Deep Roy figured out that he would return as Keenser in Star Trek into Darkness while he was still working on Star Trek.

During the filming of Star Trek, a newly-created scene that required Roy to return for another day’s shooting gave him hope that a return was in the cards.

“I kind of knew while we were doing the first one [that I would be returning],” said Roy. “They were debating whether to leave me or put me on the Enterprise. J.J. created a special scene for me. I was finished with the movie, but I got a callback and they said, ‘They want you for one more day.’ They didn’t tell me for what. They said, ‘You’ll find out when you come on the set.’” When I went on to the set, J.J. said, ‘We’re going to put you on the Enterprise.’ I was delighted. I said, ‘Well, here comes the sequel. Maybe I’m a permanent fixture now.’

The silent Keenser was not originally meant to be silent. “I had dialogue, but they changed that,” explained Roy. “They said, ‘It doesn’t look right for this guy to talk because, after all, he’s from another planet. He’s an alien. He doesn’t speak the language.’ So that’s what happened on the first film. I did have dialogue, but they took it out. J.J. told me why and I said, ‘Sure, whatever it is, it is.’ And then it just made sense for him not to speak in the second one, either.”

Roy explained how he viewed the petite alien. “Well, Keenser is a smart alien,” he said. “I try to bring a little bit of comedy into it, but he’s a great thinker. He is a guy…silence is golden, as they say, but he’s well-aware of what’s going on around him. He doesn’t hold grudges against anyone. ”

With two appearances in the can, how does Roy view his Star Trek experience? “I think I’m blessed,” he said. “You’ve got to work doubly hard to get across what your character is trying to say when you’ve got the makeup on you or a mask on you, and it’s nice that people appreciate it.”

Two new items from Diamond Select Toys will be of interest to original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation fans.

The items are a Spock Bust Bank, and a TNG Enterprise Silicone Tray.

The Spock Bust Bank is 8″ high and will be the first in a new series of Star Trek vinyl bust banks.

The TNG Enterprise Silicone Tray is “ideal for creating ice cubes, Jell-O, and chocolate in the shape of the Enterprise, or the Starfleet insignia.

Beginning Friday, both of these products will be available for pre-order; the Spock Bust Bank selling for $20.99, and the TNG Enterprise Silicone Tray for $14.99. Pre-order the Spock Bust Bank here and the TNG Enterprise Silicone Tray here.

Both items will be released in December.

More details have emerged on this summer’s release of Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2.

The details include the release date, which will be August 20th.

“Join Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) as he leads his crew through more thrilling adventures in sparkling high-definition when Star Trek: Enterprise — The Complete Second Season arrives on Blu-ray Disc August 20 from CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Media Distribution.

“A centerpiece to the Star Trek: Enterprise — The Complete Second Season Blu-ray collection is the newly produced cast reunion feature, In Conversation: The First Crew, which offers fans a look at an intimate and candid discussion with members of the main cast and recurring guest stars, who reveal their most memorable stories from the set and their favorite behind-the-scenes moments. The reunion is moderated by series co-creator/executive producer Brannon Braga.

“Fans will also enjoy Uncharted Territory, a three-part retrospective providing an inside look at the challenges faced by the writing staff and creators during the creative development of the second season, which ultimately inspired the controversial Xindi story-arc that kicks off in the season finale, The Expanse. In addition, a collection of newly produced commentaries by cast and crew including John Billingsley (Phlox), Mike & Denise Okuda, among others, all make Star Trek: Enterprise — The Complete Second Season a must-own for fans.

“The Star Trek: Enterprise — The Complete Second Season Blu-ray includes all twenty-six episodes from the series’ acclaimed sophomore season and will be available in 1080p with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, German and Italian 5.1 (Dolby Digital), and French, Castilian and Japanese Stereo Surround (Dolby Digital). The discs also include English SDH, French, German, Castilian, Italian, Japanese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles. The Blu-ray is Not Rated in the U.S. and it will be available for the suggested retail price of $120.99  U.S.”  The disc breakdown is as follows:

Disc One:

• Shockwave, Part II
• Carbon Creek
• Minefield
• Dead Stop
• Audio Commentary by Chris Black and Mike & Denise Okuda on Carbon Creek
• Deleted Scene from Minefield (SD)
• Audio Commentary by Michael Sussman and Phyllis Strong (2005) on Dead Stop
• In Conversation: The First Crew (HD)
• Season 2 Promo (SD)
• Archival Mission Log: Enterprise Moments: Season Two (SD)
• Archival Mission Log: Enterprise Profile: Jolene Blalock (SD)

Disc Two:

• A Night In Sickbay
• Marauders
• The Seventh
• The Communicator
• Singularity
• Deleted Scenes from A Night In Sickbay (SD)
• Archival Mission Log: Inside A Night In Sickbay (SD)

Disc Three:

• Vanishing Point
• Precious Cargo
• The Catwalk
• Dawn
• Deleted Scene from Dawn (SD)
• Text Commentary by Mike & Denise Okuda (2005) on Stigma
• Deleted Scene from Stigma (SD)
• Stigma – Archival Interviews (SD)
• Archival Mission Log: Photo Gallery (SD)

Disc Four:

• Cease Fire
• Future Tense
• Canamar
• The Crossing
• Judgment
• Deleted Scene from Cease Fire (SD)
• Archival Mission Logs: Shooting Future Tense (SD)
• Archival Mission Logs: Enterprise Secrets (SD)

Disc Five

• Horizon
• The Breach
• Cogenitor
• Regeneration
• First Flight
• Audio Commentary by John Billingsley and Bonita Friedericy on Regeneration
• Audio Commentary with Chris Black and Mike and Denise Okuda on First Flight
• Audio Commentary by Michael Sussman and Phyllis Strong (2005) on Regeneration
• Text Commentary by Mike & Denise Okuda (2005) on First Flight
• Archival Mission Logs: LeVar Burton – Star Trek Director (SD)
• Archival Mission Logs: Enterprise Outtakes (SD)

Disc Six:

• Bounty
• Deleted Scenes from The Expanse (SD)
• Documentary: Uncharted Territory (HD): Part One: Destination Unknown
• Documentary: Uncharted Territory (HD): Part Two: First Crew
• Documentary: Uncharted Territory (HD): Part Three: Course Correction
• Archival Mission Logs: NX-01 File 04
• Archival Mission Logs: NX-01 File 05
• Archival Mission Logs: NX-01 File 06

To pre-order Star Trek: Enterprise: Season Two, head to the link located here.

For those who missed the airing of Trek Nation, the news of the release of the DVD of the documentary should be of interest.

Trek Nation will be released next month by FilmBuff and MPI Media Group.

Trek Nation is a documentary which chronicles Rod Roddenberry‘s “trek across America to discover his father through the touchstones Gene [Roddenberry] left behind: his friends, his work and his influence. The film includes surprising, revelatory conversations with Star Trek actors, writers, fans, family friends and some of entertainment’s most iconic figures who point to Gene’s influence on them – among them George Lucas, Stan Lee, Seth MacFarlane and J.J. Abrams, director of the two most recent Star Trek blockbuster movies.

Trek Nation is a journey to understand one of the world’s largest cultural phenomena, the man behind it, and the legacy he has left us all.”

Trek Nation will be released on July 9, with an SRP of $24.98. The DVD is available for pre-order on Amazon and will sell for $12.99. To pre-order a copy, head to the link located here.

Two new Star Trek posters feature scenes from the original series and from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The posters are titled Landing Party, and Terok Nor.

Landing Party, created by artist Drew Johnson, “depicts the main crew beaming while on an away mission.”

Terok Nor, created by artist Jeff Foster, “depicts Deep Space Nine in the foreground, with a hint of the wormhole off in the distance.”

Each 18″x24″ poster comes on 100-ll heavyweight acid-free paper. The posters sell for $25.00 each and can be ordered here, and here.

The latest domestic box office figures are in, and Star Trek into Darkness is in eight place overall.

The movie earned $5,660,000 this weekend, for a grand total of $210,490,700.

The figures for last weekend are as follows (Weekend and overall figures):

• Man of Steel   $113 million
• This is the End   $20.5 million
• Now You See Me   $10.3 million ($80 million)
• Fast and Furious 6   $9.4 million ($219.6 million)
• The Purge   $8 million ($51.8 million)
• The Internship   $7 million ($30.9 million)
• Epic   $6 million ($95.4 million)
• Star Trek into Darkness   $5.6 million ($210.4 million)

Plot Summary: Lonely for Nog and feeling out of place among the adults on the station, Jake is thrilled when his father introduces him to Jennifer from the parallel universe where Sisko rescued her from the Intendant. She has come to report on the rebels’ progress against the Alliance and to meet Jake, who says she’s just like his mother. But when Sisko leaves the two of them alone while he goes to a meeting, he returns to find them gone. Since they have left behind the transporter they used to reach the mirror universe, he activates it with Kira and O’Brien, only to arrive at the mirror Terok Nor alone, to discover that the mirror “Smiley” O’Brien asked Jennifer to bring Jake in order to lure Sisko. They need his help preparing their Defiant for battle. The Regent Worf is leading a fleet of Klingons and Cardassians against the station with the help of Garak, who blames Intendant Kira for the rebel takeover of Terok Nor. Kira agrees to help Sisko in exchange for his support, telling him that the Alliance ships have targeting systems that can be fooled by sensor ghosts. While he and Jennifer work on creating such traps, Jennifer admits that she has grown attached to Jake and promises to send him back to his own universe before the battle threatens him. Sisko decides to stay and help Smiley fight. But the Intendant finds Jennifer trying to help Jake escape and shoots a weapon, intending to kill Jake so she can take Jennifer as a hostage. Jennifer steps between Jake and the weapon, taking the blast. When Kira realizes that Jake is Sisko’s son, she spares his life so that Sisko will be in her debt, then flees. At the helm of the Defiant, Sisko and O’Brien’s crew force Worf to retreat and return to Terok Nor, only to find Jennifer dying. Jake and his father must face her loss again.

Analysis: In many ways “Shattered Mirror” feels more like an intermediate storyline, a setup for an inevitable sequel that wraps up some threads from the previous crossover episodes, than like a storyline that holds together on its own. If I try to look at it as a standalone, it feels like an excuse to get rid of the spirit of Jennifer Sisko once and for all, and I really dislike that idea. Yet from the moment she appears on Deep Space Nine, it’s entirely predictable that she won’t survive. She’s committed what we keep being told is a terrible violation of the integrity of two universes. We already know what happens when a single individual from one universe makes a big impact on a single individual from the other: the very existence of the totalitarian Alliance is a result of one conversation between the Captain Kirk from Sisko’s universe and the Spock from the looking glass universe. Yet when we first see Jennifer, she’s sitting in Sisko’s quarters, chatting about how the war is going over there and how much she’s wanted to meet Jake. I get how hard it must be for Sisko to know that there’s another Jennifer out there, even if she’s not “his” Jennifer who shares his history and his child (and there’s the common point between them of both having been abused, sexually and otherwise, by the Intendant). The knowledge that this Jennifer exists has probably been haunting Sisko’s dreams and getting in the way of his relationship with Kasidy Yates. But to wipe her out as a means of setting Ben and Jake free feels all wrong, particularly when the other event for which it will seemingly be a catalyst is to guarantee that when Sisko next sees the Intendant, he’ll want revenge.

“Shattered Mirror” isn’t a bad episode for Avery Brooks or Cirroc Lofton, both of whom give terrific performances and get to show the emotional range they’re often denied…for that matter, the same is true for the rest of the cast, particularly sullen, growly Alexander Siddig and sexy, deadly Nana Visitor. But it’s a pretty poor episode for the characters, and Sisko winds up so out of character that I end up wishing he was his own evil twin, somehow returned from the dead to manipulate the Alliance. The first thing the real Benjamin Sisko should do upon receiving a visit from Jennifer should be to report on the incursion into his universe by someone from the other one; the second thing he should do is put her in the brig and let someone neutral like Odo question her until her agenda becomes clear. Instead he sits her down for drinks and introduces her to a teenage boy whom anyone with half a brain would know will try to bond with her as the mother he’s lost. Sisko doesn’t spare a single thought for the fact that it was a Starfleet captain’s bonding with someone from the looking glass universe that created greater changes than any violation of the Prime Directive we’ve seen. Merely talking to Jennifer counts as interference. We know from “Crossover” that any incursion from our universe into the mirror is considered a grave matter to be investigated at the highest levels; don’t tell me that Starfleet doesn’t have some sort of plan in place for when the people of that more brutal universe cross over into ours! There appear to be no consequences for Sisko when he returns, not even a hearing about whether any interference on his part might have consequences later (like the Intendant making good on her threat), so if he learns anything from looking through the glass, I don’t know what it is.

It would not take much to convince me that Sisko simply becomes irrational when he has Jennifer beside him. But if that were the case, if Jennifer crossed over just to see him, I wouldn’t expect Sisko to be sitting around having drinks with her and blowing out of there for a meeting he could have had Kira cover for him; I’d expect him to question her about the situation in her universe, make a conscious decision to intervene, and go all in. If it’s somewhat out of character for Jake to decide to cross over without even leaving a note for his father, it’s much more so for Ben to try to have it both ways, insisting that this is not “their” Jennifer yet at the same time pretending that he can have a friendly, familial relationship with her. We don’t get to see as much of the venality of the characters on the mirror side this time – Bashir and Dax both seem to exist to look attractive and yell at other people, Worf just seems more Klingon than usual, Smiley’s undergone a personality transplant, the Intendant seems defanged until her final act of violence (it’s worth the price of admission to her hear deadpan “That was unfortunate” when she accidentally shoots Jennifer instead of Jake) – but what’s most disappointing is Jennifer’s blandness as the writers try to justify Sisko and Jake’s actions by trying to make her worthy of their trust. She’s so much more interesting as a kidnapper and warrior, someone capable of behaving like the Intendant, than she is as a self-sacrificing mother figure. And she dies before she can become really interesting.

In September, two Star Trek publications will be of interest to trek fans.

The releases will include Star Trek #25, and Star Trek: The Newspaper Strips, Vol. 2: 1981-1983.

In Star Trek #25, “war breaks out across the stars as the Klingon and Romulan Empires fight for supremacy, with the Enterprise caught in the middle! An epic all-new story set after the events of the movie Star Trek into Darkness.”

Star Trek #25, overseen by Writer/Producer Roberto Orci, was written by Mike Johnson, with art and cover by Erfan Fajar.

The thirty-two page issue will sell for $3.99.

Star Trek: The Newspaper Strips, Vol. 2: 1981-1983 gathers the “second half of the rare daily and Sunday newspaper strips,” with ten stories that ran from October 26, 1981 through December 3, 1983.

Edited by Dean Mullaney, with an introduction by Rich Handley; the stories featured in the comics were written by: Sharman DiVono, Larry Niven, Martin Pasko, and Gerry Conway; with art by Ron Harris, Padraic Shigetani, Bob Myers, Ernie Colon, Dick Kulpa, and Alfredo Alcala.

Two-hundred-and-thirty-two pages in length, Star Trek: The Newspaper Strips, Vol. 2: 1981-1983 will sell for $49.99.

Once the Star Trek Shuttlecraft Galileo is fully restored this summer, it will have a permanent home in Houston, Texas.

The Galileo will be landing at Space Center Houston as a permanent exhibition.

Star Trek fan and collector Adam Schneider purchased the Galileo and has set about restoring the prop, and then set about looking for a new home in which to display it once the work is finished. “”We had a conversation early on with Adam,” said Space Center Houston spokesman Jack Moore, ” and he called and he was interested in having Space Center Houston display Galileo, and we were certainly interested as well and we wanted to learn more about the project. So we all got together and we showed Adam around Space Center Houston and took him over to Johnson Space Center and really reiterated that this is the home for human space flying, and it really was a perfect fit.”

The Galileo will be displayed at Space Center Houston’s Zero-G Diner. “[Galileo] really fits well in that area because we have a lot of high-energy activities,” said Moore. “We have character shows, so it puts it into an environment that really has a lot more energy; it’s a little bit more fanciful and it separates it from the artifact galleries where we have the actual flown vehicles.”

The Galileo exhibit will be available to view with a general admission purchase. It is expected to arrive at Space Center Houston by the end of the summer.

Details about the ongoing restoration can be found on The Galileo Restoration’s Facebook page.

More information has emerged on the future USS Enterprise, set to sail in 2025.

CVN-80, the third ship of the new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers, will carry the historic name.

The latest USS Enterprise will be the ninth ship bearing that name.

“The USS Enterprise was the first of its kind, and for fifty-one years its name has been synonymous with boldness, readiness and an adventurous spirit,” said Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. “Rarely has our fleet been without a ship bearing the name.  I chose to maintain this tradition not solely because of the legacy it invokes, but because the remarkable work of the name Enterprise is not done.”

“The Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier will be 1,092 feet in length and have a beam of 134 feet,” said a Navy press release. “The flight deck will be 256 feet wide, and the ship will be able to operate at speeds in excess of 34 knots. Enterprise will be built by Huntington Ingalls Industries-Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va.”