Gene Roddenberry

At 70 years old, Gene Roddenberry has this physical status:

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and designer of the original Star Trek television series and its first spin-off The Next Generation.

Roddenberry, a boy who was born in El Paso, Texas, grew up in Los Angeles, where his father, who was a police officer.

During World War II, Roddenberry served as a commercial pilot after the war.

Later, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he also began to write scripts for television. Roddenberry, a freelance writer, wrote scripts for Highway Patrol, Have Gun–Will Travel, and other series before concering and directing his own television show The Lieutenant.

Roddenberry created Star Trek in 1964, which debuted in 1966 and lasted for three seasons before being cancelled.

He then worked on other projects, including a string of failed television pilots.

The syndication of Star Trek resulted in the production and consulting of the Star Trek series.

The sequel series Star Trek: The Next Generation first appeared on television in 1987; Roddenberry was instrumental in the initial production but he had to take a less active role after the first season due to ill health.

He continued to research the series until his death in 1991. He was the first television writer to be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1985, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in later inducted him.

Roddenberry, one of the first humans to have his ashes carried into earth orbit, many years after his death.

The success of the Star Trek franchise and films has inspired films, comic books, video games, and fan films set in the Star Trek universe.

Personal life

Roddenberry began dating Eileen-Anita Rexroat while attending Los Angeles City College. They became engaged before Roddenberry left Los Angeles for his military service, and married at the chapel at Kelly Field in June 1942. Darleen Anita and Dawn Allison were married together, with two children together. Roddenberry was known to have affairs with covertarial employees during his time in the LAPD. He began collaborating with both Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett before his work on Star Trek. In her autobiography Beyond Uhura, Nichols wrote about their friendship only after Roddenberry's death. Roddenberry wanted to maintain an open relationship with both women at the time, but Nichols, aware of Barrett's contribution to him, ended the affair as she did not want to be "the other woman to the other woman."

By the first weeks of Star Trek, Barrett and Roddenberry had an apartment together. After the first season of the show, he had intended to divorce Eileen, but when the show was relaunched, he put off doing so because he didn't have enough time to deal with both the divorce and Star Trek. On August 9, 1968, two weeks after his daughter Darleen's marriage, he moved out of the family house. He suggested to Barrett by telephone in 1969 while scouting locations in Japan for MGM's Pretty Maids All in a Row. They were married in a Shinto ceremony, as Roddenberry considered it "illegitim" to use an American minister in Japan. Eugene Jr., also known as Rod Roddenberry, was Roddenberry and Barrett's son together in February 1974. Roddenberry's executive assistant, Susan Sackett, had an extramarital relationship with him from 1975 to his death.

Roddenberry was born a Southern Baptist, but as an adult, he rejected religion and regarded himself a humanist. Around the age of 14, he began questioning religion and came to the conclusion that it was "nonsense." He sang hymns as a youth but often substituted lyrics as he sang hymns. "skillfully writing Christian truth and the integration of Christian values into commercial, dramatic television scripts" early in his writing career. For many years, he worked with National Council of Churches President John M. Gunn on the use of Christian teachings in television shows. Gunn's response was stopped after Roddenberry wrote in a letter: "I must confess that I am a complete pagan and consume massive amounts of bread." I'm more interested in a statement embedded in dollars and cents of what this means to the Roddenberry treasury.

"How can I take seriously a God-image that requires me prostrate myself every seven days and praise it," Roddenberry said of Christianity. That seems to be a very insecure person." He had a similar viewpoint at one point, which had been expected to have been shared by a Vulcan, in Star Trek: The God Thing's story. Roddenberry became close friends with philosopher Charles Musès, who said that Roddenberry's views were "a far cry from atheism" before his death. "It's not true that I don't believe in God," Roddenberry said of his position. I believe in a sort of God. It's just not other people's God. I deny faith. I accept the idea of God. He had an ongoing curiosity in other people's faith lives, and Catholicism was described as a "very beautiful faith." "An art work." However, he denied all organized religions, saying that for the most part, they behaved like a "substitute brain" and a "very malfunctioning one." Roddenberry was also critical of how the public understood certain faiths, noting that the American public accepted it as the act of freedom fighters, rather than a terrorist attack in Beirut. Although he admitted that both sides were wrong in their use of violence, he maintained that both groups were motivated by their strong religious convictions.

Roddenberry "strongly believed that modern Earth religions would have passed away by the end of the century," Ron D. Moore wrote. Roddenberry made it known to the writers of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation that religion, superstition, and mystical thought were not to be included, according to Brannon Braga. And a mention of marriage in a script for a young episode of The Next Generation culminated in Roddenberry's chastising the writers. Star Trek had evolved "into a sort of a secular equivalent to the Catholic Mass," Nicholas Meyer said. "Understand that Star Trek is more than just my political conviction, my racial ideology, my life story, and the human condition," Roddenberry compared the franchise to his own conviction. The American Humanist Association awarded the 1991 Humanist Arts Award to him.

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Early life and career

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso, Texas, on August 19, 1921, his parents' rented house. Eugene Edward Roddenberry and Caroline "Glen" Roddenberry's first child. (née Golemon) Roddenberry was born on August 19, 1921. After Gene's father passed the civil service exam and was granted a police commission in Los Angeles in 1923, the family moved to Los Angeles in 1923. Roddenberry, a boy, was interested in reading, particularly pulp magazines, and he was a fan of John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, and E. E. Smith's Skylark series.

Roddenberry majored in police science at Los Angeles City College, where he began dating Eileen-Anita Rexroat and became interested in aeronautical engineering. Through the Civilian Pilot Training Program of the United States Army Air Corps, he obtained a pilot's license. On December 18, 1941, he joined the USAAC and married Eileen on June 13, 1942. He joined the USAAC on August 5, 1942 as a second lieutenant.

He was posted to Bellows Field, Oahu, to be part of the 394th Bomb Squadron, the Thirteenth Air Force's 5th Bomb Squadron, which flies the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.

The plane was piloting B-17E-BO, 41-2463, "Yankee Doodle," out of Espiritu Santo, killing the nose and starting a fire as well as killing two men: bombardier Sgt. Lt. John P. Kruger and navigator Lt. Woolam are among John P. Kruger and navigator Lt. Woolam. Roddenberry was not charged with any responsibility according to the official report. Roddenberry spent the remainder of his military service in the United States and travelled all over the country as a plane crash investigator. He was involved in a second plane crash, this time as a passenger. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.

Roddenberry began flying for Pan American World Airways in 1945, with routes from New York to Calcutta, the two longest Pan Am routes at the time. He died on the Clipper Eclipse, 1936, as a resident of River Edge, New Jersey. When the plane came down in the Syrian Desert, Roddenberry, the top flight officer, sustained two broken ribs but was able to pull wounded passengers out of the burning plane and lead the group to seek assistance. Fourteen (or fifteen) people were killed in the crash; eleven passengers required hospitalization (including Bishnu Charan Ghosh), and eight others were unharmed; Roddenberry resigned from Pan Am on May 15, 1948, but he vowed to write for the first time on television.

Roddenberry started working with the Los Angeles Police Department on January 10, 1949, and spent his first 16 months in the traffic division before being transferred to the newspaper unit. Roddenberry became the Chief of Police's speech writer, and the Public Information Division was established. He served as the LAPD liaison to the highly popular Dragnet television show "Saving technical assistance for specific episodes." He also wrote his first television script for the show, boiled down to short-screen scripts that would be fleshed out by Jack Webb's staff of writers, and splitting the fee with the officers who actually investigated the true story. He then became a technical advisor on a new television version of Mr. District Attorney, which culminated in him writing for the program under his pseudonym "Robert Wesley." In comparison to Ziv's Highway Patrol, he began to work with Ziv Television Programs and began to sell scripts to Mr. District Attorneys. He had two story plans for I Led Three Lives in early 1956, and he found that being a writer and a policeman was getting more difficult. On June 7, 1956, he resigned from the service to concentrate on his writing career.

Career as full-time writer and producer

Roddenberry was promoted to lead writer for The West Point Story and wrote ten scripts for the first season, about a third of the total episodes. When working with Ziv in 1956, he pitched a series to CBS set aboard a cruise ship, Hawaii Passage, but they didn't buy it because he wanted to become a producer and have complete creative control. He wrote another script for the company's film "Coastal Security" and signed a deal with the company to produce Junior Executive with Quinn Martin. Nothing of the series appeared.

In his early years as a professional writer, he wrote scripts for a number of other series, including Bat Masterson and Jefferson Drum. In 1958, Roddenberry's episode "Want to Travel," "Helen of Abajinian," received the Writers Guild of America award for Best Teleplay. He also began to produce series of his own, including a series based on an agent for Lloyd's of London called The Man From Lloyds. Footbeat, a police-based series, was pitched to CBS, Hollis Productions, and Screen Gems. It almost made it into ABC's Sunday-night lineup, but the network decided to only have Western series that night.

Roddenberry was asked to write Riverboat, a 1860s Mississippi story. When he learned that the producers wanted no black people on the show, he argued so much with them that he lost the job. Roddenberry is also considering going to England at this time, as Lew Grade encourages him to create a series and establish his own production firm. Despite being unable to move, he leveraged the opportunity to secure a lifetime deal with Screen Gems that included a pledged $100,000 and became a director for the first time as a producer in The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show named Wrangler.

Roddenberry's first attempt at creating a pilot was supported by Screen Gems. The Wild Blue, his pilot, was not picked up, but not the first one. The three main characters had names that later appeared in the Star Trek series: Philip Pike, Edward Jellicoe, and James T. Irvine. When working at Screen Gems, an actress who is new to Hollywood, an actor, she wrote to him, requesting a meeting. Majel Leigh Hudec, later known as Majel Barrett, became a friend and met every few months; the woman was soon to be friends and became a member of the Armed Leigh Hudec; He created 333 Montgomery, a second pilot based on DeForest Kelley's character. It was not picked up by the network initially, but Defiance County was later rewritten as a new series. His screen Gems experience came to an end in late 1961, and shortly afterward, he had problems with his old pal Erle Stanley Gardner. Defiance County had infringed his character, according to Perry Mason, who had portrayed him as Doug Selby. The two writers eventually fell out by email and stopped contacting one another, but Defiance County never advanced past the pilot stage. The project came to an end when MGM produced Sam Benedict, as the NBC series Sam Benedict with Edmond O'Brien in the title role. E. Jack Neuman defended the designer's assertion that the character was based on true San Francisco lawyer Jake Ehrlich.

In 1961, he agreed to appear in an MONY (Mutual of New York) commercial as long as he had final approval. With the funds earned from Screen Gems and other projects, Eileen and his partner Eileen have migrated to 539 South Beverly Glen, near Beverly Hills. With fellow writer Christopher Knopf of MGM, he discussed the possibility of a multi-ethnic crew on an airship traveling the world. As the time was not yet appropriate for science fiction, he began to work on The Lieutenant for Arena Productions. This made it to the NBC Saturday night lineup at 7:30 p.m. on September 14, 1963. The show set a new time slot for the time slot. Roddenberry appeared on several cast and crew members who would later join him on Star Trek, including Gene L. Coon, actor Gary Lockwood, Joe D'Agosta, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, and Majel Barrett.

The Lieutenant was produced with the Pentagon's cooperation, allowing them to film at a real Marine base. During the series's development, Roddenberry and the Department of Defense regularly clashed over plots. After Roddenberry launched "To Set It Right" as a result of a campaign in which a white and a black man find a common cause in their roles as Marines, the department rallied support. This was the first time he had worked with Nichols, and it was his first television appearance. The episode has been preserved at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. Since its first season, the program was not renewed. Roddenberry was still working on a new series idea. This included his ship location from Hawaii Passage as well as the multiracial crew from his airship design. He decided to write it as science fiction, and by March 11, 1964, he had compiled a 16-page pitch. He sent three copies and two dollars (equivalent to $17 in 2021) to the Writers Guild of America on April 24, indicating his collection. It was called Star Trek by the narrator.

When Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to MGM, it was warmly accepted, but no proposal was made. He moved to Desilu Productions, but rather than being offered a one-script contract, he was recruited as a producer and encouraged to work on his own projects. His first, a half-hour pilot called Police Story (not to be confused with Joseph Wambaugh's anthology series), was not picked up by the networks. Desilu was having financial difficulties; the Lucy Exhibition was the only one to be profitable; they hadn't sold a pilot in five years. Roddenberry pitched the Star Trek story to Oscar Katz, head of development, and the pair immediately began to work on a campaign to bring the series to televisions. They took it to CBS, which eventually died on it. The pair discovered later that CBS had been eager to find out about Star Trek because it had a science fiction film called "Lost in Space." At NBC, Roddenberry and Katz discussed the science fiction elements while emphasizing the links to Gunsmoke and Wagon Trains. The network bought three story ideas and selected "The Menagerie," later known as "The Cage," to be turned into a pilot. (The other two episodes of the series were later versions) Although the majority of the pilot's funds came from NBC, Desilu's remaining expenses were paid. Dorothy Fontana, also known as D. C. Fontana, was recruited as his assistant by Roddenberry. They had worked together on The Lieutenant before, and she had eight script credits to her name.

Roddenberry and Barrett had begun an affair early in Star Trek, and he had specifically written the part of the pilot's name with her in mind; no other actresses had been considered for the role. Spock's part was Nimoy, according to Barrett. He had worked with both Roddenberry and Barrett on The Lieutenant, and although Roddenberry remembered the actor's fine details, he did not choose anyone else for the role. The remaining cast members joined forces together; filming began on November 27, 1964, and was concluded on December 11. Following post-production, the episode was shown to NBC executives, and it was announced that Star Trek would be broadcast at 8:00 p.m. on Friday nights. The episode did not please test audiences, and Katz suggested a second pilot after the executives became hesitant. A new episode of NBC was ordered on March 26, 1965.

Roddenberry wrote several scripts, including "Mudd's Women," "The Omega Glory," and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" by Samuel A. Peeples. The last one was voted by NBC, prompting later rumors that Peeples created Star Trek, which he had denied. Roddenberry was determined to make the crew racially diverse, which impressed actor George Takei when he arrived for his audition. The episode came out on July 15, 1965, and was finished at about half the price of "The Cage" because the sets were still built. Roddenberry worked on several projects for the remainder of the year. He decided to write lyrics to the Star Trek theme in December, angering Alexander Courage, the theme's composer, because royalties would be split between them. NBC announced in February 1966 that they were purchasing Star Trek and that it would be included in the fall 1966 television program.

The first episode of the Star Trek series, which was released on May 24, was contracted to produce 13 episodes. Roddenberry appeared at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention and premiered "Where No Man Has Gone Before" five days before the first broadcast. He deserved a standing ovation after the episode was shown. "The Man Trap" was the first episode to air on NBC on September 8, 1966, at 8:00 p.m. Roddenberry was immediately worried about the series' poor success and wrote to Harlan Ellison to ask if he could use his letters to the network to save the show. Ellison agreed not to lose a potential source of income but also sought the assistance of other writers who wanted to prevent future income. Roddenberry spoke with science fiction writer Isaac Asimov on how to tackle Spock's increasing fame and the possibility that his character will overshadow Kirk. Kirk and Spock, Asimov, should work together as a team "to get people to think of Kirk when they think of Spock." The show was revived by NBC, first for a full season's order and then for a second season. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, studio executives were quoted as saying that the letter-writing effort was wasted because they had already been planning to revive Star Trek.

Roddenberry rewrote scripts, but he did not always give credit for them. After Roddenberry rewrote Ellison's script to make it both financially viable to film and usable for the series context, Roddenberry and Ellison fell out over "The City on the Edge of Forever." And Don Ingalls' script for "A Private Little War" was changed dramatically, and Ingalls announced that he would only be credited under the pseudonym "Jud Crucis" (a play on "Jesus Christ"), implying that the procedure had been corrupted. Roddenberry's rewriting "The Menagerie," based on footage taken for "The Cage," resulted in a Writers Guild arbitration board hearing. The Guild in his favor over John D. F. Black, the accusant. The script received a Hugo Award, but the awards board neglected to inform Roddenberry, who discovered it on correspondence with Asimov.

Roddenberry was once more threatened with expulsion as the second season came to an end. On NBC, he enlisted Asimov's assistance and even promoted a student-led protest march. A thousand students from 20 different schools around the country marched on the auditorium on January 8, 1968. Roddenberry began to communicate with Star Trek writer Bjo Trimble, who was involved in a fan writing effort to save the series. Trimble later revealed that this effort of writing to fans who had written to Desilu about the show, assuaging them to write NBC, had established a strong Star Trek fanbase. Around 6,000 letters a week from fans petitioning it to renew the show. Star Trek will return for a third season on March 1, 1968, NBC announced on air, at the end of "The Omega Glory."

Star Trek was supposed to be broadcast in the United Nations night time slot open to The Man from U.C.L.E. The run is coming to an end. However, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In had to begin a half-hour earlier (from 9:00 to 9:30). George Schlatter, a powerful Laugh-In entrepreneur, protested his highly rated show giving its spot to the poorly rated Star Trek and causing outrage. Laugh-In retained the slot, but Star Trek was postponed to 10:00 p.m. on Fridays. Roddenberry resigned from Star Trek's day-to-day operation after realizing the show could not live in that time slot and sparked from network debates, although he continued to be credited as executive producer. Roddenberry co-authored Stephen Edward Poe's writing as Stephen Whitfield on the 1968 nonfiction book The Making of Star Trek for Ballantine Books, splitting the royalties equally. "I had to get some money somewhere," Roddenberry told Whitfield: "I had to get some money somewhere." I'm pretty sure not going to get it from Star Trek's profits, but I'm sure not going to get it from there. Whitfield never regretted his 50-50 relationship with Roddenberry because it gave him "the opportunity to be the first chronicler of television's popular unsuccessful series," Herbert Solow and Robert H. Justman said. Whitfield had been the national advertising and promotion manager for model manufacturers Aluminum Model Toys, also known as "AMT," which later held the Star Trek trademark and went on to operate Lincoln Enterprises, Roddenberry's company began to sell the series's products.

Roddenberry, who had stepped away from the majority of his Star Trek roles, decided to make a film based on Asimov's "I, Robot" and began work on a Tarzan script for National General Pictures. Roddenberry made changes to cut costs to $1.2 million after being rejected initially seeking a $2 million budget and being refused. He dropped the film after finding that they were only being charged $700,000 to shoot it, which by now was being described as a TV movie. In comparison, NBC announced Star Trek's cancellation in February 1969. Following the announcement of the cancellation, a similar but much smaller letter-writing campaign was launched. Because of the way the show was sold to NBC, it left the production company $4.7 million in debt. The last episode of Star Trek aired 47 days before Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission, and Roddenberry said he would never write for television again.

Roddenberry was left as a science fiction writer following the death of Star Trek, despite his involvement in Westerns and police reports. "My hopes were going downhill because I couldn't get work after the original series was cancelled," he later described the period. He was "perceived as the guy in charge of a show that was an expensive flop." Roddenberry had sold his Star Trek to Paramount Studios in exchange for a third of the company's continuing earnings. However, this did not result in a quick increase in money; the studio continued to state that the series was still in the red in 1982.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), Roger Vadim's exploitation film directed by Roger Vadim for MGM, was written and produced by him. Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson, Telly Savalas, and Roddy McDowall appeared in two Star Trek episodes, "The Squire Of Gothos" and "The Trouble With Tribbles," along with Star Trek veteran James Doohan and William J. Campbell, who had appeared as a guest in two Star Trek episodes, "The Squire Of Gothos." "Whatever component was in the original [novel by Francis Pollini] or screen concept had plowed under, leaving only superficial, one-joke results." Herbert Solow had given Roddenberry the task as a favour by paying him $100,000 for the script.

Faced with a mortgage and a $2,000-per-month alimony contract as a result of his 1969 divorce, he retained a booking agent (with the assistance of longtime friend Arthur C. Clarke) and continued to help himself mainly by giving college lectures and speaking at science fiction conventions. These screenings included screenings of "The Cage" and blooper reels from Star Trek's development. The conventions began to build fan support for returning Star Trek, leading TV Guide to it say, in 1972, "the show that will not die."

Roddenberry made a comeback to science fiction in 1972 and 1973, bringing four new series to a variety of television networks. Genesis II of Roddenberry was set on a postapocalyptic Earth. Without "doing another space hopping show," he had hoped to recreate Star Trek's success. He wrote a 45-page writing guide and suggested several story plots based on the belief that pockets of civilisation had regressed to earlier eras or changed entirely. In March 1973, the pilot premiered as a TV movie, bringing new records for the Thursday Night Movie of the Week. Roddenberry was asked to produce four more scripts for episodes, but CBS aired Planet of the Apes before production could begin again. It was watched by a much larger audience than Genesis II. From a ratings standpoint, CBS scrapped Genesis II and replaced it with a television series based on the film; the results were disappointing, and Planet of the Apes was cancelled after 14 episodes.

Gene L. Coon, a Trekkie collaborator who was in poor health at the time, was reunited with him on the Questor Tapes project. On Friday nights, NBC ordered 16 episodes and tentatively scheduled the series to follow The Rockford Files; the pilot launched on January 23, 1974, to ecstatic reviews; but Roddenberry balked at the substantial changes requested by the network and dropped the pilot, resulting in its immediate cancellation. Roddenberry reworked the Genesis II model as a second pilot for rival network ABC in 1974, with similar less-than-successive outcomes. On April 23, 1974, the pilot was broadcast on radios. Although Roddenberry wanted to produce something that might exist in the future, the network needed stereotypical science-fiction women and was dissatisfied when this was not delivered. Roddenberry was not involved in a third reworking of the ABC material that brought Strange New World. For twentieth-century Fox Television, he began MAGNA I, an underwater science-fiction film. By the time the script was complete, those who had supported the venture had left Fox and their replacements were uninterested in the program. Tribunes, a science-fiction police film in which Roddenberry attempted to get off the ground between 1973 and 1977, had a similar fate. He resigned after four years; the show never even reached the pilot stage.

Roddenberry was paid $25,000 by John Whitmore to write a script titled The Nine in 1974. It started off as a result of Andrija Puharich's psychoanaemic study, and it developed into a candid examination of his attempts to make a living off science fiction conventions. He was on the verge of losing his house due to a lack of funds at the time.

Within the United States, the pilot Spectre, Roddenberry's 1977 attempt to produce an occult detective pair like Sherlock Holmes and Watson, was released as a television film in the United Kingdom but only in the United Kingdom.

Roddenberry was unable to buy the full rights to Star Trek from Paragraph 1 in the early 1970s due to a lack of funds. In 1973, Lou Scheimer first approached Paramount about making an animated Star Trek series. Roddenberry was given full creative control of Star Trek: The Animated Series, despite being credited as a "executive consultant" and paid $2,500 per episode. Although he read all of the scripts and "sometimes [added] touches of his own, D. C. Fontana relinquished the bulk of his power to de facto showrunner/associate producer D. C. Fontana.

Roddenberry had some difficulties with the script. He preferred not to use George Takei and Nichelle Nichols because it saved him money. Leonard Nimoy was not informed of this and instead told him that he was the only one of the main cast not returning. After Nimoy discovered the deception, he requested that Takei and Nichols perform Sulu and Uhura as their characters appeared on television; Roddenberry consented. He had been hoping for five seasons of the new show but, in the end, only one and a half were made.

However, the groundswell of vociferous fan support (6,000 people attended the second New York Star Trek convention in 1973 and 15,000 attended in 1974, eclipsing the 4,500 attendees at the 32nd World Science Fiction Convention in 1974) has led Paramount to hire Roddenberry to design and produce a film based on the franchise's heritage. The studio was unimpressed by the new proposals; John D. F. Black's conclusion was that their plans were never "large enough" for the studio, even though one scenario called for the end of the universe. Many concepts, including Star Trek: The God Thing and Star Trek: The Titans, were partially developed at the time. Paramount has also announced a new series set in the franchise called Star Trek: Phase II, following the commercial premiere of Star Wars in June 1977, with Roddenberry and the majority of the original cast, except Nimoy, set to reprise their respective roles. It was supposed to be the anchor show of a newly funded Paraphrasedoutput network, but plans for the network were scrapped and the initiative was turned into a feature film. The result, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, threw the studio out of budgetary issues, but it wasn't a box-office disaster. It was the third highest-grossing Star Trek movie, adjusted for inflation, with the 2009 film debuting first and the 2013 film second.

Roddenberry wrote a script for a proposed sequel that would have barred the alien Klingons from entering the crew's thwarting John F. Kennedy's assassination. Mindful of the tumultuous production of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount refused the bid. Roddenberry was appointed "executive consultant" for the project after being transferred to television producer Harve Bennett's place, a role he retained for all subsequent Star Trek franchise films released during his lifetime. Bennett and other publishers were paid a percentage of the film's net earnings in exchange for proffering non-binding story lines and interacting with the fan community, much to his continuing chagrin. An early script for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was sent to eight people by Bennett; Bennett attributed the subsequent plot leak of Spock's death to Roddenberry. Roddenberry's inspirations inspired approximately 20% of the plot.

Roddenberry was involved in the development of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which premiered on September 28, 1987, with "Encounter at Farpoint." He received a $1 million bonus in addition to an ongoing wage to produce the film, and he was rewarded by purchasing a new Rolls-Royce for $100,000. The arrangement did not allow him to be the series's executive producer. However, However, However, However, However, However, Paraphrased Roddenberry rewrote the series bible from an original version by David Gerrold, who had written "The Trouble with Tribbles" earlier in the series, as well as The Animated Series sequel, "More Tribbles, More Troubles."

Roddenberry's participation in The Next Generation "diminished greatly" after the first season, according to producer Rick Berman, but the extent of his increasingly peripheral role was not revealed because of the value of his name to fans. Although Berman said that Roddenberry had "all but stopped writing and rewriting" by the end of the third season, his final writing credit on the film (a co-teleplay credit) came much earlier, on "Datalore," the 13th episode of the first season.

Despite being on staff, the show was initially profitable from its inception, but writers Guild of America's grievances from Fontana and Gerrold, who left the series under tense circumstances; claims that longtime Roddenberry attorney Leonard Maizlish had become the producer's "point man and proxy," ghostwriting memos, sitting in on meetings, and contributing to scripts were among the show's "average attrition rate for such series; and allegations that long-serve Tracy Tormé, a writer, referred to The Next Generation under Roddenberry as a "insane asylum."

Nicholas Meyer was brought on to direct the sixth film in the series Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1990. Meyer found himself disagreeing with Roddenberry, who said that having the Enterprise crew hold prejudices against the Klingons did not fit with his vision of the universe. Meyer recalled a meeting with Roddenberry that he later regretted, adding:

Roddenberry attended The Undiscovered Country alongside the film's producers at a private screening two days before his death, telling them they had done a "good job," he writes in Joel Engel's book "The Man Behind Star Trek." In comparison, Nimoy and Shatner's memoirs state that Roddenberry called his lawyer and demanded that a quarter of the scenes be cut; the producers refused.

Roddenberry also contributed to the film and television adaptations of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Despite being incorrectly attributed to several other writers (most notably Alan Dean Foster), it was the first in a series of hundreds of Star Trek-based books to be released by Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books imprint, which also owned Paramount Pictures Corporation. Roddenberry also worked on The God Thing, a fictional book based on his rejected 1975 screenplay for a low-budget ($3 to $5 million) Star Trek film that took place before Phase II's production in 1976. Walter Koenig, Susan Sackett, Fred Bronson, and Michael Jan Friedman's attempts to complete the project have been deemed unfeasible for a variety of economic and organizational reasons.

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