Star Trek Novels and Canon

[Christopher]

So he didn't come up with the stories or character development or anything then? Because I'd assumed he was still working on all of that kind of stuff up to at least the second or third season of TNG.

The movies were one thing, TNG was another. Paramount, not Roddenberry, owned Star Trek. They could've easily made it without any involvement from him at all if they'd wanted. They essentially did so with the movies after TMP, since TMP had gone so hugely over budget. Roddenberry was reduced merely to a consultant on the films, someone who was sent the scripts and allowed to comment but whose suggestions were not binding on anyone. When Paramount finally decided to go ahead with a new TV series, it wasn't a sure thing that Roddenberry would be the one to make it.

 

[Steve Roby]

So he didn't come up with the stories or character development or anything then?

GR had nothing at all to do with any movie after ST - TMP, except possibly for convincing Paramount that Shatner's original idea for ST V (which involved actually meeting a real God) was a bad idea. I seem to recall Shatner complaining about that somewhere.

Because I'd assumed he was still working on all of that kind of stuff up to at least the second or third season of TNG.

I think it's safe to assume that GR was heavily involved with TNG's first season, rather less so with the second, little if at all after that. He was sick and from most accounts rather the worse for wear from drug and alcohol abuse towards the end of his life.

 

[Christopher]

I think it's safe to assume that GR was heavily involved with TNG's first season, rather less so with the second, little if at all after that.

True, but he was less involved with the creation and development of TNG than he took credit for. Gerrold, Fontana, and Bob Justman came up with a lot of the key concepts and characters (although Riker and Troi were clearly a rehash of Decker and Ilia from TMP, and Wesley was Roddenberry's Mary Sue).

 

[JD]

Wow, so aparrently alot of the stuff I like best about the Trek franchise didn't even come from Roddenberry then. Not that I don't like the stuff that he did do, I've liked most of the Roddenberry TOS's I've seen and I do kinda like TMP. And he was long gone by the time they started doing anything for DS9 right?

 

[Geoff Thorne]

Wow, so aparrently alot of the stuff I like best about the Trek franchise didn't even come from Roddenberry then. Not that I don't like the stuff that he did do, I've liked most of the Roddenberry TOS's I've seen and I do kinda like TMP. And he was long gone by the time they started doing anything for DS9 right?

While Gene certainly oversold his specific contributions, I think it's a mistake to write him off as some sort of a distant figurehead. While his "consultations" may not have been official mandates (I don't know) I do know that his memos and editorial concerns were adhered to and taken very seriously by the hands-on Trek creators, sometimes with considerable grumbling on the part of the latter. They may not have agreed with a lot of his editorial vision (and missives) but it was present (and paid attention to) at least through the first season of Michael Piller's control of the show.

 

[Therin of Andor]

So he didn't come up with the stories or character development or anything then?

Not for the movies. After TMP he was only "Executive Consultant", which meant the producers had to show him every script draft, and read his memos, but no one had to listen to him.

But, TNG was different. TNG used all of Gene Roddenberry's previous character development and Writers' Bible he did for the abandoned "ST: Phase II", so he essentially created Riker and Troi (as Decker and Ilia), and then groomed Frakes and Wheaton through their various screen tests to better grasp their characters of Riker and Wesley. David Gerrold was employed to graft "Phase II" to his own ideas, including stuff he suggested to "improve" TOS in his book "World of ST". Data, of course, was a reworking of Roddenberry's Questor android, from "The Questor Tapes" pilot. Roddenberry also created Q, to expand DC Fontana's "Encounter at Farpoint" from 90 min to two hours.

Because I'd assumed he was still working on all of that kind of stuff up to at least the second or third season of TNG.

Yep. But not the TOS movies II to VI.

 

[Steve Roby]

Wow, so aparrently alot of the stuff I like best about the Trek franchise didn't even come from Roddenberry then. Not that I don't like the stuff that he did do, I've liked most of the Roddenberry TOS's I've seen and I do kinda like TMP. And he was long gone by the time they started doing anything for DS9 right?

Nothing to do with DS9 at all.

I've long said that the purest version of GR's vision was the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. On TOS, he had some strong contributors above and below him in the food chain. He oversaw the creative process, but it was Sam Peeples who wrote "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the pilot that introduced Kirk and got the show on the air; Vulcan society and Vulcan characters other than Spock were largely the work of Theodore Sturgeon and DC Fontana; the Klingons were created by Gene Coon; the Romulans were created by Paul Schneider; and so on.

When TOS began, pretty much no one outside the industry knew who Gene Roddenberry was. When TNG began, millions of people knew who he was, and that gave him some clout. TNG being syndicated also meant that there was no layer of network interference over his head. He brought in some old TOS friends to help create TNG but threw them overboard pretty quickly. He and/or his lawyer Leonard Maizlish rewrote most scripts from the first season. According to some of the people who worked on TNG in its early days, the show during its first two seasons had a reputation as the worst show in Hollywood for writers to work on, and there was a revolving door as writing staff came and went. It wasn't until Berman and Piller arrived that things settled down.

GR managed to make Trek work twice, the first time with a lot of help, the second time despite himself. It's a truism now that TNG really started to get good with its third season, and that's when GR was letting go of the show. Unlike shows created and run by writer-producers with a unique vision (JMS, Chris Carter, Joss Whedon), Star Trek has always been a product of teamwork. Focusing on Roddenberry as the creator is missing the contributions of a lot of other people.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I've really started to see over the past couple years. I mean I knew alot of other people worked on it, but I'd always assumed Rodenberry came up with most of the big things, like the Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and all that kind of stuff.

 

[Christopher]

I've long said that the purest version of GR's vision was the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. On TOS, he had some strong contributors above and below him in the food chain. He oversaw the creative process, but it was Sam Peeples who wrote "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the pilot that introduced Kirk and got the show on the air; Vulcan society and Vulcan characters other than Spock were largely the work of Theodore Sturgeon and DC Fontana; the Klingons were created by Gene Coon; the Romulans were created by Paul Schneider; and so on.

When TOS began, pretty much no one outside the industry knew who Gene Roddenberry was. When TNG began, millions of people knew who he was, and that gave him some clout. TNG being syndicated also meant that there was no layer of network interference over his head. He brought in some old TOS friends to help create TNG but threw them overboard pretty quickly. He and/or his lawyer Leonard Maizlish rewrote most scripts from the first season. According to some of the people who worked on TNG in its early days, the show during its first two seasons had a reputation as the worst show in Hollywood for writers to work on, and there was a revolving door as writing staff came and went. It wasn't until Berman and Piller arrived that things settled down.

Well, Berman was on staff from "Farpoint" onward and was promoted to executive producer very early in the first season. Piller didn't come along until the third season. In the second season, Maurice Hurley headed the writing staff.

And I'm not sure about TNG being the purest version of GR's "vision." Certainly at that stage of his life, when he'd bought so heavily into the idea of himself as a philosopher propounding a utopian vision of the future, that would be true. But the TV producer Gene Roddenberry from 1967 would probably have been appalled at what the "visionary" Roddenberry from 1987 was trying to do -- placing being a philosopher over being a storyteller or producer. The TOS-era Roddenberry understood that telling entertaining and dramatic stories and keeping your TV show on the air are the priorities, and a message is something you sneak in where you can after accommodating those goals. As he himself said once, if you can't get people to watch your show in the first place, they won't get the message anyway. That Roddenberry wouldn't have pushed for a world where everyone was perfect and devoid of conflict. That Roddenberry's "vision" was to make an entertaining, successful TV show and make what profit he could from it. He wanted it to be smart, thought-provoking, and respectable, but he knew it was a business, not a philosophy course.

GR managed to make Trek work twice, the first time with a lot of help, the second time despite himself. It's a truism now that TNG really started to get good with its third season, and that's when GR was letting go of the show. Unlike shows created and run by writer-producers with a unique vision (JMS, Chris Carter, Joss Whedon), Star Trek has always been a product of teamwork. Focusing on Roddenberry as the creator is missing the contributions of a lot of other people.

That's true. If anything, TNG would probably have been a lot better from the start if he hadn't been running the show. I would've loved to see what it would've been with Bob Justman as the line producer and Gerrold and Fontana heading the writing staff, with GR just a consultant.

 

[JD]

Yeah, or even better imagine what things could have been like if Fontana and Gerrold had been able to stick with Trek through to Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[Turtletrekker]

^That could have only been an improvement, IMHO. However, I likes my DS9 just the way it turned out, thank you very much.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I kinda forgot about DS9 when I posted that. I definitely don't want a different DS9 than what we got. Although, there is always a chance we could have gotten some better pre-Dominion episodes out of it.

 

[Steve Roby]

Although, there is always a chance we could have gotten some better pre-Dominion episodes out of it.

Hey, a lot of my fave DS9 episodes are pre-Dominion.

 

[Surak]

So he didn't come up with the stories or character development or anything then?

GR had nothing at all to do with any movie after ST - TMP, except possibly for convincing Paramount that Shatner's original idea for ST V (which involved actually meeting a real God) was a bad idea. I seem to recall Shatner complaining about that somewhere.

Because I'd assumed he was still working on all of that kind of stuff up to at least the second or third season of TNG.

I think it's safe to assume that GR was heavily involved with TNG's first season, rather less so with the second, little if at all after that. He was sick and from most accounts rather the worse for wear from drug and alcohol abuse towards the end of his life.

Steve, I recall reading somewhere that it was GR's idea/suggestion/input to not have Saavik in ST:VI leading to the creation of the Valeris character.

 

[JD]

Although, there is always a chance we could have gotten some better pre-Dominion episodes out of it.

Hey, a lot of my fave DS9 episodes are pre-Dominion.

I didn't meant that there weren't good pre-Dominion episodes, IMO there just weren't as many awsome episodes there were post-Dominion. Don't get me wrong, DS9 is my favorite Star Trek series, I just don't think it really hit it's peak till after the Dominion came into the picture.

 

[T'Bonz]

Hmmm....canon.

Well, it's easy for me. Aired = canon. That is the technical definition if one insists upon a definition and I suspect more don't give a damn than do give a damn about what is and what isn't canon.

However, to be honest, the technical definition doesn't matter any more than it matters what I think of Kira/Odo as opposed to what someone else things. It's all make-believe, made to sell soap or whatever they sold back in the late 1960s. The trick is to reel us in and make us care so we'll watch more and especially stay tuned to those commercials and go out and buy shit we don't need.

As for me, while I could name a few shows that aired that are technically canon, I have mentally booted them out of my personal canon.

Same goes for books. Even though technically they are non-canon, if I like a Star Trek book, it's canon.

Very simple, no hassle. I don't argue with people about canon. Why? I just don't care. At the end of the day, I either like a Trek episode/movie/book, or I don't. If I like it, I consider it canon. If I don't, I don't. If others have different definitions or system, whatever works for them works for me. If they want to feel they're right and I'm wrong, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

Because I'll define canon any way I want if I care to think about it (and most times, I don't. I just enjoy or dislike the shows/books.) And so will you.

At the end of the day, it's just a TV show/movie/book. No matter how great (or sucky!) one is, that's all it is. To fight over what is legitimate and what is not legitimate is just daft.

In the words of Mr. Hammy, "Get a life!"

 

[JD]

All I have to say about that is:

 

[KRAD]

Bonzie FTW!!!!!!

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Silly Bonz and her logic.

 

[Steve Roby]

Steve, I recall reading somewhere that it was GR's idea/suggestion/input to not have Saavik in ST:VI leading to the creation of the Valeris character.

Hmm... I know the character was written as Saavik in early drafts of the script, but Saavik wasn't Gene's creation, so I'm not sure why he'd care. Could it have been Harve Bennett instead?