From Trekweb.com:

EW posted an extensive interview with former Star Trek make-up artist Michael Westmore and here are excerpts.


Before you started working on Star Trek, were you a Trekkie?
Marion and I, we’ve been married going on 48 years this year. When Star Trek came on the air, and she was pregnant with Michael, my oldest son, and it was Thursday nights, and it had reached that period in pregnancy where you just don’t want to move. So we stayed home and that was one of those shows that you tune in just because you like it, and yes, we did. We watched all the episodes starting back in ’66.

What do you think of the J.J. Abrams reboot?
They’re doing a good job. It’s popular. It’s making money. In the 18 years that I was on it, we always kind of stayed to a directive of Gene Roddenberry. And it seems like they’re taking steps away from it, almost like they want to create a new wheel. And Star Trek has so many dedicated fans and so much background to it, it’s difficult to throw something at it to try to change something classic. But [Abrams] has his Vulcans, and eventually he’ll probably come up and have Klingons one of these days. But I enjoyed the movie. It had a lot of action to it. And they did really nice casting too where you believed these people. And he’s got a lot more technology to work with now too. And, I must say, a lot more money. It makes a big difference. You can afford to have not one laser shot but 20 laser shots. There’s a lot more movement, a lot more action going on in his films just because of having larger budges to work with.

full interview here:
http://popstyle.ew.com/2013/02/26/michael-westmore-star-trek-face-off/

Below, first look at the cover from the upcoming eBook, Star Trek The Next Generation The Stuff of Dreams:

Well, times are changing I guess. Roddenberry Trek will become JJ Trek, but it will go on. Anyway, I really can't wait until the new Trek on May...

from trekweb:

Toronto Sun posted an interview with Next Generation actor/director LeVar Burton and here is a few excerpts.


(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 honouring the canon. And to pretend to be the only one is really egocentric and immature.

"I just came from a conference in San Francisco with Advanced Micro Devices, and they're working on technology towards building a holodeck. That was Next Generation. And that's part of what Star Trek has brought to the culture. So when JJ Abrams says, There should be no Star Trek except the one I make,' I call bulls---, J.J."

The full interview is


http://www.torontosun.com/2013/03/04/star-levar-burton-calls-bullst-on-jj-abrams

I wonder if JJ will respond? This could be better than one of our fireworks shows.

The new Trek was good but it wasn't that good so as to eclipse 5 whole series and several movies. I don't know if JJ really believes this (I don't know the man), but if he does, then as Burton said, that's bull...

It could be he means do not make any more Star Trek TV shows while the movies are being made.