Was Ron moore trek's greatest writer

[Plum]

euphorik said:

Vulcanian said:
Naw,


D.C. Fontana, Gene L. Coon, Manny Coto and Mike Sussman were better

how about "dante, shakespeare, douglas coupland, and harold robbins" -??

i like ENT too, but let's get serious. give coto and sussman a couple of decades, and they might be worthy of washing gene coon's underwear. and gene coon's been DEAD for 34 years.

Well said!

 

[Vulcanian]

Plum said:

euphorik said:

Vulcanian said:
Naw,


D.C. Fontana, Gene L. Coon, Manny Coto and Mike Sussman were better

how about "dante, shakespeare, douglas coupland, and harold robbins" -??

i like ENT too, but let's get serious. give coto and sussman a couple of decades, and they might be worthy of washing gene coon's underwear. and gene coon's been DEAD for 34 years.

Well said!

What? You've never heard of Fontana? She's better than Coon ever was. I can't help it if I like those kinds of episodes. Personally I don't really remember a writer that standed out in TNG and the shows after that.

 

[Anwar]

You don't remember Michael Piller?

 

[Vulcanian]

Anwar said:
You don't remember Michael Piller?

Yes but I don't remember a particular episode that I was fond of that he wrote.

 

[Lumen]

Peter Allan Fields wrote great teleplays, but the best individual writers in Trek are still to be found in TOS. Sturgeon, Coon, Fontana, even Ellison — all great writers.

If you're talking about writers associated exclusively or primarily with Star Trek — rather than simply talented writers who touched Star Trek at one point — then Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor have a shot, but for my money, it's still Fontana or Coon.

 

[Anwar]

Vulcanian said:

Anwar said:
You don't remember Michael Piller?

Yes but I don't remember a particular episode that I was fond of that he wrote.

You didn't like "Best of Both Worlds" or "Emissary"?

Anyways, for me it's a three way tie between Piller, Coon and Fontana.

Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe are close runner ups.

 

[Vulcanian]

You didn't like "Best of Both Worlds" or "Emissary"?

BOBW is overrated. As for "Emissary" I liked both, you may have a point. Try not to force your opinions on others so much.

 

[Anwar]

Sorry, those are both memorable episodes (generally I mean), but it's your right to not like them if. Heck, it took me a bit to really like "Emissary" since I was only 7 or 8 when it first aired.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

MattJC said:
If Moore is so competent, he'd have no trouble creating his own stuff and not using someone else's work as a crutch.

Oh I'll bet there are a large number of better-than-competent writers in Hollywood who still can't get anyone to give them the time of day. It's a rough business and talent doesn't always win out. Using a known brand name may be a crutch but it can be a necessary one, just to give the suits confidence that what you're proposing is a known quantity and therefore less of a risk that the rest of the pitches they're getting that day.

The irony is, of course, the crutch extended to the brand name and not the actual content of the series in anything but the shallowest way. Moore pulled a bait and switch, for which the suits may be angry but I don't know why any of us should be. If he'd been "honest" and actually used the BSG content as a guide, the series we got wouldn't have been nearly as good.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

stj said:
^^^Didn't he only work on Voyager about six weeks?

If you want to research a little, there's this six page "interview," mostly on Voyager, he put out about a year later, when he got the Roswell job. It was completely crazy and makes him look spiteful and dishonest. If I remember right, he even had some line blasting actors on DS9 about how they didn't understand the character he was writing for them!

Nonetheless his personal failings still don't change the value (if any) of his work. He is infamous as the main creator of the modern Klingons. His DS9 episodes should also be considered. One that sticks in mind is Waltz. For some reason this is popular but it is fatuous.

Since others were over him at DS9, in one sense his real work is stuff like a season of Roswell, Good vs. Evil, Touching Evil (US version,) Carnavale and BSG.

I don't know anything about Roswell and Carnavale, but the others in my opinion are dreadful.

Roswell was terrible

 

[MrLuisSantiago]

He might be doing a re-imagined remake of The-Thing and I-Robot, Craprica however won't ever see the light of day

 

[Jonesy]

saul said:

Jonesy said:
For all of Moore's positives both on a personal level (from what's said about him, anyway) and on a professional level, the guy likes to talk about himself. And the shows that he has worked on, and himself. And he (very irritatingly) took at least one stab at Star Trek on virtually every podcast on the season 1 BSG DVD.

Define stab? He spoke the truth. It wasn't a stab. He pretty much told it how it was and how Trek is different to BSG. Considering how long he has worked on Star Trek it's not hard to see why he would talk about it and his work on both sci-fi shows.

Oh no, they were all stab, even if what he was saying is the truth. And you know there's nothing wrong with making a valid point. On every episode? That's taking it to a whole new level. I kind of wonder if he himself was aware of how many times he more or less made the same point.

And yeah, Moore likes to talk about himself - a lot. Like most things in life there's good and bad aspects to that.

 

[Saul]

Jonesy said:

saul said:

Jonesy said:
For all of Moore's positives both on a personal level (from what's said about him, anyway) and on a professional level, the guy likes to talk about himself. And the shows that he has worked on, and himself. And he (very irritatingly) took at least one stab at Star Trek on virtually every podcast on the season 1 BSG DVD.

Define stab? He spoke the truth. It wasn't a stab. He pretty much told it how it was and how Trek is different to BSG. Considering how long he has worked on Star Trek it's not hard to see why he would talk about it and his work on both sci-fi shows.

Oh no, they were all stab, even if what he was saying is the truth. And you know there's nothing wrong with making a valid point. On every episode? That's taking it to a whole new level. I kind of wonder if he himself was aware of how many times he more or less made the same point.

And yeah, Moore likes to talk about himself - a lot. Like most things in life there's good and bad aspects to that.

As someone who listens to all his podcasts I don't think he stabs at Star Trek, only that people take his valid criticisms too perswonally and as an attack. Nor do I think he talks about himself too much. He mentions past interesting things about his career which isn't a bad thing.

 

[Plum]

^^^
Yea, I'm with you there. As Hollywoodland creators go, he's hardly egotistical. I find the criticism baffling.

 

[MrPointy]

I think Moore was a very good Trek writer and I did like most of his episodes. I wouldn't call him the best though, but I'd put him near the top, along with Coon, Fontana, Piller, Maurice Hurley (Shades of Gray aside), Behr (when he wasn't writing Ferengi episodes) and Beimler.

Coto is waaaaaaaaaaay overrated and Braga while not in the very top, since his track record is terribly inconsistent, wrote some good shit.

 

[3D Master]

Temis the Vorta said:
The irony is, of course, the crutch extended to the brand name and not the actual content of the series in anything but the shallowest way. Moore pulled a bait and switch, for which the suits may be angry but I don't know why any of us should be. If he'd been "honest" and actually used the BSG content as a guide, the series we got wouldn't have been nearly as good.

No, it would have been a billion times better. nBSG is just about the biggest crap around in the history of SF (if you can even call it that), if not television in general.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

MrLuisSantiago said:
He might be doing a re-imagined remake of The-Thing and I-Robot, Craprica however won't ever see the light of day

wow more original ideas from ron

 

[trevanian]

Greatest, no, but moore did a helluva lot of good stuff. Coon is still the maestro, way ahead of everybody else vying for second place.

Now if you're talking about greatest writer (apart from trek) who happened to have written for Trek, then I gotta go with TOS freelancers who were legit SF writers and fantasists.

 

[Plum]

TheMasterOfOrion said:

MrLuisSantiago said:
He might be doing a re-imagined remake of The-Thing and I-Robot, Craprica however won't ever see the light of day

wow more original ideas from ron

I believe it should be noted Ron is hired to do productions that are already studio properties. If we are lucky he will gain enough clout to one day grace us with an original work.

You know, he only started as a freelance writer on TNG. His career is going well, but he ain't Woody Allen. Come on.

 

[xortex]

Well, I personally know what BSG stands for and it aint Battle Star Galactica. His work for Voyager was God awful. But he was right. Voyager wasn't true. If it was when Janeway finally got back she would have been highly commended and promptly shot for disobeying the prime directive. And can Anybody tell me why rocks and shoals was such a good episode. I thought it was the worst thing I have ever seen. The man writes character, that's it. star Trek is not a drama. Braga is the man with the ideas. Now if he only knew how to develop them. Well, he tried. Nobody is gonna beat Ellison for single standout episode. That is just a given. Best writer to me was GR himself. I don't know I just liked his ideas and way powerful writing - very Serlingish.