Los Angeles– May 4, 2009– J.J. Abrams, director of the latest “Star Trek” movie, will be the guest on the May 8 edition of “Tavis Smiley" on PBS. Check local listings for air times: www.pbs.org/tavis. Abrams' appearance coincides with the release of the new "Star Trek" motion picture, featuring a new and younger cast. The movie opens in theaters across the country on Friday, May 8.

On meeting with Shatner, Abrams explains: “You want to respect [the actors], so the first person we met with when we had the story for ‘Star Trek’ was William Shatner... We needed to get his blessing because this is one of the two real fathers of Star Trek. It was tricky because his character died in one of the movies so we wanted him to be involved in the film but his character was dead.” 

Abrams said they tried to build Shatner into the story but, “every version of a story we came up with felt like a gimmick so [writing him into the script] just wasn’t fair to him and it wouldn’t have been fair to the audience.”

On the importance of Trekkie approval, Abrams says, “With something like ‘Star Trek,’ there is this fan base that’s just massive and rabid and vocal and passionate and they are my first concern, quite frankly, because they are the ones who I’m making the movie for.”

Find a link to the clips,
click here: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200905/20090508.html