nerd alert

1. EW has an interview up with J.J. Abrams, Zach Quinto, and Leonard Nimoy about the new Star Trek movie. Here are a few exchanges that jumped out at me:

Leonard, when you first heard they were making a new Star Trek film — that they were ”rebooting” the franchise with a new cast — how did you feel? Skeptical? Angry? Relieved?
LEONARD NIMOY: None of those. I’ve been away from Star Trek for a number of years. The first thing I heard was that J.J. Abrams was doing this. I have a lot of respect for him, so I thought, ”This is something to consider.” Then the script came along — that was the second major step. And then J.J. sent me some footage of Zach. I looked at him, and I’ll tell you exactly what I said to J.J.: ”He looks exactly right.” What’s more, he has an interior life, which is vital to the character. With all of those elements in place, I’m very comfortable with this new Star Trek.

With this casting, Leonard, you’re officially ceding this role to a new actor. How do you feel about this?
NIMOY: Strange. It is strange…but very comforting. I feel like the character is being put in very, very good hands.

Hey, if Nimoy is happy with this, I’m happy.

J.J., since this is a ”reboot” of Star Trek focusing on young Spock and young Kirk, why did you feel that it was important for Leonard to be in the movie?
ABRAMS: The story needed his participation for a number of reasons. One, the plot. In many ways, the story revolves around the character of Spock. Two, I think it’s critical if we’re going to look at reintroducing these characters — I didn’t want to disrespect what had come before, for those who care about that. But we’re making this movie for people who don’t care about Star Trek too. This isn’t about pleasing the fans, this is about making a great film. And to do that, you have to both please the fans and please the people who’ve never seen Star Trek. So having Leonard in the film shows that this film exists in a continuum of Trek history, as opposed to an absolute, page 1 reinvention.

I’ll admit, I was really skeptical of Hollywood trying to “reinvent” classic franchises like Batman and James Bond, but both of those films turned out to be among the best in their respective histories. Here’s hoping Abrams doesn’t f#ck this up.

2. Those whipper snappers on Facebook must be smokin’ somethin’.

Now I’ll admit, I’m a fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, but these poll results are way too lopsided:

Kids these days!

3. EW has another interview up about a (slightly less) famous sci-fi franchise, the X-Files. Chris Carter, creator of the series, answers a few questions about the upcoming movie:

This rumor — the announcement that the X-Files movie is imminent seems to come up every six months or every year.
We’re really working to make it happen now.

This time it’s for real, you’d say?
Yes. I should say we’re working to make it happen. It’s for real that we’re working, but there are no guarantees that it will get made. I mean, it still has to go through a lot of different things, including a budgeting process.

Yawn. Not much to go on here.

I still think this franchise has a number of sins to atone for from its last few seasons on the air, but I won’t write it off just yet.