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Richard Arnold

Richard Arnold in 2011

Richard Arnold (born 28 April 1954; age 69) was a research consultant on Star Trek: The Next Generation, holding the position title of "Star Trek Archivist", an appointment made not long after the premiere of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. As part of his duties, Arnold vetted proposals and final manuscripts for licensed tie-ins (novels, comics, guidebooks, video cover art, etc) on behalf of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, until Roddenberry died in 1991.

Arnold first met Roddenberry while attending the first Star Trek convention in New York in January of 1972. He moved to Los Angeles and became a volunteer tour guide at Paramount Studios (from about the time of Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and greatly impressed Roddenberry with his memory for Star Trek trivia. He often assisted Roddenberry with a range of Star Trek-related duties.

Arnold's vetting became infamous for a series of arbitrary and counter-intuitive decrees restricting novels[1], comic books[2][3] and games and technical developments, resulting in the nick-name 'Melakon'.[4] Arnold himself however says that it was never his job alone to go trough scripts and that the work was done with Roddenberry and that when writers, unused to being edited, would become discontent they targeted Arnold instead of Roddenberry since going after Roddenberry would turn the fans against them.[5]

A fan extra, one of the Enterprise crewmembers, in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Arnold was also interviewed in the Roger Nygard/Denise Crosby documentaries, Trekkies and Trekkies 2. For many years, he wrote a regular column for the Star Trek Communicator (magazine of the now defunct Star Trek: The Official Fan Club) in which he answered fans' questions about the shows and movies.

More recently, Arnold appeared as a background performer, a Romulan crewmember aboard the Narada in 2009's Star Trek.

Star Trek credits

References

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-in-Law#cite_note-1 Ayers, Jeff (2006). Voyages of the Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 1-4165-0349-8. Controversy over Q-In-Law
  2. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/07/17/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-164/ Enmity towards Peter David in Cronin, B. (2009) Was Superman A Spy?, Plume Books
  3. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2011/06/10/comic-book-legends-revealed-317/ Inconsistencies in the Arnold approach in Cronin, B. (2009) Was Superman A Spy?, Plume Books
  4. http://www.spacebanter.com/showthread.php?t=49815&page=5 Spacebanter on Arnold's decisions and the implications on Tech and Game Design
  5. http://artofhacking.com/IET/TREK/live/aoh_arnold.htm/ An interview with the infamous Richard Arnold, Star Trek research

External link

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