Star Trek: 10 More Behind The Scenes Decisions We Can't Forgive
Star Trek: 10 More Behind The Scenes Decisions We Can't Forgive
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00:00 Hello my friends, Sean Ferric here for Trek Culture and today's video is brought to you
00:03 by Star Trek Fleet Command.
00:05 Hooray!
00:06 More on that now in a second.
00:07 With Star Trek Prodigy and Star Trek Strange New Worlds joining Star Trek's Discovery,
00:12 Picard, Lower Decks and Short Treks in the streaming realm, the Star Trek franchise definitely
00:17 seems like it's feeling itself lately.
00:19 Despite that current success though, the Star Trek universe has had a dramatic history of
00:24 ups and downs, particularly when it comes to decisions made by the producers, studios
00:28 and powers that be, that have occasionally been...questionable.
00:32 From kneecapping the Kelv in Timeline movies before they could become box office gold,
00:35 to the baffling decisions made in the Star Trek Voyager writers' room, choices have definitely
00:40 been made.
00:41 In fact, we have covered ten of these choices before, so be sure to check that video out
00:46 too.
00:47 Things are looking up in the 23rd, 24th and 32nd centuries, but there's always going to
00:51 be something.
00:52 So let's get back into it and talk about Star Trek's nemesis for the millionth time, rehash
00:57 our feelings about the way Jadzia went out and trash talk a few recent decisions the
01:01 producers have made.
01:02 You know, like fans do.
01:04 So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture here with ten more behind the
01:08 scenes decisions we can't forgive.
01:10 Hello my friends, I want to take a second to say a really big thank you to our sponsors
01:13 for this video, Star Trek Fleet Command.
01:16 They have made an expansion that means I am now out of uniform.
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01:42 the new expansion, you can play aboard the USS Cerritos by using either Boimler or Mariner
01:49 or even Bajie.
01:52 It makes me afraid and I like that.
01:54 So Star Trek Fleet Command, thank you so much for sponsoring this video.
01:58 Wonderful free to play game, available via the link in the description of this video.
02:02 You're awesome.
02:03 Live long and prosper.
02:10 Number ten, Trimming Nemesis.
02:13 It's been almost twenty years and we're still asking ourselves what happened with
02:17 Star Trek Nemesis.
02:18 You've heard it all before.
02:19 Why is there a doom buggy aboard the Enterprise?
02:21 Why is Captain Picard suddenly a doom buggy aficionado?
02:24 How did the crew just happen to bring their doom buggy down to a planet that was populated
02:28 by aliens who also drive doom buggies?
02:31 The list goes on, so here's a new take on Star Trek Nemesis.
02:34 We needed more.
02:35 Soon after the release of Nemesis in December of 2002, producer Rick Berman stated in several
02:40 interviews that almost an hour of footage was trimmed from the final cut, calling the
02:45 editing process "really painful."
02:47 Despite being known primarily as a film editor, director Stuart Baird, who has been blamed
02:52 for many of Nemesis' shortcomings, handed editorial duties off to Dallas Puitt, who
02:57 had the unenviable task of keeping the film under two hours in length.
03:01 Since Nemesis was the franchise's first stab at a CGI-heavy action flick to rival the other
03:06 big budget franchises of the early 2000s, it makes sense Puitt favored noisy spectacle
03:11 and left the quieter, character-based moments on the cutting room floor.
03:15 That material includes a brief moment to catch up with MAU Lt. Wesley Crusher, a sweet scene
03:20 of Data and Picard enjoying a glass of Chateau Picard, a dinner scene in 10 forward, a couple
03:25 of moments showing Geordi mourning Data's death and Worf adopting Spot, a scene showing
03:30 Dr. Crusher's departure from the Enterprise, and an alternate ending featuring the ship's
03:34 new XO.
03:35 Nothing earth-shattering there, but Nemesis was specifically billed as a generation's
03:39 final journey, as in the last time we'd see these characters on the big screen.
03:43 It was a strange choice, then, to omit much of the character development and almost all
03:47 of the actual farewells from that final journey.
03:50 There are a few tender moments still left in the final cut of Star Trek Nemesis.
03:54 Picard and Riker's goodbye feels particularly poignant, but Data's death and subsequent
03:58 wake are abrupt and characters systematically disappear from the film as the story clumsily
04:03 wraps itself up.
04:04 It's like Puitt, Bird, and Berman cut the heart out of Star Trek Nemesis with those
04:08 50 minutes.
04:09 They removed the chemistry of the next-generation cast playing off one another and left only
04:13 repetitive action and a boilerplate revenge story.
04:16 Star Trek Nemesis was only ever a mediocre, if not outright bad, film.
04:20 But if the producers had managed to retain the character connections and ultimate goodbyes,
04:24 then maybe Nemesis would've at least been able to succeed at being that final journey
04:28 it was billed as, if nothing else.
04:31 9.
04:32 Synth Sense
04:33 You have to commend Star Trek Picard for trying, and mostly succeeding, at doing something different.
04:38 By telling the story of a retired Jean-Luc Picard and a motley crew of civilian characters
04:42 aboard a civilian ship, Star Trek Picard opened the Star Trek universe to a new, ground-level
04:47 perspective.
04:48 While a lot of us might've hoped for a Star Trek The Next Generation revival, the producers
04:52 opted to take the more realistic and ultimately more satisfying path, telling us Picard, Riker,
04:57 Troi, and the rest of the crew were real people who wouldn't be doing the same thing they
05:00 did 35 years ago, no matter how iconic they might've been.
05:04 Unfortunately, despite opening the Star Trek universe to different types of stories, Star
05:08 Trek Picard's first season was still produced in the CBS All Access era of higher and higher
05:14 stakes.
05:15 So while the show was advertised as a character study of an aged Jean-Luc Picard, the producers
05:19 were obliged to give us an extinction-level threat and end the season with a CGI-cluttered
05:24 bang.
05:25 Worse, the realism of the show itself was undercut by linking nearly every character to the overarching
05:30 storyline revolving around the Romulan plot to get synthetic lifeforms banned in the Federation.
05:36 Somehow, in the stretch of just a few episodes, Jean-Luc just happened to run into Dr. Agnes
05:40 Jurati, whose lover, Bruce Maddox, was at the center of the conspiracy.
05:44 It also turns out that Jean-Luc's former first officer, Rafi, was a synth-ban truther whose
05:49 life was destroyed by her quest for answers.
05:51 Rafi herself directed Picard to a pilot, Chris Rios, who, it turns out, had a chance encounter
05:56 with synths that ended in the suicide of his father figure.
05:59 Oh, and Riker and Troi's young son, Thad, died because the synth-ban also prevented
06:04 the use of a positronic matrix to cure life-threatening medical conditions.
06:08 The reason the writers connected the main characters of Star Trek Picard to the ongoing
06:12 storyline is clear.
06:13 If there's a personal connection to the plot, it makes it matter.
06:16 Unfortunately, these connections rested on coincidence and flimsy plot contrivances.
06:20 And while the show's new perspective widened the world of Star Trek, these coincidences
06:25 served to condense the universe, making everyone's life revolve around plot more than character
06:29 - a weird thing for a show advertised as a character study.
06:33 8.
06:34 Unshared Universe
06:35 Speaking of Star Trek Picard, it's not a secret the show went through some growing
06:39 pains in its first season.
06:40 In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Akiva Goldsman revealed that he regretted
06:45 not planning out the arc of Season 1 before production began, stating,
06:49 "If you're going to do a serialized show, you have to have the whole story before you
06:53 start shooting.
06:54 It's more like a movie in that way.
06:55 You better know the end of your third act before you start filming your first scene."
06:59 Star Trek Picard famously underwent additional photography to expand the pilot into three
07:04 installments and to insert story beats into already-produced episodes.
07:08 Among the late additions were the numerous flashback sequences to immediately after the
07:12 destruction of Mars and the grisly, apocalyptic visions of the Admonition.
07:17 Seen in the episodes "Broken Pieces" and "A.N.
07:19 Arcadia Ego Part 1," the Admonition featured images of war and planetary destruction with
07:25 several pieces of footage pulled directly from Star Trek Discovery's second season,
07:29 itself centering on the impending robo-apocalypse.
07:32 The inclusion of reused footage immediately raised questions.
07:36 Was Star Trek Picard linking its story of since to Star Trek Discovery's similar second
07:40 season plotline?
07:41 The idea made sense and was bolstered by the appearance of squid-like robots in Star Trek
07:45 Picard's finale after similar creatures appeared in the Discovery episode "Light and Shadow."
07:50 No stranger to crossover events like the Marquis storyline, which spammed Star Trek The Next
07:54 Generation Season 7 and Star Trek Deep Space Nine Season 2 in order to set up Star Trek
07:59 Voyager, the Star Trek universe is among the few franchises with built-in shared storytelling
08:04 potential.
08:05 And in today's media environment in which shared universes are highly sought after,
08:09 it would be surprising if Star Trek didn't take advantage of its own internal connections.
08:13 Ultimately, though, that's exactly what happened, and the crossover between Picard and Discovery
08:18 never materialized.
08:19 Any similarities between the two consecutive season's storylines chalked up to coincidence.
08:24 Oh, and that reused footage?
08:25 Well, Star Trek's no stranger to reusing footage either.
08:28 7.
08:29 Whoopin' the Enterprise
08:31 Star Trek Beyond is widely considered one of the best movies in the franchise, praised
08:34 for being the first big-budget installment to actually feel like an episode of the original
08:39 series while also removing some of the trappings of Star Trek to focus on character.
08:43 According to director Justin Lin, in order to explore the crew of the Enterprise, they
08:47 had to be separated from the Enterprise.
08:49 And what better way to do that than destroy the ship in spectacular big-summer-movie fashion?
08:55 The death of the Enterprise in Star Trek Beyond is grand and operatic.
08:58 The ship is systematically and brutally disassembled by Kroll's forces, a symbolic deconstruction
09:04 of Star Trek, scored by a dramatic, choral rendition of Michael Giacchino's earworm
09:09 of a main theme.
09:10 It's stirring and emotional.
09:12 Or at least it would be if damn near the same thing hadn't already happened in Star Trek
09:16 Into Darkness, right down to the choral version of Giacchino's theme.
09:20 It's unfortunate the destruction of the Enterprise doesn't have more impact in Star Trek Beyond.
09:25 It's a perfectly executed sequence by the director, the cast, Vigil Effects' house double
09:29 negative, and the aforementioned Michael Giacchino.
09:32 The scene, however, was badly undercut by its prominence in the marketing for the film
09:36 and by the fact that the Enterprise is nearly destroyed in every single movie in the Kelvin
09:40 Timeline trilogy.
09:41 Directors J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin both raised the stakes of their films by clobbering
09:46 the Enterprise.
09:47 In the 2009 movie Star Trek, the ship was nearly destroyed by the Narada, forcing the
09:52 young cadets to take on roles that would lead to their iconic positions in the original
09:56 series.
09:57 In Star Trek Into Darkness, Kirk must sacrifice himself in order to save his ship as it plummets
10:01 to Earth.
10:02 And as stated in Beyond, the death of the Enterprise separates the crew but ultimately
10:06 pushes them together.
10:07 In isolation, each of these instances works.
10:10 Each sequence in which the Enterprise is pummeled is exciting and well-staged, and it's an
10:14 understandable trick to get the audience invested.
10:17 But it's also a trick that only works once, and the Kelvin Timeline did it three times,
10:22 making the flashy new Enterprise look a bit like a clunker and robbing the final chapter
10:26 of some much-needed emotional weight.
10:28 6.
10:29 Supersizing Discovery
10:31 Star Trek Discovery's third season finale, That Hope Is You Part 2, cleverly based its
10:36 centerpiece action sequence around previously mundane Star Trek hardware, showing Michael
10:41 and Book battling evil goons on turbolifts as they sped through Discovery's lower decks.
10:46 The sequence was full of big action, big emotion, and big turboshafts.
10:50 Due to either a weird call by the production designers or by visual effects house Pic Simondo,
10:55 the inside of Discovery in That Hope Is You Part 2 is depicted as being a massive open
11:00 space, one that simply could not fit into the ship as we know her.
11:04 It is possible the 32nd century retrofit Starfleet gave Discovery in the episode "Scavengers"
11:09 equipped the ship with TARDIS-like "bigger on the inside" technology, which was actually
11:14 a thing in the Star Trek Enterprise episode "Future Tense."
11:17 However, the more likely explanation is that the producers simply used dramatic license
11:21 to amp up the scale and thus the excitement of the sequence.
11:25 Unfortunately, the scale was amped up a little too much, and Discovery's massive turbolift
11:29 funhouse threw many viewers out of the episode, especially those of us who write about Starships
11:34 for a living, making them wonder where exactly this open expanse is located within the generally
11:39 slender Starship.
11:41 This isn't the first time Starship interiors have been fudged for the sake of drama.
11:45 The turboshaft escape sequence in Star Trek V The Final Frontier notoriously depicted
11:49 the Enterprise A as being an unfathomable 78 decks tall, and J.J.
11:54 Abrams' 2009 reboot film famously inflated the size of the Enterprise for dramatic effect.
12:00 But either this visual effects error or misguided attempts to increase the stakes by increasing
12:05 Discovery's size is an extreme example.
12:08 Straining Star Trek Discovery's already strained relationship with audience suspension of
12:12 disbelief.
12:13 5.
12:14 Downsizing Discovery Despite being produced solely for streaming
12:17 on CBS All Access, aka Paramount+, Star Trek Discovery and now Star Trek Picard maintain
12:24 much of the artifice of shows made for traditional broadcast television.
12:28 Generally consisting of the standard four or five acts, each episode of Discovery and
12:32 Picard more or less fit into an hour, like all previous live action Trek series.
12:37 The problem here is simply that Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard aren't on traditional
12:41 TV, and the streaming model offers a freedom which modern Star Trek has mostly passed up.
12:46 With contemporaries like Disney+, The Mandalorian, and even Hulu's upcoming third season of The
12:50 Orville dumping the standard television runtime in favor of expanded episode lengths as warranted
12:56 by the story, there's really no reason why new Star Trek shows keep adhering to the hour-long
13:01 episode format.
13:02 This is particularly true when important material gets cut for time.
13:05 Remember Narek and the XBs in Star Trek Picard?
13:08 Their fates are all in deleted scenes that were cut for time.
13:10 Want to know the backstories of Discovery's secondary crew members?
13:13 There's no time for that, there are turbo lifts to race.
13:16 It's clear the producers are genuinely interested in these shows' side characters, as evidenced
13:21 by the good faith effort to give Detmer, Owo, Bryce, and Reese something to do in at least
13:26 two episodes of Star Trek Discovery's third season.
13:28 But did you even know all their names?
13:30 At around $8 million per episode for Star Trek Discovery and $9 million for Star Trek
13:35 Picard, making these shows longer is obviously not an inexpensive ask.
13:39 But with thinly drawn secondary characters and often even thinner sci-fi plots, modern
13:43 Star Trek would benefit from expanded runtimes and more breathing room.
13:48 4.
13:49 Axing Dax
13:50 No one is arguing that Ezri Dax isn't an interesting character who added a new flavor and new chemistry
13:55 to Star Trek Deep Space Nine's final year.
13:58 But we can probably all agree that Terry Farrell's Jadzia was the definitive Dax, and that Jadzia
14:02 Dax should not have been killed off.
14:05 Unceremoniously blasted with par-ray fire by a possessed Gol Dukat in the season six
14:09 finale "Tears of the Prophet," Jadzia's death really comes out of nowhere, a show of strength
14:14 by a villain who isn't even in his right mind when he does it.
14:17 Dax doesn't die in the line of duty, on the Bridge of the Defiant, or fighting alongside
14:21 her beloved Worf in the battle to save the Alpha Quadrant.
14:24 She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, which also just happened to be church.
14:28 It's unnecessarily abrupt, disconnected to the character's greater arc, and seemingly
14:33 done out of malice by the show's producers rather than out of a genuine drive to tell
14:37 an interesting story.
14:38 Years later, Terry Farrell herself said, "I didn't want to kill Jadzia.
14:42 To me, that had very little to do with good storytelling."
14:44 According to Farrell, she was bullied by executive producer Rick Berman after she requested reduced
14:49 screen time in season seven, stating, "He had another producer come up to me and say,
14:54 'If you weren't here, you know you'd be working at Kmart.'
14:56 It was that kind of thing.
14:57 Rick Berman said I was hardballing him, and I was like, 'I'm not, I just want to have
15:01 a conversation.
15:02 You're giving me a take-it-or-leave-it offer, and I'm not okay with that.'
15:05 So I finally did have a conversation with him and asked to cut down my number of episodes
15:09 or just let me out."
15:10 Ultimately, the producers opted to kill Jadzia off rather than accept using Farrell on a
15:14 part-time basis.
15:16 While Jadzia's death weighed heavily on the characters in the subsequent final season,
15:20 the producers not-so-subtly avoided using footage of Farrell as Dax during the feel-good
15:25 montage during the series finale, a clear indication of the bad blood left by the departure
15:30 and yet another disservice to a character fans fell in love with in the previous six
15:35 seasons.
15:36 3.
15:37 My Name Is Conrad
15:38 This is the lowest-hanging fruit possible for a video about Star Trek blunders, but
15:42 here's a John Harrison is Khan-level twist.
15:45 Star Trek Into Darkness is good, actually.
15:47 That is, until the whole Khan thing happens.
15:50 We'll get to that.
15:51 Star Trek Into Darkness is an easy target for fan ire because it re-appropriates plot
15:55 elements from the universally beloved Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan.
15:59 By including these elements, the filmmakers practically begged us to hold the two films
16:03 up against one another, and there was simply no way for Into Darkness to come off looking
16:07 great.
16:08 But Star Trek Into Darkness is less a rehash of Star Trek II than it is a Star Trek-themed
16:12 retelling of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
16:16 It's even right there in the title - Heart of Darkness, Star Trek Into Darkness.
16:20 See?
16:21 Like Heart of Darkness, Star Trek Into Darkness tells the story of a quest into hostile territory
16:26 to capture a comrade gone mad with power.
16:28 In the journey upriver, or into Klingon space, our protagonists wrestle with the moral ambiguity
16:33 of their missions.
16:34 For Star Trek Into Darkness, this means presenting newly-minted Captain Kirk with existential
16:38 and moral dilemmas that serve to develop his character from the brash youngster of Star
16:42 Trek into the more reasoned and nuanced man he would become in Star Trek Beyond.
16:47 Star Trek Into Darkness is necessary character development for Kirk, and it also depicts
16:51 the maturation of the young captain's relationship with Spock, from friendly rivalry to genuine
16:56 respect.
16:57 The problem is, these developments and even the emotional death scene near the climax
17:01 are overshadowed by the big reveal that John Harrison is really calm.
17:05 This reveal takes place at the end of Act II and hangs over the events of Act III, which
17:09 itself devolves into a repetitive fistfight rather than exploiting all the character development
17:14 that occurred in the movie's first two-thirds.
17:16 The Khan reveal sucks not because it transforms Star Trek Into Darkness into a pale imitation
17:21 of The Wrath of Khan, it sucks because it robs Into Darkness of its own identity and
17:25 character development.
17:26 Eight years later, it's still one of Star Trek's greatest unforgivable decisions.
17:30 2.
17:31 Back in less than 60 seconds
17:33 We touched on this concept a bit in our original video, but it's worth repeating here.
17:37 Voyager spent way too much time on Earth for a show ostensibly about the struggle and yearning
17:42 to get to, you know, Earth.
17:44 But when it finally came time to get the crew home in Star Trek Voyager's series finale,
17:49 Endgame, the writers opted to do it almost entirely off-screen.
17:53 Just a quick recap, Star Trek Voyager was about the epic journey of the USS Voyager
17:57 to get home to Earth after being whisked halfway across the galaxy by Banjo-Man, aka The Caretaker.
18:03 This journey across space included battles with the Kazon, the Hiroshin, and of course
18:07 the Borg, but also included numerous brief trips to alternate versions of Earth, or past
18:12 versions of Earth, or duplicated versions of Earth.
18:16 According to Deep Space Nine writer Ronald D. Moore, one of Star Trek Voyager's biggest
18:19 problems was that the ship spent way too much time hanging around some version of Earth
18:23 as though it wasn't trapped in the distant Delta Quadrant.
18:26 He stated, "There have been more episodes that have taken place on Earth or alternate
18:30 Earth or past Earth than I think the original series did in its whole run, and the original
18:34 series was set over in the Alpha Quadrant.
18:36 Voyager is on the other side of the galaxy, and they have already run into some alien
18:40 race recreating Starfleet Academy.
18:42 They've run into Ferengi, the Romulans, it doesn't feel like they are that far away from
18:46 home."
18:47 Moore wasn't wrong, and it's possible the producers knew this going into Endgame, opting
18:51 instead to subvert expectations by opening the episode with the crew already home, but
18:56 again only in an alternate version of Earth.
18:58 After much hardship and action and adventure, Endgame does in fact end with the crew arriving
19:02 at Earth.
19:03 Roll credits.
19:04 No tearful arrivals, no heartfelt reunion of Tom Paris with his estranged father, Admiral
19:09 Paris, no Harry Kim finally treating his parents to a clarinet solo, no Captain Janeway running
19:13 through a picturesque Indiana field alongside her Irish setter Molly, nothing.
19:18 Just before the climax of Endgame, Harry Kim gives an impassioned speech ostensibly telling
19:22 us it's the journey, not the destination, that matters.
19:25 But in Star Trek Voyager's case, the destination definitely matters.
19:28 The show robbed itself of its greatest chance for emotion and drama and catharsis by fading
19:33 to black before its beleaguered crew could finally set foot on Terra Firma.
19:37 1.
19:38 Taking 50 Damn Years
19:40 Whether or not Star Trek represents a truly progressive vision of the future is open to
19:44 debate, and all the times the franchise was, hopefully accidentally, regressive could fill
19:48 a list unto itself.
19:50 To expect a product of pop culture created in the entertainment industry in the 20th
19:54 and 21st centuries to realistically represent the future and every possible form of human
19:58 being therein is unreasonable.
20:00 However, the pals behind Star Trek in the 90s and early 2000s deliberately avoided depicting
20:06 LGBTQIA+ characters, except in the rare instance that a sci-fi story was used to indirectly
20:12 address the existence of an enormous group of very real people.
20:16 Numerous examples of the producers' willful omission of LGBTQIA+ characters and topics
20:21 have been well-documented, dating back as far as David Gerrold's fight for a homosexual
20:25 couple aboard the Enterprise-D in Star Trek The Next Generation's first season, up to
20:30 Kate Mulgrew's losing cause to have a gay character appear on Star Trek Voyager.
20:34 And let's not even talk about the missed opportunity for representation on Enterprise.
20:38 Thankfully, with the very minor inclusion of Hikaru Sulu's husband and daughter in Star
20:42 Trek Beyond, a movie released 50 years after the original series premiered, the franchise
20:47 is finally coming around.
20:48 And with continued depictions of gay and non-binary Starfleet crew members in Star Trek Discovery,
20:53 Star Trek Picard, and Star Trek Lower Decks, the future looks bright for true representation
20:58 in the Star Trek universe.
20:59 It took 50 years and may take some time for everyone, everyone to look at Star Trek and
21:04 see themselves, but even with a few unforced errors, Star Trek really does seem like it's
21:08 trying to forge a path forward.
21:10 According to Wilson "Dr. Culber" Cruz, "The universe in which we live in on the show is
21:14 a place where everyone is willing and capable of loving anyone."
21:18 And that concludes our list.
21:20 If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below and also
21:23 check out our previously mentioned video too.
21:25 Also, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell, and head over
21:29 to Twitter and follow us there @TrekCulture.
21:31 I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
21:34 I've been Ellie with Trek Culture, I hope you have a wonderful day, and remember to
21:38 boldly go where no one has gone before.