Rick Berman

[smileyeagle1021]

Now that I know that JJ Abrams has saved Star Trek, I can now bitch about the guy who killed it.

Now, let me start by saying, the fact that Rick Berman is a shitty director and couldn't make a movie that had nearly the quality of either the original movies or Abrams' movie... he was a bigot and a homophobe to boot.

The cast of TNG have several times gone toe to toe with Berman because he wanted them to say homophobic lines... Whoopi Goldberg apparently refused to continue on the show if they made her say a homophobic line and Gates McFadden at least once just changed the line on her own, to hell with what Berman said.

Gene Roddenberry started saying in 1987 that he wanted gay and lesbian characters in Star Trek, by 1994 Rick Berman had not introduced a single gay or lesbian character in TNG.

Prior to the TNG movies Patrick Stewart stated that he wanted gay characters to be introduced as Gene Rodenberry had wanted. Once again Rick Berman shot it down. Not only did he shoot it down, he publicly stated that there would never be a gay character because the Star Trek universe is gay free.

It gets better... in DS9 they finally introduced gay/lesbian characters... they were the evil twins to certain characters during a mirror universe episode.

Now, I"m not going to say that Star Trek not having gay characters makes it a bad series, but I will say that Rick Berman's adamant refusal to include any despite the series creator indicating that he wanted them and trying to go so far as to say that they don't even exist in Star Trek sounds like he has wishful thinking that gays won't exist in a few hundred years. I pray that isn't the case. I pray that by the time we have the medical research and technology to be able to find something to truly 'cure' homosexuality that there won't be bigots in control to force us to actually develop said cure and use it.

So in short, thank you Gene Rodenberry for creating such an amazing show and being able to work past the great social issue of the time, racism and racial relations. Shame on you Rick Berman for refusing to overcome your own bigotry to work past the social issue of our time. JJ Abrams, you've proven that you can make an excellent movie that, at I think, stays true to Gene Rodenberry's vision... please, go further, follow Gene Rodenberry's ideals for Star Trek to be ahead of the times on social issues. And please don't just address homosexuality, especially now that Vulcan has been destroyed, this is a great opportunity for you to touch on the other great social issue of our time, immigration and refugees. It's time for someone to honor Gene Rodenberry's memory that has been so shamed by Rick Berman, please step up Mr. Abrams, we'll stand behind you.

[blas87]

I always knew there was a reason I hated Star Trek.

[Evandril]

Gene Roddenberry's 'world' was one I'd happily work towards...Just others have changed that 'vision', in ways I don't appriciate quite as much.

[smileyeagle1021]

yeah, my feelings are pretty much the same as Evandril's... Gene Roddenberry's future is one I would gladly work towards... it is too bad that the people who were responsible for keeping that future going (and I lay most of the blame on Rick Berman) failed so miserably.

If I had to decide between Star Trek future that Rick Berman showed us and the Babylon 5 future, I'll take B5... at least B5 didn't pretend that all was perfect and then just swept what they didn't like under the rug... they admitted that things weren't perfect but were working towards fixing them.

[Slytovhand]

Smiley, do you have any links to what you've posted about Berman? I hadn't heard that before (but then, I'm anti-social )


B5 - loved it!! (Legend of the Rangers... meh... nice concept, crap acting! Well, except for G'Kar - needless to say).

How come there have been next to nil arabic actors on there? (yeah, I know.. DS9) And only the occasional Asian or African?? South American? Eskimo?? Scandanavian?? Indian? Thai? (you get my drift)

[daleduke17]

How come there have been next to nil arabic actors on there? (yeah, I know.. DS9) And only the occasional Asian or African?? South American? Eskimo?? Scandanavian?? Indian? Thai? (you get my drift)

"African" as in "African-American" (each series had at least one - Uhura, Worf, Geordi, Siskos, Tuvok, Mayweather) and Asian (again - Sulu, Saito, Kim) were pretty well represented. "Indian" was represented by Chakotay, and Thai would fall under Asian to me.

Yes, I'm being a bit facetious.


Maybe there aren't any homosexual characters on there because society in the future has stopped putting so much emphasis on notations such as that (like the future did with pursuing monetary assests*). Maybe the 24th century has finally said "Who gives a shit if you're gay/black/Asian/whatever?"

But, that is me playing devil's advocate.

[Boozy]

Did Star Trek focus much on the personal lives of the crew members? I never watched the show.

If it's a Law and Order-style drama (we see the characters mainly in their professional lives and rarely involved in personal matters) then there's no reason to know whether a character is gay/straight. It wouldn't matter, so it wouldn't be established.

[Slytovhand]

Returning facetiousness....

"African-American" = American. I'm referring to characters who don't have an American accent (even Picard had one!!) Chekov...??? Ok, his name is PaVel AndreiVich ChekoV... said in a language that doesn't have the letter W or equivalent, but does have V's..... yet, he can't say Vessels! grrrr Tuvok was a Vulcan, and Worf a Klingon.... doesn't count. (I'll grant, Uhura was playing an 'United African Nations' person). So, the only person who has an obvious non-American accent... has the wrong accent

But, I argue against 'pretty well represented', and say rather 'token additions'. Anyone recall an Australian or Kiwi?? Hey... how about a Tibetan.. (bet they won't put a Tibetan in any time soon! Way too politically loaded).

Sorry Smiley - I'm derailing... :redface:


ETA: Boozy, Star Trek was all about Kirk's personal life!

[smileyeagle1021]

Smiley, do you have any links to what you've posted about Berman? I hadn't heard that before (but then, I'm anti-social )

ask and ye shall recieve
http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/trek.html
that's the best page I've found so far on the topic

Did Star Trek focus much on the personal lives of the crew members? I never watched the show.

If it's a Law and Order-style drama (we see the characters mainly in their professional lives and rarely involved in personal matters) then there's no reason to know whether a character is gay/straight. It wouldn't matter, so it wouldn't be established.

For a long while that was the case... where it was all about the mission. Except under Berman (granted Gene Rodenberry went down this road with Kirk, but at least then he was doing interracial, or representative of interracial, relations, which was very progressive for the time) the show did start getting into the characters personal lives (good example is the Troy/Riker affair/relationship)/

ETA: Boozy, Star Trek was all about Kirk's personal life!

and then Slyt says it so much better than I do

[Slytovhand]

ask and ye shall recieve

Next weeks lotto numbers, please


As for ST being all about Kirk, originally it was. The rest of the Enterprise crew started getting rather annoyed that it was all about him, and after much complaining and hassling, the writers were basically forced into expanding the scope of the episodes to actually be about the other crew members. You'll find, for example, that James Doohan (Scotty) hated Shatner, and I believe this came about because of the arrogance of the man basically given his own show with a stack of side-kicks (Scotty being one of the said side-kicks). I'm sure the Trekkers on here will either back me up, or shoot me down

[Sylvia727]

You'll find, for example, that James Doohan (Scotty) hated Shatner, and I believe this came about because of the arrogance of the man basically given his own show with a stack of side-kicks (Scotty being one of the said side-kicks). I'm sure the Trekkers on here will either back me up, or shoot me down

This is what I've heard in just about every story about ST:TOS. Even the sources that don't outright badmouth him mention his position as the star of the show (I believe he was the only actor given a percentage of the profits in addition to his salary) and the chafing of the other actors with this. One behind-the-scenes book had Shatner counting his lines, counting Nimoy's (Spock's) lines, and demanding that some of Nimoy's lines be given to him, to make sure that Captain Kirk remained the center of attention.

ask and ye shall recieve
http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/trek.html
that's the best page I've found so far on the topic

While I have to agree with the introduction of this webpage on just about everything else, I do have one little quibble. The Original Series' position on women was progressive -- for its time. Yes, the only women were in subordinate positions, but that was a huge advance from no positions at all. In addition, it was the network that was responsible for a lot of the meddling. One episode originally had command falling to Lt. Uhura in the midst of a crisis, as she was the natural candidate. I believe she outranked all the men present at that moment. However, the network ordered the writers to change the scene, saying "We don't believe she could be in charge of anything".

During the famous interracial kiss, the network sent representatives to the filming to watch and make sure that Kirk's and Uhura's lips didn't actually touch. Roddenberry filmed the scene twice, once with an actual kiss and once with their heads blocking view of the nontouching lips. It was the nontouching kiss that made it on the air. This is the same network that allowed 3.5 seconds of a naked white woman's breasts to air, when Kirk walked in on her showering beneath a waterfall.

So it's really not fair to blame Roddenberry for gender bias on the original show, even if he was the biggest womanizing, sexually harassing adulterer on the block. He tried to put more women on the show, even if he did just want to put them in minskirts. Everything after that, though: cry havoc. Sci fi is no longer exclusively the domain of heroic he-men and scantily-clad bimbos. A program that professes to show a more perfect society should at least attempt to extend that "social perfection" to everyone.

And as far as "why don't they put an <ethnic> actor on there?" questions, I had always assumed that in the future, ethnicities had blended together more thoroughly, which would also explain the homogenous accents. Alright, that's not the show's official position, but I like my explanation better.

[AFPheonix]

The other thing that kind of drove home the whole Shatner wanting to be the center of attention thing was the abomination of a movie ST: The Final Frontier. Shatner did a lot of the writing and it showed. He made his character (well, in his mind anyways) to be the consummate hero, and kind of made everyone else to be pretty one-dimensional.
The difference between that and the one Nimoy wrote, Undiscovered Country, was very stark. UC was very dark, well written, and nuanced.
I had to laugh watching them back to back.

[lordlundar]

You want to see a prime example of Shatner's ego? Just look at the Discovery Channel. There's a special on how concepts in Sci-Fi advanced real scientific research.

Is the title "How sci-fi changed science"? Nope.

Is the title "How Star-Trek helped science"? Sorry.


The title is, and I wish I was making this up:

"How William Shatner Changed the World"

And the show, despite it explained how concepts in star-trek became reality, was presented in such a way that if Shatner wasn't in the show, none of it would have happened.

[smileyeagle1021]

You want to see a prime example of Shatner's ego? .

umm... the Priceline commercials do more than enough to show Shatner's ego... his whole "you can't possibly have a good vacation or get a good rate unless you book on my sight" attitude has gotten old. I hate priceline for no other reason than I think Shatner is a dick in the commercials (well, that and I"ve always gotten better deals going through hotels/airlines direct)

[joe hx]

there was a proposed star trek: the next generation episode that had an openly gay couple:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_Fire_(Star_Trek)
but "certain studio executives" stopped it from being filmed. the star trek fan series Star Trek: New Voyages has picked up that script, rewrote it some, and now episone one is available here:
http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/