George Takei believes that animated Star Trek should be given another chance. Star Trek: The Animated Series ran for 22 episodes on Saturday mornings in the 1973-74 TV season, and it will finally be released on DVD this Tuesday, November 21. To promote the release Takei spoke to a variety of press outlets on Friday, and in our conversation with him he floated the possibility that if the DVD proves popular, it could lead to a revival of animated Trek — with the original Enterprise crew, involving the original living cast, with other voice talent impersonating Dr. McCoy and Scotty. At least, that's what he'd like to see happen, so that the "potentials" of animation in the Star Trek landscape "can be fully explored."

Our 15-minute talk with George this afternoon is as follows, verbatim:

STARTREK.COM: So tell us, how's life?

George Takei: Life is glorious! Having a great time. Here we are in Southern California, I was up in San Francisco last weekend on a speaking engagement and it was bone-chilling, in fact it rained the day before and then on the following day it was very cold. And the week before that I was in New York, and you know New York in early November!

STC: I hear it was very rainy there at one point.

GT: Yes it was. So I am reveling in this glorious golden sunshine.

STC: Well, we're always glad to have you home in one piece. So you're talking about the Animated Series today, and it's coming out on DVD this Tuesday — finally after all this time — and so what are your thoughts about the Animated Series?

GT: Well, it's been a long time since I saw it. Paramount sent over some DVDs, so I took a look at some of the episodes, and it was déjà vu! The charmingly cheesy quality of the live-action Star Trek is [laugh] well echoed in the animated versions. You know, on the live action shows our sets trembled sometimes, and the buttons were jelly bean-type little plastic things, and in the animated version they've replicated that all very precisely! And the acting seems as wooden as some of the actors were! [Laugh] You know, in the animated versions the movement of the actors is rather stiff, the heads don't turn when they talk. And it filled me with a little nostalgia.

STC: So let me ask your opinion on the quality of the Animated Series, in every respect — the animation, the writing...

GT: The writing I think is wonderful — I mean, it really dealt with Star Trek ideas and Star Trek themes. The animation I thought could have been done a little bit more fluently. And, you know, with the animated version you have the potential, the possibility of letting the imagination really go, and have phantasmagoric alien civilizations where gravity and engineering don't have to play a role, as it did on the [live-action] set — you know, we had gravity, we had budgets to worry about — and the alien lifeforms didn't need to be so humanoid.

STC: Exactly.

GT: With animation you had the possibility of doing really imaginative, fantastical lifeforms. And I hope that the success of this animated version will prompt another series of animated Star Treks so that those potentials can be fully explored.

STC: Really? Are you thinking in terms of the original Enterprise crew for a new animated show, or possibly an animated Next Generation?

GT: Well, obviously I have a vested interest in the original! And the original is what is undebatably the most popular of all the series. So yeah, I'd like to see our generation of Star Trek revived in animated form. And, our voices more-or-less still resemble what we sounded like 40 years ago, so I think the original actors could be brought back for that. And then there are some amazing people who can do remarkable take-offs on Scotty's voice and on McCoy's voice. So I think that would be a fascinating idea.

STC: Well, it's a wonderful proposition!

GT: And if the animated version should be revived, all the writers are there — David Gerrold, Dorothy Fontana ... and Walter! [Koenig, who wrote "The Infinite Vulcan."]

STC: They're all still around!

GT: Yes indeed.

STC: The big debate that's always surrounded the Animated Series is: should those 22 episodes be considered part of Star Trek "canon"? In other words, should those adventures, presumably in the fourth year of the five-year mission, be considered part of official Star Trek history? Do you have any thoughts on that?

GT: Well, I don't want to insert myself into some treacherous territory! [Laughs] But I think if it were done selectively and, you know, judiciously incorporated into the canon, and parts that seem to be contrary to what has been established not be incorporated, I think that would be perfectly all right. The animated versions are a fun sort of thing, you know, but there have been some shows [subsequent Star Trek episodes] that have incorporated elements that happened in the animated version, so I certainly wouldn't quarrel with it.

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