The success of the franchise is due to the support and efforts of the fans, according to Star Trek's Mr. Sulu.

Speaking with iF Magazine recently, George Takei praised Star Trek fans, while having harsh words for Paramount, claiming that they have lost touch. "The people that really understand and love Star Trek are no longer there," said Takei. "When Gene Roddenberry passed, that really was the end of Star Trek as we knew it. It takes Star Trek fans to goose them a little bit. That fan series New Voyages is one of the gooses, and then of course J.J. Abrams is a savvy marketer and went and goosed them with the idea of a new Star Trek movie."

The fans have supported Takei in the past. "When Voyager was about to go off," explains Takei, "Paramount sent out a notice to fandom asking for suggestions on the next Star Trek series they wanted to see. The fans started writing in about a series with Sulu in command of the USS Excelsior. There was a flood of letters from every corner of the world advocating for this Excelsior series and then Paramount suddenly decided they didn’t want fan advice or participation and went ahead and did what they wanted to anyway with Enterprise which was a disastrous failure. So Paramount can’t be counted on for any kind of intelligence, there are no signs of intelligent life there."

Takei called Star Trek a global phenomenon. "I’ve done conventions on every continent except Africa," he said. "Africa is the only continent that I haven’t done a Star Trek convention on. Certainly, I’ve done conventions all over Europe, two in Japan, one in Singapore, many in Australia, two in Latin America; so Africa is really the next continent we have to conquer."

For more of the interview, including his thoughts on working on Star Trek: New Voyages, head to the article located here.

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