Gene Roddenberry, deep down

[Longinus]

No, he did not. TNG Who Watches the Watchers is the thesis of his religious beliefs, which is to say, he had none and considered religions superstitious nonsense that held civilizations back.

That is one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever, an I really love the message. TOS had good episodes about Kirk taking down various gods too. Roddenberry created various god-like beings (such as Q), but note how revering or obeying these things is never portrayed as a good thing.

I really find it perplexing that a person who likes 'Gene's Vision' (and I do too, regardless his failings in his personal life) would see his atheism as a bad thing. It informed his vision and how it influenced the franchise is one of the best things Roddenberry brought into Star Trek.

 

[Push The Button]

Edith Keeler said it best:

"...And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world, and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way give each man hope, and a common future. And those are the days worth living for."

I don't care if this was Gene's Vision or not, I think it sums up the entirety of Trek very nicely.

Gene was a flawed person, just like everyone else. I'll always appreciate him for creating something that has meant so much to me.

 

[Tenacity]

Roddenberry was an atheist.

It would heavily depend on what point in Gene's life you're talking about. Gene's beliefs seem to change from one thing to another over time, the atheist "phase" would seem to have been in the last several years of his life.

It was Gene Coon who thought the Federation up

My understanding is that it was Fontana who thought up the basics of the what the Federation was, a multiple species organization in which Humanity was only one member.

Whether it was her idea that it was a "Space UN," or something else seems difficult to nail down.

This doesn't mean Coon didn't create the name United Federation of Planets.

 

[The Wormhole]

It was Gene Coon who came up with the idea of an interstellar alliance and named it the Federation. DC Fontana was the one who developed the idea.

 

[2takesfrakes]

He's was also a drug user, adulterer, stole credit from others and a potential rapist.

In order to evaluate the man, you have to take into account the entirety of his actions, not just the ones that reflect favorably on him.

Taking drugs & taking credit is just typical Hollywood and in no way unique or notable, because of Gene Roddenberry -- who, himself, married an adulterer: Majel Barrett ... who willed her money to her pet dogs. So no, I don't have to account for shit. What I have written ... stays written.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

I think he wanted to do a fun space western and then all the lofty ideas came later from the writers. He was a businessman. A visionary businessman, but a businessman nonetheless.

 

[BillJ]

Taking drugs & taking credit is just typical Hollywood and in no way unique or notable, because of Gene Roddenberry -- who, himself, married an adulterer: Majel Barrett ... who willed her money to her pet dogs. So no, I don't have to account for shit. What I have written ... stays written.

 

[BillJ]

I think he wanted to do a fun space western and then all the lofty ideas came later from the writers. He was a businessman. A visionary businessman, but a businessman nonetheless.

He wrote "The Cage". The reason it was rejected was it was nothing like a fun space western.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Pike: "Life out here on the frontier just hasn't been as much fun as I had hoped it would be. Look at all this time we've spent just trying to get Number One back."

April: "When you're up against Scar and his band of Talosians you can't expect any fun, boy."

 

[Harvey]

Largly, what @J.T.B. said.

What GR had that was unique, though, was a channel of self-promotion, starting with TMoST and extending into other tie-in publishing and a fan/convention grapevine, that went largely unchallenged for a long time.

On this point, I’ve recently found that Roddenberry’s penchant for self-promotion can be traced even earlier than The Making of Star Trek. I have a July 1960 L.A. Times interview with Roddenberry clipped out, for example, where he complains about the meddling of network censors watering down television scripts. Look, also, at this 1961 advertisement with Roddenberry pitching life insurance: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/2/27/20151027102607!MONY_Gene_Roddenberry.JPG

 

[mos6507]

Can't it be both?

No, because this is a world of polarization and people are always seeking to apply quick pejorative labels.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Just found the following:

 

[J.T.B.]

On this point, I’ve recently found that Roddenberry’s penchant for self-promotion can be traced even earlier than The Making of Star Trek. I have a July 1960 L.A. Times interview with Roddenberry clipped out, for example, where he complains about the meddling of network censors watering down television scripts. Look, also, at this 1961 advertisement with Roddenberry pitching life insurance: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/2/27/20151027102607!MONY_Gene_Roddenberry.JPG

Wow, thanks, that is fascinating.

 

[Maurice]

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.

What do I think of when I think of Star Trek? The Enterprise. Its mission. Spock. Kirk. Bones. Is naming the service, coming up with a rule for alien contacts, and a recurring adversary creation in the same league?

And, sorry, but the Romulans are from John D.F. Black's tenure on the show, not Coon's.

It's easy to think Coon or Fontana invented this or that because the item first appeared in one of their scripts, but let's not forget that there was a lot of back and forth going on behind the scenes, much of which is not recorded. But production memos have shown things like the list of starship names or the text of Shatner's narration got batted around amongst the staff, with many people making contributions, so who created what is not exactly cut and dry.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Gene's 5-page memo on this page is quite interesting. That final line is quite telling about where his mind was lingering at the time:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/gene-roddenberrys-1968-memo-on-improving-star-treks-c-1267131265

 

[Maurice]

What do I think of when I think of Star Trek? The Enterprise. Its mission. Spock. Kirk. Bones. Is naming the service, coming up with a rule for alien contacts, and a recurring adversary creation in the same league?

And, sorry, but the Romulans are from John D.F. Black's tenure on the show, not Coon's.

It's easy to think Coon or Fontana invented this or that because the item first appeared in one of their scripts, but let's not forget that there was a lot of back and forth going on behind the scenes, much of which is not recorded. But production memos have shown things like the list of starship names or the text of Shatner's narration got batted around amongst the staff, with many people making contributions, so who created what is not exactly cut and dry.

By the way, I suspected Coon didn't invent the Prime Directive, and today I confirmed it: "interference with the evolvement of alien civilizations" is named as a major no-no in Roddenberry's April 25,1965 proposed second pilot story outline for "The Omega Glory". So, at best, Coon named it, but he didn't invent it.

 

[Infern0]

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.

As would almost anyone from his time period.

You can't hold someone from two generations ago to today's moral standards, it's pure folly.

 

[Spot261]

As would almost anyone from his time period.

You can't hold someone from two generations ago to today's moral standards, it's pure folly.

Utter nonsense. That society was more forgiving over certain things doesn't mean that people were incapable of making ethical judgements on their own terms. Long before the 1960s or even the suffragette movement there were men who understood the term "gentleman" without reference to assumed misogyny, who were capable of treating women as something other than possessions or prizes to be won. He was noted at the time as being something of a brute in the way he treated the young women on his show and then glossed over that retrospectively by buying into the myths that built up around him.

Sure he was a man of a different age, but he was also a man who built himself a legacy based around the idea he had championed women's rights, whilst in fact doing nothing particularly differently better or more progressive than anyone else. On the contrary, much of his documented behaviour was a throwback then, never mind now.

 

[mos6507]

You can't hold someone from two generations ago to today's moral standards, it's pure folly.

The description Gene is giving is the plight of the average young man facing the pareto principle that underpins sexual selection. The only thing that's different is today's increasing pathologizing of the straight-male libido.

 

[Spot261]

The description Gene is giving is the plight of the average young man facing the pareto principle that underpins sexual selection. The only thing that's different is today's increasing pathologizing of the straight-male libido.

Nope

You might find society condemns your libido but it seems totally approving of mine. The issue is how that libido is expressed, not it's existence