I think Quantum can almost certainly be regarded as the 'new' SPECTRE, as they both fill essentially the same role.

Quantum is just a cooler sounding work for the 21st century.

Yes, for Martin Sheen, too. That MF'r just disappears into his roles. Make him a colder, less pussy oriented Blofeld and let him rip. Bombing MI6 and Langley in revenge for QoS? Check. Bankrolling Taliban warlords? Check.

I wonder if Tina Fey would be interested in strapping on a proton pack? Funny and sexy to book...plus, she has that book-ish look that could work well.

Would Bill Murray really agree to be directed by Ramis again? I thought the relationship between those two was patchy at best - or has the passage of time healed that wound? Hero of /Film Stephen T seemed to indicated in his commentary on Groundhog Day that it wasn't the easiest of shoots for the two of them.

Regarding females, I don't have a problem with Dushku...she is a friend to the geek and wouldn't be too up herself to be a foil to Murray and co. Actually, her co-Dollhouse star Dichen Lachman would also be a good choice. Putting aside her hotness, she's pretty funny to boot.

Yeah, that looks good....Jude seems a bit wooden in it, but that looks pretty sweet to me.

I wonder how much of an opium addict they'll portray Holmes as? I don't remember him in the books being described as lacking in personal hygiene, but then again I may just be focussing on Jeremy Brett's portrayal of the Great Detective as a very English gentleman. With a drug problem.

That was worth viewing just for the beat with the hammer. Funny. I hope Guy Richie has kept the slo-mo to a minimum though. I had enough of that in Snatch.

There is a novelized sequel called The Book of theGreen Planet and it was pretty atrocious. I think that Steven stepped onto the 'Lucas Line' when he 'shopped out the guns and replaced them with walkie-talkies and wisely stopped there.

Let ET be an example of a film maker saying 'enough is enough' and move onto new things.

Gives a new meaning to "Scan for lifeforms", doesn't it?

"The only thing I can detect are huge savings in Staples, Captain!"

Khan is going to be a tricky one, if that's the direction selected. The beauty of WoK is that they'd already established the back story in the series AND had a good X of years with Khan stuck on that planet getting angrier and angrier. Without this, you don't have a meaningful basis for a re-wenge flick played out between the two of them.

Personally, I'd rather see JJ take on the Klingons, who (in the series, at least) got watered down far too much (except for a bit in DS9)...in the non-canon sources (I'm thinking of The Final Reflection in particular) the Klingons Empire has a great scope for story telling. Beserk warriors, iconic ship designs etc have the basis of some epic sci-fi tales.

Given the current popularity, why not aim high and go for a 3 picture arc..re-introduce the Klingons, turn Kirk into the Klingon's particular nemesis (though some spectacular starship / hand to hand actions) and turn up the action quotient to keep the momentum going.

My 2 cents on potential movie action

Kirk on his 5 year mission
Run in with Klingons / diplomatic incident / transporting Fed ambassador
Interstellar incident / mistake on Kirks part
War faction in KE starts conflict
Conflict escalates
Kirk and co suspect conspiracy (orders leading them into harm's way)
Faction in Starfleet working with Klingons to keep 'balance of terror' constant - anti-diplomacy
Kirk and co. work with Klingon patriot rebels to expose conspiracy
Finale with Kirk and allies caught between 2 armadas fighting in the Neutral Zone.

Great review, Dave...I'm sorry I missed out on your filmcast earlier today (curse my NZ timezone).

I saw the film earlier this week at a midnight showing and was very impressed, albeit with a few tiny points. The people I was with are by no means fans and they "couldn't believe this was Star Trek!". That Onion video that's doing the rounds is actually the truth - people are going to find this an extremely accessible film which bodes extremely well for the franchise continuing on strongly.

Despite the heat given to Orci and Co., I was really pleased to read in Scripts magazine that they'd used some of the non-canon sources (books by Diane Duane in particular) to provide the basis for Kirk's backstory. I think that despite some aspects of the story being a bit rushed to move the plot along, they've done the best job of their careers to date.

{Minor film info below - I assume you've seen it!}

A stand out moment for me actually came right at the start of the film, with opening pan of the USS Kelvin...the blend of the sound effects (sensor pings??) and backgound transmissions of crew conversations, music and the shots of the ship just gave me chills. This was a beautiful treatment of the material.

My only comment froma pure fanboy perspective was - don't ships have shields any more? Despite the odd comment of "Shields at X %!", there wasn't any obvious sign of them in some of the dramatic moments.

I also felt that there could have been more of a sense of a ship battle....a la Wrath of Khan. I felt that Kirk needed to be portrayed as more of a tactician when in the chair. Some time spent given over to a duel between the ships, broadsides firing, torpedo exchanges etc would have gone down a treat.

However, I will be seeing this more than once - IMAX and all - and I tip my hat to JJ - I hope he can continue at the helm of this franchise.

Can't try that on my shitty work PC, alas. Off to see Star Trek at midnight here in NZ, so at least it got me in the mood!

On a thoroughly geek tip - they've really changed how the phasers work, haven't they? Little blobs instead of long beams? Interesting. And torpedoes are blue now?

Oh, J J.

How long till some can crack the <a href="http://www.therealeffingdeal.com" target="_blank">www.therealeffingdeal.com user name and password?

Mbay / toomanyexplosions doesn't work....