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 New York Times published an op-ed written by Ronald D. Moore on September 18, 2006 in which he addressed the subject of politics in science fiction space adventures:

September 18, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

Mr. Universe
By RONALD D. MOORE

Altadena, Calif.

Four decades ago, when the starship Enterprise first settled into orbit around Planet M-113 on Sept. 8, 1966, I was 2 years old. I could not have known it at the time, but “Star Trek” would literally change my life.

To say that any television show has changed one’s life is to invite both mockery and pity for a poor, shuttered geek who must surely have been denied direct sunlight and the attention of women for the better part of his days. But in lieu of offering documentary proof that I do not, in fact, still reside in my parents’ basement, let me simply tell you how “Star Trek” informed the way I look at the world.

“Star Trek” is often reduced to kitsch: Kirk’s paunch, Spock’s pointy ears, green-skinned alien girls. But it was more than escapism and rubber-suited aliens. It was a morality play, with Capt. James T. Kirk as a futuristic John F. Kennedy piloting a warp-driven PT-109 through the far reaches of the galaxy.

Kirk, for me, embodied an American idea: His mission was to explore the final frontier, not to conquer it. He was moral without moralizing. Week after week, he confronted the specters of intolerance and injustice, and week after week found a way to defeat them without ever becoming them. Jim Kirk may have beat up his share of bad guys, but you could never imagine him torturing them.

A favorite quote: “We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.” Kirk clearly understood humanity’s many flaws, yet never lost faith in our ability to rise above the muck and reach for the stars.

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

As I grew into adolescence, the show provided a handy reference against which to judge the questions that my young mind began to ask: What is the obligation of a free society toward the less fortunate? Does an “advanced” culture have the right to spread its ideas among more “primitive” ones? What does it mean to be human, and at what point do we lose our humanity to our technology?

And as I grew into an adult, and my political views took shape, I treasured “Star Trek” as a dream of what my country could one day become — a liberal and tolerant society, unafraid to live by its ideals in a dangerous universe, and secure in the knowledge that its greatness derived from the strength of its ideas rather than the power of its phasers.

In my 20’s, through a combination of luck and determination, I fulfilled my childhood dream — I became a writer for “Star Trek.”

For 10 years, I helped propel the latter-day incarnations of “Trek” into new territory while keeping alive the set of moral principles I’d taken to heart. As I plotted the adventures of the Enterprise-D and the travails of the space station Deep Space 9, I gradually became interested in pushing the boundaries of “Star Trek,” and began to let Captains Picard and Sisko find the shades of gray in a universe Kirk sometimes saw only in black and white.

Science fiction on film and television has, over the past four decades, moved decisively away from the optimism of “Star Trek.” “Blade Runner,” “Alien” and “The Matrix” posit much darker, dystopian futures; even the “Star Wars” movies posit the rise of a galactic empire founded on “the dark side.” Social and commercial explanations abound for this shift, but my theory is that “Star Trek” set the gold standard for the idealistic vision of tomorrow and no one has successfully challenged it.

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.

My characters may not have all the answers (sometimes they’re not even aware of the questions) but they contain kernels of both good and evil in their hearts and continue to struggle for salvation and redemption against the darker angels of their natures. Their defeats are many, their victories few, but somehow, some way, they never give up the dream of finding a better tomorrow.

And, thanks to a 40-year-old television show, neither do I.

Ronald D. Moore is the writer of “Battlestar Galactica.”

[Source URL = http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/opinion/18moore.html]