Thoughts on Star Trek

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-01-09 07:56pm

... not mine. I PMed a person I met on another forum inviting him here, he perused the boards, and this is what he had to say (he invited me to post this, so ...):

I'll pass. Thanks for the invite tho! Just looks alot like a younger site than I have the temperment for.

You can make a statement on there for me if you'd like....My thoughts on Trek....

The only thing about the Star Trek series is: ONE DAY it IS going to be VERY MUCH like that! And it PISSES ME OFF that I won't be alive to SEE IT!!! Roddenberry was a genius! His visions of the future are actually USED at NASA to this day. The hypothetical theories of space travel drive systems have sparked interest in trying to discover that very thing. The only problem I can see:

So many things in space to HIT going 3 times the speed of light!
One couldn't navigate a course in this solar system with the knowledge we have, and certainly NOT outside of it.....too many "unknowns". The planet earth would HAVE to have knowledge to navigate from other races that have already been there, done that....and you know what THAT means!!!

Like I said...I'll be dead. So fantasy it remains!

So, what do you think of his thoughts on Star Trek? I'm sure he'll be interested in seeing what you have to say about this.

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2006-01-09 08:36pm

Doesn't the theoretical warp drive require the entire energy of the universe?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-01-09 09:00pm

I'd like to know where he got the notion that Star Trek so accurately depicts the future. I know that the various anniversary specials and what-have-you had a lot of writers and actors stroking their egos over what a magical and incredibly foretelling thing they were a part of, and I'm sure a lot of fans that mindlessly repeat the "ST predicts stuff and ST is utopia and ST is the future" mantra probably caught it from watching one of the anniversary specials (or, who knows, maybe some actor or writer who spoke at a convention), but I'm curious to know if this was the case for him.

There's one thing that jumps out at me, and it's this:

One couldn't navigate a course in this solar system with the knowledge we have, and certainly NOT outside of it.....too many "unknowns". The planet earth would HAVE to have knowledge to navigate from other races that have already been there, done that....and you know what THAT means!!!

Obviously he's implying that there will have to be aliens in order for us to successfully navigate the stars, but I have to ask: who taught those aliens how to travel through space? And who taught whoever those teachers were? It's a bit of a circular loop there.

Also, it needs to be emphasized (before someone eventually jumps down his throat) that TNG, at least as was originally concieved, is a utopia; it just happens to be Gene Roddenberry's utopia. That's the funny thing about utopias; one man's heaven is almost certainly going to be another man's Hell.

I think what people tend to find alluring about TNG's "message" is the idea that deep down inside, we're all warm fuzzy people, and when the right society comes around, we can be free to be those warm fuzzy people. It's not your fault you don't fit in! It's society's fault! Here's a society where you're not an outcast, where everyone "loves you for who you are", or so the cliche goes.

This, however, assumes that we are in fact all warm fuzzy good people... but I (and most other people) don't think that's the case.

The other main reason that people are so willing to buy completely into the messages that Star Trek trumpeted - especially TNG+ - is simply a lack of critical thought. Captain Picard says the Federation is great and wonderful and people tend to think (or not think, as the point happens to be) "Oh, okay, I guess the Federation's a nice place, the hero just told us so."

I think TNG was entirely the wrong approach to the issue of creating a new series. By 1986, after The Motion Picture and other proposed stories for the movies, Paramount should have realized that Roddenberry did not (or perhaps never did) realize just what it was about TOS that worked and appealed to people. He should have been kept purely as an advisor and the problem of TNG should have been given to someone else... like Harve Bennett. Bennett would have actually been perfectly suited for the task; he had significant experience as a TV producer prior to being called in to work on Wrath of Khan, and he had done just what I described in preparing for WoK. He sat down, watched TOS, and identified what it was that made the series tick. I would also hope that, having been in television production before, he would have ensured much higher standards of quality when it came to lighting the sets. (Watch nearly any episode from the first two seasons. It is simply godawful.)

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2006-01-09 09:04pm

Roddenberry had an interesting vision of his own personal science fiction show, that's it..I swear too many idiots read his biographys and think he's the greatest mind since Socrates. Also if anyone thinks Star Trek influenced science in any degree except to peak children's curiosity, they are delusional. At best the show influenced a look, nothing of the nature of technology nor the engineering to reach said technology.

The rest is more succiently put in what U235 has put down, and I feel no need to repeat his points.

Skylon · Post by **Skylon** » 2006-01-09 10:58pm

I can't look at Star Trek and think of a damn thing that Star Trek might have inspired. The only think of is maybe the "flip" style cell-phones were inspired by communicators, but unless the guy owning the patent on that says he "got the idea from Star Trek" I wouldn't really buy it. I fucking scratch my head when people say the communicators themselves inspired the very idea of cell phones when it's clear the damn things were just futuristic walkie-talkies.

Star Trek's chief value has been as more of an inspirational thing as it seems many an engineer and scientist who was a kid in the 60's seems to cite Star Trek as a reason for their interest in science. Which is certainly valuable.

TNG was over-utopian nonsense, TOS had that to an extent when viewed from the lens of the 1960's with a multi-ethnic crew, showing that humanity that united enough to get past racial/ethnic conflicts, pool our efforts and reach for the stars. However it didn't take the utopianism to the insane degree of TNG.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-01-10 12:00am

So many things in space to HIT going 3 times the speed of light!

Not unless you're denting your bumpers getting out of the parking space - 3c means over a year of cruising through a few hydrogen atoms per cubic metre, just to get to ACent. If you're going to hit anything, you'll have to bring your girlfriend.

One couldn't navigate a course in this solar system with the knowledge we have, and certainly NOT outside of it.....too many "unknowns". The planet earth would HAVE to have knowledge to navigate from other races that have already been there, done that....and you know what THAT means!!!

Yeah, there's just no way we could ever send spacecraft through the solar system, visiting other planets and sending information back to Earth... oh wait.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2006-01-10 12:02am

Roddenberry was a genius! His visions of the future are actually USED at NASA to this day. The hypothetical theories of space travel drive systems have sparked interest in trying to discover that very thing.

Tell me that he doesn't think Roddenberry was the first person to concieve of going faster than light in science fiction.

FedRebel · Post by **FedRebel** » 2006-01-10 12:25am

The only thing about the Star Trek series is: ONE DAY it IS going to be VERY MUCH like that! And it PISSES ME OFF that I won't be alive to SEE IT!!!

Kind of like how a fundies want to live to see the rapture

Roddenberry was a genius! His visions of the future are actually USED at NASA to this day.

IF this isn't an exaggeration, I don't know what is

The hypothetical theories of space travel drive systems have sparked interest in trying to discover that very thing.

Just one simple little fact...

Theoretical warp drive and Star Trek's warp drive have nothing incommon with the exception of the name

The only problem I can see:

So many things in space to HIT going 3 times the speed of light!
One couldn't navigate a course in this solar system with the knowledge we have, and certainly NOT outside of it.....too many "unknowns". The planet earth would HAVE to have knowledge to navigate from other races that have already been there, done that....and you know what THAT means!!!

Let me guess, deflector dishes

Like I said...I'll be dead. So fantasy it remains![/quote]

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-01-10 01:31am

Ghost Rider wrote:Roddenberry had an interesting vision of his own personal science fiction show, that's it..I swear too many idiots read his biographys and think he's the greatest mind since Socrates.

Well... the obvious answer to that is to assign the next Roddenberry biography to Harlan Ellison.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-01-10 01:40am

And the audio version can be three hours of the snarls of a rabid pitbull being poked with a stick.

The Guid · Post by **The Guid** » 2006-01-10 03:45am

His visions of the future are actually USED at NASA to this day.

Two words: Slidy doors.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-01-10 06:57am

Hey, he thinks he's too old for us! I call shenanagans!

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2006-01-10 11:34am

Well... the obvious answer to that is to assign the next Roddenberry biography to Harlan Ellison. Twisted Evil

Yowch!

I wonder if special precautions were taken to avoid Ellison and Majel Barrett runing into each other on the set when she did Babylon 5.

That is, assuming Ellison was hands-on enough to be around during shooting.

Raw Shark · Post by **Raw Shark** » 2006-01-12 05:20pm

Some Pothead Surlethe Dug Up To Be Our Pinata wrote:Just looks alot like a younger site than I have the temperment for.

If by 'young' you mean 'Emotionally prepared to face criticism,' then yes, this site is a lot younger than you would appear to have the temperment for.

KeVinK · Post by **KeVinK** » 2006-01-13 08:51pm

Raw Shark wrote:
Some Pothead Surlethe Dug Up To Be Our Pinata wrote:Just looks alot like a younger site than I have the temperment for.
If by 'young' you mean 'Emotionally prepared to face criticism,' then yes, this site is a lot younger than you would appear to have the temperment for.

No.
You guys are young.
I've got kids who've graduated from college -- and I'm willing to bet most of you are contemporaries fo theirs. (That is obviously a generalization. I'm sure there are many who are not. But I'd be surprised to discover more than three or four of my fellow members of AARP post here regularly.)

Perhaps I've been visiting the wrong threads, but by and large this community sounds young. Things like word choice -- and I don't just mean the reliance on profanity -- emphasis on being right, hair-trigger tempers, the assumption of wisdom... all of the hubris and energy of youth abounds here.

Nothing at all wrong with that. That is in no way shape or form a put-down. I hope none of you take it as such.

As for the person quoted's enthusiasm for Trek -- I can see where he's coming from BUT I think he is reading a bit too much into it. Okay, way too much.

True, concepts like computer disks (remember, when this show first aired only about one percent of Americans had ever been in the same room with a computer) and diagnostic beds originated with the writers of Star Trek -- not just GR. BUT, as has been noted, the show's greatest contribution was its ability to inspire of a whole generation of scientists. Many technolgical breakthroughs in the latter half of the twentieth century were made by people who wanted to make the world like Star Trek. That's the reason our nation's first space shuttle was named "Enterprise." (And, btw, one of the earliest successful cellular flip-phones (analog) was called the Star Trac. Coinicidence? Or just coming as close as possible without having to pay royalties? The world may never know.) Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have always said their earliest designs were inspired by the desk-top computers in Kirk and Spock had in their cabins.

As for the utopian ideal of Trek.... Well, it's an ideal. And as ideals go, it's better than some and not as good as others. Since it depends on human nature undergoing a fundamental change and people becoming "good" to the point that they instinctively put the needs of the many ahead of themselves and their families, it ain't likely to ever happen.

And that is a good thing.

Raw Shark · Post by **Raw Shark** » 2006-01-14 01:17pm

KeVinK wrote:Perhaps I've been visiting the wrong threads, but by and large this community sounds young. Things like word choice -- and I don't just mean the reliance on profanity -- emphasis on being right, hair-trigger tempers *snip*

Nothing at all wrong with that. That is in no way shape or form a put-down. I hope none of you take it as such.

bitch i flam u!

You are, from what I have seen, correct regarding the general culture around here, but I still think it's comical that You-Know-What-THAT-Means guy goes out of his way to declare himself above us on the maturity scale while metaphorically ringing our doorbell and running away.

Srynerson · Post by **Srynerson** » 2006-01-14 05:18pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:And the audio version can be three hours of the snarls of a rabid pitbull being poked with a stick.

I'm not sure that could truly capture Ellison's opinion of Rodenberry. Rabid pitbulls are too subtle and polite.

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2006-01-14 09:31pm

True, concepts like computer disks (remember, when this show first aired only about one percent of Americans had ever been in the same room with a computer) and diagnostic beds originated with the writers of Star Trek -- not just GR. BUT, as has been noted, the show's greatest contribution was its ability to inspire of a whole generation of scientists. Many technolgical breakthroughs in the latter half of the twentieth century were made by people who wanted to make the world like Star Trek. That's the reason our nation's first space shuttle was named "Enterprise." (And, btw, one of the earliest successful cellular flip-phones (analog) was called the Star Trac. Coinicidence? Or just coming as close as possible without having to pay royalties? The world may never know.) Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have always said their earliest designs were inspired by the desk-top computers in Kirk and Spock had in their cabins.

You give those writers far too much credit for innovation. The things they describe on the show were not new ideas back in the 60's, even if they were new to the average person then. They named the prototype shuttle Enterprise because Trek fans did a letter-writing campaign to get NASA to name it that. Do you really think nobody would have thought of making a flip-phone had Star Trek not existed? I think people were building smaller computers in their garages years before Steve Jobs got rich building them. Today's computers are not that similar to the ones portrayed on Star Trek, because the ones on Trek were permanently built into their locations and were just terminals for the main computer, where ours are able to be moved as needed, and have their own memory without being plugged into a network. If Star Trek did anything related to technology, it would be more in the area of making it easier to sell to people than it might have been otherwise, but the technology would have been invented anyway.

KeVinK · Post by **KeVinK** » 2006-01-14 11:21pm

I did not say flip phones would not have been invented without Star Trek, I implied that I thought the designer of the Star Trac phone was paying an homage to a show which inspired or at least influenced his work.

I grew up in central Florida. My father worked for Robert Shaw controls -- the guys who made all the sensors and dials and indicators that let the folks at Martin Marrietta know what their rockets were really doing. He worked on those circuits and designs. He used a sliderule and the computer that checked his figures was bigger than our living room and had to be kept at about 60 degrees F. Portable data storage for a computer was a stsck of cards with holes in them.

In the mid sixties common thought was that computers would always be huge -- even with transistors -- and that eventually every city, university, state, whatever, would have its own singular giant computer with several smart termials to which only key people would have access. Read the science fiction of the period. Star Trek was not the first in everything, but it was part of the first wave, and one of the few places where several ideas were brought together. Not always well, and not always accurately.

But as I said, that was not the true value of Star Trek. The important thing was not the individual devices or designs or ideas the show brought to popular television but that it borught any ideas at all -- and made those ideas exciting and intriguing. That is why so many engineers and scientists, pioneers in their fields, cite Star Trek as the spark that ignited their interest in the sciences.

Sure it may seem pale and hokey today, but in its time and cultural context it was galvanizing. Today we are jaded by cgi and speccial effects technology that at times seems more real than life itself. It's almost impossible to imagine the "gee whiz" impact Trek had forty years ago.

And just in case my point got lost in the verbage: I am not saying any modern device owes its genisis directly to Star Trek. I am saying Star Trek inspired the young people who grew up to develop some of the technology which we take for granted today, but which was only imagined in the sixties. And I say that because the designers and engineers themselves -- up to and including the team that developed the Mars rover -- have said that themselves.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2006-01-15 01:41am

KK, I couldn't have put it better.

Too many Trekkies, desperate to somehow elevate Trek beyond other sci-fi, latch onto the idea it's hard sci-fi, or that it has created modern inventions. I will never truly understand this; why does it need to have some vast cultural impact?

Science Fiction inspires the mind, at least, good sci-fi does. It doesn't matter if it's Asimov's dreams of robots throughout mileenia, Niven's vast Known Space, Roddenbury's somewhat naive view of a new man, or Lucas' swordplay in space, it stirs the mind to expand and think in new directions. It provokes new interests.

I just finished re-reading 'A Step Farther Out' by Jerry Pournelle, and he comments about 'That Buck Rogers Stuff'. He was inspired by the old serials. So too was another generation by Kirk. There will always be inspiration.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2006-01-16 03:06pm

Not to open a huge can of worms here, but wasn't TNG the most popular series of Star Trek, period? And especially the first few seasons were considered the best by fans and also had the highest viewership?

People blame Roddenberry for having crappy ideas and him needing to be seperated from his series to get it to "work" but fans typically criticize the last few seasons of TNG for bad writing and recycling, when Roddenberry was losing control of the show and finally died. Likewise the movies after his death were mostly terrible, though one could say that only half the movies after he lost control of the film franchise and before his death were any good... and the one movie he actually controlled is considered boring by many fans, though a few, like Bernd Schneider consider it the best (it may be that he simply considers whatever Roddenberry does to be "true Trek" over and above everything else, though). B&B explicitly took the show in a major direction away from Roddenberry's utopian, "perfect humanity" pacifist/hippie direction. Granted, DS9 isn't their fault/can't be taken credit for, as the whole large scale war angle was stolen from Babylon 5, but that was definately a huge direction away from the diplomatic squabbles of TNG or the "cold war" of TOS. The compromising morals, the darkness and edginess and the sex appeal were all developments that seemed to be pursued after Roddenberry lost the helm, and did they succeed? Apparently not, as the ratings were never the same.

Could it be that Roddenberry's ideas and style just "didn't work" and it was necessary for these other guys to take over, but they just didn't do it right... by making the show a little too formulaic and like any other show with the same cliches? Or did they actually "ruin" it?

Anyway, I'm not sure that its clear the failure of Star Trek is due to Roddenberry's naive vision. If it was, then the "fix" was hardly more successful. People have been whining about how much Trek sucks since the last three seasons of TNG, with a few good spots along the way like First Contact and the Dominion War which apparently many fans liked.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-01-16 03:17pm

and the one movie he actually controlled is considered boring by many fans, though a few, like Bernd Schneider consider it the best

TMP is actually liked by a lot of the fans, mainly because it's so *different* from the movies that came afterward. The style and atmosphere are quite unique.

Granted, DS9 isn't their fault/can't be taken credit for, as the whole large scale war angle was stolen from Babylon 5

B&B were against the war arc, and the only reason DS9 managed to stay good was because B&B wouldn't have anything to do with it. DS9 was the red-headed stepchild of Trek to be kept in the shadow of Voyager.

B&B were in fact trying hard to keep their products in the TNG mold, but in the process made them as bland and unoffending as possible.

Could it be that Roddenberry's ideas and style just "didn't work" and it was necessary for these other guys to take over, but they just didn't do it right... by making the show a little too formulaic and like any other show with the same cliches? Or did they actually "ruin" it?

A bit of both. Trek needed to evolve post-Roddenberry, and it did in DS9 and the end of Enterprise, but it wasn't enough and it was overshadowed by a flood of generic, dull episodes at the end of TNg and throughout Voyager's run.

I know I'm repeating myself here, but if Trek had taken the late-Enterprise route straight away - with fallible, interesting characters, engaging plotlines where the line between good and evil is at best a blur and a compelling presentation - Trek wouldn't have slipped so badly.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2006-01-16 06:17pm

TMP is actually liked by a lot of the fans, mainly because it's so *different* from the movies that came afterward. The style and atmosphere are quite unique.

I'm actually quite fond of it, but I realize it's not that great a movie. I developed a new appreciation for it when I saw the Director's Cut...a little trimming helped quite a bit, and the completed SFX were amazing. It's also got an interesting character arc for Spock.

TMP is important because it established a look and feel that everything afterward followed, with regards to Earth, the sets, equipment, and so forth. Heck, that model of the space station was used well into the last days of DS9.

And no one will ever know this, but I'm kind of curious as to who at Paramount was most directly responsible for the patterning of DS9 after Babylon 5. There are differences, especially in the beginning, but it's still pretty bleeding obvious.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2006-01-16 06:47pm

Anguirus wrote:
And no one will ever know this, but I'm kind of curious as to who at Paramount was most directly responsible for the patterning of DS9 after Babylon 5. There are differences, especially in the beginning, but it's still pretty bleeding obvious.

Why not?

JMS actually brought the idea of Bab5 to Paramount first and they told him that they didn't do Trek Shows without a ship, so he went elsewhere, and lo a couple years after that they come out with DS9.

If nothing, it's very obvious where they got the idea.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-01-16 07:22pm

The compromising morals, the darkness and edginess and the sex appeal were all developments that seemed to be pursued after Roddenberry lost the helm, and did they succeed? Apparently not, as the ratings were never the same.

Could it be that Roddenberry's ideas and style just "didn't work" and it was necessary for these other guys to take over, but they just didn't do it right... by making the show a little too formulaic and like any other show with the same cliches? Or did they actually "ruin" it?

Anyway, I'm not sure that its clear the failure of Star Trek is due to Roddenberry's naive vision. If it was, then the "fix" was hardly more successful. People have been whining about how much Trek sucks since the last three seasons of TNG, with a few good spots along the way like First Contact and the Dominion War which apparently many fans liked.

TOS had sex appeal. They had a brilliant costume designer, at least in terms of designing flimsy costumes for the women.

In terms of ratings, if I remember right, TNG peaked somewhere during late Season 4 or early Season 5. After that, it was all downhill; there were spikes and valleys, but the general trend after that point for the entire franchise was downward.

Season 3 really started deviating from the half-assed Roddenberry ideas, which gave us some of the best TNG episodes like The Defector and Yesterday's Enterprise. We saw more of this in Season 4 with episodes like The Wounded and The Drumhead. The characters could actually be shown to make mistakes, or even to disagree with each other. The production values had finally matured a bit, and the writers hadn't yet forgotten how to write a good Star Trek adventure.

It's been my contention for some time now that TNG faltered when Berman, when the newer writers that were brought in, stopped writing Star Trek as an adventure series and started writing it more like a mediocre character drama with little bits of action (which is not the same as adventure) thrown in to keep viewers from getting too bored of Troi's issues with her mother or Worf's issues as a father to walk away.

Star Trek was always at it's best when it was an adventure.

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