Everyone has more or less known that Star Trek XI would be a reboot of some sort, most likely including James T Kirk. Now, in Star Trek Magazine, J.J. Abrams has confirmed Kirk’s presence in the finished script and announced that the team is into pre-prep…whatever that means. I think that’s the stage in film production where the production team gets stoned, laughs at the rest of the franchise and orders some nachos. What he hasn’t talked about yet is where Kirk is, what he’ll be doing, or with whom.
This is actually the first thing that’s aroused anthing like attention within me. (Though it might just be priapism.) Since there’s no way Abrahms and Paramount can cast Shatner they might actually go with an unknown, which could help with the wide-scale Casino Royale revamp that represents this franchise’s only hope. If Star Trek isn’t going to Not Exist, then it had better grow a pair and make the kind of radical and relevant changes that can actually attract an audience.