Geek Monthly has an interesting take on some recent quotes by J.J. Abrams about his upcoming Star Trek prequel film. Noting a couple key phrases spoken by the director in a magazine interview and a science-fiction con, Anthony Pascale says:

Notice the use of ‘canon’ and ‘Roddenberry’s vision.’ These are code words to Trekkies promising to not do a Ron Moore’s BSG style ‘reimagining’ of the 40 year old franchise.

Every now and then, one of my more quantitatively-oriented friends in Communication asks me how to do a qualitative textual analysis for a paper in a required class. I should send them to Anthony Pascale. He knows that you can find meaning in things without doing a word count, and he is probably less likely to bore them with structuralist theory than most of my favorite books on the subject. (But I hear that the fans prefer ‘Trekkers,’ no?)

It may seem odd that J.J. Abrams (the man behind Alias and partially-behind Lost) would bother trying to reassure fans, but properly motivated fans can almost certainly boost sales. (People seem to believe that Snakes on a Plane proved otherwise, but I’m inclined to believe that without the fan support, it would have lost money.) Plus, if his dinner with Kevin Smith, Mark Hamill, and Stan Lee is any indication, he’s a pretty big geek himself.