If Rodenberry were alive today, what would he think of Star Trek?

[Balthier the Great]

As long as he was still making money off it, he wouldn't give a damn about Trek. Now if Berman or Braga or Abrams or whoever did something to personally piss him off, then he'd go apeshit, decanonize their work, make them pariahs. But otherwise, he'd be happy to collect money and maybe visit the Trek sets every now and then to chat up the actors.

I don't think that's a problem. I think copyright lasts for something like 75 years after the creator's death. So I think that would count as "getting paid". after 75 years, unless the owners of the copyright do something, it's public domain. So it's still under coryright.

 

[Stephen!]

I don't think that's a problem. I think copyright lasts for something like 75 years after the creator's death.

Although in some cases it's been extended, as with Disney's Micky Mouse copyright.

 

[Amaris]

I figure he'd be saying "I'm alive! Oh wow! This is wonderful! I'm going to dance and make love to beautiful women, watch the sun rise over the ocean! I'm going to enjoy every minute of life and forget sweating the small stuff! I'm going to truly live again!"

J.

 

[Penta]

I'm hoping that's sarcasm, otherwise I must laugh at your naivete.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm going to base my opinion off of what he thought of the first six movies and TNG.

Posthumous TNG - Would largely approve of it.
DS9 - Not so much, especially later.
VOY - Depends on the episode. He would approve of a majority of it.
ENT - I don't know enough about ENT to honestly say.

GEN - Wouldn't approve of it
FC - Would have major issues
INS - Would approve
NEM - Likely wouldn't approve

Times have changed since 1991. We had one era from 1992-2000 (post-USSR/Clinton/pre-9/11), another from 2001-2008 (Bush/post-9/11), and now we're about to go into the era of Barack Obama. We don't know how Gene's view of the world or what Star Trek should depict would've changed. We don't even know if it would've changed at all.

 

[Amaris]

I'm hoping that's sarcasm, otherwise I must laugh at your naivete.

You go die for 17 1/2 years and come back to life, being of sound mind and body, and see how you would react.
So go ahead and laugh. Life's too short to pass boulders over a Star Trek movie.


J.

 

[bigdaddy]

I heard things that he didn't care 100% with the timeline as long as the basics were the same and told good stories well. So pretty much he would complain they didn't take his bad ideas and continue them longer. So in short if he was alive and had any power Trek would have been dead10-15 years ago.

 

[Thrall]

TOS-Era Roddenberry would have liked DS9 a lot. The politically correct obsessed pacifist he became during TNG would not have liked it at all.

 

[number6]

I think he would have been psyched about this potential second life that Abrams is giving Star Trek right now. He'd probably marvel at all the special effects and set designs he could never do during his time on Star Trek. He would have been a "Special Consultant" on all the films and series.

He would have liked all the series, even though he would grumble about stuff from time to time.

When I met Majel Barrett at a convention several years ago, she was asked that question and I've asked that question of others who knew or worked with him. She and others have always answered in the same way. He would be pleased that someone cared enough to keep it going and making it fresh for new fans. GR had done everything he could do with Star Trek.

 

[jgdst]

I'm hoping that's sarcasm, otherwise I must laugh at your naivete.

You go die for 17 1/2 years and come back to life, being of sound mind and body, and see how you would react.
So go ahead and laugh. Life's too short to pass boulders over a Star Trek movie.


J.

I saw someone throw a boulder at a Gorn once. I imagine it's similar.

Those guys just don't go down...

 

[SFRabid]

He would look at some of the worst of BnB and say "Hey, this reminds me of season 3 of TOS."

He would look at the new movie and say "I want a part for my wife and a night with the girl playing the ensign."

He would look at the overall picture and say "Wow, what a run. I have a legacy."

He would look at his son's work and say "Is this what you have accomplished while I was gone?"

 

[Balthier the Great]

I figure he'd be saying "I'm alive! Oh wow! This is wonderful! I'm going to dance and make love to beautiful women, watch the sun rise over the ocean! I'm going to enjoy every minute of life and forget sweating the small stuff! I'm going to truly live again!"

J.

I agree, though at some point I think playing with the grandkids would come in. You know, human nature. Most people like their family. And most people do eventually retire.

Also, quite possibly amazement at computer stuff iin general. I remember the computers we had in 1992, I think the iphone is just about as powerful as those computers

 

[ireactions]

I think there are some generalizations here.

Roddenberry was a different person as time passed. Look at the original series; a punchy, dramatic, iconic TV show about gunboat diplomacy in space, and the first two seasons of "The Next Generation" -- a talky, dull series that constantly espoused the perfection of human development and the ideal nature of "Star Trek"'s utopian world. One was a dramatic series, the other was near-propaganda springing from Roddenberry having bought into how fans saw him as opposed to doing his job.

Ronald D. Moore said it better than anyone else has: "... my personal theory was that Gene sort of started to believe in himself as more of a visionary than a writer at a certain point. He started to believe the stuff that he was creating a utopian future and wanted The Next Generation universe to be reflective of the utopian universe that so many people had told him he had been creating for all these years. So it started to become less about the drama, less about making a television show, and more about servicing this idea of what utopianism was going to be and how perfect humanity was going to be in the future as an example of how to live our lives by, as opposed to making a great television series."

If you enjoyed the results, the first two seasons of "The Next Generation", and would like to see that approach applied to all future "Trek" productions... well, that's your preference, of course. But I think Roddenberry's later work speaks for itself, and his approval in theory or statement is almost meaningless at this point. I'd be more interested in David Gerrold's opinion, Ira Steven Behr's opinion, DC Fontana's opinion.

- Ibrahim Ng

 

[kissthestar]

All of this is making me unhappy. Back to the Dr. Helen Noel thread I go.

 

[Penta]

I think there are some generalizations here.

*snipping the rest*

Exactly; Moore's comment nails it, in my opinion. You see the same in a lot of the "big names" in Sci-fi, be they from TV or books (not so much film, and I can't figure out why that is).

They begin to drink their own kool-aid, and believe the hype of being a visionary - when in a lot of cases, if one were to actually carry through the "vision" behind said sci-fi, you hit a point of absurdity.

Not every creator falls victim to it, but a fair number do. I'm sure people here can find any number of examples; probably better not to get started down that path. Why it happens, and why so consistently, is...an excellent question, IMHO.

 

[Sci]

Ok, here's the question:

If Rodenberry was here now, what would think of what star trek has become? and also, of where it may go in the future, and the people that have and are keeping his dream alive. Would he be happy to see star trek living on in the eyes of hundreds of millions of fans, or would he be disgusted that his original concept has been changed so much?

Also, what would he think of the new movie, the director, and of the new enterprise design?

I do not know and I do not care. Gene Roddenberry may have built the sandbox, but he was always only one of many different kids building sand castles in it, and its sand castles usually weren't the best.

 

[Balthier the Great]

I think there are some generalizations here.

*snipping the rest*

Exactly; Moore's comment nails it, in my opinion. You see the same in a lot of the "big names" in Sci-fi, be they from TV or books (not so much film, and I can't figure out why that is).

They begin to drink their own kool-aid, and believe the hype of being a visionary - when in a lot of cases, if one were to actually carry through the "vision" behind said sci-fi, you hit a point of absurdity.

Not every creator falls victim to it, but a fair number do. I'm sure people here can find any number of examples; probably better not to get started down that path. Why it happens, and why so consistently, is...an excellent question, IMHO.

I guess after a while people get afraid to say no. I mean it wasn't like those ideas weren't there before. Lucas' first ideas of Star Wars had magic crystals as the source of the Force. The people reading it said "umm no. Try again" so several rewrites later you have Good Star Wars. But by the time you get to the new Trilogy, no one would dare tell Lucas his storyline makes no sense, or that Jar Jar is a bad idea. So it got in. That and fanworship.

 

[ireactions]

Well, I'd point out that Paramount did know to say no. The first "Star Trek" movie was a reasonable success, but generally acknowledged as being tedious and dull. Roddenberry's control over the film series was reduced, and Harve Bennett came in. Bennett clearly had the right ideas all along. Those who study "Trek" history (yes, I need a life) will note that Bennett himself proposed doing a young Kirk-Spock-McCoy film. Obviously, there's no way to know if the movie would have reinvigorated the franchise after Shatner, Nimoy and DeKelley left, or if it'd have been a better route than "The Next Generation", "Voyager" and "Enterprise". Still, I think the fact that "Trek"'s latest attempt to get back on track leads from Bennett's original idea says something.

What Roddenberry seems to have forgotten is that "Star Trek" wasn't *about* a utopian world. It merely took place in one; it was assumed that humanity's problems of racism, violence, destruction, prejudice, etc., had all been solved. How? Irrelevant in the context of the series. It was merely justification for why humans were now taking to the stars.

I think it's true that often, studio executives don't really understand why a film is successful or how it was good; they only try to replicate a previous success by sticking to the same names. Berman and Braga, despite clearly being out of ideas by the end of "Deep Space Nine" (not that Braga was on DS9, I mean the time-period), retained a constant grip on the "Trek" franchise, draining it of life, imagination, wit, drama and excitement. I can only assume someone at Paramount felt sure Berman and Braga, having brought about the great success of "Next Generation", would somehow do it again. The same could be said for George Lucas; he's a man coasting on past achievements rather than present ones. In Lucas' case, his later work was at least a financial success. "Voyager" and "Enterprise", however...

- Ibrahim Ng

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

TOS-Era Roddenberry would have liked DS9 a lot. The politically correct obsessed pacifist he became during TNG would not have liked it at all.

It's just remarkable how frequently Dead Gene agrees with the posters who invoke him for his opinion.

 

[Sector 7]

Ok, here's the question:

If Rodenberry was here now, what would think of what star trek has become? and also, of where it may go in the future, and the people that have and are keeping his dream alive. Would he be happy to see star trek living on in the eyes of hundreds of millions of fans, or would he be disgusted that his original concept has been changed so much?

Also, what would he think of the new movie, the director, and of the new enterprise design?

I think he would say, "Damn, you still can't spell Roddenberry after all these years!"