Last summer's Star Trek reimagining is out on DVD and blu-ray in a few weeks, and Collider managed to pick up a couple of interviews with JJ Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci at a press conference for the launch.
They're two quite lengthy interviews (Abrams is here and the writers are here) in which the director and writers manage to say a lot while revealing very little (it's show and tell: they show us everythin' but tell us nuthin'). But in amongst all the blue sky "we mights" and "we're thinking abouts" are a handful of updates that made us prick up our ears.
First is Abrams' contention that there may still be a role in Star Trek 2 for Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime. "I can't imagine a Star Trek movie not needing him," says JJ, going on to say that the first film couldn't possibly have been made without him. "Do I want to work with him again? 100% I'd love to."
He also briefly hinted that there may be a Nimoy-shaped space in Mission: Impossible 4 for a Great Paris appearance, as well as room for Peter Graves (as Jim Phelps) and Martin Landau (as Rollin Hand). "How cool would that be?" is hardly rock-solid confirmation, but given the affinity Nimoy and Abrams seemingly currently have - Nimoy has been appearing on Abrams' TV show Fringe - it's certainly not an idea to immediately dismiss.
Meanwhile, Kurtzman and Orci stress that the original Star Trek series is still where the focus lies, but elements from the later series may start to creep in: "all that is on the table for us".
They reveal that they've been boning up on their classic Westerns in preparation for Cowboys vs Aliens, for director Jon Favreau: "We just watched The Searchers... Jon is an incredible fountain of Western knowledge." So not Wild Wild West then. No giant metal spiders please.
And they're defensive about their Viewmaster project: "Brad Kane is just finishing the script. It started as a story that could have been told all on its own, but when you put the toy in, it becomes an even more amazing experience. If you want to be cynical about Viewmaster, great ’cause we’re so confident in [it] that we feel like there’s nowhere to go, but up."