You all know by now that Paramount, determined to squeeze as much blood as possible from that moldy galactic turnip known as the Star Trek franchise, is allowing current 'it'-boy J.J. Abrams to write and direct the next Trek feature film. For the past year or so, several rumors have floated back and forth, including one about the potential casting of Matt Damon as a youngish Captain Kirk. One of the biggest question marks, however, has been the extent to which this new feature would be a 're-boot' of the franchise, Batman Begins-style, revising or even scrapping much of what has come before. Well, it looks like Abrams has gone a long way to answering that. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the M:I3 director claims that while people who love Star Trek should get a 'satisfying fix' from the film he's currently planning to shoot, "the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek."

Abrams also goes a step further, saying "I would actually prefer [that] people don't know the series, because I feel like they would come to it with an open mind." Although this might seem like blasphemy to long-time fans, it does make sense from the studio's point of view, considering that the last Star Trek film barely made half of its $70 million budget back in domestic returns. Abrams and his Alias colleagues Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have reportedly finished a first draft of the film, which is currently due to hit theaters sometime in 2008.

Hey aquamonkey... I like BattleStar Galactica  
The signatures were funny too.

I wasn't going to post because I reckoned I didn't really care, that if it flopped it flopped and life would go on.  It started to eat at me the more I thought about it though.  I was thinking that Matt Damon would make a good Captain and it would be pretty cool to have a film that was fast paced and filmed a bit with the camera following action and ducking out of the way of things (stuck on Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity here) but still have some depth to it.  Now that I'm typing, the original Star Trek films didn't really have a whole lot of depth aside from a normal thing to write a plot around.  The first one did and tried to be more like the series but it sucked.  I got to thinking earlier though that it would be really wierd to screw up the Star Trek universe after all of the pathological effort that's gone into trying to keep some consistancy even to the ridiculous length of fans trying to pass off some of the ship's technology as being a plausable future.  At the same time though... it was long time ago that Star Trek started, and on the other hand I don't care if it's redone... there's no where else to go forward with it and realistic science fiction.... well I don't care if those people who think 7 times the speed of light and subspace transmissions are reality and not just fantasy 'what ifs' based upon speculation that's based on more speculation and even more 'what ifs'.  I don't care if someone wants to entertain me.  I like lost, I've liked Alias and that's all I know of the director.  I think Lost was done really well but the weaknesses are clearly there as they are with Alias, both shows now relying on thin plots and more action to keep a person from losing interest and changing the channel.  I don't think that would be a problem with a film though, I think... hope that he wouldn't do it unless he had a really good script.  Season one of Lost is evidence of excellent judgement as far as that goes.

I think I've decided...  I'm ready to be entertained.  I'll be waiting for it on DVD though unless my wife thinks she's doing me a favor by taking me to see it or I just end up walking into it by chance.

Quoted Text

Paramount is pushing back the release of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" from Dec. 25 to May 8, 2009, saying the pic's gross potential is greater as a summer tentpole.

Move was part of a major reshuffling to the studio's release calendar, as well as to DreamWorks' release sked. A second key change: DreamWorks' 2008 Ben Stiller summer comedy "Tropic Thunder" is moving from July 11 to Aug. 15.

That's likely to mean that another film will take "Tropic's" old spot on July 11, particularly since there is such a dearth of broad comedies in the May-July stretch.

Like Par, many of the majors are likely to revisit their release skeds in the wake of the writers' strike as they try to balance out their 2008 and 2009 calendars.

"Star Trek" has no competition in its new slot -- at least not so far, although it opens one week after 20th Century Fox bows "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and one week before Sony is slated to bow sequel "Angels and Demons."

Paramount also dated two titles. Martin Scorsese's Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer "Shutter Island" will be released Oct. 2, 2009.

An untitled comedy produced by Marlon and Shawn Wayans will be released on Feb. 9, 2009. Their brother Damon Wayans is directing from a script the three co-wrote with two other family members. Par is keeping the logline under wraps.

Here are the other release changes to Par's sked:

* Eddie Murphy family pic "Nowhereland" is moving from Sept. 26, 2008, to June 12, 2009.

* Renee Zellweger horror-thriller "Case 39" is moving from Aug. 22, 2008, to April 10, 2009.

* David Fincher's Brad Pitt starrer "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is moving from Nov. 26, 2008, to Dec. 19, 2008.

In addition to the new date for "Tropic Thunder," DreamWorks and Par announced that Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet "Revolutionary Road" will be distributed by Par Vantage, and not the studio proper.

I think it's a good thing for StarTr3k not to have any competition, after all the last poorly written, poorly directed one couldn't compete against Maid in Manhattan!

I'm an avid Sci-Fi buff and in regards to StarTrek anything goes in my mind,
Especially when you look at how bad but yet how good StarTrek the original series was!
Heck any of them...!!!

As far as I'm concerned there could even be another StarTrek Series and so on and on & on & on...

Anyone play the Space Quest PC games in the 90's? Looks like they're making a movie