Posted in: CBS, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: Amazon Alexa, annabelle wallis, Apple Siri, gene roddenberry, Google Assistant, majel barrett, rod roddenberry, star trek, star trek: discovery, Zora

Star Trek Star Majel Barrett's Influence Brought Us Alexa, Siri & More

It's hard to imagine life without digital assistants nowadays, what with the advent of smart technology. Whether it's Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft's Cortana, Apple's Siri, or others, many of the creators give credit to Star Trek star Majel Barrett, best known for playing Number One in The Original Series original pilot The Cage under Jeffrey Hunter's Pike, Nurse Chapel, Next Generation & Deep Space Nine's Lwaxana Troi, and most famously, the ship's computer. She and franchise creator Gene Roddenberry's son Rod Roddenberry spoke with Cinemablend about how Apple and Google initially approached Barrett about becoming a potential digital assistant prior to her passing in 2008.

"Those companies actually reached out to her," Roddenberry said. "Apple, I believe, and I know Google did before she passed. Everyone had the same idea, which is still a great idea, 'We should have Majel Roddenberry, the voice of the Star Trek computer, be the voice of all our automated machinery out there.'" He broke down how far along they were before everything fell through. "I think she should still be that today. In fact, before she passed away, I told her this, and we did a voice recording session, and we attempted – not being professionals – but we attempted at the time to phonetically get every sound that we could from her as well as a number of high-resolution sayings from Star Trek. We have a number of wav files of this stuff. We, at one point, did talk to Google about it, but unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere at the time because our recording – well, it wasn't because our recording was incomplete, it was for other reasons – but our recording was a bit incomplete, and we're talking probably fifteen years ago. I think there's synthetic audio equipment now that can probably fill in those gaps. I think it would be the coolest thing ever to actually have that happen."

The Star Trek franchise has moved with Barret's final franchise performance in J.J. Abrams Kevlin Universe reboot in 2009's Star Trek. Annabelle Wallis plays the sentient AI, Zora on Star Trek: Discovery for Paramount+. Roddenberry still has the hope to hear his mother once again as the ship's computer reflects on her impact. "Absolutely. I mean, I would love nothing more than for her role to be reprised at the very least of the voice of the computer," he said. "Obviously, with those sound files, I think we need to locate that technology because I've talked to people, and they say it's out there, and I'm sure it is on some level, I just don't know the fidelity, the quality, the gaps that are missing if it could be put in. Also, in the original series, I remember the voice of the computer being somewhat robotic. It was her voice, but it was more robotic, whereas, The Next Generation is was more humanoid. So, whichever one you choose to do, obviously, the robotic one might be easier to fill the original series gap with that voice using that technology."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!