Gene gets much bad talk around here....

In many posts Gene Roddenberry, creator of the greatness we're here for, gets slammed. There's Gene's VisionTM thing and all that. While no one is perfect it feels like people here don't appreciate him. Why is that? Feels like if there is something great about Star Trek it's always because someone else did it. Obviously Gene didn't build Star Trek on his own, a lot of people were involved with Star Trek but he created the thing and then others worked on it with him.

 

If you have to ask, then you weren't paying attention to the "slams".

 

Short answer, he just wasn't a good person, really. Long answer I don't feel in the mood of rehashing what has already been posted ad nauseum on this forum plenty of times before.

 

Forever grateful for what he created.

Without being a judgmental a-hole, let’s just say I don’t think he was a good human being.

 

Because I think his importance is overblown, and he is credited with something that, as you note, many people help created. He was very resistant to giving up control, as well as a person who espoused a non-monetary society while working hard to get every penny he could. The moment that TOS was threatened with cancellation he was preparing for the next best thing (See: Assignment: Earth as a backdoor pilot).

I push back against "Gene's Vision" because it changed multiple times, as well as was inconsistent in its application. Nor is his Vision the gold standard of Trek. I think that phrase gets thrown out as a way of boxing new ideas out.

 

I like the idea that Humanity becomes better than it is in the Present Day. Look at the way things are in 2020. I want things to become better than this.

The problem is how Gene Roddenberry handled himself behind the scenes and created most of the headaches involved with TOS, TMP, and TNG's first two seasons. The problem is that he treated people badly in general and used a Vision he came up with after the fact (meaning after TOS was finished) to beat everyone over the head with in both the movies and TNG.

The lack of respect he showed to Leonard Nimoy, who clearly wanted things that helped the show (and even Bob Justman recognized this), doesn't help either.

I was once a firm believer in The Vision. I still am to a degree. But I know there's more to it than that.

 

It will.

 

I credit Roddenberry with pushing the idea of an optimistic future, but he didn't have the best ideas for implementing it. His idea of what constituted evolved humans stripped them of their humanity. He was against Family because he thought Picard wouldn't have any lasting emotional trauma.

 

In many ways it is al;ready better than it used to be.

 

Gene Roddenberry was not a perfect person. He had flaws, vices, and a number of other faults that some would consider even criminal. But with Star Trek, he put together something that would capture the imagination of the entire world and inspire countless millions that things will get better in the future and that we, as a people, will get better as well.

So yeah, while I know Roddenberry was no saint and that he didn't really create every single thing in Trek, I'm still going to give him credit for starting something I still get quite a bit of mileage out of, even after all these years.

 

Indeed, despite the constant barrage of negativity humanity has made some significant improvements.

I give him that credit but that doesn't make his vision applicable to today.

 

Gene was partially responsible for TOS. He may have kicked it off, but there were other creatives contributing heavily.

TNG certainly improved when Gene was removed from the process and although later series owed him a debt, they weren't his.

I appreciate what he started but I'm not a fan of him as a person or of his "vision".

 

Conceived it. Pitched it. Sold it. Hired team members (e.g. Jeffries) and directed and oversaw them. Oversaw everything re. the making of a fine, short sf film (Cage). Did it again. Oversaw the production company creating a weekly, hard-to-produce sf series. Personally produced half the first season, rewriting many or most of the scripts. Oversaw and supervised S2.

Certainly with key help. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

He was flawed. But from what I know of men and producers then, I don't gather he was much worse than the average. I could be wrong. I mean a Broadway show from the era has a whole production number, A Secretary Is Not a Toy. Implying that the opposite idea was commonly held and needed rebutting.

 

Us striving to get along with each other seems just as relevant today as it was in the 1960’s.

 

I should say his interpretation of that vision doesn't make it applicable today. Though, I'm hesitant to say I need Star Trek to teach me such things.

See, "people don't mourn in the future" and such things.

 

60’s and 80’s Roddenberry were two very different people.

 

Yes...pretty sure that I'm two different people even ten years removed.

 

I have no problem with Roddenberry. But I do have a problem with people who spout his ‘vision’ whenever they’re trying to argue something. That’s just annoying.