Rod Roddenberry took camera and crew on a journey to discover more about his late father, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and compiled it all into the documentary Trek Nation. “Rod’s quest takes him boldly beyond fandom to a deeper understanding of one of the most hugely influential sci-fi entities of all time” and gives us a better understanding of the man who started it all.
Mr. Roddenberry was good enough to give me some of his time and discuss Trek Nation in a little more detail.
Twenty years ago, a very unusual show appeared on the newly born FOX network. Sure, it was a buddy-cop show like dozens of others but in this show one of the cops was literally from another world. Eric Pierpoint was cast as the young, idealistic Newcomer cop ‘George Francisco’ to play along side Gary Graham’s human detective ‘Matthew Sikes’. Because it was considered “science fiction”, Alien Nation could address and comment on topics such as prejudice, immigration, racism, and slavery that other network show shied away from. Pierpoint would embrace the genre and guest star in many other sci-fi series including Babylon 5 and four Star Trek spin-off series.
In our interview, Eric Pierpoint reminisces about his time on the show and talks about how, even twenty years later, Alien Nation still speaks to topics and controversies that are every bit as relevant today as they were in 1989.
Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo spent seven years together wandering the Delta quadrant on Star Trek: Voyager. Phillips played the constantly cheerful cook and self described “Morale Officer” Neelix while Picardo played his near freudian opposite, the nameless and often humorless holographic Doctor. But the set of Voyager wasn’t the first meeting for this unlikely pair; careers intertwined long before that.
Jonja.net had the pleasure to sit down with both of them at Starfest 2009 and we learned all about their cris-crossed auditions, who was really to blame for the most out-takes during filming, and more about fellow actor Tim Russ than anyone would want to know!
Photo courtesy of Exposay.com, Glen Harris/@Photorazzi
Out of the blue Mr. Quinto decided to sit down with a few people and do an interview. Jonja.net was lucky enough to be one of them!
You can find Mr. Quinto as Sylar in the upcoming 3rd series of Heroes and Spock in J.J. Abrams new Star Trek movie.
A very laid back guy. Very friendly and could be found wandering the convention Saturday afternoon.
(I would like to point out that when asked about picking up the role of Spock, Mr. Quinto said one thing but his body language said another.)
Christopher Page, Nichelle Nichols and John Jackson at Starfest 2008“Every now and then you get to meet someone that strikes you as so extraordinary, so full of class and eloquence that it blows your mind.
Nichelle Nichols is that kind of person.
I was sitting in the Green Room when she walked in. She sat down across from me and just started talking to me like she knew me all her life. We talked about a varity of things, but one story she told me stuck out and that was her flight to Denver.
I asked her how her flight was and she went into this story how she was hoping for a good flight because she is not fond of turbulence, but that her flight went so well that when she was disembarking, she felt the need to thank the pilot for a great flight.
Well, he must have recognized her because after she thanked him he said “My pleasure Commander”
She thought that was very nice of him.
Anyway, the next day we got to sit down with her and do a proper interview. She was very gracious with her time and was genuinely friendly to all involved. I have to say that I walked away from that weekend with new view of Nichelle Nichols, she is clearly the class act of the TOS Star Trek cast.”
Rod Roddenberry took camera and crew on a journey to discover more about his late father, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and compiled it all into the documentary Trek Nation. “Rod’s quest takes him boldly beyond fandom to a deeper understanding of one of the most hugely influential sci-fi entities of all time” and gives us a better understanding of the man who started it all.
