Mark

***

Just to make it all highly official:

Yesterday, Monday, April 9, 2001, was my last workday on Star Trek Voyager. I
have left my recollections on PDE's startrek.com website, and will now pursue
other projects. I have not been picked up by Series V and don't expect to be
asked over, though I will certainly listen to offers for either the series or
feature, depending on the outcome of the strike situation and my availability.
There have been no creative differences, no pat on the back, no animosity, no
real contact of any kind. Series V is staffed. I'm crossing my fingers that
they'll be able to finish the pilot on time.

I will drop into the forum on occasion, but I can't promise to be able to take
part in the ongoing discussions; I have been busy wrapping up on Voyager and
haven't had the time lately in any case. If PDE decides to shut down the group,
all I can say is that it was intelligent fun, and the best of luck to all of
you. I will continue to carry my personal concept of Star Trek with me, even if
I am no longer part of the production team.

Feel free to stop by my new website (see below); I should have some
long-promised Trek modeling data up before too long.

Thanks for the interaction, and bye for now,

Rick
--
Rick Sternbach
Fellow, IAAA

Senior Illustrator Emeritus "We've been doing so much
Star Trek The Next Generation for so long with so little,
Star Trek Deep Space Nine we're now qualified to do
Star Trek Voyager anything with nothing!"

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

Sternbach was one of the best for Trek... Eaves' designs suck-diddly-uck.

Where is his web page then?

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

We hear that there's a new series coming up, and everyone howls and says that they can't just slap together the same old-same old or else it'll mean the death of the franchise.

So, here we have an example of the show being refreshed, and room being made for new faces. And what happens? It becomes a drub Berman-and-Braga fest.

I'm so sick of this. Do we need to go through this all over again, and point out that Berman was the driving force behind some of Trek's best work?

Yes, Braga's an up-and-down writer. Yes, he wrote Threshold. But some of the other stuff he did was maniacally good. What I hate is the fact that Ronald D. Moore gets the credit as being the "good guy" in the writing partnership and Braga's the "bad guy." Moore gave us "Let he who is without sin..." for crying out loud! Yes, Braga made some alleged comments during the development of First Contact that raised some hackles about his attitudes towards continuity. Yes, the entire mess with Moore on Voyager was incredibly odd and could point to Braga being an asshole. But honestly, how much of the criticism thrown his way is legitimate, how much is just making him into the straw man for all the faults in modern Trek, and how much is jealously by horny fanboys about his girlfriend?

Why does RDM get kudos and Braga get shat upon? Because the former relates well to hardcore fans; he chatted them up on AOL for years and became something a of a fellow geek figure everyone wanted to hang around with. All anyone thinks when they think of Braga is giant salamanders, "maybe Zefram Cochrane can be Picard's love interest" and these weirdass stories supposedly coming out of Paramount that he sexually harasses people. It's unfair that Braga's work gets judged with such an innate bias, no?

I loved Rick Sternbach's work, too. I loved it a lot. But Rick's alao pretty charismatic figure, one who the hardcore fanbase can relate to and communicate with. Funny how the same degree of respect isn't out there for Doug Drexler or John Eaves. Does that mean their work isn't as good? Of course I'll miss Rick. Does it mean that series V is gonna suck because someone we all consider "our buddy" isn't on board? No.

Berman has as much as confirmed that the new series takes place in a different time period. Sternbach would have had to pretty much toss out his previous "look" and start with a blank slate anyway. Perhaps bringing in a fresh face will help ensure that things are sufficiently fresh and cool.

Finally, I'll point out that no TV illustrator has had the time to illustrate the films concurrently as hold a job with the series. If Eaves is busy doing series V, then Trek X should require someone else. Now, aside from wild theories that Sternbach switched the offices over to decaf without telling anyone, why wouldn't they take him back if they had a vacancy for the film? It'll require a look consistent with Sternbach's stomping-ground of the TNG-era 24th century, after all, and as per John Logan, there's a whole pile of cool stuff in the script that would make excellent models and action figures that he can't wait to get his hands on. Who better than Rick to do that?
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"I can be creative when I have a good idea. That just happens way too rarely."
-Omega, April 6

[This message has been edited by The_Tom (edited April 11, 2001).]

Though that might be because I've never seen "Threshold."

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"Excuse me, Mr. Rampaging Killer? Why don't you put down the gun and take a look at this hand-held monkey? Does it not have clever little forepaws? It eats gum and sap!"
--
L. Fitzgerald Sj�berg
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and something pleasent will happen to you. Possibly involving syrup.

I think Braga can be a very good writer. But I don't think he should have been put in charge of anything. He's alright for stories, as long as someone keeps him in check when he tries to change characters' genders and such.

And Series V won't necessarily suck w/o Sternbach. But he still doesn't deserve to simply be left by the wayside like that. The point is that the "hardcore" fans want someone who's willing to relate to them. People like Sternbach and Okuda who actually enjoy their work and appreciate their fans to the point that they take their own time to talk to those fans, or do extra work on projects like the encyclopedias, technical manuals, &c. It's not that the loss of Sternbach will ruin the show. It's that we'll have lost that extra connection to it.

And, yes, I agree that viewing "Threshold" is a prerequisite of any criticism of Braga, be the conclusion positive or negaive. It's bad. It's very bad. And this is coming from someone who thought Spock's Brain was kinda cool...

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"Excuse me, Mr. Rampaging Killer? Why don't you put down the gun and take a look at this hand-held monkey? Does it not have clever little forepaws? It eats gum and sap!"
--
L. Fitzgerald Sj�berg
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and something pleasent will happen to you. Possibly involving syrup.

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"It strikes me that there are enough episodes of the Simpsons that people could speak entirely in Simpsonese, using references from the show to explain or describe an endless series of situations. Nelson and Apu . . . at Tinagra.

But now I�ve brought Star Trek into it again, haven�t I. Sorry."

And still, Sternbach is cool, knows his job, and has been there for a long time... He doesn't deserve to just get slighted like that.

Don't get me wrong, I am in no means slighting off ol' Rick. He'll be sorely missed. But let's not link the loss of a senior member of the illustration team as further reason to believe that Berman and Braga are running the show into the ground. I mean, who was howling when they found out that Deep Space Nine was going ahead and Andrew Probert wouldn't contribute to the designs? Oh the horror, the horror...