Hi everyone. It's Chris Tiberius Bucholz here, with another heaping serving of Star Trek gossip for you. Apparently sometime over the last week this column became the central clearing house on the Internet for Star Trek movie spoilers and speculation, which I have to admit surprised me, but I also have to admit, didn't surprise me much. Not one to turn down an easy topic for a column, I've kicked over countless stones this last week to dig up the hottest, barely legal Star Trek spoilers you could possibly handle. Set your phasers to fun and join me, won't you? First some background for those that aren't in on the whole Star Trek history thing. There's a pretty low bar set for Star Trek films: most are terrible, and the ones that aren't, are completely unwatchable. As a Trek fan, I'll admit to being disappointed with nearly all of them, and I can't imagine what watching a recent Trek film must have been like if you weren't a fan. Greasy and baffling I'm guessing. In fact, when you think about it, the best Star Trek film in the last 20 years was probably Galaxy Quest. And when a goddamned Tim Allen movie does something better than anything, you know the world's gone just a bit topsy turvy. What I'm hoping is that this movie, which is a prequel to all the other movies and the original series, will offer a fresh start for the franchise. Although it's not a reboot of the franchise per se, it's being developed with a fresh eye and is an attempt to make

Trek accessible to people with washed hair. Here's what we know about the plot so far. This is an origin story, which shows how Kirk and Spock got their start in Starfleet. We'll see Kirk's troubled childhood, trading two handed punches with local toughs. And we'll watch him grow up on his aunt and uncle's moisture farm with his dreams of something greater. Spock will also be shown growing up on Vulcan, where he'll go through things that are a little less interesting. The main villain of the movie is supposedly a Romulan sent back in time, working on some sort of nefarious scheme that can be foiled by reversing the polarity of something, or telling a paradox to a computer. Pretty standard Trek fare basically. But that's all common knowledge. Let's see what happens when we turn our laser-like focus on these screenshots I've managed to uncover from my intense research....

Here's Chris Pine as James Kirk. I guess he looks like a young Kirk. I'm still not 100 percent sold though. That's definitely not a Kirk like pose. That's a Banana Republic like pose. __

When we look at the two right beside each other, the relief is a little starker. Although the two have similar features, Shatner looks like a goddamned animal. Even understanding the difference between photographs and the real world, I look at that and am at least a little concerned Kirk will leap out of the screen and have sex with me. If he had made eye contact with the camera when this was taken we would all be pregnant by now. __

Now Pine is looking a little more like Kirk, having perfected Shatner's patented "sitting in a chair like an a*****e" technique. Good stuff. What else is there? I'm glad to see the short skirt in the background. It speaks to the advancement of a culture when creamy thighs aren't tucked away behind unitards like elbows or something else that's useless. We can also see Bones in the background, thinking. Here I'm imagining J.J. Abrams on the set screaming "Think harder you idiot! HARDER." And in the foreground, we have an unknown character, the blurry focus concealing his identity. __

I've lost my notes, so I'm not sure what this is. I'd heard J.J. Abrams is a big fan of model-based special effects, so I guess this is from some special effects sequence. This actually reminds me of Kirk a little more than Chris Pine. __

No notes with this one either. I think this is a young Kirk in a fistfight with a 1967 Corvette. __

Spock and Kirk having a disagreement about each other's mothers. __

I was a huge believer in the ability of model-based special effects to hold their own against CG, but have to admit being a little disappointed in this. Hopefully this will be cleaned up by the final edit. __ OK, that was fun, but check out this--I totally saved the best for last. This is the meat of it folks; the dilithium crystal tucked away in a field of turd crystals. I have here an actual script fragment from the actual movie! It was emailed to me this weekend by an inside source, who goes only by the name RockOutWithYourSpockOut. Apparently there's some secret places on IRC where tons of leaks like this are traded freely, but RockOut was only willing to part with this fragment, and only once I sent him $50. Strap yourself in and send all power to forward shields, fellas, because this will flatten your balls... ____

____ Wow. Just wow. And apparently it goes on like this! RockOut tells me there's a scene with Scotty and the ship's mysterious wise bartender wrestling where they're both lubed up more than a pair of Alterian Grease Kittens that I can have for another $200. I basically need to see that really bad, so if anyone wants to Paypal me some cash, I'll see if I can get some more of this up for us all to enjoy.

__ You can follow Chris Bucholz right here, right on this page you're looking at right now, because he is too damned busy for Twitter. __

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