Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on Fans Debate on Star Trek XII, Nero and Khan

MM: You've mentioned that the fan talkbacks are informing future Star Trek films. Are there any specific suggestions that you're going to consider? Any big Red Lights of where NOT to go with the franchise?

RO: As you can imagine every kind of opinion has been expressed in relation to the movie, so there have been both red lights, green lights, yellow lights, the gamut. What they have done is very quickly identified the fork in the road, which is to do a completely original story or to harmonize with canon the way we did in the first movie, where some of the events overlapped with the original universe and were the same even if time travel hadn't happened and some of the harmonies were reversed, like Spock with Uhura instead of Kirk. They very quickly have fallen into those two camps. And that's interesting cause that's the debate we're having with ourselves. So we're literally getting to read this ongoing debate online and it's very helpful.

MM: Seems like it's a lot of people fleshing out all the possibilities.

RO: And just the merits of one philosophy over another more than any specific ideas. It's more about what's philosophically right to do. Very fascinating.

MM: We've been debating this question on the site - Why didn't Nero just warn Romulus if he went back in time?

RO: Nero is intent on returning to Romulus as a conquering hero. And he's got 150 years before there's any threat to Romulus. So his main mission is find Ambassador Spock, the man who failed him, get the weapon of mass destruction, conquer the Federation, and then return to Romulus. To do anything before that would possibly endanger Romulus and prematurely cause war.

MM: Arguably the most iconic Star Trek villain: Khan. What is the chance you're going to bring him back?

RO: What do you think Alex? 50/50? Is that a boring answer?

AK: That's a good answer.

RO: 50/50. Let's flip a coin right now on the phone. If I said 10/90 I wouldn't tell you which direction we were leaning in anyway.

http://trekweb.com/articles/2009/06/26/Roberto-Orci-and-Alex-Kurtzman-on-Fan-Feedback-Nero-and-Khan.shtml