Herb Solow: New 'Star Trek' Film Almost Captures Spirit Of Original

Herb Solow was a great man, and we're not talking about another life.

He was the man who first commissioned "Star Trek" at Desilu Studios, based on nothing more than a single sheet of paper presented to him by Gene Roddenberry.

He would help create many of the various aspects of the Star Trek universe, including how the Vulcans would look and behave, the existence of Starfleet, and even the now-famous "Captain's Log" of the series.

Solow is still quite active, and told BBC he was very interested in seeing J.J. Abrams' $150 million version of the show he spent under $900,000 to create more than 45 years ago.

"Many questions were foremost in my mind," Solow said. "In this 'prequel,' would I find a world that could have existed before we created and developed it? Would I meet our real characters before we invented them? Would they grow into the characters I 'hired?'"

For the most part, yes.

"The assembling of the new team was interesting and, for the most part, set a genuine tone for the characters," Solow said. "Most of the characters rang true. I really enjoyed finally meeting the young Kirk, the young McCoy, the young Scotty and the young Uhura."

However, Anton Yelchin's portrayal of Chekov was a bit too much ... almost to the point of being too hyper, Solow said.

"He was originally to be a rather plodding Russian astronaut with no sense of humor," Solow said. "But this young Chekov was much more lively and a bit of a caricature."

Solow also had some problems with his namesake, Sulu, played by John Cho.

"I was a little disappointed in this performance," he said. "The original actor, George Takei, played the character with more grace and charm infused into his austerity."

Overall, Solow said he was happy with what Abrams and crew put together, and that at the very least, they worked hard to honor the original series.

They did that "not only in dealing with a familiar vengeful antagonist similar to the original series, but the little touches: the phasers, McCoy's electronic medical scanner, the weaving of the original Enterprise captain, Capt. Pike, into the story and (discounting the first series pilot with Jeffrey Hunter playing Capt. Pike) setting a precedent for his appearing in our original series in a wheelchair."

But Spock ... that had to be the toughest character for Solow to watch.

"The Mr. Spock character was 20 percent created by Gene Roddenberry, 20 percent created by me and 60 percent created by Leonard Nimoy," Solow said. "The young Mr. Spock (played by Zachary Quinto) was certainly commendable. But I missed the depth of Leonard's Spock, and the centuries of knowledge that always lurked in his eyes."

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