Gene Roddenberry, deep down

[TrickyDickie]

Hey All,

On this holiest of holies....and I am talking April Fools' Day, not Easter....I thought I would pose a question about The Great Bird of The Galaxy himself:

Do you feel that GR was true to a vision, or that the whole Star Trek thing was about pitching a concept that would get him an 'in' and make him some buckaroos?

I will offer my take a little later on.

Best,

TGT

 

[Dukhat]

Gene Roddenberry wanted to make a good story and make lots of money off of it. Which is no different than any other person on Earth.

 

[Spot261]

Roddenberry's "visionary" status is very much overstated with very little justification. He did nothing that hundreds of others haven't done before and since, the only real difference being that he seemingly convinced himself of the myth.

I can't help but suspect in this day and age he would be viewed much more harshly.

 

[Shawnster]

Do you feel that GR was true to a vision, or that the whole Star Trek thing was about pitching a concept that would get him an 'in' and make him some buckaroos?

Yes.

As with most artists, they have to pay the bills. Their art is also their livelihood.

Roddenberry was no different. His art was story pitch and concept. It was also his 9 to 5 job.

There was no more or less altruism in Roddenberry than any other artist, even the ones that make art for art's sake.

 

[apepa]

He had an uncanny talent for coming up with concepts and characters hat could later be developed by other people into good TV shows. But other than that, I think it's safe to say the man was a moron and shouldn't have been involved with any of his creations beyond the pilot episodes.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Can't it be both? Can't he be committed to an idealistic vision of the future, *and* want to make some money off it?

The majority of successful people try to find the center of the venn diagram between "Makes profit for me" and "Helps the world as a whole".

 

[BillJ]

A poor human being who created something we all love.

 

[The Wormhole]

When people talk about "Gene's Vision" they get it all wrong. TOS is more Gene Coon's vision than it is Gene Roddenberry's. Roddenberry came up with the basic idea and premise, a starship in the future where humanity is a united race. Everything else we consider to be the core of Star Trek, Starfleet, the Federation, the Prime Directive, even the Klingons and the Romulans, that's all Gene Coon.

 

[Qonundrum]

Can't it be both? Can't he be committed to an idealistic vision of the future, *and* want to make some money off it?

The majority of successful people try to find the center of the venn diagram between "Makes profit for me" and "Helps the world as a whole".

If commitment didn't require effort then how much better off would it be?

 

[Qonundrum]

Hey All,

On this holiest of holies....and I am talking April Fools' Day, not Easter....I thought I would pose a question about The Great Bird of The Galaxy himself:

Do you feel that GR was true to a vision, or that the whole Star Trek thing was about pitching a concept that would get him an 'in' and make him some buckaroos?

I will offer my take a little later on.

Best,

TGT

Even Robert Justman, in a video interview, said it was about making money. Correlation isn't causation, but is there proof either way that Roddenberry wasn't doing it for anything else but then got caught up in what the audience called him? Just don't ask Alexander Courage over the lyrics issue, Leonard Nimoy over the IDIC pendant merchandise (from season 3, no less), and so on...

It's just a TV show at the end of the day. A fun one that many helped to make and had a creator from which none of the other talented people involved would have molded and that included the fans getting wrist fatigue from writing all the fan letters. There's plenty of legitimate credit to go around.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I mean, just because the show was about making money doesn't mean Roddenberry didn't also believe what he was preaching. I'm just saying, I think the question is a false imperative.

 

[The Wormhole]

I mean, just because the show was about making money doesn't mean Roddenberry didn't also believe what he was preaching. I'm just saying, I think the question is a false imperative.

Roddenberry didn't actually start preaching until TNG, and when you get down to it his "preaching" was more or less anti-governmental hippy nonsense decrying the evils of capitalism and military combined with some weird philosophies about how we shouldn't mourn the dead or something.

Roddenberry's own ideas on worldbuilding get displayed in the TMP novelization. We get things like love instructors, and families visiting nudist parks with their pet tigers.

It's probably best he had others develop his ideas for him, given when left his own devices what we get.

 

[Greg Cox]

Never met Roddenberry and I'm not inclined to read his mind nearly three decades after his passing. Just chiming in to point out that art versus commerce is seldom an either/or proposition. Trying to boil it down to one or the other is unnecessarily reductive and ignores the actual complexity of human beings.

"He was all about the money!"
"No! He was all about his creative vision!"

Real life and real people are seldom that simple. As Jirin noted earlier.

 

[TrickyDickie]

I think that Gene Roddenberry had the seed of an idea that he planted and that many others fertilized.

Is he the only one who could have started the whole thing? I don't think so.

I don't think he should be either sainted or vilified.

I do agree that Gene Coon should receive much more credit.

GR had some problems, some obsessions, and some weaknesses.

Maybe we could say that he was a more or less average person who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

One thing that I am thankful for is that he 'liberated' all of that film from the Paramount vaults. If he hadn't dispersed it to fans across the globe through Lincoln Enterprises, little if any may have survived to this day. Was it totally above board? No. Was it out-and-out stealing? That's open for debate.

They should have had a scene in Voyage Home....just after Kirk is exonerated. "Next case." Out steps GR, in Starfleet uniform. Shackles would have been optional.

 

[apepa]

They should have had a scene in Voyage Home....just after Kirk is exonerated. "Next case." Out steps GR, in Starfleet uniform. Shackles would have been optional.

He'd have been too busy complaining that the uniform didn't look like pyjamas enough.

 

[Nerys Myk]

He'd have been too busy complaining that the uniform didn't look like pyjamas enough.

Nah he'd be looking at actress's hemlines.

 

[Valenti]

Gene Rodenberry and Star Trek is an example of someone getting crucified long after his death.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Gene Rodenberry and Star Trek is an example of someone getting crucified long after his death.

Nah, his failings were known before he died.

 

[Valenti]

I guess he was lucky then.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I guess he was lucky then.

In reference to what?