Atari and Star Trek: Online have announced a Twitter contest where they will be giving away one copy of the Star Trek XI DVD every day through November 22.

To enter, submit a famous Star Trek quote mashed up with a Star Trek episode name (movies count) to @trekonlinegame using the tag #STOCONTEST. For examples and more information, check out Star Trek: Online’s Twitter feed, located here or their Facebook page.

Sometimes, the questions asked must make one scratch one’s head. When asked what the opening sequence of Star Trek XII would be, Lindelof laughed and said “Pan in on…there’s a crawl.  This is what nobody is expecting.  There’s a crawl and it basically says, ‘Years have passed.  Many, many, many years.  So many years, that everybody’s old and gray.’  I’m not telling you anything about that.”

Lindelof went on to talk about how he would approach the sequel. “I think we’ve had a lot of thought,” he said. “And I think we’ve reached consensus on the answer to that question and we’re certainly not going to share it with you. I mean, sometimes it works great. I remember for me, how exciting it was to see the first Bourne movie and go, oh my god, like the first half of this movie actually took place between a few of the scenes in the last movie, and now the entire context of him being across the street from Joan Allen take on…but if they had told me that before I went and saw the movie, oh this actually takes place between the cracks of the last movie, it would have made that discovery less organic.  So I think what we like to do as storytellers is drop you in the middle of something and the question you ask yourself is, ‘Where am I in relation to the last time I left these guys?  Could this be something, perhaps, something that pre-dated the adventures that they had in the last movie?  Does it happen five years later?  Is it happening two seconds later?’  Who knows?  We’re not going to tell you.”

Asked if he was “looking at a 2012 release date for Star Trek XII,” Lindelof said, “Is that what everyone who came before me said?  Yeah, I think that we would be hard pressed to get it on screens by 2011.  But if that’s the case, we’d better get to writing right now.”

One of the things Abrams would like for the sequel is to have it be more successful overseas next time. He believes that the quality of the cast and film will help in that regard. “The hope…the idea of looking at ways that hopefully the quality of the cast of the first film, the fun of the movie that that will eventually over time touch people who would not normally have gone to see the film in theaters [so] that when a sequel comes out, they’re converts because they’ve actually seen the film that was made originally,” he said.

Abrams said that it was too early to talk about themes in the sequel, and when asked about the possibility of Khan making an appearance, his answer left the door open for the genetic superman. “We’re not even at that stage yet,” he said. “The fun of where we are on the sequel is we could use some of what was done before in a new way. But we haven’t even figured out what we would use it as, it’s very early on.”

It’s looking like Star Trek XII will be released in 2012. Addressing that, Abrams said, “The more time you have, the more time you have to use to hopefully make a better movie.”

And will Abrams be back for Star Trek XII? “In theory, I would be available, it would be fun to do.” Abrams will be directing an unnamed film next year (precluding his doing Mission: Impossible IV) but would be free for Star Trek XII, if everything works out for that.

Some parents who love Star Trek plop their toddler in front of the television and pop in Star Trek DVDs hoping to make future fans, but Speers, who claims to not be a huge Star Trek fan, seems to top them all.

Speers, who graduated from Georgetown University in 2002 with a doctorate in computational linguistics, decided to speak only Klingonese to his newborn son when the boy was born fifteen years ago. He did this for the first three years of the boy’s life. “I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language,” Speers said. “He was definitely starting to learn it.”

Singing Klingon lullabies, such as “May the Empire Endure,” was part of his son’s bedtime ritual.

Now a self-employed software consultant, Speers jumped on the offer from Ultralingua to help create the Klingon dictionary. “It was right square in my sweet spot,” he said.

And what of the son, who is now in high school? He doesn’t speak a word of Klingonese, according to his father. Maybe he should have tried Romulan instead.

One of the behind-the-scenes features on the new Star Trek XI DVD and Blu-ray sets released this week features Leonard Nimoy being fitted for and talking about his famous Vulcan ears.

“The ears present interesting problems,” said Nimoy. “Over the years, as you can imagine, a lot of different people have made them. And There are subtle changes, from one makeup artist to the next, simply because it’s [making the ears] not a science, it’s an art form.”

Gamespot announced their Star Trek Ultimate Home Theater Giveaway, where one lucky grand prize winner can win “the ultimate at-home Star Trek experience.”

The grand prize winner will receive a new LCD HD TV and Blu-ray player, with a Surround Sound Home Theater Speaker system.

To break in the new system, the winner will also receive the three-disc Blu-ray edition of Star Trek XI.

But if that wasn’t enough, the lucky fan will receive a screen-accurate replica of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s Captain’s Chair, designed by Quantum Mechanix, Inc., valued at $2,700.

Twenty runners-up will receive a copy of the 2-disc Star Trek XI DVD set.

To enter, head here. The contest is open to U.S. residents only.

Roberto Orci spoke about Star Trek XII, including his take on the possibility of appearances by Khan and/or William Shatner.

For those with opinions on where Star Trek should go next, take heart, Orci admitted that he reads what is said by fans online and sometimes he takes their suggestions. “I read all the feedback, because I’m a fan and I frequented the sites as well, as a fan,” he said. “So I’m not going to stop now.  You know?  So absolutely.  I mix it up and I read all the opinions and, you know, they must affect something.  You can’t read stuff and not have it affect you somehow.”

Orci also spoke about the possibility of a role for Shatner in Star Trek XII.  Shatner recently accepted a Scream Award for J.J. Abrams, leading to speculations that Shatner might be in the next Star Trek movie. “Well, we wrote a scene for him in the first one, and I got outvoted in terms of where it ended up,” said Orci. “I’ll write another one and we’ll see what happens.”

Talk about the sequel seems to inevitably come around to Khan. Orci would say definitively if Khan would appear or not. “…even if we do Khan, or not, we’re trying to approach the story as just what’s best for it, and then can that character become Khan or not, you know,” said Orci. “You’re not trying to rely on previous knowledge or love of it, so you almost want to strip all the names away and just come up with the emotional forces and the scientific forces that are going to come into play, and then start letting the details kind of bleed in.”

Internet rumor has come up with a possible actor to play the role of Khan. Nestor Carbonell, pictured below, who plays Richard Alpert on Abrams’s Lost, is the name being mentioned. Time will tell if Carbonell will have a role in Star Trek XII, or if it’s merely rumor. At this time, it’s not even certain that Khan will be in the sequel.

Burtt’s film production career spanned thirty-five years, and included films such as Star Trek XI, WALL-E, the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T. and various Star Wars episodes. Burtt’s skills include: directing, producing, sound design, sound editing, editing, voicing and voice design in both motion pictures and television.

The video shows Burtt receiving the award from Abrams. “This gentlemen ended up one of my heroes,” said Abrams. “I first heard of Ben Burtt when in the eighties I saw a documentary about the making of Star Wars.”

“He became a hero of mine personally, not just as a fan, when we were working on Star Trek and we had a mix of the film and there were an amazing array of incredibly talented people working on the film. And we had a mix and the truth was that the mix, just for some reason, wasn’t working. And so…I asked if Ben Burtt might be available just to give us some perspective. And amazingly, he was, for this period of time. And I called Mr. Burtt and it was a like a rock star on the phone for me. And I got on the phone and I was nervous, and I was like so excited talking to Ben Burtt…And he was so kind and so nice and said he would come down and watch the film which he did.

Abrams went on to explain what advice Burtt gave him when he came down and saw the film and how to fix the problem. “Ben Burtt came in,” said Abrams, and he salvaged it [Star Trek XI]. And I realized that this man really does have visionary ears.

Ben Burtt Receives Charles S. Swartz Award from JJ Abrams from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Chatting with G4’s Alison Haislip, Abrams spoke about the success of the movie and how he felt about it. “I’m very happy that fans of Star Trek and people who weren’t fans before seemed to have embraced it,” he said. “I’m more thrilled for the cast and the crew.”

Turning to the DVD/Blu-ray release, Abrams admitted that it was difficult to cut the Klingon prison scene. “I hated not having that in the movie,” he said.

Abrams went on to describe the Klingons after being asked if they were original series-type Klingons, or Star Trek: The Next Generation Klingons. “We sort of cheated because you don’t see their full face in these helmets,” he said. “And it was literally done partly for that reason. That we just didn’t want to go there because we weren’t going to be going there, but you’ll see that even the helmets has these sort of ridges up on top so it’s a little bit of a nod.

And what about having Klingons in Star Trek XII? “I think that it would be hard not to do that,” he said.

Tahir (Captain Robau) was a big Star Trek fan so he was delighted to land a role in Star Trek XI. “I grew up with Star Trek, so to get to do anything in it was fun for me,” he explained. “You have to look at what impact your character is going to have on the story. My thinking was that because it sets the mood for the entire saga, it was worth doing and was going to have an impact. So it’s ten minutes, but it’s a good ten minutes.

Stepping onto the bridge was a special moment for the man who had been a Star Trek fan since his childhood days.  “Yeah, I think every kid who watched Star Trek had that dream [to be in a Star Trek movie]. It was such a feast for your imagination. You can identify with it on both your geeky and intellectual level. I got on the bridge and the first seven minutes, I was in awe. It was like, ‘This is my ship!’ You have to learn to settle down and get to work.”

Although Tahir was satisfied with his role on Star Trek XI, he would like something to change the next time he works with Abrams. “I’ve done four things for him and every single thing I do for him, I die. It’s like, ‘What the heck is your problem? Do you just not want me on Earth?’ His last e-mail to me was, ‘I promise you the next time, you are not going to beepin’ die.’