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The Shat has some outrageous things to say about Roddenberry

Carpe Occasio

Carpe Occasio

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called ‘master,’ and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil.

After the first thirteen episodes writer/producer Gene Coon was brought in and Roddenberry became the executive producer, meaning he was more of a supervisor than working on the show day -to-day. After that his primary job seemed to be exploiting Star Trek in every possible way.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/02/shatner-roddenberry-was-a-chiseler/
 
Carpeoccasio said:
He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called ‘master,’ and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil.

After the first thirteen episodes writer/producer Gene Coon was brought in and Roddenberry became the executive producer, meaning he was more of a supervisor than working on the show day -to-day. After that his primary job seemed to be exploiting Star Trek in every possible way.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/02/shatner-roddenberry-was-a-chiseler/
Click to expand...

It is ultimately sad that GENE L COON died so early in TREK's history. His take on what happen would have been very interesting. And from what I have 'heard' else where? Sides were already being picked even before he died. Hopefully this will all come out and I think it will..in time..when they are ALL dead. so..as DALLAS was fond of saying..TO BE CONTINUED!!

Rob
Scorpio
 
RobertScorpio said:
Carpeoccasio said:
He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called ‘master,’ and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil.

After the first thirteen episodes writer/producer Gene Coon was brought in and Roddenberry became the executive producer, meaning he was more of a supervisor than working on the show day -to-day. After that his primary job seemed to be exploiting Star Trek in every possible way.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/02/shatner-roddenberry-was-a-chiseler/
Click to expand...

It is ultimately sad that GENE L COON died so early in TREK's history. His take on what happen would have been very interesting. And from what I have 'heard' else where? Sides were already being picked even before he died. Hopefully this will all come out and I think it will..in time..when they are ALL dead. so..as DALLAS was fond of saying..TO BE CONTINUED!!

Rob
Scorpio
Click to expand...

I remember reading an interview with Gene Coon a long time ago and he was somewhat disgruntled because Roddenberry got all the credit for Star Trek while he did all the hard work.

Harve Bennett had this to say in an article on StarTrek.com:

"Here's the thing about Gene Coon," explains Bennett. "Roddenberry was the man behind Star Trek; he was the visionary and its great promoter. But it was Gene Coon who did the day-to-day aspects of production."
 
Roddenberry was great. Coon was great. Neither had conventional moral standards. At least Roddenberry was up front about it.

Why do we argue about dirt from 40 years ago? Their personal lives do not reflect what appeared on the screen. I'm as interested as anyone else, but it's starting to get invasive. In another 40 years will we be discussing J.J. Abrams' morals? His sex life? Does any of this affect our enjoyment of "Star Trek"?
 
CaptainStoner said:
Besides, Nimoy was obsessively hoarding those pencils. Something had to be done.
Click to expand...

Most people are not aware that Nimoy is the cause of the number 2 pencil shortage in the late 1960's, resulting in long lines at stationary stores and creating a paradigm shift to Bic pens.
 
Reading over the TrekMovie article, it strikes me that each of the "stories" mentioned was already covered by Shatner in his "Star Trek Memories" autobiography back in (I want to say) 1994. I hope there are some new tales mixed in, or else it looks like Shatner is the one "exploiting Star Trek in every possible way." Which, to be quite honest, I cannot really fault him for.

With that said, I seem to recall it being Herb Solow who would not allow Nimoy access to the studio's stationary (paper and pencils), not Roddenberry, because he was afraid the rest of the cast would think Nimoy was getting special treatment. That is the same reason Nimoy had to resort to asking his secretary to fake passing out from the heat to get the studio to pay for air conditioning.

When all is said and done, this book and all previous Star Trek books (with the possible exception of those written in the 1960s) are rehashing things that happened decades in the past, through multiple colored lenses (not just rose!) and with personal biases and inherently faulty memories. Nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, blah blah, woof woof.
 
Carpeoccasio said:
He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called ‘master,’ and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil.
Click to expand...

This may explain why Lenny kept stealing peoples' pens during an autograph session my wife was at in 1976. :lol:
 
Carpeoccasio said:
He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called ‘master,’ and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil.

After the first thirteen episodes writer/producer Gene Coon was brought in and Roddenberry became the executive producer, meaning he was more of a supervisor than working on the show day -to-day. After that his primary job seemed to be exploiting Star Trek in every possible way.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/02/shatner-roddenberry-was-a-chiseler/
Click to expand...


Actually, none of this surprises me.

But then, I've never understood why Roddenberry's so-called 'vision' is worshiped in Trek fandom. Especially since a) I don't believe that he ever really had a complete 'vision' that fans can use to positively include certain aspects of modern Trek and exclude certain other aspects; and b) many other people had a hand in getting to the screen what we see on TOS and TNG today.

In short, Roddenberry is not god, and he is not the sole source of the 'vision' behind Star Trek. Gene Coon certainly had a hand in it, as did every writer and director who ever worked on it. Artists and model-makers also left their mark. And for that matter, the actors themselves had alot of influence over the personalities of the characters, because many of them infused the characters in the scripts with their own personal characteristics and personality traits - no small contribution.

Coming up with the original idea was a great thing...but no one will ever convince me that Roddenberry is the only person who made Star Trek into what it is.
 
I've seen a couple interviews in which Shatner mentions that when he was writing a ST memories book in the 1970s he had to go back and interview fellow cast members b/c he remembered "nothing" about TOS production. It's quite interesting that his memory seems to have restored itself some 30 years later... :rolleyes:
 
^ Well, Shatner variously remembers and doesn't remember things as it suits him at the time. :lol:

Generally, I tend to believe it, though, if the evidence provided by other cast and crew members lines up with what Shatner says.
 
PKTrekGirl said:
Generally, I tend to believe it, though, if the evidence provided by other cast and crew members lines up with what Shatner says.
Click to expand...

Considering that there's a good chance he's just repeating what they have told him that's probably a safe policy. :lol:
 
^ Meh...I don't know about that. What I'm saying is that I think he actually remembers more than what he sometimes lets on. He remembers when it suits him...and 'forgets' when it suits him.

Other actors and production staff might remember different things and he might use those things to augment his discussion...but I find it hard to believe that anyone could forget the entire experience of working on Trek.

He doesn't forget. He just 'selectively remembers' depending upon what suits him in any given situation.

That's what I believe, anyway. :lol:
 
Without the basic template of the vision and philosophy that GR put into Star Trek, it would never have been more than some kind of Buck Rogers wanna-be. Like it or not, GR was the Captain, and then the Admiral. It doesn't detract at all from the many great minds that went into the show to say this.
 
I'd be the last one to say Shatner doesn't purloin from other sources, but his views about Coon are consistent and longstanding, If you read that SHATNER WHERE NO MAN book he helped Marshak & Culbreath write nearly 30 years back, you'll see there that he says something like "Gene Coon by leaps and bounds more than anybody else" about who made the show work.
 
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