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Star Trek: 10 More Behind The Scenes Decisions We Can't Forgive
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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 writers 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
01:13this
01:13video, Star Trek Fleet Command. They have made an expansion that means I am now out of uniform.
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01:43you can play aboard the USS Cerritos by using either Boimler, or Mariner, or even Bajie.
01:51He makes me afraid and I like that. So Star Trek Fleet Command, thank you so much for sponsoring this
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02:01You're awesome, live long and prosper.
02:10Number 10, Trimming Nemesis. It's been almost 20 years and we're still asking ourselves what happened
02:16with Star Trek Nemesis. You've heard it all before, why is there a Doom Buggy aboard the
02:21Enterprise? Why is Captain Picard suddenly a Doom Buggy aficionado? How did the crew just happen to
02:26bring their Doom Buggy down to a planet that was populated by aliens who also drive Doom Buggies?
02:30The 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
03:27and Worf adopting Spot, a scene showing Dr. Crusher's departure from the Enterprise,
03:32and an alternate ending featuring the ship's new XO. Nothing earth-shattering there, but Nemesis was
03:37specifically billed as a generation's final journey, as in the last time we'd see these
03:42characters on the big screen. It was a strange choice then to omit much of the character development
03:46and almost all of the actual farewells from that final journey. There are a few tender moments still
03:52left in the final cut of Star Trek Nemesis. Picard and Riker's goodbye feels particularly poignant,
03:57but Data's death and subsequent wake are abrupt and characters systematically disappear from the
04:01film as the story clumsily wraps itself up. It's like Pewitt, Baird, and Berman cut the heart out of
04:07Star Trek Nemesis with those 50 minutes. They remove the chemistry of the next generation cast playing
04:11off one another, and left only repetitive action and a boilerplate revenge story. Star Trek Nemesis was
04:17only ever a mediocre, if not outright bad, film. But if the producers had managed to retain the
04:22character connections and ultimate goodbyes, then maybe Nemesis would have at least been able to
04:26succeed at 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, Troy,
04:57and the rest of the crew were real people who wouldn't be doing the same thing they did 35 years
05:01ago,
05:02no matter how iconic they might have been. Unfortunately, despite opening the Star Trek universe to
05:07different types of stories, Star Trek Picard's first season was still produced in the CBS
05:12All Access era of higher and higher stakes. So while the show was advertised as a character study
05:17of an aged John Luke Picard, the producers were obliged to give us an extinction-level threat
05:21and end the season with a CGI-cluttered bang. Worse, the realism of the show itself was undercut
05:27by linking nearly every character to the overarching storyline revolving around the Romulan plot to
05:33get synthetic lifeforms banned in the Federation. Somehow, in the stretch of just a few episodes,
05:38John Luke just happened to run into Dr. Agnes Jurati, whose lover, Bruce Maddox, was at the
05:43centre of the conspiracy. It also turns out that John Luke's former First Officer, Raffi,
05:47was a synth-ban truther whose life was destroyed by her quest for answers. Raffi herself directed Picard
05:53to a pilot, Chris Rios, who, it turns out, had a chance encounter with synths that ended in the
05:57suicide of his father figure. Oh, and Riker and Troy's young son, Thad, died because the synth-ban
06:03also prevented the use of a positronic matrix to cure life-threatening medical conditions.
06:08The reason the writers connected the main characters of Star Trek Picard to the ongoing
06:12storyline 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,
06:21and while the show's new perspective widened the world of Star Trek, these coincidences served to
06:25condense the universe, making everyone's life revolve around plot more than character,
06:29a weird thing for a show advertised as a character study.
06:328. Unshared Universe Speaking of Star Trek Picard,
06:36it's not a secret the show went through some growing pains in its first season. In a recent
06:41interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Akiva Goldsman revealed that he regretted not
06:45planning out the arc of season one before production began, stating,
06:49"...if you're going to do a serialised show, you have to have the whole story before you start
06:53shooting. It's more like a movie in that way. You better know the end of your third act before you
06:58start filming your first scene." Star Trek Picard famously underwent additional photography to
07:02expand the pilot into three instalments and to insert story beats into already produced episodes.
07:08Among the late additions were the numerous flashback sequences to immediately after the
07:12destruction 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,
08:34praised for being the first big-budget instalment to actually feel like an episode of the original
08:39series, while also removing some of the trappings of Star Trek to focus on character. According to
08:44director Justin Lin in order to explore the crew of the Enterprise, they had to be separated from
08:49the Enterprise. And what better way to do that than destroy the ship in spectacular big summer movie
08:54fashion? The death of the Enterprise in Star Trek Beyond is grand and operatic. The ship is
08:59systematically and brutally disassembled by Kral's forces, a symbolic deconstruction of Star Trek,
09:04scored by a dramatic choral rendition of Michael Giacchino's earworm of a main theme.
09:10It's stirring and emotional. Or at least it would be if damn near the same thing hadn't already
09:15happened in Star Trek Into Darkness, right down to the choral version of Giacchino's theme.
09:20It's unfortunate the destruction of the Enterprise doesn't have more impact in Star Trek Beyond.
09:25It's a perfectly executed sequence by the director, the cast,
09:28visual effects house double negative, and the aforementioned Michael Giacchino.
09:32The scene, however, was badly undercut by its prominence in the marketing for the film,
09:36and by the fact that the Enterprise is nearly destroyed in every single movie in the Kelvin
09:40Timeline trilogy. Directors JJ Abrams and Justin Lim both raised the stakes of their films by
09:45clobbering the Enterprise. In the 2009 movie Star Trek, the ship was nearly destroyed by the Narada,
09:52forcing the young cadets to take on roles that would lead to their iconic positions in the original
09:56series. In Star Trek Into Darkness, Kirk must sacrifice himself in order to save his ship as it
10:01plummets to Earth. And as stated in Beyond, the death of the Enterprise separates the crew,
10:06but ultimately pushes them together. In isolation, each of these instances works. Each sequence in
10:11which the Enterprise is pummeled is exciting and well-staged, and it's an understandable trick to
10:16get the audience invested. But it's also a trick that only works once, and the Kelvin Timeline did it
10:21three times, making the flashy new Enterprise look a bit like a clunker, and robbing the final chapter
10:26of some much-needed emotional weight.
10:286. Supersizing Discovery
10:31Star Trek Discovery's third season finale, That Hope Is You Part II, 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 was
10:47full of big action, big emotion, and big turboshafts. Due to either a weird call by the production designers,
10:53or by visual effects house Pixamondo, the inside of Discovery in That Hope Is You Part II is depicted as
10:59being 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
11:29Turbolift Funhouse threw many viewers out of the episode, especially those of us who write about
11:34starships for a living, making them wonder where exactly this open expanse is located within the
11:39generally slender starship. This isn't the first time starship interiors have been fudged for the
11:44sake of drama. The turboshaft escape sequence in Star Trek V The Final Frontier notoriously depicted the
11:49Enterprise A as being an unfathomable 78 decks tall, and J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot film famously
11:57inflated the size of the Enterprise for dramatic effect. But either this visual effects error or
12:02misguided attempt to increase the stakes by increasing Discovery's size is an extreme example,
12:07straining Star Trek Discovery's already strained relationship with 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 artifice
12:25of shows made for traditional broadcast television. Generally consisting of the standard four or five
12:30acts, each episode of Discovery and Picard more or less fit into an hour, like all previous live
12:35action Trek series. The problem here is simply that Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard aren't on
12:40traditional TV, and the streaming model offers a freedom which modern Star Trek has mostly passed
12:45up. With contemporaries like Disney Plus' The Mandalorian and even Hulu's upcoming third season
12:50of The Orville dumping the standard television runtime in favour of expanded episode lengths as
12:55warranted by the story, there's really no reason why new Star Trek shows keep adhering to the hour-long
13:00episode format. This is particularly true when important material gets cut for time. Remember Narek and
13:06the XBs in Star Trek Picard? Their fates are all in deleted scenes that were cut for time. Want to
13:11know
13:11the backstories of Discovery's secondary crew members? There's no time for that! There are turbo lifts to race!
13:16It's clear the producers are genuinely interested in these show's side characters, as evidenced by the
13:21good faith effort to give Detmer, Owoh, Bryce and Rhys something to do in at least two episodes of
13:27Star Trek Discovery's third season. But did you even know all their names? Add around 8 million dollars per
13:32episode for Star Trek Discovery and 9 million dollars for Star Trek Picard, making these shows longer is
13:37obviously not an inexpensive ask. But with thinly drawn secondary characters and often even thinner
13:42sci-fi plots, modern Star Trek would benefit from expanded runtimes and more breathing room.
13:47Number four, Axing Dax. No one is arguing that Esri Dax isn't an interesting character who added a new
13:54flavour and new chemistry to Star Trek Deep Space Nine's final year, but we can probably all agree that
13:59Terry Farrell's Jadzia was the definitive Dax, and that Jadzia Dax should not have been killed off.
14:05Unceremoniously blasted with par wraith fire by a possessed gold Dukat in the season 6 finale Tears
14:10of the Prophets, Jadzia's death really comes out of nowhere, a show of strength by a villain who isn't
14:15even in his right mind when he does it. Dax doesn't die in the line of duty, on the Bridge
14:19of 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, He had another producer come up to me and say,
14:54If you weren't here, you know you'd be working at Kmart. It was that kind of thing. Rick Berman said
14:58I was hardballing him, and I was like, I'm not, I just want to have a conversation. You're giving me
15:03a take it or leave it offer, and I'm not okay with that. So I finally did have a conversation
15:06with him,
15:07and asked to cut down my number of episodes, or just let me out. Ultimately, the producers opted to
15:12kill Jadzia off, rather than accept using Farrell on a part-time basis. While Jadzia's death weighed
15:17heavily on the characters in the subsequent final season, the producers not so subtly avoided using
15:22footage of Farrell as Dax during the feel-good montage during the series finale. A clear indication
15:28of the bad blood left by the departure, and yet another disservice to a character fans fell in
15:33love with in the previous six seasons. 3. My name is Conrad
15:37This is the lowest hanging fruit possible for a video about Star Trek blunders, but here's a John
15:43Harrison is Khan-level twist. Star Trek Into Darkness is good, actually. That is, until the
15:48whole Khan thing happens. We'll get to that. Star Trek Into Darkness is an easy target for fan ire,
15:54because it re-appropriates plot elements from the universally beloved Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan.
15:59By including these elements, the filmmakers practically begged us to hold the two films
16:03up against one another, and there was simply no way for Into Darkness to come off looking great.
16:07But Star Trek Into Darkness is less a rehash of Star Trek II,
16:11than 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 serve to
16:40develop his character from the brash youngster of Star Trek into the more reasoned and nuanced
16:44man he would become in Star Trek Beyond. Star Trek Into Darkness is necessary character development
16:50for Kirk, and it also depicts the maturation of the young Captain's relationship with Spock,
16:54from friendly rivalry to genuine respect. The problem is, these developments and even the emotional
16:59death scene near the climax are overshadowed by the big reveal that John Harrison is really calm.
17:04This reveal takes place at the end of Act Two, and hangs over the events of Act Three,
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 Khan reveal sucks not because it transforms
17:18Star Trek Into Darkness into a pale imitation of The Wrath of Khan, it sucks because it robs
17:23Into Darkness of its own identity and character development. Eight years later,
17:27it's still one of Star Trek's greatest unforgivable decisions.
17:302. Back in less than 60 seconds We touched on this concept a bit in our original video,
17:36but it's worth repeating here. Voyager spent way too much time on Earth for a show ostensibly
17:40about the struggle and yearning to get to, you know, Earth. But when it finally came time to get
17:46the crew home in Star Trek Voyager's series finale, Endgame, the writers opted to do it almost
17:51entirely 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
18:07course the Borg, but also included numerous brief trips to alternate versions of Earth,
18:12or past versions of Earth, or duplicated versions of Earth. According to Deep Space Nine writer
18:17Ronald Dean Moore, one of Star Trek Voyager's biggest problems was that the ship spent way too much
18:21time hanging around some version of Earth, as though it wasn't trapped in the distant Delta
18:25Quadrant. He stated,
18:27There have been more episodes that have taken place on Earth, or alternate Earth, or past Earth,
18:31than I think the original series did in its whole run, and the original series was set over in the
18:35Alpha Quadrant. Voyager is on the other side of the galaxy, and they have already run into some alien
18:40race recreating Starfleet Academy. They've run into Ferengi, the Romulans, it doesn't feel like they are
18:45that far 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,
19:00Endgame does in fact end with the crew arriving at Earth. Roll credits. No tearful arrivals,
19:05no heartfelt reunion of Tom Paris with his estranged father, Admiral Paris, no Harry Kim finally
19:10treating his parents to a clarinet solo, no Captain Janeway running through a picturesque Indiana field
19:15alongside her Irish setter, Molly. Nothing. Just before the climax of Endgame, Harry Kim gives an
19:20impassioned speech ostensibly telling us it's the journey, not the destination, that matters.
19:25But in Star Trek Voyager's case, the destination definitely matters. The show robbed itself of
19:29its greatest chance for emotion and drama and catharsis by fading to black before its beleaguered
19:34crew could finally set foot on Terra Firma. Number 1. Taking 50 damn years
19:39Whether or not Star Trek represents a truly progressive vision of the future is open to debate,
19:44and all the times the franchise was hopefully accidentally regressive could fill a list unto
19:49itself. To expect a product of pop culture created in the entertainment industry in the 20th and 21st
19:54centuries to realistically represent the future and every possible form of human being therein
19:59is unreasonable. However, the powers behind Star Trek in the 90s and early 2000s deliberately avoided
20:05depicting LGBTQIA plus characters, except in the rare instance that a sci-fi story was used to
20:11indirectly address the existence of an enormous group of very real people. Numerous examples of
20:16the producers' willful omission of LGBTQIA plus characters and topics have been well documented,
20:22dating back as far as David Gerrold's fight for a homosexual couple aboard the Enterprise D
20:27in Star Trek The Next Generation's first season, up to Kate Mulgrew's losing cause to have a gay
20:32character appear on Star Trek Voyager. And let's not even talk about the missed opportunity for
20:36representation on Enterprise. Thankfully, with the very minor inclusion of Hikaru
20:40Sulu's husband and daughter in Star Trek Beyond, a movie released 50 years after the original series
20:46premiered, the franchise is finally coming around. And with continued depictions of gay and non-binary
20:51Starfleet crew members in Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Picard, and Star Trek Lower Decks, the future
20:56looks bright for true representation in the Star Trek universe. It took 50 years and may take some time
21:01for everyone, EVERYONE 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 Twitter and
21:30follow us there at TrekCulture. I can be found across various social medias just by searching
21:33Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with TrekCulture. I hope you have a wonderful day and remember
21:38to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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