Rick Berman comments on Ron Jones
- Thread starter toughlittleship
- Start date
Not to comment or imply anything about Berman's decision, but having a different creative vision is one thing, making a decision that ultimately tries to temper or restrain, and then ultimately water down, the product is another thing entirely. If someone perceives a creative force as doing the latter, then I think mixed emotions are allowed.
Yeah, evil Berman wanted to water down the product until it got cancelled. That was his plan all along. Geez...
It was his vengeance against Gene Roddenberry for...something
AND IT WAS A DEADLY VENGEANCE. OF DEADLY... REVENGE!! MOAR! HAW!! HAW!! HAW!!!!!
Berman certainly in all likelihood didn't think his decisions were wrong, but that doesn't mean a lot of people can't disagree with them. I think many of his decisions were wrong in regard to Trek as evidenced by how much of contemporary Trek is unwatchable in my eyes.
Is it a fact? Yes, insofar as I see it. The facts are he made those decisions---as he was empowered to do---and it's also a fact that I disagree with him.
You're back to doing selective reading again. It's dishonest. I also never said Berman was trying to kill the show (where did THAT come from? Talk about an ad hominem!). I reiterate with bold for emphasis:
What I'm saying is that if people perceive things a certain way, they're going to judge it accordingly. That's not the same as disagreeing with someone for having a different creative vision. Did I state Berman's effects as fact? No. Did I call out Berman? No (I even said that in the opening lines). Did I ever say Berman tried to destroy the show? Not once. I'm commenting on how people perceive Berman, not Berman himself.
Rick Berman held a hard line when it came to music in Trek. He did not want it to drown out the action in a scene. OK. He fired Ron Jones as a result of those beliefs and that Jones was drowning out scenes with his music. OK.
I pose - Ron Jones' music is among the most popular of all Berman produced Trek, going so far as his music, and his alone, has recently been released in an extremely thorough and expensive soundtrack compilation. Fans of the show have lauded Jones with high praise while at the same time criticizing Berman for his music choices.
Some may agree with Rick Berman here. But it seems the vast majority have concluded his position was, and apparently still is, crap.
I pose - Ron Jones' music is among the most popular of all Berman produced Trek, going so far as his music, and his alone, has recently been released in an extremely thorough and expensive soundtrack compilation. Fans of the show have lauded Jones with high praise while at the same time criticizing Berman for his music choices.
Some may agree with Rick Berman here. But it seems the vast majority have concluded his position was, and apparently still is, crap.
The first thing I would say about Rick Berman is that it's wonderful to hear that he's become so involved in projects to help impoverished regions of developing countries gain access to health care. To hear him talk, it seems as though he's become very active in working to make the finances and logistics work, and it seems to me that that's probably the single most "Trekkian" of all the things Berman's done -- to take the wealth he earned by producing Star Trek for 18 years and use it to do his part to make the world a better place. Bravo for Rick!
Now, having said that, what I would say is this:
I don't think Rick Berman has very good taste, or, at least, not when it comes to Star Trek. Or, to be more specific: I think that Berman's tastes when it comes to Star Trek are very bland and very vanilla, and I think that over time, it came to hurt the show.
That doesn't mean he's a bad guy. He's not -- his humanitarian work proves that. Nor does it mean that he was out to have bad music when he fired Ron Jones. But it seems to me that Berman's idea of quality writing and quality music is just very... uncreative. He was so fixated on wanting to live up to his perception of Gene's "vision" that I think he became unwilling to take major creative risks, to do things that violated the letter of Gene's ideas but not the spirit.
So I accept that he felt that Ron Jones's music was overpowering the scenes it was featured in, and that, for this reason, he felt that it was time to let Ron go. I completely accept that he's telling the truth when he says he wanted quality soundtracks that did not overwhelm the larger production.
Again, I think this is a function of Berman's mediocre aesthetics. To him, music should not help tell the story, and, therefore, any music that aspires to do so is by definition overwhelming the production and needs to stop.
He's not a bad guy, but I do think that he wasn't nearly as creative as he could have been. And I think his reluctance to take creative risks infected his shows, and created deteriorating quality over time. Part of it is simple longevity, too -- he started in the 80s, and when he ended his time on Trek, ENT still felt like a show from the 80s. TNG felt 80s, VOY felt 80s, and ENT felt 80s. They all stayed close to the conventions of 80s television, and it was only DS9 that ever progressed into the 90s. ENT never progressed into the 00s.
Over all, I'd say it was time for him to go. But he was also the guy responsible for more hours of Star Trek than anyone else, who worked hard to keep Gene's ideas alive, and who has clearly taken Trek's message of building a better future to heart. I think he made a lot of bad decisions, but I also think he made a lot of good ones, and I'm not going to condemn him as a person because I think he has bad taste.
Now, having said that, what I would say is this:
I don't think Rick Berman has very good taste, or, at least, not when it comes to Star Trek. Or, to be more specific: I think that Berman's tastes when it comes to Star Trek are very bland and very vanilla, and I think that over time, it came to hurt the show.
That doesn't mean he's a bad guy. He's not -- his humanitarian work proves that. Nor does it mean that he was out to have bad music when he fired Ron Jones. But it seems to me that Berman's idea of quality writing and quality music is just very... uncreative. He was so fixated on wanting to live up to his perception of Gene's "vision" that I think he became unwilling to take major creative risks, to do things that violated the letter of Gene's ideas but not the spirit.
So I accept that he felt that Ron Jones's music was overpowering the scenes it was featured in, and that, for this reason, he felt that it was time to let Ron go. I completely accept that he's telling the truth when he says he wanted quality soundtracks that did not overwhelm the larger production.
Again, I think this is a function of Berman's mediocre aesthetics. To him, music should not help tell the story, and, therefore, any music that aspires to do so is by definition overwhelming the production and needs to stop.
He's not a bad guy, but I do think that he wasn't nearly as creative as he could have been. And I think his reluctance to take creative risks infected his shows, and created deteriorating quality over time. Part of it is simple longevity, too -- he started in the 80s, and when he ended his time on Trek, ENT still felt like a show from the 80s. TNG felt 80s, VOY felt 80s, and ENT felt 80s. They all stayed close to the conventions of 80s television, and it was only DS9 that ever progressed into the 90s. ENT never progressed into the 00s.
Over all, I'd say it was time for him to go. But he was also the guy responsible for more hours of Star Trek than anyone else, who worked hard to keep Gene's ideas alive, and who has clearly taken Trek's message of building a better future to heart. I think he made a lot of bad decisions, but I also think he made a lot of good ones, and I'm not going to condemn him as a person because I think he has bad taste.
^^^
I understand what you're saying, but how do you think Enterprise felt 80's? Even taking away the production values, the storytelling felt much more risky in the 3rd season and showed remarkable growth from what had come before.
And I like how you point out some of the very good things Berman does outside of Trek! He was a man simply doing the his job and making decisions he thought were right at the time. It's not like he stroked his mustache and laughed maniacally to himself as he fired some of the creative people from the staff.
And also, to be fair to him, TNG's ratings basically increased as he made some of his more controversial decisions. How is he supposed to know that 20 years from now people would be complaining about the music when, as far as he was concerned, he was doing his job and doing it QUITE well when measured against the quantifiable means of the day. He just may have got stuck there for too long. But then at that point, he was just doing things how he knew how to.
I understand what you're saying, but how do you think Enterprise felt 80's? Even taking away the production values, the storytelling felt much more risky in the 3rd season and showed remarkable growth from what had come before.
And I like how you point out some of the very good things Berman does outside of Trek! He was a man simply doing the his job and making decisions he thought were right at the time. It's not like he stroked his mustache and laughed maniacally to himself as he fired some of the creative people from the staff.
And also, to be fair to him, TNG's ratings basically increased as he made some of his more controversial decisions. How is he supposed to know that 20 years from now people would be complaining about the music when, as far as he was concerned, he was doing his job and doing it QUITE well when measured against the quantifiable means of the day. He just may have got stuck there for too long. But then at that point, he was just doing things how he knew how to.
I can't speak for the previous poster, but in my own experience, 'Enterprise' was very old-fashioned in terms of its technical production for its first two seasons. Sure, it was available in widescreen and all that jazz, but shot composition was very static and the effects shots were simplistic. It wasn't until the third season when the directors started using a more dynamic style - zooms, handheld camera work, longer takes, wipes, and then in the fourth season a much brighter color palette as well.
Those are very valid points, but I was thinking in terms of story structure, actually -- it's all very episodic, there aren't a lot of character arcs, and characterization is just much shallower than in modern television.
Watch Voyager and Enterprise.
Get back to me.
And Berman's involvement in DS9 was pretty much in name only and for the most part Ron Moore, Ira Behr and Michael Piller ran things to one degree or another. You cannot watch Voyager and also watch Deep Space Nine and tell me those two series are in the same league as one another in execution.
Again, I refer you to season three.
The main story was no longer episodic, and in terms of character arcs, we saw Archer go from almost inept and out of his league in the first few seasons to more hardened, almost cynical, and making some very tough decisions that in season 4 he'd still be dealing with and almost regretting. That's good stuff!
Trip almost had the opposite arc, going from the angry hardened "kill them at all costs" attitude to one of almost forgiveness when he met the individuals (Degra) and was able to separate the innocents from the "All Xindi are evil".
For example.
I, for one, think a lot of growing up was done by the 3rd season of Enterprise, both in how the show was made and how the show was told. But at that point, it was obviously a "too little, too late" situation. Which is such a shame.
The quality of Voyager and Enterprise does not invalidate any other good work Berman has done.
And YOU ARE WRONG - Berman's involvement in ds9 was not "in name only" (though he did wisely cede much creative control to Behr); oh, I know its not the populist view that likes to demonise Berman while raising Behr and Moore to sainthood... but there ya go. I just hate to follow the crowd opinion.
Berman made some good decisions and did some wonderful work for Trek. I am sure he also did some bad stuff, but then that's being human. Even the alleged god-like Moore has churned out some rubbish.
It just frustrates me that when Trek is really good its "despite Berman" (eg ds9) but when its bad he seems to get the blame alone (or with Braga). Why is it so hard to believe he did some great stuff - not least of which was being responsible for producing "modern trek" as we know it.
The thing is, and this relates to any TV show really, with the resurgence of reruns an streaming and whole series on DVD now, those old decisions keep coming back to people's heads because they re-experience them. Part of rewatching any show is reliving the experience, good, bad, and in-between.
I've been shamelessly/endearingly rewatching episodes of the Real Ghostbusters lately and I can pinpoint the season when they started using the movie's sound effects, when they changed voice actors, when the theme song changed, etc. But that's because my memory was jogged thanks to those reruns. It's fun to talk about it. Heck, the majority of this board is about reruns (even non-Trek reruns) in some fasion and the creative decisions behind those episodes.
Then tell me why DS9 didn't have a very episodic nature, wasn't bland, silly and didn't fail to take its own premise seriously?
It's because Berman's defered much of the show's control to Behr and concentrated on Voyager where he wanted things as bland and episodic as possible. I will agree he's done good work but he also wanted to make things bland and uninteresting and non-confrontational. It's my opinion that it's Berman's fault that Voyager was bland, uninteresting and pretty much ignored everything it was supposed to be. He was making PRODUCT not art and interesting fiction.
He did some good work but he also did a lot of bad work.
That's a very good point, why would Berman have reason to doubt his decision when the show continued to do well in the ratings? If people had stopped watching in protest then I'm sure Berman may have come to a different conclusion, but that was never going to happen because the writing and production on TNG were fantastic and nobody was going to stop watching because of what happened to Ron Jones. Except, perhaps, Ron Jones himself.
Wow, what an excellent, thoughtful point. Here I have been for the last few days refreshing this thread endlessly, unable to pull myself away and live my normal life, such is my consideration for this topic. Thank you for helping me realise that I have a diseased mind and need help.
Seriously, you come onto a forum about a TV show from 20 years ago and you're surprised that people are talking about a TV show from 20 years ago?
If you don't wish to discuss this topic then there is a whole range of forums further down the front page that deal with contemporary issues.
The ratings continued to rise for TNG as the music was being diluted. Maybe diluted music was helping to attract the general populace?
Similar threads
