William Shatner: the myth, the man, the toupee.  The .. jilted actor?  That's the word from the man himself.  Shatner told Extra TV that he doesn't think excluding him from the new film "doesn't make good business sense to me!"

Shatner said, "I've become even more popular than I was playing Captain Kirk. I'm good box office and I get publicity.... But, they are going in a different direction and it'll be a wonderful film."  (How's that for a quick backpedal?)

And once again, this is only adding fuel to fan speculations that the fact that the man frankly won't shut up about not being in the movie is a strong indicator that he's going to have a cameo and he and director J.J. Abrams are trying to cover it up.

The Writer's trike is about to have an impact on his Boston Legal role, though not quite yet.  "We've got two scripts. We will go to the Christmas break, then we come back for a week or so in January."

Would that the news were so good for "Trek XI" itself.  J.J. Abrams and producer Damon Lindelof are members of the WGA, and so are on strike from writing.  However, neither is a writer on this film, which means they're still crossing the picket lines to produce, and it's apparently a very fine line to be crossing.

John August has more on his blog:

Neither J.J. nor Damon are writers on the movie. But they are writers, and WGA members. During a WGA strike, you’re not allowed to write on movies or television shows, period. So they can’t change a word of the script, nor can anyone else. The script they had at 11:59 p.m. November 5th is the script they have to shoot.

To a screenwriter, that might seem kind of awesome. For once, the director can’t change things. But when its your own movie, it’s maddening. J.J. was describing a scene he was shooting the day before. Midway through it, he got a great idea for a new line. Which he couldn’t write. Couldn’t shoot. Couldn’t be in his movie.

Damon described it like having one of your superpowers taken away.

You can absolutely make a movie without changing the script. Big Fish and Charlie were shot just like they were written. But to not even have the option of changing something is a bizarre restriction, like making a Dogme 95 film with a $100 million budget. As feature writers, we’re constantly asking to be included in production, on the call sheet, on the set. Suddenly, we’re completely removing ourselves from the process.

So unless the strike is settled soon, we're going to have a no-frills production in theatres come next Christmas.  Cross your fingers.