Movie News: Star Trek 11

It seems that another SciFi franchise is jumping on the prequel bandwagon. I must admit that I was sorry to hear of the cancellation of Enterprise with Scott Bakula. I actually enjoyed that series. I was even willing to overlook the fact that much of the technology appeared to be more advanced than the original Star Trek. After all, it was close to 40 years ago. To their credit though, the writers for Enterprise did attempt to put in technology limitations, such as extremely limited use of the transporter.

So, that is why I am optimistic about an upcoming Star Trek feature film slated to be released in 2008 and distributed by Paramount Pictures. According to Daily Variety and other news reports that picked up the thread, there is as yet no title for this eleventh film in the Star Trek universe, but it will feature scenes about Kirk and Spock meeting at Star Fleet Academy and their first mission into space.


Another reason to be optimistic is director J.J. Abrams, creator, writer, director, and producer of the two ABC series Lost and Alias and writer on Forever Young and Regarding Henry. I have really enjoyed the intrigue, characterization, and pace of Lost, but I reserve the right to withhold final judgment on Star Trek 11 until I see his upcoming movie Mission Impossible III staring Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman (did anyone else loathe MI-2 as much as I did?). Joining Abrams in writing the Star Trek script will be Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, writers for MI-3, The Legend of Zorro, and several episodes of Alias, among other things.

It's also interesting to note that Rick Berman is not involved in this project. Berman has been with Star Trek since The Next Generation and has been involved with every Next Generation movie. Some people attribute the decline of the Star Trek franchise to him. Those same people often credit the late Michael Piller with infusing new excitement into The Next Generation series, starting with season three.

Piller came into Star Trek, The Next Generation in season 3 and was also heavily involved in the creation of Deep Space Nine, but that's where his Star Trek tenure ended. Piller also gave Ronald D. Moore, the developer of the new Battlestar Galactica series his start in the television industry when he brought Moore onto The Next Generation. Piller then utilized the talents of both Ira Steven Behr and Moore in the creation of Deep Space Nine. It will be interesting to see if this theory proves to be true with this Star Trek film.

If Star Trek 11 can focus on story rather than trying to dazzle us with amazing special effects, like some other prequels, this could be an interesting movie. And this comes from someone who is not that much of a fan of the original Kirk series. It could be interesting to see some background into Kirk and Spock (I have always been interested in the way Kirk passed his Kobayashi Maru test). It could also be fun to see a cameo of an aging Captain Archer or perhaps some appearances from other actors from the original series such as George Takei.

I remain optimistic, but I would love to hear your thoughts.