It's Official: Star Trek XI Greenlit, JJ Abrams to direct

[Vigilance]

Here are the facts as laid out in the press release

Director: J.J. Abrams
Producers: J.J. Abrams & Damon Lindelof
Screenplay: Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci
Exec. Producers: Orci, Kurtzman and Bryan Burk
Begin shooting Fall 07
Release Christmas 08
Script ‘embraces & respects Trek canon’
no details on name, plot, era, or cast

http://trekmovie.com/2007/02/27/it-official-star-trek-is-back-122508-film-to-embrace-canon/

 

[Mark CMG]

Fascinating . . .

Spoiler

I'm ready for my close up, Mister DeAbrams.

 

[Vigilance]

There's also a rumor floating around IGN and other sci-fi sites that the "big three" (Kirk, Spock, McCoy) will be Matt Damon, Adrian Brody and Gary Sinise.

 

[Ranger REG]

Gary Sinise? The dude can go either way (Spock or McCoy).

As for Adrian Brody, can't helped but focus on his nose. He's too Picard for me.

 

[Vigilance]

Gary Sinise? The dude can go either way (Spock or McCoy).

As for Adrian Brody, can't helped but focus on his nose. He's too Picard for me.

Yeah.... I'm not really sold on Adrian Brody as Spock, but Spock will be the nigh-impossible one.

If the rumor's true and we get Damon and Sinise though, I'll count myself lucky and be there opening day.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Script ‘embraces & respects Trek canon’

To me if you have to write this then it will not in fact do either.

 

[Vigilance]

To me if you have to write this then it will not in fact do either.

Eh... I think what they'r saying is "no reboot, this isn't new BSG, we're not pretending the original series never happened".

Also, Abrams and crew didn't say it like that, those are the bullet points assembeled at Startrek.com for folks who don't want to read a full page press release.

 

[Ranger REG]

To me if you have to write this then it will not in fact do either.

So, they're lying?

If it's coming from Braga, then yeah. He lied to me/us twice. The only good stuff coming from Enterprise is when he's not writing for the fourth and final season (tragically for us, he co-wrote the series finale). That's Manny Coto's doing (BTW, he's now behind-the-scene of 24).

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

My question is: Does Abrams, Lindelof, Kurtzman, Orci, and Burke have any experience with Trek? I am not being difficult here, just wondering if those who are taking over the franchise even know what the franchise is about.

Can anyone enlighten me? Damon and Sinise will do fine, especially Sinise. Brody is a different story.

Ranger REG: I couldn't agree more. Brannon & Braga - the BBs - ran Trek into the ground. Manny Cotto was, unfortunately, brought on too late to rescue TREK from the B&B clown fest.

 

[Vigilance]

They have no professional experience with Trek (which imo is a good thing, we need some fresh blood).

As fans of the series, the three main creative minds behind the film, JJ Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are a nice mix.

According to Abrams, he is a geek and a HUGE fan of the original series but he's a lapsed fan. He seemed familiar with TNG, a little less of DS9 and then almost no familiarity after that.

He said he had not seen Nemesis at all for example. He did say he would watch EVERYTHING in his preparation for the movies however.

Kurtzman is described as being an enormous fan with an encyclopedic knowledge of Trek, not only all the series and movies but even the novels.

And then Orci is described as a complete noob to Trek.

So basically, they have the committed fan, the lapsed fan and the sci-fi fan who never got into the show for whatever reason.

A fairly nice mix.

Also, if you read on the process Mission Impossible III went through (a film directed by Abrams and written by Kirtzman and Orci), Abrams sold Cruise on the idea of bringing in his two handpicked writers to redo the script in order to make it CLOSER to the spirit of the TV show.

Again, I consider this a good sign.