2005, May - Israel

 

From a clip which is part of a press conference
...

 

(beginning of clip)
"I am sorry to keep you on the Star Trek Theme here for a second. But I would like to know if you have any thoughts of the Jewish Israeli state today and some of the ideology that the Enterprise crew portrayed."

 LN: "I am hopeful... - let me talk personally about politics for a brief, a very brief moment, a very brief moment - ... I am extremely hopeful now frankly that Arafat has gone... we in the United States think that maybe there is an opportunity for something positive to happen. Ehmm, my connection with Star Trek is a very comfortable one, it is essentially, theoretically a peace making mission and I am terribly, terribly concerned about violence anywhere in the world. I don't care who it is who suffers, suffering is, human suffering is human suffering and it touches me very deeply. I probably... perhaps about the project I am most proud in connection with Star Trek I would say will be Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, a film that I wrote and directed. And there is no violence, there is no bad person in Star Trek IV, there is no heavy, there is no villain. The drama grows out of misunderstanding lack of information, lack of education. But there is no evil intent, there is no one trying to do anything nasty or negative to anybody. I am very proud of that. I think there is something to be said about the fact that as far as I know it is still the most successful of all Star Trek films, of all ten... "

"It is my favorite, too"

LN: "Your favorite, too... So, we have a dialogue here."
 

LN: "So, those are my feelings what's... in the larger sense."

"Hi, My name is... would you consider coming to Israel for a Science Fiction convention?"

(laughter in the room)
LN: "How often do you meet?"
 

"Annually."
 

LN: "Annually? What time of the year?"
 

"Sukkot... that will be in October."
 

LN: "It's not out of the question, I do appear in Star Trek conventions, I just come from one in Germany."
 

"I wonder whether you are not sick and tired of those. We would like to have you in a convention very, very much. You'd be the first guest."
 

LN: "The first guest, oh really? How many people come to these conventions?"

"Thousands."  

LN: "Thousands? And you had no guests..."
(laughing)