Data is thrown into conflict with Starfleet. If you want to get really abstract about it, you could argue that even conflict over the existence of conflict in Star Trek is a valuable debate, worth having.Īnd so The Measure of a Man introduces conflict. When Riker asks what he learned, Data replies, “That at times one must deny their nature, sacrifice their own personal beliefs to protect another.” In a way, The Measure of a Man argues that conflict is a necessary part of growth – both for the Federation as an institution, for Data as an individual, and for the show as a whole. In Roddenberry’s version of The Measure of a Man, Data would willingly offer himself to the state so they might experiment upon him with no real reflection on the implications of that decision, or what it actually says about Roddenberry’s futuristic paradise. It’s quite an extreme example of the way that Roddenberry’s philosophy was really hemming in The Next Generation, and really damaging the show. Roddenberry, if that’s the case, then we don’t have a script.” So I called Maurice, and I said, “I think there’s a problem in the view of this episode.” And he and Gene discussed it and that was when I was told, “Would you fly back and we can talk about it?” Whatever happened, happened above my pay grade, I don’t know – but suddenly there were lawyers in the 24th century! So I sat there very quiet for a few minutes, and I said, “Well, Mr. We have other means to get people’s heads right, to make them behave.” And he said, “Also, Data would be delighted to be dissected!” As he began to talk about my episode, one of the things he said to me was, “There are no lawyers in the 24th century, because we don’t need them. Yes, that’s actually why I was called back out to California after they initially bought the script. It was harder to find drama within the circle of characters.ĭid Gene specifically respond to the conflict in this episode? I mean there really were times when I missed Kirk punching the bad guy and kissing the girl and arguing with Spock and having a computer blow up because he gave it a logical conundrum it couldn’t solve. Maybe he was a little more concerned with that than telling a story. I think that some of that might be that for millions of people Star Trek has become a representation of an optimistic future, of a hopeful future, and I think that Gene was getting protective of his legacy at that point. I think that was actually a weakness of the show. So we had to generate conflict outside – they were always mediating peace between warring factions, rather than the war being within them. ![]() He’d created the show originally, and knew that the essence of drama is conflict -if you don’t have conflict, you don’t have drama. I was taken aback by it, because Gene was a writer. He said “my people are perfect they have no flaws” in one meeting. Part of that was due to Gene, he once told us that by the 24th century people were perfect. That was one of the great difficulties for me as a writer, and I think I speak for the other members of staff, that there was this frustration that we couldn’t have conflict among the crew, or it was very difficult to get it. In the commentary for the episode, Snodgrass explains to Michael Okuda that Roddenberry himself was one of the biggest problems in getting the episode to the screen:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |