It largely depends if I remember to take my medication. Or, how much wine I’ve consumed.

But I am always Now, man. Even when I’m… Later.

Sterile Communistic vision?

I think you mean a more American Imperialistic egocentric philosophy.

But, that’s part of Star Trek’s undying charm.

In literal practise, no, it’s a historical and political pandora’s box imposing the culture of a few, on the culture of many,

however, it wouldn’t be Star Trek without Captain Kirk boldy interfering in the development of other civilizations with his self assured grandisement and feigned superiority complex.

Part of Star Trek’s appeal for me personally has always been the moment in any given episode Kirk raises his hands palms up to exclaim mightily for all the universe to hear “Your…..Bible is…….wrong.”

This of course has the effect of utterly destroying the inferior culture by awakening them from their self imposed delusions of isolationism, but we can accept a few sacrifices after all can’t we in the name of Lord Shatner.

There have always been haters of Meyer’s Trek films. For me, he captured the essence of what made me a TOS fan in the first place: a high seas adventure translated into a sci-fi series, with strange foes lurking in the big unknown, risky landing parties where death can strike at any time, and men and women who, in spite of this, brave endless dangers to learn more about the universe and what it is to be human.

On the other hand, Roddenberry’s view of Trek changed down the years into a sterile communist vision where humans are all super-evolved and travel round the universe telling non-human races how super-evolved humans now are.

Rick Berman and his team subsequently did their best to divorce their Treks from TOS, except for where there was an opportunity to make them look silly in comparison with the Berman Treks!

Contrary to what has been said, Meyer’s work does represent one of a number of high watermarks in Trek. Nevertheless, it is merely one of many possible interpretations of Trek. Abrams needs to try to exceed all of that, and give us something different again.

I’m not so worried about Kurtzman and Orci’s script. They’ve worked with Abrams a lot before, so Abrams will push them to write to their strengths, rather than just use them as writers for hire!

In my opinion, Trek XI should be very simple in some respects, especially if it is set sometime in the TOS era. I just hope they don’t try to “shoehorn” to many coincidental meetings into the story. From the rumors I’ve heard, the story focuses on Kirk before he even becomes captain of the Enterprise, so an easy deduction would be that it’s set aboard another ship he served on as a lieutenant, perhaps the USS Republic. It would be neat to see Kirk’s relationship with Captain Garrovick and how it developed. Setting the film during this time period even makes it possible to feature Pike’s Enterprise and the first meeting between Kirk and Spock. To complete the triumverate, you could even have McCoy serving on the medical staff of the Republic so he and Kirk could meet as well.

That’s where I feel it should stop, though. I hate to say it, but we shouldn’t see Scotty, Uhura, Sulu or Chekov in this film. Yes, those characters are an integral part of Trek TOS, but if this film is set before those adventures, they should be left out. If JJ Abrams tries to force them into the story just to have them there, it will seem staged and artificial. Abrams has said he’s committed to maintaining the established timeline (which in itself is a major statement from a present-day Trek writer), so that actually leaves him with a lot of breathing room story-wise. I just hope he and the studio work very hard to get it right.

Trek is in a very precarious place right now. The remastered TOS episodes got a lot of press and reignited interest in the show, but it’s late night timeslot in many markets have kept it from being a real headliner (which it should be). If Trek XI doesn’t work, then the franchise will likely fall into a coma that it may never recover from. I’m an admirer of Abrams work, however, and I believe he’s got the chops to bring something great and unique to Trek.

As fans, we all have to keep our fingers crossed and do what we can to make sure Paramount (and CBS) know we’re watching this project intently. Because more than anyone else, we’re the ones who know what Trek is and what it is not, what it can be and what it should never be, so it can Live Long and Prosper.

And #21, you hit the nail on the head, the actors (Bill and Leonard specifically) dicated alot of the story towards the end. Remember Nimoy conceptualized the movie himself and Meyer went to work cranking out the script in record time so they could get a 1991 release date. Meyer is an efficient filmmaker, a literate and clever writer and a guy whom we should all be grateful for as his contributions helped save the franchise. Sure, he had an outsider’s view of the Trek universe, but he had a deep respect for the human adventure nonetheless.

Of course I am amazed most films even get made with all the various input by others, the organic nature of how things are written/planned and then shot. But then I believe some STAR TREK books covered these problems in the creation of those films. Well there is a new ST film being made and I hope they really get good solid script/strong visual unified design and kick out a winner! Because as a whole, while entertaining the STAR TREK film series has really been of uneven quality to me.