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(dramatic music)

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(rooster crowing)

(lion roaring)

(gentle music)

(dot thudding)

(dramatic music)

Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs

that there is a tomorrow.

It's not all gonna be over with a big flash and a bomb.

That the human race is improving.

It says the human adventure has just begun.

(machine whirring)

There's two kinds of people,

people who really get what Star Trek is and what it's about.

Then there's people who just don't get it.

And I just didn't get it.

My name is Eugene Roddenberry.

I'm the son of Gene Roddenberry,

the creator of Star Trek.

(people chattering)

I kind of knew that Star Trek was significant

but didn't understand why it was significant.

Star Trek is more than just a show.

It's a philosophy.

We love it!

It was just so absolutely intoxicating.

I got obsessed with it.

Star Trek changed the face of television forever.

And so I set out to learn about

what Star Trek meant to people.

Why do you like this show so much?

I've never seen this.

Wow.

I think what your father was doing resonated

because it actually talked about us.

Star Trek expanded your imagination

in terms of what's possible.

Gene Roddenberry was truly a visionary.

Star Trek equals Gene.

He was the guy.

This was his thing.

I never really set out to learn about my dad,

but it finally kind of dawned on me

that it was the man behind Star Trek

that I was really interested in.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

Star Trek really wasn't in my life at a young age.

I was blown away the first time I looked

at one of these movies and I saw my parents putting me

on a model of the Enterprise when I was, like, first born.

That was like, really?

Wow, I didn't know that happened.

You're perfectly healthy, Mr. Spock.

My mother, I really had no idea, was on the show,

even though she was on the original series

and the fans loved her.

But I had no idea of that.

She was mom.

Mom and Dad were Mom and Dad to me.

It was never Gene Roddenberry,

the Great Bird of the Galaxy,

the visionary who created Star Trek.

I'm sure there were times that I saw it on television,

but I didn't ever watch it.

It was just this TV show, and I wasn't interested in it.

I didn't get what Star Trek was.

And, of course, now everyone hearing this is like,

you idiot, but, you know.

Yeah, Dada?

Is it working?

Yeah, it's taping right now.

Can I look through it?

Yeah. Stop it from taping.

All right.

In my preteens and teens,

there wasn't much interaction between my father and I.

Ouch.

Oh, I got a bloody lip.

He certainly wasn't a bad or evil man at the house,

but he was an authority figure,

and he had a rebellious son to deal with,

and we didn't have the close moments

where I got to find out who he was.

And there he goes!

He's off!

But at 17, I didn't care.

I was doing my own thing, you know?

Screw your parents.

I'm gonna go have fun.

Okay, it's me, cool.

To go where no man has gone before.

(Eugene humming Star Trek theme)

(blows raspberry)

(machine whirring)

At that age, you don't think your father's gonna die.

Who knows where our relationship would have gone?

Funeral services are being planned for Gene Roddenberry,

creator of the Star Trek TV and movie series.

He died yesterday in Santa Monica, California,

of a heart attack at the age of 70.

Gene Roddenberry embarked on the ultimate trip

to the final frontier.

The Great Bird of the Galaxy has flown.

Gene Roddenberry died Thursday

of a heart attack in California.

(somber music)

(people chattering)

I remember there was a line of cars going

all the way out around the corner.

There were hundreds of people there.

I thought this was something that I was going to for us,

the family, and didn't realize

how many other people it had affected.

(people chattering)

I remember a particular story

at my father's memorial service.

Someone read a letter from a fan

who had had a major disability,

quadriplegic, something to that effect.

And in the letter, life was not worth living

for this individual.

But in 1966, a TV show called Star Trek came on the air.

And in this show, a future

where they wouldn't be considered such outcasts,

there was hope for someone like him.

And the letter ends with this person saying, you know,

I'm married and I have kids, and I owe it all to you.

My father, through Star Trek,

had touched a life in this way.

This was a life-changing moment for me,

where I decided to really find out

what this man was all about.

(upbeat music)

It was only later, after my father had passed away,

that I started to sort of go to conventions

and ask people, why do you like this show so much?

(people chattering)

Marker.

Oh, yeah.

How do you like that one? Oh, I love it.

(upbeat music)

How you doing?

I had gone to conventions as a young kid,

you know, five, six, seven, eight at the time.

To me, it was a bunch of people in costume having fun.

Never really asked the question why they were there.

Does anyone know what this line is?

Is there someone important up there?

Kes, who's Kes?

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. Yeah, like you don't know.

All right, this is Kes.

Who's Kes, what did she do?

Jennifer Lien, voyager. Okay.

Come on. You know.

It's gonna be a dumb question,

but you guys are related?

We're twins, we're identical twins.

I figured that out.

(bright music)

Yes, there's a relation to Gene Roddenberry.

Gene was my father.

(audience laughing)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that's okay.

There's actually a lot of people,

it's not a strange question,

'cause a lot of people don't know I exist, which is fine.

I haven't done anything.

(audience laughing)

How you guys doing?

Eugene, how are you doing? Nice to see you.

These people would, in some cases, break down in tears.

They would praise him as a father figure.

Your dad got us involved with Star Trek to begin with.

There was an emotional connection

that these people had with him.

What's your name? Joshua.

Joshua, welcome.

I have to say, everything I've learned about Star Trek,

I did learn from the fans.

Do you have a question for me?

Yes, what is it like to be a Betazoid?

That's a very good question.

(audience laughing)

Do you guys really like Star Trek,

or are you just saying that?

We love it!

We love it!

Uh... It has to be T'pol.

T'pol and seven.

What about species?

Um, Vulcans.

And shape shifters. And Borg.

Well, they have bumps on their nose.

Like Klingon.

They have earrings, too.

But the Borg is even stronger.

Yeah, the Borg can 'simmilate.

(bright music)

The Borg are a race

of cybernetically engineered individuals.

Their catchphrase is resistance is futile.

(people chattering)

I was asked to come to a convention many years ago,

and I was fascinated with the fans.

You know, your first impression is

that they're the disenfranchised, and they're not.

I think they're visionaries like Gene.

They appreciated the foresight.

That's what I want.

I just find them delicious, you know?

Some of them are weird,

some of them are borderline personalities,

but so are some of the people I work with.

Don't be so vague.

Where would I see her?

(people chattering)

Another question.

Yes?

(crowd groaning)

(audience laughing)

(audience applauding)

A lot of Star Trek really helps me.

I would meet fans,

and they would start explaining to me the symbolism,

the subtext, the metaphors, what it meant to them,

how it gave them hope for the future.

Marker.

One interesting thing about Star Trek fans

that I've noticed is a lot

of them grew up watching Star Trek,

where they've seen every kind of alien,

every kind of permutation of living being,

and so Star Trek fans tend to be very tolerant

of every permutation of human being.

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations is

what makes the world beautiful.

I thank Gene for that legacy.

It finally kind of dawned on me that,

you know, this wasn't just entertainment.

It was something with substance

that actually touched lives.

And it's a TV show that did this.

I mean, I'm kind of amazed.

And it was my father who created this TV show.

And so I decided to really find out the other pieces

of that story.

It was an eye-opening experience

but not in the way that some might expect.

(bright music)

My father was always larger than life to me,

and, to some degree, whether I had him up

on a pedestal or not, he was never within grasp.

I haven't been here since 1986.

That was when my father first got it.

I remember it being much more glamorous,

with all the podiums and lights and everything.

Have you guys ever heard of Gene Roddenberry?

What? Gene Roddenberry?

You ever watch the show Star Trek?

Yeah, I've watched Star Trek.

Yeah, we're just checking out his star over here.

Yeah, it is.

Actually, yeah, he was my father.

Was he really? Yeah.

So, it's, I haven't been back here since he got it.

Wow.

Gene Roddenberry.

(audience applauding)

Thank you.

We are an incredible species.

We're still just a child creature.

We're still being nasty to each other around the world,

and all children go through those phases.

But when we grow up, man, we are going to be something,

and we're gonna do it, too.

(audience applauding)

Gene Roddenberry Jr., step up here, son.

(audience applauding) (gentle music)

(machine whirring) (bright music)

I'd never really understood the man behind all this.

And I got very interested in knowing more

about who Gene Roddenberry was.

One of the first interviews I felt

it was important to get was my mother.

She knew my father better than anyone.

Are we rolling?

Yes, ma'am, we are. Oh.

Where would I start if I were to tell you about your dad

before you got to know him?

What kind of person he was.

He was very, very, very simple but very complex,

if you took him all the way around the corner.

Obviously, what dad wrote was a unique kind

of science fiction that no one else was really doing

at that time.

I mean, back in the '60s, when you met,

did he ever speak about his philosophy on life?

No, that didn't go on in our house.

I was his wife.

During the day, he worked over at the studio,

but your father didn't come home and sit down

and say, now, here's how I feel about.

He was never that kind of a person.

I wish he was around today,

'cause I'd like to ask him so many questions.

You know, being 17 when he died,

I was doing my own thing.

Yes, you were. (chuckles)

Nowadays, I'd have a lot of questions.

My mother wasn't as open as I'd hoped.

Can't think of anything else.

We'll do more. Okay, all right.

We'll come back.

But I also don't think she understood

what I was trying to achieve.

This craving to know my father

through the fans and through Star Trek was something

I really needed.

There's this side of Gene Roddenberry

that I never got to know.

So I set out to meet with the people

that worked with him directly or indirectly

who could tell me the kind of man he was.

Can I come in?

You know, I wonder what he was like

before Star Trek happened.

Well, he was immensely likable, your father...

He was a very tall, powerful presence.

So, your dad was an adventurer.

See the picture up here?

Oh, that's another whole story.

Of course, your dad was a sailor.

He loved being out on the ocean.

I've never seen this.

His dad was a police officer.

Gene was a police officer.

Thank you so much for this.

I remember that he had been an airplane pilot,

and he had all sorts of wonderful stories.

Star Trek, how did it happen?

I came across this audio recording

that my father did back in 1976.

The fact that as a child, I was different,

spindly-legged, weak, uncoordinated.

I was lucky, a miracle of adolescence.

My body mended.

I actually became stronger than average.

I'd learned by then that reality is incredibly larger,

infinitely more exciting

than the flesh-and-blood vehicle we travel in here.

I learned my father had an amazing history.

This was a man who had really traveled the world

and seen the worst that humanity had to offer,

as well as the best.

He was a pilot in World War II.

He flew 80-some-odd missions in the South Pacific

and then came back and joined Pan Am.

He was actually in a plane crash in the Syrian desert

and, I think, was one of 11 survivors.

He decided to hang up his wings and join the L.A.P.D.

and he was a sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department.

You know, my father would see what was on television,

shows like Dragnet,

and he would see what these writers would write

and eventually realized that,

hell, I could do better than that.

(bright music)

That (laughs) is a picture of me, 24 years old.

It's a beautiful picture.

What I remember, as the wife of Sam Rolfe,

who was then the producer and the creator

of Have Gun - Will Travel, is that this stranger,

this policeman, wrote a spec script

an Have Gun - Will Travel.

And Sam read it, and he said, God, this guy can write.

So, my father ended up writing stories for these shows,

and that was really the birth of his writing career.

Gene dealt with much bigger ideas than anybody I knew

that was writing, particularly on episodic television.

He was a philosopher.

He dealt with the human condition.

God help you, Mr. Boone.

Your own book puts it,

an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

And another man's son for your son.

(bright music)

When Gene first came up with the idea for Star Trek,

he had about 12 pages,

and he shoved them across the desk at me and said,

"Read this and tell me what you think."

And I took it home, and I really liked it.

And I came back, and I said, who's gonna play Spock?

You had an interest in the character right off.

Right away, yeah.

("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

They produced a pilot called The Cage.

Check the circuit.

All operating, sir.

Can't be the screen, then.

It begins on the bridge

of a recognizable Starship Enterprise,

commanded by Captain Christopher Pike,

played by the late Jeff Hunter.

(alarm blaring)

Still something out there.

I put a woman second-in-command of our starship.

All decks show ready, sir.

And I had written in another character

who wasn't even human.

(communicator beeps)

Spock here.

An alien who looked like Satan himself,

complete with pointy ears.

Brains three times the size of ours.

If we start buzzing about down there,

we're liable to find their mental power is so great,

they could reach out and swat this ship

as though it were a fly.

It's Captain Pike they've got.

It was about the captain being captured by aliens

and placed into a cage, like an animal cage.

And then these aliens were able

to play tricks with his mind,

put him in these other alternate realities,

while, at the same time,

he was actually still trapped in the cage.

But we're not here, neither of us.

We're in a menagerie, a cage!

No!

Peculiar species.

My father was making statements back then

that you can't just cage up a human and trick them

into thinking that they've got freedom.

People want freedom.

People want the freedom to think, to move,

to act, to do whatever they want.

("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

(TV clicks)

As many of you know,

we made two pilots on Star Trek.

The first pilot was turned down

by the network on the basis of being too intellectual

for you slobs out in the television audience.

(audience laughing)

There were one or two network executives

who thought, well, it moves a little slow.

It's a little too thoughtful, perhaps.

I think the thing was,

we were expecting an action adventure.

But then we went to a second pilot, which is unprecedented.

("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

Westerns were very big at the time,

and the network executives said,

now, if you will really give us the equivalent

of a Western, we can put you back to work on it.

Bill Shatner then came available, thank God,

because Bill did a marvelous job.

Hang on to being a human for one minute longer!

I'm disappointed in you, Elizabeth.

(phaser whooshing)

And so we made a second show

which had a lot of science-fiction elements, too,

but at least it ended up with Bill Shatner

in a bare-knuckle fistfight.

I thought it was a terrible idea, but it worked,

and we sold Star Trek with it.

I look at the pilot and I don't see Star Trek.

I see, like, an interesting primeval version of Star Trek,

but it's the addition of Shatner and DeForest Kelley,

the intangibles that those specific actors bring

to the ensemble that really, suddenly,

the whole project just steps up

and becomes something even greater.

Have I ever mentioned you play a very irritating game

of chess, Mr. Spock?

Irritating?

Ah, yes, one of your earth emotions.

Shatner's portrayal is a little boy's idea

of what a captain is.

He's handsome, heroic, dashing,

gets all the ladies, makes all the right decisions,

and his crew would follow him into the gates of hell.

I mean, that is the classic sort

of idea of the ship captain, and Shatner just sells it.

("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

So, that was how Star Trek came to be.

It was cowboys in space,

The captain being a cowboy and the ship being a horse

and, of course, the phaser being a six-shooter.

It was wagon train to the stars.

That frame of reference made the executives take the chance.

It was only later that people out there realized

it was much more than entertainment.

(bright music)

Once we got on the air,

we did not accept the myth

that the television audience has an infantile mind.

The magic ingredient is really not in Star Trek.

It is in the audience.

(upbeat music)

Star Trek premiered on television in 1966.

It wasn't until I started doing this documentary

and interviewing people that I realized

it was a concept that was, I mean, ahead of its time

in the '60s and still ahead of it's time.

Space, the final frontier.

("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

I believe that when people first saw the show,

they knew something wonderful was happening.

Energize.

Star Trek was really about a quest for knowledge.

The idea was, as a species,

we're no longer afraid of new ideas.

If we do what it seems we must,

we'll be in direct violation

of the non-interference directive.

These are people, not robots.

They should have the opportunity of choice.

You ready? Yeah.

Dorothy Fontana worked closely with my father.

Okay, we're rolling.

We could tell right from the beginning that it was a hit,

as far as the fans were concerned,

'cause they wrote and told us so.

And these were intelligent letters from people

who were scientists and teachers and business people,

just all kinds of people who said, I love the show.

When I was in college in '64 To '68,

it was like a religion.

We watched every show.

I suppose the predecessor was like Buck Rogers

and that thing, but Star Trek took it

to a whole different level.

(dramatic music)

We had been shown pilots over the years

of many other science-fiction shows and had been told,

yes, it was going to be adult fare, not for kids.

Look!

Then, two weeks after the show opened,

it would immediately become a kiddy show.

We have no idea what it is.

The plots would become so abysmally stupid,

you'd stop watching it.

This is ridiculous!

So, we saw these episodes of Star Trek,

and they were so good, and they promised us so much.

(alarm blaring)

Although we cheered the effort,

basically, a lot of us had reservations.

Okay, let's see the sixth show, that sort of thing.

And by the sixth show, people were pretty hooked.

(explosion booming)

Here I am, 12 years old,

and into the living room comes a program

about man's exploration of space.

I am thrilled.

This is where my mind, my drive,

has always been headed.

(upbeat music)

Now, America had started its space program.

Program mission, put a man into space.

But now here was somebody

with giant vision to say, what happens beyond?

What is humans' interaction with this vast cosmos?

We get letters from 14 and 16-year-olds

which send diagrams of a way to hold antimatter

in a magnetic field and things like that.

We have to take it to our scientific advisers

at Caltech to understand it.

You know, people that say youth is going to hell

should visit some high schools and universities

and meet these kids, 'cause they are bright

and they are great.

We've got 'em.

Go to red alert.

Prepare to fire phaser banks.

(ship booming)

I think, first of all, it works

and everyone has reasons like, oh, well, you know,

the future, the dreams of tomorrow,

but I think it's just a good show.

Mm-hmm. Everybody seems cool.

Like, William Shatner's cool.

Leonard Nimoy's cool.

And I love the fact that it was the late '60s

and there's, like, any excuse to make something colorful,

any excuse to put an alien babe in a bikini.

(dramatic music) (gas hisses)

They did all this stuff.

Flowers that blew gases into your face that got you high.

It was just incredibly inventive.

There's no need to hide your inner face any longer.

We understand.

Countless people have written about spaceships

and other planets and battles in the cosmos,

but your father did it from the point of view

of the characters' perspective.

If there's a problem of some sort, illness in the family...

No.

First, you had to know the characters.

You had to care about the characters.

What's wrong?

Then he came up with a story for them.

I, for one, could use a good non-reconstituted meal.

Doctor, you are a sensualist.

You bet your pointed ears I am.

(Kirk laughing)

I really cast my Star Trek people as a television family.

And you knew what their secrets were,

and you would laugh at the same joke every week,

as you'd so in real life.

We liked this crew.

We liked this Captain Kirk,

and I think we fell in love with the Spock character.

Spock, I... Doctor, please.

There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty.

I intend to offer no defense.

Someone who was logical and emotionless.

Captain! Who became human.

Jim!

By having the situations thrust upon him.

I'm pleased to see you, Captain.

Very well, Mr. Spock.

I'll meet you at the other end.

(rock whooshing)

(dramatic music)

I idolized Captain Kirk.

He was my favorite character of all of them,

and I wanted to be Captain kirk.

And Kirk, you know, wrestled with a great moral question.

Well, what do we do, just talk it over?

(creature moaning)

No, no, don't shoot!

There was right and there was wrong,

and there was a very strong moral center.

This creature here is the mother of her race.

The Horta is intelligent, peaceful.

She had no objection to sharing this planet

with you till you broke into her nursery

and started destroying her eggs.

Then she fought back in the only way she knew how

as any mother would fight.

Gene was not a scientist,

and he was clear on not being a scientist,

but the science was a mechanism for him

to tell a grand story about ourselves,

our inner beings, our dreams, our desires,

our goals, and how we solve problems.

(dramatic music)

No, I won't kill him!

Do you hear?

You'll have to get your entertainment someplace else!

It gave me a set of values.

You know, it's weird to say that

about a television show, but, you know,

to be an ethical person was to behave as these men did,

as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy did.

They wrestled with issues,

and there was an enormous empathy for other people,

people who thought differently than they did.

We know very little about that section of the galaxy.

Then we could be in the wrong.

Perhaps.

(tense music)

(sirens wailing)

We have to remember the time we were in.

In 1963, we saw a president assassinated.

A scene of indescribable horror.

We saw cities burning down because people were rioting.

We're in a war in Vietnam that a lot of people objected to.

We felt there were stories to be told

and issues to be presented

under the guise of science fiction,

because we could get away with it

under the guise of science fiction, so we did.

(man laughing hysterically)

The scripts really hit a nerve,

and the writers and the metaphors that they used

with the U.S.S. Enterprise

and its quest for life in the universe,

they examined a lot of the contemporary issues,

and that's what was fascinating to the public.

Steady as she goes.

I learned that Star Trek did present this future

where humanity had grown past all these issues

and was a better humanity.

(somber music)

Gene Roddenberry saw the world as it was,

and he didn't like it.

(sirens wailing)

It bothered him very, very, very much

that the world was not as it should be.

(dramatic music)

(body thuds) (Kirk groans)

Had enough?

I didn't realize what it took to get

under that thick hide of yours.

Anyhow, I don't know what you're so mad about.

It isn't every first officer

who gets to belt his captain several times.

This episode was written by Dorothy Fontana at a time

when there were very few female writers on television.

I had stopped being a production secretary.

I had quit and said, I want to be a writer.

And Gene said, "If you rewrite this script

"that's not satisfactory",

which turned out to be This Side of Paradise,

"I will back you as the story editor."

Was there protest because you were a woman?

Was that an issue at that time for people?

It might have been an issue somewhere.

I never heard about it.

You never heard about it?

No, because Gene said, "I want her."

She knows the series.

He was very strong on backing women.

I mean, obviously, he backed Nichelle Nichols

as the Black lieutenant.

There were stations in the South that said,

we're not gonna carry this show.

And Gene basically just said, (bleep) off.

Uhura, you're the only one who can do it.

I was pleased that, in those days,

when you couldn't get even Blacks on television,

that I not only had a Black but a Black woman

and a Black officer.

You are away from your post, mister.

And that'll show 'em.

I told Gene after the end of the first season

that I would not be returning to the show.

♪ Be terrified and overwrought ♪

That I wanted to return to my first love,

which is musical theater.

(audience applauding)

But I didn't know

that meeting a Star Trek fan would change my life.

I was told that a fan wanted to meet me,

and I turned and looked into the face

of Dr. Martin Luther king.

I was breathless.

He says, "Yes, I'm the Trekker.

"I'm a Star Trek fan."

And he told me that Star Trek was one

of the only shows that his wife, Coretta,

and he would allow their little children

to stay up and watch.

I thanked him, and I told him that I was leaving the show.

All the smile came off his face,

and he said, "You can't do that."

He said, "Don't you understand that,

"for the first time, we're seen as we should be seen?

"You don't have a Black role.

"You have an equal role."

And when I went back to work on Monday morning,

I went to Gene's office,

and I told him what had happened over the weekend.

And he says, welcome home.

We got a lot of work to do.

(somber music)

You know, I actually learned

about Star Trek from the fans.

And then I went back, watching the shows,

and then I finally understood what it was they admired.

What happened, Captain?

Lead projectile.

Primitive firearm.

In 1968, Star Trek was in its second season.

Kirk here. Uhura, sir.

There was a small core audience that really cared

about it, but it was probably too small

at the time to justify the series.

For the network, it was a failure.

(somber music)

We were visiting the set one day,

and everybody seemed very down.

I said, what's going on?

And they said, well, the rumor is

that the show's being canceled.

And I said, there ought to be something

we could do about this.

(upbeat music) (typewriter dinging)

The idea was that we would try

to run a mail campaign to get a lot of support.

I'll tell you, it was absolutely amazing.

You must have gotten some pretty cool letters,

though, from people.

Oh, we got some wonderful letters.

One fan went around his entire town and got 1,500 names

on a petition, and our first mailing was somewhere

in the neighborhood of 20,000 hand-done pieces of mail.

No one really knows how many letters the network received,

but it was enough to get their attention.

I remember Lyndon Johnson gave his concession speech.

I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination

of my party for another term as your president.

You know, it was quite big.

And right at the end of that,

there was a voiceover announcement,

'cause it was on NBC,

that Star Trek will be on next year.

(bright music)

In other words, please don't write any more letters!

You know? (laughs)

(bright music)

And they did get it back for

a third season, but apparently in a time slot

that was the kiss of death for a show in those days.

It was Friday night at 10 o'clock,

and if you're old enough to go out, you go out

and have a good time, and, if not, you're in bed.

My understanding is he pretty much walked off set.

I think he just kept an office

and would chime in from time to time,

but it was really run by other people for the third season.

Someone's interfering with my command and my ship!

When Gene walked, it was pretty much, well,

I guess this is gonna be a different show,

And it was, basically turned out

to be a creature-of-the-week show.

Jim. Come on, Bones.

What's the mystery?

His brain is gone.

(dramatic music)

It wasn't Star Trek as most people knew it.

So, generally, I think, in the fan-ish world,

everybody considers the third year of Star Trek okay.

It did certainly have its morality.

It had its principles.

It had a lot of lessons.

But it wasn't as good as the first two.

♪ Let's get together and have some fun ♪

♪ I don't know how to do it ♪

♪ But it's got to be done ♪

(light guitar music)

(audience applauding)

(machine whirring)

What's really kind of funny is that Star Trek was canceled

in 1969, which is the same year we landed on the moon.

That's one small step for man

one giant leap for mankind.

Oh, it's beautiful, Mike.

It really is.

The show was considered a flop after three years,

and Gene just didn't go back

and fight for it after that third year.

There was just, there was no reason to.

(bright music)

That same year, my mother and father were married

in this Shinto ceremony in Japan.

They had met years before in Hollywood

and had maintained their relationship

through much of my father's first marriage.

Unfortunately for my mother,

my father would follow this pattern

for the rest of his life.

He was not a perfect man.

He misbehaved.

I saw it.

Yeah, I've heard of some promiscuous things.

He'd go into a party, and Majel was in that room,

and in the back room, he'd corner some gal,

and he was involved with a lot of ladies.

He was really, sometimes,

almost like a little boy, you know.

I'm glad I wasn't married to somebody like Gene.

I would have killed him.

Okay, yeah, we'll go there.

Yeah, you sure? Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

Are you really sure?

I know half of them, at least half of them.

Well, okay.

And my mother knows half of them, too,

at least, if not all of them.

He bragged to me that

within seven days after being married

to your mom that he was out messing around.

Yeah.

I know my father cheated on my mother many times.

She knew what was going on.

My mother and I didn't really have dialogues

about these things, but I found the more

that I learned about him as a person, with his flaws

and the issues that other people may have had with him,

the more I began to appreciate him,

because they were humanizing him to me.

(bright music)

Unfortunately, there were other issues

that also caused strain on their marriage.

My father had really hit a low point in his career.

He was a well-known and respected writer before Star Trek,

but afterwards, he found it difficult getting a job.

The story got around town

that I had done this crazy series

that practically broke the studio from its costs

and all that sort of thing,

and I couldn't get much work.

I was broke.

How poor was the family at that time?

Because I think everyone thought that since Star Trek began,

the family's been well-off.

No, that's absolutely incorrect.

The original series was canceled in 1969.

The first profit participation check we got was in 1983.

So, your dad had to struggle.

He would do everything that he could to make ends meet.

It was a struggle.

Star Trek was a failure at the time.

It didn't make it, and my father wrote

for a number of other shows,

and he created a number of other TV pilots

that just never got picked up.

(gentle music)

(Marina chuckles)

In 1974, I was born.

Star Trek had been off the air for five years,

but something amazing was about to happen.

(mysterious music)

(audience applauding)

I hoped people would like it.

That would have been great.

But this is insanity.

(upbeat music)

Here we are.

The Las Vegas Star Trek Convention, huh?

Quite a sight to be seen.

What do you guys like about Trek?

Diversity. Diversity, all accepted.

That's nice. It's such a great mirror

for our potential.

How many conventions have you been to?

This is actually my first Star Trek convention.

Are you guys enjoying it?

Oh, yeah, immensely.

As a young kid, I didn't ever watch it,

but I believe Star Trek at the time had been in reruns.

(woman vocalizing)

So, if you watched TV in the 1970s,

chances are you saw Star Trek.

He's dead, Jim.

After the series was canceled,

the network sold it to syndication.

This meant it would be on the air everywhere

almost all the time.

Thank you very much for your time.

- I've been watching Star Trek since I was a young kid.

(speaking foreign language)

Before the '70s were over,

Star Trek would be broadcast in more than 48 countries.

(speaking foreign language)

I didn't get your name.

Oh, I'm Charles. Charles.

I heard your mom's here, too.

She's at the table.

She's been here for like three hours signing.

Thank you so very, very much.

I have the entire crew now.

Really?

I'll be damned.

You know, I go to a convention now,

and you still kind of delight in it,

but I feel like one of fandom's founding fathers,

Star Trek, anyway, so, you know,

they're all descended from the,

I was at the very first Star Trek convention.

(upbeat music)

There was a moment during the first convention,

which I believe was held in New York in 1972.

They were expecting somewhere around 250 people,

and 2,500 to 3,000 showed up.

This is some of the only footage known to exist.

The sound has been lost, but who cares?

If there was a moment of realization

for people involved that this was something big,

that definitely must have been it,

that so many people would take time, spend money,

and take the effort to actually show up to this event.

And you actually changed your name?

Yes, I went into Superior Court

and changed it to James T. Kirk.

Changing your name?

That's unbelievable.

How long have you been this involved in Star Trek?

(chuckles) I don't know.

This involved, probably about three years.

About three years.

You know, where I go around

in costumes and go to conventions.

(upbeat music)

When I first started going to conventions

and conventions were being invented

and people were figuring out what you did at one,

there was a lot of creativity.

Amazing costumes were being made.

People were taking stabs at makeup.

People were making props.

(communicator beeping)

You manufacture these? Mm-hmm.

What are they taken right from the series as best you can?

Yes, through many searches of film clips.

And you get to get the right size from seeing

where their hands are held.

(people chattering)

1975 was my first convention.

I was 15 years old.

I was the president of the Star Trek club

of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, all like 16 of us.

Our parents gave us the okay to stay overnight

in New York City without a chaperone.

Those were the days.

That was when there was 5,000 people packed in a ballroom

to see William Shatner.

(audience applauding)

The sensation is incredible.

The conventions themselves are an extravaganza

the likes of which I don't think has ever been seen.

I've been a Star Trek fan since I was 10,

I guess, went to my first convention in 1975,

and all the cast was there.

They were all in leisure suits.

It was the '70s.

But it was a joyous experience.

It's overwhelming, and at the same time,

it's very flattering.

To really have this kind of long-lasting

and dedicated support is a very impressive thing.

I keep thinking it's gonna stop.

It's just amazing.

And they're not less enthusiastic about us and Star Trek,

they're more enthusiastic.

(upbeat music)

When they were designing

and building the first space shuttle,

I know that the fans were very adamant

and wrote in a number of letters suggesting

that the name of our first shuttle be called the Enterprise.

Seeing this in fandom, seeing these inspired people,

it's kind of amazing when you think about it.

Starfleet uniforms!

Get your uniforms right here!

There are people out there

who like Star Trek that are different.

They probably look at life differently

than the average Joe does.

Every convention that was in town,

a local TV station would trot out

and find the five geekiest people.

But Star Trek has so many different appeals to it.

The technological appeal,

people love living in the future

with all these gadgets.

People love the hopeful outlook.

It's a philosophical core.

And some people just like the adventure stories.

Whether Gene designed it this way or not,

it just has appeals on different levels to people.

The thing that I hope for is that I've shown it's possible

to have shows about something

and have exciting ones and ones that last.

To the fans, my father became this mythical figure.

Fans would call him the Great Bird of the Galaxy,

the visionary who created Star Trek.

May the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet.

(chuckles) thank you.

My father had this amazing worldly perspective

about the future.

And I think going to these conventions

and seeing the thousands of fans

that would turn out really validated his views on Star Trek

and what the future should be.

What Star Trek proves Is

that the much maligned common man

and common woman are ready for the 23rd century now,

and they are light-years ahead of their petty governments

and their visionless leaders.

(audience applauding)

It was around the time of this convention in 2004,

that I found out that George Lucas agreed

to do an interview for Trek Nation.

The Father of Star Wars

talking about the Father of Star Trek is pretty much one

of the biggest things that could possibly happen,

so I'm very excited.

(dramatic music)

So, here we are in Lucas valley.

And it's 7:40 a.m.

We all had to get up at 5:30,

but I'm okay with that.

George Lucas, the Father of Star Wars,

is gonna speak to me about my father.

I mean, these are the two science-fiction modern-day icons.

Through my years of meeting with fans

and going to conventions and talking to people,

I'd learned that there was a definite rivalry

between Star Trek and Star Wars.

(computer beeps)

(weapons firing)

They're coming in too fast!

What's funny is that when I was a kid,

I was actually a huge fan of Star Wars.

I would go to see the movies over and over.

I remember having, actually,

a couple Star Wars birthday cakes.

Along this journey, I had met so many people

that had been influenced and inspired by my father's work.

I now had the opportunity to find out

if George Lucas was one of them.

We've just turned in to Skywalker Ranch.

Coming up to the gate.

Morning. Hi.

Eugene Roddenberry with the documentary, Trek Nation.

Okay, turn that off.

He said we got to turn off the camera.

No filming.

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

To your right.

Ah, here we go.

I think there's gonna be a lot of pressure,

because I'm gonna feel under the gun.

Well, Mr. Lucas, I do appreciate you taking the time.

I know it's valuable in a way that I can't even understand.

Here you are doing the third movie and God knows what else.

So, George, Those are cleaners.

Why the hell did you decide to do this?

(tense music)

Knock, knock.

Oh, yeah, come sit down, and we'll get a quick...

Okay, we're rolling.

I brought a little gift for you.

I don't know if you have one of these.

Ah.

It's a phaser that lights up and makes sounds.

Oh, very good.

If you'd given me this about six months ago,

I would have used it.

I would have loved it.

I would have loved that.

We have a scene where they toss

one to R2, and R2 uses it through the movie.

It'd be perfect to have this one.

Yeah, well, it's a real honor.

Well, thank you. I appreciate this very much.

Thank you very much.

My father passed away when I was 17,

and I knew him as dad,

but I never really understood Star Trek.

And it wasn't until after he passed away

that I really realized

that Star Trek had touched a number of people.

And I was wondering, did it have any sort of influence,

or did you just have a general interest in it?

Yeah, I went to a few Star Trek conventions

back in the old days.

Before I did Star Wars,

I was allowed to do things like that.

I mean, I started writing Star Wars sort of

in the heyday of the syndication part of Star Trek.

The alien has screens up, too.

Take all action necessary to protect the ship.

I think the thing I was attracted to the most

about Star Trek is that it completely got rid

of all the mundane, boring angle of real space

and just said, well, let's just go out

and go where no one else dared to go.

I mean, it's up to the artist to sort of present things

in an exciting and inspiring fashion.

Star Trek and Star Wars are not reality shows.

They're imagination shows.

We're a most promising species, Mr. Spock,

as predators go.

Did you know that?

The story is really the thing that makes it work.

And in the beginning with Star Trek,

that's all there was, was story.

And that's what made it compelling.

(dramatic music) (Uhura screaming)

Gene Roddenberry took the ideas

and made them so he could put them on television,

which just really has no resources at all.

(bright music)

We did the show in six days,

and that's the equivalent

of doing a half a motion picture every week,

which is, our schedule was 12 to 14 hours a day,

and the production staff worked six days a week.

Gene Roddenberry's vision

in the beginning was very specific,

and it was oriented toward television,

and even Star Wars was oriented

toward what I could actually get away with, you know,

what I could do, given the amount of resources I had

and the amount of technology I had available.

So, it sort of limits how you scale the thing.

(spaceship popping)

If you don't mind me asking, during your creation

of the first movie, was there a lot of commentary

about how this needs to stay away from Star Trek?

I mean, I know it was your own vision, but...

Well, it was, you know,

what I was doing was more space opera

than sort of science fiction.

For luck.

(triumphant music)

(guns firing)

(bright music)

Star Trek was more sort of intellectual, mystery.

It wasn't action-oriented.

Star wars was action-oriented.

(ominous music)

No!

I like Star Wars.

It was the young King Arthur growing up

and slaying the evil Emperor, finally.

And there's nothing wrong with that kind of entertainment,

everything doesn't have to create a philosophy

for you for your whole life.

You can also have fun.

Not to get too personal here,

but Luke was trying to understand his father

and, through that, learning more about himself, I think,

is one way of interpreting the character.

Is there any sort of parallel or reflection

on your personal life?

Is the character a piece of you in any way?

Well, the ultimate, overall arc of it has always been

that the son redeems the father.

I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father.

I wish I'd known him.

But the personal note is that,

you know, I have an 11-year-old son.

He's kind of into Star Wars,

So it's not like he didn't pay attention to it, but I think,

like you, he doesn't really fully comprehend how big it is,

you know, because it's hard to comprehend that

and what an impact it has on people.

It should be an interesting journey for you.

Millions and millions of people are affected by it,

and they were about Star Trek, and they are about Star Wars.

What do you think

about the whole Star Wars versus Star Trek,

the Enterprise versus the Millennium Falcon,

And you see these websites...

Yeah, I kind of stay away

from the fan sites and everything.

I couldn't even contemplate what would happen

if you put the Enterprise up against the Millennium Falcon.

You know, it's an intellectual exercise...

There you go, yes.

Which, you know, could have any outcome you want.

(George chuckles)

Well, I understand you're busy.

I'll let you go.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, unfortunately, I got to finish a movie.

Otherwise everybody will be upset. (laughs)

(machine whirring) (somber music)

Well, about a year or two after the Star Wars movie,

in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out.

(crowd cheering)

(Nichelle laughs)

Well, the fans were wild for the idea,

and I kind of liked the idea, too,

a chance to see what Star Trek could do

on the big screen and with an adequate budget and so on.

Thanks, Gene!

I do remember seeing it and being bored to death.

I was so young at the time

and the concepts were so highbrow, so intelligent,

that I just had no idea what was going on.

But the fans loved it.

It would lead to three more feature films.

And finally, my father got the opportunity

that very few producers in Hollywood get.

Space, the final frontier.

He got a second chance.

To boldly go where no one has gone before.

(triumphant music)

In 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered.

My father got the opportunity to re-create his creation.

It isn't good enough, what we did,

and we've got to now build on that and make it better.

And I want Star Trek to do the things it can do.

The Next Generation was set in a future 75 years

after the final mission of the Starship Enterprise

under Captain kirk.

Now there was a new captain.

When I was cast,

not only had I never seen an entire episode

of the original series but I had no sense of the status

that the series had in the history of popular culture.

We'll try and take them by surprise.

Let's see what this galaxy-class starship can do.

I think that was an advantage for me,

because I wasn't intimidated by the history.

My father actually brought back a number

of the creative staff from the original series

to work on The Next Generation.

He asked me to write the Pilot, ultimately,

which was Encounter at Farpoint.

And I said, sure, you know, why not?

Sir, Lieutenant La Forge reporting,

the Enterprise arriving but without the saucer section, sir.

Stardrive section only?

What happened? I don't know, sir.

Captain Picard has signaled for you to beam up immediately.

Our new captain doesn't waste time.

At that point, your father was surrounded creatively

by a lot of people who had been involved

with the original series.

But he liked the fact

that I was 20 years younger than these people,

and he liked the fact

that I didn't really know too much about Star Trek,

which I didn't.

Rolling, please.

Now my father's attention was completely focused

on his new, improved vision for the future.

And action.

In the new series, we have a chance to deal with questions

of the '80s and the '90s,

such as the question of terrorists

and the problems of superstitions

which rule the world and set people bombing each other.

Riker, W.T., reporting as ordered, sir.

Welcome aboard.

Roddenberry took me under his wing,

and he would explain to me with real passion

what life would be like in the 24th century.

There will be no hunger, and there will be no greed,

and all the children will know how to read.

We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions.

We've grown out of our infancy.

It was difficult from the point of view of writing

because writing drama is anchored in conflict

and the resolution of conflict.

It's wonderful.

And he did not want conflict

between his core characters.

A feeling of great joy.

I can tell you that many, many writers that I worked with

on the show had a difficult time writing in his world.

All the writers on the show loved the original,

and some of the things we loved about the original

we weren't allowed to do anymore.

You couldn't have the great Kirk/Spock arguments.

We need a formula!

We've got to risk implosion!

Never been done!

That show was charged, and sometimes it became personal

and they were angry at each other.

Next Gen was not gonna operate that way.

In Roddenberry's universe,

you can't go back to the simple conflicts

that drive drama because he won't allow them

in the 24th century.

I believe we are, ladies and gentlemen,

in the process of evolving

beyond our present animal human form.

I remember pictures of Gene

in the '70s and the early '80s,

going to conventions, being at symposiums,

and idolized by all these young people.

I think, over the years,

Gene had been told so many times

that he was a visionary of the future that on some level

he started to believe that,

and he took on this sort of mantle of,

I'm responsible for projecting to you,

the audience, this vision of the future.

And a lot of the writers who had worked with Gene

sort of would rail against him at how difficult he was.

Did you and my father part on good terms?

No. No.

Absolutely not. I'm sorry to hear that.

I would turn in the first-draft script,

and I never saw the script again.

Gene rewrote it. Okay.

Now, as a writer,

you still must take that a little personal, no?

Well, yeah! Yeah, okay.

How are our rather quarrelsome guests?

They're waiting for you

in the observation lounge, sir.

I finished out my time and left, happily.

It just was not a pleasant experience.

(starship crashing)

Fire, now!

(lasers whooshing)

We missed!

Despite all the problems,

the show survived and kept going.

It was very strong, and it was a hit.

We had an audience,

and they were gonna follow us wherever we went.

I've always been particularly partial

to The Next Generation.

I love the original, and I love The Next Generation.

I particularly love The Next Generation

because it was the first science-fiction series

I think I'd ever seen where the ship had carpet,

like somebody went in there and did,

like, wall-to-wall carpeting.

And, like, wood.

And wood and leather chairs and, like, house plants.

You know, it looked like a really plush corporate office.

The computer here fixed about the best martini I ever had.

In that way, to me,

that makes it the single most realistic portrayal

of what it would be like in space, because the reality is,

if you're out there for years and years and years,

you'd go crazy if you were in something

that looked like a submarine.

(bell rings)

That's a cut.

But as far as a show that kind of broke through,

I think it was because it was so bright.

It was so positive.

(dramatic music)

I'd been asked the question,

after doing all those episodes,

are there new things you can do?

My God, yes.

The basis of our series is the galaxy,

and there's quite a few stories out there.

At the time of this interview,

my father was in his mid-60s,

and Next Generation was beginning

what would be a very long run.

But at the very same time,

his health had started to decline.

See, the first time we did Star Trek, it was very...

(ominous music)

The first time we did Star Trek, it was...

Can I take a break?

(machine whirring)

Back in the '80s, Next Generation was a huge success.

In fact, I think, without its success

that Star Trek might just be sort of a distant memory today.

Ernie Over was my father's executive assistant

at the time.

Oh, there it is.

This was the vehicle that I drove Gene around in

between here and the studio and here in La Costa

for about 7 1/2 years.

It was great.

You know, I've got some very fond memories.

This room was a favorite.

Did you ever see the plaque over here?

What year that was. Oh, yeah.

The astronauts were here at the house many times

because of Gene's impact on the space program

and the positive Influence of Star Trek on NASA.

Nice, that's cool.

I feel like I missed out on that.

I was probably in college, I guess.

Well, no, you were in high school, then.

But you were off doing your own thing.

Just wasn't interested.

(gentle music)

Hi, Rod.

Dada.

Dada.

On the first show, on the original Star Trek,

I practically lost my family

from working so many 12-hour days,

14-hour days, seven days a week,

and I said, you can't pay me enough to do it all over again.

Paramount was saying to me,

we guarantee that you will be in charge of the show.

Wow, you can't buy that.

(computer beeps)

Number one.

On our show, his idea, I think,

whether he admitted it or not,

was that Wesley Crusher, Wil Wheaton's character,

and Riker and Captain Picard were

in some way sort of the three phases of Roddenberry.

With all due respect, sir, you need me.

He created the character of William Riker

as sort of a Gene junior.

Hello, Wesley.

And Wesley Crusher was Gene as a young man,

which in a way is almost a father-and-son relationship.

So he did, he went and created sons.

Yeah.

And I could see how that would smart a little bit,

if I was his biological son.

My father lived two lives.

He had his home life and he had his Star Trek life.

And Star Trek was definitely something

that he could create and mold.

And while I'm sure he loved his family and loved me

and loved my mother, it's definitely not, wasn't his vision.

Your bet, Mr. Crusher.

I remember I was an awkward teenager,

feeling really, like, I don't belong here.

I don't deserve to be here.

Wesley, you may get straight A's in school,

but there's a lot you need to learn about poker.

But your dad made me feel like

I deserved to be there.

He definitely modeled you after himself as a kid.

That's what I heard.

And I remember one time, I was at a convention,

and your dad was there, also.

And some fans were bagging on,

well, they were bagging on Wesley.

But at that, you know, I was 14.

Wesley had a lot to carry...

I figured that they were bagging on me.

And your dad was like, you shut up!

I love Wesley, and I made Wesley out of me,

and it's my show!

I'd really like to set you straight on something.

You're under some feeling that I make these shows for you.

(audience laughing)

I make them for me.

And if you've got a problem with it,

go watch something else.

And I was like, wow!

Your dad stood up for me.

That's actually a great story that I've never heard.

Really? Yeah, never, never.

Hearing these stories from People like Wil,

it does, there is a bit of jealousy there,

that he got to experience that side of my father.

Systems are, T-minus 10 seconds.

Go for main-engine start.

Seven, six, five.

I was not the best son,

and he was certainly not the best father.

And liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery!

I look back and I say,

God, it would have been great if we got along

and had great old times together.

Vehicle has cleared the tower.

But that's not the way it was.

And it was around that time

he started having his health issues.

Gene was still very much in control of the show

until sort of the end of the fourth season,

which I believe started to dovetail

with his declining health.

Speed.

Marker.

You could tell he wasn't himself, physically,

because he was a very physical man.

Right.

I remember we were due down on the set.

He invited me to go with him in the golf cart.

And we got in the cart,

and he sat there looking at it, you know, like, Right?

And he said, I don't know how it turns on.

This is a guy who was a bomber pilot during the war.

This is a guy who was a pilot on Pan Am.

You don't just forget how to run a golf cart.

What just happened? Yeah.

And I thought that it might be a series of small strokes.

Mm-hmm. And it turned out,

apparently, that I was right.

Later on, other people have said

he suffered a series of small strokes.

Ladies and gentlemen, please rise

and welcome the Great Bird Of the Galaxy,

our friend Gene Roddenberry.

(audience applauding)

This VHS tape is from one

of my father's last public appearances.

He was pretty weak at this point,

and my mother had asked me to help him out onstage.

(audience applauding) (gentle music)

I could, my voice could break now,

but a writer's voice never truly breaks.

And a writer's soul endures

in the face of adulation. (chuckles)

(audience applauding)

The truth of this is, I love you, and, I really do.

(audience applauding)

His whole life was about communication

of thoughts and ideas.

I remember, at the time, after one of his strokes,

coming in and talking to him and being,

actually, kind of scared because I'd see him trying to talk

and getting frustrated 'cause he would only be able

to mumble or get a few words out.

And you could see in his eyes that he really knew

what he wanted to say but couldn't say it.

(gentle music)

I remember, I remember the day your father died.

And I remember they stopped shooting.

We just all kind of felt the loss of it

and knew that something had just ended.

In some ways, we felt that we had lived the dream

as far as a fan could've lived it,

that Gene had created this thing

that we had fallen in love with as children

that meant a lot to us.

And now we were there, we were writing it,

we were creating it, we were continuing it

and that he had just died, and it was sort of our,

it was kind of our...

It was up to us to carry it on.

This is just another page in history, isn't it?

Will this be the end of our civilization?

Turn the page.

(Guinan chuckles)

Dad had passed away, I think, to everybody, in some sense.

And it was never gonna be the same,

and it was never the same.

It was never the same after that in many, many ways.

We just, we're gonna step in here for a second.

Absolutely, I would love you to.

Okay, come on in.

Thank you very much.

So, this actually used to be my father's office

during the filming of Next Generation.

Everything's pretty much the same.

I mean, the colors and the desk is different,

but he used to sit right here.

And I wrote this in here last time I was here.

(somber music)

My father died in 1991,

while The next Generation was still on the air.

I learned from a lot of the interviews

and people we spoke to.

Rehearsing from the top.

That the big question was,

what would Star Trek look like without Gene Roddenberry?

Lose the signal.

When Gene died, it, you know, nature abhors a vacuum.

Well, who is that person now?

Who is the final word on what is and is not Star Trek?

And that became Rick Berman.

There was always a little bit

of Gene sitting on my shoulder,

and I always was defending his vision,

and that got me into a lot of conflict.

(Jono keening) Jono!

Jono, why do you make that noise?

It is the custom of my people

when we are in distress.

He took Roddenberry's vision extraordinarily seriously.

Isn't it also the custom of your people

to listen to the wishes of their captain?

Yes, sir.

And it pissed us off,

because Gene wanted the future to be paradise, it's perfect.

Okay, Gene, God love him, God rest his soul, he's gone.

Okay, now let's get to these characters

and start playing the real thing.

And Rick wouldn't let us, you know?

Rick was like, this is what Gene wanted.

Bring us out of warp, ensign!

All stop!

Aye, sir, all stop!

You always had to really argue Rick into it.

You really had to hold his feet to the fire

to get him to the point where he would let you do something

that he knew Gene didn't want any part of.

I was always curious as to what this was,

the blindfolded bust of my father.

Some artist years ago made a bust of your father,

and he gave one to your father and he gave one to me.

And one day, there was a writers' meeting going on here,

and somebody was saying something,

and I said, thank God, Gene is gone.

I don't even want Gene to hear or see this.

And I grabbed a piece of ribbon that was sitting here,

and the ribbon has been there ever since.

I think there's a huge obligation to every writer

and that includes me,

to stay true to what Roddenberry created.

And there she is.

It's an incredibly difficult thing to do,

because how do you keep new audiences coming?

How do you appeal to young demographics

but, at the same time,

not betray the storytelling Roddenberry brought

to this franchise in the first place?

Mr. Data, are you all right?

I think that, as Next Generation went on,

it evolved and sort of changed.

There's more going on here

than anybody on this ship realizes.

We were trying to make it examine moral issues again.

We were trying to really sort of get under the skins

of some of these characters and put them in conflict,

despite all the dictums.

And we branched out

and started exploring the Klingon culture.

Everything I had was taken from me

except my sense of honor.

(people chattering)

Too bad for the humans.

I just can't get past the smooth forehead.

(Klingon grunts)

How about the Klingon phenomenon,

which, I think, you pretty much started?

That was one of the coolest characters ever,

just because he wasn't one of the group.

I love surprise parties.

(Beverly laughs)

And everything that they said to him,

he just didn't get their humor.

And he's violent and he's aggressive, but he's honorable.

It's the Klingon way.

I know.

But it is not my way.

Once we got the character fleshed out,

and that was who he was, the writers took off.

It was not the Next Generation that people were used to,

but I think it did bring in a new grouping of fans.

(lasers whooshing)

Still no damage to the Borg vessel, sir.

(alarm bleeps)

Warning, outer hull breach.

You know, one of the high points to me

of The next Generation was they did

that two-part episode with The Borg,

this big-budget sci-fi story that worked great,

(Borg booming)

and then followed it up with something

that was completely character-based,

where Picard goes back to France,

not even really a sci-fi plot.

It just is him kind of reconnecting with his brother.

Were you so jealous?

Yes, damn it.

I was always so jealous, and I had a right to be!

A right!

To me, that three-episode chunk shows,

the breadth of what you can do

and how ingenious that thing was.

We did want to do quality television,

and we got an Emmy nomination, for God's sakes.

It's one of the best shows on TV.

I'm very proud of that.

We're losing the freighter.

When we were nominated as one

of the five best dramatic shows on television,

they were basically telling us that we were not just sci-fi.

We were a great drama.

By the end of its run,

Next Gen had really achieved something.

It had proven that you could follow up the original series

with a whole new set of characters,

that the concept was larger than the one show.

It's really the one that expands the limits

of what Star Trek was.

Five-card stud, nothing wild.

And the sky is the limit.

(bright music)

The Next Generation finally went off the air.

But Star Trek was still growing.

Still to come were three more television shows,

four more movies, and ultimately,

a threat that could end it all.

(audience applauding)

Well, it's 8:53 in the morning.

I had to get up to finish my computer assignment.

Don't I look great?

I feel great.

After my father had passed away,

I was still fairly rebellious at the time

and I just really wanted to get away.

Let me show you guys what it looks like outside, okay?

So hang on.

I went off to college on the East Coast.

What a morning, huh?

And I worked pretty damn hard.

I got some decent grades.

I had some crazy aspirations of becoming an astrophysicist.

I locked myself out again.

This really sucks.

But after my third time taking calculus,

realized that was not in the cards.

Roll sound.

Roll it!

At speed.

Towards the last year of college, my mother contacted me

and told me that she had been shopping some

of my father's concepts around Hollywood

and there was one that people were interested.

They called it Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict.

I thought this was a great life opportunity.

Roll it!

Rolling sound!

It's gonna be fun.

So I moved to Toronto,

and I worked on Earth: Final Conflict.

All right, here we go, places, please.

And action!

I was technical adviser.

And so, for the next three years,

I would write notes on every script, draft,

and everything that came through.

The crew, the cast, some of the greatest people

I've ever met, who wanted to be part of something special.

But it didn't feel right.

It didn't feel Roddenberry to me.

I realized, you know, I'd actually learned a great deal,

without me knowing, from Star Trek.

Star Trek was really about a quest for knowledge

and to expand the human mind and growing and evolving

by interacting with other intelligent life forms.

That's one of the strongest aspects

to a Roddenberry production.

(bright music)

Science fiction today is one

of the last places a philosopher can operate.

Too many people assume that science fiction is a lot

of blinking lights and strange gadgets,

and they violate the cardinal rules of storytelling,

which is that stories are basically about people.

My father made sure to have some sort

of alien-type character

that was always sort of the window into humanity.

They were the ones that asked the questions

that we took for granted every day

that made us sort of really think about ourselves.

Do you consider yourself superior to us?

I am superior, sir, in many ways.

But I would gladly give it up to be human.

I really wanted Earth: Final Conflict to have that feel.

Bang!

But it was an action show.

They had to have the hero dodging bullets

and shooting and fights and chases.

Truly spectacular.

And my note would be,

do they really need to pull out the gun and shoot?

It lost the humanity, in my opinion.

And it bothered me even more because they called it,

Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict.

I would look at the show we were working on,

and I just wouldn't see it there.

Action!

Everybody get down!

(explosion booming) (alarm buzzing)

That's a wrap for the season!

(audience applauding) Freedom!

Earth: Final Conflict continued without me.

Meanwhile, Deep Space Nine

and Star Trek: Voyager ran their course.

By 2004, the only Star Trek show left

on the air was Enterprise.

(Jonathan grunts)

I think it's time you and your friends,

went on your merry way.

(gentle music)

(crowd cheering)

(horn honks)

In the midst of filming this documentary,

we learned that Star Trek: Enterprise was going

to be canceled.

(horn honking)

Just like in the '60s, Star Trek fans staged a protest.

Where'd you come from?

Nashville, Tennessee.

You came from Nashville to do this?

Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. Jesus.

I mean, this is something

that I watched when I was a little kid.

It's like, I don't know.

It means something to me.

What are these the names of?

These are the names of people

who signed a petition to save Enterprise.

Wow, wonderful.

Would you care to sign it, Mr. Roddenberry?

I would love to sign it.

As a young boy and a teenager,

I didn't get, really, what Star Trek was.

This is something that only became clear to me

in the midst of this project.

And then I got it.

That's amazing. Yeah.

Now I understood the scope of Star Trek,

of what it really meant to people.

It sort of dawned on us

that this would be the end of an era.

So, we're on stage 18, the second-to-last day of Enterprise.

(dramatic music)

Hey, Rod, how are you? How you doing, man?

It's been a big family kind of thing.

I mean, we spend more time here with each other

than we do with our own family, so it's bittersweet.

Obviously, we're very proud of what we've done.

I was in wardrobe the other day,

and there were two astronauts there

who were doing a walk-on role on the show or something.

One of them just spent six months on the space station,

and as we were all in wardrobe, he had said to everyone,

look, I just want to let you know

that this is the reason I'm an astronaut.

How the hell can you not feel good about that?

I don't see it going away.

In the future, it's very hard to say.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

No, no.

No, we're off the air.

We're not dead.

Cut, that was good. Do it, do it, do it!

I didn't know it then

(men grunting)

but a brand-new Enterprise was about to take flight.

(dramatic music)

Now, on boom, if everyone could move this direction.

Roll cameras!

Three, two, one, boom.

(dramatic music)

In 2009, Star Trek was back.

J.J. Abrams would be the first director of a Star Trek movie

who hadn't actually known my father.

And I had something very special I wanted to show him.

Well, if you don't mind,

there's something that's actually kind of fantastic.

This is one of the main reasons

why we want to interview you.

I have thought that, having reached this point,

it would be fun go back to the years

in which Kirk first got the Enterprise and met these people.

Nothing would please me more than

to have Star Trek come back years in the future,

and bright young people and new stars

and so on really make it something and have them say,

that's better than Roddenberry's.

I'd like that.

That's great. Yeah.

Thanks, that's amazing.

It is, huh? Yeah.

Well, I certainly wouldn't say

we did better than Roddenberry.

It was eerie to see him talking about that.

But you did an amazing job

of keeping the core of Star Trek,

as well as bringing in a whole new audience.

Oh, thank you very much.

And walking that line has been

what everyone's tried to do.

Now, when you do it, do you want to create your own idea

and go the direction you want to?

Well, here's the thing.

Anyone who would say, he's no Gene Roddenberry,

and JJ got huge shoes to fill,

and he can't do what Gene did, they're all right.

It's just true.

But that's okay.

I mean, I don't want to be your father.

I want to be whoever the hell I am and do my job.

Ready for warp, sir.

(dramatic music)

It's a weird thing, 'cause as much as it's a gift working

on something called Star Trek, it's a huge burden,

because you've got decades

of pre-existing stuff to compare it to.

The great challenge and opportunity

of doing Star Trek is combining spectacle

with intimacy and emotion.

I'm so sorry.

There's this amazing dynamic

of these different characters.

And sure, they're archetypes.

You know, when you go to Bones,

you know what you're gonna get.

I'm a doctor, not an engineer.

I'm a doctor, not a performer.

Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist.

There's great wit sort of built in,

and it's the reason that you can re-cast the roles,

because it's not just

that there were terrific actors playing these parts,

but they were great parts to play.

Now, we have heard

that you weren't initially a fan of Star Trek.

I appreciated the show.

I just was not an avid fan.

I was not one of the friends of mine

who were just, you know, obsessed.

Yeah.

You know, the Trekkies are the people

who they get it in that way.

But now I'm one of those people who gets it.

That's awesome.

There's a small similarity in the sense

that I didn't really watch Star Trek as a kid.

It was only after my father passed away...

Isn't that weird?

And as I began to explore it,

now it feels like part of me.

I mean, of course, you assume,

if your last name's Roddenberry, that you're a Trekkie.

And my guess is that you might have been had

your name not been Roddenberry.

It's a fascinating thing,

the relationship between fathers and sons.

Everyone has that baggage,

and everyone has to figure out their place.

(bright music)

When I initially started working on this project,

I was definitely in a position

that I'd never been in before,

which was to ask questions about my father.

He had some very unique points of view on society

and the way that we lived.

He was, of course, human, and he was flawed,

but the Star Trek that he embodied,

really explored the human mind,

Our consciousness, and our intellectual potential.

("Where No Man has Gone Before")

Space, the final frontier.

You know, it's funny.

It's hard for me and many other people, I suspect,

to look ahead into the future without thinking

about what Star Trek says the future's gonna be.

I like the idea that, you know,

they could gallivant around the galaxy.

That's, I think, a very positive impression

to put out there.

That you could go anywhere and find anything

and that anything was possible.

Star Trek has become such a part of the human nomenclature

that you can't escape it.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't know

what, beam me up, Scotty, is or warp speed.

Warp us out of here.

These children who watched Star Trek

became astrophysicists, scientists, astronomers.

The devices and the concepts and ideas

on the show are now part of science.

It's art creating life.

(gentle music)

I think that Star Trek today is more important

than when it first came on.

(all laughing)

What it should be is a model for us to shoot for.

This is what we should be working towards, you know?

Cynically, you can say that

it is a naive, sort of Pollyanna-ish way

of looking at things, you know?

But it isn't naive to say

that the only way we're gonna survive is

through collaboration, is through mutual respect

and understanding and the sense of it doesn't matter

what you look like, it doesn't matter where you come from,

that you can be part of that family.

And that is a hugely powerful thing.

It's the philosophy of Star Trek that I feel connected to.

I mean, even though all this just came from a TV show,

it really is an amazing idea of the future.

And until someone shows me or tells me something better,

it's the direction I want to head in.

Star Trek says the human adventure has just begun.

It'll go on without any of us

and get better and better and better

because that really is the human condition,

is to improve and improve.

(gentle music)