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I wasn't a 'Star Trek' fan, yet I knew who all the characters were. that goes to show what an impact the show had not just in entertainment but in life. I knew who Chekhov was and I knew who Kirk and Spock were, although I probably had never seen the show.
Most visions of extraterrestrial life are actually steeped in human hubris. The fictional extraterrestrials of 'Star Trek' or a hundred other space operas are less alien than many of my neighbors. And funny, the ones running the place are mostly WASPish men.
In the movie 'Star Trek 3: The Return of Spock,' I'm a really bad Klingon, and I really enjoyed playing that - somebody who's totally unscrupulous. It's like he was not genetically equipped to feel compassion or sensitivity. Just outright evil without apology.
When I look back and think how fortunate I've been to work with some wonderful people and had some marvelous experiences, then I can look at 'Star Trek' and think it's almost like the cream on the coffee. I don't approach it as anything but a magnificent plus.
According to 'Star Trek' mythos, Starfleet Command - operational headquarters for a flotilla of craft that keep the cosmic peace - is located in San Francisco's Presidio, in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge (still carrying traffic, even in the 23rd century).
One of the reasons that I accepted, once asked to do Star Trek, was to give a single child a chance to see the long thought, to see themselves some 400 years hence. It occurred to me that we must ensure that we keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon.
Looking back now on our workload, I just shake my head at our pace. 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' was my first series, so I didn't know anything about that when I started. I just assumed it was normal to make 26 episodes a year on a seven-day shooting schedule.
As a card-carrying space nerd and NASA's chief scientist, I love space movies, from 'Star Trek' to 'Star Wars' to my all-time favorite - 'The Dish', an Australian comedy that celebrates that first moment when Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface of our moon.
There were terrific shows on TV like 'Star Trek' and 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' and 'Wild Wild West.' All us kids would watch them. We would act them out in the basement. I think I found that I could speak a bit more clearly when I was playing with other people.
It is important to the typical 'Star Trek' fan that there is a tomorrow. They pretty much share the 'Star Trek' philosophies about life: the fact that it is wrong to interfere in the evolvement of other peoples, that to be different is not necessarily to be wrong or ugly.
It's either 'Saw' made for $4 million or 'Star Wars,' 'Star Trek,' 'Guardians of the Galaxy' et cetera being made for $150 million. So the $30 and $40 million films don't get made unless they're maybe 'Ride Along.' But I don't really know why. I don't get paid to know why.
It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational - and I'm speaking the written science fiction, not 'Star Trek.' Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they're clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.
The truth of the matter is, all of those guys on Star Trek: The Next Generation actually want to be me. These impersonations they do are just some way of trying to feel what it must be like to be me. And I understand that! Because it feels really good to be Patrick Stewart!
My father was always very interested in space. I watch Star Trek and all those things, but I always had a different picture in my mind... maybe closer to Alien. I don't see it in space as much as I do see it in different planets, with each having its own strange characters.
When I grew up, I saw the moon landing, and I was fascinated watching them as a child, and that's what really turned me onto space and science fiction, and I started watching things like 'Lost In Space,' and that led me to 'Star Trek,' which was a major influence on my life.
One of my favorite things about 'Star Trek' wasn't just the overt banter but the humor in that show about the relationships between the main characters and their reactions to the situations they would face; there was a lot of comedy in that show without ever breaking its reality.
This is my philosophy since 'Star Trek' and 'Battlestar': You have to be willing to have fandom hate what you're doing or love it and not care either way on a certain level, because you cannot become a slave to their emotion or their vote. It's not a democracy, as I'm always fond of saying.
The question always arose from both fans and friends was, 'Have you ever done 'Star Trek,' and if not, would you want to?' And the answer was always, 'No, I haven't, and yes, I would love to!' So now, at the age of 57, I can finally say, 'I'm in the new Star Trek!' And I'm so excited about it!
When I try to be funny, it always makes me more nervous that I'm trying too hard, and then my brain that already thinks too much jumps into hyper drive, and I light-speed start talking 'Star Trek' to someone who's talking 'Star Wars.' Anyway, it doesn't work out usually when I 'try' to be funny.
I'd argue that in the last few decades in America, when people are asked what they hope the future will look like, they still turn to 'Star Trek.' They hope we put aside our differences and come together as humanity, that we rise above war, poverty, racism, and other problems that have beset us.
What they told us about 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' when we first started was that we were guaranteed 26 episodes, so that was the longest job I've ever had. And that was basically it - we didn't know what the premise of the show was going to be and we waited, week by week, to see a script.
'Star Trek' is the McDonald's of science fiction; it's fast food storytelling. Every problem is like every other problem. They all get solved in an hour. Nobody ever gets hurt, and nobody needs to care. You give up an hour of your time, and you don't really have to get involved. It's all plastic.
'Star Trek' is science fiction. 'Star Wars' is science fantasy. Based on the episodes I worked on, I think with 'Star Wars: Clone Wars,' we're starting to see a merging, though. It does deal, philosophically, with some of the issues of the time, which is always something 'Star Trek' was known for.
I don't think I'm the world's most die-hard sci-fi fan, but I definitely grew up watching 'Star Trek' religiously - all of them: the original, 'Next Generation,' 'Deep Space Nine,' 'Voyager.' I think sci-fi has an important place in the cinema world. Fantasy is a big part of why films actually exist.
Up until the time I was cast in 'Star Trek,' the roles were pretty shallow - thin, stereotyped, one-dimensional roles. I knew this character was a breakthrough role, certainly for me as an individual actor but also for the image of an Asian character: no accent, a member of the elite leadership team.
The 'Star Trek' future, to me, is where we are headed. Everything is automated, and we are free to pursue our dreams. We are free to pursue lives that aren't about working and toiling away in dangerous jobs. For example, how many of us would love to be poets, or how many of us would love to be artists?
I think the reason why 'Star Trek' works so well was its small family feeling. The show felt small, you could see the mistakes, you could see rocks weren't rocks. You caught them at it all the time, but you didn't care because you were so hooked to the people and to the stories. It was a fabulous show.
It shouldn't be so difficult to determine what a planet is. When you're watching a science fiction show like 'Star Trek' and they show up at some object in space and turn on the viewfinder, the audience and the people in the show know immediately whether it's a planet or a star or a comet or an asteroid.
I really enjoy playing villains, whether they're realistic like Switchblade Sam or whether they're a bit more over-the-top like Kruge in 'Star Trek III' or Judge Doom in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit.' It's sort of a license just to be as bad as the script allows you to be - you can just go for it and have fun.
Gene Roddenberry continually reminded us that the Star Trek Enterprise was a metaphor for starship Earth. And the strength in this starship came from its diversity, coming together and working in concert as a team. That is the strength of our countries, Canada and the United States. We are nations of diversity.
'Star Trek' fans totally accepted my sexual orientation. There are a great number of LGBT people across 'Star Trek' fandom. The show always appealed to people that were different - the geeks and the nerds, and the people who felt they were not quite a part of society, sometimes because they may have been gay or lesbian.
My approach to 'Star Trek' was, 'I know science fiction, and I know screen writing.' That was very arrogant of me, but you really need to be a little bit arrogant to think that what you have to say is good enough to justify the expense of hundreds of thousands - now millions of dollars - to make an episode of the TV show.
If I'm not in the dead heat of working on something, I can end up spending tons and tons of time on the Web, and I hate it. I feel the same shame I did in grad school when I was pretty much addicted to reruns of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. I wish someone would make the Web just go away. Just remove it from the earth.
I had come to the point when I realized it was unlikely that my film career was going to move beyond a certain level of role. And I was - because I had graphic instances of it - handicapped by the success of Star Trek. A director would say, 'I don't want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie' - and this was compounded by X-Men as well.
What's wonderful about 'Star Trek' having been rebooted so successfully by the J. J. Abrams movie franchise is that - the corollary effect is that it creates a new generation of fans, and they're interested in all of it. They don't just sit around and wait for the next movie to come out; they'll go back and re-examine episodes.
'Star Trek' is a 'Wagon Train' concept - built around characters who travel to worlds 'similar' to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which become our stories. Their transportation is the cruiser 'S.S. Yorktown,' performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission which helps create our format.
There are a few reboots I'd love to see that I'd love to have nothing to do with! I'd love to watch just as a viewer. 'Quantum Lea' - someone should bring that back. I'd love to see another 'Star Trek' show on the air. I loved 'Buck Rogers'; someone should do that. But I don't want the responsibility of doing any of those things.
That's what 'Star Trek' was: We don't know how to make an ideal society, but we're going to portray that, and then we're going to work backward. I think that's why science fiction - despite the dystopian parts - comes out of this super ideal that, eventually, we will get to some better place where we actually live up to our ideals.
Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It's been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-men has led people to believe that I know what I'm talking about. But I'm still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.