Pete brings the news of the latest Star Trek movie.
Although many have suspected it to be the case for months now, it’s finally official: J.J. Abrams will be directing Paramount’s planned reboot/prequel of “Star Trek”.
Abrams has long been involved as a producer on the newest installment of the Trek film franchise, but his helming wasn’t confirmed until this week reports Devin [Faraci], my favourite sub & chub over at C.H.U.D.
Also confirmed is that the film isn’t scheduled to hit until Summer 2009, a year later than reports had previously indicated.
Speculation has that the delay is due to giving the writer’s sufficient time to develop the script.
Confession time: I’ve never been all that into the original Trek. I wasn’t a Trek fan of any kind until maybe the third season of Next Gen. If you asked me to rank my favorite Treks, I’d put Deep Space Nine first, The Next Generation second, the original Trek third. (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Voyager, and I never got into Enterprise, though what little I saw of it had promise.) If that gets me labelled a heretic of some kind, so be it.
As such, I think the idea of a little reinvention for Kirk, Spock, et al, is a good one. There’s plenty of room for character development in there. And as far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t feel too constrained by the existing Trek canon. Go with a good story and don’t look back. As long as no one suggests that midichlorians are the key ingredient for mind melds, I can handle it.