posted
My relationship with Babylon 5 is complicated and not really all that interesting. Let's just say that my feelings are in the middle of the road somewhere.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
My feelings are more towards the "it was great" end of the road, but I still think that great chunks of the dialogue were shit. Since when did "criticism" = hatred?
quote: Oh, sorry DS9 and those who created it have long gone.
What? They died? Were they eaten alive for producing Meridian (an episode that is almost as bad as Threshold, but "allowed" by the fans because it didn't ignore some silly rule in the show)?
Or alternatively, is one half of the two people who created it still working on Enterprise?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Gosh, steady on, you're verging towards heresy - you almost criticised Enterprise! And we all know that anyone who doesn't like the show unconditionally is a rabid Berman and Braga hater who's obsessed with continuity. Add to that the lack of total uncompromising hatred towards THAT OTHER SHOW, and you're gonna get a witchfinder sicced on you. 8)
posted
As much as I do admire Lee's "Some people actually dislike Enterprise for reasons other than the stupid" despite his total wrongness in the matter, I'm confused here as to who he is speaking to.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Edipissed Wrecks
Ex-Member
posted
i loved the first season of DS9. i didn't find it to be plodding at all. oh well.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
they havent died, but the bulk of the creative personnel that people consider to have made DS9 good have been purged from creating the newer versions of Trek (Ira Behr bowed out on his own, to other projects, Ron Moore tried Voyager and got the shaft from the Braga boy, Sternbach is being left out of the art stuff post-Voyager, and Probert was left out after his TNG creations, etc,etc,etc...) Im sure there are a few more examples of longtime Trek staffers from the TNG and Ds9 eras who either decided to leave or were not asked to bring themselves over to VGR, Nemesis or Enterprise after DS9 ended. Some of it is simply moving on, but some of it seems to have been deliberate on the part of The Man and The Boy in their quest to remake Trek in a slightly different image than the one envisioned by the TNG and DS9 creators.
Registered: Sep 2001
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People don't get "purged" from Trek. They perform their job on a year by year basis, and if both sides wish to continue on after each year, they do. Deep Space Nine ended. The writing staff, with the exception of Moore, moved on to do something different. (Yes, believe it or not, not everyone wants to do Star Trek until the end of time.) There isn't an insiduous plot to neuter people who don't lick Berman's ass. It's a job, and just like any other there's turnover, most of which is voluntary.
And, FWIW, Enterprise's Art Department was filled essentially from those people who had put in their time on Deep Space Nine and the movies. Much of Voyager's Art Department, including Sternbach and Richard James, was let go. That's just the way it was. Rick S. is by all accounts a great guy and people here certainly are fans of his work. But when people try to read office politics into the composition of a credits list based entirely on fanboy scuttlebut, I think we are going a bit too far.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
Maybe I am reading too much into the other writing staff changeovers... i know that many writers leave of their own accord, after short tenures, constantly over the past 35+ years, but having read a lot of behind the scenes stuff lately, including the entire Ron Moore/Voyager story.. it seems like something very fishy was there.. and i believe that Trek would be better if Braga hadnt chosen to exclude Moore to the point he did, and i think that Trek would be better if some of the people who were heavily involved with DS9 and TNG were still with it instead of the people who were heavily involved with Voyager were still with it. And i think that Probert is a little upset over the way he was distanced from the show, way back when, and, design-wise, the shows would benefit from his influence (and Sternbach's) more than it would for some of the new stuff that is occurring.
paying for internet at Kinko's.. must sign off...
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Probert, IMHO, has struck me as an exception.
The last interview he gave was disgustingly unprofessional, in which he ripped into both TPTB and the Art Department for apparently not knowing what "real" science fiction design should look like. According to him, Sternbach et al were sheep and disgraces to Roddenberry for following commands from TPTB and, among other things, putting landing legs on Voyager.
Let's be frank. A lot of Probert's stuff from the first season did look a bit shit. Probert's slammed Berman as someone who didn't meet his exacting standards as someone qualified to "know sci-fi" and was thus out of line when he told Probert what to include in his design work and to avoid making stuff look "uncool." I think it's totally within the role of the executive producer to provide the layman's eye on all the tech stuff, and let's be frank, the buck stopped at Berman's desk, not in the Art Department.
Sternbach has repeatedly stated, even once outside the Trek fold and no longer subject to any alleged retribution from on high, that he felt tremendous freedom as a tech guy to make his ships the way he wanted under Berman so long as the basic look of things met the producer's approval. I'll take his word over that of the stereotypical disgruntled ex-employee any day.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I tend to agree here. Probert's work wasn't THAT great. The Enterprise-D never rates very highly in "fans favourite ship" charts (although most people grew to love it by simply virtue that they watched it for seven years). The vertical Romulan Warbird would have looked shit too.
quote: some of it seems to have been deliberate on the part of The Man and The Boy in their quest to remake Trek in a slightly different image than the one envisioned by the TNG and DS9 creators.
Although this is getting tiring, let's try again. The version of Trek thought at the beginning of TNG involved ripping off old TOS episodes, stupid plots, babbling androids, contradction upon contradiction, and general rubbishness. Since when has season one of TNG ever been rated higher than any of the others (apart from maybe season 2).
And the same with DS9. Season 1 of that doesn't tend to rate high. Both those shows changed from what their creators had imagined. Partly because in TNGs case, most of the creators left.
And (again), Rick Berman has been in charge of Trek since about 1989. How can he only now be remaking it into a different image? He did that years ago, by ignoring Gene over conflict, showing human's being perfect evolved beings, and others.
One final thing on the staff firing/leaving thing. When DS9 finished, would it have really been reasonably to give all the people working on that jobs elsewhere in the franchise? Enterprise was still 3 years away, as was Nemesis. You couldn't just dump all those people onto Voyager. They'd have had staff for two shows working on one show. It would have not been feasable.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
when i think Probert though i dont think of the curvy TNG season 1 stuff, i usually think of the last stages of the enterprise refit.. he took the phase 2 ship and made it into a real marvel, and the style adapted for the reliant. i miss his design work of the TMP-TWOK era
plus he was given the enviable task of designing a boring ship.. basically, gene wanted stately, not streamlined, and with conference rooms in every hallway so that the cast could frequently stop and discuss their feelings about going around the next corner.
and a lot of GCS fans will probably jump all over the anti-Galaxy sentiments.. i remember what happened when i wrote a short essay about the ineffectiveness of the galaxy explorer program....
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
The thing is, when Probert left the show, he wasn't designing the refit Ent and building up the "look" that would become to be associated with Nicholas Meyer 1982 Trek. He was designing curvy and sanitary TNG season 1 stuff and building up the "look" that would come to be associated with Gene Roddenberry 1987 Trek. Indeed, he left the show in a huff when pressure came from Berman (with little opposition from Roddenberry, it should be noted, at a time when Gene was still very much in charge) to curb the whimsy because not everyone was super pleased with that curvy and sanitary look.
I think it's a fair enough to say that the work that Probert felt was unjustly attacked is exactly the stuff most people have never become particularly endeared-to, namely dustbuster phasers and starships that, while adhering to Gene's alleged cardinal laws of nacelle alignment, looked pretty meh.
Again, I've always seen Trek production design as only 20% engineering and 80% art, so this is all entirely subjective. I'm just saying that personally I've on the whole preferred a lot of the design work since Berman moved into the driver's seat.
(Aside: I do like the Galaxy, and when people take potshots at it it always ticks me off, but I can't say it was love at sight so much as an acquired love after becoming attached to it over eight years.)
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'm not sure how much credit to give Probert for the Enterprise refit. The main visual differences (larger saucer, flat engines and swept back pylons) were all done by Jeffries, were they?
I'm not trying to slag off Probert here, as I do like the GCS (although Tom kind of confirms me feelings about it...we love it because it was "The ship" for 8 years), and I think the Romulan Warbird looks really cool, but since Berman started to stamp his own design aethetic on the show, a lot of the visual things that date seasons 1 and 2 far more than 3 started to go. The uniforms, the phasers were much improved, and they managed to improve the bridge a considerable amount too.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Berman's been there from the start. The main argument you could probably have against him is that - he's been there too long... he's just pumping out Trek so he doesn't HAVE to move on.
Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, Ira Behr, Ron Moore all seem to have been put between a rock and a hard-place when it came to their leaving (except for Behr second time for leaving which was naturally at the end of the series). Branon Braga is the constant here. Did he push out Piller Taylor and Moore?
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Did Pillar write for DS9 after it's second season? And did he write for Voyagare after it's first.
In any case, I think he left early enough that Braga wouldn't have anywhere near the influence necessary to get rid of him, especially since that at that time he and Moore were bossom buddies.
And Pillar did come back to write Insurection didn't he? And we all know how well that went down.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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