“Really egocentric and immature”: One Star Trek Legend Couldn’t Stand J.J. Abrams’ Audacity to Rewrite Original Canon With $385M Chris Pine Movie

The Star Trek franchise is one of the foundational pillars of space sci-fi genre, along with Star Wars. There’s a reason why the fans of these two franchises often lock horns with each other, arguing which one is better. However, there are also times when these debates occur within their own franchise, whether the old was better, or the new.

Star Trek experienced a period of darkness when the reception for the older generation slowly went cold turkey. By 2002, Paramount had nearly given up on the franchise, going on to cancel the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise. However, in 2009, the franchise saw a revival with J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, and it did ignite a lot of interest. But not everyone was on board with how the reboot played out.

LeVar Burton was unhappy with J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek

Just like how fans are divided over various generations and series of Star Trek, the actors themselves seemed to have taken sides about the same. Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton had taken a stance against the newest generation, which saw the Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J. J. Abrams taking over the reins.

Burton, in a previous interview with Toronto Sun, said:

(Abrams’ Star Trek) was a great movie, and he brought a whole new generation to Trek. But I’m a little disquieted by things I hear coming out of his camp, things like he would like to be remembered as the only Trek—which would discount everything before he got there.

There’s ‘breaking the canon,’ which he did (by re-inventing Star Trek‘s timeline). But there’s also honoring the canon. And to pretend to be the only one is really egocentric and immature.

Here, Burton is talking about J. J. Abrams completely sidestepping the original timeline of the Star Trek films and series, and establishing a completely new one. Burton and a lot of fans’ major complaint was that the new series had changed established canon, which would mean the old shows and films losing all the relevance to Star Trek‘s lore.

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However, Burton’s own series wasn’t without its own follies.

William Shatner hated Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation resides in the better part of childhood memories for a lot of millennials who identify themselves as ‘Trekkies’. However, the sequel series itself wasn’t devoid of criticism, one of which came straight from the original Star Trek‘s lead William Shatner.

The James T. Kirk portrayer told Starlog (via Weimar.ws):

I think it [Star Trek: The Next Generation] is a mistake. To call a series Star Trek that doesn’t have the cast and the ship in it is an error. The error seems to me to be overexposure of the Star Trek name and the possibility of not having the Star Trek quality we’ve become accustomed to. It remains to be seen.

In addition to the controversy involving William Shatner and the fans, Patrick Stewart‘s The Next Generation faced challenges in securing a platform. Initially, there was a plan to air the series on a completely new network, Fox, but the network struggled with the commitment to a full season of 26 episodes, as reported by Wired.

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However, the series would go on to beat all the odds and become a fan favorite.

Star Trek can be streamed on Paramount+.

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