What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Bad Thoughts]

Brannon Braga explained the policy of no on set changes to the dialogue on an episode of Shuttlepod Show. The policy came from Roddenberry as a means of maintaining the timelessness of the script, and Berman embraced it because it would mean that there would always be clarity and concision in the complicated stories laced with fantasy technologies.

(That said, I think Picardo had some leeway, but I could be wrong.)

 

[Rahul]

A "no add-libbing" rule makes a ton of sense in speculative fiction to be honest.

Imagine someone saying "Jesus Christ" in Lord of the Rings. It's super easy to accidentally break continuity.

There's some famous stories about Harrison Ford changing some dialogue lines on Star Wars. Considering how small the changes & how big the stories are - it seems George Lucas didn't regularly allow any changes as well.

 

[Mage]

Didn't Frakes also comment on that? After the SNW/LDS cross over? How he remembered acting and directing in/for BermanBraga Trek and how things were set in stone, while there was a lot of addlib and free acting on SNW.

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[Richard S. Ta]

Dead letter perfect.

It wasn’t a writers guild thing. Definitely an in-house thing.

Interesting that there’s folks from several shows of the era there, and they all say the same thing.

I’m surprised that Shimmerman wasn’t an ad-libber TBH.

 

[Jayson1]

Also I take that it might also be a issue of time as well. Soon as someone wants to change a line they eventually have to go see if Berman will approve and then wait for his response. Meanwhile everyone I guess is left to do nothing but stand around instead of filming.

 

[knightgrace]

The early concept of TNG was "technology unchained": the ship would be so powerful and intelligent that it would run itself with minimal intervention from the crew.

The early bridge sketches are basically a conference lounge.

It should have been running itself. Not at ninety percent, nor at 99 percent. But one hundred percent, with a few suggestions from the Bridge crew...

This should have been true for the TOS Enterprise as well.

In essence "Spam in a can."

 

[1001001]

(That said, I think Picardo had some leeway, but I could be wrong.)

I don't know about ad-libbing, but he told me that he often had his lines written out and taped on the bio-bed (unseen by us, of course) to manage the difficult medical dialogue he had.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I recall Picardo saying that he ad-libbed "I'm a doctor, not a night-light" at his audition without realizing that it was a McCoy-ism

 

[Firebird]

Given the amount of rainbow color revision pages on every episode produced during the Berman era, it’s no surprise they didn’t wanna deal with actors changing the lines even further. Trying to make their production schedule would be hard enough without the cast trying to change things up.

IIRC, they had only 7 working days to finish each of their 22-26 episodes, versus today where it’s 12-14 days to make it through 10 episodes. They’ve got a lot more time to experiment today than they used to.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

versus today where it’s 12-14 days to make it through 10 episodes. They’ve got a lot more time to experiment today than they used to.

They give them so little time to film for 10 eps a year?

 

[kkt]

I think Berman would turn it down because it would be to much of a modern phrase.

She was an archaeologist tomb raider! She's allowed to refer to obsolete things, I think it would have been funny. I suppose funny may not have been what the writers wanted at that particular point in the story though.

 

[BillJ]

They give them so little time to film for 10 eps a year?

Studio space costs money. Plus there are other productions that are usually scheduled to use the space when show X isn’t using it.

All about the Benjamins. Or whatever they call them in Canada.

 

[kkt]

It should have been running itself. Not at ninety percent, nor at 99 percent. But one hundred percent, with a few suggestions from the Bridge crew...

This should have been true for the TOS Enterprise as well.

In essence "Spam in a can."

If the ship could really run itself, why do they have any people along with them? Just send automatic probes. Much safer.

(but where would be the drama in that? all taking place at Starfleet Headquarters, I guess.)

 

[BillJ]

If the ship could really run itself, why do they have any people along with them? Just send automatic probes. Much safer.

(but where would be the drama in that? all taking place at Starfleet Headquarters, I guess.)

M-5 says hi!

*runs*

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I don't know about ad-libbing, but he told me that he often had his lines written out and taped on the bio-bed (unseen by us, of course) to manage the difficult medical dialogue he had.

I might have oversold it a bit, but I seem to remember an aside from Trineer to the effect of Picardo got away with some improvisation. I don't think that he had carte blanche, but that things he changed tended to be allowed more often than others.

 

[cooleddie74]

All about the Benjamins. Or whatever they call them in Canada.

The Mackenzie Kings.

Honestly, I don't know. Prime Minister King might not even be on the latest paper currency.

 

[Ovation]

The Mackenzie Kings.

Honestly, I don't know. Prime Minister King might not even be on the latest paper currency.

The Bordens. WWI era PM Borden is on the 100$ (brown) bill. King is on the (red) 50$. Elizabeth (soon Charles) is on the (green) 20$ and all coins. Macdonald was on the (purple) 10$ bill but has been replaced by Viola Desmond. Laurier is on the (blue) 5$ (smallest bill denomination). Far enough back and the monarch was the face of multiple, perhaps all, bills (old Canadian currency is not among my specializations in history).

In Quebec it’s far more customary to refer to the bill colour than the name. Can’t speak to the rest of the country on this point (in my 40 years here, I’ve lived 36 of them in Quebec).

 

[Firebird]

They give them so little time to film for 10 eps a year?

That was time per episode, not per season.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

That was time per episode, not per season.

I know it's per episode.
But given that it's supposed to be 10 eps per year, I would be thinking a allowance of 3-4 weeks of filming schedule per ep with (~60 minutes of content) to fill per ep.
But I guess it depends on how much budget they allocate.

 

[Firebird]

I know it's per episode.
But given that it's supposed to be 10 eps per year, I would be thinking a allowance of 3-4 weeks of filming schedule per ep with (~60 minutes of content) to fill per ep.
But I guess it depends on how much budget they allocate.

That would be more time per page of script than any movies get. No studio in their right mind would okay a budget that overblown.