Well, here's the thing. I don't agree with you that the stories were good. They were derivative of other stories told hundreds of times before. And, according to the writers, they agree with me.
That much is true.
Beltran's character started as a racial stereotype & only got worse. How they were supposed to magically fix it is beyond me. And apparently beyond Beltran, who is on record as saying he wasn't supposed to do what Colm Meaney did to keep O'Brien from turning into a stereotype or what Picardo did to get more to do: give the writers ideas.
Thing is, there are times that you simply have to go above and beyond your job description. Beltran chose to whine & complain & trash other people publically instead of doing that.
Being someone who worked her way up from a blue collar job by taking every opportunity thrown at me and running with it, I don't have a whole lot of respect for that.
I think that most of the stories which featured Kes were very good. As for the writers, why didn't they come up with better stories? They had all the opportunities in the world to0 do that. If an amateur like me can come up with decent Kes stories, then I expect more than that of professional writers.
As for characters with great mental powers and such, we have had Vulcan senior officers, Klingons, green ensigns & whipping boys, funny aliens and characters searching for their humanity before too and no one is complaining about that.
As for Beltran, maybe he tried to make something better out of Chakotay but wasn't allowed to do so?
In my life and where I live I've learned that you have to stand up and fight for your rights, otherwise you'll be trampled underfoot. Bowing and crawling for the authorities won't get you anywhere.
KaraBear wrote:
That's the thing, every actor would meet with producers and discuss what they wanted out of their characters, if there were any changes they thought could be made and such. From what I heard, there are only two actors who never made time to meet and discuss their characters: Beltran, and Lien.
What I've heard, Beltran had a lot of discussions with the producers about what he wanted out of his character but they constantly ignored everything. After years of trying, he lost his temper and spoke out and I admire him for that.
I don't know if or how Lien had any discussions with those in charge about her character. Maybe she was one of this too nice and friendly people who only did what she was ordered to do and look what happened to her!
But when it comes to acting, she really did a great job in portraying Kes. She really gave life to the character.