Shatner Leaks Trek XI Details

An anonymous reader writes "The rumors that the next Star Trek movie would revolve around the earliest missions of Kirk and Spock have been confirmed by William Shatner in a Sci Fi Wire interview. J.J. Abrahms (creator of 'Lost') will direct, and has confirmed that a draft script is completed. So, the question is, will Shatner appear as a reminiscing older Kirk in the beginning, setting up the rest of the movie as a flash-back, or will geriatric-Kirk and young-Kirk meet?"

Comments

Damon as Kirk?

[FreeKill]

I read here that Matt Damon was supposedly cast as the younger Kirk...

Re:huh?

[shawnap]

I hope it's old footage, everyone deserves to play opposite their favorite romantic lead at least once.

Re:huh?

[interstellar_donkey]

It wouldn't surprise me if Shatner decides no one is qualified to play a young him, demands a massive girdle, a shorter cut toupee and enough makeup to make Tammy Faye Baker blush and announce "I will play the young me!!"

Re:huh?

[nmb3000]

Whos going to play young kirk? Old Kirk?

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

(I love the shattering glass sound effect. Quality stuff :)

Shatner as Boothby

[scdeimos]

I reckon he'll cameo as the aging groundskeeper at the academy, Boothby. Everyone knows Boothby's been there for centuries, and he'll probably catch the younger Kirk trying to carve his initials into his prized Elm tree.

Re:Shatner as Boothby

[Short Circuit]

In TNG, he shows up in the episode The First Duty. In Voyager, he showed up in the episodes In the Flesh and The Fight.

The First Duty and In the Flesh were both very good episodes.

Oh, and here's a pic of him.

I really don't care...

[GrumpySimon]

will Shatner appear as a reminiscing older Kirk in the beginning, setting up the rest of the movie as a flash-back, or will geriatric-Kirk and young-Kirk meet?

I really don't care, as long as it doesn't involve him doing any type of singing.

Against the spirit of Trek

[melchoir55]

To me, half of the fun with Star Trek was watching technology develop. From Enterprise NCC-1701 to Enterprise D, to the Defiant and on to Enterprise E and Voyager. The fun for me was watching what the writers did with new starships and how new technology was being implemented. It is the progression of the Star Trek universe that I took pleasure in, at least as much as I took pleasure in the interactions between characters. This is why enterprise was uninteresting to me. I knew where the federation was going to be in a few hundred years, so watching Scott Backula fly around in a starship that a 24th century shuttlecraft could tear apart in combat seemed like a waste of time.

If they had any balls at all they would have gone with the idea of having Captain Riker commanding the Titan in a time when the federation is being systematically destroyed in a major war (ie, the feds are losing). To see the federation being destroyed and fighting for it's life by spiting out warships would have been interesting to me. Watching a film about how kirk and spock originally fell in love is not. I'll probably see 11, but only at a friends house where it's on and I don't have a choice.

Re:Against the spirit of Trek

[AKAImBatman]

If they had any balls at all they would have gone with the idea of having Captain Riker commanding the Titan in a time when the federation is being systematically destroyed in a major war (ie, the feds are losing). To see the federation being destroyed and fighting for it's life by spiting out warships would have been interesting to me.

It would have also permanently killed the series. The good Star Trek has always been a platform for commentary about everything from the human condition to modern politics. Since I sincerely doubt that anyone today can identify with a "major war" (which would be something along the lines of a WWII scenario IN SPACE!), the commentary aspect of Star Trek would be completely lost. In addition, it would further destroy Roddenberry's vision of a better tomorrow.

The end result is that you'd get Yet Another Action Show(TM) that's all fluff and no substance.

If you really want a good TV show about "major war", get the networks to reboot Space: Above and Beyond.

Re:Against the spirit of Trek

[AKAImBatman]

One could have the Borg as a metaphor for a modern United States.

See, I always saw the Klingons as metaphors for the Russian/Communist threat, the Romulans as a metaphor for espionage, and the Borg as a metaphor for socialism.

Each fits surprisingly well. In the original series, the Klingons were the major threat, but were held at bay by tenuous treaties like the Organian Peace Treaty. When NextGen came along, it reflected how Russia was no longer a threat to world peace and even suggested cooporation between the peoples. Which was rather earth shattering at a time when Russians were mostly portrayed in movies as arrogant and ultra-competitive. Yet today, it's kind of hard to think of that "mean Russian" image that was so popular during the 80's.

The Romulans go on to show how powerful yet ugly the very idea of espionage is. In the original series, it was portrayed as a battle of wits with the loser losing something very precious indeed. (Be it their new Plasma weapon or the Cloaking Generator.) NextGen expanded on this by adding the Tal'Shiar (sp?) element to the Romulans, making them even sneakier and uglier to work with. It also added the dimension of the "normal" people getting caught up in the problems created by espionage.

The Borg were very simply an overpowering force that sought to equalize and harmonize the universe at the expense of individuality and free expression. I 5hink that describes socialism pretty well, don't you? ;)

Oh, and the Borg are not cyborgs. They are merely "organically challenged". :P

Re:Against the spirit of Trek

[mrchaotica]

Poor guy... you missed the point entirely! What made Star Trek interesting was the exploration of ethical and philosophical issues, and figuring out interesting and novel solutions to the problems the crew encountered. Star Trek has had episodes and movies about the following topics: religion, race relations, euthanasia, conservation, cybernetics, the definition of "life," the definition of "sentient life," love, hate, war, peace, etc. -- way too much stuff to list here. That's what made it great, not the technology. If all you care about are gadgets, you're better off watching a Bond flick instead.

Re:Against the spirit of Trek

[value_added]

If they had any balls at all they would have gone with the idea of having Captain Riker ...

Jonathan Frakes is competent enough as an actor, and his roles are always well-written, but let's face it, the guy isn't that interesting to watch.

On the other hand, this guy looks strangely like Riker and performs a similar role (albeit without a uniform or official title), but is interesting to watch. Hell, I thought it was Jonathan Frakes with a few years of acting classes under his belt doing something new.

Re:Against the spirit of Trek

[istewart]

Deep Space Nine is widely considered the best Trek series, and its last four seasons centered around an ongoing story about a major war that the Federation stood a major chance of losing. One could perhaps argue that it wasn't as big a success as TNG or TOS, but all the data I've ever seen indicated that it did as well as TNG in first-run syndication. (Then Spike ran it into the ground after it was removed from syndicated reruns, but such is the nature of the modern TV market.)

And it set the stage for even more interesting story possibilities, although they haven't been explored. As far as we've seen, Starfleet has always been balanced between its military aspect and peaceful exploration. Right up till STVI, the balance was almost dead even: there was a state of cold war with the Klingons, but you also had Kirk and his contemporaries doing their 5-year missions of exploration. During TNG, one can argue that the balance had swung heavily towards the explorers (although there is that Cardassian war immediately pre-TNG that we didn't get to see). DS9 chronicled a sudden and severe shift toward militarism. The warships that the grandparent poster wanted to see being spit out have already been spat out. The Defiant was mass-produced, even though its sole purpose is as an overpowered gunship. TNG told us that the initial run of Galaxy-class ships was limited to 9, and DS9 shows us a whole lot more than that, all of them heavily armed and doubtless assembled on an accelerated total-war production regimen.

So even though the Federation won, how does it go back to the fleet full of peaceful explorers we saw during TNG? There's the essential conflict that sets up the premise of such a story. Add to that the fact that there's a gigantic power vacuum in Romulan space since Picard's vinyl-fetishist clone murdered the Senate, and throw in a few TOS-style devious-bastard Klingons who don't like Martok because he's too buddy-buddy with the Federation, oh, and those Section 31 guys too, and we have a recipe for a very interesting story that is equal parts action and commentary on human nature.

So an entertaining and thoughtful follow-on to TNG-era Trek is certainly possible (although maybe not in the exact fashion the GPP was thinking about), and it could be a solid draw for both nerds and casual fans alike with happy memories of TNG and DS9. But such ideas aren't under consideration because executives would rather find a gimmick that they think would bring in a lot of people all at once. Case in point, a prequel movie which recasts the two most recognized Trek characters out there (and make no mistake, there will be an infinite amount of nerd rage on this point), or the proposed Web-based miniseries which completely overthrows the Trek universe to give us "Star Trek as YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE!"

Plot revealed...

[Ingolfke]

The Enterprise will crash land on an island on a strange planet and only a few of the crew members will survive. The island will have polar bears, and some crazy black smoke and this series of underground hatches with some ancient writing from a long past culture called The Dharma Initiative...

if old Kirk and young Kirk meet

[martin-boundary]

I'm afraid the scene where young Kirk and old Kirk meet and shake hands will have to be cut, because it causes an infinite recursive loop:

Old Kirk (to young Kirk): James T Kirk!

Young Kirk (to old Kirk): James T Kirk!

Old Kirk (to young Kirk): James T Kirk!

Young Kirk (to old Kirk): James T Kirk!

Old Kirk (to young Kirk): James T Kirk!

Young Kirk (to old Kirk): James T Kirk!

Old Kirk (to young Kirk): James T Kirk!

Young Kirk (to old Kirk): James T Kirk!

Old Kirk (to young Kirk): James T Kirk!

Young Kirk (to old Kirk): James T Kirk!

Old Kirk (to young Kirk): James T Kirk!

Young Kirk (to old Kirk): James T Kirk!

(snip)

Heres a hint

[antifoidulus]

it involves Kirk and Spock naming their own price on a deep space voyage for two and saving with priceline!

Plot element you can count on.

[gd23ka]

Terrorism. There will be terrorists in the plot and I remember something about the series
about clone and eugenics wars that early in "starfleet history". Of course it is pretty
much left up to them what terrorist foe they will present on the screen, but it will
certainly be in tune of current events.

Those working towards a predictable population are just as predictable themselves.

Re:huh?

[Buddy_DoQ]

In X-Men 3, they developed a computer effects algorithm that made Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart look very young. In fact, it was so well done that I reckoned them able to go in and make a new original cast Star Trek film. (With the surviving members anyway, may the fallen RIP.) I also reckoned they could make Ian McKellen (Glandolf) and Ian Holm (Bilbo) look younger in The Hobbit with this technique. (Has anyone seen Sam Lowry?)

Here's a site with side-by-side pictures from x3: http://www.fxguide.com/article357.html

Re:I, for one, personaly, don't care.

[BobSutan]

The producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were tossed off of Trek pretty much indefinitely for how they mishandled Enterprise and the last film. That said, I still don't think this movie is a good move. I think they should let the material rest for a while until the fans actually want more Start Trek. At this point people would rather go without it than see it butchered like it has been over the course of the last decade.

Re:My concept for a new Trek series or film.

[Bloke down the pub]

Then why the hell are virtually everyone on Federation starships human? And the few token non-humans are clearly the more human looking. There are no six tentacled creatures serving on Federation starships... there are no non-physical energy beings.

It would make sense to have similar creatures together, as you'd need a compatible atmosphere that they could all breathe. Then there's the toilets, oh so many different kinds of toilet.

Captain Cook

[Mutatis Mutandis]

The original Star Trek centered on a ship and a crew on a mission of exploration in uncharted space. James Kirk was an extrapolation of James Cook, on a five-your voyage through space instead of a three-year voyage over the seas. Cook once wrote that he wanted to go "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go" and Star Trek's mission statement echoed this.

Like Cook's, Kirk's was a combined military and scientific expedition. Of course what was "out there" turned out to be very much our own problems in another disguise, but that was the core of the genre. The concept, of course, was also an echo of the era in which the series was made, when science and exploration were sources of optimism and space seemed to be a final frontier that was going to be taken on the hop.

Later series diverted from the concept, reflecting changing priorities of societies and growing pessimism about the future. The Next Generation was on a mission to spread political correctness through space, to baldly go where no bald one has gone before, at least not without a toupee. Attempts to satisfy everyone on everything, another unfortunate characteristic of the 90s, included such silliness as a battleship on a mission of peace, a flagship without an admiral, an expedition vessel with children on board, and a shrink on the bridge to make statements of the obvious.

The best hope is for Star Trek to go back to its roots. To send young captain (lieutenant commander?) Kirk on a mission of exploration on a small vessel with a dedicated crew, perhaps on a surveying mission to map space. (Cook's career also started as a surveyor of the coast of Newfoundland.) And then let him deal with some problem of reasonable dimensions -- there is no reason to save the planet again. If he can save his ship and crew that is enough.

Re:My concept for a new Trek series or film.

[mr_matticus]

I don't think the "there is no money in the 23rd Century" is necessarily contradictory with the shops, etc.

There is still an economy, and therefore there still has to be some method of accounting and exchange. What's more likely is that there is no money in the traditional sense--no cash, no pay checks, no banks for individual persons. Instead, typical Star Trek style soft socialism takes hold. The closest contemporary analogy is the expense account. Rather than paying out of pocket or being limited to a fixed wage, a person could simply use his account to make purchases. If someone got out of hand with their spending, it would pop up a red flag for review. Any people abusing this would be restricted from purchasing "luxury" items of any sort--only housing, utilities, food, etc. would be covered and all other charges would be rejected (like maxing out a credit card). As an added advantage for our future friends, the emergency car repair or unexpected medical expense would be covered. Rather than having to worry about insurance, people could simply enjoy "free" medical care, using just checkups for the healthy and more extensive treatment for the ill. Individuals wouldn't subsidize each other, nor would they suffer the libertarian folly of "paying taxes." Companies would still be taxed to fund the government, and companies would foot the bill directly rather than the three-step cut check/deposit/withdraw process we have today.

In other words, "no money" doesn't actually mean no money, but rather that the individual no longer deals with finances directly and instead can focus on enjoying life. The higher up your position, the looser the limits on your 'expense account'--not everyone would eat caviar and live on 5000 acre estates.

my 5 centses

[slfnflctd]

1) Gene deserves more respect than he's gotten lately from the people who carry on his work.

2) TNG, DS9 & Voyager may've had their flaws, but they all had long runs and significant numbers of loyal fans, and should not be ignored.

3) Battlestar Galactica & Firefly should indeed be required watching for anyone involved in the production of any serious sci-fi from here on out.

4) The canon should be shored up (and better treated)-- as one example, I think it's imperative to be in harmony with the design style of TOS when capturing any 'new footage' of that era (or before). It should be possible to do this while still having freedom to add new embellishments, and a few subtle alterations could soften the cheesiness considerably while maintaining the core elements which visually define that time period.

5) Finally, any reasonably intelligent writing/designing/directing team with half a heart between them ought to be able to produce something decent with just a quick-yet-comprehensive review of the past work, providing they simply listen to fan feedback along the way. Based on that belief, I won't judge any film that hasn't even been filmed yet - including the above one - based on a blurb.

So, here's to hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, as usual...

Re:My concept for a new Trek series or film.

[Lord Ender]

The appeal of Trek (well, TOS and TNG) was G.R.s vision of humanity's future, in which everyone is a cosmopolitan secular humanist, and all of today's economic problems are solved by technology. It gave hope to the generations menaced by the cold war, and now it gives hope for the future in contrast to today's religion and oil fueled conflicts.

Your idea may be a good one, but it isn't Trek, to me.

Also, the idea of a universe being ruled by a european male conspiracy might not sit well with Trek's primarily european male fanbase.