Power is Ephemeral

William Shatner :

Power is an ephemeral;

it's What is Perceived. 

In order for Power to exist it 

has to be acknowledged by the 

people who are involved in

The Work. 

What I began to see 

was Gene Roddenberry, 

The Creator of Star Trek, 

aging and in diminishing 

health trying desperately 

to hold on to his creative vision, 

his legacy, and ultimately, 

His Power. 

Hurley:

Roddenberry had an incredible Loyalty, 

he was very loyal to his friends. 

David Gerold :

No, Gene screwed over all his friends 

as well as his enemies. 

You know, he had a lot of demons. 

He was very perceptive, 

had a high IQ. 

Gene was a Historical Revisionist. 

Creative and contributive

and collaborative. 

Very intimidating guy.

His good nature. 

He could be a bully. 

But he was a nice man and 

was a generous man. 

Gene had a way of making you feel really good about yourself. 

He could inspire people to do better than they believed they were capable of. 

Sir Patrick Stewart :

I just found him a decent man. 

And had a lot of worldly experience. 

A bomber pilot in the Pacific, decorated 

Pan-Am pilot world wide. 

I had great arguments about philosophy 

and all sorts of things. 

He was a really remarkable man, I thought. 

Gene was fun... but then later as things were 

not going as well I think he got sour. 

There's this twenty years

in The Desert for Gene. 

He's the forgotten man. 

D.C. Fontana:

The things that didn't happen 

were disappointing 

and very saddening.

 

His wife Majel would go to the conventions 

and they would sell memorabilia 

and make some money that way 

and that money helped sustain him. 

When you're out of work as a writer 

in Hollywood and you can't find it,

it's a difficult life. 

I guarantee you he had a difficult life 

between Star Trek and the first movie — 

We get back together for Next Gen and for him 

it's like he's been called back 

out of The Desert and given 

A Position of Power again. 

At the time Gene Roddenberry was considered 

somewhat of a pain in the neck, 

he was kind of a blustery guy 

who was not very agreeable. 

Everybody else forgot him after

Star Trek : The Motion Picture, this epic disaster. 

Every aspect of it got out of hand, 

this was a runaway train. 

He wasn't trusted with anything. 

He had been relegated to being 

the executive consultant on the movies. 

They paid him very well. 

I think that may have been enough. 

He had a big corner office in the Hart building. 

He pretty much spent his days in correspondence with people 

from all over the world who had become Star Trek fans. 

So they gave him this emeritus status, 

and he was a Has-Been.

….because You are Trying to Have Heaven without God

“Now, Post-Modern Theology is quite a proposition — because you’re saying you want to have Theology without God.”

Shatner :

Did you realize that The Next Generation, 

it was possible to characterize it as 

Gene Roddenberry's 

Dream of Heaven? 

Branon Braga :

I would never have thought that at the time, 

but now that we're talking,  

with his conception of The Future 

and Human Beings in The Future, 

and Q — Q is God. 

I mean, just look at the character, 

look at everything about 

the character. 

Shatner :

Gene was a well-known Atheist, 

but he invents Q. 

Q. :

Typical, so Typical. 

Savage Life Forms 

never follow even 

Their OWN Rules.

Ronald D. Moore :

As I sit here it's pretty startling — 

God's a character, a LITERALISED character, 

on Star Trek : The Next Generation. 

Shatner :

By An Atheist. 

Ronald D. Moore :

By An Atheist. 

Very interesting.

Hurley: 

Gene's IDEAS about 

The Future and about Man  — 

are wacky doodle. 

He sees Us now in Our Infancy 

where we just gather and accumulate 

like a three-year-old in a crib,

‘That's Mine, that's mine, 

give me this, you can't have that 

I need this, I need that.’

He believed that Mankind in the twenty-fourth century had •resolved• ALL Conflict between themselves.

Dorothy Fountuna : 

That developed between the first Star Trek 

and the second Star Trek. 

David Gerrold : 

Back in the 60's, Gene wanted 

to be The Womaniser and always 

gets the beautiful woman and always 

punches out The Bad Guy 

and always wins. 

And in 1986, Gene is not going to be 

down there on the front lines punching, 

but he WILL be The All-Seeing ADVISOR, 

The WISE Man.

Shatner: 

The real Trouble in Year One

is the dictums, how to 

get a good script OUT. 

If you tell A Writer that the characters can't have conflict between them, you're just cutting his legs off. 

Some writers really chaffed against 

Gene's Vision of A Better Future 

where there was No Conflict —

The ESSENCE of Drama is Conflict.

“There was No Evil.”

“There's No Money anymore. 

There was No Jealousy. 

There's No Fighting anymore. 

No separate Individual 

GOALS or IDEAS — 

We just negotiate. 

No Tension, what?”

Branon Braga :

I liked the Dramatic Constraints 

it put on ME as A Writer.”

Shatner : 

Really? 

Branon Braga :

Well, I had to find new ways 

to tell stories.”

“When you look at The Original Series 

there's a LOT of Conflict between 

those characters, they argue a lot, 

and crewmen on The Enterprise 

are YELLING at each other — 

If Our People are Perfect and have No Conflicts 

or Problems between them, 

there is no STORY here. 

We would walk around in each others' offices going, 

"I don't know how to write about that, 

I don't know how to write about Perfect People." 

Hurley :

That was Gene's vision of 

Star Trek: The Next Generation, take it or leave it 

and work within it or DON’T.

I don't think you can sustain a show 

where the characters are not 

accessible to the audience. 

Where you don't see somebody 

over coming A Flaw, 

if there's no Conflict and no tension 

between people, then there's no relationship 

between people and that show will wither. 

And that's what was happening. 

I tried to make it sustainable, 

I wanted to create this new adversary, The Borg, 

I want the Federation to form allies against this OVERWHELMING, awesome adversary. 

At the end of the first season 

there's an episode called ‘The Neutral Zone’, 

which was the arc for the second season, 

and the arc for the second season was going to be 

“Here come The Borg.”

At the end of the second season 

they DEFEAT The Borg.”

Shatner : 

Then what happened? 

Hurley :

Writers Strike. 

End of the first season, 

Writers Strike begins. 

Couldn't talk to The Writers, 

couldn't talk to Roddenberry. 

And the hiatus dragged on and on and on, 

it was five and a half months

“Patrick kept saying the trouble with the show is 

there's not enough f-ing and f-ing. 

Fighting and Fornicating.”

Patrick Stewart : 

And I said I have a feeling Our Audience 

might like to see Our Captain just getting 

blown away by meeting Somebody New.

Ira Stephen Behr :

The Writers were real excited. 

Well Rick says, ‘You've got to 

go in to see Gene.’ 

So I go in and he's very nice but he says, 

‘I like the idea of The Pleasure Planet 

and I want it to be a place where 

you see women FONDLING and 

KISSING other women, 

and men HUGGING and 

holding hands and KISSING 

and we can imply that 

they're having SEX 

in the background.’ 

Huh? Really? 

I'm going, "Oh, man, I'm in 

The freakin' Twilight Zone." 

I go back to Rick, he goes, 

‘Pft, pay no attention to that, 

just get The Captain laid."