By GustavoLeao / 14:45, 21 November 2009 / Star Trek: Nemesis

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iFMagazine posted a new interview with J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and here are excerpts of the article.

"We couldn't have made the movie without Leonard [Nimoy]," says Orci. "We knew early on that so much of what was going to be required in reimagining STAR TREK and also staying true to everything that came before was going to hinge on Leonard in a way blessing us moving forward and also in a way telling the audience that, ‘It's okay, you can make this transition now, I'm here to help you.' So we knew that without Leonard, we were never going to be able to have a movie."  

"We didn't agree to do the movie until we had the idea to get Leonard to be in the story," Kurtzman adds, "a way of pleasing old fans and having him, the soul of STAR TREK, be the plot reason for the changes. So we needed his blessing. It wasn't until we hit upon that that we said, ‘We might know how to do it.' It was critical for us. We couldn't have done it any other way. We took a big risk. We spent five months writing it with him in it, not knowing if he'd say yes."  

"Pitching Spock to Spock was a little unnerving," Orci elaborates. "It was, ‘And then your planet blows up. Huh, you like that?' But it was great. And actually, I think he gave us the confidence. He didn't commit right away, but he gave us the confidence to move forward, knowing that he liked a lot of the direction we were going in. So I think both creatively in our hearts what we wanted the movie to be and what the movie became could not have happened without his okay."  

However, although the character of James T. Kirk, played by Chris Pine, appears in the new film, William Shatner, who originated the role, is absent. Abrams is happy to address the topic. "I would love to talk about ‘The Shatner Conundrum,' because the Shatner thing comes up quite a bit and as someone who was frankly a William Shatner fan in a huge way just because of the TWILIGHT ZONE episodes he did, and then completely appreciating what he did in STAR TREK, but not becoming a fan of Shatner until working on this movie, it was a foregone conclusion we wanted him in the movie. The problem was, his character died onscreen in one of the TREK films and because we decided very early on we wanted to adhere to TREK canon as best we could, which was a huge challenge, because even the original series in many ways didn't always adhere to TREK canon, the required machinations to get Shatner into the movie would have been very difficult to do, given the story we wanted to tell and also give him the kind of part that he would be happy with. It was this thing where it would have felt like a gimmick in order to get Shatner in the movie, which would have honestly to me been distracting. Having said that, would it have been fun to have him in the movie? Of course. Would it be great to work with him? No doubt. I was as excited to work with him as I was Mr. Nimoy, who luckily we did get to have in the film. I will say that ‘The Shatner Conundrum,' which you'll see in the DVD, talks to this, which is essentially, how do you put him in the movie when you want him in it so badly and yet it's at counter-purposes with the movie you're trying to tell, the story you want to tell. In terms of moving forward, I'm open to anything."

The full article is here.