Garrett Wang criticizes Rick Berman

[TiberiusK]

http://startrekdom.blogspot.com/2007/05/garrett-wang-criticizes-rick-berman.html

Are his criticisms valid? Do you agree that all Berman-era Trek was the same formula over and over again?

 

[timmay2411]

He sounds kinda full of himself. "I'm going to direct the best first directed episode ever."

It's a good goal, but not for him to decide.

 

[cultcross]

Wang has recently come out as quite a critic of the men who employed him for seven years.

He seems to have quite sour grapes over losing out on the chance to direct, and also, "I’m the only person who’s ever publicly spoken about anything regarding Rick Berman in a negative way" isn't really true either.

But the points his making are valid enough, a big problem with later Trek was the constant reuse of tired plot lines and overused technobabble devices.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

TiberiusK said:
http://startrekdom.blogspot.com/2007/05/garrett-wang-criticizes-rick-berman.html

Are his criticisms valid? Do you agree that all Berman-era Trek was the same formula over and over again?

I think that most "Star Trek" was the same formula over and over again, period.

 

[Jon1701]

Perhaps if he'd turned up for fucking work on time, he might have had a shot.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

^

Cold, man.

 

[Equinox]

Hey, if an employer has no intentions of ever giving you a break because he's got his head up his ass, why should he get anything but the bare minimum.

Whether or not Wang showed up late here and there is besides the point - He still showed up and Berman never budged here or there. Not too fair.

 

[stj]

Having seen the show, I'm puzzled as to how they knew Wang was late. (One of the actors who counted complained?) It's hard to imagine that his absence could ever have been a problem. If McNiell could have pronounced the big words, we might have heard as little from Wang as we did from Anothony Montgomery!

Wang was listed in the main cast as a token, but he never got much work in the series. I think it takes a real company many to expect him to tug his forelock to the bosses when he got the short end of the stick from the beginning.

It was rather self defeating on Berman's part as near as I can tell. If you compare the number of good Paris episodes to the number of good Kim episodes, the Kim episodes still win!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Equinox said:
Hey, if an employer has no intentions of ever giving you a break because he's got his head up his ass, why should he get anything but the bare minimum.

Whether or not Wang showed up late here and there is besides the point - He still showed up and Berman never budged here or there. Not too fair.

That's all bullshit - as in "nonsense that's really not true."

 

[I Love Chakotay]

This is in an interview from 2004-ish right?

As for him being full of himself, that my friends is the arrogance of youth - and perfectly natural. Belief in oneself is a must at that age, especially in such a competative environment, and especially where you're constantly being told you're too tall, too short, to fat, too thin, too yellow, too black, too tan, too white etc to do a job. That's Hollywood. All power to him in chasing his dreams

 

[Jon1701]

Equinox said:
Hey, if an employer has no intentions of ever giving you a break because he's got his head up his ass, why should he get anything but the bare minimum.

Whether or not Wang showed up late here and there is besides the point - He still showed up and Berman never budged here or there. Not too fair.

Whilst I'm not privvy to (nor will I ever be) the full facts on Wangs stint on Voyager, if one of my staff turned up late constantly and then started to ask for extra training that the other staff wern't getting - I know exactly what I'd do.

 

[I Love Chakotay]

I don't think he was 'constantly late' was he? I thought it was once or twice in the 1st season as he adjusted to the filming schedule and mistimed his return from a couple of weekends in Vegas?

I also think you have the time-line mixed-up, jon1701. His lateness was 1st season as I say, and from memory a 2nd or 3rd season quote by Kate Mulgrew has her saying that Garrett had some problems in the 1st season *BUT* that he had turned into a fine young professional actor. He didn't even get into the directing question until the 4th season, so I doubt his 1st season problems had a bearing by that point - or at least they shouldn't have imo

 

[Jon1701]

I thought it was Season 3? We'll never really know and to be honest, I was just being a dick.

There has to be some reason why Berman wouldnt let him direct, other than being stubborn. We'll just have to wait for the book.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

He wouldn't do what the other actors who got their first directing jobs on the shows did, which was to put in the additional time off the set (yes, on one's own time) learning what a professional director needs to learn in order to bring in a weekly television program competently, on time and on budget.

Any time someone goes into this public "I was singled out FOR NO GOOD REASON" routine it ought to set off folks' bullshit detectors - but then, so many fans don't maintain theirs in working order where actors' posturing is concerned.

 

[TiberiusK]

I Love Chakotay said:
This is in an interview from 2004-ish right?

Is it? Trekweb posted it as news, so I ran with it at Trekdom.

 

[I Love Chakotay]

TiberiusK said:

I Love Chakotay said:
This is in an interview from 2004-ish right?

Is it? Trekweb posted it as news, so I ran with it at Trekdom.

I was going by this quote :

(GW) At this point, it’s been three years since the end of the show. I’m more matter-of-fact about this information.

Voy ended in 2001. Add three years = 2004

Also, the link to the actual interview is copyright 2002 and I can't get the nav graphics to load - which suggests to me that the site is now defunct and that this is indeed a very old interview/news presented as something new. Must be a damn slow news day for them to do that

Edit: Yep, the last update on the Modmag site was in 2003 - as you'll see if you go to the updates page. You've been had, mate - and Trekweb should be ashamed of themselves if they've said it's 'new' news as at May 2007

 

[Good Will Riker]

Your welcome Trekweb for stealing this idea from my original thread without properly crediting me YOU FUCKTARDS!!!

 

[stj]

UWC Defiance said:
He wouldn't do what the other actors who got their first directing jobs on the shows did, which was to put in the additional time off the set (yes, on one's own time) learning what a professional director needs to learn in order to bring in a weekly television program competently, on time and on budget.

Any time someone goes into this public "I was singled out FOR NO GOOD REASON" routine it ought to set off folks' bullshit detectors - but then, so many fans don't maintain theirs in working order where actors' posturing is concerned.

To quote an earlier post: "bullshit"

Nobody here knows anything about what Wang did or did not do compared to other actors. They just repeat McNiell. Using one source uncritically is stupid. McNiell got singled out for favorable treatment on Voyager. Isn't it possible that affected his judgment?

If you watched Voyager, you know that Wang got second class treatment in the role. The publicly available evidence says that he might be right about being singled out. He may be wrong about why.

 

[od0_ital]

Good Will Riker said:
Your welcome Trekweb for stealing this idea from my original thread without properly crediting me YOU FUCKTARDS!!!

One warnin' for flamin'.

Comments to my PM inbox.

 

[Equinox]

This Garret/Berman topic has been around LOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG before you wrote anything, just so you know.