The famous story was that when he proposed Star Trek: TNG, Gene Roddenberry’s basic concept was to push non-violence.
His writers quickly realized that a non-violent action/adventure series was quite literally impossible to write. Hence the first season and a half consisted of shows that were absolute dogs.
Then Roddenberry died, and they were able to save the show by going back to shoot-em-out scripts based on old submarine and air combat movies.
Gene Roddenberry died in 1991. He was fully involved in Star Trek until his death.
Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, over 20 years after the first Star Trek series ended and after the first 6 Star Trek movies.
Have you seen Q-Who? Episode of STTNG?
It was definitely one of Roddenberry’s themes. It is why “Genesis II” and the follow up movie “Planet Earth” didn’t become TV shows.
It wasn’t even non-violence, it was non-conflict. He didn’t even want disagreements among the bridge crew. Which really killed the drama (conflict is the source of all drama). They never really go to shoot-em ups, but they at least got to start having the crew have multiple opinions.
#12 they also had way too much of Wesley Crusher
The Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek (Sheldon).
Roddenberry died in 1991, just before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country came out, if I remember correctly. It was one of the two (Avengers was the other) movies I’ve ever waited in line to buy tickets. The Star Trek Next Generation TV show was on from 1987 to 1994.
Now, Gene certainly became full of himself and his peace-loving ways were evident, but I don’t know if his death had anything to do with the increase of the show’s stature, concept, or quality.