By the way Anthony, for a writer you sure make a hell of alot of spelling and grammar mistakes.

“God know that I love Scott Bakula”
-I think it’s God KNOWS isn’t it?

“I did got back and watch it somewhat”
-I did GO back and watch it?

“dead and some happens tore-activate it”
SOMETHING happens to re-activiate it?

“Which would then threaten the Enterprise which was in orbit and other Federation ships”
-ALONG WITH other Federation ships?

“TOS is her first love, so the hell what”
I think WHAT THE HELL is the phrase you are looking for.

Do you actually READ your stuff first?

Man!

Dorothy Fontana: I know Ira Steven Behr. He is a good writer and solid story editor and producer. He is doing quite well on another series, The 4400, right now. He is really good with character and story. I think Gene would have liked it ultimately even with the darker themes. Let’s face it, Gene lived and fought through World War II and that is pretty dark days so he has to know they occur. He was around when we were in the middle of the muck of Vietnam. He would like to think that humanity would be better than that, but we made the same mistakes over and over again and until we learned from history I suspect we are going to keep on doing it.”

I’m so glad someone realizes this. Ira Steven Behr was the best thing to ever happen to Trek. He explores politically-relevant themes that challenge the typical Western mainstream view of the world. He’s doing the same thing on DS9, just as Ron Moore is doing on Battlestar Galactica.

I’m also totally on board with her in not being interested in what JJ Abrams is going to do with Star Trek. He and his crappy Alias writers have shown no evidence of being able to write anything socially, let alone politically, relevant. It will look edgy and be a little fun, but it won’t move us and make us really think. Ira Steven Behr and Ron Moore know how to do that well!

Dorothy Fontana is one of my favorites, a fine gal indeed. If I recall correctly, Dorothy was tapped as the writer for the ill-fated Mechwarrior film. I wonder what happened to that project.

I think you have really spun her comments in the direction you want, far beyond what she actually said. YOU feel that way (and you’ve made that clear here and in the past that WNMHGB is expendable) but I don’t think what she actually said in the published interview supports that in anything but the broadest context. WNMHGB may be trivial or irrelevent to you, but it isn’t to me. There’s enormous backstory potential there to be exploited and utilized, an opportunity to make a Star Trek that is at once familiar but also has some characters that can have some chances taken with them. There’s no reason to treat like WNMHGB is an embarrassment to be ignored and swept under the rug. Its been part of the series backstory for 40 years and its a damn fine show. If what you really want is a Star Trek just like the 3 years of the original series, then set it in the second season. Or if you want an “origin” story with all seven of the main characters sitting at their familiar consoles from the second Sulu turns over the engine for the firs time, then just reboot the whole thing and be done with it (which I’m sure would make a lot of people happy anyway). But I don’t think trying to maginalize people who think WNMHGB as some kind of continuity wackos advances the discussion very much, and I don’t think trying to spin Ms. Fontana’s comments about Gene wanting to fine tune the show between the second pilot and the regular series as a rationale for ignoring WNMHGB is very credible. In fact, one could – based on the interview – just as logically draw the opposite inference:

TrekMovie.com: How would you feel if the film ended up more like the rest of the series with its characters and look, but is set before “Where No Man Has Gone Before?”

Dorothy Fontana: I probably wouldn’t go see it.

That’s a pretty direct answer, even if she does go on to say she hasn’t watched the last 4 Star Trek movies either. I know you’re very high on J.J. Abrams and everything he’s doing, Anthony, and I certainly respect that. Its his sand to build castles out of now, and he’s free to do whatever he likes. If he wants to reboot the whole thing, then he can. If he wants to make it in-continuity, he can. But if that’s his decision, essentially writing WNMHGB out of continuity isn’t going to go over well with me, anymore than writing out Amok Time or City on the Edge of Forever or Charlie X would because they don’t fit in with the story he wants to tell. The show is the show – if you want to respect its integrity, fine. If you want the freedom to play fast and loose with the continuity, reboot it. Those are very popular these days, but Star Trek is a very different animal than, for example, Warner Brothers’ Superman franchise, where everyone agreed to happily ignore parts 3 and 4. Sam Peeple’s WNMHGB has been with me a lot longer and made me a lot happier than anything J.J. Abrams has done thus far, so if sticking up for its value and the unique place it and some of its chaarcters hold in the Star Trek backstory puts me in Anthony Pascale’s “tinfoil hat wearing category of Star Trek fans”, that’s fine with me – even if we *both* want the movie to be terrific, successful, and something that honors the original series, its characters and its creators (which we definitely do).

Viva Where No Man Has Gone Before.