Rod Roddenberry Will Co-Executive Produce the New Trek Series

While I don't like Seth McFarlane's 'comedy' works, I thought Cosmos was fantastic and would like to think that, as a die-hard Trek fan (he can literally recite whole episodes of TOS from memory), he would respect the Trek product if he was involved in production.

 

A weird one for sure. I understand the gesture but Gene died 25 years ago; his involvement with Star Trek ended before that early in TNG's run.

 

I've seen one article suggest Jane Espenson as a good choice. She actually started her career on Trek, but has a lot of impressive TV experience beyond that.

 

Which I'm really looking forward to.

 

Does Roddenberry Entertainment hold any legacy copyrights/intellectual property that could have been considered useful to the new production? It's strange they're not only bringing in Rod Roddenberry, but also Roddenberry Entertainment's COO Trevor Roth, who doesn't look to me like a big name in the business.

 

I assume they go together as partners in the company.

 

It does seem symbolic, but I'm not opposed to it.

I hope the next few names they announce are people that are completely new to Star Trek. People that have barely watched it, if at all.

 

Huh. I just found this interview with Rod Roddenberry from last week, where he is asked about the new series.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bs-ae-star-trek-rod-roddenberry-20160227-15-story.html

 

The son of Gene Roddenbury and Majel Barret ?

Brought into the new Star Trek, after a complete reset of the people involved ?

I like your style Bryan Fuller.

 

Well, you should probably thank Alex Kurtzman, because he's the one at the top of the pyramid (aside from the executives at CBS). He and his production partner Heather Kadin are probably the ones ultimately responsible for the hiring and business decisions on the show; Fuller's most likely concentrating on the process of creating and writing the series.

 

And if he was in negotiations he wouldn't reveal anything. If he wasn't in negotiations yet, then it's possible it happened very quickly. Kurtzman called Roddenberry up and said here is $x to attach your name to the project and Roddenberry said, where do I sign. I'm not sure why you're that confused by the quote.

 

I've been saying it for years: give it to the kid and see what he can do with it. Him or Adam Nimoy. Those two are the last chance. The were raised around the creators and they understand the franchise. But much like The Muppets, Brian Henson, while an terrific kid, didn't possess the talent his father did. We'll have to wait and see. I wish Rod all the best and all the luck in the world. With Rod on board, I'm in.

 

Except that neither of them is a writer. Rod Roddenberry is a business executive (with one writing credit to his name on Earth: Final Conflict, but only one) and Adam Nimoy is a director.

 

That last sentence "I don't think they're going to create a new Starship Enterprise with a new Captain Kirk" is interesting.

It seems like they may be going ahead with that U.S.S. Reliant idea Bryan Fuller talked about a few years back. Fitting that they get Nicholas Meyer, the man who directed the ship's first appearance and perhaps created it, on-board the new writing staff.

Also, his comment about "I think it's going to be a different "Star Trek," along the lines of the movies" tells me that they're trying to go back to the spirit of TOS. Fuller said he wanted to go back to the old-style original Trek, with all the "colors and attitude". It should be fun, it should have action, but it should also comment on today's social issues and be largely character-driven.

 

So if they went that route do you think they would recast Chekov again?

 

I am very happy about this, Rod and Trevor are friends, and i'm happy they are involved!

 

Although it'd be interesting if they did do another reboot of Kirk, Spock, etc. A way of saying that like comic books you can have multiple iterations of the same characters at the same time. That the new show is not associated continuity wise with any of the previous Treks. It be a pretty ballsy move.

Imagine Spock or McCoy as a woman. Or Kirk. Well, they sorta did Spock as a woman in ENTERPRISE — kinda. But what if they just went with a complete reboot that took the characters in a way different direction. Oh well, they're likely not going to do that. From the looks of things, right now, they're trying to galvanize the previous fan base.

I just hope they don't play it safe. We've had safe Trek in the 90s, and it was bland, boring, and nothing more than a technobabble procedural.

 

I've imagined that if I had been given the chance to reboot ST from scratch, I would make Kirk an Asian woman -- who was still a womanizer.

 

"Interesting" in the sense that he's saying "I don't know what they're going to do."