Orci, Kurtzman Discuss Trek Prequel

Via TrekMovie comes a few choice tidbits from Star Trek XI writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman in an interview with Star Trek Magazine's June edition that is on newstands. In the March interview they discuss why they chose to do a Star Trek Prequel rather then focus on a different ST era or start their own.

Why not the next Next Generation?
Roberto Orci: We all had to agree that area would interest us, and we’re all fans to varying degrees. Everyone could agree that the original series was something that we all loved dearly. Also there seemed to be the fact that Roddenberry had done exactly as you described, so it would have been doing it again. Thirdly, there seemed to be a genuine gap in what we knew about these characters’ origins. It wasn’t just remaking an origin story, it was telling it for the first time. There seemed to be unexplored territory. We couldn’t believe it when we sat down to think about it.
Alex Kurtzman: It was shocking that after 40 years that there was still a story to tell about the characters that started it all. That alone was a reason to do it.
RO: Creatively that was a reason to do it and on the other side of it, we wanted to introduce Star Trek again to a new generation and the people who had been around who felt that they were never able to jump onto the bandwagon because they felt they’d missed too much. The idea of making an introduction that anyone can come into, and find out what it is that all of us love about Star Trek, without having to know anything about Star Trek, was something we just couldn’t pass up. The two of those together made it inescapable.

Shatner wanted larger part?
Orci: We went through the same process that we went through with Nimoy: We pitched him what we were thinking early on before we wrote it, and got his blessing as well, which was amazing. We talked in the meeting about the fact that Star Trek had killed Kirk and that was going to be a big stumbling block to an organic introduction of the character, but we would do our best. Subsequently he said he would require a slightly larger part than maybe this movie could sustain so we’ve kept him in the back of our minds, and now with another year to go, who knows? ... by the way, when I said that Mr. Shatner subsequently said he wanted a larger role, I was referring to his public statement that he did not do cameos. Nothing more