You're a greedy SOB, Jim.

A quote from a CNN story, via the Retrospectable blog:

If you ask them what still gets them fired up about the late producer Gene Roddenberry's creation after all these years, you get an answer that -- underneath the glibness -- is very telling:

SHATNER: Money.

NIMOY: Yeah. The big, the big bucks.

SHATNER: Money. The money gets you fired up.

TOGETHER: The biiiig bucks.

Seriously?

SHATNER: Yes, that was serious. We were very serious about that.

*Snip*

SHATNER: So you want Paramount to say we've made enough money?

NIMOY: Let's stop making money. Yeah.

SHATNER: Yeah, yeah.

NIMOY: The stockholders won't mind.

SHATNER: No, and we've --

NIMOY: We should stop making money.

SHATNER: Folks, we've made enough money, we're walking away --

NIMOY: We're going to take a break --

SHATNER: Yes. It's been a wonderful ride --

NIMOY: We're going on vacation --

SHATNER: And no more money.

NIMOY: Right. Off to an island someplace and just ...

SHATNER: We'll just handle the books in a different way and make it look like we made something.

NIMOY: Watch the sunset and forget about money...

SHATNER: Yes.

NIMOY: And your investment? Oh, don't worry about it, you know.

SHATNER: It's going to be OK.

NIMOY: We'll get around to that someday.

SHATNER: You'll have some other shows.

NIMOY: Yeah, we don't want to make any more money. No.

Back in my sf convention running days (I was co-chair & treasurer for Montreal's ConCept from 1989-1992ish), I always used to get really exasperated by the media sf fans. They seemed to have this slavish devotion to the actors in sf tv shows and, to me, it just didn't make any sense. What do we love about sf -- the extrapolation, the estrangement, the fun, the effects, the whatever -- and who gives it to us. Well, writers are responsible for bringing us the sfnal thrills in novels and short fiction. So, yes, they are the ones we love for sf fiction. Authors.

Well, who brings us the sfnal thrills in media sf? In the highly collaborative media such as film or tv, lots of people contribute to the thrills. The writers, sure, they start the ball rolling. But also the directors and effects people play a huge part in bringing our sf dreams to life before us. These are the ones who love sf and bring it to us. James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and the effects people whose names we don't necessarily know but who work very hard, yeah, I can go with worshipping them in the same way we worship sf authors. But actors? For the most part they're just the hired hands, the ones who care least about what we, as sf fans, care about. This little bit from Shatner and Nimoy just confirms it. They don't care about us, why should we care about (and worship) them.