Screengrab contributor Faisal Qureshi reports on a brewing lawsuit. — ed.

I'm sure a lot of people have been enjoying the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek trailer with Kirk, Spock and the rest of the gang rebooting the franchise after Paramount sucked it dry so many years ago. Now comes news that Harlan Ellison is suing Paramount for money he says they owe him for writing the classic 1967 Star Trek episode, "City on the Edge of Forever." For those unfamilar, the episode follows the adventures of Kirk and Spock as they travel to 1930s Earth, after a deranged McCoy inadvertently changes the past and prevents the the Federation from ever existing. To complicate matters, Kirk falls for social worker Edith Keeler (played quite well by Joan Collins), but Spock discovers that Keeler needs to die to restore the timeline.

Fans generally consider the episode to be the best of the series, but the production wasn't a pleasant experience for Ellison. His account of the whole mess also claimed that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had consistently lied to the public about the author's contribution. Yesterday evening, Ellison announced that he was going to sue Paramount. This is no idle threat given this is also the man who took successful legal action against James Cameron, ABC (for plagarism) and more recently, AOL. To quote from the scathing press release:

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