Ronald D. Moore and Jeffrey Jacob Abrams (known as J.J. Abrams) share a connection to Star Trek, but while Moore invested considerable time and effort in bolstering and expanding the Gene Roddenberry creation, Abrams is attempting to reboot it with the forthcoming Star Trek XI movie. Since Moore and Abrams are both 40-something post-baby-boom-generation guys with considerable influence over what happens to the science fiction space adventures genre, do you imagine that they lose sleep at night pondering the responsibilities they have to the genre?

Moore’s work on Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica speaks for itself in upholding the highest standards of storytelling within the science fiction space adventures genre. More importantly, Moore has already proven his financial viability in show business within the genre.

Abrams, on the other hand, has much yet to prove. Paramount cannot be faulted for wanting to keep the Star Trek franchise living long and prospering financially. That the Star Trek franchise exists at all is because of show business, so the show must go on if the Star Trek franchise has any life signs left in it. The business reality is that the Star Trek franchise needs a reboot since the franchise recently faltered financially in terms of attracting ongoing audience loyalty.

Enter Abrams to attempt rebooting Star Trek. A sneak peek of the U.S.S. Enterprise under construction for Star Trek XI appears ahead of the Abrams-produced Cloverfield, a powerful emotional rollercoaster ride of a horror movie. However, the young, good-looking characters in Cloverfield and the horrifying fate that befalls them should set off more than a few alarms.

Stop and ask this question: Is Cloverfield an early warning about what to expect Abrams to deliver in Star Trek XI?

Pictures of the young cast that Abrams has assembled to work on Star Trek XI very easily can be found on blogs today. The publicity machinery in Hollywood requires a buzz be created over the Star Trek XI cast. Even though Star Trek XI will not open until Christmas 2008, Paramount needs online activity in blogs and social networking sites about the Star Trek franchise to happen now to build momentum at the beginning of the year for the film’s release at the end of the year. That much is clear.

What is not yet knowable is whether Star Trek XI will more closely resemble Cloverfield than the previous ten Star Trek motion pictures or the over 700 episodes of the five Star Trek television series.

No matter what else is true, Roddenberry’s Star Trek was not about young, good-looking characters whose chief significance was that they faced emotionally-wrenching fates of do or die significance. There certainly were young, good-looking characters in the original Star Trek series, in all four of the subsequent Star Trek series, and in all ten of the Star Trek movies. One can also find numerous emotional thrill rides throughout the Star Trek franchise.

What distinguished Roddenberry’s Star Trek from all other science fiction space adventures, however, was certainly not the youth or good looks of characters, nor that characters provided emotional thrills for audiences. How Star Trek characters and their behaviors represent ideas worth considering by the audience members is what distinguishes Star Trek characters.

There is wise old adage that beauty is only skin deep. If all of the considerable financial resources behind Star Trek XI result in mere skin-deep beauty, the science fiction space adventures genre certainly will suffer a deep and serious blow.

One need look no further than what Ron Moore has already accomplished with Battlestar Galactica from 2003 to today to understand something: Embedding ideas worth considering by the audience members into the behaviors of science fiction space adventure characters does not in any way take away from the visual appeal of youthful, good-looking characters, nor their financial viability in the show business context.

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent war in Iraq provide the political and cultural context for the producers and writers of Battlestar Galactica to pose urgent, controversial questions about military and political issues for viewers to ponder. Battlestar Galactica challenges its audience’s core perceptions, beliefs, and values in ways that one rarely finds in commercial television programming.

Ronald D. Moore, Battlestar Galactica’s showrunner, manages, controls, produces, and often writes or rewrites the series’ episodes. He has stated that he uses a “different prism” through which stories and characters are “twisted” from the expected or anticipated norm in ways that few, if any, other television shows ever attempt.

Moore’s storytelling technique deliberately distorts what viewers may deem as “normal” or “expected” perspectives on people, politics, organized religion and moral issues. The specific purpose of this distortion is to serve a rhetorical process that aims to convince Battlestar Galactica’s audiences to look at individual political, religious, and human moral issues from a variety of perspectives.

By bringing the ambiguity of these issues into the foreground, Battlestar Galactica challenges average citizens to think about the potential merits of perspectives they oppose and the drawbacks of perspectives they embrace. In commercial television–the dominant entertainment medium in the United States–this is a relatively recent development.

You can preview this new examination of the persuasive power within Battlestar Galactica by Woody Goulart and Wesley Joe at Trekology.com ahead of its June 2008 publication in New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction from the University of South Carolina Press.

© 2008, University of South Carolina. This material is excerpted with permission from New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction, edited by Donald M. Hassler and Clyde Wilcox, forthcoming in June 2008 from the University of South Carolina Press.

This writer chose deliberately to refrain from reading blogs about Battlestar Galactica until early December 2007 brought the arrival of the unrated extended version DVD of Battlestar Galactica Razor. What a wise choice!

Experiencing Battlestar Galactica Razor on the unrated extended version DVD proved to be most engaging and all-consuming. This one DVD is proof of why broadcast and cable television will never be able to stand as the sole vehicle for producers and writers. Yes, this DVD is that excellent.

One must conclude after experiencing Battlestar Galactica Razor that the future of the franchise is very bright, indeed. Even though we have been assured that the upcoming fourth season which starts in early 2008 will be the last of Battlestar Galactica, it is difficult to imagine that Ron Moore and the entire team of cast, crew, writers and directors responsible for this series will let it pass into history after the remaining twenty or so episodes have been aired.

Looking ahead, perhaps another movie-length production like Battlestar Galactica Razor would make financial good sense for NBC Universal after the resolution of the writers strike. No question that Ron Moore and company have proven with the Battlestar Galactica franchise that they have what it takes to succeed financially with the science fiction space adventure genre.

Battlestar Galactica Razor provides a great deal of backstory that even the most fervent fan would never have guessed was out there. At its most basic level, Battlestar Galactica Razor is an exploration into the deepest psychological and emotional depths of Helena Cain, an admiral in the fleet who commands the battlestar Pegasus. Cain is a complex and brutal person. The portrayal of Helena Cain by Michelle Forbes is one of the strongest performances by an actor in the entire history of this series since this character demands a redefinition of what it means to be a woman and a military leader. Some bloggers have speculated that Helena Cain is not a human being, and that she will be revealed in the final episodes of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica as the very last of the previously unidentified Cylons.

But, Battlestar Galactica Razor also presents never-before-told details about the early military experience of William Adama–played by Nico Cortez. In his later years, we get to know William Adama as an admiral in the fleet and a crucial character to the entire Battlestar Galactica series. Had it not been for Battlestar Galactica Razor, however, we never would have had the opportunity to understand why Adama is so driven to defeat the Cylons. The unrated extended version DVD devotes significant time to flesh out the young Adama’s emerging trait of heroism brought on by his deep commitment to justice and fairness. This unusual storytelling time spent in the past also clarifies the essential male military role-model icon for which the Battlestar Galactica franchise is known. Since this particular perspective on the young Adama occurred some four decades back in time (relative to the current timeline of Battlestar Galactica), regrettably, future episodes of the series will only be able to present this younger version of Adama in flashbacks.

The same holds true concerning the Battlestar Galactica Razor character of Lt. Kendra Shaw, played by Stephanie Jacobsen, who is killed off before the story of Battlestar Galactica Razor ends. The character of Shaw was never-before-seen on Battlestar Galactica and it is quite obvious that producers and writers required this particular character to weave together the story told within Battlestar Galactica Razor. Once the character of Shaw had served her storytelling purpose, she was expendable. While Shaw’s life was important to the crew members of both the Pegasus and the Galactica, her death–vaporized by a nuclear explosion that she set off to save others–was all the more significant. Battlestar Galactica Razor presents some of the strongest female characters ever depicted within the Battlestar Galactica franchise. This aspect is certain worthy of further study.