Talk:Robert April

Canon

Who's deciding what's canon, Paramount or fans? April was 1st CO Enterprise based on Gene's work (as reported in Whitfield's Making of ST); does Paramount get to obviate that? Not while I'm alive. --trekphiler, 21/11/05

The owner of a franchise, which in this case is Paramount, decides which elements and derivative works are canonical. Primogen (talk) 20:47, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Image

What is the source of the image used in the page? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Very good question. It's tagged as a television screenshot, but the article mentions "For example, he is listed in the Chronology as the first captain of the Enterprise, accompanied by a photo of the creator of Star Trek Gene Roddenberry, sitting on a captain's chair wearing a Starfleet uniform, and is listed as such on the official Star Trek website." Perhaps the image is from the Chronology or website mentioned here? Bryan 06:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The image is indeed of Roddenberry, and to my knowledge first appeared in the Star Trek: Chronology in connection with April. One of the Okudas' many "in-jokes" in that book. --TimPendragon 02:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Dead link?

is the first link at the bottom of the page dead? sometimes my computer screws up so i want to be sure

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.215.125 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Image

I'm uncomfortable with using the image of Roddenberry for this article. First, it was put into the Chronology as an in-joke, and the fact is Roddenberry never played April and I don't even think he ever posed for a photo in a Starfleet uniform either (I believe the image was photoshopped). This therefore makes the image misleading. The image that should be used for this article is a screen capture from the episode as that's the character's only, to date, screen appearance. 23skidoo (talk) 20:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it canon? The only other picture would be a screen grab from The Animated Series Alastairward (talk) 19:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC

I know this is two years too late, but I'm gonna go ahead and give my 2 cents for future reference: I have a copy of the Star Trek encyclopedia that Michael and Denise Okuda wrote (they've both worked in production and the like with the Star Trek franchise), and the encyclopedia says that the photo is a test shot, not a spoof. --- cymru lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 19:28, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Robert April

The character's only appearance is in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Counter-Clock Incident"

However, the decision by Paramount Pictures, studio owners of the franchise, and series creator Gene Roddenberry to not consider the animated series to be part of the official Star Trek canon has led to debate as to whether April and his place as first captain, is actually a part of Star Trek continuity.

In short, that might have been his only TV/MOVIE appearance, but it's not his only appearance in the ST timeline.

"Finak Fronteer", a book about the first unofficial voyage of the Enterprise, list him as the CAPTAIN, with George Kirk (James Kirk's father) as security officer on that voyage.

Robert April also appears in a number of other books, including "Flag full of stars".

Considering that they are ST books, and paramount owns to franchise, these books should be considered official due to Paramount's approval of their writing.

As such, I'm editing the entry o include such.

75.7.251.235 (talk) 09:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"Finak Fronteer"? Is that the actual spelling?

Contradiction

In one place the article states that Roddenberry pitched the character with the middle initial "T" ('...his name for the starship commander was "Robert T. April"...'). In the very next section, the article states that the writers of the animated series changed the initial to "...T and not M as in Roddenberry's original proposal." That's a contradiction. Which version is correct? They can't both be. 71.200.138.188 (talk) 16:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Further Contradiction

Whether or not Captain April (or was it A-bril, from the original Arabic,)was the first captain, is moot. For fans, what should be more of a ponderence is whether Cap't. April commanded the ENTERPRISE NCC-1700 ("Constitution"-class) starship? In "Star Trek: The Search for Spock", Admiral Brooks argues with the soon-to-be-"busted down" Admiral Kirk that "Jim, the Enterprise is over twenty-years old; she's seen her last hey-dey". Adding to Kirk's first command, with the intervening years, and Captain Christopher Pike's earlier tenure, there would be no room, time-wise to account for April's presence. And in "The Cage\Menagerie" Lt.(?) enthusiatically states to the "castaways" "...and you won't believe how fast you can get back (home); the time barrier's been broken. Why, our new ships can...." Thus stating that the Enterprise, commanded by Chris Pike, was a new model, constructed outside the time frame that supposedly April commandeered. So, it appears that April, and his Chief Medical Officer\Wife were in stewardship of an ealier model-classed starship named Enterprise. It has been demostrated by Gene, and later others using a early sketch model (a less elegant one, indeed) of the vessel. We can comfortably suppose this was the ship that April commanded in that earlier era --65.88.88.12 (talk) 22:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)Veryverser

Where do you get this "A-bril" and this supposed "original Arabic"???

Also, the Enterprise was NCC-1701, not NCC-1700 (which would be the USS Constitution, the first of the class series, thus the ship that gave its name to the class which includes the Enterprise). The next Enterprise (NCC-1701A) is launched shortly after the events in "The Search for Spock" (at the end of "The Voyage Home") in 2286, some 40 years after NCC-1701 launched (early 2240s), which isn't exactly contradicted by the "over 20 years old" since 40 is still over 20. As for "The Cage" statement you quoted, that has been repeatedly been superseded by just about all Trek that occurred after that rejected (and unaired until 1988) pilot (including the name of the technology, "The Cage" called it 'Time Warp' as well as 'Hyperdrive'). In just about all Trek except "The Cage", warp 1 (which is what is being referred to) was broken about 200 years before Kirk's tenure. Not to mention, the castaways had been lost for 18 years, so even if warp drive was invented since they were lost, there would still be plenty of room for April to have had a time as the first captain of the Enterprise (the events of "The Cage" occur near the beginning of Pike's term, some 13 years earlier according to "The Menagerie", which has to be about 11 years before Kirk took command since Spock served under Pike a little over 11 years).

This is all boiled down giving only bare details to refute your claims and prevent editors from taking it seriously, this isn't the place for details as this is not a forum. Please don't confuse those who may edit this article with your hypothesizing. — al-Shimoni (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Notability

Except a single sentence that he was meant to be the first captain that could be merged to the pilot episode/history of Star Trek articles, I don't see anything here that would warrant a stand-alone article. Ping User:Jclemens - would you have any counter-arguments to proposed deletion? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:57, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Well, let's see. Jclemens (talk) 05:01, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

• • Origin in TAS
  • Original name of Roddenberry’s character
  • Summary with him as focus. Wrongly (?) anticipates him being in 'Into Darkness'
  • Book on TAS that discusses him.
  • Paywalled paper that I STILL can't read.
  • Origin of the Robert April Name

  Beyond these, there appear to be dozens of individual bare mentions, perhaps 10 of which I have perused and discarded. Overall? Yeah, there's enough RS to write an interesting entry on him. #3 looks rock solid for notability, others could be argued. Jclemens (talk) 05:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

  • @Jclemens: I will look at this a bit later, but if by #3 you mean [1] - it is a blog, and those are rarely 'rock solid' for reliability, through I grant it is an ok piece about him - still, just a few paragraphs long. If this is the best we have here, I am afraid this is not clear cut... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:37, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

    It's hosted, not Wordpress or the like, so yeah, a bit deeper digging is likely called for. Jclemens (talk) 14:32, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

    @Jclemens:I have merged one sentence that seems to have some relevance to List of Star Trek characters (A–F). Everything else seems OR, but if you'd like to merge some more, please go ahead. I'd like to redirect it in a few days, hopefully avoiding a needless debate at AfD, and keeping a soft redirect. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:53, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• No merge, the stand-alone article is warranted given the full and well-known collection of Star Trek pages on Wikipedia. April is the second captain of the Enterprise line of starships, notable just for that fact alone. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:00, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
• Much-delayed follow-up: I've removed the "maybe not notable" banner. For better or worse, I think a sufficient mass of third-party critics have addressed April vis-a-vis the Adrian Holmes casting (and racist backlash) that the subject himself meets the notability threshold. Of course, I'm approaching this through the lens of a fan (who else would even have this page watchlisted?), so if someone a bit more objective objects, let's dust off this thread and get into it. --EEMIV (talk) 15:24, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • PS: Pinging stalwart Wikipanions @Jclemens: and @Piotrus: for their expert opinions. --EEMIV (talk) 15:25, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    • What, you thought I might disagree? The article appears to have enough RS, based on general sourcing of contemporary fictional character articles. I read through the Screen Rant article--it's passing any bar now that it might have struggled with before. No biggie, things change. Jclemens (talk) 23:14, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
      • 100% the opposite expectation, but just wanted to confirm :-) --EEMIV (talk) 01:07, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

  @EEMIV He is becoming more notable. I am still concerned he is borderline, but hopefully some more coverage will appear. Please don't hesitate to add it, like you're already done, much improving this. Btw, a pic of the actor who plays him should be free media, hopefully? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:01, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Removed section

I've removed the following section:

Other references to Robert April by Gene Roddenberry

In the late 1950s, Gene Roddenberry wrote two episodes of Have Gun – Will Travel featuring a prison chaplain named Robert April. In the first episode, “The Hanging of Roy Carter”, John Larch portrayed April, who faced the question of whether to intervene to delay an unjust hanging. During the second episode, “The Return of Roy Carter”, April is portrayed by Larry J. Blake, and Paladin (Richard Boone) refers to April as being one of the finest men he has ever known. The episode ends with April dying while saving the life of a criminal trying to escape justice.

While this repeated use of the name by Roddenberry is interesting, without explicit referencing of its use seems trivial. Thoughts? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:09, 22 October 2020 (UTC)