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.

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]

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman explained to reporters at the Paramount DVD junket that they left Transformers 3 simply because they were spent on the subject matter. By contrast, the two are diving into the View-Master movie, and they've got a strong story to provide a vehicle for the toy.

"We've been working on Transformers for longer than I was in college," Orci said. "I feel like we have our degree in Transformers now."

Alex added: "The franchise is so wonderful that it deserves to be fresh, all the time. We just felt like we'd given it a lot and didn't have an insight for where to go with it next, and said, 'You should do it right.'

Which isn't to say the studio didn't want the duo back. Bob said Paramount and Hasbro were more than happy to have them back, but that without an idea, the writers wanted the story to stay strong and so they're handing over the reins.

Meanwhile, they're working on a movie based on the classic View-Master toy. And yes, they fully grasp the absurdity of that statement.

Alex said they hear the critics, but they fully expect to surpass all expectations. The writers were approached with a story without any connection to the toy, and it sounds like they simply dropped the toy in there for a better story.

"What I'll say is that some toys should be movies and some toys should not be movies, and I'd like to believe we know the difference between those things. The movies that work, work when there's a story there that you could take the toy out of. But then, when you put the toy in, it becomes an even more amazing experience, for whatever reason."

He added, "If you want to be cynical about View-Master, great, because we're so confident in where it's going to end up going that we feel like there's nowhere to go but up."

We sat with writers Orci and Kurtzman at the Paramount Star Trek DVD junket eagerly awaiting details on the next Trek. Right away they cleared up recent rumors that they've already created a storyline for the second outing — they have yet to sit down and lock themselves in a hotel room as they did the first time around. As fans of the series in all its incarnations, they have yet to settle even on who exactly they want to include, says Kurtzman, let alone whether to tackle weightier world issues.

But what about the rumored Gitmo plot line? Orci stated that the reports that they're writing a commentary on torture and the Bush doctrine (while never entirely out of the question) are a little absurd, since they've barely begun work on the sequel.

We have nothing. The torture thing was just a 'for instance.' Someone said, 'Modern day issues?' And we said, 'Yeah, sure, modern day issues.'

We're not doing a story about Gitmo. I read on some site that it was going to be about Guantanamo Bay. But now that we've established the characters, we can have a more philosophical allegory, where what's happening in the future represents our world — like the best versions of it in the '60s did with women's rights, racial equality, [and] progressive issues.

We're still just brainstorming internally, and we're going to get together soon and bust our riffs out and see where it takes us.

Also, we'd like to note there was a bit a torture in the first already. So should they revisit this, let's hope they break new ground with it.

In a separate interview, director J.J. Abrams agreed with his writers' remarks, saying that it's never as simple as making a political statement.

"It's not like we're looking to make the second movie some kind of heavy political allegory - I think it's important that there is metaphor to what we know, and that there is relevance. And I think that allegory is the thing that made shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek resonate and still vital today."

He continued on, explaining that where the first film was all introductions — to the world, to the characters, to the time period — the second has a duty to go deeper and examine this new world and grow with it.

In Xombie, a zombie named Dirge has somehow managed to retain his human consciousness, though not his memories, and tries to live a quietly life with his undead dog Cerberus until he eventually decays into oblivion. But when a human girl, Zoe, falls from a helicopter into zombie-infested territory, Dirge takes it upon himself to perform one last good deed before he falls apart and guide her to the city of human survivors. The task puts them both in the path of a millennia-old Egyptian mummy woman and a reanimated Velociraptor. Xombie creator James Farr began the story as an online Flash cartoon, then penned a comic book sequel, Xombie: Reanimated.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Farr, a homicide detective, is currently in negotiations with DreamWorks for the rights to Xombie, with Kurtzman and Orci in talks in produce. No word yet on whether the pair could write the screenplay as well, nor whether the planned adaptation would be animated or live-action.

'Xombie' getting the Kurtzman/Orci treatment at DreamWorks [The Hollywood Reporter]
[Xombie Online]

Oh, and there are obviously spoilers in this post.

The L.A. Times caught up with director Abrams plus co-writer Roberto Orci, on the set of their TV show Fringe, and both Abrams and Orci hinted that the biggest difference between their first movie and the upcoming sequel would be the socially conscious message. Says Abrams:

The first movie was so concerned with just setting up the characters — their meeting each and galvanizing that family — that in many ways a sequel will have a very different mission. it needs to do what [the late 'Trek' creator Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory. It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and what is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular way that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn't mean it should be pretentious. If there are simple truths — truths connected to what we live — that elevates any story — that's true with any story.

So okay, that just means that they're going to make sure it has some kind of a messagethat reflects "simple truths." Doesn't necessarily mean we're going to get a full-on allegory for today's challenges. But then here's Orci:

We got a lot of fan response from the first one and a considerable amount of critical response and one of the things we heard was, ‘Make sure the next one deals with modern-day issues.' We're trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what's going on today as possible. So that's one thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today.

The L.A. Times reporter asked if this meant the next Trek could deal with terrorism, the ethics of torture, or a long-running, painful war with the Klingons. And Orci acted as though the reporter had just read his mind.

A painful war with the Klingons sounds like a great backdrop for the next movie — allegories about terrorism and torture, though? Sound a bit too 2005. What do you think?

[L.A. Times]

We caught up with Orci on the red carpet at the SyFy/Entertainment Weekly party, last Saturday evening, and we had a lot of questions for him.

First of all, we asked Orci about his statements the other day that Star Trek 2 and 3 might have a linked storyline — maybe with a cliffhanger, or a plot thread that continues from one movie into the next. Orci downplayed the speculation, saying he, writer Alex Kurtzman, director J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and producer Bryan Burk had had one meeting, lasting 15 minutes, and they had considered for a brief moment the idea of doing the next two movies as a linked story. But it's still way too early to say anything definite, and they're still in the phase of throwing ideas out there and seeing what sticks.

When we interviewed Orci and his writing partner, Alex Kurtzman, about Transformers 2, they pointed out that it's very common for the second movie in a series to feature the protagonist trying to quit the "hero" racket. (Think Superman II or Spider-Man 2.) Transformers 2 follows that pattern, with Sam wanting to go off to college and lead a normal life. So we were wondering if Star Trek 2 would follow that formula as well — would we see Kirk thinking about quitting the Enterprise and going back to Iowa?

But Orci says the formula isn't iron-clad, and it doesn't apply to every second movie in a series. In the case of Trek, he sees the Enterprise crew as being much more committed to their mission and to doing good in the universe, so that kind of "hero no more" story wouldn't fit.

Meanwhile, Orci says that the Fringe writing staff had originally wanted to wait a few years before unveiling the "alternate world" storyline — but doing it now forces them to be more inventive about what happens next, and to create an even larger world to explore. "Let us force ourselves to come up with a bigger world. So you get a little bit of both. We wanted to answer things and see where that leads.

As for Cowboys And Aliens, the movie with the world's most self-explanatory title, Orci says, "We're wrapping up another draft, and hopefully that one will be good enough."

Testicles on the page:

When we got the chance to talk with Kurtzman and Orci about Transformers, we had to ask about the movies' signature moments of freakiness, like robots peeing on people or — in the new movie — a set of giant testicles hanging down from Devastator, the massive robot made out of five construction vehicles. (He's a bunch of construction vehicles, and there are two wrecking balls hanging between his legs.) Do Orci and Kurtzman write these things into the script, or does director Michael Bay "ad lib" them?

Generally, the duo said, these things are in the scripts. Although they couldn't remember the origins of Devastator's testicles. Orci thought that Bay had demanded "a big pair of testicles." But Kurtzman reminded him that it was actually co-writer Ehren Krueger's idea, when the three of them were holed up for a few months writing the script after the writers' strike. "The testicles are in the script," Kurtzman said. "Well, it's a construction machine, so you of course have wrecking balls. And Michael, immediately, of course, loved it."

As for how that strike impacted the writing process, Kurtzman explained:

We broke the story together, two weeks before the strike, handed in twenty pages of a treatment. Michael and Ian Bryce and everyone went off and started to prepare the movie off of that. The strike ended, and we had three months between the strike ending and the first day of shooting. So in those three months, we actually wrote the script, the three of us. Giving Bay pages every day or two, until we had a movie. So it was crazy.

Humor in Trek and Transformers:

There's a lot of humor in both Transformers and Star Trek, which the duo also co-wrote, but it seems like it works somewhat differently in either franchise. So we asked Orci and Kurtzman where the difference comes from.

Kurtzman explains:

Well, our director has a very different sensibility as far as where he's getting his humor from. The The Transformers are generating humor from the way they talk. And the humor in Star Trek is very much about the circumstances our characters find themselves in. It's literally the difference between cracking jokes and being in a funny situation. They're different franchises.

So how much of their sense of humor comes from their early experiences writing for Sam Raimi-produced shows like Hercules? Some of it, they said, although it has deeper roots than that.

"It comes from the voice that we learned," says Orci. "Certainly, Hercules was one of htose interesting shows where it lived in a world where everyone perceived it as camp, but we had to never approach it that way in the writers' room. It had a real sense of humor, and I think actually, the seeds of that sense of humor in [Producers] Rob (Tapert) and Sam (Raimi) come from the screwball comedies, like the Preston Sturgess screwball comedies and Billy Wilder. And in a weird way that stuff did fuse itself into Hercules. We paid homage to those shows very frequently in our writing."

"And they gave us the freedom to do it," Kurtzman said. "They weren't afraid of that stuff." And you can see that kind of humor in Evil Dead 2, he added.

Why does Sam want to leave his awesome girlfriend and robot?

One question that io9 readers have been asking lately is, Is Sam Witwicky nuts? He has an amazingly cool car that transforms into a robot, and he has an awesome girlfriend who changes into a killer white dress to bring him flowers. Why would he want to leave them to go off to college and hang out with dorky roommates?

"Most of us go off to school, don't we, and leave home," said Orci. "Didn't that happen to you? Why'd you do that?" And the college where Sam is studying doesn't allow freshmen to have cars. "Thematically, it turns out to be what gets him trouble," Orci adds. "The lesson of the movie is, don't leave your girl or your Transformer."

"The grass is always greener, right?" Kurtzman added. "You get used to what you have."

In a sense, Transformers 2 has a similar theme to Spider-Man 2, where Peter Parker tries to give up being Spider-Man.

Orci explained:

Sam never expected to find himself at the center of an alien war. He just wanted to have a normal kid and have a normal kid's experiences, and so he's at the natural point in his life where college would be the next step for him, and he wants that... the sequels we grew up loving, like Superman 2, Terminator 2 and Aliens are often about the hero's refusal of the call, and the consequences that follow.

Transformers 3?

It's been widely reported that Orci and Kurtzman are definitely not writing the script for Transformers 3, but actually they sounded pretty open to doing it.

"We never say never, but since the movie's not even out, it's impossible for us to go, 'Yes, we're in,'" Kurtzman said.

What's the difference between having a mythos and being mythic?

Transformers is a franchise with a lot of mythos, meaning that there is tons of backstory about Cybertron and the Allspark and the Fallen and so on. What is the difference between having a rich mythos and having a mythic storyline?

Kurtzman took a stab at this question for us:

I think mythos, in the way you're talking about, is set up to deal with more what is the past. Mythic is about what's happening to you now, it's epic, going into the future. Star Trek doesn't rely too much on the history of the world, it's mythic, and you're taking someone from childhood and taking them all the way from the womb back to space. It's a long journey, as oppposed to discovering something about your past.

Cowboys And Aliens:

We had to ask the duo what's going on with their movie adaptation of the graphic novel Cowboys And Aliens, which is about alien invaders falling afoul of cowboys and Apache warriors in 1800s Arizona. Orci said they're three or four weeks away from finishing their script draft, and hopefully they'll find a director and take it from there. "There's been a lot of invention, and a lot of reinvention, and we took the spirit of the graphic novel and figured out how to [bring it to the screen.]"

"But certainly, there are cowboys and aliens," said Kurtzman.

Orci and Kurtzman tell Collider they're debating between a couple of different ideas for the sequel:

The exploration sci-fi plot where the unknown and nature itself is somehow an adversary, or the villain model. That's an active discussion we're having right now. In terms of thinking about more than one movie, we want the movie to be self-contained in a way, but we're discussing the idea of having a couple of threads where if the second movie works, you could pick up into a cohesive whole. No thread more exciting and shocking for me when in "Star Trek III" you realize that Spock grabbed Bones and downloaded his Katra into him. When I saw "Star Trek II" I was like, "What's going on here?" and two years later, you're watching it and you're like "They're geniuses! They're geniuses!" So we're trying to think is there a version of that but again, "Star Trek II" does not rely on that thread, even though it turns out to be a thread. So we're thinking in those terms.

(Much more at the link.) [Collider]

Oka tells The Hollywood Reporter that his hours spent playing MMORPGs gave him the idea for his new movie, The Defenders, about a group of teen players who must emerge from behind their avatars to join forces against a real-world menace.

"You can be whoever you want to be," Oka says of gamers. "The question came to me: What if you had to live up to the person you created in the virtual world?" He pitched the idea to genre giants Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (currently riding high with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Trek), who had been looking for Spielberg-type teen group adventure movies (à la The Goonies) to produce. Writing the screenplay for The Defenders will be Oka's World of Warcraft pal Gary Whitta (screenwriter of The Book of Eli, next year's postapocalyptic thriller from the Hughes brothers, starring Denzel Washington). DJ Caruso (Eagle Eye) is signed up to direct.

Naturally, there'll be a videogame tie-in.

We hope Oka's gaming buddy writes him a big part in the movie, though its teen focus makes that sound unlikely. And we hope the film turns out to be more than just an excuse to concoct a cool new game. Still, we're all for a modern-day Goonies-type tale. Sloth lives!

Some casting script pages have turned up for "Sonia," the new FBI agent character whom we'll be meeting in Fringe season two. And assuming these pages come from an actual episode script — which is usually the case — then she'll be getting off to a rocky start. She's new to the FBI, so fresh her FBI badge still has "new car smell," when she gets entangled with the mysterious Division 99, which investigates matters beyond our ken. Before she joined the FBI, she was in the Detroit PD.

Sonia investigates a mysterious car crash involving an FBI agent, Daniel Agger. The other car accelerated before hitting Agger's black van — but Agger vanished from the van on impact. The airbag deployed, but there's no blood and no body. And the doors are all still locked. So where did Agger vanish to?

To find some answers, Sonia turns to a mysterious private detective named Nate McAuley, who worked with Agger recently. Nate's snarky and rude, and has a history of shady dealings, including selling stolen cars, but now he works with the FBI and his file has been sealed. Nate's brother, Owen, is a science mega-genius, who happens to be bugfuck crazy, and somewhat childlike. Owen talks to the ducks — and answers their questions. Later, Sonia chases down Nate at a bar, because Owen can't find his "wuppies," which are his fuzzy bear slippers. (But Sonia doesn't realize this at first.) Sonia and Nate wind up bonding and sharing a drink. Nate warns her:

Young sweet agent Curtis, be warned now. You're about to enter the dark pernicious armpit of the physical universe known as Division 99. Leave your lunch on the floor as you exit.

Sonia says she's from Detroit, which is the other armpit of the physical universe.

Later, Sonia confronts Director Southgate, who admits that he had Owen (and maybe Nate) killed at the hands of Division 99, because they were a security breach that had to be contained. She struggles to keep her composure and not cry in front of this man, as she accuses him of murder. "Sensitive information from our division must be treated like a virus," says Southgate. "You killed the man I love," she finally blurts out. "No, Agent Curtis, you did," says Southgate. And then the kicker: he tells her Division 99 needs to see her immediately, because now she's a security breach too.

I'm wondering if this is the alternate-universe version of the Olivia-Walter-Peter axis we've grown to love, or just a random parallel the show is throwing at us for kicks. What do you think? [SpoilerTV]

One thing I always liked about the series were the moral lessons. Would you ever think about having a more challenging social message, maybe in the next Star Trek movie?

Kurtzman: The thing that is genius about Trek, and we've talked about this a lot, is that there was always a veiled message story. You never felt like you were getting beaten over the head by whatever the topic was. The bridge crew itself was this kind of idyllic world, there was a Russian, and in the middle of the Cold War everyone was working together. We feel like if you're going to tell a message in Trek you have to veil it in a really, really clever story.

So what was the message of this movie?

Orci: It sort of reflects where we are when Spock reflects at the end and kind of says, "I've kind of left you in a dark world, keep your chin up." The destruction of Vulcan in Trek lore to us is kind of the equivalent to a September 11th and the Holocaust all rolled into one. How does this crew deal with that? Is it a cynical decision that leads to a war with Romulus? Or is it a singular problem problem solving situation, with the person who really did it?

Are there any social issues you'd like to tackle in the next Star Trek movie?

Orci: It has to be a mosaic, we don't want to make anything a single issue. It would be a mosaic of... of our Southern California upbringing [laughs].

Kurtzman: Different philosophies... I agree, its hard to sort of pin point that we want to make a movie about one thing...

Orci: Adoption! [Jokingly]

You read it here first, the next Trek is all about adopting space babies, and the rough life of an alien orphan in a foster spaceship. Still I like that the two chose to put a positive spin on the film after all the destruction, because what is Trek if not uplifting?

While you're making up your mind what you think of the new Star Trek movie, why not take a look at Annalee's review from earlier this week? Spoiler: The words "brilliant and exciting re-imagining of the original series" and "hot, sexy new Spock" appear pretty early on.

Meredith managed to talk to some of the people responsible for said brilliance and excitement, giving you a look behind the scenes in these four posts:

J.J. Abrams Admits Star Trek Lens Flares Are "Ridiculous"
If you've seen a single second of Abrams' Star Trek you know the film is stuffed with audience blinding lens flashes. J.J. Abrams admitted he got a bit carried away, but explained why they're there.

The Romance That Will Change Star Trek Forever
J.J. Abrams' Star Trek takes your familiar crewmembers places they've never been before - including one love story that will forever alter the crew's dynamic. We asked writers Orci and Kurtzman about it.

Sulu and Chekov Talk Takei's Baritone, And How To Say "Wessel"
What's it take to pilot the shiny new Enterprise? We asked crew members John Cho and Anton Yelchin about changing their accents, mannerisms and overall tone, to portray Hikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekov.

Bana: Nero Is Really The Misunderstood Tragic Hero Of Star Trek
We got a few minutes alone with Star Trek's Romulan bad boy, Eric Bana, and looked deep into the psyche of Nero. Bana explained how he got so revved up, he passed out on set.

Meanwhile, Charlie Jane asks the important question Why Is The Media Trying To Make Star Trek Fans Look Like Naysaying Dorks?, wondering just why certain mainstream news outlets seem to want to find fans who hate the new movie.

If that's not enough for you, then we've also got The Complete Guide To All Things Star Trek Online to keep you busy, as well as our 5 Favorite Star Trek Rip-Offs, just in case you're wondering what's next. Besides going to see the movie again, that is.

Spock was always the secret heart of the original Star Trek series. His half-human, half-Vulcan identity made him an Everyperson for young Americans dealing with a multicultural society where the familiar and the foreign were alloyed. In J.J. Abrams' new film, this subtext is made explicit: Spock leaves Vulcan to escape the anti-human racism he encounters everywhere, even among his people's most revered scientists. What's also made explicit in the new film is the intense emotional passion that Spock cannot repress. While the old Spock occasionally gave in to feeling, he generally remains imperturbable.

But our new Spock is less convinced about the rightness of Vulcan ways. He's been told by Vulcan authority figures that he's "defective" because of his human side. So why should he embrace the Vulcan path of repression? Though he remains obsessed with logic, his face often hovers on the brink of an ironic smile. This Spock seems to have a sense of humor. And when he's challenged by mean Vulcan kids as a child, and later by Kirk as an adult, he unleashes a wrathful violence that makes it clear he's a man of action as well as a logician. His emotions aren't limited to brief outbursts, though. In this alternate Star Trek universe, Spock is a lover. One of the most touching relationships we see in the film is between Spock and Uhura, his former student and lover. Because she is also devoted to an intellectual discipline - alien languages and culture - she appreciates Spock's emotionless devotion to duty. And his hot kisses in the lift.

When celebrated science fiction writer James Tiptree, Jr. (AKA Alice Sheldon) started watching Star Trek in the 1960s, she wrote in letters to her friends about how the one aspect of the show that truly fascinated her was Spock. She wrote a fan letter to Leonard Nimoy, explaining that his sexual magnetism came from humans' natural exogamy, their urge to marry outside their own groups. An alien would be the ultimate outsider, the ultimate object of desire. In one besotted passage, she described Spock's "touching shoulder blades, the tremor, the shadowed and infinitely effective squint."

Tiptree's renegade nerd sexual desires have now gotten a lot closer to being the desires of the mainstream. Zachary Quinto's new Spock still has a thin, trembling body and the squint of a scientist, but he's emerged into this special-effects blockbuster of a film as a leading man, competent, virile, and sexually desirable. This triumphant sexualization of Spock could only have happened in the early 21st century, when geeks are culture heroes and dork actor Michael Cera has become a romantic lead. In this version of Star Trek, there is no contradiction between geeky logic and sexy action.

What director Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have done to reboot the Trek franchise is quite clever. They've created a solid, and entertaining, reason why the original set of characters from the series have completely new back stories. An accident with "red matter" in the future changes the whole timeline (yes, it's really called red matter and is so science-magical that it could be ripped right out of Fringe).

This accident sets off a cascade of events that change history. Kirk's father is killed when a time-traveling Romulan called Nero emerges from a strange whirling hole in space, and Kirk grows up a roughed-up, troubled kid. Presto: New Kirk. Nero is also on a mysterious vendetta against Spock, and he destroys Vulcan by using the futuristic red matter to create a planet-eating black hole. Presto: New Spock, with a far more tragic past. And with a Doctor Who-esque status as one of the few remaining members of his people.

Nero, as played by Eric Bana, is a terrific villain. I won't give away what his major malfunction is, but I will simply say that he manages to be the opposite of Khan while also conveying the same sense of tragedy and uncontrollable power. There's a terrific moment when he first introduces himself and he's weirdly casual, coming up on screen and saying simply, "Hi." You're expecting this grand speech and instead there's this strangely menacing Facebook-style greeting.

The way the whole crew of the Enterprise comes together has been changed, too. Nero's attack on Vulcan forces a desperate Star Fleet to crew the newly-built ship with cadets from the Academy. These cadets happen to include future officers Sulu, Spock, Chekov, and Uhura. McCoy manages to smuggle Kirk on board, despite the fact that he's been grounded, and so the crew begins to take shape. There's even a moment when the crew contemplates the fact that Nero has plunged them into a parallel timeline, and Uhura describes it as an "alternate universe."

Of course there were some disappointing bits and moments of pure cheese in this alternate universe. The premise - that a bunch of cadets inherit the Enterprise - is fairly hard to swallow. And a time-tripping elderly Spock comes across as a little bit too platitudinous. Most disappointing is Kirk, played by Chris Pine as a douchebag without charm who spends most of the movie yelling and getting beaten up.

For the most part this film was a successful retelling of a beloved story. And I have a feeling the alternate timeline is the one we'll be following as the franchise boldly goes where no one has gone before. With Spock, at last, taking his place at its center.

In an interview with MTV News, Bay explained that the Autobot Arcee so offended his awesome-loving sensibilities that he just had to get rid of her in the most senseless way possible. Arcee is notable both for being one of the few female Transformers and for turning into an absolutely adorable pink motorcycle. Says Bay:

"You know what? I didn't like Arcee," the filmmaker revealed exclusively to us Thursday night, "so I kill her later, all right?"

His phrasing might make his decision seem somewhat arbitrary, almost spiteful, but apparently Arcee just didn't turn in a good enough performance. This probably has nothing to do with the character's vocal performance – indeed, her voice actor doesn't even seem to have been cast yet – but there was just something about her appearance on the screen that rubbed Bay the wrong way:

"You know what? It's like actors," he explained, comparing his Transformers to flesh-and-blood stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. "There are certain actors that blossom on screen, and there are certain others where you're like, 'Yuck, I'm cutting them out of the movie.'" So Bay decided to kill Arcee – a pink motorcycle who can be glimpsed in the movie's trailer during a chase scene in Japan. As some fans might remember, the death of Jazz in Bay's first "Transformers" film not only served as a reminder of the severity of the robot war, but also became one of the film's most touching moments. In the sequel, however, Bay was so eager to kill off Arcee that he had no desire to milk the moment for emotional impact. "This isn't sad," he grinned, discussing Arcee's sudden death. "This is just 'get it out and get it over with.'"

It's times like this when I really understand why Michael Bay is one of the most financially successful directors of all time. He also took the time to shoot down the rumor that Arcee and human costar Megan Fox would be sharing some female bonding moments (including Fox possibly riding Arcee in her motorcycle form), saying the two characters have nothing to do with each other.

For his part, ubiquitous Transformers screenwriter Roberto Orci addressed the issue on the TFW2005 forum, writing Bay "has his own charm" and "cracks me up sometimes." When asked whether Arcee's death is really as pointless as Bay seems to suggest, Orci simply replied, "You will have to be the judge!", followed by a smiley emoticon that would tend to suggest at least Orci was reasonably satisfied with her fate. Indeed, one can never rule out this is just another of the lies and misdirections with which Michael Bay so loves to confuse Transformers fans.

But what of poor Arcee? Since it's apparently not too early to write her obituary, here's the story of some people's favorite fembot in disguise.

Although Arcee wasn't the first female Transformer, she quickly became the most famous. Debuting in 1984's animated The Transformers: The Movie, she went on to play a key role in the show's later seasons. A skilled marksman (markswoman? marksbot?), she often served as a gunner during missions, carrying two rather large firearms.

The animated series never really explicitly addressed why Transformers had gender at all, or indeed why the token female Autobot would have such a decidedly pink color scheme. These questions proved troublesome enough for Transformers screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman that they scrapped their plans to include the character in the original movie, prompting her replacement by Ironhide.

Although her original animated incarnation turned into a pink convertible, she'll be a motorcycle in the movie, as some concept art we posted a while ago rather awesomely shows. This follows on from her appearance in the 2004 Transformers: Energon incarnation of the franchise, where she also transformed into a motorcycle. In Revenge of the Fallen, she'll be appearing alongside her two sisters, the blue motorcycle Chromia and an as-yet-unnamed purple motorcycle.

It just goes to show you - never cross Michael Bay. He will make you pay for the high crime of not being awesome.

[MTV News]

In an interview with First Showing this big-time Hollywood duo revealed that Damon Lindelof from Lost has joined in the script-writing process. Which is no huge surprise, as the three all worked together on J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

Cowboys And Aliens is still deep in the writing process, according to the two, and they haven't begun to think of directors. But interesting side note, when they were asked about its possible competition with the supernatural western Jonah Hex movie, neither seemed worried.

Kurtzman: Not really. That doesn't matter because they're so different ultimately.

Orci: In a way you have to put that kind of stuff out of your mind, then once everything is ready to go, then you really look at it. Then it's the studio's decision whether or not they want to take a gamble with competing. We just have to keep our heads down and keep going forward.

Let's let time pass a little, and we'll see just how worried they are, since I think the same audiences will be anticipating the release of both of these films.

Kurtzman and Orci explained the direction they want to take the Transformers franchise in. There will be character catch up with Shia's character and his girlfriend. Are they still making out on top of Bumblebee? They even promise that Transformers 2 won't be as science fiction light as the previous Transformers. It will, "deliver on a true Transformers story."

But finally Orci spills the beans that both tape deck Soundwave and cassette Ravage will be joining the Decepticons in this Transformers Movie, Orci explains, "we had Ravage in an early draft of the first movie and Soundwave, and we couldn't do it right and I think this time hopefully we'll have the ability to do it." Soundwave?

Yet neither of them addressed how they are going to update Ravage to something they can sell to the kiddies. And what will Ravage transform from, surely not a cassette? What about an MP3 player? Your move Steve Jobs. [IGN]