Scans_Daily

Gene Roddenberry. Oh, Gene, Gene, Gene. He gave us Star Trek and for that I will always be forever thankful.

BUT... he was not the best caretaker, producer, or writer. In fact, a lot of writers for both TNG and TOS have said it was next to impossible writing a story for Star Trek because Gene had so much control on how he wanted it to play out. The fact that he calls officially licensed material that's written by the the same writers, acted by the same actors and features his NAME IN THE TITLE "Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek", of course he should say that stuff shouldn't count.

I think this whole canon issue is stupid. There are some really great moments in the animated series that I find more enjoyable than a majority of Voyager and Enterprise. We see Uhura take command of the Enterprise (Something we never see Uhura come close to doing at all, both here and in JJ's Trek), we get to see Robert April, the first bona fide Captain of the Enterprise, and more Tribbles! There's good material here. The only reason I see as to why it's not canon is simply because it's animated. That's insulting. I know there it's been said that this was done because the quality of the animation and stories wasn't on par with the original series, but the original series wasn't really a show runner for quality story telling either, and Gene played a major part in that (Omega Glory and Turnabout Intruder).

So yeah. I consider the animated series canon. It's good, it broadens Star Trek's lore, has pretty cool new characters, and some very mature story lines for a kids show at the time.

It's a pity JJ's team still holds true to the "no film, no canon" clause. If Nero was half the character he was in the "Countdown" and "Nero" comics, he would have been one of Trek's more unique villains instead of a convenient plot device to get the crew conveniently together.