I’m not old enough to have watched the original Star Trek when it first appeared on TV…but I was around for at least some of the first episodes of the Next Generation. In fact, I’ve seen all those episodes. I’ve watched every re-run of every Trek ever created. I’ve seen the movies (one of them in theaters). I’ve played the games. I might have looked through some of the literature. And maybe I once looked up a few words in the online Klingon dictionary.

Okay, fine. So I’m a Trekkie. And that’s the biggest reason why I think I may not like the new take on Trek. Is J.J. Abrams going to be the one who shoves me out of the scifi genre for good…or will he simply open the door for all the Trekkies of the future?

Chris Pine, who’s going to be playing iconic Captain James T. Kirk in the upcoming Trek film, made some scary statements in a recent Wall Street Journal interview. “We’re venturing into territory that’s only been covered in these paperback novels they sell,” he explained. “It’s definitely not going to please everyone.”

“Kirk is so iconic because he’s the head of this fantastical utopian team. They aren’t superheroes, they’re men and women trying to achieve something good.” Well, it sounds like the minds behind the movie are in the right galaxy at least.

“He’s a leader who doesn’t know he’s a leader yet,” Pine said of his take on Kirk. But don’t expect him to bring any Shatner-ish pauses into his vocab. “The speech pattern? Absolutely not. In that territory it becomes an impersonation. I can only do my version of it.”

J.J. Abrams has made it clear that he’s going to be bringing us a Trek for a new generation. I just hope that in so doing, he doesn’t forget all about all the generations of Trekkies who have come before.