Ron Moore: Star Trek Changed My Life

In today’s New York Times, Battlestar Galactica co-creator and longtime Trek writer/producer Ron Moore offers his thoughts on Star Trek’s 40th Anniversary. In his editorial Moore details now Trek ‘literally changed’ his life. Moore elaborates on how the actions of Kirk and his crew served as a reference for him as a young man.

“Star Trek” painted a noble, heroic vision of the future, and that vision became my lodestar.

Still some Trek in BSG
Moore’s new Battlestar Galactica has broken many of the conventions set forth by Star Trek. There are no aliens with funny foreheads, no technobabble and certainly no bright shiny utopian Federation in the dark BSG. Moore often comments in his own podcasts on how he tries to do things differently than they would do it on Trek. He addresses this contradiction:

Nowadays, it may appear that I’ve turned a blind eye to my lodestar as the crew of the battlestar Galactica behave in ways that would’ve been unthinkable in the “Star Trek” universe that Gene Roddenberry created. But “Battlestar Galactica” remains very much informed by the lessons I learned from that slightly paunchy man in the gold pajama top on the good ship Enterprise.

Moore’s Decade with Trek

Moore has quite a history with the Trek franchise going back to 1989 as a cub writer for Star Trek: The Next Generation.He went on to write or co-write 27 episodes for the show, including some of the key Klingon episodes. Moore then became producer and writer for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where he got to explore some of the darker themes Galactica has become known for.  Moore also co-write the 7th and 8th feature films:  Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek First Conact. For the latter he has recently expressed some second thoughts on the killing off of his childhood hero James T. Kirk. Eventually Moore becamed dissilusioned with the franchise, especially the 4th series Star Trek: Voyager. In 1999 and Trek and Moore went their separate ways. Although Moore has been critical of Trek since his departure he has made postive comments recently to both TrekMovie.com and Star Trek magazine about the future of the franchise under JJ Abrams.

Related: Moore Up For Trek XI 

UPDATE: TrekWeb Video Feature: ‘Galactica The Story So Far’