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Rick Berman on Creating ENTERPRISE |
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Posted:
17:52:42 on June 08 2001
By: GustavoLeao
Dept: Enterprise | www.stenterprise.com
Executive Producer Rick Berman talked to journalist Dan Madsen in the latest issue of the Star Trek Communicator Magazine about Voyager's ending, ENTERPRISE, the next Star Trek feature film and rumors on the internet. In the following excerpts, Berman discusses the next Star Trek TV Series :
Moving on to Series V, what is happening right now ?
Berman : "We are still planing on starting shooting in about three weeks. We are in full pre-production and we're going into our third production meeting right now. The show is almost entirely cast. Brannon and I just finishing the first one-hour episode after the pilot, and we've written the story for the one after that. We now have a writing staff in place consisting of writers we brought from Voyager and who are new to Star Trek. We have chosen our director for the premiere, he's been working on this for the past two months actually. It's full steam ahead at this point.
How many soundstages are you on and where are you with the construction of the sets ?
Berman : "We are actively working on three soundstages and, on one of them, construction is nearly complete. The other two were used for Voyager sets and had to be struck, but construction is now underway on those, too."
Is the new series similar in scope and size to the previous Star Trek series ?
Berman: "I think, just in terms of the amount of effort and money that will go into the sets, costumes and special effects, it is on par with our previous series. It certainly isn't less !"
Did the studio always wanted to follow up Voyager right away with a new series or had there been some debate towait awhile after Voyager ended ?
Berman : "It has been in discussion for a number of years. There was a period of time where they wanted the series to start as early as a year-and-a -half before Voyager went off the air. I think it was a good decision finally, to hold off until this fall. Of course, if we have any strikes, it will be later than fall."
Can you walk us through how you come up with the concepts for there Star Trek series ? How did the process work on Series V ?
Berman : "Well, about two years ago, I was approached by the studio asking for a new series. That began a process, personally, that had been in the works for awhile, something that I had been thinking about. I was not interested in doing just another Star Trek series. It had to be totally fresh and different for me. There was an idea that I felt very strongly about and I decided that the person I wanted tp work with in creating this series is Brannon Braga. When I presented to Brannon the general idea he was bery confortable with it and very supportive of it. We began brainstorming, sitting across the table from each other and spending two or three hours a day, for maybe eight weeks, fine tuning the idea, the concept and conceiving what will eventually be the bible for this show. We then began to conceive this story for the two-hour premiere episode. We spent months working on it and getting the studio to support it. We then began writing the script and organizing all the elements to make it happen. The hurdle of the idea was something that I had been toying with for a long time. It was, in a way, somewhat conditional on my deciding to do a new series. I bit that it was an idea that was fresh enough that I could put a number of years into it without having a stale 'do-over' felling."
Voyager's Delights just posted a full transcript of the interview here |
TREKWEB TALKBACK
(26 comments) |
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Correct
By Daniel
() at 09:43:36 on June 11
URL: | User Info
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Mr. Berman is correct in a sense. I don't think that he and Braga could have created a series set in Trek's future that wasn't a complete repeat of TNG, DS9 or Voyager.
Now, someone ELSE, probably could have. But, we're not gonna get that.
So, if you're going to have Berman and Braga on new Trek series - Enterprise is probably the best shot they can take. Because, anything else would have been even more horible.
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What I don't like in Voyager
By Sim
(sebian@simpathy.de) at 08:49:02 on June 11
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I really respect your opinion.
At least would it be the best if "Enterprise" will be enjoyable for all Star Trek fans, those of TOS, those of TNG, DS9 AND Voyager.
But I think most people will agree to my opinion:
Voyager is the worst Star Trek ever.
The actors are that bad that they don't know more than just two or three faces - especially Janeway. The producers just took the cheapest actors they could get ìn order to evade what happened with TNG: The actors wanted more and more money and were that popular and good they were succesful with that (imagine Picard or Data off the show!).
With Voy, they wanted actors they could hire and fire as they want (Ok, the Holodoc is nice).
That caused alomost NO character development. Except the holodoc, no character has developed at all - compared to the TNG or DS9 crew, it's just weak. Remember who all of those characters were in the beginning, and in the end of their shows! (Ok, Beverly may be an exception).
But with Voyager?! They're just the same as in the beginning.
And WHEN some developement happened to them though, they can't remember it the next episode.
In Voyager, they HAVE NO character. Especially Janeway, they do one thing in one episode, they do the counterpart in the next.
Janeway breaks the Prime Directive to help a people, but tortures one of her officers when he does the same.
I just can't see them as real persons with believable motivations; they are just like comic figures.
The enemies in Voyager: They are alomost that much one-dimensional that it just hurts. The Kazon, later some other peoples. They are just dumb, brutal and one can't talk to them. It' just BORING!
They are just painted that much dumb and irrational in order to have Janeway do a little action - but acion without plot and without suspense is just trash.
Compare this to all the enemies in TNG or DS9!
They had real motivations, weren't just irrational and primitive and didn't just want a fight man-to-man.
There were understandable political or cultural motivations that lead them, not only stupidity.
Just to have "bad guys" is not enough.
Voyager is much more action orientated than the shows before, but i just don't like it. I like interesting stories, and i like suspense.
Do you image how dark and dangerous the Borg appeared in TNG? Because the first half of the episode, the crew talked about how dangerous they are - and this was that well done it just was _thrill_.
In Voyager, the Borg are just a trashy action group one fights against. No thrill at all.
The stories in Voy are mostly very weak, just always the same trash that was already not the best when it appeared the first time in TNG.
And those stories that were nice became boring because of the bad actors.
-----------------
Ok, that's what i don't like with Voyager.
I think it's concipated for a younger audience that likes trash-action instead of seeing real characters.
I just really, REALLY hope they will do it different with "Enterprise".
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Negativism
By Shanok of Vulcan
() at 02:41:41 on June 11
URL: www.bvc.be | User Info
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Greetings,
when will some people realise that negativism won't get them anywhere ? Not only is their time wasted by writing comments that just end up in the grey mass of posts, but even worse: pretty soon those people who actually still frequent these forums (including Trek makers) will stop doing so. Rightly so, too. Would you like to receive 45 memo's a day from your boss on how much of a nitwit you are ? What would you do ? Right, delete or resign. And don't even go there with replies like "resign, an excellent idea"... it's been done to death, just like the holodeck plot lines.
The posting load on the I AM TOSK thing was another instance that showed how some of us are becoming more and more pathetic and that new depts have been reached.
This is no fan discussion anymore. It is the antipode of the protests set up by the fans to keep Trek on the air back in the sixties.
Gene Roddenberry would be ashamed.
Shanok of Vulcan
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The Truth
By dpaitsel@mindspring.com
(dpaitsel@excite.com) at 22:49:33 on June 10
URL: | User Info
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If Rick Berman gave truthful interviews:
Question: Can you walk us through how you come up with the concepts for there Star Trek series ? How did the process work on Series V ?
Answer: Well, we were sitting around drinking beer and watching TV while barnstorming ideas for a new concept, when we realized that we couldn't come up with anything that wasn't a carbon copy of TNG or DS9. Bragga was watching Beverly Hills 90210 at the time, so he said, "What about an academy concept? We could have young, hot guys and babes in Starfleet Academy jiggling all over the place and dealing with personal issues!"
I was about to give the green light for that concept when a commercial came on for Star Wars Episode 1. I'd heard how it was a HUGE movie that summer, and the whole thing was a prequel to the original movie! Then it hit me! Why don't we do a PREQUEL? We could set the show before Kirk and Spock, and we wouldn't have to worry about continuity. Those geek fans are always hitting us over the head for not following continuity; it's a really big pain in the ass. We could remake the whole history of the Federation, and if the fans don't like it, then to hell with them!
This prequel idea really beat the hell out of coming up with something original on our own. When we went to Paramount and told them we were planning to copy what George Lucas did with Star Wars, they ate it up! You know how corporate people are: they love anything that's tried and true.
Besides, it wasn't like we had another good concept waiting in the wings. Hell, the best concept we had before this was called "Enterprise: 90210." As you can imagine, we're all quite pleased with ourselves. At least we don't have to talk about all of the "coincidental" similarities between DS9 and Babylon 5 anymore.
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series V
By Zed
() at 22:10:11 on June 10
URL: | User Info
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Whats wrong with everyone at UPN
or should I say Berman and Braga
have none of the vision that Roddenberry
had with Star Trek TOS and TNG
he saw Star Trek as show that told
stories about humanity progressing
forward not playing it safe, becoming
static and doing retro stories.
Star Trek is about moving forward
in every possible way, each of the
series was that, going further and
further in evolution and time
sure the early Trek was not perfect
but there was sincerity
I am sure or proud to be sentimental
old fan remembering seeing the origanal
seies in this part of world on
black and white TV was pure delight
seeing the idea of 23 third century through
crackles of back and white and the home video era of 24 century TNG so let us
our digital era 25 or 31 century stories
braking the earthly bonds starships that
travel past the Delta quandrats and
further please
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If they want to keep Enterprise fresh
By Turd Ferguson
() at 23:58:11 on June 08
URL: | User Info
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then please refrain from stories dealing with temporal anomalies, quantom singularities, ship-devouring nebuli, and ships systems becoming haywire and hurtling the ship across many parsecs of space. If these story elements are eliminated altogether, I think Enterprise will be a well-received series.
--
"Before we begin the Double Jeopardy round, I'd like to ask our contestants once again, please refrain from using ethnic slurs."
-Alex Trebek (Will Ferrell, SNL)
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Rick? Enough Already.
By cooper2000
() at 20:10:54 on June 08
URL: | User Info
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I dont belive much of anything that Berman says anymore. Him and Braga still think they did a great job on Voyager. They are doing all this PR now for the new show and I dont have much hope for it.
They just keep milking the franchise when it should have been laid to rest years ago.
Hear that?
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ENTERPRISE has been revealed this week and we'd like to know how you would rate the show so far based on the new Enterprise NX-01, the interior set design, the new costumes, and any other info that you may already possess!
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