For all you somewhat hardcore Trekkies reading, no, this column is not about the James Blish novel published in the early 70s. This column’s title is in reference to a comment made by J.J.Abrams recently. Referring to the movie, he said, “It won’t suffer from the problem that traditional prequels suffer from; that you know all the characters will live.”

Now there are several ways we could interpret this statement. Maybe Abrams is introducing brand new characters to interact alongside with our regulars, similar to what was done with the first motion picture with the introduction of Ilia and Decker. And we all know what happened to those two. (And if you don’t, should I spoil it for you even though it’s a 28 year old movie? I don’t know what the statute of limitations says about revealing movie endings, but I’m going to be reckless and reveal the ending. Ilia and Decker basically ended their corporeal existences and were united into a man/machine life form.) But unless Abrams has managed to keep the existence of new characters a secret, I think we can eliminate this possibility.

Maybe Abrams is saying Eric Bana’s villain character will die, but this wouldn’t be surprising since movies don’t necessarily need to keep villains around. (I was surprised that Joker died in the first Batman movie. But that hasn’t kept the Joker from not appearing in the next Batman movie.) And all of Star Trek’s movie villains have died. (Oops! Delayed spoiler red alert! Ack, I blame this on the Internetial Doppler shift. (Don’t try looking up that last bit on Wikipedia. I made it up.)) BTW, Bana has said his role is a cameo. Guess he doesn’t get much screen time which seems reasonable given the huge cast.

Since Abrams and his writers seem to know a lot about the history of Star Trek, perhaps Abrams is making a sly reference to the oft-noted fact that red shirted security personnel often get sacrificed by Star Trek writers in order to indicate the dire circumstances that the Enterprise crew has gotten itself into. But this doesn’t seem a likely payoff to his cryptic verbal tease.

Science fiction’s equivalent to “it was only a dream” is to use a “parallel/alternate/mirror universe.” Star Trek Voyager killed off one of its regulars, Ensign Harry Kim, only to have him replaced at episode’s end by an interspatial rift equivalent. In the James Blish novel from which this column has derived its title, the Spock that dies is a tachyon replica made possible by the transporter. But let’s hope Abrams and company aren’t going to pull any similar fast ones on us.

Most likely the common knowledge time traveling plot elements lend themselves for Abrams to make his comment. And since we know the younger regulars do survive to make the Original Series, then we can safely conjecture that the older Spock played by Leonard Nimoy must die!

Leonard Nimoy has stated that it was the script that made him sign up for this latest movie. Officially, Nimoy is retired from acting. I know this normally doesn’t mean anything, but he hasn’t acted in years, I think. He keeps himself busy with his photography, and I don’t think his finances are lacking. Nimoy comes off as an intelligent man with integrity. He didn’t sign on with Generations because he didn’t think Spock was given anything important to do. What every actor relishes is a death scene. And this would give Nimoy a chance to bring some closure to his Spock character.

Spock first died in Wrath of Khan. When rumors first spread about this during the making of that movie, many fans protested. Some even took out an ad in a newspaper basically saying that they and others would not pay to see the movie if Spock died. I doubt Trekkies will care when Spock dies in the upcoming movie.

Allow me to say that I thought Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan was beautifully done. Separating Kirk and Spock with that Plexiglas barrier, preventing them from touching, and instead having them put their hands on opposite sides of the glass… man, I’m choking up as I write this. And Kirk’s eulogy for Spock was perfect. About Spock being the most human person Kirk has ever known in all his travels in the universe. (Come to think of it, Spock would have been insulted at that statement. He was proudly Vulcan.) Shatner’s delivery of the eulogy with his voice cracking is perfect. Mind you, I think Spock should have been more involved in the plot during the movie. I think only Trekkies would feel the impact of Spock’s death because after many television episodes, Trekkies have seen what Kirk and Spock mean to each other. We only get a glimpse of their friendship at the movie’s opening with Spock giving Kirk a birthday present. To have Spock die without Shatner around, and I do mean Shatner, not Kirk, will be less emotional.

I don’t think Abrams needs to worry about Trekkies getting upset about a character dying. After all, it’s a given that in Star Trek, no one really dies.