Dax was a Trill. Which softened the blow for me, and I grew to find Ezri and Nicole deBoer both cute and very likable. Ezri was a fun twist on the Dax lineage and I enjoyed how the symbiont went from being in a strong willed, levelheaded scientist and analyst to a young, naive counselor who was just out of the Academy and totally in over her head when first arriving on DS9.

But she grew on me and the character worked. I wouldn't have fired Terry Farrell, but what happened happened and Behr and the writers turned the loss into something positive and with a new character that honored Jadzia while still being, well, the same character. In a way.
 
At least when Farrell was fired her character was pretty easily replaceable because Dax was a Trill. Which softened the blow for me, and I grew to find Ezri and Nicole deBoer both cute and very likable. Ezri was a fun twist on the Dax lineage and I enjoyed how the symbiont went from being in a strong willed, levelheaded scientist and analyst to a young, naive counselor who was just out of the Academy and totally in over her head when first arriving on DS9.

But she grew on me and the character worked. I wouldn't have fired Terry Farrell, but what happened happened and Behr and the writers turned the loss into something positive and with a new character that honored Jadzia while still being, well, the same character. In a way.
I have no issues with Ezri & Nicole DeBoer.
She's great, she did a wonderful job with the cards that were dealt to her.

The fault goes straight to mangement, Rick Berman.

"The problems with my leaving were with Rick Berman. In my opinion, he's just very misogynistic. He'd comment on your bra size not being voluptuous. His secretary had a 36C or something like that, and he would say something about, 'Well, you're just, like, flat. Look at Christine over there. She has the perfect breasts right there."
Michael Piller didn't care about those things, so he wasn't there when you were having all of these crazy fittings with Rick Berman criticizing your hair or how big your breasts were or weren't. That stuff was so intense, especially the first couple of years.

This is the kind of Producer Terry Farrell and the other women of that era were dealing with.
 
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