MovieMantz Rantz: Where No Mantz Has Gone Before

Captain’s Log: Stardate, November 9, 2007 – If a picture says a thousand words, then the picture you see before you says it all

Yes, I’m a die-hard Trekker, and you know what? I’m damn proud of it! I better be, or I’m shooting myself in the foot by making this photo so public!

The fact is, I’ve been a major Star Trek fan all my life, and I’m not shy about it (which, sadly, probably explains why I’m still single).

But here’s the rub – I only care about the Original Series. Sure I liked The Next Generation just fine, and Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise all had their moments. But the classic show is still the best to me, and despite the extremely dated production values (the show ran from 1966 to 1969), the stories and the acting (yes, even William Shatner’s) still hold up extremely well.

That’s why I was kind of annoyed that I missed this morning’s News Meeting here at Access Hollywood. Every day at around 7:45am, the producers and the writers meet to go over the show’s rundown and to bat around ideas for various news items that broke since the previous day.

So this morning, everyone weighed in on the news that Winona Ryder (of all people!) will play Spock’s mother Amanda in the upcoming Star Trek prequel, which is being directed by JJ Abrams and will center on the early days of the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

As a joke, the producers suggested taking an image of Ryder and giving her pointed ears, so she will look more like Spock, who hailed from the planet Vulcan.

Problem is, Spock’s mother was human – NOT Vulcan, which is why the character was so dynamic and interesting in the first place. Though Spock chose to follow the logical, unemotional heritage of his father’s Vulcan ancestry, there were times when his hidden emotional human side broke through, which made for some of the most memorable moments in the Original Series.

Who can forget the image of the otherwise-controlled Spock having a nervous breakdown after being infected with a deadly disease in “The Naked Time?” Or when Spock gleefully fell in love while under the influence of the spores in “This Side of Paradise?” Or that big, fat smile on his face when he realized he did not kill Captain Kirk in “Amok Time?”

Okay, I’m digressing here, but the point is that Spock’s mother was human – and for the record, she was played by actress Jane Wyatt (“Father Knows Best”) in the Original Series and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

So Winona Ryder will be spared the ordeal of spending all that extra time in the makeup chair to have her ears pointed. Too bad, she would have looked hot!