10 Notorious Star Trek Urban Legends

even in the absurd depths of fictional law there aren't many franchises out there with a universe as deep and bizarre as Star Trek taking us hundreds of years into the future and sometimes even further into the past an entire galaxy of civilization has birthed movies books TV shows and whatever other outlets people can find for their creativity but if there's one thing that can match the murky depths of Star Trek fiction it's the equally clouded history of Star Trek fact hundreds of performers writers producers directors and studio bigwigs have been involved in some capacity over the decades and with each of them comes the potential for a mythos eyes tale a board of plans backstage dispatch you name it there's been enough personalities and egos involved at every level to make it happen to borrow a phrase from another beloved sci-fi property the truth is indeed out there if you know where look from dramatically ground access to things being very gently set straight Star Trek's greatest urban legends can all be laid to rest in this wonderful Information Age my name is Adam Cleary and these are ten notorious Star Trek urban legends number 10 paramount tried to replace Deanna Troi with seven of nine one of the more positive moments in Star Trek nemesis and there weren't many was the brief cameo from Kate Mulgrew as Admiral Janeway it was fun it was seamlessly integrated it was an all to infrequent reminder that these characters form part of a rich and layered shared universe however it wasn't Paramount original choice for incorporating Voyager in a tale it's been told inconsistently from numerous people paramount made more than one attempt to bring seven of nine into the movie at the expense of a principal member of the next generations cast initially this was believed to be Marina Sirtis who when attempting to negotiate pay parity with her male co-stars was threatened with being removed from the film when I was negotiating nemesis and I cannot do her voice they said we are going to fire you and hire Jeri Ryan and I said well Jeri Ryan won't do it for that money that's for sure I quit smoking for six years but what got me started again was contract negotiations with Paramount that is how bad it was however Ryan herself stated that while she knew her name was being used in the negotiations the Troy story was news to her did offer me a role in nemesis again can't do the voice to replace a different character but it was not marina there was absolutely no reason to replace this character with 7 and 9 so obviously we didn't do it no man I mean the original cast didn't get any royalties despite being allegedly the most widely syndicated series in television history the cast of the original Star Trek series have also allegedly barely seen a single dollar from its success despite it being one of the most timeless shows ever made and still enjoying screenings to this day this one looks like it might actually be true peaking on the transporter room 3 podcast William Shatner explained that the rules put in place to ensure that members of the cast were entitled to royalties for reruns came into effect after Star Trek was on the air that came into being about three years later and while I can do the accent I'm not going to the series Star Trek that I was in was so early on there were no residuals so none of us have ever received them it's crazy to think that for all the additional hours of Broadcasters show enjoyed and the millions of dollars it subsequently made in the process none of the original cast were given a check in the post for it they were steadily becoming the most iconic TV characters to emerge from the 1960s all while a network which canceled them after only three seasons was reaping untold financial rewards dicks number 8 the uniforms in generations were borrowed from deep space 9 now the story behind the costuming Department for Star Trek generations could easily be a video all its own but the short version of the story is that brand-new uniforms were planned for this movie before being scrapped and ties for budgetary reasons this change of plans created numerous problems firstly a brand new line of tie-in figurines that featured the uniforms had already been created and shipped to stores there was no way to recall them so they simply have to be released wrong secondly it meant that to fulfill the producers requirements for new uniforms the movie would need to borrow the more jumpsuit looking style from Deep Space 9 and Voyager literally - as it was deemed a waste of money to make all new ones when a selection of them were readily available from the studio they gave Cisco's uniform to Riker O'Brien's to Jory Tom Paris's to Picard and Harry Kim's to data the end result is several scenes where it is painfully obvious that members of the crew aren't all wearing clothes fit them while those that are assumingly using the old next-generation uniforms interchangeably what a mess no7 isaac asimov saved Star Trek the motion picture one small curiosity about this movie is that included deep in the credits and Isaac Asimov is listed as a special consultant the legendary science fiction author often credited with inspiring the genres explosion popularity during the 20th century his inclusion in a Star Trek movie would have been big news at the time so why wasn't it well Asimov wasn't drafted in to help with the writing or the production or any element of actually crafting the movie however it's arguable that he's responsible for getting it made at all with a major rift brewing between Roddenberry and the studio over the nature of the plot and specifically that the idea of this living robot seeking its creator would have major scientific and religious ramifications he was the man that both parties went to in order to settle the argument he reassured the executives that this was a great narrative thread to tug on and indeed one that would likely be seen as visionary in decades to come they weren't entirely convinced and it took NASA director Robert Jastrow to do that but they trusted his judgment and having provided the most important slice of consultancy in the whole film credited him verse Lee number six ro Laren secretly returned for a movie cameo before the days of rumor busting reddit threads and carefully paused reveals on Twitter you actually had to journey all the way down to the movie theater to see if something about a film was actually true for Star Trek nemesis that rumor was that every recurring character from the next generation made an appearance at the Riker Troy wedding Wil Wheaton returned as Wesley Crusher Whoopi Goldberg could briefly be seen as dining but one major return concerned that of ro Laren the confrontational Bajoran ensign played by Michelle Forbes who was the character originally written into the role of deep space 9 that was filled by Keira nerese given her tumultuous relationship with Riker this got people talking emerging from screenings people were absolutely sure that it was true while not featured prominently a dark-haired woman resembling forbes can't be seen during picard speech and most fans took this as being ROH Lauren however with the miracle of fully published casting lists and the aforementioned HD pause function it's since been revealed not to be the case in universe row large having defected to the marquee number five the cast all hated the motion picture sooner or later someone is going to make a documentary about Star Trek's Lost years starting with how the original series was cancelled the abortive attempts to make Planet of the Titans the failed phase 2 project and how it all finally came to a head with the motion picture it was a tumultuous time for the franchise and those fractures were more than present onset starting with Leonard Nimoy's outstanding legal dispute over unpaid royalties extensive rewrites over the script and even the entire cast up in arms about how uncomfortable the uniforms were the entire production was a disaster paramount have since stated that no major movie they've been involved with has come closer to missing its release date than this now I should probably do an entire list about the various conflict raging on set but as a primer here's a brief rundown the script was being rewritten on a daily basis to the extent that the cast actually had no idea what the story was about by the end neither the studio the director the writers or the cast could agree on an ending with plans being changed constantly William Shatner required special lighting to hide his course at lines much to the annoyance of his co-stars the projectors used for the bridge controls were so allowed that all the audio had to be recorded after principal photography had finished this added weeks to production and thousands to the budget when the film could afford neither walter Koenig received several burns during one scene but was required to continue shooting almost every major member of the cast lobbied for additional characterization but was turned down still though the film was alright the before Spock was written out of Star Trek generations the opening scene of Star Trek generations is easily one of the best in the entire movie it sees Kirk Chekov and Scotty arriving as honored guests on the bridge of the USS Enterprise B as it prepares for its maiden voyage only for a perilous rescue operation to break out instead originally this was supposed to be the Holy Trinity of Kirk Spock and McCoy but the latter two had to be replaced for McCoy it was simply the DeForest Kelley's health was such that he wasn't able to get onset insurance but for Spock it came down to several irresolvable creative differences according to him while there was a character named Spock in this script his lines were so bland they could be spoken by anyone after told that there simply wasn't time for a rewrite Spock declined the offer and the part went that James Doohan instead given that virtually no changes were made to the lines for them to fit Scotty Leonard Nimoy has since pointed out that this proves he was right number three Eddie Murphy had a major Star Trek role cut in 1986 Eddie Murphy was one of the biggest stars in the whole world coincidentally he also happened to be a huge Star Trek fan with scripts being put together for a fourth movie in the series producers began working overtime to find a way to incorporate him into the story once the decision had been made to send the crew back to 1980 San Francisco the part of a Berkeley astrophysicist was written specifically for Murphy he was going to be a key player of the story given top billing with Shatner and Nimoy and made one of the major part of the film's marketing however when he was approached for the role he didn't think much of the script and turned the part down in the end this role was reworked into the part of dr. Gillian Taylor the assistant head of the contagion Institute who was ultimately played by Catherine Hicks number two nemesis nearly ended Tom Hardy's career it seems strange to consider now with his career being an unprecedented worldwide success but there are long been stories that the disastrous performance of Star Trek nemesis not only derailed Tom Hardy's career but his entire life with it despite being cast as a relative unknown time Tom Hardy grew up a huge Star Trek fan and saw the part as the realization of a boyhood dream he threw everything into the role getting into the perfect shape for the villain and meticulously studying Patrick Stewart's mannerisms to replicate them on screen he was convinced this was going to be a career-defining breakout role for him but in the end his performance was picked out as one of a number of glaring problems with the movie the response devastated him his marriage collapsed he began drinking heavily and as he later admitted in an interview he even contemplated suicide thankfully though these feelings eased over time and Hardy eventually had his long-awaited eye catching performance in Bronson's some years later the rest is as they say history number one the communicator inspired the invention of the flip phone arguably Star Trek's most notorious and rarely clarified urban legend concerns its indirect role in the shaping of the technology of the 21st century while it was inevitable that some of the gadgets seen on-screen would naturally roll around sooner or later the the cellphone was allegedly to have been directly inspired by the communicators of the sixties TV show Martin Cooper the man credited with inventing the cell phone was always quite happy to acknowledge his admiration for the show and inevitably people have joined the dots in the ensuing decades however the truth of this one is a less exciting than the myth as Cooper has also been on record to say that the actual concept and design of the devices predates the series by a number of years however years later when Motorola designed the first flip phone they named it the star TAC in honor of the show that a directly influenced the look so as urban myths go there is at least some truth to the story that Star Trek directly had a hand in you being able to watch porn on the bus so the avenues are 10 notorious Star Trek / legends and no you're right we've barely scratched the surface there let us know what you made of them all as well as any others you've heard in the comments below and of course don't forget to Like share and subscribe in the meantime though thank you so much for watching I have a course beam Adam Cleary and I'll see you soon goodbye Oh

Channel: TrekCulture

Views: 491,333

Rating: 4.8791003 out of 5

Keywords: star trek, original series, next generation, animated series, deep space nine, ds9, voyager, picard, enterprise, discovery, lower decks, episode, crossover, generations, troi, seven of nine, jeri ryan, marina sirtis, patrick stewart, isaac asimov, motion picture, communicator, flip phone, uniforms, abandoned, robert jastrow, martin cooper, consultant, william shatner, leonard nimoy, james doohan, whoopi goldberg, eddie murphy, voyage home, nemesis, ro laren, tom hardy, Michelle Forbes

Id: MI6YIZKJTi0

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ZeroBANG]

point 6 is mostly wrong, it wasn't budget reasons why the new uniforms were scrapped, it was timing reasons, the uniforms just wouldn't work, the fabrics wouldn't work the way they wanted.
On the TV show they had time to tweak and fiddle with the Uniforms until they've fit the actor perfectly and iterate so for example the shoulders would stay straight and stuff, with new Uniforms for a Movies all of that would have to be perfect day one and they just couldn't get it right and ran out of time.

And they used DS9 Uniforms because the wardrobe people decided that not all TNG Uniforms were up to the quality a Movie required.
Stuff was worn out or had seems that would become visible on the big screen... many Extras in the background after Season 4 were still using the lower quality Season 1 Uniforms, which i only ever noticed once the HD Remasters were available.

Funny that they say that Data got Harry Kim's Uniform, because Garret Wang said (in one of those Delta Flyers podcasts) that when he started at Voyager they gave him Brent Spiner's shoes.