Vegas Con: Frakes and Spiner Joke About Being In Star Trek XI

Tipster ‘davidoflondon‘ sends us a Trek XI tidbit from Yesterday’s events at the Official Star Trek Convention in Vegas. Star Trek Nemesis and Star Trek: The Next Generation co-stars Brent Spiner (Data) and Jonathan Frakes (Riker) spoke to the fans and took some questions. As expected the subject of the next movie came up. When asked if Spiner’s character Data was really dead they said that it was up to Trek XI producer JJ Abrams. Well known for being jokesters, Frakes and Spiner put their tongues in cheeks when asked if Frakes would direct Trek XI. David reports:

He (Frakes) said he was definitely going to and he wanted Brent to play every role. He said Brent does a particularly good Picard and Brent, of course, obliged with an impersonation of Patrick Stewart.

The pair then went on to other topics and more ribbing, including Frakes going into the audience and heckling Spiner. They finished with a discussion of buddy movies and which roles they should play.

A different tone than their co-stars
In recent weeks we have reported comments from Spiner and Frakes’ co-stars Micheal Dorn (Worf) and Marina Sirtis (Troi). Dorn and Sirtis seem to have a very negative view of the upcoming film, Sirtis in particular seems determined to get the Next Generation cast another go at the film franchise. Sirtis was joined by LeVar Burton (Geordi) last fall in saying they thought the last two films ‘sucked’. It is unlikely that Spiner and Frakes would join in with these criticisms since they were more than just cast members for those films. Frakes directed the ninth Trek film, Star Trek Insurrection, and Spiner co-wrote the story for the last film Star Trek Nemesis. It has also been reported that Spiner and co-writer John Logan had developed a story for an 11th film, but it appears that this was not picked up by Paramount after the disappointing box office for Nemesis.

See David’s full Thursday Vegas Report at LiveJournal