Jendresen: Rebooting 'Star Trek XI' Will Not Be A Picnic

But reimagining -- as it has been done with "Battlestar Galactica," "Casino Royale" and even "Batman Begins" -- isn't easy. In fact, despite 40 years of canon constraints, original "Star Trek XI" writer Erik Jendresen said it's easier to write in an existing universe.

"It would not have been easier for me," Jendresen told SyFy Portal's Michael Hinman. "The whole delight and challenge of doing this, the reason I did it, was because I was bound and determined to write a tale that was completely faithful to the canon, and more importantly, to the spirit of Star Trek."

Jendresen has been promoting his new direct-to-DVD film from Raw Feed and Warner Bros. "Sublime," which is released Tuesday. But with his Star Trek idea, which he called "The Beginning," Jendresen looked to fill that gaping hole between the events of "Star Trek: Enterprise" and the first time Capt. James T. Kirk took the helm of the USS Enterprise in the original "Star Trek."

"In spite of the shortcomings in 'Enterprise' -- which were substantial -- the canon was rich enough to provide clues that make filling that gap in the tale challenging, yes, but possible to do," Jendresen said.

The Emmy-winning writer (from HBO's "Band of Brothers") was announced as the writer back in 2005 with plenty of fanfare. His storyline, which involved Kirk's great-grandfather, Tiberius Chase, was the center of a planned trilogy that was excitedly approved by then Paramount president Donald DeLine. However, weeks after the new Star Trek script was commissioned, DeLine was ousted and replaced with Gail Berman, and from there, Paramount decided to take an entirely different route in one of its most coveted franchises.

"Whenever there's a regime change at a studio, it's inevitable that projects in development under the auspices of an outgoing regime are tabled or shelved by the incoming regime," Jendresen said. "When they got this script, the whole concept, the creative choice had been made by DeLine in the previous regime, and invariably, there's a certain bias against anything that has been developed by someone else.

Talk about this story