Star Trek Sequel....

A bit. And again a bit in Voyager, when the crew made their own light space craft type ship. But they had to have Tuvok ruin it with "The Spoiler doesn't make sense and is a waste." over Tom's "It looks cool!"

At least Tom got he joystick control over buttons

I understand what you are saying, and looking back I see that I did not explain my viewpoint well. I should have said something like: actors in roles other than those for which they are famous. By example, The TV mom, June Lockhart, from Lost In Space playing a school principal in the movie version of Lost In Space. Not a version of the original character. Sorry if I was confusing.

No no, you were clear. It's just that I think having the old actors in any of the new movies in any capacity is a bad idea. If the whole point of the JJTrek reboot was to jettison the convoluted history of the franchise and start fresh, then it seems to me that having cameos is a bit counterproductive (not to mention distracting). It's the same thing with rehashing old episodes (which I realize wasn't specifically your point). Why go through all the trouble of establishing a new universe if you're just going to tell the same old stories?

I should probably add that I'm not against a reboot of the Star Trek franchise. My preference is definitely for the prime universe, but I can see the merits in starting over to attract new fans. But the thing is that the reboot needs to do something to distinguish itself from its predecessors so that it can stand on its own, which I think it has failed to do so far.

Good. Spock's appearance in the first was more than enough. I like Nimoy and Shatner, mind, but if they're going to run with this new stuff they need to weigh anchor and move on from the past in their own direction.

The universe is a incredibly huge place. I see it being perfectly probable that a ship could scout around (even just this galaxy) for 5 years and it's experience could totally different from another ship with the same goal. Even if they had the same mission parameters and had to stop at some of the same 'supply outposts', the journey itself would be vastly different. For example, even something as small as a week's variation could mean one might miss a derelict ship, adrift in space, by enough to not even see it on long-range scanners. By that example, they might never even see the 'Botany Bay'...similarly, they might miss entire star systems..or even clusters.

They have free reign to tackle all-new stuff. I hope they take advantage of it, but the occasional nod to observant fans are unlikely to go amiss (even if I'm not 'trekkie' enough to notice them).

I more or less agree with you on this. I don't think the next Star Trek movie would fail if Shatner -didn't- appear in it.

But I probably wouldn't be too upset if they wanted to give him a bit part as a completely different character. A good example of that working out pretty well was when Richard Hatch (the guy who played Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica) was brought back to play a small role in the new BSG that was a completely different kind of character. Might be fun to see Shatner play a Harry Mudd type character for instance.