Words matter. These are the best Gene Roddenberry Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Our effects were primitive. Our stars were a black cloth with holes in it and light behind.
I have felt many times trapped by ‘Star Trek.’ It cost me dearly. It won’t anymore, because I’ve come to grips with what it is and where it fits in my life.
I wanted to send a message to the television industry that excitement is not made of car chases.
What Kirk wanted every evening was to go to bed with a beautiful woman. Our captain now is a man of infinitely more skill. A better man.
Normal television limits what you can do. With science fiction, you can exercise your imagination more. I fell in love with it.
We tried to limit human versus human conflict only to those cases where it could be powerfully motivated and made completely believable.
I was tired of writing for shows where there was always a shoot-out in the last act and somebody was killed. ‘Star Trek’ was formulated to change that.
Earth is the nest, the cradle, and we’ll move out of it.
‘Star Trek’ episodes always insisted that humanity is on its bumpy way to what will be a glorious future in the 23rd century, in which we will have left most of our old selfishness – and old hatreds and prejudices – far behind us.
No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids – human beings built them, because they’re clever and they work hard.
I remember myself as an asthmatic child, having great difficulties at 7, 8 and 9 years old, falling totally in love with ‘Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle’ and dreaming of having his strength to leap into trees and throw mighty lions to the ground.
The Russians were responsible for the Chekov character. They put in ‘Pravda’ that, ‘Ah, the ugly Americans are at it again. They do a space show, and they forget to include the people who were in space first.’ And I said, ‘My God, they’re right.’
Because something or someone looks or acts differently from us does not necessarily mean that it is ugly or bad.
‘Star Trek’ says that it has not all happened, it has not all been discovered, that tomorrow can be as challenging and adventurous as any time man has ever lived.
‘Star Trek’ speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow – it’s not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.
To cast Mr. Spock, I made a phone call to Leonard, and he came in. That was it.
His name is ‘Mr. Spock.’ And the first view of him can be almost frightening – a face so heavy-lidded and satanic you might almost expect him to have a forked tail. Probably half Martian, he has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears.
When you get into an airplane by yourself and take off, you find yourself in this lovely, three-dimensional world where you can go in any direction. There is no feeling any more exciting than that.
It has become a crusade of mine to demonstrate that TV need not be violent to be exciting.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
It was ‘ST’ format to let space and alien worlds, rather than human weakness, provide the conflict and danger necessary to our adventure show.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission… to boldly go where no man has gone before.
We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
It is important to the typical ‘Star Trek’ fan that there is a tomorrow. They pretty much share the ‘Star Trek’ philosophies about life: the fact that it is wrong to interfere in the evolvement of other peoples, that to be different is not necessarily to be wrong or ugly.
If ‘Trek’ is a hit, we’d love to do a series of films – a regular event. Look at James Bond’s films. They’ve been around since the early sixties.
My model for Kirk was Horatio Hornblower from the C.S. Forester sea stories. Shatner was open-minded about science fiction and a marvelous choice.
A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
I hope that I helped to build a fierce pride in what we are and what we can do if we set our minds to it.
‘Star Trek’ was an attempt to say humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in lifeforms.
