Great Interview with Ron Moore!

[Hugh Casey]

IGN Film Force has a really meaty interview with Ron Moore. Part One is posted, and in it he mostly talks about his experiences with Trek, on TNG, DS9, and Voyager. It gives a really great inside look at the shows, and if you look btw the lines, you can see what some of the issues are that are causing problems for the franchise now.

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/44...html?fromint=1

Post comments here...

[C5]

Very interesting... so basically the "bad guy" would only be Bermann, then, not Braga, according to him. Why not, after all. Anyway, it would confirm that the execs at Paramount are not the cleverest people when it comes to judge what's good or not for a Trek episode/series.

What's also interesting in writer's interviews is sometimes to see that a line in a show that got debated for years afterwards by the fans was just thrown there to respect a constraint from Paramount (like the "son's wedding"). Always funny.

[qerlin]

Excellent piece. I think it gives a good insight into the politics of the show and the productions in general. <Sacrilige alert> I agree that the Roddenberry goal of the utopian world with the perfect people was a major hamper to the show in the first 2-3 seasons; the characters were bloodless, most of the stories gutless. <Sacrilege over; commence burning subject of such talk>

May actually have to watch DS9 once I can borrow the DVDs...or it every gets to Spike.

[Ezri's Toy]

Originally posted by qerlin
Excellent piece. I think it gives a good insight into the politics of the show and the productions in general. <Sacrilige alert> I agree that the Roddenberry goal of the utopian world with the perfect people was a major hamper to the show in the first 2-3 seasons; the characters were bloodless, most of the stories gutless. <Sacrilege over; commence burning subject of such talk>

One of my favorite Peanuts cartoons was a one-panel piece with Charlie Brown's sister, Sally, and Snoopy sitting under a tree. Sally's reading a book and says "There's too many characters in this book and too much going on."

Snoopy replies, "I like a book where there's only one character and nothing happens to him."

Coming from a person who believes in the possibility of the Roddenberry ideal, I, too, will agree that Gene's edicts were detrimental to the show. ("Gutless," however, is off-base and out-of-line.)

Conflict is at the heart of storytelling. If you remove that conflict, you end up with Snoopy's ideal book. As a writer, Gene should have known this.

See, the thing is that Gene could have told the story of the ideal human without all the edicts. Unfortunately, Gene, being an imperfect human, didn't see that perfection is a process and not a state of being. In other words, the story should have been about how the perfect man overcomes conflict -- because there will always be conflict -- and not the lack of conflict itself.

[prophetsteve]

Ultimately, Gene was just a guy. A guy with an idea; albeit a pretty revolutionary for the time and media.

Gene's (and Star Trek's) initial success was that he never had complete control over his creation; that he had to answer to the executives and thus was reigned in. TOS was great cause it combined great vision with cool action and not-so-perfect characters. I feel that TNG started so inconsistantly because Gene didn't have anyone to answer; didn't have anyone to tell him "no".

The point I am trying to make is that Star Trek's success is not Gene's alone. Its not his vision alone. TOS was formed from Gene's ideas but was molded by executives and writers and even the actors himself. All the decisions, for good and ill, merged together to form the phenomina we all enjoy.

Interestingly I see the same pattern in Lucas - say what you want about guy, but George was at his best when we had to answer to the suits. Once the execuitives gave him a free hand in Return of Jedi, we start to see the downward spiral. Imagine what the last 3 Star Wars movies (eps VI, I, II) would have been with the controls Fox had placed in Empire Strikes Back?

A lot of times the suits can be a detrement to a television series but sometimes they can also keep wild ideas in check; and sometimes that is just what the doctor ordered.

[qerlin]

Originally posted by Ezri's Toy
..."Gutless," however, is off-base and out-of-line..

Not at all. I'm entitled to my opinion. I call 'em as I see 'em. I like TNG, but the first few seasons sucked for the reasons I intimated.

[Joe Dizzy]

After reading that interview, I've become convinced that the strengths and quality in the writing of TNG was basically a fluke.

Everybody can write a story with shady or broken characters who are at each other's throats most of the time. What made TNG so interesting to me, was that conflict was externalized, seperate from the characters.
The show was always about the crew dealing with a problem, instead of dealing with each other.

Apparently that was merely a coincidence, because neither the writers nor the producers realized what they were doing. I think what's troubling Trek these days is the conservative streak, which it apparently always had, has gone out of control.
The writers were always trying to be more conservative conceptually and the producers more conservative content-wise.
All this leads to is the same old shit, dressed up with fancy colors and new faces.

Joe

[prophetsteve]

I guess we'll agree to disagree on that one.

When I watched TOS, what drew me in was the characters. The flawed characters which when times got tough could, despite of differences, could band together and solve the toughest of riddles and defeat the hardest of enemies.

TNG initially turned me off cause that was largely gone. There was a hint of it with Picard and the rest of the crew but ultimately they were harmonious from the start. The idea that the perfect crew of the Enterprise from the perfect Federation faced imperfect aliens every week and solved their problems for them started to get old - if not a little conceited.

But thats just how I see it. To me the better Trek series - such TOS and DS9 were made the better through the fallacies of the crew as much as they were with their strengths.

[Ezri's Toy]

Originally posted by qerlin
Not at all. I'm entitled to my opinion. I call 'em as I see 'em. I like TNG, but the first few seasons sucked for the reasons I intimated.

Yes, you are certainly entitled to your opinion . . . as am I.

Of course, it depends on how you define "gutless." Personally, I've found that some of your definitions have permutations that are unique only to you.

If by "gutless" you mean cowardly, then you are off-base and out-of-line.

If by "gutless" you mean directionless, undefined, and without "heart," I would agree to an extent. . . but all post-TOS shows are like that in the first two seasons . . . with or without Roddenberry.

[qerlin]

Originally posted by Ezri's Toy
If by "gutless" you mean directionless, undefined, and without "heart," I would agree to an extent. . . but all post-TOS shows are like that in the first two seasons . . . with or without Roddenberry.

DING! Got it in two! Add to it "unwilling to take risks", which might just be defined as cowardice, I suppose. Damn! Got in...both?

[REG]

Originally posted by prophetsteve

Gene's (and Star Trek's) initial success was that he never had complete control over his creation; that he had to answer to the executives and thus was reigned in. TOS was great cause it combined great vision with cool action and not-so-perfect characters.

Wait a minute. Are you referring to the executive "suits" at NBC that wanted to cancel the series after the first season? The same executive "suits" who have the smart to cave in on fans' demand to keep Trek on the air, until they made a dumb*** decision to put the show in the late hour AFTER Laugh-In on its third and final season?

If anything, Gene was probably smart to have taken in great writers like Gene L. Coon and Harlan Ellison, and allow his assistant/secretary DC Fontana to contribute a story or two.

He didn't have that for TNG, with the exception of DC Fontana. Then again, perhaps the franchise have moved on and Gene was left in limbo after TOS, TAS, and the first Trek motion picture, which IMHO, I still like because it is cerebral.

I feel that TNG started so inconsistantly because Gene didn't have anyone to answer; didn't have anyone to tell him "no".

So did TOS, but then again, there was nothing prior to TOS to compare to. TNG have that.

The point I am trying to make is that Star Trek's success is not Gene's alone. Its not his vision alone. TOS was formed from Gene's ideas but was molded by executives and writers and even the actors himself. All the decisions, for good and ill, merged together to form the phenomina we all enjoy.

Writers, yes ... Executives, no.

Let's face it. Executive are not that creative. They're only creative when they can use the same successful business formula to sell their TV series to advertisers who are dependent on the number of viewers who will watch the show and stick around to seeing a commercial about their products.

The only thing executives "suits" are good for is footing the bill on a project. Only once in a GREAT while do they surprise you. For example, Peter Jackson was prepared to pitch a presentation to New Line Cinema to do one LOTR film (the entire trilogy in two to three hours time), but the "suits" gave him a birthday gift (whether or not it is his birthday) and told him to do three films based on three books (or volumes or acts, whatever you want to call it).

[Scottomir]

Originally posted by prophetsteve
Imagine what the last 3 Star Wars movies (eps VI, I, II) would have been with the controls Fox had placed in Empire Strikes Back?

I'm really curious about this...do you know exactly what kinds of controls the studio imposed on Ep V? I, too, have always felt that Ep VI suffered from Lucas free to indulge his lame instincts (Ewoks beating an Imperial legion, my a**). I always felt the best thing about Ep V was that people besides Lucas wrote the screenplay and somebody else directed it, leaving Lucas to do what he does best--think up special effects and rake in money. Do you know if this decision actually came from 20th Century Fox?

[REG]

I know that Lucas initially wanted to use Wookies instead of the Ewoks, and the moon of Endor was initially Chewbacca's homeworld. But then it was established through Chewbacca that his people are able to understand technology (he was able to help fix the complex Falcon and his bowcaster shows a more advanced tech), so he wanted to introduce a species that is primitive.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/species/ewok/?id=bts

[C5]

I'm not sure if conflict between characters is the only way to make a series interesting. Conflicting characters is so common it has now become the norm. Granted, DS9 may be my favourite series, but only because it happens to have a much better internal continuity and interesting secondary characters than any other series, not because characters are flawed and conflicting between each others. After all, how many times have we seen on television a relationship like Sisko and Kira had in the first seasons ? All the people I know and myself are flawed, I don't need to see more flawed people when I need entertainment. Plus, it seems to me there can be interesting interactions between people without them being constantly conflicting between each others. Mind you, characters having inner demons is another matter - it's a case of having feelings and this is something one can expect even from perfect characters (provided they're not Vulcans).

And for the record, I found the Sisko/Jake relationship much more interesting, because it's one of the only parent/children relationship in Trek that was not conflictual (minus the Crushers, but that one was a bit underplayed in TNG IMHO) - Riker and Picard had trouble with their fathers, Spock with Sarek, Bashir with his parents and so on - to the point that it seems that a caring, understanding an compassionate father doesn't exist in Trek...

I think I'll never understand why a perfect utopia is so hard to believe while transporters, FTL, aliens, phasers and wormholes are taken in a stride.

[REG]

You may not like it but there are audience that want to relate to the heroes.

As for father and son, Ben and Jake, there are times when the relationship between the two can be conflicting, especially when young Jake made friends with Nog, or his first love happens to be a Dabo girl. Heck, just like Picard's father, Jake almost broke his father's heart when he says he does not want to join Starfleet. I'm sure he know how his own father felt, when he decided not to take over the cajun restaurant business.

But out of every conflicts, they resolve them and their bond is stronger than ever.

Trust me, it would have been a lot more boring if the son is dutiful and obedient and never get into any mischief.