The powers that be have released - that is, dashed through cryptic and largely photo-less leaks - a series of cracker crumbs to appease the starving mass of fans eager for anything new about the next movie. From this the website TrekMovie.com (to their credit) has compiled a list of information relating to the starships to be seen in the film. Since it's already supposedly past the time necessary to change anything one can reasonably expect this list to stand albeit with more details to come. That makes it something to start from at least.

Four ships are mentioned specifically, most importantly (and least surprisingly) the Enterprise NCC-1701 herself in whatever "organic" upgrade she's been given. Also mentioned are a TNG-era Romulan ship of unspecified but "surreal" design, and more interestingly the USS Kelvin, a pre-TOS ship served by Jim Kirk's father George. We can expect to see quite a bit of this ship including its sickbay, more promise than hint that she'll see some action. (For now my working theory on the "Bridge in a Box" is that it represents the heretofore unseen USS Kelvin bridge, serving double duty in redress as Kirk's Kobayashi Maru scenario).

While this trio is interesting enough it's the last that has rekindled a familiar firestorm about a persistent resort to time travel in a show named after a different form of journey. Spock gets his own personal Vulcan timeship. Because that's something no Star Trek should be without by golly!

TOS took the temporal route only a handful of times: Out of those the Guardian of Forever and the Atavachron were highly advanced, non-Federation technology. "The Naked Time" at least had the good sense to make the process look dangerous as hell, not something to be repeated. The visit with Captain Christopher was intended to be the follow-up to Psi 2000, and Gary Seven's adventures shamefully used time travel as an inconsequential plot device to sell a series (that did not succeed). Contrast that miniscule percentage with now three of eleven movies depending on such nuttiness.

Obviously Abrams hopes to connect the new with the old, and barring a dazzling display of imagination his resorting to a (timeworn?) cliché seems a likely solution, unpalatable as it is. It's not that the concept can't be done, there's just a risk that it won't be done well. A rather substantial risk, since cinematic time travel is often annoyingly anchored to "a correct timeline" which must be "protected." It's a nasty problem. If only we had the time!