J.J. Abrams Responds To ‘Star Trek’ Fans’ Theories

The “Sleeker, Faster Response” Theory: If the new “Trek” gives us the Enterprise equivalent of a Blu-Ray disk, then the ship on the original “Trek” looks like a Betamax tape. One fan theory is that the attack on the Kelvin forced the Federation to build sleeker, faster spacecraft in the movie’s new reality.

“Right,” agreed Abrams. “The idea of the story is that at the beginning of the film something happens that changes the course of history. They cross paths with this futuristic ship, and it changes everything that would’ve been the classic series ‘Trek’ fans are familiar with. … One could argue that, based on the readings they got from the [Romulan] ship that showed up, it inspired ideas and technology that wouldn’t have advanced otherwise.” Hence, the huge difference between the old Enterprise and his version. “On the one hand, you could answer the question by saying that history got a boost, an adjustment, from this moment at the beginning of the film,” he grinned. “And if you don’t want to answer the question, you could say it’s just a movie.” – from MTV

I remember we started working with Zachary [Quinto] first and he was terrific and it was clear that he was going to be incredibly affecting and effecting in the role and he was very, very talented and working really hard and we had about a week working with him and I thought “Holy shit, Chris better be good.” I knew he was great in the audition and he’s awesome, but it was a different thing, like “Wait a minute, Zachary is really good. Chris better be great!” Then Chris started working and he was awesome and I thought “Zach better up his game” and it was this fun thing were they were all so good that it was like watching great tennis players where you think “Oh my God, that was such an amazing serve, there’s no way that can be returned” and then you see an amazing return and you think “Oh my God, that’s impossible.”

That really, for me, was the key, which was “Are the characters working?” and “Are the actors doing their job?” and I’ve never been more grateful for a cast of actors than this cast. They not only had the burden of having to make a space adventure feel real and emotional and funny and scary and legitimate, but they had to do it in the shadow of these incredible actors playing iconic roles that were shoes that intellectually I realize how daunting it must have been, more in retrospect than anything do I sort of feel what that challenge was for them and I think that all of them did it not with fear or hesitation or self doubt, but they did it with fun exuberance.

They did it with this kind of excitement and that was a really wonderful thing to see. They were embracing these roles in the only way you can do it and that to me, every day on the set and seeing how wonderful the cast was and what a wonderful job they were doing, that was the thing for me that felt like “It’s going to work,” because I was never worried that the story wasn’t good. I think they wrote a great script. I was never worried about the visual effects or that the action sequences weren’t going to be good, because I knew we were working with amazing stunt people, I knew that ILM is the best in the business, so my insanely long answer is really just to say that the actors were the keys for me even remotely feeling like we had a shot, that what they were doing was so good.

- from AICN