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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

How a bipedal ostensibly-mammal-like species would evolve there is another question.

I think with Trek our motto should be "Stop Making Sense." Or . . . stop trying to make it make sense?
 
I think with Trek our motto should be "Stop Making Sense." Or . . . stop trying to make it make sense?

But then anything goes, and you could end up with things like beings who evolve in an area completely devoid of light, yet have eyes…
 
I think with Trek our motto should be "Stop Making Sense." Or . . . stop trying to make it make sense?
More "we're telling a story for humans so it is not going to make perfect sense." Some elements are always going to be dramatic conceit, just like Star Wars having monobiome worlds.
 
But then anything goes, and you could end up with things like beings who evolve in an area completely devoid of light, yet have eyes…

When Roddenberry originality sent down to central casting for non-human actors, they suggestrd Flipper, Lassie, and Mr Ed. Ergo he had to make do with Humans painted silly colors. The tradition continues today.
 
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That Roddenberry was a tyrant that nearly killed the franchise until he was fired from it after the second season of TNG.
 
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That Roddenberry was a tyrant that nearly killed the franchise until he was fired from it after the second season of TNG.

Tyrant is harsh. That he felt proprietary regarding the concept is natural I think. Then you have to consider that movie-wise, from TWOK onwards he’d essentially been fenced out of his own creation.

I think he saw TNG as a way of reestablishing his own vision for Star Trek and those first few seasons (for better or worse) are about as close as we ever got to a ‘pure’ distillation of his concept.

I think he was slowly degrading mentally as he approached the end of his life. I guess he had a strict idea about what Star Trek should be but I wouldn’t go as far as calling him a tyrant.

Also I don’t believe he was fired from TNG? Not sure where you got that one from?
 
Tyrant is harsh. That he felt proprietary regarding the concept is natural I think. Then you have to consider that movie-wise, from TWOK onwards he’d essentially been fenced out of his own creation.

I think he saw TNG as a way of reestablishing his own vision for Star Trek and those first few seasons (for better or worse) are about as close as we ever got to a ‘pure’ distillation of his concept.

I think he was slowly degrading mentally as he approached the end of his life. I guess he had a strict idea about what Star Trek should be but I wouldn’t go as far as calling him a tyrant.

Also I don’t believe he was fired from TNG? Not sure where you got that one from?
He and Hurley were fired at the end of Season 02. They said that his health was why he left, that wasn’t true.
 
Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Denise Crosby kept it classy and didn’t totally rip him apart, but they’ve said some things “judiciously” that make it clear they were no fans of GR (and ESPECIALLY Hurley!!!).
 
@TJames03

I wouldn’t dispute the Hurley thing. Nobody liked Hurley, but I’d like to know your source for Roddenberry’s supposed firing.

AFAIK, though he was in bad-health, he still fulfilled some kind of advisory ‘emeritus’ position during Season 3 of TNG.
 
You could immediately tell when Roddenberry wasn’t around in TNG because the weird obsession he had with Wil Wheaton/Wesley was over.
 
You could immediately tell when Roddenberry wasn’t around in TNG because the weird obsession he had with Wil Wheaton/Wesley was over.

That still doesn’t point towards him being fired at the end of Season 2, it just shows he had less influence.

AFAIK he was still being consulted right up to early stages of DS9 Development.
 
Gene Roddenberry wasn't fired, he stepped back as Showrunner after "Home Soil" (the 18th episode of TNG's first season). Maurice Hurley took over as Showrunner with "Coming of Age" (the 19th episode) which -- guess what? -- is a big Wesley episode.

(source)

Quoting from that Memory Alpha Article: "Starting with this episode, Maurice Hurley took over the job of showrunner from Gene Roddenberry. Hurley was concerned that the show's writing process had stalled under Roddenberry's leadership, and so personally paid for a holiday for Roddenberry and Majel Barrett on the understanding that he would take over while they were gone. Upon his eventual return, Roddenberry opted to leave Hurley in charge of the writing staff. (William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge)"

So Gene Rodenberry was hands-off after "Home Soil" but still credited as an Executive Producer and still getting paid. That's being kicked upstairs, not fired.

In September 1989, Gene Roddenberry had a serious stroke, and then he couldn't even be "upstairs" anymore. He was just a figurehead from that point until he died.

(source)

Quote from Memory Alpha: "Having already suffered a series of minor strokes, Roddenberry was struck by the severest yet in September 1989 upon the conclusion of the second season of The Next Generation, leaving him incapacitated in a wheelchair, and effectively ending his operational involvement with The Next Generation. It necessitated Roddenberry to hire Ernie Over as a personal assistant, in addition to Susan Sackett, to help him move around."

Technically that article writer has it slightly off. During September 1989, production of the third season was already underway. But a difference that makes no difference is no difference. Gene Roddenberry's involvement didn't effectively end because he was fired, it effectively ended because he had a stroke.
 
All I can say is that after Roddenberry and Hurley were miraculously gone, the show became watchable. McFadden, Sirtis, and Crosby def have things to say about both of them, even still. I always found Roddenberry and Hurely’s obsession with Wheaton to even cross the line as far as being appropriate.
 
Roddenberry was audacious at stealing other people’s ideas. 98 percent of Star Trek came from others, but he stole from them.
 
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