What if Gene Roddenberry was still alive.

[Nerys Myk]

The odds of Roddenberry still being alive today are slim. He'd be 90, and unless he was in perfect health for a man that age, he probably would have passed away by now anyway.

I don't know about that, my best friends' grandpa just turned 99. Sure, he's in a retirement home, but that's irrelevant.

As to what Gene would think, no idea. Probably not much given that when he was alive, he was busying rewriting everybody's scripts on the first two shows to suit himself, IF those stories are true. I wasn't there, so I don't know.

Do you think that's unusual in TV? That scripts go from the writer's desk to the soundstage without rewrites? That the the creator and the producer of a TV show wouldn't do rewrites to ensure the script was filmable and comformed to the ideas behind the show.

 

[RandyS]

The odds of Roddenberry still being alive today are slim. He'd be 90, and unless he was in perfect health for a man that age, he probably would have passed away by now anyway.

I don't know about that, my best friends' grandpa just turned 99. Sure, he's in a retirement home, but that's irrelevant.

As to what Gene would think, no idea. Probably not much given that when he was alive, he was busying rewriting everybody's scripts on the first two shows to suit himself, IF those stories are true. I wasn't there, so I don't know.

Do you think that's unusual in TV? That scripts go from the writer's desk to the soundstage without rewrites? That the the creator and the producer of a TV show wouldn't do rewrites to ensure the script was filmable and comformed to the ideas behind the show.

No I don't think it's unusual. I was referring to the stories that have been told about his rewrites and the fact that he took credit for the original idea, wiether it was his or not. But like I said, I wasn't there. I have only the other writer's words to go on.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't know about that, my best friends' grandpa just turned 99. Sure, he's in a retirement home, but that's irrelevant.

As to what Gene would think, no idea. Probably not much given that when he was alive, he was busying rewriting everybody's scripts on the first two shows to suit himself, IF those stories are true. I wasn't there, so I don't know.

Do you think that's unusual in TV? That scripts go from the writer's desk to the soundstage without rewrites? That the the creator and the producer of a TV show wouldn't do rewrites to ensure the script was filmable and comformed to the ideas behind the show.

No I don't think it's unusual. I was referring to the stories that have been told about his rewrites and the fact that he took credit for the original idea, wiether it was his or not. But like I said, I wasn't there. I have only the other writer's words to go on.

Well, thats a different "problem" than what you originally posted.

 

[Gepard]

Huh??

It's called "dragging an argument from a different forum into this one."

 

[C.E. Evans]

The odds of Roddenberry still being alive today are slim. He'd be 90, and unless he was in perfect health for a man that age, he probably would have passed away by now anyway.

I don't know about that, my best friends' grandpa just turned 99. Sure, he's in a retirement home, but that's irrelevant.

The average human lifespan isn't 99, however. That's more a rarity than something everyone naturally does, especially if they aren't in good health in their later years as I said above.

 

[A beaker full of death]

The odds of Roddenberry still being alive today are slim. He'd be 90, and unless he was in perfect health for a man that age, he probably would have passed away by now anyway.

I don't know about that, my best friends' grandpa just turned 99. Sure, he's in a retirement home, but that's irrelevant.

The average human lifespan isn't 99, however. That's more a rarity than something everyone naturally does, especially if they aren't in good health in their later years as I said above.

So you're saying that if Roddenberry were alive today he probably wouldn't be alive today?

 

[xortex]

If you were dead, how would you know it?

 

[plynch]

This thread has some of the weirdest responses.

I agree with Kate about the uber-niceness, which we really didn't see in original Trek. That niceness dictate was odd, coming from a man who fancied himself the writer/dramatist. Where's the drama w/o conflict? Pulaski spiced things up for a season a bit, eh?

Had Gene lived longer, he would have moved on to other projects. He was much more the thinker-upper and initiator than the executor. Yes, I know he was a t.v. producer (for 1/2 a year on TOS, right?). But he continually thought up concepts, made pilots, moved on to the next. I know some begrudge him moving on even during original Trek. But some people are movers-on, if you know what I mean.

So you woulda got others producing films and series just as we got. You'd still have papa bear ("Bird," I should say) to rally around symbolically and cut the cake on anniversaries, of course.

 

[xortex]

Leonardo Davinci. Decaprio?

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't know about that, my best friends' grandpa just turned 99. Sure, he's in a retirement home, but that's irrelevant.

The average human lifespan isn't 99, however. That's more a rarity than something everyone naturally does, especially if they aren't in good health in their later years as I said above.

So you're saying that if Roddenberry were alive today he probably wouldn't be alive today?

Not everyone lives to be 90.

 

[Trek4Ever]

I doubt that Roddenberry would be alive today or even healthy enough to be involved in Trek. He might've retired at some point in the 90s, maybe he would've had a major falling out with Paramount regarding the direction Trek was going and might've dusted off some older/unused projects.
If that was the case I'm wondering how would Earth:Final Conflict and Andromeda have turned out? If at all? We might've wound up with the New Questor Tapes or another go around with Spectre.

 

[MANT!]

I know EXACTLY what GR would be saying if he ws alive today...

"Help me out of this box, I can't breathe in here!!! Help!! Let me out!!"

 

[A beaker full of death]

I know EXACTLY what GR would be saying if he ws alive today...

"Help me out of this box, I can't breathe in here!!! Help!! Let me out!!"

Didn't they shoot a little of him into space? Or was that Doohan?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I know EXACTLY what GR would be saying if he ws alive today...

"Help me out of this box, I can't breathe in here!!! Help!! Let me out!!"

Nah, he'd be saying "The check's good, right?"

 

[Iamnotspock]

Didn't they shoot a little of him into space? Or was that Doohan?

Both of them, yes. AIUI, some of Gene's ashes were launched into space in the '90s, the when Majel Roddenberry died, her remains and the rest of her husband's were sent up also.

 

[xortex]

Well Ds9' ratings started going south when Behr stopped listening to fans, noticing Roddenberry was dead, and did it his way over fan objection even doing multiple Ferengi episodes over fan objection. I liked em but not much else. It became like a staged theater dramatic play. I think it actually got pretty good near the end in tone but then poof it was over when it finally congealed and the varnish dried.

 

[Anji]

Star Trek would have turned out the same.

Roddenberry was asked to help develop DS9 by Rick Berman. Roddenberry replied, "No, best of luck to you but this (meaning TNG) was all I wanted to say." Roddenberry was going to retire after TNG.

So many of you newcomers to Star Trek don't know what has happened in the past because the truth has been so distorted by conversation on the Internet.

As far as Roddenberry's cast couch incident: I find it very curious that all this stuff about the man comes out AFTER HIS DEATH. It's very easy to critize a dead man because he cannot defend himself. I would take anything written about him after his passing with a grain of salt.

 

[Starbreaker]

If he were alive, he would be rolling in the millions of royalties from Star Trek XI and laughing at the purists.

 

[Ryann866]

If you read any of the books out about Roddenberry (CREATOR, the Herb Solow book, Making of Star Trek) you'll see that Gene's primary, and constant tenant with Star Trek was insuring it's believability. These books have tons of memos from Gene to writers addressing this very issue. During TOS run, Gene's re-writing basically resulted from him wanting to insure that a script "was Star Trek" and not Lost in Space.

By the third season of TOS Gene moved to more of an advisory position, frustrated by the way the network was handling the show. The only reason he went back to Trek in the 70's to make a movie was because Paramount offered him an overall deal and he needed the money. By the time TNG came around, he was involved for the first season but then handed the reigns over to Berman because of the workload. Despite what people may think he never was involved with any specific discussions on DS9, only giving his blessing to Berman and Piller that they were trusted to go on to make another show.

Also, Gene's sensibilities about what Trek was changed over the years. In the 60's he saw Trek as an adventure series modeled after westerns of the time. He didn't view personal conflict as forbidden among Starfleet officers. He was only interested in maintaining adult drama in the stories. Over the years and by the time TNG came around, Gene had become more humanist in his views and insisted that Trek must represent the "perfectability of man" as Meyer likes to call it. This has become mantra for "Gene's vision". Of course, having no character conflict doesn't necessarily make good television and this is one of the things that drove most of TNG writers crazy.

If Gene were still here (and still had his wits )I think he might have taken issue with 2009 Trek... praising it for it's spectacle but taking issue with the fact that it wasn't about anything thematically and that it's story stretched the bounds of believability, both scientific and dramatic.

 

[A beaker full of death]

In the 60's he saw Trek as an adventure series modeled after westerns of the time.

He SOLD it that way, because westerns were so popular, but he always had Horatio Hornblower in mind.

He didn't view personal conflict as forbidden among Starfleet officers. He was only interested in maintaining adult drama in the stories. Over the years and by the time TNG came around, Gene had become more humanist in his views and insisted that Trek must represent the "perfectability of man" as Meyer likes to call it. This has become mantra for "Gene's vision". Of course, having no character conflict doesn't necessarily make good television and this is one of the things that drove most of TNG writers crazy.

Indeed. I remember an article Melinda Snodgrass wrote in Omni around the time she left the show. She pointed out the Gene was now believing his own bullshit, and that now he had decided this was philosophy.