Gene Roddenberry: Sinner or Saint?
- Thread starter BillJ
- Start date
Roddenberry was just this guy, you know?
"Bad people" blow up day care centers with fertilizer bombs. Judging the great run of human beings as "good" or "bad" is arrogant at best and most certainly a waste of life.
On a side note, it's interesting that MA uses the remastered versions of episodes for the majority of their visual effects reference images.
"Bad people" blow up day care centers with fertilizer bombs. Judging the great run of human beings as "good" or "bad" is arrogant at best and most certainly a waste of life.
On a side note, it's interesting that MA uses the remastered versions of episodes for the majority of their visual effects reference images.
Bad people also exert their influence to keep others quiet while they steal and cheat. It's all relative.
Did you ever have a chance to work directly with Roddenberry? If so how would you gauge the man?
Neither. Or both.
He would have been the first to say he was no saint. He did not follow traditional religious organisations and their terminology.
The late Julia Philips wrote "Never meet your idols" because they will invariably disappoint you. Roddenberry may have had feet of clay, but he's been dead a long time and can't defend himself against the barbs aimed at him over the past 20 years. I'm sure he did some shitty things. I'm sure he did some wonderful things. He certainly has admirers and detractors, which means he wasn't all good or all bad.
Since I'm not a religious person, the sinner/saint dichotomy doesn't hold much interest to me. What I find more interesting is how much the "visionary writer-producer" label which was central to Roddenberry's personal mythology (and, often, Paramount's marketing of the franchise) holds true.
I don't think it does -- but, that's another conversation than the one being had here. What can be said about Roddenberry, and others have said this already, is that professionally he could be a bit of a dick, especially when money factored into things. That was far from the entirety of his character, though.
I don't think it does -- but, that's another conversation than the one being had here. What can be said about Roddenberry, and others have said this already, is that professionally he could be a bit of a dick, especially when money factored into things. That was far from the entirety of his character, though.
Funny thing is this, I'm not a religious person. I just thought it sounded better than good person or bad.
In my book you're pretty much a dick in your personal life as well if you're constantly cheating on your spouse. YMMV.
I'm pretty sure Majel admitted that Gene continued to be Gene even after they were married, as did several others. Check out Trek Nation.
Nothing I've heard. Though there's really nothing there most Trek fans didn't already know.
What do we know about Roddenberry's first marriage, really?
That he was cheating on her for at least five or six years with Majel, as they didn't divorce until 1969.
There are a few details about it in both Engel's and Alexander's biographies, as well as Inside Star Trek: The Real Story (none of them paint the marriage in a very bright light; one of them -- I can't remember which -- suggests their fighting may have been violent). But Eileen Roddenberry has remained a private person since the divorce (if she's even still alive), and Gene Roddenberry didn't talk publicly about his first marriage, so details are pretty scant.
We do know that he cheated on his first wife with Majel, as well as Nichelle Nichols and (I think) Grace Lee Whitney.
Sinner - just like us all.