The creator of the franchise, and arguably the most polarizing figure in the larger Trek community. Women loved him (Go figure, but he managed to sleep with both Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett). Writers hated him (See: Ellison, Harlan and many others). The cast as a whole has given him decidedly mixed reviews in their various autobiographies. And yet he holds a special place in the history of science fiction itself as the man who started it all.

So...a thread to discuss the fan-named "Great Bird of the Galaxy". Visionary? Hack? Or some combination of the two?

Well, one thing I can't get past is that the stuff he was directly responsible for usually isn't the best Trek out there. He was heavily involved in TOS, from what I hear, often rewriting scripts, but, on the other hand, there were people like Justman, Solow, and Coon who were arguably more responsible than he. And TOS is not outstanding at many times.

Then you've got TMP and season one of TNG. I think that sums up the point nicely.

So as a visonary who got the ball rolling, sure. (Sort of like how we remember the comic book artists who created characters- Siegal, Schuster, Kane- but not the authors of the stories themselves. Or how we think of George Lucas.) But I don't get too carried away in awe of the man.

It also seems to me like he started to believe his own hype as a visionary of a perfect future. The TNG characters were not allowed to have flaws or have internal conflicts, but that's a higher standard than the TOS characters were held to. What's that about, anyway?

I think Roddenberry has his place and I respect and admire him for creating this world. But others (Harve Bennet, Michael Piller, and even, yes, Rick Berman) deserve the credit for turning Trek into the franchise as I came to love it.

Yeah, I can go along with that. He was great as an idea man, perhaps a bit lacking in the detailed execution. And the anti-religious bias of the frist couple of seasons of TNG can be traced back to his ideal of a perfect humanistic society (Not that I disagree with him, but still). And I believe that he was responsible for an offhand comment by Picard that humans no longer ate meat...a line belied by later episodes and series.

Cleo, I wanted to point that out. Trek fandom in the 70's could be a bit extreme, and I think the "believing his own hype" shows up most in TMP, and to lesser extent early TNG.

Also, I'd add Nicholas Meyer, and maybe even Nimoy, to your list.

This ties in with the discussion of "Utopia in Trek," but I thought it might warrant its own topic.

What I have grown to call "The Roddenberry Conundrum" is an unfortunate flaw of Trek. (Not so much in DS9, which I only ever dabbled in but liked what I saw.)

The Roddenberry Conundrum is this...the optimistic vision of the future is what draws many people to Trek. But the evidence is that in later years, especially during TNG, Roddenberry carried this way too far by outlawing any kind of interpersonal conflict and stating "my people are perfect."

Now, this does have its merits...it's nice to see people getting along. But forbidding any kind of interpersonal conflict among one's main characters does tend to get in the way of good drama.

Worse, by painting Starfleeters as so perfect, it runs the risk of what David Gerrold called the "American Way" syndrome in Trek...that Starfleet's mores are the right ones, and only the OTHERS are allowed to be wrong. If the Enterprise crew is supposed to be our stand-ins, then they should be allowed some of our faults as well.

This did abate somewhat with Roddenberry's death. But remember--he made sure that the conspiracy in "Conspiracy" was alien-controlled, not the idea of the officers (God forbid!). He disliked much of The Undiscovered Country because it revealed racist elements in the crew and depicted top Starfleet brass as conspirators in an assassination plot. And TUC ended up being one of the most interesting ones in the series. (Or, as I call it, "Star Trek VI--The Sleeper Fave.")

It's a shame, because Roddenberry carried what was one of the most appealing things about Trek to too much of an extreme and undermined some serious drama.

So...your thoughts?

Just ran across this. Interesting, as I was just re-reading Ellison's essays on what he had to deal with regarding "City". I agree that Roddenberry's vision of "no conflict on the bridge" was not only unrealistic, but detracted from what could have been an excellent observation of the human condition. Where there are no flaws, there is no conflict. Where there is no conflict, there is no opportunity for growth. Or, more importantly in a television show, drama.

I agree. There is no drama, and no opportunity for interesting stories, where there are no flaws. It's like the difference between Dante's Paradiso (heaven), where everyone is good, and his Inferno (hell) where everyone is bad. Most people who've read any of the Divine Comedy have read just the Inferno because unless you're taking a Dante class, teachers aren't likely to subject students to the dullness of the second two books. The Paradiso is wholly boring, in my opinion, because everyone just sits around and talks about how good their neighbors are. Yawn. Flaws equal drama and interest. Trek needs them, too.

By the way, I noticed that we already have a thread for Gene Roddenberry from a while ago. Can we merge them, keckler?

Done.

And not only that, it was a thread I started...but I responded on this one. Huh.

And, oddly, TOS had plenty of conflict- and Roddenberry was (sort of) in charge there. Sometime after that and before TNG I guess he started revising his own history.

One wonders if he'd have become another L. Ron Hubbard if he'd written about the past rather than the future.

Yeah, but with the exception of the occasional Bones/Spock humorous argument concluded by the background "WAH-Wah-wah" music, we really didn't see much bridge conflict. By and large, they seemed to agree with each other on most matters.

I just have to point out that Ellison looks at this issue in the context of "City...". However, I would be very, very surprised to find someone (besides Ellison) to argue that there is no conflict and no drama in that particular episode. Just because it wasn't what Ellison himself wanted, I think it is a damn fine episode.

You don't have to have animosity to have conflict.

Eris, I was thinking of some others- Balance of Terror, Corbomite Maneuver, etc. I don't think Roddenberry made up this rule until TMP or TNG.

I wonder sometimes how far the whole "no conflict" idea really goes. Here I'm thinking about the difference between the way the bridge crew behaves on TNG compared to, say, the way CTU works on 24.

On the bridge of the Ent-D, when they are faced with a crisis, the officers work together to find the best solutions to their problems. They aren't motivated by ego, they aren't desperate to get ahead. Someone wrote a book about what a great leadership style Picard has because of this, and how you can use it in your own business. Their conflict-free style lets them solve external problems.

But on 24, we often see people scheming to get ahead in the organization and letting interpersonal conflicts affect their work. Far from being interesting, it's often quite frustrating when they get caught up in all this pointless interpersonal conflict in the middle of a crisis.

I wonder if that's what Roddenberry really meant to say. That it's better if people work together to solve external problems rather than being so wrapped up in their interpersonal problems that they can't function to solve the external ones. Certainly, I'm more interested in seeing how the TNG crew escapes a nebula than in how some character on 24 deals with someone who used to work for them now being their boss. I always prefer 24 when it's focused on the external problems.

I suppose a problem, then, is that it's unrealistic. The real world is full of jerks who don't want to cooperate. Perhaps Picard's people have "evolved" past that, but then they don't really speak to us.

While some amount of that kind of conflict is realistic, often television shows use it to create drama that we don't want or need. For those of you who watch CSI, how annoying was it watching Nick and Sara competing for that promotion that in the end disappeared anyway? While it's nice to show characters' personalities, and we really like to see them, it's also nice to see people acting professional in their jobs and solving whatever problem they have at hand rather than watching them act like bratty children.

I don't think it was about Picard "evolving" past it. He clearly had his issues to deal with -- his initial discomfort around children, his bizarre attraction to Beverly, among others -- but when it came to doing his job, being a good captain, and solving problems, he came through with flying colors, and we enjoyed watching him work.

True, but in the appendix, other people both behind the scenes and in front of the camera for the series mention the same issue. Specifically when it came to that episode, the conflict was weak at best. Everyone did exactly what their duty was, and as heart-rending as it was to see Kirk hold back McCoy, he had no real conflict with Spock regarding the appropriate course of action. With the essentially flawless characters, there was no opportunity to explore the complexity of human relationships and motivations when faced with an impossible choice.

Cleo, I think that's probably what he was trying to get across, but then went too far by banning all disagreement. It's fine to show a future where people don't let pettiness and egos interfere with getting things done, but I refuse to believe that a true utopia has resolved so many questions that all debate and difference of opinion--most notably, civil instances thereof--are point-blank unnecessary. If nothing else, self-examination and growth requires tough questions and honest criticism, and I find it hard to accept that after coming across massively different alien cultures, humans didn't occasionally stop to reflect and have wildly differing opinions of the new things that come out out contact with newly discovered societies.

You're right, Elenita, and a balance of that sort of thing is really what's needed. Like first season DS9. Both Sisko and Kira wanted what was best for Bajor. They both understood that the other wanted what was best for Bajor. They had wildly different opinions of what that should be, but they were willing to work together to figure it out. That's the sort of balance that needs to be struck. That's good drama.

We'll just have to disagree on this one. There may not have been conflict with Spock, but I believe that internal conflict, between one's duty and one's deepest desire, is absolutely as interesting. In this case, riveting.

Exactly. I think GR believed that putting characters in positions where they disagreed about how to accomplish their goals would make them look petty or indecisive or uncommitted to their cause(s), but I think DS9 proved the reverse. Rather than making the characters look weak, it made them more interesting and contributed some of the strongest characters in the Trekverse.

Good intentions, bad execution, I guess.

Huh. There's a life lesson in that sentence, methinks.

nqllisi, while Kirk was tormented, was there any real conflict? I mean, despite the torture, was there any doubt that in the final scene he would abide by his duty? Even when watching the episode the first time, I had no doubt in my mind how things would turn out.

How much of that is due to the constraints of fiction, though: That we know we can't have Keeler tag around in the future or something, as opposed to him saving her only to have her die some other way? I'm reminded of Roger Ebert's commentary on Casablanca: "And so Rick lets her go, not like he could have done anything else."

Part of the no-conflict is more believable in that this is a military, of course. I'm sure there's backstabbing and pettiness there, but I imagine it's easier to control, either by controlling others or oneself.

I don't think you need doubt about the outcome to create conflict. Kirk goes through an emotional ringer even though we know he'll make the choice that's best for everyone else in the end. The outcome isn't the point, it's the journey.

Don't get me wrong, I see your point. I simply feel that at that point in the series, Ellison's original ending could have been used without betraying either the character or the general theme of the show, and would have been more of a shocker. Also, it would have added some much-needed depth to Kirk himself. Roddenberry was a bit overly obsessive about his characters being "ideal," so any mistakes that they made were trivial at best, and any conflicts between them were played for humor rather than actual insight into the people involved.

However, we seem to be going in circles on this. I'll settle for agreeing to disagree now.