One of the biggest annual events in genre fandom, Comic-Con International in San Diego, is right around the corner, and we're still waiting for final word on programming and guests. But it has been announced by Diamond Select Toys & Collectibles (DST) that George Takei will be present at the San Diego Convention Center on Saturday of Comic-Con weekend, July 28. Takei will be the guest of honor at DST's booth in the Exhibitors Hall, to promote the new line of Art Asylum's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" action figures.

Diamond Select will carry the "Sulu" figure from that line exclusively, but "McCoy," "Scotty" and "Chekov" will be sold by different dealers around the Exhibit Hall. If you buy all four figures and bring a completed "Star Trek" card to the DST booth, you will get a free "Khan" figure. And if you do that Saturday morning between 10 and noon, or in the afternoon from 1-3, you can get a signature and a smile from the gracious Takei. Watch www.DiamondSelectToys.com for updates.

Comic-Con runs Thursday through Sunday, July 26-29. We will preview the event once a full schedule is posted. Stay up to date at www.comic-con.org.

Takei Listed Among "Stars We Love"; Data, "ST V" Also Named

In another one of Entertainment Weekly's legions of lists, Takei is named among "The EW 100 Stars We Love Right Now." He is listed at no. 44, paired with Masi Oka, his Heroes son. In this week's magazine (in print — the second half of the list is not yet posted on-line), Takei is so recognized because, "As Sulu on Star Trek, Takei blazed trails for Asian-American actors. As Hiro ... Oka is just blazing. It was a stroke of genius and great respect to cast them as father and son on the new show." Oka is not a Trekker but rather a "Star Wars" aficionado; however, he says in the magazine, "I was a huge George Takei fan growing up. He was the only person I could look up to in terms of Asians in the media." Takei credits his fencing training for "The Naked Time" for his swordsmanship in a recent Heroes episode. In addition, his "secret ambition," besides equal rights for gays and lesbians, is, "I want an Oscar."

The same list also names Frank Langella ("Minister Jaro Essa") at no. 94, lauding him for his Tony Award-winning portrayal of Richard Nixon in "Frost/Nixon," currently playing on Broadway and soon to be a movie directed by Ron Howard.

In other recent lists posted at EW.com, Lt. Cmdr. Data is no. 3 in the top 10 "Hot 'Bots," favorite movie robots. He was cited because, "Like many of the best robot characters, Data makes us wonder what it really means to be human." His most memorable line from the four TNG movies is from "Star Trek Generations": ''I get it! 'The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to leave!' I get it!'' You can see the entry here.

In another list, "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" ranked no. 17 of "The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made." The explanation reads, "Who else but William Shatner would show, in a film he's directing, a scene of himself manfully climbing Yosemite's El Capitan? 'Trek V' is an oil slick of spiritual hooey in which Kirk meets God face-to-face, then sasses and back-talks him. In an irony probably lost on the hubristic, hairpieced auteur, God looks like atheist Karl Marx." No doubt they mean that with a lot of love. You can see that one here.

Kurtzman & Orci Grant More Interviews

The writers of the eleventh "Star Trek" movie have been out there a lot lately, pounding the pavement to promote "Transformers" — which premieres Monday night — as well as talking about "Trek XI" without giving too much away. Aside from their "Dialogue Series" discussion reported on last week, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have been chatting with press outlets ranging from The New York Times to MTV to "Superhero Hype!"

The New York Times profiles how the two writers came to work together, and how they have shifted from being "mere consumers of geek entertainment" (Orci once owned a telephone shaped like the Starship Enterprise) to bearing the responsibility of creating it.

"You can never be just a fanboy in the eyes of other fanboys," Orci said. "Because you're also, in a way, the establishment. You're like, 'No, but I'm you.' But you're accountable for all your decisions, and inevitably you can't please everybody."

The article quotes Damon Lindelof, also producing "Trek" along with J.J. Abrams, saying, "Alex and Bob are both geeks and nongeeks at the same time. They can have a tremendous amount of respect for the source material, but they know that a studio is bringing them in because they can make it understandable to an audience that has no comprehension of that source material whatsoever." Further, Lindelof notes that Orci is a die-hard fan of the original television show, the movies and The Next Generation, but Kurtzman is not so die-hard. "It's like talking to a priest and a casual churchgoer about Catholicism," Lindelof said. "The story is being cooked up by someone who is aware of every shred of arcane Trekkery, and someone who isn't hampered by decades of canon."

"What was a little daunting," Kurtzman revealed, "was while we were writing it, they sent over a poster with the release date on it. We hadn't written 'fade in' yet." (The first "Star Trek XI" poster was unveiled last July during Comic-Con.) Orci added, "We've never had a movie poster before we've had a script. That's pressure." See the full story at this NYTimes.com link.

At MTV.com, Kurtzman reiterated about the 2008 film, "It'll probably just be called 'Star Trek'" and will depict the early relationship between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

"Really, we've just tried to capture the spirit correctly," said Orci. "It's family, it's friendship, but it's also so much more." Kurtzman added, "I think there's a humanistic approach to 'Star Trek' that you feel in every narration. Alien races are coming together and forming odd bonds of friendship and family. That's the core of the spirit of Star Trek."

The writer-slash-executive producers have devoted themselves to keeping the dream of Gene Roddenberry at the center of the project. "He created a side of Star Trek as a response to the Cold War," Kurtzman observed. "In a way, he made a fantasy of finding a way for everyone to come together — and that has managed to stick through all the versions of Star Trek." He further said, "The world's changed, but it also hasn't. We live in a world where it's about ultra-paranoia of others, and that is as it was back when Roddenberry invented Trek. In a way, it's more timely now than ever to be doing this ... There was paranoia about the Cold War. That was their version of terrorism. We're living in a very parallel environment right now."

Regarding a recent rumor that started at the New York Post and spread like wildfire through the blogosphere that William Shatner was "upset" that Leonard Nimoy had been offered a role in the film and he hadn't, Kurtzman said, "We were very surprised about that." Orci added, "We're certainly hoping to include him in the shoot. Because we have nothing but reverence and awe for the man."

Kurtzman said working on "Star Trek" has given them chills. "It's been surreal and an amazing process to inherit something that you loved as a kid. It's a dream come true." See the full story at this MTV.com link.

The "Superhero Hype!" site has a transcribed Q&A with the pair talking about working with "The Island" and "Transformers" director Michael Bay, as well as Steven Spielberg and Abrams. Late in the interview the subject turns to "Trek," and Orci says they had actually been approached for the project about a year before it was announced. They also talked about the depth of research they went into for the script, although, "We'd been kind of doing the homework all of our lives on various levels," says Orci. Getting the Trek gig is "like winning a starship on The Price is Right or something," he added.

The writer/producers also mentioned that they would be working with Michael Bay again on a project called "2012: The War for Souls." Orci explains, "It's all about what's going to happen in that year, since so many astronomical things in the Mayan calendar are all converging into some event." See the entire interview at this SuperheroHype.com link.

Again, "Transformers" arrives in theaters Monday, July 2, even though the trailer has advertised "7.4.7". Speaking of trailers, there are reports in the blogosphere of one playing with "Transformers" that teases a new film by Abrams — without a title! Obviously not "Star Trek," because it takes place in contemporary New York. Word is, the trailer consists of shaky videocam footage at a party in a Manhattan apartment, when all of a sudden there are loud booms. The partiers head to the roof and see things flying through the sky. Someone says, "Look at the size of that thing!" but we don't see what. Then a massive chunk of debris hits the ground, and it's revealed to be the head of the Statue of Liberty. Then we see the words: "From J.J. Abrams. Coming January 18, 2008." And that's it. The prevailing theory is that this is a film which is code-named "Cloverfield" that depicts a giant monster flattening New York as seen strictly through amateur home video. Keep an eye out!

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Showbiz Briefs: Ryan, Shatner, Hawking, Abrams & Plummer