Though he recently disappointed fans by announcing that the next season of Battlestar Galactica would be its last, former Star Trek writer Ron Moore said that he thinks hiring Abrams to relaunch the Trek franchise is a smart move.

Speaking to TrekMovie.com at a Battlestar Galactica screening in Los Angeles, Moore called Abrams "tremendously talented" and said he expected the Lost creator to "do a really good job" regenerating the original series.

Asked whether he believed a reboot of the franchise was the safe, conservative way to go, Moore replied, "There is a lot of validity to saying they are stepping backwards, but at the same time I think it is the smart move to do it. I think the Star Trek universe has grown beyond what you can get your arms around. You can no longer truly enjoy it for what it is because it is so big and it has so many cross sections and so much continuity that it is maddening...only the truly hard core fans can keep all that together."

Going back to the roots, he added, allows the filmmakers to focus on the five year mission "with these guys on this ship...so I support them I think it is a really good move." He is not, however, sorry to have left Star Trek for Battlestar Galactica, saying, "I wanted to just be more dangerous with the characters. I wanted to go more and more into to ambiguous territory and make it more natural and real. I just started bumping up places I couldn’t go with Trek." At the Sci-Fi Channel, he added with a laugh, "they just love torture and rape and killing babies...I have been allowed to do the show I want to do."

But as to whether Star Trek should return to television, Moore wasn't certain, noting that even the original series was not a success on network TV. "Science fiction on TV has been such a narrower appeal. It is a strange equation...if you look at the top ten feature films of all time it is almost all genre stuff...look at Star Wars. Why it doesn’t work on TV I don’t know."

The full interview is here.

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