Geoff Johns
Best known for his DC Comics work on titles like Action Comics, Green Lantern, The Flash and Blackest Night, Johns is more than just the man who's single-handedly changed the publisher's fortunes in the comic book direct market: He's also a movie producer and writer, working on a movie with the people behind Robot Chicken (He's also written for the TV show) and part of the brain trust behind DC Entertainment's movie development team alongside Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman. Not lacking in talent or ambition, he's already many comic fans' Master. How long before he wins everyone else over?

J. Michael Straczynzki
The onetime Babylon 5 creator already has a lot of Master qualities down: Huge fanbase, creation of/showrunning-upkeep of epic weekly television series, a surprising amount of power within Hollywood and geek credentials from comic book work that includes a longterm run on Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man. With future projects including the movie version of World War Z, a remake of Forbidden Planet and DC's relaunch of the Man of Steel, Superman: Earth One, expect JMS to become an even bigger name in our world. But is it enough to be our new Master?

Mark Millar
After dominating comics for the last decade with critic-proof hits like The Authority, The Ultimates and Civil War, Millar's mix of high-concept and big action did the same to movie audiences with 2008's Wanted adaptation. Mext May's independently-produced Kick Ass movie is already seeming like a blockbuster waiting to happen, and alongside new comic series Nemesis (already getting interest from movie producers) and Millar's first all-original movie project reportedly being announced at some point next year, expect to see Millar's star rise even further in 2010. But how high is Master high?

Roberto Orci/Alex Kurtzman
They wrote Star Trek, both Transformers movies, and co-created Fringe; there's not denying the success of the Kurtzman/Orci team over the last few years, making sci-fi mainstream without upsetting the genre faithful (too much). Besides continuing producing Fringe, they're working on adapting Whitley Streiber's 2012: The War For Souls, fantasy comic Atlantis Rising and working with the Iron Man dream team of Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. on Cowboys Vs. Aliens. Is that enough to win your hearts over forever?

Peter Jackson
Yes, The Lovely Bones may not have been a slamdunk for genre fans' interest, but don't think that Peter Jackson has abandoned you just yet. Along with his much-anticipated collaboration with Steven Spielberg and Steven Moffatt (The two movie motion-capture Tintin series), don't discount his producing return to Middle Earth with Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit movies. Oh, and don't forget his Weta Digital effects house, continually raising the bar on what our eyes can be fooled into believing. Maybe Jackson is already our behind-the-scenes, puppet-Master.

Russell T Davies
You could try and argue that the success of Doctor Who has more to do with David Tennant's "long streak of nothing" (Thanks, Donna) looks and charm than the writing, but all we'd do is point you in the direction of Torchwood: Children of Earth to prove that showrunner Russell T Davies is able to come up with the goods all on his own when he has to (Also, he's the one who chose Tennant, so there's that, too). Not content with not only resurrecting the BBC's longrunning SF series but turning it into the most popular drama on British television and a successful franchise, Davies has relocated to Los Angeles and turned his attentions to American television. With the adulation and respect of many in the industry already his, will mainstream audiences follow?

JJ Abrams
Maybe I'm biased, but with stewardships of Alias, Lost and Fringe on television, as well as Mission: Impossible 3, Cloverfield and Star Trek in movies, JJ Abrams feels like he's already taken the title of New Master. All he needs now is to wheedle his way into comic books to complete the media triumvirate (And, no; that Wired issue doesn't count).

Joss Whedon
Were we too hasty to count Whedon out? Sure, Dollhouse crashed and burned at Fox, but it lasted a season longer than anyone expected and was full of interesting ideas even when the execution lacked. With The Cabin In The Woods, his horror movie with Drew Goddard, upcoming as well as a new Dr. Horrible web series expected, amid rumors that he'll move into even more online content creation, will Whedon 2.0 prove that television is over once and for all? It's be an impressive comeback and reinvention, but maybe that's what we should expect from a former Roseanne scriptwriter who made himself into a television and movie powerhouse who liked things shiny.

What do you think? Vote below and share your thoughts in the comments.

Original image by Neil Crosby.

Update: I apologize, I haven't been online much due to the holidays. I realized that there was an erroneous data point for Andrew Stanton in 2009 that was never supposed to be there. I missed it when I initially looked over the graph, but it's been removed now.

As we've been reflecting on the last ten years, we've been asking ourselves whether any true "masters" of science fiction and urban fantasy have emerged, especially in film and television. It's certainly been a decade of highs and lows, of old masters who've begun to fade and bright new stars just cresting the horizon.

To that end, I've attempted to chart the relative "master levels" of various directors and television producers over the several years. This is an utterly unscientific chart; I looked at the projects these folks have had since 2000 and assigned each one a "master level." The number reflects my understanding of the projects acclaim, its ability to attract an audience (i.e. box office/Nielsen numbers), its awards, whether it succeeded in something unusual (such as a relatively popular foreign language film in the case of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Dr. Horrible's status as a breakthrough web film), and the nebulous sense that it add or subtracted from the individual's "geek cred." The numbers themselves are largely subjective and, of course, you should feel free to nitpick.

The greater purpose was to offer a watercolory sense of whether any "masters" have emerged from this crowd. Certainly, the last year has brought low some of the genres' promising potentials. Joss Whedon entered into the decade riding high on a Buffy/Angel cocktail. Though his name wasn't enough to overcome Fox's confusing treatment of Firefly, but the show's eventual cult popularity led to the Serenity feature film, and the Whedon brand helped make Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog an important moment for web-based content. Perhaps this all made Dollhouse — which has been, by turns, frustrating and brilliant — all the more disappointing, its impeding demise fairly readily accepted, even by Whedon's fanbase. Similarly, Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica, despite being regarded by some readers as the most overrated scifi of the decade, was regarded by many as a turning point for smart, politically savvy space opera. But a rocky final season punctuated by finale filled with dei ex machinae left a lot of folks sour on the entire series. And the Wachowskis, while doing a solid (though Alan Moore-enraging) bit of cinema with V for Vendetta, never quite lived up to the promises of The Matrix.

But there have been plenty of masterful bright spots as well. Bryan Fuller gave us some beautiful urban fantasy with shows with Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies, even if many of his efforts (including the truly amazing The Amazing Screw-On Head) were prematurely axed, or shafted before ever getting off the ground. Guillermo del Toro brought us to great heights with Pan's Labyrinth, even if his other eye candy films didn't hit the same heights.

So have we seen any masters? Peter Jackson has certainly come close. Granted, The Lord of the Rings movies are high fantasy, but they showcased Jackson's ability to handle a difficult epic in a way that not only pleased JRR Tolkien's fans, but also won him mainstream accolades. And his remake of King Kong, which should have been automatically anathema, proved both profitable and well-reviewed. The Lovely Bones has been his blip, earning him his worst reviews in 20 years. But it's more likely that 2009 will be remembered as the year Jackson introduced the world to filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, demonstrating that he has a good eye for new talent and the Hollywood cache to bring that talent to light. It's not for nothing that he made this year's power list.

Another power list member, JJ Abrams, has also given us a good spate of fun and thoughtful science fiction. While he didn't give us the decade's best monster movie, he did manage to reboot the Star Trek franchise in a way that was respectful to what came before and drew in folks who never turned into the TV shows. Of course, we still have yet to see as Lost will end and whether Fringe will survive.

Chris Nolan is on the list of promising possibilities for eventual masterhood. Although Memento wasn't science fiction, it took a "what if" concept (here, what if a man searching for his wife's killer had no short term memory) and portrayed it in a thoughtful, suspenseful, and ultimately heartbreaking way. And he not only shot fresh blood into the corpse of the Batman franchise, he made it Oscar-worthy. And now he's continuing the science fiction thread with Inception.

And, of course, there's the question of whether James Cameron will prove the kind of science fiction as much as he claimed to be the king of the world. His foray into science fiction television, Dark Angel, never fared particularly well in the ratings; it was eventually canceled in favor of Firefly, and it never achieved the posthumous popularity of the later show. But perhaps Avatar is the reinforcement of his previous scifi successes, proof that he can still be relevant where other long-time directors have started to fade away. Hopefully, we won't have to wait another 12 years to see his next installment.

Personally, though, after seeing the delightful Monsters Inc. followed by the superb The Incredibles and WALL-E, I have my fingers crossed for Andrew Stanton and Pixar Studios. Here's hoping that John Carter of Mars is something phenomenal.

Still, singling out directors and producers as possible masters might be missing the point entirely, even when we're talking about movies and TV. Alan Moore might well be your science fiction master, not just because he has written so many fantastic books, but also because those books have captured the imagination of so many directors in the last several years — albeit with varying results. And in the coming years we'll see how comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan — who has been working on Lost as well as the Buffy Season Eight comics — translates to the big screen when Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Runaways hit theaters.

So who, if anyone, do you see as your science fiction master? Someone from the list above? Perhaps Russell T. Davis for reviving and expanding Doctor Who? Or maybe writers like Jane Espenson, who have worked on so many of the shows we love? And, with filmmakers like Neill Blomkamp and Duncan Jones arriving on the scene, who might prove themselves master of the genre in the next ten years?

Graph by Steph Fox.

Here's a bonus chart, with more data:

In the NYT article Grey leaks out a little news in regards to Star Trek 2 and MI:4.

As for J. J. Abrams, a producer and the director of "Star Trek," Mr. Grey is looking for "Star Trek 2." And "Mission: Impossible IV." And possibly before either, what he called another "tentpole" film to be directed by Mr. Abrams, and yet to be announced.

"We have been wildly ambitious," Mr. Grey said of his plans. "It has much to do with the fact that we are feeling as strong as we are."

At first we thought it was Mystery on Fifth Avenue, which Paramount has the rights to, and which is based on the story of a real-life wealthy Manhattan couple, who hired an architect to re-do their entire apartment with puzzles, compartments, messages, poems, codes and games for their four kids. But the architect went the extra mile and built clues all over the place, revealing books, music and lots of other crazy National Treasure-esque surprises in the apartment. It sounds great, but we wouldn't really attach the term "tent-pole" to that type of production.

Instead, we think this is just one more clue behind the J.J. Abrams "Untitled Project" which Paramount bought for $2 million. The last we've heard about this endeavor was that Simon Kinberg, writer of Sherlock Holmes and X-Men 3, and Aline Brosh McKenna of The Devil Wears Prada had both been brought on board.

We're not sure which one it will be, if any, but it sounds as though with Trek 2 already pushed back from its original 2011 target, the next outing for the Enterprise crew may be getting delayed even further.

Larter is in talks to play Virginia Lake, the "strong but feminine" woman at the heart of the show, says Gratzner. She'd be starring opposite Joshua Jackson, who's playing pilot Paul Foster.

And the new movie is already planned as the first installment in a trilogy — the first screenplay is written, and the second and third movies exist in treatment form. The movie's aliens will still be evil organ-stealing bastards, and they'll be humanoid instead of District 9-style creatures. It sounds like a recipe for exciting G.I. Joe-style schlock, but apparently that's not the goal.

Gratzner, a veteran special-effects worker, tells Forbidden Planet:

What I want to do with UFO is what Christopher Nolan did with the Batman franchise, or Martin Campbell did with Casino Royale. UFO is not a spoof, or a parody or a kids' movie. It's a pretty dark story, actually…it is not a show for young children.

You could argue, of course, that both Batman and James Bond had a track record of being dark and tackling adult themes before those films appeared, whereas UFO has a track record of this:

Great pep talk: "You're doing a fine job — a man's job. But you don't have to do it any better just because you're a woman [in a Lady GaGa costume.] And don't forget, you're a very pretty girl." And then they make the other woman stand with her leg raised , in a silver miniskirt. When she tries to move, they're like, "Hold it right there." As she says, "Not the most flattering of pin-ups."

Anderson's first live-action science fiction series, before Space: 1999, UFO is a delightfully campy adventure show about SHADO, a secret organization that fights evil organ-harvesting aliens. The moonbase staff all wear purple wigs and shiny silver outfits, and the music is jazzay, sixties style.

On the other hand, reading between the lines of Gratzner's interview, it sounds like he really wants to make something closer to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, keeping a lot of the concept design and silly outfits of the original, but with a smidge more character development and slightly more serious plots. But he's namechecking Batman Begins and Casino Royale because they're the gold standard for reboots right now. In any case, an Abrams-esque remake could be an attainable goal, and could actually do quite well amidst a swarm of Nolan-wannabes. Fingers crossed! [Forbidden Planet]

Ellison may have a reputation as someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly, and he may have sued Trek owners CBS over royalties from his "City On The Edge Of Forever" episode from the original TV series (and written that the show "can turn your brains to purée of bat guano"), but it's his admiration for JJ Abrams that would make working on the next Trek movie an attractive proposition:

I would jump at the chance to work with the inordinately-talented J.J. Abrams on a new Star Trek film... Where the downside to getting topside of the radar of J.J. Abrams? This guy ain't Roddenberry. He's a writer I respect, whose work has frequently blown the lid off my box of supriseability. But then again, he already knows that. It isn't as if I'd kept my admiration chained in the darkest cell of the basement of Bedlam.

He suggested reworking his original pitch for the original Trek movie, but added that "[i]f the very smart Abrams didn't want to go that way, I would be wide-open to rethinking such a film from the git-go."

But before you reject this public offer as misguided or an unusual publicity stunt, consider the potential of an Ellison/Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci/Lindelof collaboration on a new Star Trek. One of the criticisms leveled at the new movie was that it lacked the intellectual element of the original series, replaced with special effects and action; wouldn't Ellison be able to bring some of that [back] to the table? "City" is one of the most famous Trek episodes, and not just for the controversy surrounding it, after all (Yes, we know that it was heavily rewritten; that's why we're suggesting an Ellison/Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci/Lindelof collaboration, and not just Ellison writing solo). Bringing Ellison into the Trek writers braintrust, even just in initial stages - with, of course, appropriate credit and compensation to avoid lawsuits down the road - could be a winning proposition for Abrams and company: It would potentially add a new element to the story, make a public display of reaching out to the old guard to appease old school fans still upset about the reboot and, if nothing else, get some great publicity for the movie no matter the outcome. Surprisingly, we're kind of all for it. Someone get Paramount on the phone!

Geeky Cookies has the how-to on making this holiday full of Klingons and Star Trek goodies, with their Trekkie cookies recipes.

And in other Holiday Trek news, A theater in Minneapolis is putting on a Klingon-translated Christmas Carol. The show's four creators sat down and translated the entire story into Klingon. But don't worry — if you're not fluent in the dialect there are subtitles and an English-speaking narrator. The show runs until December 13th and is at the Mixed Blood Theatre. And yes that is a Klingon Puppet Tiny Tim.

In other news, TrekMovie has the details for all the new tie-in novels that J.J. Abrams' new Trek has inspired. Let's hope these help provide some ideas to the creators of the next movie (or possible spin-off TV series) because I'm fascinated by the Spock mind wiping story line.

"Star Trek: Refugees" by Alan Dean Foster (May 25, 2010)

Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise must decide if a group of refugees are a menace or misunderstood.

"Star Trek: Seek a Newer World" by Christopher Bennett (June 29, 2010)

Enterprise under attack escapes and discovers an entire civilization also hiding as is the ship. Kirk decides to find out what are they hiding from.

"Star Trek: More Beautiful Than Death" by David Mack (July 27, 2010)

Kirk leads a mission to Akiron, a dilithium rich world. Aboard is Spock's father, Ambassador Sarek, who is hoping to broker a Federation trade agreement.

"Star Trek: The Hazard of Concealing" by Greg Cox (August 31, 2010)

When the elder Spock surfaces from the future, will he be able to escape a sinister plan wrought by the enemies of the Federation, or will their quest to exploit Spock's knowledge succeed, with disastrous consequences?

For more details on the books check out Trek Movie.

As writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci told us earlier this year, Shatner's appearance wasn't on the same scale as Leonard Nimoy's, but instead a recorded message that Nimoy's Spock would've presented to Zachary Quinto's younger version of the character at the end of the movie. TrekMovie has the complete text of Shatner's scenes, but here's a taste... including another Original Series cameo:

INT. CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS

As Spock Prime walks off down the corridor, he passes
right by a man conferring with a nurse - the man pauses,
turns… it's SAREK. Suddenly overcome by a feeling that
the stranger who's just passed him is… oddly familiar.

KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I suppose I'd always imagined us…
outgrowing Starfleet together. Watching
life swing us into our Emeritus years…

INT. STARBASE ONE – HANGAR – ETERNAL NIGHT

MUSIC BUILDING - glass walls reveal THE ENTERPRISE at
dock, UTILITY CRAFTS floating around it, repairing.
Standing at attention in rows, THE ENTERPRISE CREW -
over four hundred of them wearing DRESS UNIFORMS - TRACK
DOWN the faces, all proud:

KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I look around at the new cadets now and
can't help thinking… has it really been
so long? Wasn't it only yesterday we
stepped onto the Enterprise as boys?
That I had to prove to the crew I
deserved command… and their respect?

And we STOP ON YOUNG KIRK. Composed, focused, proud. A
man. And to every fan's delight, finally wearing his
YELLOW SHIRT.

Go and read the whole thing, and see if you don't get slightly choked up at the end.

Exclusive: Read The Star Trek 2009 Scene Written For William Shatner [TrekMovie]

While Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman work on the script for Star Trek 2, which has not been finished yet, Comingsoon, is reporting that should Khan be in the next film, they've already got an actor in mind. It's none other than Nestor Carbonell, who we'd actually like to see unleash as the mastermind evil doer.

Up until now Nestor has played rather calm characters but we think he can pull off this role. Hypothetically, this is a great casting idea, unless you all can think of someone better. Call out your Khan casting ideas.

Trek Movie has an exclusive featurette titled Masks vs. Prosthetics where you can finally see the new looks for both Gorn and the Salt Vampire. The new aliens were supposedly created for the Rura Penthe Klingon prison scenes, but that was cut.

Bay, Kurtzman and Orci's Batman
Pros: You'd get a new Batman movie every two years, even if Michael Bay would complain and tell people that he didn't want to make it but the studio offered him so much money he couldn't say no. Plus, with Bay attached, you know that they'd get to Catwoman as soon as humanly possible instead of this whole "I am a nihilist Joker" crap from The Dark Knight.
Cons: Kurtzman and Orci would probably take their Daddy issues (Fringe's Walter/Peter complicated relationship, Star Trek's Kirk trying to live up to his dead father's memory by self-destructing but then coming through as the hero he was destined to be, even Transformers' Optimus as Tough-But-Fair Robot Daddy to Shia's Sam Whitwicky) to pop culture's most parent-obsessed character, leading to the risk of a third act emotional breakthrough where Batman cries. There are enough Batman characters to make Revenge Of The Fallen seem understaffed, and the various personality tics of said Batman characters could lead to more unfunny schtick like the Twins and/or Jazz from the Transformers movies. Michael Bay possibly already sees himself as Bruce Wayne. Also, there's every possibility that the movie would make no sense whatsoever (See: Transformers, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen).

JJ Abrams' Terminator
Pros: Abrams' sense of kinetic, fun filmmaking is just what the franchise needs after Terminator Salvation - He's a sci-fi nerd who knows how to make successful popcorn movies full of tech that are really all about people; in other words, he's a younger James Cameron, before Cameron fell more in love with the tech involved in making movies. A Terminator-ized "Bad Robot" logo would be awesome. There'd probably be a Simon Pegg cameo.
Cons: Abrams' inability to not have a happy ending would mean that Skynet would be completely defeated by the time he was done, whether it was a movie or trilogy. The time travel core concept would allow him to reboot the series whenever he wanted, with Zachary Quinto as Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator. There'd probably be a Keri Russell cameo. Actually, fuck the cons. I really want to see Abrams do Terminator, the more I think about it.

Christopher Nolan's GI Joe
Pros: If anyone could give GI Joe some critical credibility, it's Christopher Nolan.
Cons: Nolan's attempt would probably be called A Real American Hero and would likely be three hours long, most of which would be spent filled with actors who should know better (Yes, Gary Oldman, we're looking at you) telling the audience how difficult it is to be a real American hero in a morally ambiguous world. There would be at least one subplot about abuse of military power to underscore the moral ambiguity until we move into the third act when the audience needs to get pumped and then Duke would abuse military power to stop the bad guy and then walk away in disgust in order to make a point that will be lost on the majority of an audience who were excited to see shit blow up finally. Cobra Commander would be so compelling that you'll start to wonder if he's wandered on set from a different, better, movie. Purists would complain about Snake Eyes' closing monologue about how difficult it is to be a ninja in the US military. No child would ever want to buy a GI Joe toy ever again.

Bryan Singer's Transformers
Pros: Singer's mix of geek cred and understanding of human drama/cheap angst is exactly what the Robots in Disguise need. His X-Men movies show that he can deal with large casts, and also keep the core of the original concepts and characters without getting weighed down by nostalgia. His Superman Returns shows that he, uh... knows Kevin Spacey, who could probably do a good Megatron voice? Okay, maybe not that last one.
Cons: Tom Cruise would end up playing Optimus Prime, and Ian McKellen would cameo as the Matrix of Leadership/Allspark/Creation Matrix/whatever the hell it's called these days. Singer would leave before the last film in the trilogy to go and make a Go-Bots movie about Leader-1 really being Jesus and stalking his ex-girlfriend.

McG's Dollhouse
Pros: Revamping Joss Whedon's television series into a stand-alone movie, McG would give interviews about really getting to the heart of the darkness at the center of the concept but then present a movie that's a series of comedic vignettes wherein Eliza Dushku, Lucy Liu and Ellen Page are sassy, independent girls who have to roleplay different personalities and lives while working undercover for D.O.L.L.house, a secret spy organization that pretends to brainwash people and rent them out to clients - with hilarious consequences!
Cons: Revamping Joss Whedon's television series into a stand-alone movie, McG would give interviews about really getting to the heart of the darkness at the center of the concept but then present a movie that's a series of comedic vignettes wherein Eliza Dushku, Lucy Liu and Ellen Page are sassy, independent girls who have to roleplay different personalities and lives while working undercover for D.O.L.L.house, a secret spy organization that pretends to brainwash people and rent them out to clients - with hilarious consequences!

Talking to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, Abrams said,

The mood on set and in the writer's room is as good as the ratings are bad, which is to say, wonderful. Luckily, Fox has been insanely supportive, for which we are deeply grateful... [G]iven that we're on one of the hardest [nights] on television, we're just focusing on making the best show we possibly can. What else can we do?

Here's an idea of how Fox can be more supportive: Move the show to another night, already; the Thursday gambit is clearly not working.

J.J. Abrams on 'bad' ratings, good vibes, and the show's future [Entertainment Weekly]

The news broke in The Wall Street Journal, of all places, in a story about toy lines being co-opted by movie studios:

J.J. Abrams, who created the TV show "Lost" and directed this summer's "Star Trek" film, is in discussions to produce a movie about Japanese toy line Micronauts, which Hasbro just acquired.

With Abrams producing, that opens the door for some Kurtzman/Orci involvement, if they could be convinced to jump from the Transformers franchise into another toy universe. We're really keeping our fingers crossed for comic artist and Micronaut lover Paul Pope getting involved on the design side, though.

The Cry Goes Out in Hollywood: 'Get Me Mr. Potato Head's Agent!' [Wall Street Journal]

Apparently Wheaton did a lot of voice work for the Romulan crew, and it's all thanks to fellow voiceover-artist Greg Grunberg's Twitter outreach to Wheaton. The clip and casting extra is from the Star Trek DVD, which will be released November 17, 2009.

Casting Spock:

Wil Wheaton's Cameo:

From Wil's Blog on the whole voice dubbing experience:

I met JJ at an ADR stage a few days later, where he told me the entire plot of the movie (and, for the record, hearing JJ Freakin' Abrams tell you the plot of his Star Trek is even more awesome than you'd expect) and showed me some of the scenes that I'd be dubbing. I ended up providing voices for all the Romulans on Nero's ship, including the guy who tells him that "it's time" at the very beginning of the movie. (Yeah, how cool is that?)

[via Trek Movie and Wil Wheaton]

Anyone else shocked this was how they chose to use Baird? We can see why it got cut — it doesn't exactly paint Kirk as a sensitive guy when dealing with alien species, but damn if Chris Pine isn't turning his charm up to 11 here.

Star Trek will be out on DVD Nov. 17. [Borders]

Spike TV has an official clip from the new trailer (which is available in much higher resolution over at Spike's site):

But it turns out there's less to the Klingons than meet the eye in some scenes. According to a snippet of making-of footage which turned up online recently, some of the Klingons were actually little kids in Klingon costumes, shot from angles to make them look like grown-ups, so the sets would look huge.

Star Trek will be out on DVD Nov. 17. [Borders]

MTV's Splash Page blog quotes Abrams, who wrote a screenplay for an unmade Superman movie years ago, as saying that he wouldn't necessarily say no if asked to return:

It was a very passionate character for me. As a kid growing up it meant a lot to me. It would be wonderful and fun to see that brought back. I don't know what Warners is thinking or what their plan is. It would be a blast.

This seems like a no-brainer for Warners, who are already facing the possibility of having to pay damages to the families of Superman's creators if they don't have another Superman movie in production by 2011. But does even that mean it's likely to happen?

J.J. Abrams Says Returning To Superman 'Would Be A Blast' [MTV Splash Page]

According to Entertainment Weekly, Reznor will be mixing William Bell's on screen dialogue with his 07 track "Zero-Sum," voiced by Leonard Nimoy, naturally. Reznor became involved when Fringe used a clip of his song in a previous promo, and was reached out to, to see if he would be interesting in collaborating even more. But the real question here is, will Reznor make a cameo on Fringe? I'd like to see him as an observer or a before-the-title "freak of the week." Series exec producer Jeff Pinkner told EW:

"If he wants to come act on the show, that's not tit for tat — that's an open invitation, and we made that known to him," says Pinkner. Any ideas on what he may play? "Well, his head would probably end up exploding," deadpans Pinkner. "There'd be some uncomfortable biology in there one way or another."

Here's a sneak peek of Reznor's official promo and the entire thing will air Thursday during the American League Championship Series.

According to TrekWeb, the Star Trek Season 3 Blu-Ray set will include the longer cut of "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which has never aired or appeared on DVD or VHS. (The Youtube video above includes all the sections that are different.) The original cut started with a view of our galaxy, while Captain Kirk talks poetically (in an "Enterprise Log," about Earth and its sun being specks of dust as the Enterprise ventures out of the galaxy. There's also a long scene of the crew stalking down a hallway as the ship goes on full alert, and a bit more Kirk/Spock banter. Not only that, but the opening and closing credits are totally different, with the televised "whoooo-ooooo" music being replaced by some music that sounds more like the show's other incidental tunes.

Given that the season three box set also includes season three, it's good that there's some incentive for fans to buy this thing.

Separately, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman told the Screenwriters Expo in L.A. that they think the next Star Trek movie is coming out in 2012, not 2011 as we've been told previously. Orci and Kurtzman had planned to have the screenplay done by Christmas, but with the new timeframe, they're going to take longer with it. As for what happens in Trek 2, says Kurtzman:

They're established now in the second movie and they're finally a crew so it will resemble what you see in terms of they are already who they are.

Which sounds very zen, somehow. [TrekWeb and Coming Soon]

As part of a larger piece in Variety about the JJ Abrams-related army of creators taking over genre entertainment, Orci says:

Cinematically, this generational movement is kind of like hip-hop... Entertainment exploded when we were kids. We all became students of film and TV because we were so saturated with it. Now our (work) is kind of like hip-hop where we're sampling things we all know and love.

We're unconvinced that "sampling" really works as a musical metaphor for something like Star Trek, GI Joe or Transformers, mind you. Isn't that more like Goldfinger's cover of "99 Red Balloons"?

Abrams keeps it all in the fan family [Variety]