MovieChat Forums > Gene Roddenberry Discussion > Would he approve of all these spinoffs?

Would he approve of all these spinoffs?


Voyager, Picard, Strange New Worlds, etc.

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Voyager? I think you mean Discovery. Rodenberry would never approve of Scum Drek Discovery, Picard and SNW.

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I mean Voyager, Discovery all of them.

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I agree about Discovery and Picard (although season 3 has been pretty good so far) which are both more interested in appealing to woke audiences than Trek fans But i kinda like Strange new worlds. There's woke elements in it but nothing preachy or over bearing and it's tone and execution are a lot closer to original Trek.

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Some of the spin-offs beginning with "Deep Space Nine" are dark and dreary so he wouldn't approve since they're far from his vision. They also don't address the social commentary like his two shows did. I haven't watched Strange New Worlds yet so I'm not sure if that has his vision.

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Yeah, he always wanted everything to be happy and friendly. I read somewhere that he didn't like the idea of the crew of the ship disagreeing with each other and when he died, the writers of TNG started to break that rule.

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DS9 - no (too dark, and set on a space station?)
VOY - maybe (as its a 'star trek', although not set on an Enterprise just some random ship doing 'Lost In Space' so maybe not)
Ent - maybe (unless he'd have thought it fcuked with established continuity)
JJ films - sort of (he was interested in doing a ToS prequel movie when he was making the original series; although would've probably frowned on the non stop action plotlines)
Disco - no way (hed be raging)
SNW - yes (as its basically 'Star Trek')
Picard - yes (as its a continuation of his TNG characters esp s3)

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Have you seen every episode of all of those?

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I don't care if Roddenberry would approve of the Star Trek spin-offs or not, he was TOXIC to Star Trek, his own creation.

TOS pilot: He creates that stupid boring cerebral storyline with Captain Pike and a female Number One and the Talosian aliens, something out of the 1950s stuff, and is a failure, so instead, a more action-packed pilot storyline is created, and so is the Enterprise crew we all know and love. This pilot is a success.

As far as I know, with TOS, he left the writing of episodes up to seasoned sci-fi veteran writers who knew what he was aiming for, and the show was great in the first season, and maybe the second. But something obviously went wrong by S3 because it turned to shit and was cancelled. I don't know for certain if Roddenberry had anything to do with the decline, but I would not be surprised if he did.

The Motion Picture is developed under his supervision in the 1970s, and it turns out to be boring, 2001-like but without the class of Kubrick, and is just generally unliked. Roddenberry was responsible for the "cerebral" vision, and thus was kicked upstairs out of the way of the creative process and a much better movie, Wrath of Khan is released that does big numbers at the box office and stabilises the Star Trek movie ship for future success.

The TNG pilot, Encounter at Farpoint, is made under Roddenberry's supervision, once again, and leads to an awful sanitised future with co-operation between all in the Federation and no conflict, and produces two of the worst Trek seasons ever, so bad that the show and franchise run is nearly cancelled a frickin' clip show episode! Then Roddenberry is kicked upstairs out of the way so that Rick Berman becomes creative lead, and along with other better people at the helm, proceeds to lead Star Trek into a bright and glorious future that lasts well until 2005 when that dickhead Les Moonves cancels the show because "he doesn't like it", but that's a tale for another time.

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I don't know how much involvement GR had in the writing (not inclined to look it up for that matter), but I happened to like The Cage. It indeed might have been too cerebral for 1960s American TV, but that doesn't mean it wasn't great SciFi in its own right.

I liked Number One. Barrett did a great and believable job as the second in command. I was meh on her Nurse Chapel and *hated* her SNG character. I suspect it was the network who nixed a female having command rank.


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I didn't like it, but it seems Pike is popular with Abrams and Kurtzman, since they keep bringing him back.

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Gene Roddenberry said that the network nixed his idea of a female Number One. So instead he put her (his girlfriend at the time) in a blonde wig and made her a nurse.

I give Gene Roddenberry credit for the genesis of the idea. He had some interesting visions. But he was not much of a writer. I don't know if it was his idea or the network, but the scripts were wisely left up to talents of folks like D.C. Fontana and Gene Coon.

I didn't care for The Cage at all when I was a kid. "Too cerebral" and I just didn't get it. It's one of those episodes which requires some maturity to appreciate. I like it now. Not that I'm all that mature!

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Uhura had a command gold uniform for the first few episodes, but they must have changed their minds on that as well. It would have been fun to see her take command once in a while instead of Scott.

Strange actress Barrett. I thought she rocked Number One. Too bad she didn't make the transition to the series.

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I forgot that Uhura wore Command gold early on. But at the time I doubt of the network would allow females to take command!

I remember just being thrilled that there were "girl astronauts" on the show!

Majel Barrett's role on Trek was okay, not great, but not terrible. But looking back, I see how she was portrayed as "female" first and only incidentally an officer. Remember her first appearance? She was only on the Enterprise to search for her missing fiance in "What Are Little Girls Made Of". He was history and she promptly fell in love with Spock.

Lwaxana Troi was one irritating woman! I didn't mind a few of her scenes. But I could have done without her. The role definitely reeked of, "Let's find a part for Mrs. Roddenberry to play".

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He left TOS in s3 when they buried it late Friday night which basically was a death slot and killed the show , so he had nothing to do with s3 really

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I used to watch TNG as a kid, but a few months ago I decided to watch it from the beginning. I'm currently midway through season 5. After maybe episode 20 of the second season, I found the series so much easier to watch. The pilot episode actually made me think my nostalgia for the show was making me think the show was worse than it actually was. The entire first season was such a chore. I read up on it and pretty much every fan thinks Roddenberry made the show worse. I decided to stick with it and it's gotten so much better. They feel less like filler episodes.

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I will have to look at the season three episodes again. I don't recall there being many 'shit' episodes of the original series. If that's the season that had the episodes where Spock mind melds with a rock in a cave, then yes, that was definitely shit.

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That wasn't really a rock, it was a calzone..

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That was the Horta episode, and it's considered one of the greats. Why shouldn't a lifeform appear to be made out of stone?

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Considered great by who???

Listen, if Kirk doesn't get laid while Spock and Bones solve the problem, it's not a Star Trek episode, as far as I'm concerned.

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I really liked the Cage/Menagerie storyline.

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(continued)

So yes, because Roddenberry was removed from the helm of his own show, we ended up with the superior second 2/3rds of TNG, the excellent war-scenario DS9, and the TNG-lite show Voyager, because Star Trek has always been about exploration, but with a new twist, and the first prequel show, Enterprise, that started off weak but got stronger before cancellation. If Roddenberry had refused to leave, we wouldn't have these televisual gems to enjoy.

Abrams and Kurtzman, on the other hand...! Again, another story.

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