The rumor mills are ablaze with the idea that the next Star Trek movie (being directed by J.J. Abrams) will feature Khan as the primary villain. Benicio Del Toro was originally planned to portray the villain, but contract negotiations broke down, and Del Toro bailed from the project. Maybe Toro realized that reviving Khan is a creatively bankrupt concept and didn't want to be a part of such an uninspired and contrived movie. If so, good for him.

The idea of bringing back Khan for the next Star Trek sequel is offensive to me on many levels. First and foremost, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is an exceptional movie, and there is absolutely no need to revisit that film's premise or the Khan character. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There are plenty of examples of broken Star Trek villains that could use a reboot: Sybok (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier), Garth of Izar (TOS: Whom Gods Destroy), or even the Gorn (TOS: Arena) were all handled poorly in their original incarnations and would have been much better material for improvement and refinement.

According to an article I read today, the upcoming free-to-play browser-based MMO Star Trek: Infinite Space (being developed by Keen Games) may be canceled if its publisher Gameforge cannot procure financial support from a co-publisher.

This weekend, I attended the Age of Chivalry Renaissance Faire at the Las Vegas Silver Bowl park. I was only able to make it on Sunday, since I ended up sleeping in too late on Saturday. And I managed to come away from the event with a neat little piece of loot: a Klingon Bat'Leth from Star Trek. It's a cheap knock-off, but it still looks pretty damned authentic, so I'm very pleased with the find.

Today celebrates the 24th anniversary of the premier of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

To commemorate the occasion, CBS/Paramount today released the following teaser video:

In my previous blog, I discussed my experience with the 2002 XBox game Steel Battalion. At the end of that blog, I mentioned that I had read that Microsoft and Capcom are developing a new Steel Battalion game, and that I would give my opinions on such a game in a future blog.

Well, I didn't wait long to write that "future blog".

Here it is!

According to this Joystiq article, Capcom and Microsoft are developing a Kinect-enabled version of Steel Battalion for the Xbox 360. The game is titled Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor and looks more like a remake/reboot than a true sequel.