I wonder what kind of 'save-the-universe' drama they are going to invent for this film for Kirk and Spock. As far as I can recollect, the official timeline doesn't seem to have anything very exciting around the time these two were in the academy, (ignoring for one moment the fact that they weren't even in the academy at the same time.)

I don't know why, but the thought of this movie annoys me more and more as time progresses.

What bothers me about him not "being into" DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise is that there's 21 seasons of Star Trek lore that he's shut out, up against 10 seasons plus 10 movies of TOS/TNG that he's embraced. The opportunity for continuity errors is enormous. When you consider that under Berman's rule, continuity errors still crept in, even though Berman and his crew were involved in all the series except TOS, and now you bring in a new guy who doesn't really care for 3 of the 5 series, well, you can see where I'm going. He better get to watching all those DVDs, AND hire a damned good continuity czar.

Kirk/Spock age thing--we discussed this earlier. My take at the time (and I'll just paste it back in) was that it should actually be ok:

The Encyclopedia gives Spock's age as being only 3 years older than Kirk, and that's apparently based on canonical sources. However, Spock was Science Officer on Pike's Enterprise 13 years before Kirk took command. Let's see: Spock born 2230, first year of TOS 2264--Spock is 34 years old. 13 years prior he would have been 21 and could conceivably been on Pike's ship. I guess Kirk and Spock could still have met at the academy and then gone their separate ways, only to reunite aboard the Enterprise. So, no continuity error in the canon....we'll have to see what they do with the movie.

Yeah, I know that it is feasible they met at that time. What bothers me is that you would think there would be mention of this somewhere along the way, given the interconnectedness of these two characters, and the wealth of filmed material that does not refer to any such events (the novels cannot be counted as canon in this instance.) I guess that's the problem with doing something retroactively like this prequel - you have to invent stuff in order to make it interesting, and will end up creating inconsistencies with what we already know.

This brings us to your next point. While I don't think it's cool that this guy seems to be a very selective ST fan, I don't think there is anything in the entire runs of DS9, Voyager, and even Enterprise, that refer to this time period in any amount of detail, or even delve into Kirk and Spock's past, for that matter. I think in all of those 21 seasons he is shutting out, Kirk and/or Spock get mentioned about two or three times (not counting Trials and Tribble-ations,) and then only in reference to events we already know of, not their academy times. Likewise, it's a time period we know next to nothing about precisely because none of these shows ever e xp lored it. As such, I'm not bothered overly much by the fact that he is concentrating on material that has more direct relevance to the subject matter of this upcoming movie.

The source of my annoyance has to do with the fact that I am going to watch characters that I love, being placed in what almost assuredly will be artificial situations created by the writers specifically to create some drama for this movie. Because there are no established references to important past events, they are going to have to invent something that is going to seem out of place in light of established fact. Prequels can be problematic when handled this way. As bad as the Star Wars ones were, at least George Lucas had a story in mind from the beginning, and the original movies are replete with references and hints as to what happened before. This is not the case with Star Trek, and thus strange leaps of logic are bound to crop up between this new movie and TOS and the ST movies.

My only slim hope for this debacle is that the academy crap is somehow glossed over in the first quarter of the movie, and that they fast forward to Kirk taking over the Enterprise, with Spock already on board and showing us the ship's first adventure. Sure the illusion of Matt Damon as Kirk will tougher to swallow as he is supposed to be older and look like William Shatner at this time, but I think I prefer this to the teenage drama alternative at Starfleet Academy 90210.

While that's all true, I think the problems here really boil down to 2 things: the likelihood of continuity errors when doing a prequel, and recasting the two most beloved characters in Star Trek. Other issues--no previous mention of the events of this movie in other series/movies, for example--I don't have a problem with. There was no mention of "Enterprise" events in any of the other ST series, yet we knew there had been a previous vessel called Enterprise, and when a series came along to show its e xp loits, I was able to accept those events in spite of a lack of foreknowledge (except when there were continuity errors!). In a way, the fact that it's a prequel makes it no more likely to introduce continuity errors (OK, that's getting annoying to keep typing--let's call them CEs) than is a non-prequel. A new movie set after the events of Nemesis could just as easily contradict established Trek lore as a movie set before TOS. In fact, Roddenberry stated there were aspects of ST V and VI that he considered non-canonical. I'm pretty sure the existence of a Spock brother was one of them, but I don't know that he ever elaborated. (The big one, to me, was the alleged devastation of Kronos in VI, with no mention of it in TNG, where Kronos keeps on ticking along just fine. Oh, and the fact that the writers did not know--or totally ignored--that the (admittedly non-canon) Trek novels had established the name of the Klingon homeworld as Klinzhai.)

Anyway, I think my biggest apprehension over ST XI is that they haven't waited long enough to get people hungry for ST again. I'm guessing it will come out in 2007, which will be only 2 years after Enterprise's cancellation and 6 years after Nemesis. Coming that soon, if it sucks, it will not only drive the stake through ST's heart, but also stuff its mouth w/garlic and cut off its head.

from startrek.com:
Abrams Signs Huge New Deals, Touted as "Next Spielberg"
The new chief of the Star Trek franchise, J.J. Abrams, has signed new deals separately with Paramount Pictures and with Warner Bros. TV, making him "one of the entertainment industry's most highly paid auteurs," according to the Los Angeles Times. Combined, the two deals are worth more than $55 million, of which a $5 million payday may come from "Star Trek XI" if he directs (he is producing, but has not committed to directing yet). Abrams will develop both low- and high-budget films for Paramount, starting with "Star Trek," in a five-year pact. The TV development deal with Warner Bros. covers six years for his Bad Robot production company.


"We think J.J. is the next Steven Spielberg," said Paramount chairman Brad Grey, for whom Abrams made "Mission: Impossible III." Grey continued, "He's a triple threat: a great writer, producer and now, a first-class movie director."


Warner Bros. TV president Peter Roth is not worried that the newest addition to his roster of producers is being stretched too thin. "I'm well aware of all he's doing. I'm not afraid of it," Roth said in Daily Variety. "Not everyone has the ability to do all that. J.J. does."
To read more about Abrams' new deals and how they came together, visit [url=http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:newWindow=window.open%28%27/startrek/page/redirect/external?id=19955%27,%20%27_latimes%27%29;%20newWindow.focus%28%29]this LATimes.com link[/url] and [url=http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:newWindow=window.open%28%27/startrek/page/redirect/external?id=19956%27,%20%27_variety%27%29;%20newWindow.focus%28%29]this Variety.com link[/url].

Olorin1 wrote:Abrams will develop both low- and high-budget films for Paramount, starting with "Star Trek," in a five-year pact.

So... which of those will ST XI be? High or low-budget?

Bah.... this all just sounds like a bunch of over-hyped hoopla. Honestly, if MI 3 is this guy's biggest claim to fame, then Star Trek fans should start crying now. The movie was ok at best, and was a terrible disappointment at the box-office. The next Spielberg they say? He's got a loooooong way to go.

Yeah, I thought that Spielberg bit was incredible hyperbole.

I would say since that since the ST movie will have no stars in it (we presume), then it will be cheap. However, any movie with visual effects is going to be at least somewhat e xp ensive if it's to look decent.

If the rumours are true, then Matt Damon will be in it as Kirk, and he commands a considerable salary. One can only assume that they would use another high-profile actor to play Spock, therefore bringing the budget up even higher.

I'm hoping those rumors are not true....

I actually don't mind Matt all that much, though I am not sure if he's right for the role. My only worry is if they cast his inseparable buddy, Ben Afleck, as Spock and this movie turns into Goodwill Starfleet Hunting.

I think Matt Damon is actually a pretty decent actor, and I don't mind him at all. What bothers me is that his celebrity status is rather large, and I would see him as Matt Damon rather than Captain Kirk.

I think/hope anybody serious about Star Trek who might cast Damon as Kirk would NOT cast Affleck as Spock. They would have to realize that this sort of stunt-casting, casting real-life best friends as on-screen friends would not serve Star Trek well. It would be like casting Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon (if they were still alive, that is). It's something you could do in a comedy, but in a serious movie, it would automatically tend to pull people out of the movie and make it harder to suspend their disbelief.

And then there's Affleck himself. He rocketed to prominence more for the facts of a) his friendship w/Damon, who is a decent actor, b) his pretty-boy status, and c) his much-ballyhooed dalliances with various women, such as Jennifer Lopez, than for any actual acting talent. I have not seen him in very many serious roles, actually only one, The Sum of All Fears. And in that, he couldn't help but fare poorly in comparison to the memory of Harrison Ford. All our discussions about Harrison Ford's degree of talent aside, I think everyone would agree that if you had to pick one person to save the world from nuclear holocaust (in a movie, that is), Harrison Ford or Ben Affleck, it would probably be Harrison Ford. And so for all those reasons, I pray they don't cast Affleck--or Damon. It would make Star Trek into a big joke if those two were cast.

I dont know whether to post this here or in the general star trek thread, but i was doing some thinking... we have touched on these issues in the past but i dont know if we really tackled them, they may not even be answerable, but i was thinking about possible reasons why something so popular as star trek that has millions of people who collect merchandise, fork out 100 bucks a pop for dvds, and attend conventions be struggling.

Possible reasons I am thinking of:

1. Saturation... what i mean is after TNG started, they spun-off with DS9, then before that was over, they spun-off to voyager and before that was over they went to Enterprise, so they had 4 seperate shows that overlapped (not at the same time mind you). Also, excluding the 4 years between insurrection and nemesis and the current space between nemesis and "star trek XI" they had a star trek movie every 2-3 years since 1979... this could have and probably did lead to burn out. not to mention the hundreds of books people read.

--- People still love star trek, as i mentioned, the collection of memorabilia, dvds and attendence of the conventions. You could draw somewhat of a comparison to LOTR, people still love LOTR but the swords and replicas from the movie were released so fast, people were burned out.

Reason number 2. Star Trek appeals to a wide variety of people, people who enjoy the show as a whole, the people who who like the sci-fi/technology, the people who like the humanitarian issues, the people who like the action, etc... is it too hard to appeal to everyone? I may be an optimist, i try and look for the best in the movies, yes there are some things that cant be ignored (i.e. HUGE continuity blunders) but there are some people who are relentless on the bad, and once that ball gets rolling it kind of shadows any good, for example, i thought Nemesis on a whole was a good movie, but i think the overall feeling for the majority of people that it was a bomb.

3. Bad Writing. yes i know i just said that people shouldnt pick apart trek, but there have been some pretty darn bad episodes. "Shades of Grey" of TNG, "Move Along Home" from DS9, etc and i guess we can throw in Star Trek V in there too. I think of the "bad" episodes as the episodes you wouldnt want to show to a new fan, because they would never watch another episode or movie ever again. Writers can only be so creative until they run out of ideas and start repeated ideas.

4. This next reason could go with #2: People have their own ideas about what should happen and when a movie or new series doesnt fit their own idea, it is immediately considered a failure. I think a lot of this comes from people who read the books, which are known not to be canon, but when people read them, its hard to ignore than, especially the good ones. For me, whatever is happening in the Titan series and the DS9 "relaunch" series is true until proven not. Maybe they should have books that are canon, and others that are more of an unofficial official fanfic, which is basically what the books are.

So, what do y'all think, any comments? agree? disagree? anything to add?

I do think that they should take a break, not that i want to wait, but i think it will be the best thing for the franchise, no one is going to forget about star trek. and when it comes back, people will be waiting and not going "not another one " but will be going "star trek is back "

Look at the break between TOS and TNG, well they had a few movies, but look at the break between TOS and The motion picture, star trek came back with a vengeance, well it did with Khan, TMP was kinda dull in a few ways.

I do think, instead of getting fresh people to write and direct ST XI, if they want this movie to kick you know what, they need star trek alum involved, writers and directors and producers that KNOW trek and KNOW the continuity, the people who wrote and directed the continuity.

I think over-saturation has a big part to play, along with bad writing. And in addition to regular bad writing, there's retread writing. By that I mean that they keep recycling story lines hoping no one will notice.

Something else that really contributed to ST's demise on TV was that it was a victim of its own success. When TNG premiered, it was the only sci fi show on TV, so it pretty much commanded the sci fi audience--even tho the first two seasons had more weak episodes than strong ones. It was very successful (the highest-rated one-hour first-run program in syndication at the time, for whatever that factoid means). Producers took note of that and soon there were lots of sci-fi or fantasy shows, such as Hercules and Xena, to name a couple. By the time DS9 premiered, even though it was a much better show in the first season than TNG was in its first season, and got even stronger as it went on, its ratings were lower. And then Voyager arrived and Paramount decided that it was going to have its own network (hey, it worked for Fox, with its absolutely craptacular shows), and Voyager was placed on the UPN network, which didn't have affiliates in half the country, and they had it trying to compete with shows on real networks.

I think there are lots of reasons why Star Trek fizzled. I don't know if any one of them could have killed it alone, but all together, they were a silver bullet. What really slays me is that when you look at what is popular and successful, it's stuff that's either morbid or mundane. Law & Order and CSI are well-done shows, but they're depressing/disturbing as hell, and do we really need a half-dozen different series of each? Over-saturation doesn't seem to be a factor there! And hospital shows. Sheesh. I grew up in the 60s and do you know what the mainstays of TV were then? Cop shows and doctor shows. What are the mainstays of TV today? Cop shows and doctor shows. And apart from the different window dressing, they essentially just soap operas. Forty years, and we're still watching the same kind of TV. Sure, it's much more graphic now, both visually and language-wise, but it's still the same scenarios. I guess what I'm saying is that people seem to want to wallow in how screwed up our society is instead of something that suggests we can outgrow that and have a bright future.

The first teaser poster has been released. Hold your breath--here it is!

http://www.startrek.com/

I think this answers any questions about whether the movie will be TOS-era or not....

I changed 'posted' to 'poster.'

Well, it's not much, but if that's the beginning, they're off to a good start.

Oops, thanks for the edit. The mind is sometimes inconvenient--it sees what it meant instead of what it caused to be typed.

It's kind of hard to imagine them recreating the look of the 1701, with all those pastels, huge knobs, and so forth. Enterprise had a look like our current technology and style, projected forward. TOS was so 1960s.... That's going to take almost as much e xp laining as the Klingon forehead!

Hard to say what will happen. My gut feeling is we won't even get to see the Enterprise at all, and if so, probably only in the closing minutes of the movie. As far as how it will look interior-wise, they didn't have any qualms about portraying the Defiant accurately in the "In a Mirror Darkly" episodes for 'Enterprise,' so maybe there is hope yet, although this movie is admittedly in very different hands.

well 2008 is a good thing... that would be a 6 year break between movies and 3 years after the series.

its better than a rush to summer of '07 or christmas '07... hopefully we are looking at christmas '08, which would give 2 1/2 years to get it good.

All I can say is that as the Paramount logo appears on the screen and we hear that Alexander Courage fanfare, there are going to be ENORMOUS e xp ectations.

Ugh... leave it to me to find something wrong with that poster. After staring at it for some time, it finally struck me: in Kirk's day, that symbol was not synoymous with Starfleet as we came to know it. In the old days, every ship in the fleet had its own uniform insignia, and the Enterprise's symbol only became fleet standard after and in honour of it being the only ship to successfully completing its five-year mission. Ergo, if this is a movie about Starfleet Academy in pre-NCC1701 days, then that symbol should not be on the uniforms of the main protagonists. Spock will have his first once he gets on the Enterprise, but Kirk's will come much later.

What do you guys feel? Am I overthinking this?

Something your otherwise-careful analysis missed--beyond the fact that all ships have their own insignia, there are different divisional insignia. The Command division (the one shown in the poster) had the star in the center, which medical/science had two overlapping circles, and Engineering/Security had a spiral. Or so I recall--too lazy to look them up right now.

In any case, maybe this means that it will not be an academy movie. Or it means that you ARE overthinking it, and Abrams or even just some flunkie at Paramount grabbed that insignia to make a quick teaser poster with, unaware of all these implications.

Actually, I do know about the divisional motifs within the main logo. I merely neglected to mention them because not only is the command star the most recognizable of the three and would be the one worn by Kirk, who should be the main character in the movie, but it would also look a little strange if the poster included all three versions. There ARE limits to how picky I will be.

As a sidenote, the star within the logo was carried over and made standard on crew uniforms throughout the TOS movies regardless of department (I think STTMP might be the exception,) but by the time of the Next Gen and all subsquent series, the center of the insignia is blank.

well TOS was a bit redundant, they had different colors and different insignias... when the TOS movies came around, from Khan and later, went to A LOT of colors, for each division, then after TNG, there were 3 colors (sometimes 4-ish, blue and turqoise for medical and science)

I don't think it was redundant, as each symbol corresponded with the colour of uniform worn. If you had a star in your insignia, then your shirt should be gold in colour. With STII, they went to all red uniforms, and the insignia became the symbol for Starfleet, with the rank pin now being displayed on the shoulder, and the dept. colour shown on the neck and sleeve (the undershirt.) With TNG and after, they reverted to simpler standards, except now red had become synonymous with command due to its prevalent use during Kirk's latter era. Given the length of time represented, I don't think it is unusual for Starfleet to go through a few uniform and colour scheme changes.

I don't recall seeing a second shade of blue in TNG and post-era, but perhaps it was there... I dunno. BTW, there was a fourth uniform aboard the original Enterprise (not counting Kirk's green command shirt.) This fourth uniform was a worker-type blue and black overalls, worn by technicians and such.

here is Ezri Dax and Dr Bashir, in a greenish-turqoise-y color undershirt






Here is the blue color

The Dax pic is a little too dark to tell, but the difference is very noticeable between Bashir and Crusher. However, I notice that the two uniforms are not from concurrent eras. Maybe once they switched to the grey uniforms, the shade of blue changed at that point from the original colour as seen in the TNG episodes?

i looked for nemesis pics, because i thought troi and dr crusher had different colors... i am trying to find a site that had a chronological listing of EVERY uniform and dates and times it was used... i used to have it bookmarked, but i don tknow what happened to it.

Ah, the blue issue. I don't know what color those uniforms really were. Sometimes they looked blue, othertimes green. I have sometimes seen reference to them as being teal (which means blue-green). I think it depends a lot on the color calibration of your TV, the lighting on the set, etc.

Whatever the case, I think Dr. Crusher's jacket shade was more like the original science and medical blue worn by Spock adn McCoy, than her actual uniform colour underneath.

i cant find that site anywhere... it was great. it had pictures of all the uniforms of star trek in chronological order with all the variants and everything. also had info on the rank insignias and badges/com badges etc etc... all i remember, for some reason the word "voyager" was in the address...

grrrr makes me mad when i cant find it

I have the exact same thing in my Star Trek Encyclopedia book. It e xp lains all the insignias and shows all the different uniform transitions, even the multiple ones they wore throughout TNG (they changed them slightly almost every season.) However, the blue colour of the uniforms remains the same throughout each show depicted. Mind you though, this doesn't show actual photos, but rather drawn manequins with the uniforms on.

i am just trying to figure it out... i know that the picture of dr bashir and ezri (i've seen other pictures) have the greenish/teal color, i was just trying to figure out if it was a DS9 thing, as in was their a DS9 variant, or did they run out of blue material one day ... everyone has their continuity issues... i think mine is the color and uniform flaws.

This is from Nemesis.. its the best picture i could find with crusher and troi in the same picture... from what i can tell they are wearing the teal color, which leads me to my original idea that around this time and late ds9, medical officers went to teal and science were still blue.

btw, this is my favorite uniform style other than the TNG-variant/DS9 season 1 style with the department color on the shoulders and the rest black



sorry to get so off topic from st XI, this all should probably be in general star trek.

Another small bit of news:

In news of another franchise,Leonard Nimoyhas mentioned to Jam Moviesthat he andWilliam Shatnermight get to be involved with J.J. Abrams' "Star TrekXI" at Paramount.

He says "The head of production at Paramount called my agency to tell them about this project and they are aware of Bill's and my contribution to the franchise, and they'd like us to know they might want some involvement. It was all very, very general. They might possibly want Bill and I to set up the story as a flashback. But that's just conjecture on my part".

This sounds like a really cool idea, kinda like what they tried with the Enterprise finale, but hopefully without the extreme suckitude factor that episode had. It would be a tremendous nod to fans as well as huge boost to continuity to see Nimoy and Shatner reprise their roles once more as they reminisce about old times and set up the premise of the movie for us as a prologue.

A small tidbit from startrek.com, not really big news, but anyway:

Matt Damon, the movie star most popularly rumored to be first in line to play a young James T. Kirk in the upcoming "Star Trek XI," has said that the talk is premature, but he's open to the idea of taking over the iconic role. "If the script was good, I'd do it," Damon told SCI FI Wire. "But, yeah, I heard that [rumor]. I think J.J. Abrams or somebody said that at [a] press junket or something, and it got picked up [by the media and Star Trek fans]." Abrams has said recently that work is on track to release the new "Trek" movie in 2008, but that work is primarily in the script development stage right now.

This could be cool (from startrek.com):

Trek ... Star Trek – the New Bond Wants In
Daniel Craig, the suave Brit who has redefined the iconic role of James Bond in "Casino Royale," wants a crack at another longstanding venerable franchise. Turns out he is a massive Star Trek fan and would jump at the chance to don a Starfleet uniform. "I would love a stint in the TV show or in a film," Craig revealed, according to World Entertainment News Network. "It's been a secret ambition of mine for years." So J.J., what do you think?

From Dark Horizons:

Short of that "Enterprise" pilot scene where the busty Jolene Blalock and the muscular Connor Trinneer rubbed oil all over their muscles whilst dressed only in their all too tight underwear (they seemed to be both enjoying filming that scene), the words "Star Trek" and sex appeal have been far from synonymous.

That changed on the weekend when a rather ridiculous rumour popped up over WENN that the new James Bond, ie. Daniel Craig, would be involved in M:I-3 helmer and "Lost" producer J.J. Abrams planned big budget film prequel/restart of the franchise.

No rumours or confirmations as yet on the talk. Far more concrete was William Shatner who spoke to IGN TV about the project on the weekend and said of the new film "They seem to be going in the direction of putting in [Leonard] Nimoy and myself. But in order to do that, it's a difficult story to write. So they're in the midst of wrestling with all of that".

Would the "Boston Legal" star do it? "In order to entice Leonard and myself into the movie, it has to be meaningful in some way, so I don't know what they're gonna do".

Like Shatner wouldn't jump at the chance to play Kirk again—especially if it meant resurrecting him somehow. I know, we've already discussed the unlikeliness of that. Still dreaming!

To be honest, I don't think he's quite that desperate. I do agree I think he would love to play Kirk one last time, but I'm not sure he will do it under just any circumstances, or no matter how stupid the script is. It's not like the guy is hurting anyway: he's been hugely successful and popular of late, with his CD taking off, two Emmy wins for The Practice and Boston Legal, a ton of tv ads, not to mention movie appearances. Whatever else may be said of him, I think he has enough integrity in him to no '*****' the name of James T. Kirk around for a quick dollar. I know he was in the works to appear in Enterprise, but I think he did not appear more due to timing of the story and the show's eventual cancellation than money issues. Let's not also forget that though the power did not rest wholly with him, he did ultimately give consent to having Kirk killed off because in his judgment, it made for a better movie. Unfortunately for us and him, it did not, but I really do think if he is to appear in ST XI, that he wants it done right. As for Nimoy, I think all of the above holds doubly true.

I think if he did appear in the new movie... it should be something in the form of a recording or something from the past. As we know... hes pretty much dead and I think that Generations was the perfect ending for his character and in my mind... any resurrection of his character would not do. But yeah... Kirk is gone... leave it be

Don't you love that commercial... I forget which company it was for, where he is surrounded by cars and dressed in furs and stuff and at the end he says... "because we all know... money can't be everything."

I know he's certainly not hurting for money. I just meant I think he'd like to be Kirk again. I agree that I don't think he'd do it if it dishonored the character.

After his panel at the New York Times' 6th Annual Arts & Leisure Weekend, Entertainment Weekly sat down with Mission: Impossible III helmer and Lost creator J.J. Abrams to get an inside look at his new Star Trek movie.

Abrams confirmed a draft of the script is done and will be trimmed sometime soon. As for the target audience - "On the one hand, for people who love Star Trek, the fix that they will get will be really satisfying. For people who've never seen it or know it vaguely, I think they will enjoy it equally, because the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek. I would actually prefer [that] people don't know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind."

There's no word on a director or casting yet, but Abrams is anxious to move forward. "I can't wait to do this. It is an absolute thrill to work on this project. We really are still like, 'How the hell are we able to do this?'" says Abrams.

I can't help but feel disappointment and trepidation at these words from Abrams. I could be wrong of course, and this is only my interpretation, but what I hear is basically a statement that says this movie will owe nothing to Trek canon and established continuity, the thing that most fans feared. By outright admitting that he prefers the movie be viewed by non-fans, he tells me he's already anticipating harsh criticism for the changes he's going to make, or the things he's going to ignore. He can veil his meaning with terms like 'an open mind' but to me this just spells 'running roughshod over your beloved franchise once again.'


Am I being overly pessimistic? Perhaps, and I will certainly hope I am wrong, but Abrams' choice of words here is rather unfortunate and leaves much to be desired. After all, what non-fan of Star Trek would even care to see Shatner and Nimoy up on the screen one last time or even clue as to who they are? However, this isn't even about them, since is it yet unknow if they will be in the movie at all, but I'm not liking what I'm hearing. After all these years and a few unsatisfying attempts at Trek, I don't want to simply be 'satisfied,' as he puts it, I want my socks knocked off.

Oh, it's hard to say. Star Trek has always had to bear the reputation that you had to know the show inside and out to understand/appreciate/like the movies. Critic soundbites about some of the more popular movies have always been along the lines of "here's one you don't have to be a Trekkie to love!" (groan) So he may (hopefully) just be trying to exorcise that ghost ahead of time.

This movie is being viewed in many quarters as a reboot of the ST franchise, and reboots typically ignore continuity when it gets in the way of the story they want to tell (Berman et al did that often enough without even being in the context of a reboot). However, of all the recently rebooted franchises, NONE have the enormous and detailed back story of Star Trek, all the previous movies and episodes. For them to spit in the face of that would be unforgivable. I think they have to know that, at least at some level.

One possibility is that the movie will disappoint the hardcore longtime fans like us, but be embraced by critics and neophytes, and we'll just have to live with it. It will be like trying to criticize some of PJ's more boneheaded changes in LOTR, all over again.

A very interesting news article about story details, but take everything you read with a grain of salt: http://iesb.net/index.php?option=com_co ... &Itemid=99

It would certainly be nice to see Pike again--how about George Clooney? Kidding aside, I wonder who they would get that looks reasonably like Jeffrey Hunter?

It would also be nice for the movie to feature Pike's handover of command to Kirk. But as you point out, it's all just rumor for the moment.

I had a brilliant idea today. We were conjecturing about who might play Chris Pike (or at least I was). What was Jeffrey Hunter's most notable feature, other than the general cut of his face? Those piercing blue eyes. And who recently e xp ressed interest in being in Star Trek? A man with piercing blue eyes. I give you, as Capt. Christopher Pike, DANIEL CRAIG! They just need to dye his hair dark brown and give him a little accent training!

Someone on TrekWeb suggested that Pike should be played by Ray Liotta. It only struck me then how similar their two faces are. It's uncanny. Unfortunately, Liotta is a bit too old to play a younger Pike, but perhaps a good makeup job might go a long way. The latest rumour is that James McAvoy (Mr. Tumnus and Leto II Atreides,) is in talks to play Scotty. They also keep mentioning that Gary Sinise would be a good choice to play Dr. McCoy, and I couldn't agree more. The only trouble with all this goes back to the whole Matt Dhamon syndrome: should they be casting big-name actors in these roles or go with safer unknowns?

Anyhow, this is all just rumour for now.

Well, they're all very fun rumors! Ray Liotta WOULD have made a good Pike. As you point out, too old now. If he were only going to be in a scene or two, they could do some digital "younging" on him like they did for Stewart and McKellen in "X3."

McAvoy as Scotty and Sinise as McCoy. Well, I certainly think Sinise could do McCoy. I liked McAvoy in Narnia but it's a little hard to imagine him as Scotty. Of course, that's partly because I'm used to the bloated Scotty of later years, and McAvoy was quite skinny in Narnia. Of course, he'd be playing a younger Scotty, so that would work. They might have to age him a bit tho. Scotty was older than Kirk, so if they have a 30-ish Kirk, they need a 40-ish Scotty, and McAvoy is only 28.

On the flip side, Gary Sinise is 55. That's too old to play a younger McCoy, and presumably he'd be in so much of the movie that it would be e xp ensive to shave years off him digitally. Also, if they do subsequent TOS movies with this cast, he'd be even older in the future. Shame, because he could totally do it. The pic on IMDB emphasizes how much he totally looks like the late great De Kelley around the eyes. Of course, we're assuming that McCoy will even be IN this movie. He was not in either pilot of TOS and didn't first appear until the first regular episode (either "Mantrap" by broadcast date or "The Corbomite Maneuver" by production order). I suppose he might have been on vacation or sabbatical or something.... I guess none of that prevents him from having known Kirk prior to being his CMO.

Of course, all this is predicated on Paramount going the known-cast route. I can't really see them doing that--too e xp ensive.

Yep, in total agreement here on all points made.

Mind you, the Gary Sinise thing is more of a fan wish than anything else. There's been no indication, official or otherwise, that McCoy will be cast, and it would make sense if he didn't appear in the movie because the time frame is not correct. As you pointed out, Kirk could have known McCoy before the first mission, but who knows if they will e xp lore that at all. The mentions of Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Pike however, seem to point to the fact that at some time in the movie, we could be treated to the transition of command on the Enterprise. Someone mentioned that Sulu might be cast also since he appeared in 'Where No Man Has Gone Before.' There's been no mention of Gary Mitchell, but it would be cool if he were included somehow.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, who we gonna cast for Sulu and Gary Mitchell? And if there is a transition of command, perhaps "Number One" will appear briefly? I wonder who we could cast to play her?

What's more fun than recasting the Original Series? Recasting the Original Series AND Pike's crew too!