Leonard Nimoy 1931-2015

Today marks the passing of an entertainment legend. Leonard Nimoy died this afternoon at the age of 83 at his home due to end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that the actor freely admits was probably caused by his years of smoking.

What can you say about his acting, his directing and his writing? His career though wasn't just limited to Spock. Depending on your age you might remember him from Bonanza, The Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible (the TV series), In Search Of and later Fringe. His directing efforts including Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and 3 Men and a Baby. (Hero Complex Video Retrospective) He also helped with writing Star Trek IV and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. His free time was often spent on writing poetry, photography and music where he used his twitter account to remain connected with fans and friends. Regardless of his other work, all roads lead back to Spock. (Top Quotes)

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Massive Masterpiece Lego USS Enterprise

If you are a fan of the JJ Abrams' Enterprise and Lego you might want to check out the latest creation from brick master Chris Melby. Over the course of 8 months and 18,000 Lego he built this re-creation of the USS Enterprise that is amazingly stud free so it retains the clean look and lines of the movie inspiration. The final result is 68" long, 29" wide and 32" tall with the saucer section being 29" in diameter. To view the ship, click here but if you want to get a great look at the details of the build head over the Melby's ZMasterbrick.com. This is a masterpiece and really makes me wish that Paramount would take the Trek license for brick builds and hand it to Lego. (via Brothers Brick)

IDW April 2015 Star Trek Comics

IDW Publishing has released their publishing plans for April 2015. Only two floppies are available. Not much going on as the Planet of the Apes crossover continues. For the full details of IDW's other books including GI Joe, TMNT, Transformers, and more click here.

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Simon Pegg Co-Writing Star Trek 3

In a bit of news from left field, Deadline is reporting that Simon Pegg has signed on to co-write Star Trek 3 with current writer Doug Jung (Dark Blue, Diamond). The script is being re-written after Paramount was so unsatisfied with the Bob Orci draft that they fired him as director (replaced with Justin Lin) and essentially removed any influence he has on the film probably only retaining the producer credit for contractual reasons.

Simon Pegg will retain his roll as Scotty in the movie. Past writing efforts from the actor include Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End. If watch those (low budget) movies Pegg's brand of humor clearly comes across while retaining strong characterizations and interesting situations. They were also all co-writing efforts. Combined with Pegg being a long time and vocal Trekkie and one of the few new movie actors to show up at conventions and the whole thing comes across as a win.

It will be interesting to see what the final product will be which is rumored to be set at an undetermined point in the Enterprise's first five year mission. The new duo is probably already neck deep into a draft as Star Trek 3 is aiming for July 1, 2016 release date so filming needs to start by mid-summer if want to allow enough time for the likely heavy visual effects post production process. It seems like a ton of time but generally on big budget films the pre-production process, including the script takes about 6 months to a year, filming is around 3 to 5 months and post-production tends to average out to a year (but on VFX side it is really just a continuation of pre-production) so the average summer film needs about two years or more from start to finish to nail a release date. Star Trek 3 is now has 18 months plus whatever time pre-production started minus whatever time and effort was lost with the script and director changes. It is still do-able, its just going to get harder to hit the release date the longer they take to start and complete principle photography.

Star Trek 3 Official Release Date Set

Paramount choosing director Justin Lin seems to have allowed them to finalize the release date of Star Trek 3 as July 8, 2016. This means that once again the film will be treated as a summer tent pole movie by Paramount and will likely spearhead whatever 50th Anniversary plans they may have for the franchise. As of now no other film is set for release on that date but the week of 7/1/16 competition includes Steven Spielberg's "The BFG" and live action Tarzan film and the following weeks has the next Bourne film (with Matt Damon starring) and Ice Age 5 so the competition is going to be tough.