Unlike many Trek fans, Pegg didn’t start out with either the original series or with Star Trek: The Next Generation. He entered the world of Star Trek while watching the animated series as a child. “It was my gateway into Star Trek because I didn’t actually start watching the original series until I was about nine,” he said. “I definitely came across the cartoon first.”

When portraying Scotty, Pegg did not want to channel James Doohan. “I certainly didn’t want to do an impression of James Doohan [but] approach it like [he] did. I’m going to say ‘this is the character and this is how I am going to play it.’”

Even though Star Trek XI showed a humorous Scotty, Pegg would like to show a more serious side of the engineer in Star Trek 2. “When I took the role of Scotty, I never looked at him as a comic character as such,” said Pegg. “He has always been a whimsical character, because of his background, and is almost like an ethnic minority on board ship. There is something lyrical and fanciful about him. There is something about him that has whimsy; they all do at times even Spock. But I always thought that was what was in the script, he was marooned on that planet for a long time and he got on the ship and everything was kicking off and his reaction was almost like our reaction to it all. So yeah I absolutely hope so. I don’t think Scotty is a comic character at all. In this Star Trek he was thrust into everything, and he learned all this stuff about his own discoveries. He was brought on board the ship where everything was crazy and for him, that was a comic situation.

“I would like to hope that in future adventures he can find the sort of depth and seriousness that James Doohan had to tackle in the series.”

As reported by Science Daily, a transparent form of aluminium was created by Oxford scientists by bombarding aluminium with the world’s most powerful soft x-ray laser.
The international team of scientists, led by Oxford University scientists, used a short pulse from a FLASH laser to “knock out” a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the crystalline structure of the metal.

This procedure turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation. “What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before,” said Oxford University Department of Physics Professor Justin Wark. “Transparent aluminium is just the start. The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of ‘miniature stars’ created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth.”

The laser used, a FLASH laser, produces short pulses of soft-x-ray light, each pulse of which is more powerful than the output of a power plant that produces electricity to an entire city.

“What is particularly remarkable about our experiment is that we have turned ordinary aluminium into this exotic new material in a single step by using this very powerful laser,” said Wark. “For a brief period the sample looks and behaves in every way like a new form of matter. In certain respects, the way it reacts is as though we had changed every aluminium atom into silicon: it’s almost as surprising as finding that you can turn lead into gold with light!”

To read more, head to the article located here.

As reported by SFX, the offer of the Scotty role was unexpected for Pegg. “I didn’t flatter myself to think that I’d be considered. I know Scotty is slightly senior to the other crew but I kind of figured that they’d all be young and beautiful like Chris and Zach and Zoe.”
After an initial hesitation, Pegg adapted to the idea of being part of Star Trek XI. “It came so out of the blue,” said Pegg. “It took me three days to say yes. Once I’d got used to the idea it was just so exciting to be part of. I was taken around the set when I arrived in LA and I met Leonard Nimoy and Zach [Quinto]…I was a fan of the first series of Heroes, so it was really cool to meet Zach, but of course it was amazing to meet Leonard. I was shown all the production designs and shown the phasers and the communicators and all that stuff, just to get a sense of what they were trying to do with it. It was enormous. I was terrified!”

The timing was right for a return to the Star Trek of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, according to Pegg. “I think the mood for going back was kicked off with Enterprise, probably, a series that I didn’t really watch, to be honest, because the theme music was just incredibly bad, but I’m sure that beyond that it was probably an enjoyable show,” said Pegg. “Maybe that sense of nostalgia had already started to bubble. And then the idea of doing it again seemed so obvious. It feels like it’s time. And it has to be about the story, it’s such a great story. There’s a reason why this show has had such a seismic impact on the world, let alone the world of science fiction but on the world generally, on the shape of mobile phones, on the names of space shuttles…it’s because that original series was extraordinary, and it just deserves to be readdressed, you know?”

To read more, head to the article located here.

As reported by Collider.com, the arrival of Kirk and Scotty aboard the Enterprise is unexpected and acting Captain Spock wants to know just how they beamed aboard a ship traveling at warp speed. (Minor spoilers)“We are traveling at warp speed,” says Spock to Kirk and a very wet Scotty. “How did you manage to beam aboard this ship?”

Unfortunately for Spock, Kirk is disinclined to let him know just how this technical feat happened and advises Scotty to keep mum. Spock is not happy with his lack of response.

As reported by Comingsoon.net, four character posters were seen at this year’s ShoWest, including John Cho as Sulu, Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Anton Yelchin as Chekov and Simon Pegg as Scotty. In addition to these posters, a U.S. Star Trek XI poster was released recently as reported at Myspace. This final theatrical poster is an artistic interpretation of the USS Enterprise traveling through space. The poster can be seen here.

To see the four character posters, head to the link located here.