Moore: Star Trek Had Too Much Continuity

Last week Ron Moore talked about his visit to the new Star Trek set and today there is more at Sci-Fi Wire. The TNG/DS9 vet writer/producer says after seeing Trek at Paramount again, “all that kind of really hardcore, Trekkie geek stuff came flying back.” Moore (who has not read the Trek script, but has experience rebooting the Battlestar franchise) opined on Abrams’ plan to bring Trek back.

From the Sci-Fi Wire interview:

I just think that Star Trek had gone on for so long and had developed such a complicated backstory and so much continuity that it really wasn’t possible for any one writer or any one group of writers, really, to keep it all straight anymore….
And that meant there was a whole legion of people out there that weren’t even going to make the effort because it was just too much work. This really gives it a chance to start over and bring everybody back to what made it so great to begin with.

More Moore at Sci-Fi Wire

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I’d love to use that line of logic on a history test!

So true.

I agree, the franchise got to bloated with it’s self. thats what killed enterprise

well I agree with Moore… lets get back to good stories and good movies/TV and let the nazis worry about ret-coning history so that their the only ones that can enjoy Trek.

I got off Trek for a while during DS9 days after catching an obscure treaty reference and finding myself startled at how much I knew about this nonworld. Maybe if the show had been better that wouldn’t have bothered me, but, anyway, I think Moore’s right. I’m entirely looking forward to the movie, but the structure can bear only so much weight.

Uhm, no. Moore’s talking out of his ass. Just because there’s a lot of backstory and continuity, doesn’t mean the scripts for each episode had to be loaded down with that crap. There was no reason at all for all the technobabble, there was no reason at all that the characters were often scared of their own shadow geeks, instead of cut from the hero mold like Kirk. In short, it was the freaking writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else.

I totally disagree. It’s not really that complicated when you get right down to it. I’m not a trek writer, but I can’t imagine that any writer has ever hit a dead end because of a continuity issue.

Well I don’t know how complicated the backstory was, but there were published Encyclopedias and Chronologies, so having someone check them would’ve helped. Hell, there are prolly many Trek fans who’d have done it for free….

That said, I do agree that there were several aspects that made the universe just a bloated mess. Like creating new races when an older, already established, but not used as much race might’ve worked. In Ent, there was an ep where a freighter was supposed to be attacked by an alien race. Originally it was Orions, but IRCC it was changed to a newer species.

Also, I remember going through the Trek Encyclopedia around the temporal and spatial anomoly section and several were just the same thing, with new names. Now giving them new names spared the writers from charges of just rehashing “X” plot device….but really, it was the same with just a different name.

Also, reusing established anomolies would’ve helped strengthen continuity, not made it so damn confusing and prolly made them think twice about doing that type of story again and again.

Having said that…..I’m ready for a new Trek with a far, far simpler backstory. These days I just don’t have the time, effort or inclination to look into a bloated, largely lacklustre backstory, nor do I think it’s going to hurt Trek much by jettisoning it.

Vulcans use logic, Klingons and Romulans are the enemy and I dont care if the Cardassians, Bajorans, Breen, Ferengi, Dominion and Borg even exist in the new Trek or it’s future. There’s a combined total of 21 years worth of seasons for those that do and they’re all out on DVD.

#3

I’m going to have to respectively disagree.

I believe that the reason Enterprise failed was exactly the opposite. Enterprise made it very clear from the get-go that they were going to throw away all the bloatedness. So many interviews stated that they would favor good storytelling over consistency with minutea.

The big push with Enterprise was to reach out to new audiences even if it pissed off some of the hardcore fans. That’s the reason behind the music video opening and dropping “Star Trek” from the title. And it worked, they pissed off the hardcore fans who felt betrayed. Complaints poured in every week about how Enterprise was so seperated from the show and didn’t respect that which came before it.

In my opinion, it made Enterprise a really good show that was able to make bold choices without tiptoeing around the details like the final awful seasons of Voyager (my opinions only)

The problem with the plan was that for all the talk about reaching a new audience, Paramount never ever made any attempt to reach out to a new audience. The general public never heard of Enterprise, or assumed it was just “one of those Trek shows”.

I have a few friends who aren’t into Trek at all and they started to catch a little Enterprise and got really into it. Enough to ask to borrow older Treks. They didn’t like Voyager and Deep Space Nine because of the bloated factor. But loved Enterprise.

It’s a shame the show was designed for a certain audience and then never introduced to that audience.

“In short, it was the freaking [poor, medioce, hackneyed] writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else.”

EXACTLY, r6. EXACTLY.

I agree with Moore. The longer the shows and movies ran the deeper the continuity got. That can intimidate alot of casual viewers/fans and simply doesn’t make the material as accessible as it should be.

It’s great to have all that depth; but after awhile you can get shackled down by it.

This isn’t the first time Moore has said something to this effect. He and Braga both stated they felt that Trek was gonna need a reboot eventually during an audio commentary for either Generations or First Contact, I can’t remember which.

There’s nothing wrong with hitting the refresh button with Trek.

I think what Moore’s referring to is not just keeping the canon straight, for storytelling’s sake, but the intimidating nature of it all. Unlike soap operas, this is a world that tries much harder to be free of loose ends. It has to try because it’s already a strange heady concept of a show. It needs consistency to make that concept to fascilitate suspension of disbelief.

On top of all that, it’s intimidating because a writer has to meet the *sometimes* unreasonable expectations of its fans. That’s partly the show’s own doing. Once TNG premiered, or perhaps as early as the plans for Phase II and TMP, or TAS, the decision was made to make all incarnations of the show tie into each other, and therefore, fact-check it down to the nitty-gritty details.

Even discounting TAS, after 40 years of stories spanning 28 television seasons and 10 movies, it would be intimidating for all but the most hard-core students of this world to break into. It’s hard enough for an apiring TV writer to fathom breaking a spec script for a show that’s only been around for a season or two.

The feeling of a world being visited will still be there with this new movie, but with much less baggage. We can always do as John Lennon said and put the old ones on if we want to reminisce. We can discount this new film as part of the canon we’re more familiar with or include it with everything else. Hopefully we’ll be able to reconsile the two into one, but if not, then it would be a clean slate and it might not be such a bad thing.

#9

The biggest problem with Ent is that they straddled the fence. They kept saying it wasn’t a re-boot, so people expected them to honor what came before. But they didn’t honor what came before so it pissed people off.

And the writing was just god awful. Great concept (prequel that is, not the Temporal Cold War…..an idiotic term anyway), great crew, horrible writing and an inability to have the balls to just say “we’re rebooting it” created a big confusing mess that seemed to piss off more people than not.

Later, they tried to say that Ent *was* in an altered timeline, but too many people were pissed or dis-interested to care, the writing was still crap and the show just lacked any kind of direction. Both in the show and in the real world. Both crew and writing team were “just flyin around”.

Then they bring in Manny Coto who tries to firmly establish it in the Trek universe proper, and while he does a pretty good job that I and many others would’ve liked to see continue, it’s too late. Shows dead.

Oh boy, Ron Moore opened up a can of worms on this one.

I wonder if Moore will complain about continuity if the BSG franchise continues to make spinoff series and TV movies and such.

I’m all for a fresh start, but what was so complicated about the ‘Star Trek’ universe?

“Battlestar:Galactica” only remotely resembled it’s origins, and, while it was, arguably, an improvement, it never actually needed to be named ‘Battlestar: Galactica” to begin with. And talk about complicated. That program was far more of a saga than the original Trek ever was.

If ‘Star Trek’ is “reimagined” to the point that it’s just another space opera, I don’t see the point, except to trade in on a brand to make an easier buck than gambling on an all new idea.

I would like to see the philosophy of a non interference directive and an optimistic future survive the transition to the new product. I’d be thrilled if we actually saw some new worlds and civilizations. I’m afraid though that what we’re being prepared for is a young adult soap opera in space.

#6, you are RIGHT on the money. I really couldn’t have said it better myself!!

I can’t figure out why we’re even listening to what Ron Moore says, as if his words have any relevance to what Abrams and Co are doing. They’re going out of their way to make us purists (who are a small minority in the first place, as far as I know) happy with the new project, even bringing in people who are NOT involved with the project who they hope has some credibility with us fans, and getting them to wax poetic about the film. They don’t seem to realize that they wouldn’t even HAVE to “convince/win the purist population” if they hadn’t made so many asinine changes in the first place.

Trek began it’s slide after DS9….same writers, same composers, same production designers, cinematographers, etc. all led to a blandness and “sameness” to each show, no matter what timeline they were set in. Enterpise should’ve been done by a whole new production group from the gitgo.

#12 When did they say that Ent was in an altered timeline? Or are you referring to the Borg discovery in Antarctica?

When did they ever, ever say it was an altered timeline? Never. Enterpise never ever tried to be a reboot. They may have failed to be in a place people were comfortable with it being, but it never claimed to be a reboot or alternate timeline.

Also, I don’t want to get into an argument over the quality of Enterprise. I just want to point out that it did not pussy-foot around the details. That’s all.

And for all the talk. Enterprise didn’t really trample on that many things. Little details like the date of some mission, or some Vulcan biology. The things Enterprise conflicted with were what people thought it should be.

That’s not a good thing or a bad thing. I’m just saying if you damn it, damn it for what it was.

Personally, I preferred good storytelling to nitpicking details. That’s just me. Some people prefer consistency of the little details. That’s valid too. I don’t see why people who like the ideas of Star Trek can’t accept each others thought there. I respect that you didn’t like Enterprise, and wouldn’t care to try to change your mind.

IDIC

I’m going to hold star trek Hostage in my mind until they make good use
of all of today’s powerful computers, made ready & available & write good stories that totally stay within “Cannon!” Don’t ever tell me that you “Can’t do it!!!” AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

“In short, it was the freaking [poor, medioce, hackneyed] writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else.”

I would say that for Bermann, but Moore wrote some of the best stories (“All good things”, expanding the Klingon culture in DS9) and produced DS9 (not only one of the best Trek series, but also one of the best scifi series). I think Voyager and ENT would have become better if not Bermann but Moore had made them.

That’s one of the good things about TOS: you could watch about any episode in any order, or even independant of the others, and still get it without a compendium. Each one stood alone.

#17 Agreed

Perfectly stated. The process ceased to be a labor of caring and became a preprocessed product with an unending sameness.

Ron Moore is Absolutely Right(TM). And this dude knows whereof he speaks – anyone who could take crap like the 1978 “Battlestar Galactica” into the brilliant current version, as Moore has, should be heeded.

How can you ever have continuity issues when time travel is possible?

# 20 would that be phaser cannon or what? ;-)

Bloatedness is what kept me away from Babylon 5. I didn’t want a frakkin’ soap opera. I wanted episodes. It’s not that I have a short attention span (I’ve been watching Trek for 4 decades now) but I just don’t like being forced to watch a series week after week or be lost in ambiguity.

Moore is riding high on the hog right now… he apparently has forgotten how quickly an audience can turn on a show. I don’t wish that to happen with BSG, but now that they’re doing Caprica, who knows?

I’m all about good story telling. Let’s see if it happens again.

#18
“#12 When did they say that Ent was in an altered timeline? Or are you referring to the Borg discovery in Antarctica?”

Yep.

#19
“When did they ever, ever say it was an altered timeline? Never.”

It was never stated within the show, but Braga made comments about it later.

From “The Trek Nation” May 19th 2003.
“Following the screening there was a short Q&A. Braga teased, “No direct threatening questions”. When asked about continuity discrepancies in “Regeneration”, Braga replied the “timeline has been altered”. A temporal paradox? Along the same theme, he added that next season would be edgier.”

Here’s the link: http://www.treknation.com/articles/brannon_braga_ucsc_event.shtml

As for the quality of the show….well as I said above, it had some cool things…..they just weren’t executed well. On other boards around that time, I stated that a prequel idea was awesome, but that B&B, just weren’t the people to execute it. Mainly because I didn’t think people who had spent so much time writing in a certain time and mind frame could readjust their thinking to a much more primitive time.

#22: “That’s one of the good things about TOS: you could watch about any episode in any order, or even independant of the others, and still get it without a compendium. Each one stood alone.”

Exactly so.

There’s this tired old (by Internet standards) chestnut that goes “Saying continuity is a problem is an excuse of lazy writers.”

Nope. Falling back on audience familiarity, affection or need to find out what happens in a continuing storyline, while certainly not a failing when done well, is simply a marvelous safety net when writers *can’t *write*compelling*short*screenplays* that make people want to tune in next week to see another new story.

Rod Serling could do that brilliantly. The producers of TOS managed to find writers who could do it more often than not for a couple of years, and it’s those damned fine little stand-alone fifty-minute science fiction “movies” that remain the foundation of “Star Trek’s” success.

OMG, Michael Moore just said everything I’ve wanted to say re: the new film. That’s exactly it: move the hell away from this massive saga of 5 series all interconnected, and just get back to the beginning… when Trek was new and pure, and start fresh. That said, it’ll never, ever be possible to escape star trek’s backstory. Too many rabid fans (like myself) keeping tabs on everything. But at least with a prequel they aren’t as beholden to the Trek canon. They can and should take some creative liberties. Trek got too bogged down and that’s why we all suffered Trek fatigue, in a sense. The last two films were major disappointments and the canon just felt tired and regurgitated. This new film could capture the sense of adventure and new-ness to Trek that we haven’t felt since the last 10 minutes of “First Contact.”

Jordan, that’s RON Moore, not Michael Moore. :)

Moore is right, the Abrams and company should just start from scratch, make the film and ignore all these ridiculous chronology book limitations that some fans are trying to impose upon trek. Back story is only useful to a point then it becomes a veritable white Elephant which will in the end kill vitality of the franchise. Its alright to homage the past but its not alright to be stuck in it.

Jeez. What did Gunsmoke do? Give me a break.

Moore, did it with Galactica and it can be done with Star Trek, just start over and keep the best from the original series. Perhaps this is something of what we’ll get with the new movie. I think, in this case, they are keeping much of what worked and are using the older Spock angle to explain the new changes.

Works for me, now if they can just omit the screaming opera singer from the 2nd & 3rd season remastered titles… too overpowering!

#6:

Both parties have a point here. The canon gives us races, a history, a universe to play around in. It truly does add to stories. It also spawns new stories that are wonderful in their own right, and are even better when seen in the full context of the work. (I think the best-ever example of that was Enterprise Season Four.) From the broad strokes of the races and the universe to the subtle little references that so delight the fandom, Trek is its own legendarium, and I would never want to see that thrown away as RDM seems to be advocating here. A Galactica-style reboot for Trek would, as another poster said, only turn Star Trek into just another space opera.

And yet… it is -hard- to write new Trek within that huge conflicting mass of data that is canon. Even knowing as much as I do (which, at last count, is roughly everything ever, give or take an episode of Voyager), I simply could not write Trek fanfic anymore if not for the huge crutch of Memory-Alpha. I can’t keep the years of the Dominion War straight, I rely heavily on a javascript stardate converter I found on Google and on the warp tables from Ex Astris, and trying to map out locations so as not to piss off the alarming number of fans who think the Star Charts are canon (or ought to be) is hellish when you want a face-off between the Klingons and the Tzehnkethi. In this respect, RDM is exactly right. Moreover, when he was writing DS9, the canon was a lot smaller than it is today–and hardcore fans didn’t expect you to keep consistent with the novels, the production materials, the fanon… I once even had the executive producer of Hidden Frontier complain to me that my own fan production (Star Trek: Excelsior) wasn’t fully respectful to HF because my show’s backstory contradicted -his- show’s canon! (A fan film!)

Suffice to say it’s fracking hard. There are too many details for any one man (or men) to keep track of, and simply doing one’s best to avoid a myriad of technical contradictions consumes enormous amounts of energy. Trying to write a good story within the context of canon is a tremendous undertaking, and I am always impressed with those who attempt it and succeed; they are not recognized enough. (Except for NV/P2’s Hugo nomination! Go Cawley! Represent!) In this regard, like RDM (who, incidentally, did a wonderful job on DS9 and also deserves recognition), I hate the canon and want it to die painfully.

What I think Trek needs to find–and, from what I see of BALOK’s “Supreme Court”, what Trek has found–is a balance. Characters, conflicts, the central ideas of the races we know and love, from Klingons to the Dominion to even the Xindi–these things matter, and should always be protected within the canon. These are the things, along with Gene’s bold vision of the future, that make Star Trek something special. Minutiae–dates, registries, locations, technological capabilities, even actors–should be entirely ignored, altered to serve the purposes or themes of the story. The fans who disowned Enterprise because the NX-01 looked like an Akira–and it did–are the same fans who railed against the new movie for apparently having the Enterprise being built on Earth. These fans are the greatest threat to good storytelling and to Gene’s vision, and, therefore, they are a grave threat to the franchise as a whole.

Let’s have a new vision of canon, where we, as a fandom, have clearly marked the differences between “that which is important” and “that which is not.” *That* would put Star Trek on the fast track to a renaissance.

My two cents.

Wow… that was longer than I thought it was. Sorry.

Ron, Ron, Ron…..

Staying within continuity for a Star Trek show shouldn’t be any more complicated than staying within continuity for a CSI or Law & Order show.

Just don’t contradict what came before, or put forward something that really doesn’t fit without a really freakin’ good reason.

Besides, hasn’t it been said over and over again that limitations makes for better writing?

18, 19, 27 RE: altered timeline…

All of Season Three could’ve been an altered timeline. Daniels explained that the Xindi attack on Earth in the Season Two finale and the following year’s-worth of stories were “not supposed to have happened” and were a consequence of the Temporal Cold War.

Of course the whole series could’ve been an altered timeline for similar reasons (the Temporal Cold War starting with the pilot episode). I always wonder if in the “new” timeline a model of the NX-01 is also included in the 1701-D conference room alongside the other Starfleet Enterprises. Ow. My head hurts.

Ron Moore is Absolutely Wrong. Totally. Completely. Utterly. Profoundly.

There’s nothing really that complicated about Trek’s continuity, if one cares even a little bit about it. It’s a huge universe, with plenty of room for new directions, all along its fictional timeline. With any sort of luck, Messrs. Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman understand this. As Jeff (#6) said, the fact that there is continuity doesn’t mean that every script has to loaded down with it, and the fact of continuity gives dozens of launching-points for new stories, too.

(Having written more than half a million words of storyteling in the Trekverse {or at least a very close analogue to it ;) }, I’ll certainly argue from experience that continuity has far more benefits than drawbacks.)

I think it ironic that, for all the whining about continuity, the Trek film widely considered the best is the most continuity-laden of the bunch. Its entire story owes its existence to an Original Series episode. Why does it work? Because the filmmakers knew to provide just enough hooks to the original story so that new viewers could “get it”, and then got on with the job of the storytelling. That’s good use of continuity.

Moore’s Galactica could have benefitted from a whole lot more respect and caring for the original. I’m still saddened that he opted to demonstrate so little of either. And I think if what he did to BSG was ever done to Trek, it would be a profound loss.

#34 very well said, It would be a chance for trek to maybe go down a different time line. If I could change one or two things in trek. One would be Captain Pike, Let him have a different fate then He did in the original, I always hated how he ended up in the original. I know I am going to hear a lot of criticism on this statement, so be it.

I find it supremely ironic that Ron Moore is complaining about “too much continuity,” when he single-handedly created much of the Klingon backstory for the 24th century period. But, setting that aside…

The problem with Star Trek isn’t continuity, it’s a dire lack of any sense of adventure and exploration.

Say all the negative things you want about the first two seasons of TNG, but at least the Enterprise was actually attempting to go out and explore “new worlds and new civilizations.” That was the whole reason for families being on the new Enterprise, a decision that was highly controversial among Trek fans when the show first debuted.

Then, somewhere around Season Six, TNG forgot about exploration entirely, and the Enterprise served merely as a heavily-armed Ramada Inn designed to ferry around diplomats, mediate the occasional Klingon or Cardassian skirmish or serve simply as a backdrop for a crew member’s emotional crisis or holodeck experience.

Plots became predictable, and always revolved around fixing The Crew Member or Technological Gadget That Has Gone Wrong This Week™.

So, continuity isn’t the issue. Case in point: Doctor Who, the longest-running sci-fi series in history (with more episodes than the entire Trek franchise put together) has *oodles* of continuity, but it doesn’t get in the way of telling a fun adventure each week. And if something needs to be retconned in order for the story to make sense, then fine. The point is to tell a story that is fun and adventurous. And if some commentary on modern society can be woven in to give it depth, so much the better.

Remember when Star Trek was actually fun and adventurous? You know, like watching “Doomsday Machine” or “Trouble with Tribbles” or “City on the Edge of Forever”? You know, those feelings you get, even though you’ve seen the episode thousands of times?

Does anyone get those feelings when watching “The Quality of Life,” “Aquiel,” or “Bloodlines”? Does anyone even remember what the hell those episodes were even about without having to consult Wikipedia? I doubt it.

I’m sorry, Mr. Moore. You’re supremely talented and your new Galactica series kicks ass. But Star Trek wasn’t run into the ground because of “the weight of continuity.” It was run into the ground by many writer/producers who clearly got bored with the 24th century universe they helped create, and we as the audience eventually got bored watching episodes which took place in it.

Star Trek is near death because it desperately needs a new infusion of genuine adventure… and fun! I’m hoping the new film will re-ignite that.

I don’t know if Moore is as perplexed by all the back-story and continuity there is to get straight as he is simply worried he’ll piss off a purist with the wrong colored laser button. If he reads these posts like Robert Orci does, he understands how some people here can be so militant about their make-believe. I’m as sure there’s a part of him that is quite capable of going through all the shows with his team and making a time-line and figuring it all out, as I’m also as sure there’s a part of him that doesn’t give a f**k about it either.

As for Trek, I’m a 60’s veteran, loved the original show, loved Next Generation, preferred DS9 to Babylon 5, loved Voyager and loved Enterprise. Basically I love Star Trek!
`
I try to analyze why some people put one up against another, why series are put down in comparison to each other. However, the intricate “canon” back history that run’s through all series tying them together souldn’t take precedence over a good story. I think good stories are the key.

It’s fascinating that given enough time and episodes that all will eventually be explained. When I watch Worf’s reaction to questions about the Klingon’s “human” appearance in “TRIALS AND TRIBBLE-ATIONS” (which of course is DS9’s visit back to TOS) and later the reason for their appearance is explained in ENT: AFFLICTION I just love it! Eventually all canon discrepancies will be explained. It’s a pity some people have such closed minds about TOS versus everything after that they miss out on the joy of these magic moments.

So to the new movie, make it a good story, TRY to maintain canon. If you have to deviate, leave it for some future Trek TV episode to explain. I’m going along to see ST:The JJ version with an open mind and huge excitement. I don’t care that a few deviations in cannon may have to be to get from A to B. Any blinding contradictions I know will be explained later. As Spock say’s “There are always possibilities”

Why are people evenc aring what he says?If people seriously want what was done with battlestar Galactica with Star Trek then Star Trek IS dead.
He showed how little regarded he had with the original.It should never have had the name battlestar Galactica.What many of the cheerleaders of the reimaged forget the original was a hit and was cancled over It’s budget and ABC not getting much over Merchandise.It had a strong fanbase going on for years with only one season,and It’s DVD set sold very well.Now we all know J.J. Abrams and his crew are not going In this direction.Leonard Nimoy’s Inclusion proves this.This will be a film for both new and Old fans.How many times have they said William Shatner Isn’t In this film because of Generations.Merchandise reports suggest a strong resemblanse to the original show.Forget Moore and his Galactica In name only I will take J.J. Abrams,Damion Lindelloff,Alex Kurtman,and Bob Orci over him and his projects.

jeff – March 24, 2008
“In short, it was the freaking writing that killed TV Trek, of which Moore plays a big a part as anyone else. ”

I agree. “Shaka, when the WALLS FELL!” And way too many holodeck malfunctions.

But I also agree with Moore in that there was just too much backstory and frontstory. Nowhere left to go. Enterprise was an attempt to get away from the massive fact-psychosis (and holodeck-driven drama) of most of the other Trek series.

But it also slammed the door on post-Picard era shows by introducing TimeCop Daniels. A few hundred years after Picard it seems that Star Fleet spends all its energy and technology on just barely managing to de-subvert the timeline to avoid defeat in the Temporal Cold War. Zzzzzzzzz….

So I think it was a combination of uninspired writing plus an impenetrably complex back story that ran the Trek franchise into the ground. Enterprise just wasn’t able to attract a new audience.

J.J. knows how to attract new audiences, and if that means that not every single little piece of the 40+ year old Star Trek puzzle will still fit, then that’s fine. Two generations of viewers have been born since TOS first aired. That’s a lot of potential new fans.

No. He’s wrong, the back story is what makes trek special, When the quandrant is in danger we know the places that could be efected, Earth Vulcan, Cardassia, Bajor, Betazed, Romulus, Fereginar, Risa, Andoria, Kronos, etc… These places have developed over time some more than others but if writers can’t do alittle research on the back ground of the characters they are writting about then they are just lazy and shouldn’t of been offered the job in the first place

i agree with Moore 100%. Trek I growing under its own weight and needs this new, fresh start. Comic books retcon and reboot all the time and it works wonders for the Characters and stories and for new readers. it is waht Trek needs and hopefuly what it is getting.

sigh…no the nx-01 dosent appear in the conference room in 1701-D…and yes all the bridge plaques from the enterprise ships are all wrong… # ship to bear the name enterprise..well no one will notice say paramount execs..why dont you introduce the borg on enterprise? says another suit.
In star trek you can do anything you want and invent anything you want as long as its set AFTER voyager, why anyone would want to invent a prequel wish to be constrained by 40 years of canon is beyond me. and as a hardcore trek purist, I have alot of clout as far as getting people to check out star trek, if i hate it..good chance other not so hardcore fans will listen to me.

Ron Moore got his start because of Trek. Now, he treats it like it is substandard sci-fi. That irks me. He would be no where without his experience from Trek
Nuff said!

#40 – agreed!