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Rand is really prominent in early episodes. Charlie X kinda centers on her in a way Uhura never really gets. So I could see the argument for her being signed as a "star" in that sense.
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Sep 13, 2016 14:46
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After The War posted:It seems generally assumed that all early human spaceflights are accounted for. There have been a few, especially in early TNG, where they'd find abandoned Earth vessels (Space Seed, Hmm, yeah, space seed isn't what i had in mind. I was more thinking along the lines of people actively exploring, generations after generations of descendants in the ship(s) when the Enterprise or someone stumbles across them in some far flung remote corner of the universe. Suddenly you've got a whole bunch of stories you could write, such as: Dealing with the sudden advancement in tech and the trivialising of their lives/struggles. The chance to return to earth when it was thought impossible. Giving up your way of life to embrace this new tech or outright just going home. The whole backstory of this group of people who charted the stars without the luxury of warp 9 star ships. I guess after 5 seasons of TNG it just feels like the whole universe is very up to date on the latest goings on unless they're some pre-space civilisation. Then they're left to their own devices to live by themselves or get invaded by one of the other many races that don't seem to have the same Prime Directive. Speaking of which, is it ever addresses what other races do to these types of planets? I'm sure if the Romulans flew past a pre-space civilisation on a planet rich with ditrtiumiongolagawapadurpa, they'd just beam down, enslave/kill everyone and take the planet.
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Sep 13, 2016 15:23
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That would really suck to get your space program going. Get a warp ship up and running and then your ship gets pulled out of warp. "As subjects of the Romulan Star Empire, you are not allowed to leave your local star system without approval. Return or be destroyed."
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Sep 13, 2016 15:33
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Kin posted:Hmm, yeah, space seed isn't what i had in mind. I was more thinking along the lines of people actively exploring, generations after generations of descendants in the ship(s) when the Enterprise or someone stumbles across them in some far flung remote corner of the universe. This happens in Voyager, actually. They run into a ship of Klingons who are on a long religious pilgrimage.
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Sep 13, 2016 15:50
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FlamingLiberal posted:I have not heard this before about her being signed as a 'star'. Has anyone corroborated this? The only thing I can think of that corroborates this are the early promo pics of her, Kirk, and Spock. If you go by those, she was clearly set to be a prominent, probably romantic lead as par the course in shows of the time.
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Sep 13, 2016 16:33
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Isn't there a series bible or pitch for TOS, like for TNG?
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Sep 13, 2016 16:40
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skasion posted:Isn't there a series bible or pitch for TOS, like for TNG?  Yeah, and Gene sold it for $2.00 when the show got canceled. http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_TOS_Writer%27s_Guide.pdf The Fuzzy Hulk fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Sep 13, 2016 |
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Sep 13, 2016 17:01
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I think part of the issue with having Star Fleet "catch up" with older ships is that most of the pre-Warp era has been established as a war-torn poo poo show. Aside from the Botany Bay and that one Voyager episode with the dead Mars explorer from (iirc) the early 21st Century, we haven't seen much evidence that the period between the Eugenics Wars and World War 3 had much of a space program. Thematically, space exploration in Trek is associated with an optimistic and forward-thinking mindset, and that era is supposed to be something of a dark age for humanity (except for when it isn't  ), so it's not surprising that space travel wasn't a problem. The other issue is logistical. Space travel is slow. Voyager 1 took 35 years just to reach interstellar space and is still centuries away from even hitting the Oort Cloud (a bit of a TMP plot hole, when you think about it). Even assuming the invention of ships that can travel several orders of magnitude faster than that, you'd still be only moving at a tiny fraction of light speed. Unless we presume the invention of some heretofore unmentioned intermediary step between conventional propulsion and Warp, then anything launched during that era would have been overtaken well before even the era Enterprise is set in. Catching up with a Warp capable vessel from a later era makes a little more sense, but by that point, the Warp Factor numbers were increasing quickly enough (and people spread out enough) that any ship that had been puttering around at low Warp for a century or two probably wouldn't have even left Federation space yet. As for the Botany Bay, well, it's just pretty inexplicable all around. I mean, even accepting that it wasn't built in our 20th Century, how the hell did it get out that far? The drat thing seems to have used chemical propulsion, for gently caress's sake.
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Sep 13, 2016 17:25
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MikeJF posted:Yeah, TOS is absolutely impossible to self-reconcile, so we may as well pick the better options. The official stance when Roddenberry was in charge is that things are only canon if they get brought up again.
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Sep 13, 2016 17:35
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:
This draft is dated 1967 and starts by mentioning all the things they've learned over their first year. It's not a concept or design document, and I'm not even convinced it was really designed for internal use at all. It is hilarious (and hilariously self-congratulatory) though. Yall should read it.
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Sep 13, 2016 17:44
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skasion posted:they conceived of Starfleet in such a way that women were self evidently unfit for authority positions. Sign of the times. Gene was responsible for Turnabout Intruder. Even for the times, a lot of the other people on the show were pretty aghast at it.
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Sep 13, 2016 17:56
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For all the talk of progressiveness hurled at Trek over the years, TOS is not a show that treats women well, pretty much across the board, throughout it's run. Turnabout Intruder only really stands out for making the undercurrent of the series blatant. All that aside, though they don't go out of their way to make a point of it, the TOS movies are far better in that regard in general. Aside, that is, from celibacy oaths and fan dances anyway.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:02
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It's almost as if the entire world didn't treat women very well at the time.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:07
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Powered Descent posted:Shatner tells the whole story in either Star Trek Memories or Star Trek Movie Memories; I don't recall which. It's in Movie Memories, but like I said, I would take the anecdotes like "kid thought the camper was an Enterprise shuttle" with a grain of salt, because both of those books are packed with complete bullshit.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:15
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skasion posted:Isn't there a series bible or pitch for TOS, like for TNG? There is, I've got a digital copy at home. Here's an excerpt: 
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Sep 13, 2016 19:20
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WickedHate posted:Gene was responsible for Turnabout Intruder. Even for the times, a lot of the other people on the show were pretty aghast at it. Who? Everything I have read mentions none of that. Everyone was punching the clock by that point, also story by GR means gently caress all in tv production, its credit and moolah.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:24
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skasion posted:Isn't there a series bible or pitch for TOS, like for TNG? Star Trek is...
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Sep 13, 2016 19:35
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quote:Number One Uhhh.. Pretty sure she's not in any way a Nubian. Unless Roddenberry is making up a planet Nubia.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:42
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The_Doctor posted:Uhhh.. Pretty sure she's not in any way a Nubian. Unless Roddenberry is making up a planet Nubia. She's from Naboo, duh.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:47
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The_Doctor posted:Unless Roddenberry is making up a planet Nubia. Honestly, that doesn't sound very unlikely. v  v
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Sep 13, 2016 19:48
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remusclaw posted:For all the talk of progressiveness hurled at Trek over the years, TOS is not a show that treats women well, pretty much across the board, throughout it's run. Progressiveness is a scale. It can be ahead of the curve for the time and still seem incredibly regressive for today. Most shows wouldn't even have a female bridge officer.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:51
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WickedHate posted:Gene was responsible for Turnabout Intruder. Even for the times, a lot of the other people on the show were pretty aghast at it. Roddenberry had an original outline that was rewritten almost top to bottom a week or two later, and it didn't become a script until like the end of 1968, long after Roddenberry had abandoned all involvement with the show.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:53
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 This is a show run by 'Mericans, not those whores over at the BBC.
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Sep 13, 2016 20:02
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Timby posted:Roddenberry had an original outline that was rewritten almost top to bottom a week or two later, and it didn't become a script until like the end of 1968, long after Roddenberry had abandoned all involvement with the show. It's what Nimoy said. 
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Sep 13, 2016 20:08
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The_Doctor posted:Uhhh.. Pretty sure she's not in any way a Nubian. Unless Roddenberry is making up a planet Nubia. Now all I can tihnk of is that scene from Chasing Amy. "What's a Nubian?" "Shut the gently caress up!"
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Sep 13, 2016 20:09
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking that.
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Sep 13, 2016 20:12
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WickedHate posted:It's what Nimoy said. So that came from an "authorized biography" of Shatner, written by a Randian Objectivist and a libertarian. That's not exactly an unbiased primary source.
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Sep 13, 2016 20:15
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ladies wore short skirts in TOS
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Sep 13, 2016 20:41
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WickedHate posted:Gene was responsible for Turnabout Intruder. Even for the times, a lot of the other people on the show were pretty aghast at it. Yeah, it's awkward to acknowledge, but Star Trek was frequently sexist even for the 60s. Not only was it rather unusual for a show to lack a female lead, but its few female supporting roles were also very thin and largely indistinguishable (if not outright worse) from the sassy/spunky/lovestruck maids and secretaries that flitted across the rest of the TV dial. It was also unusually brazen about treating women as blatant eye candy by casting female guest stars for their youth and looks, using the sci-fi setting as an excuse to show more skin than most shows could get away with, and almost never including female characters over the age of 35 or so. Female guest stars are leered at or flirted with by the male characters in almost every episode that has them, even when they are not written as love interests, and are openly infantilized and objectified as "pretty girls" while the men stare at them and comment on their looks. Even supposedly competent female characters almost inevitably fly into hysterics with little provocation, prove to have the sense and judgement of small children, find themselves subjected to shocking humiliations, turn out to be deranged lunatics, give up everything for the sake of a man, or die so he can grieve for her. It's loving awful and we all know it. Now, I know this is the part where people really want to say that it's a reflection of the 60s TV culture, but the thing is it isn't. It's actually something of an outlier. It wasn't the only show to treat women like sexual objects, but few shows were so single-minded in that purpose when it came to writing, casting and wardrobe and even sexist trash like I Dream of Jeanie at least had a female lead. It's not just a Scifi thing either, The Twilight Zone had already featured numerous strong women of all ages who managed to be interesting and complex (and fully dressed) without a man around to save them and even paternalistic old Doctor Who was willing, from time to time, to give its female regulars something more interesting to do than swoon over a man, get rescued, follow orders, or answer the space phone. Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to have a female first officer (played by his girlfriend), but that seems to have been the limit of his respect for women. He could have given his female regulars (again, who weren't his girlfriend) actual backstories and roles that weren't entirely defined by the men around them or insisted on diversity or dignity for the female guest stars. He didn't though. I don't believe the studio forced his hand on this stuff any more than I believe they put a gun to his head and forced him to write Turnabout Intruder. Frankly, it seems like, as far as Gene and some of the others were concerned, the sexism wasn't a bug, it was a feature.
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Sep 13, 2016 20:44
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Duckbag posted:Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to have a female first officer (played by his girlfriend), but that seems to have been the limit of his respect for women. He could have given his female regulars (again, who weren't his girlfriend) actual backstories and roles that weren't entirely defined by the men around them or insisted on diversity or dignity for the female guest stars. He didn't though. I don't believe the studio forced his hand on this stuff any more than I believe they put a gun to his head and forced him to write Turnabout Intruder. Frankly, it seems like, as far as Gene and some of the others were concerned, the sexism wasn't a bug, it was a feature. One of the producers referred to it as "tits in space", but yeah, a lot of it was Gene being a sexist, horny jackass.
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Sep 13, 2016 21:03
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Again, that writer's bible thing linked above is a great read, and quite on point for this. "How do we treat females on the Enterprise? Like equals when on duty; like females otherwise."
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Sep 13, 2016 21:14
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Railing Kill posted:Now all I can tihnk of is that scene from Chasing Amy. 
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Sep 13, 2016 21:38
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NBC or Desilu was the one who vetoed having a woman as the first officer if I recall.
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Sep 13, 2016 21:44
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According to NBC they never vetoed a woman first officer, they vetoed Majel Barret as a first officer because they really didn't like her acting. The claim that the studio wouldn't allow any woman to be first officer came from Gene when he was hitting the fan circuit really hard.
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Sep 13, 2016 21:52
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Data Graham posted:Again, that writer's bible thing linked above is a great read, and quite on point for this. Man, you weren't kidding. Tellingly, while Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get a page each and Scott and Sulu each get half of one (Sulu's being kinda racist), the three female roles, Uhura, Chappel, and "Yeoman" (Whitney had already been kicked to the curb) are all crammed onto a single page with about a third of a page to spare. Uhura's little blurb is by far the shortest and only tells us that she's a communications officer, from the United States of Africa, "played by attractive young actress Nichelle Nichols," is smart and good at communications, and is a "warm, highly female female off-duty." Also, in addition to singing, she apparently does impressions. Meanwhile, the "Yeoman" description uses the word "lovely" twice in two sentences.
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Sep 13, 2016 21:53
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Well, that's Gene Roddenberry for you. He was certainly a... character. The kind of people who write feminist blogs on the Internet frequently make mountains out of molehills or cry wolf, but yeah, TOS is one of those cases where something is indeed very sexist. Even for the 1960s. I.E. "Space Seed" is a classic episode with a classic villain, but the whole Lt. MacGuyvers makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I think the only women I can think of off the top of my head in TOS that weren't portrayed as total bimbos were Edith Keeler from the "City on the Edge of Forever", Number One, and Uhura. But... Number One and Uhura didn't really have any personalities so.... yeah. One thing you just have to accept about Star Trek is that Gene Roddenberry was kind of a scummy guy who also happened to be really weird and later batshit crazy. I may get tarred and feathered for this, but I think I like George Lucas better than Gene Roddenberry. George is at least a pretty decent guy, even though he's a clueless autistic nerd who can't write or direct to save his life.
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Sep 13, 2016 21:55
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Baka-nin posted:According to NBC they never vetoed a woman first officer, they vetoed Majel Barret as a first officer because they really didn't like her acting. The claim that the studio wouldn't allow any woman to be first officer came from Gene when he was hitting the fan circuit really hard. There is a great story about how Roddenberry convinced Majel Barrett to cut her hair and do a bleach-blonde look so he could sneak her into the series as Nurse Chapel, and when NBC executives screened her first episode -- The Naked Time, I think -- Jerry Stanley of NBC shouted, "Oh, hey, look who's back!"
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Sep 13, 2016 22:06
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And this was, keep in mind, the woman he was cheating on his wife with at the time. Pretty loving crazy.Gammatron 64 posted:I may get tarred and feathered for this, but I think I like George Lucas better than Gene Roddenberry. George is at least a pretty decent guy, even though he's a clueless autistic nerd who can't write or direct to save his life. No, you're right, but I'll add that Lucas was a true visionary as far as the art of filmmaking goes with the caveat that there are people putting limits on him and saying no every now and then. (although then again, he also thinks Empire Strikes Back is the worst one, so maybe I'm wrong)
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Sep 13, 2016 22:08
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WickedHate posted:And this was, keep in mind, the woman he was cheating on his wife with at the time. Pretty loving crazy. The only time Roddenberry was ever, ever faithful was basically starting in the early '80s, when his drinking and drugging had addled his mind and body so badly that he couldn't run around anymore. Majel always said she put up with his infidelity because she knew that eventually he'd always come home. Dude was a master of emotionally using and abusing women.
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Sep 13, 2016 22:14
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WickedHate posted:And this was, keep in mind, the woman he was cheating on his wife with at the time. Pretty loving crazy. Lucas is absolutely a better person. He's also done far more for film in general than the Internet gives him credit. His reputation has suffered (unfairly) because of the insane amount of prequel backlash, but kids in Film & TV courses will be reading about Lucas long after Roddenberry has been forgotten. I mean, poo poo, even if you completely ignore his movies, just think about where the film industry would be without ILM and Skywalker Sound.
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Sep 13, 2016 22:19
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