- 20 hours ago
Star Trek: 10 More Behind The Scenes Decisions We Can't Forgive
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello my friends, Sean Ferrick here for Trek Culture, and today's video is brought to you by
00:04Star Trek Fleet Command. Hooray! More on that now in a second.
00:07With Star Trek Prodigy and Star Trek Strange New Worlds joining Star Trek's Discovery, Picard,
00:13Lower Decks and Short Treks in the streaming realm, the Star Trek franchise definitely seems
00:17like it's feeling itself lately. Despite that current success though, the Star Trek universe
00:21has had a dramatic history of ups and downs, particularly when it comes to decisions made
00:26by the producers, studios and powers that be that have occasionally been questionable.
00:31From kneecapping the Kelvin timeline movies before they could become box office gold,
00:35to the baffling decisions made in the Star Trek Voyager writer's room, choices have definitely
00:40been made. In fact, we have covered 10 of these choices before, so be sure to check that video
00:45out too. Things are looking up in the 23rd, 24th and 32nd centuries, but there's always going to be
00:51something. So let's get back into it and talk about Star Trek's nemesis for the millionth time,
00:56rehash our feelings about the way Jadzia went out, and trash talk a few recent decisions the
01:01producers have made. You know, like fans do. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek
01:05Culture here with 10 more behind the scenes decisions we can't forgive.
01:10Hello my friends, I want to take a second to say a really big thank you to our sponsors for this
01:13video, Star Trek Fleet Command. They have made an expansion that means I am now out of uniform.
01:21Star Trek Fleet Command is of course a free-to-play game that you can use to build your own ships,
01:29you can build your own fleets, you can build your own crew using playable legacy characters like
01:35Jean-Luc Picard, like Worf, like Spock, and also, clues in the uniform, thanks to the new expansion,
01:43you can play aboard the USS Cerritos by using either Boimler, or Mariner, or even Badgie.
01:51It makes me afraid and I like that. So Star Trek Fleet Command, thank you so much for sponsoring this
01:57video. Wonderful free-to-play game, available via the link in the description to this video.
02:02You're awesome. Live long and prosper.
02:04Number 10. Trimming Nemesis. It's been almost 20 years and we're still asking ourselves what
02:16happened with Star Trek Nemesis. You've heard it all before, why is there a dune buggy aboard
02:20the Enterprise? Why is Captain Picard suddenly a dune buggy aficionado? How did the crew just
02:25happen to bring their dune buggy down to a planet that was populated by aliens who also drive dune
02:30buggies? The list goes on, so here's a new take on Star Trek Nemesis. We needed more.
02:35Soon after the release of Nemesis in December of 2002, producer Rick Berman stated in several
02:40interviews that almost an hour of footage was trimmed from the final cut, calling the editing
02:45process really painful. Despite being known primarily as a film editor, director Stuart Baird,
02:51who has been blamed for many of Nemesis' shortcomings, handed editorial duties off to Dallas
02:56Pewitt, who had the unenviable task of keeping the film under two hours in length. Since Nemesis
03:02was the franchise's first stab at a CGI-heavy action flick to rival the other big-budget franchises
03:07of the early 2000s, it makes sense Pewitt favoured noisy spectacle and left the quieter character-based
03:13moments on the cutting room floor. Deleted material includes a brief moment to catch up with
03:18now-lieutenant Wesley Crusher, a sweet scene of Data and Picard enjoying a glass of Chateau Picard,
03:23a dinner scene in Ten Forward, a couple of moments showing Geordi mourning Data's death and Worf
03:28adopting Spot, a scene showing Dr. Crusher's departure from the Enterprise, and an alternate
03:32ending featuring the ship's new XO. Nothing earth-shattering there, but Nemesis was specifically
03:38billed as a generation's final journey, as in the last time we'd see these characters on the big screen.
03:43It was a strange choice then to omit much of the character development and almost all of the actual
03:48farewells from that final journey. There are a few tender moments still left in the final cut,
03:53of Star Trek Nemesis. Picard and Riker's goodbye feels particularly poignant, but Data's death
03:58and subsequent wake are abrupt, and characters systematically disappear from the film as the
04:02story clumsily wraps itself up. It's like Pewitt, Baird, and Berman cut the heart out of Star Trek
04:07Nemesis with those 50 minutes. They remove the chemistry of the Next Generation cast playing off
04:12one another, and left only repetitive action and a boilerplate revenge story. Star Trek Nemesis was only
04:17ever a mediocre, if not outright bad, film. But if the producers had managed to retain the character
04:22connections and ultimate goodbyes, then maybe Nemesis would have at least been able to succeed
04:27at being that final journey it was billed as, if nothing else.
04:31Number 9. Synth Sense
04:32You have to commend Star Trek Picard for trying, and mostly succeeding, at doing something different.
04:38By telling the story of a retired John Luke Picard and a motley crew of civilian characters aboard a
04:42civilian ship, Star Trek Picard opened the Star Trek universe to a new, ground-level perspective.
04:48While a lot of us might have hoped for a Star Trek The Next Generation revival, the producers opted to
04:52take the more realistic and ultimately more satisfying path, telling us Picard, Riker, Troi, and the rest of
04:58the crew were real people who wouldn't be doing the same thing they did 35 years ago, no matter how
05:03iconic they might have been. Unfortunately, despite opening the Star Trek universe to different types of
05:08stories, Star Trek Picard's first season was still produced in the CBS All Access era of higher and
05:14higher stakes. So while the show was advertised as a character study of an aged John Luke Picard,
05:19the producers were obliged to give us an extinction-level threat and end the season with a CGI-cluttered
05:24bang. Worse, the realism of the show itself was undercut by linking nearly every character to the
05:30overarching storyline revolving around the Romulan plot to get synthetic lifeforms banned in the
05:35Federation. Somehow, in the stretch of just a few episodes, John Luke just happened to run into
05:39Dr. Agnes Jurati, whose lover, Bruce Maddox, was at the centre of the conspiracy. It also turns out
05:45that John Luke's former First Officer, Raffi, was a synth-ban truther whose life was destroyed by her
05:50quest for answers. Raffi herself directed Picard to a pilot, Chris Rios, who, it turns out, had a chance
05:56encounter with synths that ended in the suicide of his father figure. Oh, and Riker and Troi's young son,
06:01Thad died because the synth-ban also prevented the use of a positronic matrix to cure life-threatening
06:07medical conditions. The reason the writers connected the main characters of Star Trek Picard to the
06:12ongoing storyline is clear. If there's a personal connection to the plot, it makes it matter.
06:16Unfortunately, these connections rested on coincidence and flimsy plot contrivances. And while
06:21the show's new perspective widened the world of Star Trek, these coincidences served to condense the
06:26universe, making everyone's life revolve around plot more than character. A weird thing for a show
06:30advertised as a character study. Number 8. Unshared Universe
06:34Speaking of Star Trek Picard, it's not a secret the show went through some growing pains in its
06:39first season. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Akiva Goldsman revealed
06:44that he regretted not planning out the arc of season one before production began, stating,
06:49If you're going to do a serialized show, you have to have the whole story before you start shooting.
06:54It's more like a movie in that way. You better know the end of your third act before you start
06:58filming your first scene. Star Trek Picard famously underwent additional photography to expand the
07:03pilot into three installments and to insert story beats into already produced episodes.
07:08Among the late additions were the numerous flashback sequences to Immediately After the
07:13Destruction of Mars and the grisly apocalyptic visions of The Admonition. Seen in the episodes
07:18Broken Pieces and A in Arcadia Ego Part 1, The Admonition featured images of war and planetary
07:24destruction with several pieces of footage pulled directly from Star Trek Discovery's second season,
07:29itself centering on the impending robo-apocalypse. The inclusion of reused footage immediately raised
07:35questions. Was Star Trek Picard linking its story of synths to Star Trek Discovery's similar second
07:40season plotline? The idea made sense and was bolstered by the appearance of squid-like robots in
07:45Star Trek Picard's finale after similar creatures appeared in the Discovery episode Light and Shadow.
07:50No stranger to crossover events like the Marquee storyline, which spans Star Trek The Next
07:54Generation Season 7 and Star Trek Deep Space Nine Season 2 in order to set up Star Trek Voyager,
08:00the Star Trek universe is among the few franchises with built-in shared storytelling potential.
08:05And in today's media environment, in which shared universes are highly sought after,
08:09it would be surprising if Star Trek didn't take advantage of its own internal connections.
08:14Ultimately, though, that's exactly what happened, and the crossover between Picard and Discovery never
08:18materialised. Any similarities between the two consecutive seasons' storylines chalked up to
08:23coincidence. Oh, and that reused footage? Well, Star Trek's no stranger to reusing footage either.
08:28Number 7. Whoopin' The Enterprise
08:30Star Trek Beyond is widely considered one of the best movies in the franchise, praised for being the
08:35first big-budget instalment to actually feel like an episode of the original series, while also removing
08:40some of the trappings of Star Trek to focus on character. According to director Justin Lin, in order to
08:45explore the crew of the Enterprise, they had to be separated from the Enterprise. And what better way
08:50to do that than destroy the ship in spectacular big summer movie fashion? The death of the Enterprise
08:56in Star Trek Beyond is grand and operatic. The ship is systematically and brutally disassembled by
09:01Kral's forces, a symbolic deconstruction of Star Trek, scored by a dramatic choral rendition of Michael
09:07Giacchino's earworm of a main theme. It's stirring and emotional. Or at least it would be if damn near the
09:14same thing hadn't already happened in Star Trek Into Darkness, right down to the choral version of
09:19Giacchino's theme. It's unfortunate the destruction of the Enterprise doesn't have more impact in Star
09:24Trek Beyond. It's a perfectly executed sequence by the director, the cast, visual effects house double
09:29negative, and the aforementioned Michael Giacchino. The scene, however, was badly undercut by its
09:34prominence in the marketing for the film, and by the fact that the Enterprise is nearly destroyed in
09:39every single movie in the Kelvin Timeline trilogy. Directors J.J. Abrams and Justin Lim both raised the
09:44stakes of their films by clobbering the Enterprise. In the 2009 movie Star Trek, the ship was nearly
09:50destroyed by the Narada, forcing the young cadets to take on roles that would lead to their iconic
09:55positions in the original series. In Star Trek Into Darkness, Kirk must sacrifice himself in order
10:00to save his ship as it plummets to Earth. And as stated in Beyond, the death of the Enterprise
10:05separates the crew but ultimately pushes them together. In isolation, each of these instances
10:09works. Each sequence in which the Enterprise is pummeled is exciting and well-staged, and it's an
10:14understandable trick to get the audience invested. But it's also a trick that only works once, and the
10:19Kelvin Timeline did it three times, making the flashy new Enterprise look a bit like a clunker and
10:25robbing the final chapter of some much-needed emotional weight.
10:286. Supersizing Discovery
10:31Star Trek Discovery's third season finale, That Hope Is You Part 2, cleverly based its
10:36centrepiece action sequence around previously mundane Star Trek hardware, showing Michael and
10:41Book battling evil goons on turbolifts as they sped through Discovery's lower decks. The sequence
10:46was full of big action, big emotion, and big turboshafts. Due to either a weird call by the production
10:52designers or by visual effects house Pixamondo, the inside of Discovery in That Hope Is You Part 2 is
10:58depicted as being a massive open space, one that simply could not fit into the ship as we know her.
11:04It is possible the 32nd century retrofit Starfleet gave Discovery in the episode Scavengers equipped
11:10the ship with TARDIS-like, bigger-on-the-inside technology, which was actually a thing in the
11:14Star Trek Enterprise episode Future Tense. However, the more likely explanation is that the producers
11:19simply used dramatic license to amp up the scale, and thus the excitement of the sequence.
11:24Unfortunately, the scale was amped up a little too much, and Discovery's massive
11:29turbo-lift funhouse threw many viewers out of the episode, especially those of us who
11:33write about starships for a living, making them wonder where exactly this open expanse
11:38is located within the generally slender starship. This isn't the first time starship interiors
11:43have been fudged for the sake of drama. The turboshaft escape sequence in Star Trek V The Final Frontier
11:48notoriously depicted the Enterprise A as being an unfathomable 78 decks tall, and J.J. Abrams'
11:54in 2009 reboot film famously inflated the size of the Enterprise for dramatic effect.
12:00But either this visual effects error or misguided attempt to increase the stakes by increasing
12:05Discovery's size is an extreme example, straining Star Trek Discovery's already strained relationship
12:11with audience suspension of disbelief.
12:13Number 5 – Downsizing Discovery Despite being produced solely for streaming on CBS
12:18All Access, aka Paramount+, Star Trek Discovery and now Star Trek Picard maintain much of the
12:24artifice of shows made for traditional broadcast television. Generally consisting of the standard
12:29four or five acts, each episode of Discovery and Picard more or less fit into an hour, like all
12:35previous live-action Trek series. The problem here is simply that Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek
12:39Picard aren't on traditional TV, and the streaming model offers a freedom which modern Star Trek has
12:44mostly passed up. With contemporaries like Disney Plus's The Mandalorian and even Hulu's upcoming
12:49third season of The Orville dumping the standard television runtime in favour of expanded episode
12:55lengths as warranted by the story, there's really no reason why new Star Trek shows keep adhering to
13:00the hour-long episode format. This is particularly true when important material gets cut for time.
13:05Remember Narek and the XBs in Star Trek Picard? Their fates are all in deleted scenes that were cut
13:10for time. Want to know the backstories of Discovery's secondary crew members? There's no time for that!
13:14There are turbo lifts to race! It's clear the producers are genuinely interested in these show's
13:19side characters, as evidenced by the good faith effort to give Detmer, Owo, Bryce and Rhys something to
13:25do in at least two episodes of Star Trek Discovery's third season. But did you even know all their names?
13:30At around $8 million per episode for Star Trek Discovery and $9 million for Star Trek Picard,
13:35making these shows longer is obviously not an inexpensive ask. But with thinly drawn secondary
13:40characters and often even thinner sci-fi plots, modern Star Trek would benefit from expanded runtimes
13:46and more breathing room. 4. Axing Dax
13:49No one is arguing that Esri Dax isn't an interesting character who added a new flavour and new chemistry to
13:55Star Trek Deep Space Nine's final year. But we can probably all agree that Terry Farrell's Jadzia
14:00was the definitive Dax, and that Jadzia Dax should not have been killed off. Unceremoniously blasted
14:06with power wraith fire by a possessed Gold Dukat in the season 6 finale, Tears of the Prophets,
14:11Jadzia's death really comes out of nowhere. A show of strength by a villain who isn't even in his
14:16right mind when he does it. Dax doesn't die in the line of duty, on the bridge of the Defiant,
14:20or fighting alongside her beloved Worf in the battle to save the Alpha Quadrant. She was just in the wrong
14:25place at the wrong time, which also just happened to be church. It's unnecessarily abrupt, disconnected
14:30to the character's greater arc, and seemingly done out of malice by the show's producers,
14:35rather than out of a genuine drive to tell an interesting story. Years later, Terry Farrell
14:39herself said, I didn't want to kill Jadzia. To me, that had very little to do with good storytelling.
14:44According to Farrell, she was bullied by executive producer Rick Berman after she requested reduced
14:49screen time in season 7, stating,
14:51he had another producer come up to me and say, if you weren't here, you know you'd be working
14:55at Kmart. It was that kind of thing. Rick Berman said I was hardballing him, and I was like,
15:00I'm not, I just want to have a conversation. You're giving me a take it or leave it offer,
15:04and I'm not okay with that. So I finally did have a conversation with him and asked to cut down my
15:08number of episodes or just let me out. Ultimately, the producers opted to kill Jadzia off,
15:13rather than accept using Farrell on a part-time basis. While Jadzia's death weighed heavily on the
15:18characters in the subsequent final season, the producers not so subtly avoided using footage
15:23of Farrell as Dax during the feel-good montage during the series finale. A clear indication of
15:28the bad blood left by the departure, and yet another disservice to a character fans fell in
15:33love with in the previous six seasons. Number 3. My name is Conrad.
15:37This is the lowest hanging fruit possible for a video about Star Trek blunders,
15:42but here's a John Harrison is Kahn level twist. Star Trek Into Darkness is good,
15:47actually. That is, until the whole Kahn thing happens. We'll get to that.
15:50Star Trek Into Darkness is an easy target for fan ire, because it re-appropriates plot elements
15:56from the universally beloved Star Trek II The Wrath of Kahn. By including these elements,
16:00the filmmakers practically begged us to hold the two films up against one another, and there was simply
16:05no way for Into Darkness to come off looking great. But Star Trek Into Darkness is less a rehash of
16:10Star Trek II than it is a Star Trek-themed retelling of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
16:15It's even right there in the title. Heart of Darkness. Star Trek Into Darkness. See?
16:20Like Heart of Darkness, Star Trek Into Darkness tells the story of a quest into hostile territory
16:25to capture a comrade gone mad with power. In the journey upriver, or into Klingon space,
16:30our protagonists wrestle with the moral ambiguity of their missions. For Star Trek Into Darkness,
16:35this means presenting newly minted Captain Kirk with existential and moral dilemmas that
16:40served to develop his character from the brash youngster of Star Trek into the more reasoned
16:44and nuanced man he would become in Star Trek Beyond. Star Trek Into Darkness is necessary
16:49character development for Kirk, and it also depicts the maturation of the young Captain's relationship
16:53with Spock, from friendly rivalry to genuine respect. The problem is, these developments and even
16:59the emotional death scene near the climax are overshadowed by the big reveal that John Harrison is
17:04really Kahn. This reveal takes place at the end of Act 2 and hangs over the events of Act 3,
17:09which itself devolves into a repetitive fistfight rather than exploiting all the character development
17:14that occurred in the movie's first two thirds. The Kahn reveal sucks not because it transforms Star
17:19Trek Into Darkness into a pale imitation of The Wrath of Kahn. It sucks because it robs Into Darkness of
17:24its own identity and character development. Eight years later, it's still one of Star Trek's greatest,
17:29unforgivable decisions. Number two, back in less than 60 seconds. We touched on this concept a bit
17:34in our original video, but it's worth repeating here. Voyager spent way too much time on Earth for
17:39a show ostensibly about the struggle and yearning to get to, you know, Earth. But when it finally came
17:45time to get the crew home in Star Trek Voyager's series finale, Endgame, the writers opted to do it
17:51almost entirely off-screen. Just a quick recap, Star Trek Voyager was about the epic journey of the USS
17:56Voyager to get home to Earth after being whisked halfway across the galaxy by Banjo-Man, aka The
18:02Caretaker. This journey across space included battles with the Kazon, the Herosian, and of course the
18:07Borg, but also included numerous brief trips to alternate versions of Earth, or past versions of
18:13Earth, or duplicated versions of Earth. According to Deep Space Nine writer Ronald D. Moore, one of
18:18Star Trek Voyager's biggest problems was that the ship spent way too much time hanging around some
18:22version of Earth, as though it wasn't trapped in the distant Delta Quadrant. He stated,
18:26There have been more episodes that have taken place on Earth, or alternate Earth, or past Earth than I
18:31think the original series did in its whole run, and the original series was set over in the Alpha
18:35Quadrant. Voyager is on the other side of the galaxy, and they have already run into some alien race
18:40recreating Starfleet Academy. They've run into Ferengi, the Romulans, it doesn't feel like they are that
18:45far away from home. Moore wasn't wrong, and it's possible the producers knew this going into Endgame,
18:51opting instead to subvert expectations by opening the episode with the crew already home, but again
18:56only in an alternate version of Earth. After much hardship and action and adventure, Endgame does
19:01in fact end with the crew arriving at Earth. Roll credits. No tearful arrivals, no heartfelt reunion
19:06of Tom Paris with his estranged father, Admiral Paris, no Harry Kim finally treating his parents
19:11to a clarinet solo, no Captain Janeway running through a picturesque Indiana field alongside
19:15her Irish setter Molly. Nothing. Just before the climax of Endgame, Harry Kim gives an impassioned
19:20speech, ostensibly telling us it's the journey, not the destination, that matters. But in Star Trek
19:25Voyager's case, the destination definitely matters. The show robbed itself of its greatest chance for
19:30emotion and drama and catharsis by fading to black before its beleaguered crew could finally set foot
19:36on Terra Firma. Number 1. Taking 50 damn years. Whether or not Star Trek
19:41represents a truly progressive vision of the future is open to debate, and all the times the
19:45franchise was hopefully accidentally regressive could fill a list unto itself. To expect a product
19:50of pop culture created in the entertainment industry in the 20th and 21st centuries to
19:55realistically represent the future and every possible form of human being therein is unreasonable.
20:00However, the powers behind Star Trek in the 90s and early 2000s deliberately avoided depicting
20:06LGBTQIA plus characters, except in the rare instance that a sci-fi story was used to indirectly address
20:12the existence of an enormous group of very real people. Numerous examples of the producers' willful
20:17omission of LGBTQIA plus characters and topics have been well documented, dating back as far as
20:23David Gerald's fight for a homosexual couple aboard the Enterprise D in Star Trek The Next Generation's
20:29first season, up to Kate Mulgrew's losing cause to have a gay character appear on Star Trek Voyager.
20:34And let's not even talk about the missed opportunity for representation on Enterprise.
20:38Thankfully, with the very minor inclusion of Hikaru Sulu's husband and daughter in Star Trek Beyond,
20:43a movie released 50 years after the original series premiered, the franchise is finally coming around.
20:49And with continued depictions of gay and non-binary Starfleet crew members in Star Trek Discovery,
20:53Star Trek Picard, and Star Trek Lower Decks, the future looks bright for true representation
20:58in the Star Trek universe. It took 50 years and may take some time for everyone,
21:02everyone to look at Star Trek and see themselves, but even with a few unforced errors,
21:07Star Trek really does seem like it's trying to forge a path forward. According to Wilson
21:11Dr. Culber Cruise, the universe in which we live in on the show is a place where everyone is willing
21:16and capable of loving anyone. And that concludes our list. If you can think of any that we missed,
21:21then do let us know in the comments below, and also check out our previously mentioned video too.
21:25Also, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell, and head over to
21:29Twitter and follow us there at TrekCulture. I can be found across various social medias just
21:33by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with TrekCulture. I hope you have a wonderful day,
21:37and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Recommended
12:23
|
Up next
4:20
10:32
2:19
3:01
2:37
11:04
11:19
14:58
13:37
14:13
10:01
Be the first to comment