Finally! New “Star Trek XI” Details

It seems like forever since we’ve had any new details on J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek reboot movie. However, Screen Rant is reporting that Paramount had a panel at Creation Entertainment’s 16th Annual GRAND SLAM: THE SCI-FI SUMMIT in Burbank, California, this past weekend in which screenwriter Roberto Orci was in attendance (co-scripter Alex Kurtzman was not in attendance) as was Leonard Nimoy.

A lot of the information that came out is stuff we’ve already heard or have been hearing rumors of, but some of it is new details. Here is the majority of it:

• The film will definitely be rated PG-13. That doesn’t really surprise me since Star Trek has always been more of a PG kind of movie. There was no way they were going to go R with this one.
• The release date was pushed back because Paramount wants the movie to be a summer blockbuster and not for any other reason.
• The budget on the film is far below the sometimes reported $200M. A more widely reported $160M budget could still be accurate and is probably in line with other films of this nature.
• They went all the way back to the beginning of the original characters because their intent was to “re-invent” the Star Trek franchise. I’m not really sure why they felt that was necessary. I think this explanation is partly BS. I think they went back to the original characters because they thought it would attract audiences already familiar with the characters.
• The script was written with Leonard Nimoy in mind so Spock, as suspected, is probably a pretty pivotal character to the film. Nimoy read and liked the script, of course, which is one of the reasons the film was able to be made. One would assume they would have had problems had Nimoy not been interested in doing the movie.
• Speaking of Nimoy, he actually said that this film, Star Trek 11, is the biggest film he’s ever worked on and will definitely be worth waiting for. He reaffirmed Paramount’s faith in the film as a summer blockbuster.
• Nimoy apparently also mentioned that he didn’t like the death of Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. In fact, he resented it. However, he did say that putting Shatner (Kirk) in this film would have been damaging to the story as a whole so he agreed with the decision not to do it.
• The USS Enterprise will be assembled in space, although parts of it will be assembled on Earth.
• One of the most interesting things revealed was that it was originally Steven Spielberg who read the script and talked to J.J. Abrams about directing it during a set visit to the Transformers set. Abrams mentioned it to his wife, who also helped talk him into the final decision to take on the massive project.

So that’s the gist of it. It looks like we now know with some certainty that Shatner will not be appearing in the film as Captain Kirk. I think that rumor has been pretty rampant so it’s good that they were able to put an end to it early on. I think it’s a shame that his stupid death in Star Trek: Generations is what prevented him from being a part of this project, though.

Any thoughts?