Star Trek Highlights from Grand Slam Summit

Over the weekend Creation Entertainment held the 16th Annual Grand Slam: The Sci-Fi Summit in Burbank, CA. The event covered various Sci-Fi events and included participation from Star Trek XI writer Roberto Orci, Leonard Nimoy, and Zachary Quinto.

Here are reports on the Star Trek side of the summit care of TrekMovie.com:
Two Spocks Discuss Star Trek - Mostly safe discussion with effort to avoid movie spoilers.
Roberto Orci Q & A - An overview of the projects birth
Few Behind the Scenes Photos from Orci - 5 pics that show Abrams at work and other things
Brent Spiner Interview - Nothing to do with Star Trek XI, just throwing the link in for the curious.

Highlights:
- Quinto re-iterated statements about being honored to be playing Spock, how much liked Abrams, cast, script and so forth.
- One thing liked about Spock was "he is constantly exploring that notion of how to evolve in a responsible way and how to evolve in a respectful way. I think those are all things that we as a society, and certainly the world could implement."
- For Nimoy, this movie is the biggest production he has ever participated in, was impressed with the script, and thought "they captured the characters wonderfully. I had great size, great scale... wonderful work on developing the origins of [the Enterprise bridge crew] and I was excited."
- Nimoy said he found the death of Kirk at end of Star Trek Generations "gratuitous" but to "inject Bill into this movie, just for the sake of having him in it" would have been "damaging to this movie."
- During the summit appearance, Nimoy gave Quinto his "#1 Vulcan" t-shirt that he occasional wore to conventions.
- Orci said that plans for Star Trek XI began in 2005 during a phone call between a Paramount exec, Orci, Kurtzman, and Abrams while working on Mission Impossible III.
- JJ Abrams first discussed coming on as director after a set visit to Transformers and a discussion on the script with Steven Spielberg. Later his wife talked into accepting the job.
- Spielberg has visited the Star Trek set and worked with Abrams on a scene, which is not specified.
- Aiming for a PG-13 rating.
- Film will have lots of actions but will focus on relationships and hopes to make the Star Trek universe "feel real in a way it never has before."
- Orci indicated that how the film fits into existing canon will depend if your a "strict constructionist" or believe it’s "in the sprit of the law."
- Nimoy important to script as he helps "resolve continuity issues" in the story and the "appropriate transfer of the soul."
- Kirk (Chris Pine) was hardest cast while Spock (Quinto) was the easiest.
- The budget is less then $200 million (I put it at $100 million)
- The Enterprise is assembled in space but some parts are done on Earth.