Star Trek: 10 More Behind The Scenes Decisions We Can't Forgive
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00:00Hello my friends, Sean Federick here for Trek Culture and today's video is brought to you
00:03by Star 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,
00:12Picard, Lower Decks and Short Treks in the streaming realm, the Star Trek franchise definitely
00:17seems like it's feeling itself lately. Despite that current success though, the Star Trek
00:21universe has had a dramatic history of ups and downs, particularly when it comes to decisions
00:26made by the producers, studios and powers that be that have occasionally been...questionable.
00:32From kneecapping the Kelv in Timeline movies before they could become box office gold,
00:36to the baffling decisions made in the Star Trek Voyager writer's room, choices have definitely
00:40been made. In fact, we have covered ten of these choices before, so be sure to check
00:45that video out too.
00:46Things are looking up in the 23rd, 24th and 32nd centuries, but there's always going to
00:51be something. So let's get back into it and talk about Star Trek's nemesis for the millionth
00:56time, rehash our feelings about the way Jadzia went out and trash talk a few recent decisions
01:01the producers have made. Y'know, like fans do.
01:04So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture, here with ten more behind-the-scenes
01:08decisions we can't forgive.
01:10Hello my friends, I want to take a second to say a really big thank you to our sponsors
01:13for this video, Star Trek Fleet Command. They have made an expansion that means I am now
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01:42new expansion, you can play aboard the USS Cerritos by using either Boimler or Mariner
01:49or even Bajie. It makes me afraid and I like that.
01:54So Star Trek Fleet Command, thank you so much for sponsoring this video, wonderful free-to-play
01:59game, available via the link in the description to this video, you're awesome, live long
02:04and prosper.
02:07Number 10, Trimming Nemesis. It's been almost 20 years and we're still asking ourselves
02:16what happened with Star Trek Nemesis. You've heard it all before, why is there a doom buggy
02:20aboard the Enterprise, why is Captain Picard suddenly a doom buggy aficionado, how did
02:24the crew just happen to bring their doom buggy down to a planet that was populated by aliens
02:29who also drive doom buggies? The list goes on, so here's a new take on Star Trek Nemesis.
02:34We 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
02:45editing process really painful. Despite being known primarily as a film editor, director
02:50Stuart Baird, who has been blamed for many of Nemesis' shortcomings, handed editorial
02:55duties off to Dallas Puitt, who had the unenviable task of keeping the film under two hours in
03:00length.
03:01Since Nemesis was the franchise's first stab at a CGI-heavy action flick to rival the other
03:06big-budget franchises of the early 2000s, it makes sense Puitt favored noisy spectacle
03:11and left the quieter, character-based moments on the cutting room floor. Deleted material
03:16includes a brief moment to catch up with now-Lieutenant Wesley Crusher, a sweet scene of Data and
03:21Picard enjoying a glass of Chateau Picard, a dinner scene in Ten Forward, a couple of
03:25moments showing Geordi mourning Data's death and Worf adopting Spot, a scene showing Dr.
03:30Crusher's departure from the Enterprise, and an alternate ending featuring the ship's new
03:34XO.
03:35Nothing earth-shattering there, but Nemesis was specifically billed as a generation's
03:39final journey, as in the last time we'd see these characters on the big screen. It was
03:43a strange choice, then, to omit much of the character development and almost all of the
03:48actual farewells from that final journey.
03:50There are a few tender moments still left in the final cut of Star Trek Nemesis. Picard
03:54and Riker's goodbye feels particularly poignant, but Data's death and subsequent wake are abrupt
03:59and characters systematically disappear from the film as the story clumsily wraps itself
04:04up. It's like Puitt, Bird, and Berman cut the heart out of Star Trek Nemesis with those
04:0850 minutes. They removed the chemistry of the next-generation cast playing off one another
04:12and left only repetitive action and a boilerplate revenge story.
04:16Star Trek Nemesis was only ever a mediocre, if not outright bad, film, but if the producers
04:21had managed to retain the character connections and ultimate goodbyes, then maybe Nemesis
04:25would have at least been able to succeed at being that final journey it was billed as,
04:29if nothing else.
04:319. Synth Sense
04:33You have to commend Star Trek Picard for trying and mostly succeeding at doing something different.
04:38By telling the story of a retired Jean-Luc Picard and a motley crew of civilian characters
04:42aboard a civilian ship, Star Trek Picard opened the Star Trek universe to a new, ground-level
04:47perspective.
04:48While a lot of us might have hoped for a Star Trek The Next Generation revival, the producers
04:52opted to take the more realistic and ultimately more satisfying path, telling us Picard, Riker,
04:57Troi, and the rest of the crew were real people who wouldn't be doing the same thing they
05:00did 35 years ago, no matter how iconic they might have been.
05:04Unfortunately, despite opening the Star Trek universe to different types of stories, Star
05:09Trek Picard's first season was still produced in the CBS all-access era of higher and higher
05:14stakes.
05:15So while the show was advertised as a character study of an aged Jean-Luc Picard, the producers
05:19were obliged to give us an extinction-level threat and end the season with a CGI-cluttered
05:24bang.
05:25Worse, the realism of the show itself was undercut by linking nearly every character
05:29to the overarching storyline, revolving around the Romulan plot to get synthetic lifeforms
05:35banned in the Federation.
05:36Somehow, in the stretch of just a few episodes, Jean-Luc just happened to run into Dr. Agnes
05:40Jurati, whose lover, Bruce Maddox, was at the center of the conspiracy.
05:44It also turns out that Jean-Luc's former first officer, Raffi, was a synth-ban truther whose
05:49life was destroyed by her quest for answers.
05:51Raffi 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.
05:59Oh, and Riker and Troi's young son, Thad, died because the synth-ban also prevented
06:04the 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.
06:14If there's a personal connection to the plot, it makes it matter.
06:16Unfortunately, these connections rested on coincidence and flimsy plot contrivances.
06:20And while the show's new perspective widened the world of Star Trek, these coincidences
06:25served 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.
06:338.
06:34Unshared Universe
06:35Speaking of Star Trek Picard, it's not a secret the show went through some growing
06:39pains in its first season.
06:40In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Akiva Goldsman revealed that he regretted
06:45not 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
06:53start shooting.
06:54It's more like a movie in that way.
06:56You better know the end of your third act before you start filming your first scene.'"
06:59Star Trek Picard famously underwent additional photography to expand the pilot into three
07:04installments 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.
07:17Seen in the episodes Broken Pieces and A.I.N.
07:19Arcadia Ego Part 1, the admonition featured images of war and planetary destruction with
07:25several pieces of footage pulled directly from Star Trek Discovery's second season,
07:29itself centering on the impending robo-apocalypse.
07:33The inclusion of reused footage immediately raised questions.
07:36Was Star Trek Picard linking its story of Synths to Star Trek Discovery's similar second
07:40season plotline?
07:41The idea made sense and was bolstered by the appearance of squid-like robots in Star Trek
07:45Picard's finale after similar creatures appeared in the Discovery episode Light and Shadow.
07:50No stranger to crossover events like the Marquis storyline, which spammed Star Trek The Next
07:54Generation Season 7 and Star Trek Deep Space Nine Season 2 in order to set up Star Trek
07:59Voyager, the Star Trek universe is among the few franchises with built-in shared storytelling
08:04potential.
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
08:18never materialized.
08:19Any similarities between the two consecutive season's storylines chalked up to coincidence.
08:24Oh, and that reused footage?
08:25Well, Star Trek's no stranger to reusing footage either.
08:287.
08:29Whoopin' the Enterprise
08:31Star Trek Beyond is widely considered one of the best movies in the franchise, praised
08:34for being the first big-budget installment 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.
08:44According to director Justin Lin, in order to explore the crew of the Enterprise, they
08:47had to be separated from the Enterprise, and what better way to do that than destroy the
08:51ship in spectacular big-summer-movie fashion?
08:55The death of the Enterprise in Star Trek Beyond is grand and operatic.
08:58The ship is systematically and brutally disassembled by Kroll's forces, a symbolic deconstruction
09:04of Star Trek, scored by a dramatic, choral rendition of Michael Giacchino's earworm of
09:09a main theme.
09:10It's stirring and emotional, or at least it would be if damn near the same thing hadn't
09:15already happened in Star Trek Into Darkness, right down to the choral version of Giacchino's
09:19theme.
09:21It'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, Vigil Effects' House Double
09:29Negative, and the aforementioned Michael Giacchino.
09:32The scene, however, was badly undercut by its prominence in the marketing for the film,
09:37and by the fact that the Enterprise is nearly destroyed in every single movie in the Kelvin
09:40Timeline trilogy.
09:41Directors J.J.
09:42Abrams and Justin Lin both raised the stakes of their films by clobbering the Enterprise.
09:47In the 2009 movie Star Trek, the ship was nearly destroyed by the Narada, forcing the
09:52young cadets to take on roles that would lead to their iconic positions in the original
09:56series.
09:57In Star Trek Into Darkness, Kirk must sacrifice himself in order to save his ship as it plummets
10:01to Earth, and as stated in Beyond, the death of the Enterprise separates the crew but ultimately
10:06pushes them together.
10:07In isolation, each of these instances works.
10:10Each sequence in which the Enterprise is pummeled is exciting and well-staged, and it's an understandable
10:15trick to get the audience invested.
10:17But it's also a trick that only works once, and the Kelvin Timeline did it three times,
10:22making the flashy new Enterprise look a bit like a clunker and robbing the final chapter
10:26of some much-needed emotional weight.
10:286.
10:29Supersizing Discovery
10:31Star Trek Discovery's third season finale, That Hope Is You Part II, cleverly based its
10:36centerpiece action sequence around previously mundane Star Trek hardware, showing Michael
10:41and Book battling evil goons on turbolifts as they sped through Discovery's lower decks.
10:46The sequence was full of big action, big emotion, and big turboshafts.
10:51Due to either a weird call by the production designers or by visual effects house Piccimondo,
10:55the inside of Discovery in That Hope Is You Part II is depicted as being a massive open
11:00space, 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 equips
11:10the ship with TARDIS-like, bigger-on-the-inside technology, which was actually a thing in
11:14the Star Trek Enterprise episode Future Tense.
11:17However, the more likely explanation is that the producers simply used dramatic license
11:21to amp up the scale and thus the excitement of the sequence.
11:25Unfortunately, the scale was amped up a little too much, and Discovery's massive turbolift
11:29funhouse threw many viewers out of the episode, especially those of us who write about Starships
11:34for a living, making them wonder where exactly this open expanse is located within the generally
11:39slender Starship.
11:41This isn't the first time Starship interiors have been fudged for the sake of drama.
11:45The turboshaft escape sequence in Star Trek V The Final Frontier notoriously depicted
11:49the Enterprise A as being an unfathomable 78 decks tall, and J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot
11:56film 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.
12:08Straining Star Trek Discovery's already strained relationship with audience suspension of
12:12disbelief.
12:135.
12:14Downsizing Discovery Despite being produced solely for streaming
12:17on CBS All Access, aka Paramount+, Star Trek Discovery and now Star Trek Picard maintain
12:24much of the artifice of shows made for traditional broadcast television.
12:28Generally consisting of the standard four or five acts, each episode of Discovery and
12:32Picard more or less fit into an hour, like all previous live action Trek series.
12:37The problem here is simply that Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard aren't on traditional
12:41TV, and the streaming model offers a freedom which modern Star Trek has mostly passed up.
12:46With contemporaries like Disney+, The Mandalorian, and even Hulu's upcoming third season of The
12:50Orville dumping the standard television runtime in favor of expanded episode lengths as warranted
12:56by the story, there's really no reason why new Star Trek shows keep adhering to the hour-long
13:01episode format.
13:02This is particularly true when important material gets cut for time.
13:05Remember Narek and the XBs in Star Trek Picard?
13:08Their fates are all in deleted scenes that were cut for time.
13:10Want to know the backstories of Discovery's secondary crew members?
13:13There's no time for that, there are turbolifts to race.
13:16It's clear the producers are genuinely interested in these shows' side characters, as evidenced
13:21by the good faith effort to give Detmer, Owo, Bryce, and Reese something to do in at least
13:26two episodes of Star Trek Discovery's third season, but did you even know all their names?
13:30To add around $8 million per episode for Star Trek Discovery and $9 million for Star Trek
13:35Picard, making these shows longer is obviously not an inexpensive ask, but with thinly drawn
13:40secondary characters and often even thinner sci-fi plots, modern Star Trek would benefit
13:45from expanded runtimes and more breathing room.
13:484.
13:49Axing Dax
13:50No one is arguing that Ezri Dax isn't an interesting character who added a new flavor and new chemistry
13:55to Star Trek Deep Space Nine's final year, but we can probably all agree that Terry Farrell's
14:00Jadzia was the definitive Dax, and that Jadzia Dax should not have been killed off.
14:05Unceremoniously blasted with par-ray fire by a possessed Golducat in the Season 6 finale
14:10Tears of the Prophet, Jadzia's death really comes out of nowhere, a show of strength by
14:14a villain who isn't even in his right mind when he does it.
14:18Dax doesn't die in the line of duty, on the Bridge of the Defiant, or fighting alongside
14:21her beloved Worf in the battle to save the Alpha Quadrant.
14:24She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, which also just happened to be Church.
14:28It's unnecessarily abrupt, disconnected to the character's greater arc, and seemingly
14:33done out of malice by the show's producers rather than out of a genuine drive to tell
14:37an interesting story.
14:38Years later, Terry Farrell herself said,
14:40"...I didn't want to kill Jadzia.
14:42To 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,
14:51"...he had another producer come up to me and say, if you weren't here, you know you'd
14:55be working at Kmart.
14:56It was that kind of thing."
14:58Rick Berman said,
14:59"...I was hard-balling him, and I was like, I'm not, I just want to have a conversation.
15:02You're giving me a take-it-or-leave-it offer, and I'm not okay with that.
15:05So I finally did have a conversation with him and asked to cut down my number of episodes
15:09or just let me out."
15:10Ultimately, the producers opted to kill Jadzia off rather than accept using Farrell on a
15:14part-time basis.
15:16While Jadzia's death weighed heavily on the characters in the subsequent final season,
15:20the producers not-so-subtly avoided using footage of Farrell as Dax during the Feel
15:25Good montage during the series finale.
15:27A clear indication of the bad blood left by the departure, and yet another disservice
15:31to a character fans fell in love with in the previous six seasons.
15:353.
15:36My name is Conrad
15:38This is the lowest-hanging fruit possible for a video about Star Trek blunders, but
15:42here's a John Harrison is Khan-level twist.
15:45Star Trek Into Darkness is good, actually.
15:47That is, until the whole Khan thing happens.
15:50We'll get to that.
15:51Star Trek Into Darkness is an easy target for fan ire because it re-appropriates plot
15:55elements 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
16:07great.
16:08But Star Trek Into Darkness is less a rehash of Star Trek II than it is a Star Trek-themed
16:12retelling of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
16:16It's even right there in the title.
16:17Heart of Darkness.
16:19Star Trek.
16:20Into Darkness.
16:21See?
16:22Star Trek Into Darkness tells the story of a quest into hostile territory to capture
16:26a comrade gone mad with power.
16:28In the journey upriver, or into Klingon space, our protagonists wrestle with the moral ambiguity
16:33of their missions.
16:34For Star Trek Into Darkness, this means presenting newly-minted Captain Kirk with existential
16:38and moral dilemmas that serve to develop his character from the brash youngster of Star
16:43Trek into the more reasoned and nuanced man he would become in Star Trek Beyond.
16:47Star Trek Into Darkness is necessary character development for Kirk, and it also depicts
16:52the maturation of the young captain's relationship with Spock, from friendly rivalry to genuine
16:56respect.
16:57The problem is, these developments and even the emotional death scene near the climax
17:01are overshadowed by the big reveal that John Harrison is really calm.
17:05This reveal takes place at the end of Act 2, and hangs over the events of Act 3, which
17:09itself devolves into a repetitive fistfight rather than exploiting all the character development
17:14that occurred in the movie's first two-thirds.
17:16The calm reveal sucks not because it transforms Star Trek Into Darkness into a pale imitation
17:21of the Wrath of Khan, it sucks because it robs Into Darkness of its own identity and
17:25character development.
17:26Eight years later, it's still one of Star Trek's greatest unforgivable decisions.
17:302.
17:31Back in less than 60 seconds
17:33We touched on this concept a bit in our original video, but it's worth repeating here.
17:37Voyager spent way too much time on Earth for a show ostensibly about the struggle and yearning
17:42to get to, you know, Earth.
17:44But when it finally came time to get the crew home in Star Trek Voyager's series finale,
17:49the writers opted to do it almost entirely off-screen.
17:53Just a quick recap, Star Trek Voyager was about the epic journey of the USS Voyager
17:57to get home to Earth after being whisked halfway across the galaxy by Banjo-Man, aka The Caretaker.
18:03This journey across space included battles with the Kazon, the Hiroshin, and of course
18:07the Borg, but also included numerous brief trips to alternate versions of Earth, or past
18:12versions of Earth, or duplicated versions of Earth.
18:16According to Deep Space Nine writer Ronald D. Moore, one of Star Trek Voyager's biggest
18:19problems was that the ship spent way too much time hanging around some version of Earth
18:23as though it wasn't trapped in the distant Delta Quadrant.
18:26He stated,
18:27"...there have been more episodes that have taken place on Earth or alternate Earth or
18:30past Earth than I think the original series did in its whole run, and the original series
18:34was set over in the Alpha Quadrant."
18:36Voyager is on the other side of the galaxy, and they have already run into some alien
18:40race recreating Starfleet Academy.
18:42They've run into Ferengi, the Romulans.
18:44It doesn't feel like they are that far away from home.
18:47Moore wasn't wrong, and it's possible the producers knew this going into Endgame, opting
18:51instead to subvert expectations by opening the episode with the crew already home, but
18:56again only in an alternate version of Earth.
18:58After much hardship and action and adventure, Endgame does in fact end with the crew arriving
19:02at Earth.
19:03Roll credits.
19:04No tearful arrivals, no heartfelt reunion of Tom Paris with his estranged father, Admiral
19:09Paris, no Harry Kim finally treating his parents to a clarinet solo, no Captain Janeway running
19:14through a picturesque Indiana field alongside her Irish setter Molly, nothing.
19:18Just before the climax of Endgame, Harry Kim gives an impassioned speech ostensibly telling
19:22us it's the journey, not the destination, that matters.
19:25But in Star Trek Voyager's case, the destination definitely matters.
19:28The show robbed itself of its greatest chance for emotion and drama and catharsis by fading
19:33to black before its beleaguered crew could finally set foot on Terra Firma.
19:371.
19:38Taking 50 Damn Years
19:40Whether or not Star Trek represents a truly progressive vision of the future is open to
19:44debate and all the times the franchise was, hopefully accidentally, regressive could fill
19:48a list unto itself.
19:50To expect a product of pop culture created in the entertainment industry in the 20th
19:54and 21st centuries to realistically represent the future and every possible form of human
19:58being therein is unreasonable.
20:00However, the pals 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
20:12address the existence of an enormous group of very real people.
20:15Numerous examples of the producers' willful omission of LGBTQIA-plus characters and topics
20:21have been well documented, dating back as far as David Gerrold's fight for a homosexual
20:25couple aboard the Enterprise-D in Star Trek The Next Generation's first season, up to
20:30Kate Mulgrew's losing cause to have a gay character appear on Star Trek Voyager.
20:34But 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
20:42Trek Beyond, a movie released 50 years after the original series premiered, the franchise
20:47is finally coming around.
20:48And 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.
20:59It took 50 years and may take some time for everyone, everyone to look at Star Trek and
21:04see themselves, but even with a few unforced errors, Star Trek really does seem like it's
21:08trying to forge a path forward.
21:10According to Wilson Dr. Culber-Cruz, the universe in which we live in on the show is a place
21:15where everyone is willing and capable of loving anyone.
21:18And that concludes our list.
21:20If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below and also
21:23check out our previously mentioned video too.
21:25Also, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell, and head over
21:29to Twitter and follow us there, at Trek Culture.
21:31I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
21:34I've been Ellie with Trek Culture, I hope you have a wonderful day, and remember to
21:38boldly go where no one has gone before.