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Samstag, 19. August 2017

Happy Birthday Jonathan Frakes!

When I was younger I fancied the idea of being a jazz trombone player -- playing all those wonderful standards night after night -- and before that I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But now, I'd be happy to just have a bait shop.

If the prime directives were followed a little more accurately here on earth, I mean it sounds somewhat Pollyanna, but I think people would certainly get along better.

I'm very proud of having been a part of Star Trek, and it is what has allowed me to do what I'm doing now. It was 18 years of our lives and it has given all of us some wonderful things, not the least of which is our friendships.

I'm sort of in for a penny, in for a pound with Star Trek, It's my life at this point. To deny it would just be foolish.

I think that I've been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I've spent so much time in front of a green screen.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I think, unfortunately or fortunately, the reality of Hollywood is that if your movie makes money, they'll make another one.

I like contemporary American literature and I like biographies and I like jazz and I like baseball and I like writers who write about the human condition and sci-fi is just something that I happened into.

No, the type-casting didn't happen until after Star Trek. I don't think that you get typecast until you've been cast!

I don't think you ever leave Star Trek for good. 

Well, there's much more time to do a weekly show, and much more coverage - as it turns out, it was all preparation for the stuff I'm doing now - but it was interesting to see how much time was spent on how little airtime, compared to knocking out a show a day on the soaps.

I always enjoyed going into the holodeck.

I was told during the first season by the late, great Gene Rodenberry that he wanted Riker to have a Gary Cooper stance and presence and never to smile. It's very hard for me not to smile so I spent the first season being very rigid – and you can see it in the show – Riker's really stiff and rigid, trying desperately not to smile and finally I think Gene, and other people who leapt in, said maybe we should let a little more Frakes seep into Riker.

I've always thought that we, as human beings, would be naive and arrogant to pretend that we're the only life form in the galaxy. 

I was a psych major until I saw how much fun the actors were having, and I decided I'd transfer over to the theater arts department.

I think Star Trek has been very double-edged for all of us - as actors, writers, directors.

I think enjoying it helps. I don't think there's any reason to be an actor unless you feel deep in your soul that you have to be, because it's not a career that one can count on working in or making a living at.

Happy Birthday Gene Roddenberry!

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.

We stress humanity, and this is done at considerable cost. We can't have a lot of dramatics that other shows get away with - promiscuity, greed, jealousy. None of those have a place in 'Star Trek.'

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.

'Star Trek' is a 'Wagon Train' concept - built around characters who travel to worlds 'similar' to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which become our stories. Their transportation is the cruiser 'S.S. Yorktown,' performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission which helps create our format.

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.

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.

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'd been an Army bomber pilot and fascinated by the Navy and, particularly, the story of the Enterprise, which at Midway really turned the tide in the whole war in our favor. I'd always been proud of that ship and wanted to use the name.

The human race is a remarkable creature, one with great potential, and I hope that 'Star Trek' has helped to show us what we can be if we believe in ourselves and our abilities. 

'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.

The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.

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.

 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.

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.

'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.

Normal television limits what you can do. With science fiction, you can exercise your imagination more. I fell in love with it.

'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.

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.

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.

No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. 

Earth is the nest, the cradle, and we'll move out of it.

I wanted to send a message to the television industry that excitement is not made of car chases.

These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission... to boldly go where no man has gone before.

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.