Did you know...

...That Geordi LaForge is named after a real Star Trek fan named George LaForge? George LaForge died from muscular dystrophy in 1975.

...That Denise Crosby originally tried out for the role of Counselor Troi and Marina Sirtis tried out for the role of Security Chief Tasha Yar?

...That Gene Roddenberry's full name is Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, thus, in creating Wesley Crusher, Gene used his own middle name and based the character on what he wanted to be like when he was young?

...Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) did the special effect shots only for "Encounter at Farpoint". However, they get credit in every episode because of the extra stock footage for Enterprise fly-bys and such. Even ILM stock footage isn't used much anymore, except when the Enterprise enters Warp.

...TNG is filmed in 35mm using Panavision cameras. The film is transferred to videotape, and post-production is done on video.

...That William Riker and Deanna Troi is based upon Decker and Ilia from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"?

...That while "Skin Of Evil" was aired after "Symbiosis", they were produced in the reverse order. Near the end of Symbiosis, when the Ornarans and Brekkians beam off, Denise Crosby is seen in the background, waving goodbye as the doors close. (UV)

...LeVar Burton, when shooting began for "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II", was in the hospital for emergency surgery. Colm Meany was used instead for several scenes, and LeVar appeared in closeups during BOBW2 and was absent for several episodes after that.

...LeVar Burton appeared on "Roots"? He's not the only one. Thalmus Rasulala, who played Captain Donald Varley of the USS Yamato in "Contagion", played Omoro Kinte in ROOTS. Also, Ben Vereen, who is also a Trek fan, also appeared on Roots.

...While filming "The Wounded", there was a scene in which Colm Meaney was serving Keiko steak and potatoes for dinner. The potatoes had to get from the spoon to the plate easily, while he continued with the dialogue, moved around, served himself, etc. After about a zillion takes, it finally worked, except that one small piece of potato bounced off the plate and onto the table. So, Colm improvised, and quickly popped it in his mouth. "Cut!" "What was wrong with that?" "Well, you popped that potato in your mouth." "Yeah, so?" "Well, you can't do that -- see, this is a self-cleaning ship." "I got to it FIRST."

...Hawking was on the Paramount lot for the video release of the film "A Brief History of Time". He was given a tour of the set, and when they reached the bridge set, he began tapping out something he wanted to say through his voice synthesizer. After about a minute, it said "Could you take me out of my chair and put me in the captain's chair?" Now, Hawking *never* asks to be taken out of his chair, so this was clearly a very big deal. Someone did, and a few days later the idea of a quick cameo came up for "Descent".

...That "Star Trek: The Next Generation" has made over $500,000,000 in syndication and merchandising.

...That if you look closely at the Enterprise during the fly-by in the opening credits, you can see someone walking past the windows. According to Mike Okuda in the "Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine" (#60), this is Captain Picard.

..."The Child" and "Devil's Due" were originally scripts for the proposed "Star Trek: Phase II" television series. The "Star Trek: Phase II" series idea was scrapped, and instead, the sets were used for the shooting of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"

...At the time of the filming of "Q Who", there were two visual supervisors: Dan Curry and Rob Legato. They each had their own specifications for the design of the Borg ship:

Rob Legato - The Borg ship should be a ball with a trench of detail around the middle.

Dan Curry - The Borg ship should be a cube that looked smooth at a distance. As you got closer and closer, more detail would be revealed. (Dan had hired Special Effects for this job).

Rob Legato team had some problems, so Special Effects got the job and built the Borg ship. It took 14 modelers two weeks to finish the job. That is nothing short of amazing when you consider that while the specifications called for only one side finished, Special Effects supplied a Borg ship that was finished on all sides. In order to achieve that level of detail, F/X put everything in they could find, including R2-D2, toy soldiers, plastic model "rails", and the F/X logo.