Trek Film Details Confirmed

Roberto Orci, who with partner Alex Kurtzman is writing J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie, confirmed to TrekMovie.com that the movie will focus on the core characters of Capt. Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy.

"That is a big part of what we are doing," Orci told the site. "You are correct that their interaction and how they face the impossible is what Trek is about, and that is no different in our movie."

Orci declined to comment on casting rumors for the movie. "We have ideas, and some of those rumored out there we are considering [for Kirk]," he said. "We are not hiding anything as some people on your site are speculating. It is not uncommon and we are trying to come up with the best cast as possible, and as long as we get them by shooting, that is all we care about."

So far, the only officially confirmed cast members are Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura and Anton Yelchin as Chekov. But Orci hinted that other minor characters from the original series, such as Yeoman Rand or Nurse Chapel, may appear as well.

"Yes," Orci said, adding: "I can't say which. We are aware of all of them, but we are mindful that you can't just try and stuff everything into a first movie just to stuff it in. Our hope is that this is 'movie one' of several, and so anyone who gets omitted is immediately on the list for movie two. It is a factor of what can one movie tolerate and how well can a character be serviced, and if they can't be serviced correctly, we would rather do it well later than do it poorly now."

Orci said he and Kurtzman have completed a new draft of the script for the film. "It is better," he said. "It is tighter. The villain is much better; in a first draft you tend to focus on your heroes. And I got to say that a lot of the things we read on TrekMovie.com contributed to the second rewrite."

Star Trek is slated to be released on Christmas Day 2008.