AirLockAlpha.com

J.J. Abrams has millions of Star Trek fans that he will need to impress when his movie returning to the Kirk-Spock-McCoy roots premieres in May 2009, but at least he seems to have one ally initially: Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr.

Roddenberry, the son of the late "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, visited a shoot from "Star Trek XI" a couple weeks ago, and shared some of what he saw with Airlock Alpha's online talk show, SyFy Radio.

"I met with J.J. Abrams, but I didn't really see any of the main product," Roddenberry said, likely visiting when Abrams was shooting secondary shots and the like following principal photography. "What I did see, it looked great. The costumes, acting, sets."

Roddenberry also was impressed with the man behind "Mission: Impossible 3" who decided to take on the 42-year-old Star Trek franchise.

"J.J. is such a regular guy, and seems so much like a fan because he gets it," Roddenberry said. "While he has to work the way you have to work in Hollywood and balance what the studio wants, he's really on the side of the fans. He really tries to stay true of the continuity and stay true to canon."

Roddenberry hasn't seen a script, and assumes that there will have to be some rule-bending here and there when it comes to canon, but he really liked what he saw, and says it's easier now to shrug off some of the questions he tends to get from Star Trek fans who ask why he isn't more involved in Star Trek.

"If they did every bring me in, I am concerned that I would be brought in for namesake only and wouldn't have any sort of creative control," Roddenberry said. "So I would say no if they came to me at that point."

Where Roddenberry really gets his inspiration, he told SyFy Radio, is from fandom -- something he finds a bit circular since it was his father who first inspired fandom, and now that same fandom is inspiring him. And for the past six years he's been trying to get that inspiration down into a documentary with Scott Colthorp called "Trek Nation" that celebrates the fan in a way the Trekkies documentaries never could.

"I wanted to show fans in a positive light," Roddenberry said. But with any creative process, there will always be different approaches to the material, and Colthorp wanted to explore the idea of having a son searching for his father while Roddenberry had his own ideas.

But both creative minds have finally come to an agreement, and it's possible that "Trek Nation" could be ready for release before the year ends.

"The film has gone through a number of iterations, but it has gotten better each time," Roddenberry said. "We really do have something amazing on our hands."

That does mean that a lot of footage that originally was going to be included likely will be cut out.

"We did this son searching for father thing, and we got a little lost in the whole, 'Did my daddy love me?' While it was an interesting story for me and the people who know me, we lost the great Gene Roddenberry," he said. "We're trying to use this balance, using the son as a vehicle ... to learn who Gene Roddenberry was."

Growing up a Roddenberry in the household of the man who created Star Trek wasn't any different from many other people growing up, Roddenberry said.

"It's somewhat of a disappointment for people," he said. "The great Gene Roddenberry, the Great Bird of the Galaxy who saw this great future, that man was not my father in that sense. I didn't come home to the visionary, I didn't come home to the Great Bird of the Galaxy. I didn't even come home to the guy who created 'Star Trek.'"

Instead, he came home to his father, who played with him like fathers do, who punished him like fathers do, who would go motorbiking together, learn about girls, do the things fathers and sons do.

"Then I became a teenager and he became very busy with ['Star Trek: The Next Generation']," Roddenberry said. "This was his chance to really see his dream realized, and back at home we had a somewhat dysfunctional relationship. He said no, I said yes. It's kind of average in the sense of dysfunction, and then he passed away when I was 17.

"There really is no regret. Underneath all the dysfunction and rebellion, we loved each other, and that is kind of it in a nutshell."

To hear the entire interview with Eugene Roddenberry Jr., download the archive now by visiting www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SyFyRadio to download the MP3, or visit the iTunes Store and type in "SyFy" in the search window to subscribe to the archived versions of the show that can be listened to on your computer, or downloaded into an iPod or other MP3 player.

On April 16, SyFy Radio returns live with Darren Sumner, Webmaster of GateWorld, by far one of the most popular Stargate Web sites that exist. He'll talk about his recent trip to Vancouver, B.C., where "Stargate: Atlantis" is filmed, and give us the inside scoop on the changes coming up in the fifth season of the show.

SyFy Radio begins at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.

Recently added special guests to the Wednesday show include Patrick Lee, news editor of SciFi Wire, Rob Caves and Brandon McConnell from the fan production Star Trek: Odyssey, and Michael Jenkins and Steven Frank from the popular gay Web site AfterElton.

Joe Beaudoin Jr. of Battlestar Wiki will appear April 23.

For a complete schedule of shows, including our Sunday afternoon call-in show, visit the SyFy Radio site by clicking here.

Feeling a little horrific? Get your daily dose of horror news straight from The Doll, Rabid Doll that is at www.RabidDoll.com.

Hear Michael Hinman on SyFy Radio every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT, and Sundays at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SyFyRadio.