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Had things gone differently, fans might have seen Tim Russ or Wesley Snipes as Geordi La Forge.

An old casting memo dated April 13, 1987 from Paramount shows the actors and actresses who might have been chosen to play the roles of Picard, Ryker and La Forge instead of Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton.

The memo, pictured here (click on thumbnail to see it full-sized), shows that while some characters had multiple actors vying for the role, two characters had only one actor or actress in contention, and in both cases, neither got the role.

Stewart was one of five in contention for Picard, and he and Patrick Bauchau (who ironically played a Roland Picard in 2009’s 2012) were the front-runners for the role of the Captain.

For Ryker, although Jonathan Frakes was one of the four on the list and the one who got the role, Michael O’Gorman was the favorite according to the memo.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Rosalind Chao (Keiko O’Brien) was the favorite for the part of Tasha Yar. Denise Crosby, who ultimately won the role, was not even on the list for the part, she was being considered for Troi.

An actor who went on to Star Trek: Voyager, Tim Russ (Tuvok), was vying with Reggie Jackson, Wesley Snipes and others for the role of Geordi La Forge.

The only one who was a favorite and actually got the role, other than Stewart, was Gates McFadden, who was listed under her real first name of Cheryl.

Today is the birthday of Chris Pine. Star Trek’s new Captain Kirk is turning the big 3-0. All of us here at TrekMovie would like to wish the new Captain a Happy Birthday. Plus we have an update on what Chris is up to (including the latest project he was in consideration for), plus a [...] 55

Link to the forum post

James Cameron’s 2009 sci-fi movie Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time, and on Friday a special edition of Avatar will be back in theaters to scoop up some more cash. But Cameron has even higher aspirations, saying that he hopes to build a franchise fan following akin to Star Wars…and Star Trek. [...] 161

An old Paramount Memo, which was actually released a few years ago, has been getting a lot of play on the Internet in the last day. The Memo is about possible actors who were being brought in to audition for roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it includes some interesting names for those [...] 87

You can now explore the Enterprise and Train to Fly an Original Series Shuttle Craft in the newly released fan game for PC, created by game studio, Gambit Realm!

Released on the 23rd of August, “Shuttle Flight Training” is the first demo of a freeware product being developed by Gambit Realm, which aims to faithfully recreate the Original Series Enterprise in authentic details using original blueprints as their guidelines – at least that is what developer Paul Weston tells us on the official website for the project!

QuoteWe wanted every room, every deck, and all the cool control panels, medical beds, phasers, dilithium crystals and antimatter storage pods we could get.

We wanted all the turbolifts and no load time between locations and we wanted to hop in the shuttle and fly by the ship…
The game is being built on the Torque 3D engine which the developers hope will allow them to fufill their vision and we have to say, that after playing the demo, we are tentativly impressed.   The demo includes two locations on the 1701 Enterprise, its Bridge and ...

The Hollywood Xpo coming to Universal City, CA in October is an event chock full of Hollywood, and Sci-Fi celebrities, including a "Trek XPo" full of Star Trek luminaries from all the Trek TV shows, including Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Jonathan Frakes Michael Dorn, Rene Auberjonois, Robert Duncan McNeil, Connor Trinneer, and many more. Weekend [...] 10

Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov) turned to writing after the original series of Star Trek ended production.

Sitting around waiting for that next job to appear was not working out well for Koenig. “When the series ended,” he said, “I was without any employment. The phone didn’t ring, and I found myself having no reason to get up in the morning. It was that depressing.”

Koenig decided to do something to give himself purpose, to keep busy and to push away the depression. “I decided at some juncture that if I was going to maintain my sanity and some kind of emotional equilibrium, I had to give myself a purpose, a target, an objective,” he explained. “That became writing. It gave my life structure. I knew that every day I was going to get up and write for four or five hours. It brought some emotional equanimity with it.”

The end result was his first novel. “Over the course of about six months, I wrote a novel,” said Koenig, “even though I had never written before, and I put it away because a couple of people I started showing it to didn’t like it. A couple people loved it, but I always go with the people who didn’t like it. I assumed they knew what they were talking about.”

Not waiting around for the novel to be published, Koenig branched out into other writing projects. “Eighteen years later, [the novel] got published, but in the interim I started writing screenplays,” he said. “I wrote an episode of the animated Star Trek and [scripts] for several prime time televisions shows, then found myself on this course. I found it aesthetically rewarding and something I could always do when the work as an actor wasn’t available. I started writing, not because I was inspired by Star Trek to write, but because I just needed to find a way to survive. To psychologically and emotionally survive at a time when things were really kind of ruined. I had a wife and a small child, and I wasn’t making any money. I needed a purpose and to be committed to something. The writing provided that.”

Koenig’s latest writing project, a four-issue comic miniseries titled Things To Come, will be published next year.

Back in 1989 Harve Bennett (producer of Star Trek II, III, IV & V) proposed that the Star Trek franchise needed to be restarted with Kirk and Spock being recast for a move set at Starfleet Academy. Work began on the project, including a script, but Paramount decided to stick with the original crew for [...] 183

LeVar Burton, best known to Trek fans as Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Geordi La Forge, will be hosting this year’s IndieCade Red Carpet Awards Ceremony and Reception.

IndieCade, “dedicated to bringing together the freshest, most innovative and creative minds and works in independent game design,” was founded in 2005 and holds an annual international festival and series of exhibitions, conferences and other “happenings for the future of independent games.”

“As an artist and storyteller, I wanted to support IndieCade and independent game developers,” said Burton. “As a passionate gamer, I am a longtime fan of the creative visionaries that are the heart and soul of the gaming community, which is why I’m particularly happy about my association with IndieCade.”

Ticket sales and information on IndieCade 2010 can be found at their website located here. This year’s award ceremony, which will announce winners in ten categories from among the three hundred and sixty games in competition, will take place on Friday, Oct 8, at 8 PM at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City, Ca.

Today we present the finale of the Star Trek movie inspired parody comic strip Ensign Sue Must Die. Find out how it all ends for Sue…or is it the end?       Ensign Sue Must Die Finale: Ensign Sue gets another chance story by Clare Mosley, art by Kevin Bolk, written by Clare Mosley and Kevin Bolk (click to see [...] 53

In Sci-Fi TV this week we start off with a first look at the Doctor Who Christmas special and get some new details on the return of Torchwood. We also have another peek at Smallville’s final season, and a trailer and premiere date for The Walking Dead. All that plus the latest previews (including a [...] 65

Today there are a couple updates on what members of the Star Trek team are doing outside Star Trek (with Steven Spielberg). Trek co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are working with Steven Spielberg to bring Joe Hill’s "Locke & Key" IDW comic series to the small screen. Plus we have an update on [...] 25